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2019 Grey Cup Preview

22 November 2019Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

Grey Cup

Sunday November 24th will be the 107th contesting of the Grey Cup: Canada’s big day of football. This will be another contesting of East vs. West, as it should be. This time East is represented by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and West will be represented by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

FIFTH TIME FOR CALGARY

This Grey Cup will mark the fifth time Calgary’s McMahon Stadium will host the Grey Cup. The stadium opened in 1960 and has undergone two renovations and four expansions. In addition to four previous Grey Cups (the last one being in 2009), the Stadium has also hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games of Calgary and was part of the Ozzy Osbourne-led 2008 Monsters Of Rock tour. It normally seats 35,400 but can be expanded to 46,020. The CFL was originally planning to have the Grey Cup located to October two years ago, but that plan didn’t go through.

The four-day Grey Cup festival in Calgary started back on November 20th and is to continue until Saturday November 23rd. It will be centred in downtown Calgary and leading to McMahon Stadium. There will be forty festivities and events including a family-friendly festival, pancake breakfast and traditional team parties. There will be a special Grey Cup rodeo at the Stampede Corral and the Fusion Music Festival. The anthem will be sung by Lindsay Kelly with the Calgary Stampede Showband and the half-time show will have Keith Urban.

And Now For The Game

As I mentioned at the beginning, it will be Hamilton Tiger-Cats vs. Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Basically a rematch of the 1984 Grey Cup! The TiCats are the heavy favorites as they led the 2019 Season, but Winnipeg has been a team of surprises. Can they surprise at the Grey Cup too?

WEST: WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS

Winnipeg BB

Winnipeg is the surprise of the Grey Cup. At the very end of the 2019 CFL season, Winnipeg was third in the West, but the rankings were very tight as Winnipeg was 11 wins and 7 losses while group-topper Calgary was 13-5.

Before the playoffs, started, the chances for Winnipeg looked glum as they lost four of their final six games, including Calgary 33-37. Calgary would be Winnipeg’s opponent in the first playoff game. This appeared to be Calgary’s for the taking as the Bombers lost both regular-season games against them, but Winnipeg pulled an upset with 35-14. For the Western final, they had to face Saskatchewan; another team that beat them in both regular-season games. Winnipeg seized control in the first quarter and maintained good enough attack and defense to deliver a 20-13 win.

Winnipeg has not won a Grey Cup since 1990. Here in the Grey Cup, they will be facing yet another team they lost to in both their regular-season games against them. They could pull off an upset if they start with Zach Collaros and Andrew Harris. Keep in mind Collaros led Saskatchewan to a win over Hamilton. So there’s plenty of chance for an upset over here. However it’s about having the right lineup at the start and the team to deliver.

EAST: HAMILTON TIGER-CATS

Hamilton TC

This year has been Hamilton’s year. They led the regular season with fifteen wins and three losses. They only had to play the Eastern final game in order to qualify for the Grey Cup and they did so in brilliant fashion: winning 36-16.

Like Winnipeg, Hamilton has had a long wait since their last Grey Cup: back in 1999. Hamilton beat Winnipeg in both regular-season games against them. Hamilton showed brilliant play in their win against Edmonton. Hamilton can do it again against Winnipeg. They have some of the best talent in the CFL. However some of their best players like Brandon Banks and Tevin Mitchell are injured. Winnipeg could use that as an advantage.

FINAL PREDICTION

Hamilton has been the team that’s been the most on all year and they show no signs of letting go. Winnipeg, on the other hand, appears to have arrived like never before at the playoffs and could carry their streak of success to a Grey Cup win. However I will have to go with my best instincts and pick Hamilton to win 35-19.

So there you have it. There’s my prediction for the 107th Grey Cup. However it will all be decided in McMahon Stadium on Sunday. Anything can happen.

