Pixar has a famously impressive track record for making animated films that are smart, entertaining and profitable, but aside from The Incredibles, I never really felt that they were trying to push the envelope on what could be done, thematically, in an animated film — instead, they seemed to be trying to produce smart, meticulously-crafted films that were the best of their genre. A few of these are genre-defining, even, but not experimental.

WALL·E, though, is where they really start to take some risks — I really think this is a bold, chancy film. The first half is essentially dialogue-free and set in an apocalyptic wasteland populated by a single lonely robot. The second half is a satire on mindless consumerism — kind of a funnier, less smug Idiocracy. And damn if they don’t manage to somehow pull the whole thing off, and somehow create a completely winning, totally accessible post-apocalyptic robot-based indie romantic comedy. About 20 minutes into WALL·E, Janelle whispered to me that she had no idea what was going on. But by the end, she was as in love with WALL·E and EVE, the two robot protagonists, as I was. That kind of sums up a lot of the appeal of the film for me — despite being a G-rated animated comedy, there is no hand-holding and no explanations. WALL·E starts you in the middle of a strange world, refuses to talk down or patronize, and trusts in its story and characters to pull you along.

This is a brilliant, funny, melancholy film. Even if it doesn’t, on first viewing, displace The Incredibles as my favourite Pixar movie (in particular, a few scenes toward the end are a little saccharine for my taste), it’s still the best movie I’ve seen so far this year. And by a fair margin, to be honest.

By last January, I was feeling pretty overweight — in fact, I was heavier than I’d been in years. So I set a goal to lose 25 lbs in the first six months of 2008. Unless I lose an arm in the next few days, I won’t make that goal, but I have lost, to date, exactly 20 lbs, and I feel a whole lot better, even if I am still a good 15 lbs too heavy. As far as I’m concerned, that counts as a win! (If there’s one thing I’m not, its a perfectionist. Or someone who is too hard on himself. Or great at sticking to a single subject.)

I noticed that after an initial, fairly quick, weight loss, I started to level out, until just the past few weeks, when I moved into my new apartment. Which is kind of odd, because I’ve only been to the gym a few times since then, and I’ve hardly gone jogging at all. But I have been walking or biking to and from work almost every day, and eating at home more. The trick, you see, is to only ever keep the Blessed Trinity of salad, coffee and tuna in the house. Happy side-effect: I can blaze through grocery shopping in about 8 minutes a week!

I was also planning to use this as an excuse to try various wacky diet and exercise plans, but to be honest, I got kind of nervous that they would detract from my slow but effective plan of eating better and getting more regular exercise. Which I know, is a whole lot more boring than trying the Shangri-La Diet (it’s gotta be good, because it was invented by a Scientist! plus, all the flax oil you can drink!). But hey, maybe in the second half of this year I’ll lose all respect for the deliciousness that is the food-eating experience. (Mmmmm… I want some laksa from Hawker’s Delight right… now.)

Tomorrow, the lovely Janelle arrives from Australia for a visit. I expect a lot more dining out and even less gym time for a while, so this will be an interesting experiment in just how well light regular exercise like the 4K walk to work holds back the really, truly fat man trapped in my only-kinda-fat man’s body. Particularly in the face of my goal of trying every restaurant on Main Street. I predict… not as well as I would like. Take that, constant struggle against obesity!

Well, it’s something of an adjustment, this living on my own. So the first thing on my to-do list — after unpacking and walking around the living room in various states of undress unimpeded — was to surround myself with a couple of new friends. At first, I thought about getting a Roomba, but who needs that level of commitment, you know?

And so… last night I welcomed to my home White Meat and Butternut Squash. White Meat is my brand-new white MacBook. Butternut Squash is my new AirPort Extreme wireless base station. They will join Yams (my iPod Touch), Warm Gravy (my old iPod Shuffle), Brussel Spouts (my 8GB thumb drive), Pumpkin Pie (my work backup drive), Cranberry Sauce (my 750GB external hard drive), Bone & Gristle (my aging music-library drives), and the venerable Coconino (my 12″ G4 PowerBook), which will now be my permanent at-work computer while White Meat takes over the home duties.

Play nice, everybody.

Between moving, visiting the fam and breezing through the all-too-short run of Freaks and Geeks on DVD, this is actually the first movie I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s one of Werner Herzog’s lesser known films, about a conflict between an Australian mining company and the local Aborigines, who see the mining site as sacred ground.

Where the Green Ants Dream is a gentle but oddly graceless film. The actors don’t play characters, but rather personifications of the different points of view surrounding the conflict. While they are rarely cartoons, the scenes of interaction between the characters range from clunky to embarrassing. Herzog is too much the unsentimental humanist to let the film devolve into stereotypes of noble savages and evil capitalists, but for some reason he’s also never able to make the conflict seem like it involves actual human beings instead of abstractions, and I really think this movie needed that to feel grounded. Herzog has often spoken of his cinema as the search for the “ecstatic truth”, but I think the issues he tackles here may be too tied-up with politics and philosophy for anything so pure.

