ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM: THIS MUSEUM WILL BE TELEVISED

Our most recent visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM, was inspired by TV. No, not the history of TV, which pretty much consists of talking puppets, men in drag and horny spaceship captains, but by a TV program about history. Or, more accurately, a TV show about museums, which have just a little bit to do with history. And (you have to love this irony) the show airs on the History Channel. It's called Museum Secrets.
The show visits museums all around the world, relating stories not heard in a long time, and examining exhibits that have not been seen by the public in a long time, if ever. The series visited the ROM and to celebrate, the museum this month put on display a few of the exhibits discussed in the show.
The exhibit was small, but certainly diverse. They showed everything from a headdress owned (if not actually ever worn) by Sitting Bull ...

.. to a bull dog who's genes can be found in the majority of English Bulldogs in Canada today ..
.. to a rather a gigantic medieval cross bow, accompanied by some mysterious vessels that seem to have thermal properties ..
... some speculate that these vessels may have been an early form of hand grenades ..
.. and some fossil remains, never before displayed, of a "lost" ROM dinosaur ...
Perhaps the most compelling object in the exhibit was that of a baby mummy

Not a lot is known about the infant. It was a male, approximately 6 months old, perhaps from a wealthy family
The museum has never opened the elaborate wrapping for fear of damaging it, or the mummy inside, so they have only had X-rays with which to glean any information about the mummy.
After going through the Museum Secrets exhibit, we decided to spend some time in the ROM's Native Canadian Exhibit, a space that we haven't explored in some time.
Although the exhibit touches on the life of early Natives from all over Canada, much it focussed on the peoples who lived in this part of the world, around the Great Lakes.

One of the objects that really captured my attention and my imagination was a war robe, an elk hide robe that through pictures, told the personal history of it's owners life through the battles in which he had been involved.

You'll see the robe, along with other highlights from our visit, in the video below.

Royal Ontario Museum: Museum Secrets from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THE NEW ARRIVAL

Yes, we have a new addition to our family. And this time, it is not black and white and furry with a long tongue and a four legs.

This time it is red, with a long cargo area and four tires. And instead of being of English heritidge as are border collies, it is Japanese ...

No, we did not adopt an Asian child or give life to a character from anime. We bought a new car

Collete and I are the proud parents of a spanking new Subaru Outback. There is some irony in our purchase of this particular car. Eleven years ago, when we were looking to purchase our first new car, we liked the Outback; it was more a station wagon then and it suited us nicely but out our price range, so we ended up buying our Saturn which served us well for a decade. But we always looked fondly on the Outback.
Recently we've decided we needed a new car (Yes, two car purchases in over ten years, we're wild and crazy people) The Saturn has become too small to accomodate Collette, myself, Hayley and Terra .. seeing as how Terra seems to have the ability to give herself the exterior dimensions of a small pony at will. And although the Saturn was a swell little car, it's not something you can use to bring home a 7 ft long picnic table, unless you put it on the roof and used it as a sail
So when we began searching for prospective new adoption, we knew we wanted something roomier, something with a hatch, and something with all wheel drive. The Outback of course satisfies all these criteria but it has been a while since I've seen one and I still had this image of a little station wagon in my mind and wasn't sure if that was what we wanted
We were at the Ex this past summer and got to check out the Chevie Equinox. We liked the size, it had a back seat that could slide forward, giving more cargo space while we still had the girls in it, etc. But when I test drove one, I found it well appointed but essentially gutless. And by the time I loaded in all the features I have in the Outback, the Equinox was about the same price.

Also, we had made the decision to go for all wheel drive. I drive all year long and we go up north enough, I thought that would be beneficial. Of the vehicles I looked at, like the Escape and the Equinox and the RAV 4, the Outback was the only one with full time all wheel drive. I drove the Subaru Forrester but it felt small to me, and sort of cheap ...

So I ended up returning, as it were, to our first love

So we've come full circle, but it has indeed been a long slow circle. So far I am very happy with the new addition. And let's be honest: How cute will all three of my girls look in it as we go whizzing along?