Animated Movies Review

19 February 2018Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

2016 was a stellar year for animated movies from Zootopia to Moana to Kubo And The Two Strings to Finding Dory. 2016’s line-up gave people lots of reason to come to the movie theatres. 2017 was very lackluster in comparison. We’re talking about a year when The Boss Baby was nominated for Best Animated Feature and even the mere existence of The Emoji Movie. 2017 almost made it look like if Sausage Party were released that year instead, it would be a Best Animated Feature nominee! However the best animated movies of 2017 slowly made its way on the screen in the latter months of 2017. I was lucky to see Ferdinand, Coco and Loving Vincent: three of the best of the year.

Ferdinand

When I was about to see Ferdinand, I wondered how they would able to take the small story and turn it into a feature-length picture. I myself remember an animated short made by the Walt Disney studios made decades ago that was very humorous. However I wondered how would a feature-length adaptation play out?

The story starts out well with an entertaining look, but a bit of sadness at the beginning. As it progresses to adult Ferdinand, Ferdinand is funny and charming as a husky but flower-loving bull. John Cena adds to the characterization of full-grown Ferdinand. The characters of Lupe, Una and the other bulls add to the story.

There were times I wondered how will they get to where Ferdinand is scouted out by his accidental outburst? How will it be written out? Although it’s not true to the fable, the writers were able to create a way for Ferdinand to be discovered and sent to the bull rings to fight.

Another case that had me wondering was right in the middle of the story. It had me wondering how on earth the story would have a happy ending? Of course the film needed to have a kid-friendly happy ending, but in a situation where the bull either becomes a fighting bull who dies in the ring or to the slaughterhouse as meat? Nevertheless the writers were able to make the story work with good events to the plot and not just simply drag it out over the time. Even creating an ending where Ferdinand wins over the crowd and getting them to want him to live works for the film.

For the most part, Ferdinand is not all about the type of intricate story you’d expect to find in a Disney/Pixar film. Instead Ferdinand is about creating a charming modern adaptation of the short fable with charming and entertaining characters. It succeeds in charming the audience as well as entertaining the children. Despite the story being elongated into a feature-length picture, the film does not waste time. It succeeds in being entertaining. It also adds in some other elements that gets one nervous of what will happen to Ferdinand, even if they know the story. The story works in its feature-length and will not disappoint fans of the fable. It’s also good at winning crowds too as it made a good $282 million at the worldwide box office.

Coco

Very often you know the Disney/Pixar collaboration will deliver something fresh and original in its arsenal that’s able to win us over. This year, they deliver Coco. Coco is unique because it’s of a Mexican family situated in Mexico. The question is will they make something original and unique entertaining to the public?

The team of writers and animators at Disney/Pixar are known for their innovations and their frequently-successful way of trying new concepts. First there was 1995’s Toy Story: the first-ever 3D animated feature. Then came A Bug’s Life which created an engaging story revolving around insects. Then Finding Nemo not only told a story about fish, but successfully took us to another world. The Incredibles was good at teaching morals in an entertaining way. Ratatouille made an entertaining story involving a rat. Wall-E magically gave us an engaging story about two robots in love with very little dialogue. It was Brave where they not only gave us their first female protagonist, but welcomed a female writer on their ‘dream team.’ And there was Inside Out which made character out of emotions.

Coco is not just a new movie from the Disney/Pixar collaboration, but a new chapter for them. They hired Mexican/American writer Adrian Molina as the scriptwriter along with Matthew Aldrich. Molina had already been part of Pixar as a 2D animator for Ratatouille, a storyboard artists for Toy Story 3 and Monsters University, and even wrote the script for Walt Disney Studios’ The Good Dinosaur. The voice cast is predominantly of Mexicans or Mexican Americans. Disney/Pixar even hired a ‘cultural consultant’ group of three Mexican-Americans including one former CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corp to make sure they were doing a film respectful of Mexican people.

The result is a film that has garnered praise even from both critics and even Mexican-American communities. The film even received excellent reviews from Latin American film critics. The film was also a top box office winner having grossed $730 million so far. Even in Mexico, it spent three weeks at #1 in the Mexican box office and grossed a total of $57.8 million in Mexico.

Now the film itself does what Disney/Pixar films have a reputation for: taking the audience to a new world. Here they give an excellent depiction of the Land Of The Dead that looks very intricate and maybe too big, but succeeds in making sense to the viewer. Once again the animation team does an excellent job in creating this new world and even the smallest detail is done with perfection. Once again Disney/Pixar is tops in animation quality.

