Movie Reviews: Little Miss Sunshine and Hollywoodland

So Friday night, Shaun took me to the movies to see Little Miss Sunshine, starring Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell. Without giving away the ending, I'll break down the premise of the movie:

Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear play a married couple with two children: Dwayne from her first marriage, who hasn't been speaking to anyone in nine months in hopes of becoming a fighter pilot; and Olive, a 10-year-old who wants to be in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Her grandfather, played by Alan Arkin, has been "coaching" her on her dance routine. He lives with the family as well, after being kicked out of his retirement home for snorting heroine. Cute.

Toni's brother, played by Steve Carrell, suddenly comes to live with them after having attempted to commit suicide. He plays a gay professor. The entire movie follows them on their trek to California to get Olive to the pageant.

Shaun and I both enjoyed this movie for its realness. And hell it was so frigging funny, I'd pay to see it again in an instant. I would actually love a copy when it comes out on DVD.

Last night we went to see Hollywoodland, starring Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, and my favorite, Adrien Brody. Adrien plays a P.I., investigating the so-called suicide of George Reeves (Affleck) who played Superman on television. There was a lot more to the story than I thought, especially concerning how George got his start in Hollywood. I like movies from this era (50s and 60s), for the clothing styles, the way of life.. Everyone smoked and drank (not really something I agree with) and no one was faithful to their spouses. So I shouldn't say I like the way of life, I just marvel at its difference from today's society.

This movie was okay. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the ending, only because I sometimes dislike being left to come to my own conclusion. I find it frustrating that they don't actually know what happened, and I can't believe there are so many other cases like that out there, but especially one concerning an actor who really could have made something out of himself.

I also find it a strange coincidence that George shared the same last name with Christopher Reeves, who in later years would play Superman in the movies. Creepy.

TABAR NAC!

Zut alors! What a weekend we had in Montreal!

The title of this blog is actually a t-shirt we saw in a store where you could have custom shirts made. Shaun got two: one with the Atari symbol (how vintage!) and one that says "More cowbell" and you would not believe the number of people who actually 'got' that shirt! One guy in the elevator of our hotel to Shaun: "Well, you can never get enough cowbell."

Saturday morning we dropped Mikey off at doggy camp (aka Gloucester Kennels) then hoofed it back home to finish packing. We took the 125 Hurdman bus to the train station and caught our Via train at about 1pm. It was a nice ride, so much more relaxing than having to drive a) over the long weekend, and b) downtown Montreal.

We arrived in Montreal right on schedule, just before 3pm. Our hotel (the Best Western Europa on Drummond) was only about 5 blocks from the central Via station so we walked. We got checked in okay, and I'm glad we reserved our room in advance: the hotel was 100% booked for the weekend. Lots of tour groups there. The lobby of our hotel was so pretty, with fountains and mosaic tile and comfy leather chairs.

We hopped up to our room, #315, dropped our bags on the floor and started to get settled. The room was very clean, queen-sized bed with a feather duvet, full bathroom, closet, desk, etc. Small but very comfortable. I called the front desk to get our free-wireless-internet access code, and while Shaun was surfing on his new laptop, I laid down for a quick catnap. I thought I heard someone at our door... Sure enough, this older couple was trying to get in our room. Turns out the front desk had also told them that they were in room #315. I felt bad for them, but we were there first so.. well.. you snooze, you lose. They apologized and said they'd head down to the front desk to get it straightened out. Ten minutes later, our phone rings and it's the front desk manager, Yves. He was so apologetic for the mix-up, and gave us free breakfast vouchers as an small token (our package didn't include breakfast). LOL He even called me Mrs. Haapala. I didn't correct him.

(BTW - saw the same couple checking out on Monday.. They had to wait another hour before they eventually got their room. Suckers! LOL Just kidding.)

So we got changed and headed out for a walk down to Old Montreal. It was a far walk (well, everything seems far when the surrounding area is unfamiliar) but the weather was nice so I didn't care. Plus, we passed the filming of a new movie! It's called 'Super Storm' so watch for it.

I can't believe how many art and photography galleries there are in Montreal! They are really into art. Once we hit the heart of Old Montreal, we found Shaun's t-shirt store, and I picked up a beautiful black and white photograph from a street vendor/artist. Once I pick out a frame, it will be proudly displayed in our upstairs hallway, so come on over and check it out.