HOW TO GET BEAT UP BY THE UFC WITHOUT EVER ENTERING THE CAGE

For those of you who regularly read this blog (I will stop asking why, we all have mental health issues) you will know that Collette and I both fans of the combat sport know as Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA. You may also remember that I have been a big supporter of this sport being sanctioned here in Ontario and that, of course, I take full and personal responsibility for making that so

Ahem

At any rate, it did not take long for the UFC to announce a major MMA card here in Toronto. They wanted to break an attendance record for the fight and were careful to load the card with Canadian fighters, including the reigning welterweight champ, George St Pierre

UFC president, the urbane and erudite Dana White (that is so a joke, this guy has all the class and manners of a drunken 500 pound gorilla from the Ozarks and yes, that is an insult to people from the Ozarks) selected the Rogers Centre, formerly the Sky Dome as the venue, hoping to sell at least 40,000 seats. No, that is not a typo. Forty thousand seats
Collette and I wanted to go. Not just because we are fans of the sport but because we have been waiting for this for a long time. We've never before been able to see a big scale MMA event and we wanted in on this one And for once, we were in a position to grab really good seats, even with an announced price range from 800 dollars (ringside and close enough to identify which fighter's blood you have just been splashed with) to 50 dollars (in the upper 500 seats where you not only good nose bleeds but you are given free oxygen.
We knew these tickets would go quickly. MMA and the UFC are hugely popular here, Ontario regularly buys more UFC pay per view events than other location in the world. But this is also Toronto, where if something is new, if it's the first, people have to jump all over it, just to say they could. And if it costs money, like an inordinate amount of money, they have to get in on it, just prove they have more money than brains. That is like a badge of honour in this city.

So we knew we had a fight on our hands. But I never thought it was a fight that would make me feel as if I had just gone a round with the champ

OK, Mr St Pierre could make me cry with a stern look, but you get my point. One thing I did to gain an advantage was to join the UFC Fight Club, which would allow me pre buy tickets a few days before the general public for the oh so lovely low low price of almost 100 bucks. Yes. It's true. During this whole endeavour, I may have lost my mind

Or lost more of my mind

Or the rest of my mind

Or something

Now, for this pre sale, the only way to acquire tickets was online, via TicketMaster. You know TicketMaster, otherwise known as the Anti Christ. I hate Ticket Master. I have never had a satisfactory experience dealing with them. It always seems to me that no matter how diligent you are, jumping through the hoops they establish, I never get the seats that I want, seats that always seem for sale on the street the evening of the event. Whenever I can, I deal directly with the box office of the venue, but that option at this point was not available.

So there I go, my 100 dollar pre sale code in hand, at my computer right on time, hovering around the Ticket Master site as if it was going to do something miraculous, like part the Red Sea or turn my ponytail brown again ...

I connected with Ticket Master right away. Less than a minute after the tickets went on sale, the best I could do was the 200 section at the Dome. A minute after that, only 500 level seats were left. Five minutes after 10 am, no tickets were available ...

I know some people through this offer were able to get the floor seats I was yearning for. Part of the problem was that you were allowed to purchase 8 seats per order. I know for a fact that many people did this even though they did not have that many people in their party. So golly, we aren't much encouraging scalping are we?

At first "only" 40,000 seats were available. They were sold out by the time the public could purchase, a couple of days later. So they opened up the rest of the dome. For kicks, I went online again. Public tickets went onsale at 10 am. I was offered a couple of seats 10 seconds after 10 .. and only 500's were available

At first I was disapointed and certainly pissed off. All is not kosher here. There are lots of floor level seats available on Craiglist and sites known for scalping. There is no doubt in my mind that Ticket Master "loses" large blocks of tickets that show up for sale elsewhere

But I know many many many many people, who paid their 100 bucks and did their due dilligence were not able to get seats. And I know at least half a dozen people who "lost" their tickets in the electronic Hell that is Ticket Master

So I am not so much disapointed. Not pissed off, but I'm disgruntled. Hell, I'm almost always disgruntled. I think that is part of my charm.