However there was one time I was confused by the story. I’ll admit like most, I thought Ernesto was the great-great-grandfather. I was shocked when I learned that Ernesto killed Hector with poison. It left me wondering if Miguel’s great-great-grandfather was in fact a dirty killer. Even seeing Ernesto send Miguel to die in the cenote pit left me shocked. ‘Why would Ernesto do this to his own great-great-grandson?’ It’s in the pit with Hector that we learn that Hector is really the great-great-grandfather. That was a relief. It was there where it became better sense why Miguel needed to redeem the name of the family through the spirit of Hector. The story was very well-written and very entertaining. Also the song ‘Remember Me’ is an excellent song for the movie that makes for the perfect tearjerker moment you don’t feel manipulated by.

One again Disney/Pixar delivers a masterpiece in Coco. It is as top-quality as it is magical to watch.

kinopoisk.ru

Loving Vincent

Now the previous two films in which I just talked about are both the more family-friendly films. Loving Vincent is the polar opposite of both. It’s not cute, it’s less family-friendly, and it’s not even 3D computerized animation. It also didn’t even make $10 million at the box office. Nevertheless it is charming in its own ways.

The film is a plot where Armand Roulin is asked by his father Joseph to deliver a letter from Vincent Van Gogh who died a year earlier to his brother Theo. After learning Theo died, Armand looks to find the right person to give the letter to. Throughout the journey, Armand tries to get the answer to whether Vincent’s death was a suicide or not? He was released from a hospital after found to be in good mental capacity six weeks before.

Armand comes across many people in Vincent’s life. Some have positive things to say. Some negative things. All have something to say about the person of Vincent, the various people he met with or fought against, and his personal feelings before his death. This still leaves Armand confused and his question of Vincent’s death unanswered. It’s right after Dr. Gachet promises to give the letter to Theo’s widow that he learns van Gogh’s suicide wasn’t of mental agony, but to free himself and his brother. Later Armand receives a letter from Theo’s widow thanking him.

This animated film about Vincent Van Gogh couldn’t be a simple animated film. Instead this is a film in which the images were done by 100 painters trained to paint like Van Gogh. The object of the film was to create a story involving characters of people Van Gogh painted and was close to in his life across a backdrop that’s just like the paintings he painted. Basically an animated story about Van Gogh that captures the essence of Van Gogh’s art. The story may be fictional, but it succeeds in playing out like a Van Gogh painting. It even gets one that knows very little about Van Gogh’s works or his life intrigued. It even gets fans of Van Gogh’s art admiring the film for capturing the essence of the artist and his works. I also like how the film ended as “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” was playing. It would make those who never understood what the song was all about understand it better.

So there’s my look at three of the best animated films of 2017. All three are nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. All three are enjoyable in their own way.

My Top 10 Movies of 2013

21 July 2014Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

I’m glad I waited until now to do my Top 10 list. Being at a house with access to Netflix allows me to see some I missed back when they were out. For early reference, here are my past lists: from 2002-2010, 2011 and 2012. Now here’s my list of the Top 10 Films of 2013 and five honorable mention picks:

MY TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2013

Nebraska
Dallas Buyers Club
Twelve Years A Slave
Gravity
The Great Beauty
Captain Phillips
Blue Jasmine
Her
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Frozen

Honorable Mention:

Blue Is The Warmest Color
Philomena
Inside Llewyn Davis
American Hustle
Before Midnight

DVD Review: Blue Jasmine

1 March 20141 March 2014Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a socialite with all the wrong moves, in Blue Jasmine. — Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a socialite with all the wrong moves, in *Blue Jasmine*.

I’ll admit I did not see Blue Jasmine when it first came out in theatres. The Oscar buzz for it prompted me to watch the DVD. I’m glad it did and now I know why it’s buzzing.

