Mr Hat's house of knowledge

Owner realizes that naming restaurant "Hitler's Cross" was innapropiate.

This seriously reminds me of Dogbert's school for people with no common sense.
You can read the full story here but basically what happened is that a Restaurant in the hip financial district of Mumbai beared the name Hitler's Cross (Hopefully as an advertising gimmick). Yes we all know that Mick Jagger once said that there is no such thing as bad publicity and im personally all for schock value.. but having the nations of Israel and Germany filing formall complaints beacuse of your stupid Restaurant Name seems like a price too high to pay for awereness. All i can say is that HC is one tasteless restaurant (pun intended).

Posted by Mr Hat at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

Kitten falling asleep...The Movie!!! (probably coming soon)

A couple of months ago i watched this video on you tube where a taxi driver (now it seems he was a computer technician) got mistaken for a computer guru and went on air (on the BBC nonetheless) to give his expert opinion on the apple vs apple lawsuit.
Now it seems british film producers are planning a movie based on this poor man's mishap.
How can they strech this incident for 2 hours? i have no clue, but it sure sounds as the Brits are as clueless as the Americans when it comes to thinking up fresh film ideas.

Posted by Mr Hat at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

Who do you think is more popular in Turkey; Woody Allen or Kevin smith?



If you answered who cares or Woody Allen , youre right!
How did i make this mind blowing discovery? By using google newest cool/useless/addictive/time wasting tool Google trends. All you need to do is type to searches that wont cancel each other, separate them with a comma click search and wait to be surprised.
Pamela Anderson still more popular than Carmen Electra? yes except in Hungary. Pacino more famous than De Niro? By far...in Calgary!
But if getting the graph with the results seems a little cold and unappealing then i recommend Google fights, completely different results for the same query and a short stckmen fight announcing the winner.

Enjoy

Posted by Mr Hat at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments

What i've learned from today's paper

Herr Gunter Grass, Nobel prize writer and Germany's "high moralist" confessed this Saturday that during WWII he served in the SS (Hitler's national police that among other attrocities ran the concentration camps).
Grass never denied his role in the hitler youth but he hid his involvment with the SS for 61 years. Something that i find hard to explain from a person that became germany's post war conscience.

Read the full story here

I think im going to go read MAUS now..

Posted by Mr Hat at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

My current podcasts

CBC Radio 3
Grant Lawrence hosts and showcases new Canadian alternative and Independent music.

Film Buffs Podcast
This Melbourne based show is a tad to long and some of their choices go from fascinating (Russ Meyer interview by Nick broomfield) to Bizarre (Karen Black). This Podcast goes great with the TTC.

Real time with Bill Maher
Maher's HBO Show

KCRW Film Review
Wall street journal critic Joe Morgesten's masterclass

KCRW The treatment
Elvis Mitchell proves that he deserves the hype with his weekly hour interviews to the top talent (and i mean talent) in Hollywood.

NPR Pop Culture
The Top pop culture related stories of the National Public Radio.

Movies T.O.
Matt brown's questionable taste and tendency to spoil movies dont take away the fact that he is great comunicator and the only film podcaster dedicated to Toronto. Great insight on Festivals and screenings.

The Ricky Gervais Podcast (video)
Now a video podcast its a great way to wait for the secon season of extras.

KCRW Minding the media
Nick Madiggan analysis of the state of the media.


Channel Frederator
Animated short films from all over the world.

Posted by Mr Hat at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

The best shows you are most likely not watching.

The Wire ***** (imdb)

This West Baltimore based police drama is like nothing you've seen.
The Wire depicts the lives of an anti drug unit (detail) in Baltimore trying to catch the big fish of a larger than life drug operation. Pressed you would have to say the main character is Detective Jim McNulty but don be fooled because The Wire's cast is the largest and most complex array of characters ever to arrive in the small screen.

The beauty of The Wire is that with their 3 season (so far) character arches you get to experience every side of the story and spend time with EVERY character of this ice cold coral drama.