Ahem. Shut up

But it actually does piss me off that one company can have such a monopoly. Who's policing it? Probably not police, there isn't a Summit to patrol and young women with soap bubbles to intimidate ... but I digress. Which is pretty much the point of this blog anyway

But for all my whining and moaning I did buy tickets. And for more money than what they are worth. And we will go see the fights. And buy the overpriced beer and fart out the overpriced food ... Will we go to see another? That remains to be seen

I'm going to start saving now. And waiting in line for my tickets

ANOTHER SHITTY POST

I create these titles to test if you all are really paying attention. So, the topic of this post is ... well, shit. Or poop. Well, dog poop. Well, not really dog poop but ... You get the drift. Read on, or not, at your own risk

I have dogs. Dogs poop. I try to be a responsible dog owner, so I pick up their poop. It's something I have to do but not something I really want to spend a great deal of time thinking about.

Picking up poop is expensive. You have to buy bags. You do. I used to use plastic grocery bags but A: They really aren't as strong as you thing and B: Now you have to pay for grocery bags too

So I buy a product specialized for the job at hand .. well hopefully it doesn't get on your hands but guess what .. shit happens. (How many time have you said that, and meant it literally)

So, poop bags. I buy them in rolls. I do not use the dispensers often shaped like fire hydrants or dog houses. I have pockets. I put the bags in my pocket .. no, before they are used, let's not get too gross here.

So the bags I've bought in the past have been brown, or dark blue or silver. Why they were coloured I have no clue. You use them to carry poop. What the hell colour do they need to be?

Apparently, they need to be a rainbow. The last package of rolls I picked up were a wide variety of colours. Yellow, green, blue, turquoise ... really? Pastels. We need pastel bags in which to carry our dog shit

Why? Are we supposed to be colour coordinating these things and if so .. with what?? I mean, I don't believe that dogs are entirely colour blind but they probably only see a muted range of colours and Hell, even if they could see every colour, do they care about the bag you carry their shit in ...

And if you are colour matching your outfits with a poop bag you may have entirely too much time on your hands. I would suggest a new hobby .. like .. paying more attention to the dog who's crap you are carrying. If that doesn't appeal to you, then I suggest you take up walking along the edges of really rickety bridges

Here's another point. These lighter colours, like the yellow, well they are no entirely opaque are they. In other words, you can sort of see through them. So that jaunty yellow, when filled with Hayley's product .. it doesn't seem quite so jaunty any more.

I've probably spent more time on this topic than is necessary .. or palatable. It's just something that had to be said. So I'm out of here. I have a paisley printed leather trimmed gold embossed poop bag to buy.

SEE THESE CHARLES BRONSON MOVIES OR HE WILL HIT YOU WITH A SOCK FULL OF QUARTERS

Yup, Charles Bronson

I've been a fan for years. Yes, he made a lot of god awful movies. Really really bad god awful movies. But he made a lot of terrific movies, many of which fell under the radar because they were "action" movies, often made in Europe. At one point, Bronson was the biggest box office draw in the world. Now I fear he is pretty much a parody of himself.

It's too bad, really, because those terrible movies aside, Bronson had a long career during which he made a lot of totally watchable movies, some quite famous, some more deserving of fame. He worked with well known directors and also helped make the careers of lesser known directors.

I've been thinking of Bronson lately mostly because of an upcoming Jason Statham movie titled The Mechanic. This is a remake of a Bronson movie from the early seventies. It is an interesting pick for a remake; the original Mechanic was a very serviceable movie but probably is not terribly well known at this time. It got me thinking of those great Charles Bronson movies and, what the hell, it's time for another list post

So here are some of my favorite Charles Bronson movies. They are, as usual, in no particular order.