Jasmine comes off a plane from New York to San Francisco. She tells the elderly female passenger next to her the story of how she used to be a top socialite in New York but is near broke and hoping to start a new life. She appears to have impressed the passenger but we learn in a conversation to her husband she didn’t welcome herself to Jasmine. Jasmine then goes to her sister Ginger’s apartment. The bizarre thing is Jasmine hardly ever gives Ginger any contact but is now seeing her because of her dire straits. It’s funny since Ginger–whom is actually sister to Jasmine via her parents’ adoption–always credited Jasmine as having the good genes. The problem is that even though Jasmine is drowning in debt, she’s still set in her opulent ways.

Frequently Jasmine flashes back to her luxurious past with her husband Hal and her stepson Danny. Life was good for Jasmine and Hal appeared to be very successful as an investor It’s years ago when Ginger and her original husband Augie come to visit her in New York that things started to decline. First Jasmine offers an investment opportunity for Augie through Hal with the $200,000 he won in the lottery: money Augie was planning to use to start a business opportunity for himself. Augie and Ginger thought they’re being treated by Jasmine with a stay at the Marriott and their car and driver but Jasmine put them there because they cramped her style. It’s right during one of their sightseeing tours they noticed Hal kissing another woman.

It later became clear that Hal is a fraudster who would eventually get arrested, convicted of fraud, sentenced to prison and later committing suicide. Augie’s money was lost and it led to Augie and Ginger’s divorce. Ginger forgives Jasmine even though Augie is still resentful but is now dating a mechanic named Chili, a man Jasmine resents at first sight and gives Ginger snide remarks about him. The remarks cause Ginger to leave Chili much to his hurt.

Jasmine comes to San Francisco in hopes of starting a new life. She missed completing her anthropology degree because she fell for Hal. She wants to become an interior designer but has to take courses online and lacks computer skills. She reluctantly takes a job as a receptionist at a dentist’s office. Nevertheless it does not work out as Jasmine finds the job too stressful for her and receives unwelcomed sexual advances from the dentist.

Things do improve for Jasmine as she falls in love with a wealthy widower named Dwight who’s a diplomat with plans to become a congressman. Ginger also meets a new love named Al at the same party. Jasmine is able to win Dwight’s affection through lies of her being married to a doctor who died of a heart attack. The lies fall through when Augie bumps into them on the street and tells the whole story, including the details that her stepson Danny is working in a record store in Oakland. Right in the car ride home Dwight calls off the engagement and leaves Jasmine on the street. She visits Danny at the record store to no avail. Danny didn’t even want Jasmine to know his whereabouts. He wants to leave the past behind which means never seeing Jasmine again.

It’s right in a flashback at the end we learn of when Jasmine confronted Hal of his many affairs. Hal confesses he wants to divorce her in favor of a teenage maid for Danny. That was when she called the police and had Hal arrested for fraud which led to his imprisonment and suicide. In the end, Jasmine has to face the music for what she did to Danny, to Augie, for her interference with the love between Ginger and Chili, and herself in general.

It seems odd at first to see a Woody Allen movie classified as a drama. We’re all used to Woody Allen doing comedies. Mind you it’s after seeing this movie that there are a lot of elements that are darker than what one would expect in a Woody Allen film. It succeeds in not being too comical and even serious in some of the harsher parts of the movie. Nevertheless there are a lot of comical elements in this film despite the situation.

If there’s one thing that it does have in common with Woody Allen movies, it’s that it ends completely unexpectedly. It’s bizarre that you think things are going to go better for Jasmine in the end. Instead it all ends up worse, she fails at making peace with whatever wrongs of the past she did, whatever improvements in her own life fell through the cracks and she’s left all alone. She’s even confronted of her real name: Jeanette. She is the type of rich phony whom could easily charm and impress anyone but had a lot to hide and hid it well at the time. In the end, she has nothing left to hide and no one left to charm. She goes from being the life of the party to a person not even one on a park bench would want to be around. It’s also surprising since Jasmine would remind some of Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with The Wind. Sure, Scarlett lost it all in the end too but she still held her head high at the very end with a sense of hope. Here, you don’t see a hint of ‘Tomorrow is another day’ in Jasmine.