On the other hand, there are some nearly sublime moments of Herzogian brilliance, mostly involving a beautiful green Caribou transport airplane which is parked in the middle of the outback and becomes a kitchen, meeting room, and observation post for the Aborigines. And of course, stunning shots of the outback, which is as Herzogian a landscape as you could imagine.

sand people, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

I spent most of the past week with the family at Chesterman Beach, on Vancouver Island’s beautiful west coast. Oddly, while the last time I was there was the middle of last winter, the weather didn’t seem to have changed — there were just a few more surfers. The internet went out on the second day of my visit, but it turned out I didn’t miss much.

The reason for the gather is that my parents were looking at retirement properties on the island. House prices back in Regina have risen to the point where a large, middle-class home there can now buy you a small, unimposing home on the island, as long as you stick to the little untouristy towns on the east coast and don’t insist on a view of the ocean. At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I’d just like to take a minute to congratulate myself on the number of people in my family who have followed me to the West Coast. The number is several, depending on whether you count Gillian as family. Well done, me. Well done.

main street, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

This is actually a picture I took a couple of years ago — I really have not had time for photography lately, so I went to flickr and did a search of my photos, looking for my previous impressions of Main Street. My new home looks nothing at all like this, and is, in fact, the ground floor of a nice house on a leafy old street. This is a building several blocks away. And, as I said, this is a picture of the past. In fact, I barely remember taking it.

However, yes! I moved. Tyson, Gillian, Meghan and Gregor were good enough to help me move exactly 37 blocks east. Meghan even drove the van, which was pretty handy, because while I can drive, my license expired years ago. (In other news, it’s a long damn bus ride up to the U-Haul in North Vancouver.) In an uncharacteristic bout of optimism, I thought we’d be able to move all my stuff in a single trip. Ultimately, it took two trips, and my bike is still at the Kommune.

But everything else is moved. It seems a bit weird to be surrounded by all the same furniture and things I had before. Wrong, somehow. I’ve moved before, of course, but I’ve actually never moved a lot of furniture and just… stuff. Until now, I’d always been travelling light, or unloading most of my possessions to move to a new city. However, even all my worldly goods assembled don’t really fill a smallish apartment, so I’ll be getting new things soon enough and replacing others.

Modulo a few little annoyances, I really like my new apartment, and I love my new neighbourhood. Within about a four block radius, there are multiple coffee shops, bakeries, butchers, Asian produce markets, greasy-spoon diners, burger joints, Vietnamese pho shops, sushi bars and regular bars. I am going to eat so much bad food.

On Sunday morning, after my first night in my new place, I headed out about 8 o’clock for coffee, walking past bleary-eyed scenesters heading home, and elderly Chinese immigrants hobbling along on their morning constitutionals. I passed signs in half a dozen languages and posters for bands I’ve never heard of and never will again. I felt… I felt like I would like it here.

Anyway, I’ll be going to Tofino on Wednesday to meet up with the family. My parents are looking for retirement property on The Island and my brother and his wife and my other brother and his girlfriend are going up there, too. So I probably won’t be updating until next week, and God only knows when I’ll get around to posting pictures of my new place, but I promised, and I will deliver. Eventually, I will deliver.

moving day, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

Leaving behind my red, red room.

The past week has been all about packing. Packing and preparation for the new Indiana Jones movie. I assume you don’t want to hear about the packing.

I watched the first three Indiana Jones movies last week. And then today, I watched the new one. I haven’t seen any of the films in at least ten years, so it was interesting to see how my memories matched up to the experience of seeing them now.

The first revelation was just how damn good Raiders of the Lost Ark is. I mean, I know it’s a classic, and remembered it as a fine film, but it’s actually a great film — the action and stunt scenes are amazing and hold up really well, the characters are well-drawn, and the humour is humorous. But above all, the chase actually has some weight — I actually felt there was something at stake. That’s not something I felt watching the other films in the series. Even in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is ostensibly about searching for the Holy Grail, the characters spend far (far!) more time chasing an old book and solving lame puzzles. It hardly seems to matter to anybody what’s at the end. But when Indy single-handedly takes on the Nazi convoy transporting the Ark of the Covenant, you can tell how desperately it fucking matters — to him, to the Nazis, and to Belloq. And that, more than anything is why Raiders of the Lost Ark is far and away my favourite (though having the young and saucy Karen Allen as Indy’s romantic foil doesn’t hurt).