I'm going to start with three of his most famous movies, big Hollywood ensemble action movies, that really helped to establish his career. Movies filled with other male actors, some already established, some about to break out but in all these movies I really do think Bronson stands out

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, directed by John Sturges, an American Western version of a Kurosawa film ... the movie that launched Bronson's careeer

Bronson plays the Mexican-Irish gunfighter who is watched over by a trio of young boys in the Mexican village. For all his toughness and that hammered metal visage of his, it is Bronson's ability to relate to these children that really draws our attention to him in this film. And he gets a great death scene. Shot, after saving a young boys life, the man who goes by an Irish names asks the boy what his names is and when they respond with his Mexican surname, Bronson barks "Damn right"

THE GREAT ESCAPE: Another big all male ensemble cast, again featuring Steve McQueen, this time in his break out role.

As Polish tunnel digger Danny, Bronson brings his physicality into play but once again it his ability to connect with his character's quieter aspects that allow Bronson to stand out. The idea of a claustrophobic tunnel digger is pure hokum but Bronson is able to pull it off. As he explains in his letter perfect Polish accent (Bronson was of Slavic background) he needs to "dig, dig all the time, to get away" in order to best his fear

THE DIRTY DOZEN: More macho men, more macho dying against all odds, more male stars both big and small

Bronson's role is a bigger one here, permitting him to literally stand shoulder to shoulder with the film's best known star, Lee Marvin. The scene that sticks in my mind is Bronson standing alongside Jim Brown and Clint Walker to defend their rag tag unit .. dude, seriously, that is just an awesome wall of manhood

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST: Movie legend states that Bronson was the first actor to be offered the Man with No Name roles that eventually made Clint Eastwood a huge star. I don't know if that is true, but Sergio Leone cast him in this, arguably the best spaghetti western ever made

In the earlier Hollywood ensemble movies, Bronson showed what he could do with dialogue. Here, he has so little dialogue he may as well be mute. As the mysterious gunfighter known as Harmonica, Bronson lets his instruments speak for him, those instruments being his harmonica and his six gun. This is Bronson doing what he could do better than most other actors, saying little, expressing little, but letting his physicality speak for him. Leone got Bronson; he could use static energy as effectively as he could motion.

RED SUN: OK, this movie comes with a caveat .. a freaking big ass caveat. I'm not sure one could consider this a truly great movie. But it is surely one big odd twisted multi cultural, cross cultural East meets West ball of pure eyepopping weirdness

Red Sun is a comedy, even if not all the actors involved realized that. Bronson realized that and he was not afraid to pull out all stops, throw caution to the wind and just roll with the weirdness. The film co stars another one of my favorite all time time actors, Tishiro Mifune in one of his rare English language roles. The neat little bit of irony here, of course, is that Mifune was in the Seven Samurai, the basis for Bronson's movie The Magnificent Seven. Mifune plays his famous samurai persona and is as stoic and disiplined as the steel blade of his katanna. Bronson in this movie is the opposite of Harmonica from Once Upon A Time; he is physically active, verbose and one could almost say .. lively. This one may not appeal to all tastes but its something I just have to watch from time to time

THE MECHANIC: So this is the movie that has just recently been remade. I have no idea what the new movie will be like, but given the current state of action movies, I can't imagine it being as low key and as cold blooded at this one

Bronson plays a professional hitman. I'm not sure how much the new movie will hove to the plot of this one so I will spare too many details. Suffice it be said that Bronson comes to take a young man under his wing, mentoring him in the way of assasination. That young man was a relatively unknown actor at the time called Jan Michael Vincent. Bronson is excellent in this stripped down thriller, at once cold and efficient but capable of expressing a growing affection for his young protege.

BREAKHEART PASS: This truly is one of my favorite Charles Bronson movies. Another low key B budget movie that really is almost letter perfect in its delivery.

Breakheart Pass takes place in the Old West, there are cowboys and Indians and trains but its really not a Western, it's a mystery and a pretty nifty one at that. Instead of a locked room murder mystery, we are given a rolling train murder mystery. Highlights are a rare Bronson smile presented at just the perfect moment and a fist fight on top of the moving train featuring Bronson and former heavyweight boxing champ Archie More.