Sometimes I think it’s not just a story to do about a socialite who gets a reality check but sometimes I think it’s a message from Woody Allen. For all intents and purposes, you’d probably know that Woody Allen is not the type who likes to go to big Hollywood parties. He hardly even makes visits to the Academy Awards. Sometimes I think his is his statement about the social scene and the phonies involved with it. It’s also a story with a lot of good relevance. It may have been more relevant had it been done ten years ago as Paris Hilton was constantly embarrassing moment after embarrassing moment upon herself, and getting more famous off of it in the meantime. Nevertheless it still does show relevance as Kim Kardashian’s exploits still make a lot of copy, if not the same hugeness of copy as say two years ago.

Yes, Woody Allen did a very good job of directing and writing this story but it was Cate Blanchett who did the greatest effort in making the character of Jasmine. The interesting thing is that Cate succeeds in making Jasmine to be the charismatic but snooty, phony, superficial, self-indulgent, materialistic socialite who deserves to be looked down upon. But she does something else. Right at the very end, she succeeds in making us actually feel from sympathy for Jasmine. Sure she went from impressing everybody to causing great personal and financial harm to others and ending up with nobody. But for some reason, the end scene actually succeeds in making us feel for Jasmine. What was it? Her willingness to try to do better? Her coming to her senses too much too late? Whatever it was, that was something hard to do and I give Cate great kudos for pulling that off. I think that’s why she has that edge in the Oscar race.

The best supporting performance has to go to Sally Hawkins as Ginger: the sister that’s supposedly the inferior one but comes off as the winner in the end. Sally also did a very good job of character acting and made Ginger into a believable and colorful personality. Finally we see which sister has the ‘good genes.’ The female leading roles were the best of the film but the male roles were also great from Alec Baldwin playing the scamming superficial Hal, to Bobby Canavale as the ‘inferior’ Chili, to Michael Stuhlbarg as the sleazy dentist, to Peter Saarsgard as the politician Jasmine has a second-chance with to Andrew Dice Clay as the distraught ex-husband of Ginger (and I hardly noticed any of the ‘Dice Man’ in him). The women ruled the movie but the male supporting roles also added to the story and contained character flares of their own. The movie didn’t really have too many stand-out technical aspects but the scenic cinematography and the music tracks added to the movies charm.

Blue Jasmine has all the ingredients of a Woody Allen movie. Only it’s more of a drama than a comedy. Nevertheless it’s something Woody and the actors pull off excellently to make it work.

VIFF 2013 Review: Blue Is The Warmest Color (La Vie d’Adèle)

28 September 201328 September 2013Jon The Blogcentric6 Comments

Blue Is The Warmest Color is a French lesbian love story that tells more than just a story. — *Blue Is The Warmest Color* is a French lesbian love story that tells more than just a story.

One of the biggest attractions at this year’s Vancouver Film Festival is the French film Blue Is The Warmest Color. The win at the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film festival will make it an attraction, no doubt. There are some that already know what it’s about and others that don’t. The question is will the crowds be satisfied?

The story starts with Adèle, a young high school student from Paris nearing adulthood and trying to decide what she wants to do with her life especially in times when Europe is going through economic troubles. She’s very involved with her job at day care, but lost in thought during school and unhappy in her relationship with Thomas. She soon leans of her lesbian attractions and starts trying to get as better understanding of it. She even breaks up with Thomas in the process.

Her gay friends from high school introduce her to Paris’ gay scene. She’s exposed to gay culture at one gay bar then visits a lesbian bar for the first time where she meet a tomboy woman with blue hair named Emma. Emma not only introduces Adèle to the lesbian scene but also to her work as an artist. Adèle’s high school friends are surprised with her relationship with Emma but over time the relationship goes from being simply Adèle being the subject of Emma’s art to a full intimate relationship. They share everything. Both are also good with each other’s parents. Both are also supportive as Emma helps with Adèle’s 18th birthday and Adèle cooks for Emma’s art party.

