VIDEOCLIPE OF THE WEEK - SALVATORE ADAMO - "La Nuit" - Dion esittaa Ihana paska!

(Photos: Mr. Conflict outside the Russian version of Home Depot - Far right: Scott
with his Bespin World Star Wars (in Box)
set after Eclectic Screening Room gig)

The weather has been particularily nice in the slum we call Toronto, but it just makes me think all is eerie in a weird kind of way. It gets dark really fast, and this has to be one of the foggiest fall seasons I can remember. But I digress.

I put up some older pics that I've been clearing out of my camera, as I still go through liquidating lots of film prints and such. However, I've been grabbing many more for my collection. Give me everything in the world!!!! :)

Otherwise, it was a fairly dull weekend. After a full day of running on Saturday, I was ready to crash for the evening. However, the next day I got to see the Toronto Finish Theatre Co's premiere of "Ashes to Ashes, Boom to Bust" directed by Janne Suutarinen at Suomi-Koti. This must have been the best production so far as all the acting was very good, and you know I'm usually UBER critical and NEVER give props! It's funny that most of the English plays I've seen (from Finland) involve funerals, or a funeral home! Hardee har har!

Still been involved with getting the music video production stuff together and the weekend before last had an OUT OF CONTROL pub crawl with East Coast rhymer, Johnny Rourke. If only I could share the story about the guy in the bathroom from Newfoundland and a 9pm Graffiti shoot. But anyhow!

In the meantime, here's a Scopitone for you by the incredible Adamo and "La Nuit"! Zack pointed out that the female in the video reminded him of former CFMT hostess Karen Burdelson, who hosted entertaining segments between Jerry Springer and other CFMT shows. Karen, where are you? Speaking of Scopitones, there's a machine for sale on Ebay! Now that's a Christmas gift I want!

Enjoy the VIDEOCLIPE of the week. Adamo!

Salut!

Lost film and lost music...Toronto's sucky Halloween

This morning on the subway, I started into reading the Frank Thompson book "Lost Films" which discusses the plots of many films, considered lost from the early days of Cinema. This was a purchase from years ago, but I only re-found it this morning.

It was kind of within the last while talking with old FESTIVAL alumni about the good old days and the disappointing barrage of films that played in Toronto on Halloween. There was no more "Friday the 13th in 3-D" programmed by head festival guru Tim Smy, or even myself and the CONFLICT ARCHIVES with a rickety, bargain basement screening of Orson Wells Occult horror"Necromancy", complete with planted female in the audience screming "I can't handle this! It's too scary!"

As I snoop in the CONFLICT ARCHIVE vaults and re-examine some of the films we showed over the time we spent with FESTIVAL, I realize there is even more film that still hasn't seen the light of day and would be considered "lost". Or perhaps, I should use the term "neglected".

It's funny how with the throng of re-releases in both CD and DVD that we "assume" everything is at our disposal when it comes to entertainment. Perhaps if you are upgrading your copy of James Cameron's Titanic from VHS to DVD that may hold true, but for me it still doesn't hold true. Sadly, the thing is... there are so many titles that I have that I'm always frightened that it will deteriorate into nothing. Does anyone want to see "Rice Girl" or "Yao of the Jungle"? I do!

On another note. During August for one of our VIDEOCLIPE of the week links I featured the incredible Moroccan James Brown, named "Vigon" and his Scopitone.

NPR indie reporter Jennifer Sharpe has done an excellent audio story on the SCOPITONE machine, the overtly large 60's video jukebox from France. I almost bought a Scopitone machine earlier this year and tried to convince Mihai to go on a road trip to Utah. Damn him for not believing in the Scopitone dream!

Here's the link for the NPR story...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5630027

It's funny how my co-workers here actually have favorite Scopitones! Try to picture armchair jocks discussing the Argos and NCAA basketball playoffs and yammering on about Scopitones TOO!

Visiting Jane/Finch - VIDEOCLIPE OF THE WEEK - "Älä koskaan ikinä" - Kuikka??? ;)

The weekends sure are jammed filled, but maybe it's because I'll leave some things horribly late. Usually when weekends come here, I have meetings to go to. Some form of meeting about something.

Sunday afternoon has me at trendy Mitzi's sister eating homemade yoghurt with vanilla with Dave and Julie and baby Emily. Perhaps we were kept out of the loop as to how popular the place has become because it was busy busy busy.

Afterwards, I had a meeting regarding working on another music video which required me to go to the notorious intersection of Jane and Finch, what most of Canada envions parts of Johannasburg is like.

Getting off the bus, there's some open space where the booming highrises are. The artist and I walk through the Jane and Finch mall which had a great flea market filled with a great selection of mixed tapes and the like. Afterwards we head over to another mall. My friend is pretty well known there and was greeted by many. "Yeah D, we got lots of love here" he says and he's right. Despite what many will say about the area, it is one of the few areas in Toronto where you really do get a sense of community. Really, this happens very little in the rest of Toronto. Sure, if you got beef goin, stuff can go down. It can happen pretty much anywhere and depends how high you want to aim for the sky, or who you want to roll with. But I've been around the world and know to ALWAYS question what the media says. ALWAYS.

My mailbox again is busting with a mixture of Christmas presents and things I've picked up. One was a print of "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" with Bela Lugosi. Originally, I thought they ripped me off a reel, but everything was compressed on 3 reels. Bela Lugosi, with his thick hungarian accent, playing an Asian. Gotta love it!

Speaking of love, ja rakkaus.... Tassa se on, my VIDEOCLIPE of the week. I haven't featured anything from Finland for awhile, so here's a fun video by EGOTRIPPI which is from the soundtrack of one of my fav Finn films, "Nousikausi". "Älä koskaan ikinä" on ihana! Kippis!

Praying for the Sun / Videoclipe of the Week - TOKIO HOTEL "Schrei"

After a cold week we actually had some sun this weekend! But it's still been a mind f--k dealing with the whole temperature and lack of sunlight thing. Good times....

The weekend was oddly enough relaxing in a weird sort of way, but at some point I did have to work on a soundtrack. Yours truly got asked to "oversee" the sountrack to a small film a co-worker commissioned me to do after reading an article about me in our company newsletter. It's actually an angle in filmwork I've never really thought about doing, but working on the project has exposed me to lots of new bands, and some very good talent out there as well. Even on the weekend, someone in my hood was trying to sell me some DVD's and I got their mixed tape. If only some of you knew how many mixed tapes of hip-hop I get in, and how many of them are actually playable/enjoyable, but this one was, by far, the BEST Toronto hip-hop demo I've heard in years.... It's like, WTF! The only reason coming in contact with this was because of a freak chance encounter!!!!!!

Which takes me to our video of the week by Germany's Tokio Hotel. My exposure to this band was in a Russian resort in the summertime in a bar, where I asked our fluent in English bartender (from Moldova) what was playing. He told me "Tokyo Motel" but after seeing the band on a Russian music mag, problem corrected and solved. This vid (sourced from VIVA) is much better quality then another one running on youtube, so enjoy!

Freak encounters. Gotta love em!