The second revelation was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. If Raiders was slightly better than I remember, Temple of Doom is much worse. I don’t think I’d seen the whole thing since I was a kid, and I remember it being — to young me — the stand-out movie in the series. But as my roommate Meghan (who was watching it with me) observed, that’s probably because the whole thing really is a kid’s movie. The action is incredibly fast, like a cartoon, especially the famous mine-cart chase, and the horror elements are things that will haunt the dreams of children, not adults: being made to work in the mines, having your heart pulled out of your chest, being forced to eat icky monkey brains. (Speaking of the mine-cart chase: I remember as a kid thinking it was awesome, but this time around, I thought it was about as much fun as watching stock footage of a roller coaster.) By far the worst part, though, is the incredibly broad “humour”, mostly in the form of the supremely unfunny Kate Capshaw, who bulldozes through the movie with her “shriek” knob set to 11. Jesus. This movie is not only worse than I remembered, it’s a downright slog. It took us three evenings to get all the way through. On the other hand, it’s the film that’s probably truest to the old Republic adventure serials, with implausible action, ethnic-stereotype villains and sidekicks, and a whole lot of fast-moving tedium.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, though, was about as I remembered it — fun, funny and totally winning, without ever really trying for — and certainly not achieving — greatness. However, while I never really cared about the grail quest theme, the movie does have the best writing in the series, aided by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery’s back and-forth hamming. “I shood have mailed it to the Marksh Bruthers.” Oh, yes.

Which brings us to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I have the feeling than in making this, at least one of Spielberg’s goals was bring to an end the eternal questions about when the next Indy was coming out. Crystal Skull manages to do all of (a) be a modestly-entertaining send-off to the series; (b) kill my desire to see any more episodes, by presenting an old — almost sadly old — Indiana Jones (though wisely, they merely acknowledge his age and move on, rather than making it a running joke); and (c) threaten us with the spectre of Shia LeBeouf in an even larger role in any follow-ups. That said, though, I did enjoy the movie. There are some great Spielberg-ian images, and while it brings back elements of the previous films, and a few nods at the beginning, it doesn’t go overboard with the fan-boy in-jokes. And it brings back Karen Allen as the two-fisted Marion Ravenwood from Raiders and lets her fight scene-chewing communist Cate Blanchett. So it’s got that going for it. However, it does continue Steven Spielberg’s recent trend of not having any bloody idea how to end his movies — or, more accurately, having an idea for an ending that completely fails to satisfy. Here, we basically get a family-size can of supernatural WTF? served up on a saucer.

Seriously, Steve? That’s what you’re ending the series with?

Yes, after living at my beloved die Kommune for six years, on June 1st, I’m finally moving out on my own. I would also like to report that looking for an apartment in Vancouver? Not much fun. Trying to get an apartment you like in your first-choice of neighbourhood in Vancouver? Also less than entertaining.

But I did it! Kind of, almost! At least, as well as could be expected. My new pad is a ground-floor two-bedroom in a house just off Main and 23rd, an easy bus, bike or walk to work. The neighbourhood is one of Vancouver’s oldest, which really isn’t all that old, given that the town was a few saw mills and a train station a hundred years ago. The area has gone from working-class immigrant neighbourhood, to middle-class homeowner neighbourhood, to somewhat-trendy but mostly-inexpensive student/artist/designer neighbourhood of coffee shops and vintage clothing, while keeping characteristics of all of them. It’s the kind of place where you can have a trendy faux-grunge fusion restaurant across the street from a real-grunge circa-1972 Greek-Canadian diner, or have a bustling Vietnamese pho shop across from a DIY art space, and not notice the disconnect. In other words, it’s “Vancouver’s hip strip.” And hipster d-bag that I am, I’m quite happy to be relocating there, though I will surely miss living at the kommune.

Well, this is potentially pretty awesome. Supposedly, Spaced — the brilliant Y2K-era British sitcom (or “Brit-com” to use a term I invented just this minute) from the guys who did Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz — is finally (finally!) coming out on Region 1 DVD on July 22. Possibly. Maybe.

If you don’t know the show, it’s the story of two twenty-something “creative types” who have to pose as a professional couple to get a nice flat in London. Aaaaand that’s about it: they hang out with friends, try to get jobs, go to clubs, attend neighbour’s gallery shows, and play video games. The hook is the combination of affectionately-drawn characters and surreal pop-culture-riffs — everyday life becomes the scaffold on which to hang J-pop interludes, fantasy action-movie sequences, and dense layers of movie references. I already acquired the series via “other” means, but I will quite happily shell out my cash for a legitimate DVD version, if only to push it on everybody I know. Features will apparently include commentary tracks by Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Diablo Cody, among other illustrious hipster personages.

The reason I qualify it all, though, is that I can’t find the official source of the announcement. Just a bunch of gossip sites quoting each other. And Amazon seems to have not heard the news, because there’s no entry, and no pre-orders. Plus, any internet-based announcement involving Quentin Tarantino should set off warning bells. But hey, fingers crossed.

Amusing anecdote: First time I saw an episode of Spaced, I was pretty unimpressed — it seemed too hip and precious and not enough funny. Now, I would say it’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The moral? I’m an idiot, but at least I’m trainable.

update: It’s listed at the BBC America web site, so looks like my skepticism was misplaced. This time.