Things mark a turning point at Emma’s art party as Adèle senses something between Emma and Lise, her artistic colleague. Adèle also senses the advances of her boss from the daycare she works at. Eventually she does engage with her boss only for Emma to find out. Emma breaks up with Adèle in a rage leaving Adele frustrated and heartbroken. Months pass and Adèle is now a first grade schoolteacher. Emma is soon to have her first art exhibit opening. They meet again in a café to try and resolve what they can only for Adèle to learn a hard new truth. Adèle goes to the exhibit opening only to leave heartbroken but older and wiser.

The surprising thing about this is how this film tries to portray a relationship between two young girls. Its biggest quality was its truthfulness. It showed a girl-meets-girl scenario that’s often the common way two meet. It shows the relationship and how the two share so much with each other that almost mirrors other relationships. It also shows the friction in relationships with being attracted to another person, infidelity, break-up and aftermath that you will notice in other relationships. I believe that’s the biggest thing about this film. This is not a film that aims for heavy intense dramatic story but rather a film of a lesbian relationship between two young girls that mirrors most relationships people have or have had, possibly even one of your own.

It’s not only about the relationship in the film but also as much about the two main characters too. Adèle is turning 18 and in the midst of deciding what she wants to do with the rest of her life, eventually setting on teaching elementary school. Emma is an older art student and she’s disinterested in conforming to the expectations of the world nor to the art business. Adèle has just recently learned of her same-sex attraction. She slowly tries to learn about it and welcomes it when Emma comes into her life, but questions if she still has attractions and feeling to men. Emma on the other hand knew of her lesbian attraction at 14 and became very comfortable with it. The personality traits of both adds to the story of the relationship as it shows that opposites can attract. It also shows how the two personalities cause friction as Adèle has the common immaturities with an 18 year-old and Emma is a free person but with a fierce attitude.

One of the things of the movie is that it also brings up certain forms of thought. It should not be surprising because Adèle is a student just learning and it’s the student years where one tries to expand their mind. Emma makes mention of Sartre and him creating a intellectual revolution in saying we are ‘condemned to be free.’ Another time we’re in one of Adèle’s science classes seeing a lesson in gravity and one student talks of unavoidable vices and how the Catholic Church tells us that vices should be avoided. There’s also the division of the arts world and the business world that’s also present in the film. Adèle embraces the arts greatly in her own way but wants a career that’s stable especially since the future of the young of France looks uncertain and chooses teaching. Emma on the other hand wants to do what she wants to do and paint what she wants to paint and resists offers to ‘market’ her talent. That pressure of the dilemma of doing what one is born to do vs. doing what pays the rent is a common pressure in the minds of a lot of young people during those years. I remember it was even a pressure for me when I was a college student.

Without a doubt, the biggest thing that got me thinking were the graphic lesbian sex scenes. I know that sex scenes are choreographed but I was still surprised in seeing it’s explicitness. Even though I learned just now that fake genitalia were used, there’s no question that there will be many who will label it ‘pornography.’ In fact the producers refused to edit the film for release in the US and that got it an NC-17 rating.

In all frankness, I did find this a very revealing and intimate look at a lesbian couple but nevertheless I found this film to be too long. I believe if a film is going to be 3 hours long, it should justify its purpose. I really question whether 179 minutes is really necessary for that film because it didn’t appear to justify its length of time. I’m sure the film could’ve done as good a job of telling the story of the relationship if it was even two hours. There are even times when I question if that heavy-duty sexual activity, especially the impulsive activity in the café near the end, really added to the story or was included for shock value. That’s the problem with over-the-top sex scenes in movies: it may be intended for the story but could be taken the wrong way with the public. In fact there were times my ‘inner teenager’ felt like saying: “Owww! Get down!”

The best quality was the acting. Adèle Exarchopoulos did a very good job not just of portraying a young lesbian but also of a young teenage girl on the verge of womanhood. Her mix of a character who’s on the verge of adulthood trying to be more responsible but also dealing with her own immaturities, both behavioral and sexual, made Adèle very believable as a young woman. Lea Seydoux did a great job of playing Emma, the older freer one who’s in control. For those who didn’t notice, Lea is the one who won Owen Wilson’s heart in Midnight In Paris. It’s surprising how she’s completely unrecognizable here. She did a very good job of character transformation. Director/writer Abdelatif Kechiche was really daring in his subject matter and his adaptation of the story. I checked his Wikipedia profile and there’s no mention of himself being gay. Nevertheless He did an excellent job of taking the relationship and making it look so relatable.

