Nagra pops up in Alcatraz

Watching the Golden Globes on Sunday night, my wife confuses Slumdog's Freida Pinto with the actress from Bend it like Beckham, Parminder Nagra.  Unlike, Pinto who I'd seen recently in Rise of the the Planet of the Apes, I hadn't heard nor seen Nagra in a long time.  

I decided to give the new Alcatraz series a try last night (very good I might add) and who is one of the stars - Ms. Nagra.  I had thought there was a second coincidence, but I was mixing up Sam Neill with Derek Jacobi who I'd seen in The Gathering Storm on Sunday.  Almost a double.

There have been lots of coincidences since I posted last in October, but unfortunately have been neglecting this blog.

Synapses

I just saw the movie Limitless tonight. My modest review on Facebook was:

I really liked it, lots of fun, action and an interesting premise. Plot could have taken a little more load, but all together, very entertaining. Gotta go and connect a few new synapses.

I then checked my Yahoo email and found an email from Luminato regarding the addition of the New Yorker series, which includes one my favourite authors and big thinkers - Malcolm Gladwell. I'm really excited about the opportunity to see him and hopefully hear about his new ideas.

Oh, and the coincidence ?  Limitless is based on the plot premise that what if there was a pill you could take that would allow you to use more/all of your available brain capacity.  And, if there's anyone who can quickly get your synapses firing and expanding your brain around new ideas, it's Malcolm Gladwell.  I'd highly recommend all his books, my favourite being Blink.

Pi and Einstein

I'm a mathy and I almost missed the geeky numerical date alignment of March 14th with Pi (3.14...).  Thank you to an old math friend from The University of Waterloo who posted this fun fact on Facebook.  On the 14th, my wife told me that Albert Einstein's birthday was March 14th which I hadn't heard before.  In the evening, my daughter and I watched a family movie called Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.  In a later scene, Jason Bateman's dry accountant character begins to feel the magic of the emporium and picks up an Einstein doll who appears to be talking to him.  Nice geek coincidence.

The scarcity of water

I took my daughter to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) during March Break and spent some time at the Water exhibit.  We both learnt a lot about the scarcity and value of fresh water to our lives and planet.  The timing of this exhibit seemed tragically coincidental with the recent tsunami disaster in Japan.


After the ROM, we had a nice lunch then went to see the new animated movie, Rango.  I didn't know much about this movie, except its Western theme and Johnny Depp lead voice.  It turned out the primary plot of the movie was to do with the depleting water supply for a desert town.  There was even underground shot of an aquifer, which I knew much more about after visiting the ROM's Water exhibit.

Girls on motorcycles

I just flew back home from Los Angeles and on the flight I read a few chapters of a book and caught a movie.  I'm currently reading a novel called The Lock Artist and in the chapter I was reading today, the main character whisks away his 17 year old girlfriend on the back of his motorcycle.  I also watched The Kids Are All Right and there's a scene where Ruffalo's character takes his 18 year old daughter for a ride on the back of his motorcycle.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I just got a nice comment on Flickr regarding a shot I took at my local park a few days ago in the fog. The comment from Jimbographer was "Like the colors, reminds me of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind." And guess what, just before bed last night, I browsed the program guide a little in case there was a movie I wanted to record and found one of my favourites - Close Encounters of the Third Kind was plying on HDNet. Really looking forward to watching it now !

Exeter

My son has an opportunity to do a two week school exchange next spring to Toulouse, France.  We had a meeting with the organizing teacher and the travel agent this week.  The travel agent was from Ellison Travel, based in Exeter, Ontario.  I hadn't heard of Exeter here in Ontario before, although I was pretty familiar with Exeter in England as they had a good speedway team back in the 70's (and I supported The Coventry Bees).

Later, the same evening, I started to watch Angels and Demons (which I'd PVR'd a few days prior).  In one early shot, Hank's character is seen standing in front of a large Exeter pennant in his Harvard office.

Spartacus

I was channel surfing the other night and paused briefly on The Rat Pack on HBO Canada.  I wasn't that interested, so I was ready to flick to another another station.  Instead if going through the on-screen guide, I was using the Info button so I could just scroll up and down to other channels.  Just as I heard one of the characters say something about "Spartacus", I hit Info and went to the next station and is showed Spartacus: Blood and Sand on The Movie Network.  Nice one Spartacus.

Avatar and the TTC

Quite a weird coincidence. This afternoon, I got my ticket to see Avatar tonight.  ON a completely unrelated online activity I'm looking for how to get a to a friend's house in Scarborough and I type in ttc.com (guessing on the URL for the Toronto Transit Commission).  It takes me to http://ttc.com/index.html which has an embedded image of Avatar and the company's tech connection to the movie.  Wow.

Psychedelic Friday

Driving home from my barber's, my son and I hear The Stones' Sympathy for the Devil (live version).  During pre-dinner music-mixing with my daughter, I request Trout (Nenah Cherry and Michael Stipe) to be added to the playlist.

I sit down to watch Tropic Thunder on-demand on TMN later in the evening - it gets funnier as the movie progresses.  The source track of Trout (Steppenwolf's The Pusher) is on the soundtrack along with Sympathy for the Devil.

Very psychedelic.

He's Just Not That Into You

I came home from shinny (hockey) last night and my wife was watching He's Just Not That Into You on-demand on The Movie Network (TMN).  I watched a little and found some parts quite interesting and quite funny (although I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be funny), but then some other parts just didn't do it for me.  


A daily photo blog I follow is Daily Dose of Imagery.  Today's posting (yesterday's photo) is entitled not that into you with a well captured simple moment on the subway.

An Education

I was in the bookstore today and also doing some browsing online (Amazon always seems to have the best prices in Canada).  I recently finished The Lost Symbol and I was looking for some new fiction (as I already have a few Gladwell non-fiction books I'm currently reading).  I came across Nick Hornby, I'm not familiar with his books, however I've seen some of the movies adaptations, incl. High Fidelity and About a Boy.  I liked the premise of his new novel Juliet Naked and order it on Amazon.  But I did notice another title that sounded interesting, An Education, and also saw that it had been made into a movie.  I hadn't heard of the book or whether the movie was new or had already come and gone.  But the list of actors was pretty decent.  After work, I duck into 10 Dundas West where there happens to be an AMC movie theatre to make a quick call home.  While I'm talking to my wife, I notice a poster for An Education, now playing !

Jack Campbell

I was watching the end of The Family Man the other night.  Nick Cage plays jack Campbell is this wonderful "what's important in life" story.  The next morning I overhear that Jack Campbell had a great game as goalie for the US junior hockey team.

Rush and Massey Hall

A good friend of mine enthusiastically recommended the movie I Love You Man a little while ago and I got around to watching it last night - really funny. In the movie, the two lead guys hit it off when they discover they are both huge hands of Rush. Great to see one of Canada's classic rock bands feature so prominently in a Hollywood movie ! I'm a fan too and have seen them play a couple of times. So today, I take my burrito lunch over to the free TIFF (film festival) tent set up at Yonge Dundas Square and there's a few short movies playing, including an interview with Geddy Lee from Rush talking about Massey Hall. Now I come to think of it, I'd just seen a beautiful shot of Massey Hall (one block South of the square) just yesterday on BlogTO.

Incredibles

The other evening my son was enthusiastic about The Incredibles, one of my favourite Pixar movies. When my wife is looking at Indigo.com a little later in the evening, there's a special Pixar ad on the landing page and Mr. Incredible is part of the graphic.