HARD TIMES: This may be my favorite Bronson movie. A bare knucked boxing movie that is elevated above all other entries in this genre by its Depression era backdrop, some fine co stars (James Coburn again and Strother Martin) and Bronson's nailed down taciturn performance

This is Bronson back in his stone faced tight lipped persona, using his amazing body control to tell the story. And I just don't mean the beautifully staged and choreographed fight scenes. The way Bronson walks, the way he holds his body, the way he turns his whole torso and not just his head to look at someone tells you so much about his character and gives clues to how he has come to achieve his toughness. An early movie by macho director Walter Hill, there is so much that seems right about this movie, from the details of its New Orleans settings, to James Coburn's voice, to Bronson's character's physical strength that has helped him survive in Hard Times but makes him incapable of ever being soft and gaining the benefits of an easy life

DEATH WISH: Hard Times may be my favorite Bronson movie but this may be his best, certainly one of his very best starring roles

Forget all the horrible cheaply made sequels, Death Wish is a very fine movie. It is a serious exploration of the vigilante, of violence, of how violence purports violence, and how thin the line may be between good guy and bad guy. Bronson plays Paul Kersey as an everyman, a man who finds himself in unfamiliar territory, that of the vigilante, through circumstances beyond his control. After his wife is slain, daughter raped, Kersey does not go out into the night seeking vengence, or so he tells himself. His first weapon is a sock full of quarters and after he commits his first act of violence he is literaly sickened by it. Yet her persists, he ups his weapons, and the killing becomes easier. Death Wish does a nice job of examining the roles of the justice system and the media when it comes to the vigilante and Bronson is absolutely compelling as Kersey.

As I stated earlier, Bronson grinded out a lot of B movie thrillers, many of which are forgettable but I should honorable mention to a couple:

Mr Majestyk is notable mostly for the fact that is the only action movie I can think of where the hero is a watermellon farmer. Trust me, you will appreciated a melon more the next time you have one

Love And Bullets is a fairly efficient thriller that offers such delights as a car chase on a car train and Charlie going all McGyver and showing us the deadly side of a full length floor lamp and a sack of tenpenny nails

St. Ives was another movie more mystery than thriller and Bronson played a pacifist who was still capable of kicking ass when needed but I'm sure he felt bad about it later. It's actually a pretty decent little movie with a nice plot.

Bronson made a few TV movies in his later years, including A Family of Cops that was based on the novel Donato and Daughter. It spawned at least one sequel and is watchable if not compelling. Bronson got to play something almost age appropriate here, with adult children

There is a kind of American male actor that often inspires the "can he act" debate. Actors like John Wayne and Charles Bronson, who we come to associate so strongly with a character we convince ourselves they aren't really acting at all. I won't indulge that debate, I find it rather specious, all I know is when Bronson was at his best he was absolutely compelling, he was believable, you saw very little artifice. By all accounts the real Charles Bronson was terse and solitary. He didn't say much.

On screen, although he could handle dialogue as well as anyone, Bronson didn't need to say much. He was always worth watching. You just never knew when that sock of quarters was going to pop out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRA

Yikes

Two years? How can Terra be two years old. Well, she is

Here's the video/slidshow to prove it

TerraBday2Web from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

TRUE GRIT: A TALE OF TWO ROOSTERS

The title of this post is both logical and misleading. I know, logic is not a word often associated with this blog, but read on

I suppose it was inevitable that I would go to see the new version of True Grit. A: It's a western. B: It stars Jeff Bridges, one of my favorite actors of all time C: It's a remake of the 1969 movie starring John Wayne .. who is John Wayne and needs no further explanation D: It's directed by the Cohen Brothers, who go beyond being among my favorite film makers and enter a fairly rare stratosphere of creativity that includes people like Martin Scocese, Philip K Dick, Robert Johnson etc.