The question will remain will Blue Is The Warmest Color go well with the movie-going public? Marketing gay-themes movies to the general public is not an easy task especially with the predominantly heterosexual crowd. Yes there have been films of gay characters and gay relationships that have scored well like Philadelphia, The Hours, Brokeback Mountain and Milk, but it’s still a chancy thing that’s still hit-and-miss with no proven consistent results. Even this being a French-language film may cause some difficulties. I even question if a film like this will score well with the LGBT populations in North America. We should also take in mind that living as a gay man or lesbian in Europe is a lot different that living as a gay man or lesbian in North America. Two different continents with two different social attitudes. Something I question.

Blue Is The Warmest Color is a unique film in its portrayal of a lesbian couple. It has a lot of good qualities that make it worth watching for some but not for others. It all boils down to the individual audient and their tastes and tolerances to decide if this is the right film for them or not.

Grey Cup 2011

25 November 201124 November 2012Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

On Sunday November 27th, fans of Canadian Football will have all their attention fixed on the newly renovated BC Place Stadium for the 99th Annual Grey Cup. For those unfamiliar with Canadian Football or even the Canadian Football League (CFL), the Grey Cup is to Canadian Football what the Super Bowl is to American Football. This year, the rivalry between East and West over the Cup will be the BC Lions against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

For those non-Canadians unfamiliar with the CFL, the CFL is as much a part of Canadiana as the NFL is to Americana. The Grey Cup has been part of league football in Canada since 1909 but it wasn’t until the CFL formed in1958 that the Grey Cup was a permanent fixture in Canadiana. For the most part, the CFL consists of nine teams except when something goes wrong with one of them. Usually there is at least one city that has problems with their CFL team. In the 80’s and 90’s, it was Montreal. Now it’s Ottawa. But don’t worry. Ottawa will be returning in 2013. Plus there’s talk of possible franchises in the future from Quebec City or Halifax.

For the most part, the CFL has been happy to be Canada’s own football league. For many decades, it didn’t worry about competing with the NFL because it knew it had a very solid dedicated base in Canada. Things became uncomfortable in the late 80’s when the CFL tried attracting new players to the league but couldn’t compete with the big salaries of the NFL teams. In the 90’s, the CFL tried things like offer a $5 million annual salary to Raghib ‘Rocket’ Ismael to join the Toronto Argonauts in 1991. It turned out to a success for that one year. Sure the Rocket and the Argos won the Grey Cup that year but the Rocket’s career went downhill after that. The success of the Rocket led to the CFL to form franchises in cities like Sacramento, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Shreveport. In 1995 Birmingham and Memphis entered the league. The 1995 Grey Cup came as a shocker as the Baltimore Stallions won; the only time an American team won the Grey Cup. After a lot of business issues and bad management from some American teams, the CFL returned to being based completely in Canada since 1996 and we’re happy to keep it that way.

Nowadays, the CFL does not need to seek out ways to try to reach the popularity level or moneymaking level of the NFL. Ever since the CFL stopped its expansion into the US, they were reminded again that they can hold their own with loyal Canadian fans. The CFL has the seventh-highest per-game attendance average of 27,000. Its average may be less than that of Major League Baseball and not even half that of the NFL but it has a higher average than the top soccer leagues of Mexico, Italy, Argentina, France and even Brazil. Yeah, that well-attended.

BC Place and its new roof on its opening night.