Saturday night we went to dinner at the Peel Pub and hit (where else?) Ben & Jerry's for dessert. Then we walked up and down St. Catherine Street just to get a feel for where everything was. The Montreal Film Festival was on so part of St. Catherine was closed off and they had a giant screen set up for people to watch an old black & white film. We saw a lot of hoochies heading to 'Club Opera', some new night club that just opened up in August. Holy line up. More like gigantic swarm of hoochie-girls and playa-boys. It might as well have been an audition for "Honey" or "Bring It On".

Sunday morning we got up just after 9am and had our free breakfast, which was dee-lish. Then we walked over to the Peel subway station and hopped on the subway to the Biodome. I think I've been there before but I'm so glad we went, it's simply amazing. It was busy, but we got lots of pictures of parrots, tamarin monkeys, penguins, otters, and the like. I wanted to get a picture of the sloth but he was hiding (can't say I blame him, LOTS of noisy children around). We browsed the boutique then caught the subway back to Peel.

Then, since it was still raining a bit, we hit the underground malls. There are three that are all interconnected: Centre Des Ailes (aka Les Ailes De La Mode), the Eaton Centre, and Place Montreal Trust. I got Shaun a Sens jersey as an early birthday present - it was about 1/2 the price they are here in Ottawa. I picked up some clothes from Urban Behaviour and Old Navy. And for spending over $150, we got a free travel bag from the three underground malls.

Side note: I was itching... ITCHING... to go into BCBG Max Azria's and/or Betsey Johnson's stores, but I felt the temptation was too great. I may have purchased something far out of my price range. Alas, I digress.

At around 4pm we were beat, so we hit the hotel for a nap. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, since it was so close. Now, I've eaten there before and have always enjoyed the food, but those ribs were not good at all. So we hit Ben & Jerry's again for dessert, this time for milkshakes. We walked around a bit more but it was threatening to rain again, so we headed back to the hotel to get packed up for our trip home.

Now, I had asked the hotel for a wake-up call for 7:45am. They called Monday morning, and I immediately got up and hopped in the shower. It wasn't until Shaun got out of the shower that we realized it was only 7:05am - they had called us an hour early. So we slowed down a bit, and I crawled back into bed to watch some weird t.v. movie about a circus. Sometimes I wonder about the A&E channel. Love those biographies, but really.

As we were heading down for breakfast, this cute little pair of elderly Hispanic women got on the elevator before us. One said "Buenas dias" and before I could respond in Spanish, she corrected herself with a struggled "Good morning". We both smiled and said hello. They were trying to communicate with us in the elevator, and they were just so cute I had to hold back giggling like a 6-year-old. I guess we weren't talking enough to them, so they started talking to each other in Spanish. The one said "The poor french!" then corrected herself with "No, the poor Americans!" By this point, I thought it might be kind of mean to correct them and tell them that not only were we Canadian, but I could understand every single word they were saying, so we just smiled politely and headed to the restaurant for another delicious breakfast.

Checking out was easy, and it took no time at all to walk back to the train station (with all our purchases in tow). We boarded at 10am, right on time, and I got another great seat by the window. We had a bit of a delay coming through Dorval, I guess there were signalling problems somewhere, so we were about a 1/2 hour late getting home, but I slept most of the way so I didn't really notice.. or care. We caught a bus within 5 minutes of getting to the Ottawa Via station, and were home just after 1pm. We booted it over to the kennel to pick up Mikey, then hit the sack for a 4 hour nap! I only woke up because I heard the phone ringing (thanks Mom).

We had such a good weekend, and had just been dying to get away somewhere, just the two of us. I highly recommend our hotel, which is only 1 block from the Bell Centre (for you hockey lovers!) and a half a block from St. Catherine Street (for all you shopaholics.) And I really, really recommend taking the train. Since we booked a couple weeks in advance, we got the supersaver rate, and the two of us, round trip, only paid a total of $115. Well worth it to avoid the parking in Montreal and the long weekend traffic (aka moving days for first year university students).

Once we get the pics downloaded off the camera, I'll get some posted. Promise.