I like the original True Grit. But it is not my favorite western. Nor is it my favorite John Wayne movie (even if he won the Oscar) and nor is it my favorite John Wayne western

I think Wayne's westerns like The Searchers, Red River or Rio Bravo are all round better movies than his True Grit. Red River and Rio Bravo feature far better ensemble acting, but it's hard to compared Glen Campbell and Kim Darby (of True Grit) with Dean Martin and Angie Dickonson (of Rio Bravo) or even Walter Brennan and Montgomery Clift of Red River. The Searchers is a much better written and much better actualized movie than True Grit. And it may feature Wayne's best performance but, damnit, he was pretty awesome in Grit as well
Both versions of the movie are of course based on the novel by Charles Portis. Both are fairly fairly faithful to the book, diverging towards the end of the story. Beyond that, the difference in the movies is in the emphasis. At the time he made this movie Wayne was towards the end of his career but still one of the most popular movie stars in the world. There was little question that the story would revolve around him. Kim Darby as Mattie achieved a level of stardom at the time but came no where close to Wayne and Glen Campbell as Texas Ranger LaBeouf, was a music star .. and never made much of an actor. So it was going to be the Duke's ride the whole way
It was indeed a great performance for Wayne. It was the first time in one of his movies were permitted to see John Wayne as he was: An old man with a ton of personality. Rooster Cogburn, the "one eyed fat man" allowed Wayne to, for the first time, settle his patented likeable machismo with this age and physical limitations. It also allowed him to flex two of his greatest assets as an actor: His impeccable comic timing, and his penchant for sentimentality.

Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn is another matter. Bridges comes from a generation of stars with the emphasis on acting and as such, through his career, he's been a bit of a chameleon. From an alien with halting speech patterns in Starman, to the burnt out country singer of Crazy Heart, to the ultimate dudeness of the Big Lebowski, Bridges has always been one to change his body and his behaviour to suit a role
The Big Lebowski was certainly the movie that landed him this role in True Grit, as both are Cohen Brothers films. Bridges is terrific in this movie, altering his body and his speech pattern to become Rooster. His Rooster is not quite the loveable rogue that Wayne's was, there is more of an edge to him, more of the grim fatalisim that such a character would certainly have. But the sense of humour is still there, but not quite as overt.
But as I stated, the title of this post is a bit misleading. It really isn't a tale of two Roosters, but more a tale of two Matties. Or, in reality one Mattie. Mattie being the 14 year girl of the story who hires Marshal Rooster (and perforce, Texas Ranger LaBeouf) to hunt down the scoundrel who killed her pa.
The Charles Portis novel is Mattie's story. It is narrated by her, told in her voice, all the actions and other characters are filtered through the eyes of this young girl. And a remarkable girl she is. Tough, smart (she can read write and do her sums) with a steel resolve. In the original versio of the movie, she was played by Kim Darby
Darby was 25 at the time and played Mattie as such. And as such, she almost came across as immature. In the Western era, a 25 year old woman would have a husband, children, responabilities. Darby comes across as spoiled and petulant and overly naive. This is not the case in the Cohen Brothers Grit. Mattie is played by Hailee Steinfeld
Haille was actually 14 at the time she made this movie but that is not the only factor that makes her a far superior Mattie. This young woman can act. She is Mattie, and her resolve, her determination, even her stubborness, does not come across as silly and naive but rather breath taking. She is a firecracker, and it is easy to believe why this little girl is capable of bending these tough, independent men to her will.

The Cohens knew what they had with this girl and with this cast in general. Although much of Portis' dialouge is brought over from the novel intact, they also understand the power of the visual image. If there is a scene that perfectly establishes Mattie's character, and her relationship with Rooster, it is one where the Marshal and the Texas Ranger try to "ditch" the girl to go on the manhunt on their own. Mattie, being Mattie, will have none of that. As the two men cross a river by ferry and leave her on the other side, Mattie gets aboard her recently acquired mustang pony and simply swims the river .. It is a remarkable scene. There is no dialogue. Just shots of this girl doing this thing the two men did not attempt and shots of Bridges watching her .. It says so much, without using any words

Likewise a scene where characters, at night, are rushing across the prarie in desperate need .. there is almost no dialouge but the lighting and editing and camerawork are so compelling, no words are needed.

So, in the end: I like both True Grits. I love both Roosters. But for me now there is only one Mattie. So perhaps the title of this post was not so misleading. There are two Roosters. And as for Miss Mattie Ross, there is only one