This year’s Grey Cup will prove to be an exciting match. Firstly because it is held in BC Place with the new roof. Before the 2010 Winter Olympics, there was a demand for a new roof for the stadium as the air-supported ETFE roof had a tear in 2007. The construction of the new roof began after the 2010 Paralympics and was completed on September 30 of this year. During that time, the Lions returned to the dismantled Empire Field and played in a stadium consisting completely of 25,000 temporary seats. This was quite an experience for me as I saw the Lions’ fourth game of theis season in that temporary stadium. A lot of banging, that’s for sure. As for BC Place’s new roof, it’s more high-tech and doesn’t require so much air pressure to keep it up. The scoreboard is supported by 36 cables connected to its own mast. The top of the Stadium consists of lighted glass. Looks great from the outside, but now that people couldn’t call BC Place ‘The Marshmallow’ anymore, what could they call it? My pick for the name would be ‘The Crown’. Anyways in the very first year of BC Place being ‘The Crown’, it appropriately hosts the Grey Cup this year. This year the race for the Grey Cup has narrowed the field down to its East and West contenders: the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the home team BC Lions. Here’s a wrap-up on how the two stack up:

BC LIONS

Another pic of the newly renovated BC Place at night.

If one would say at the beginning of the CFL season that the Lions would be in the Grey Cup, most would be laughing. The start of the regular season for the Lions was depressing and even frustrating for fans. The first five games were straight losses. Even I attended the fourth game, against Hamilton, and witnessed the loss. Their sixth game was a win against Saskatchewan only to follow it us with a loss against Edmonton. After that, it was like a miracle turnaround. Eight straight wins propelling themselves to the top of the CFL. There was only one loss after the sixth game, and that was against Hamilton in their 16th game in the regular season. By finishing atop the West Division, they only had to wait until the Division Finals to play their first and only playoff game against Edmonton, in which they won 40-23.

Overall, the 2011 Lions have had an excellent season with 11 wins and 7 losses. They became the first team in CFL history to lose their first five games only to end regular season on top of the CFL. Many teams they lost to at the start of the season they were able to beat in matches later in the season. The only two teams the Lions did not win against this season were the Hamilton TiCats and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. This may come as an Achilles heel for the Lions as they will face Winnipeg for the Cup, and Winnipeg beat Hamilton en route to their East division berth for the Cup. However it may not be a glitch as we should remember that the two losses to Winnipeg came in its first seven games of the season. The Lions have sure changes since then and they could be ready for Winnipeg this time.

Also a bit of Grey Cup trivia. This year’s Grey Cup may come in the first year of BC Place’s new roof but BC Place hosted the Grey Cup in its opening year: 1983. Like this year, the Lions played in the Cup. Unfortunately they lost. Actually of the three times BC both played in and hosted the Grey Cup, only once were they the Cup winners. Something to think about for Sunday.

WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS

The Bombers finished atop the East Division with 10 wins and eight losses. Sounds impressive at first but while the Lions started their regular season weak and ended strong, the Bombers started strong and ended weak. They started off impressively winning all but one of their first eight games of regular season. However there was a surprise turnabout as the Bombers would only win three of the last ten games of regular season. They were known for their strong defence but many of their top defencemen were injured later on in the season. By finishing atop the East division, their only playoff game was the division Final against Hamilton which they won 19-3. If their strength from the beginning of the season has returned to form, then they should be able to beat the Lions for the Cup. It may not be 100% as some of their top defencemen are too injured to play in the Grey Cup. If Winnipeg’s defence is still strong, it will be decided in the play for the Cup.

One additional note. While Winnipeg had its own challenges on the playing field, its biggest news this season was of the loss of their Assistant Coach Richard Harris. Harris collapsed at the CanadInns Stadium on Tuesday, July 26 and died that afternoon. He was 63. He was promoted to Assistant Coach this season after being their Defensive Line Coach since 2006. This also came as a loss for the Lions too as he was their Defensive Line Coach from 2011 to 2004. Surely Coach Harris will be on the minds of the Bombers when they play the Grey Cup on Sunday.

For me, it’s hard for me to pick who will win or who I should cheer for. I was born in Winnipeg and lived there most of my life. However I’ve made a home for myself in Vancouver these past ten years. BC has only won the Cup five times compared to ten for Winnipeg, but Winnipeg hasn’t won the Cup since 1990 while BC’s last won the Cup five years ago. Anyways I decided not to cheer for either team and let the game decide the better team. Anyways, Go Bombers! Go Lions! May the best team win!