For a show like this a simple cat and mouse with the drug dealers wouldn't have been enough. Thats why the basic storylines include Police department politics ,Corruption in high and higher places, Gangster territorial dominantion and sex (hey, its HBO).

I cant recomend the Wire enough but be warned it can get really violent and if you think that Tony Soprano is apotty mouth youre better off avoiding it, TV this good comes along once in a very long while but its not for the faint.

Posted by Mr Hat at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

The Squid and the Whale ***** (imdb)

I would like to start this review with a spoiler. If youre thinking of renting this movies because your grandma made you watch Jaques Coustau with her because she thought he was sexy and you feel like reminiscing by watching a movie about the Ocean's fascinanting sealife dont watch this movie.Its not about that and its not about Seafood either.

This movie is about the bitter divorce of the Bekermanns two New yorker Intelectuals with competing egos that find themselves with their kids taking sides. At first i thought that the movie was caught in that Indie limbo where everybody thinks that Napoleon Dynamite is fashion icon and kids listen to the Velvet Underground in ther record players . But its not. It's set in theBrooklyn of the 80's. That to me made the movie inmediatly darn cool but its not where the strenght of the feature lies .
This movie has an unveliable cast: Jeff Daniels as the Patriarch ,Laura Linney as the Mother, Jesse Eisenberg of Roger Dodger fame, as Walt the oldest and Newcomer Owen Kline as Frank ,the youngest and i have to mention William Baldwin, this should be his Trantino style comeback he plays Ivan an ex tennis pro that among other eccentricities calls everyone "my brother".
Its the young ones who carrie the weight of the Movie. The way the sons deal with the divorce is by taking sides, Walt with the dad and Frank with the Mum.

These are no ordinary parents ergo no ordinary kids specially in the way they act out.
Frank decides to start drinking (we are talking about a nine year old) and Walt tries to emulate his father's condescending intelectual superiority with his school mates and tries to pass a pink floyd song as his own during a talent show.
This might seem far out on paper but the truth its that most of this movie feels painfully real.
Daniels makes his Character, a once great writer turned washed out University professor unable to repeat his early succes, his own. He is pompous and bitter but also loving and most definetely human. On the other hand Linney is more restrained in her complexity, she is constantly blamed by Walt for the failure of her Marriage and is unable of dealing with him.

The Squid and the whale was based on the directors childhood and shares subject matters with movies like Moonlight mile and the royal tenembaums and like them it has an undeniable indie feel to it, but otherwise its not trying to hard to earn its cred. Daniels made this one a monster on its own and is overall a terrific film.

Posted by Mr Hat at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Mr Hat's Indie DVD Review

I love having movies ON Demand ,its the greatest thing ever. Absolutely hassle free and with no hidden costs, it arrived to make our lives better. There is a little problem with it though. 90% of the movies available are shit, and the ones that are not are your usual blockbusters,the ones that most likely youve seen already...in the big screen.
Thats why almost every week i end up going to the video store anyway.
I must admit i love going to the video store, I can spend literally hours browsing through titles trying to spot that obscure movie that i swore i was going to watch in that little arthouse, but never did.
Besides i feel its our duty to support independent videostores. They are a great place for us film geeks to interact with each other and they provide us with the only way of discerning wether a movie is good or not before paying the 25 dollars on the special edition.
Because i want you guys to go out and watch other stuff than the one in the tube i decided to ,each week, give you my thoughts on an independent movie currently available in Dvd.
To the readers in Toronto i can guarantee that the movies i review will be available in these excellent video stores: Queen Video, Filmbuff, Suspect and Black dog.
To those in Vienna i recommend my beloved Alphaville , in Barcelona Video Star or my personal selection at sociart club.
Gus you should try Cinemateca chucarro although they have a limited Dvd selection.

Posted by Mr Hat at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

Bubblegum Fink

Thanks boing boing for the heads up on this insanely cool blog. The Highlight? Bubble gum Trading Cards for Cult Movies.

Posted by Mr Hat at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

Last monday's New York Times stated that one of the War's unnamed victims (of course a lesser tragedy) was Lebannon's suddenly resurrected cultural life. Today the online magazine slate links to the TIME OUT Beirut website, surreally listing shows and festivals that could have been...

Posted by Mr Hat at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

No summer lovin' for summer movies

Prompted by Mr. Hat i’ve decided to do a quick recap of the movies we’ve seen on the big screen this summer and sadly it was not a pretty sight
.
It’s been a while since the lord of the rings movie trilogy ended but I still can’t shake the feeling that maybe my sense of summer entertainment has been spoiled for life.
Headlining this summer was one big movie and a bigger disappointment: Superman returns. The 5th installment of the Superman series was directed by Bryan Singer director of the superb the usual suspects and his comic adaptations credentials include the entertaining X-MEN 1 & 2.

There are several problems with Superman including a VERY weak cast lead by Brandon Routh as a soporiferous Superman, a disastrous Villain by Kevin Spacey and a plain embarrassing Parker Posey. I can’t really say much about the plot except that superman returns to earth to find that Lex Luthor wasn’t convicted and Lois Lane is a single mom who doesn’t feel that the world needs superman (all documented in a Pulitzer Prize article). I totally agree with Lois, he should have stayed in Krypton rather that mortify the human race with this 3 hour train wreck.

Surprisingly better than superman was X-MEN 3, this movie was mindless entertainment with some super action and the always reliable Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen.
If you need your Comic Book movie fix go see that one.

The Da Vinci Code: The Da Vinci code movie would certainly please the fans of the book because just like it, its Mediocre, entertaining at parts and all together too long.

Maybe my favorite movie of this summer was the second part of pirates of the Caribbean. Maybe it’s that i am a sucker for pirates and that I spent a part of my childhood reading Books by Emilio Salgari and Alejandro Dumas. POTC Dead Man’s chest plot involves Davy Jones from the flying Dutch man fame collecting a debt from Johnny Depp's captain Jack Sparrow ...HIS SOUL BUAHAHA!

I can’t even start to describe how amazing the effects of this movie are...so I won’t but Davy Jones and his crew are worth the Theater admission alone.

This move like its predecessor heavily relies on Johnny Depp’s character. He provides Solid comic relief as well as Action hero and romantic lead. Now that I think of it Jack Sparrow is the Indiana Jones of the I pod generation. And that parallel applies also to quality and sucees...Im proud of me.

If you are going to see one movie this summer makes it POTC.

Two movies I liked but were somehow disappointing are PIXAR’S CARS and Woody Allen’s Scoop.
Before CARS I absolutely adored all Pear movies, I like Cars a lot but perhaps PIXAR’S proven success formula just got a little tired. Talking about formulaic Scoop feels like more of the same after that great movie that was Matchpoint. Still in my eyes Woody can do no wrong.
All left to do is wait for those pesky Snakes on a Plane

Posted by Mr Hat at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

I need some space

Thanks to Alex lately i’ve been hooked to myspace like a 17 old girl. But not only mypsace of course, because these days myspace and youtube come together and although both of them are OLD news the fact that I can browse through an immense archive and have immediate access to intros to my childhood favorite shows (almost forgotten) and Finnish disco lessons and then POST them in someone else’s space..Well it never ceases to amaze me.
Of course I realize that arrived quite late to the myspace craze, so late in fact that it has already been purchased by a corporation (FOX), but the factors that made it great back then are still present. The main factor I would say is the interactivity and the immediacy you can achieve with thousands of people but also Bands, Movies, Porn stars...you name it. You are able to add them as your “friends” therefore accomplishing two things: having a contact with someone that would be otherwise unreachable and most important creating that identity and portraying that image that would difference you from most people and link you with a few. In myspace your personality is defined by both your influences and the comments people leave you, for you, and the rest of the world to see.
Even when they have nothing to say you there is always the possibility of linking a video or posting a funny picture.
I must admit that in the last couple of days i've grown quite fond of this Meta Individuality, hell…myspace is your oyster!

Posted by Mr Hat at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments