You can always go... downtown.

A Beck Taxi travelling south along Yonge street.

After doing the weekly dim sum thing. I decided to walk around downtown. I ended up looking at different camera stores and noticed one of the ones I usually go to has been replaced by a book store. (For those living in the Toronto area it's the one across from Sam the record man). "There have been a number of stores to close" says shop keeper Roger of Monster Records. His customers would file in from the theatre crowd. Now that the Uptown theatre is just a pile of rubble there are no movie goers lingering around the area and popping into the store.

Bakka Books, a sci-fi bookstore, which was once located on Queen street moved to Yonge street just south of Monster Records. It has now moved back to Queen west as of the first of this month. I am keeping my fingers crossed for Monster Records. Where else can you get 70s action figures, posters, music CDs, books and used AC/DC cds in Toronto? Monster Records actually has a KISS (lick it up, shout it out loud, I was made for lovin you) wall. Roger pushed the "Back in Black" album (cd) on me today. Well okay it's not like he had to twist my arm.

My little short went over well at the IATSE screening. The other short movies were incredible. That is to say they looked really well shot. After going through the program I noticed that everyone (the other eight) that submitted an entry were all DPs or Directors. I was the only one listed as an animator. I felt intimidated. At least until the films actually played out. There were two films that stood out. One was about a boy doodling in class. It reminded me of the film "The Red Balloon". The other was called "Just Reward". It was a short about two hosers that meet up with a bank robber. Very funny.

The other films reminded me of something I would see at art school. Visually stunning, heavy handed, look for the symbolism, and kind of boring, with bad sound or bad music films. Some of them were even supported by the National Film Bored (whoops... Board). Yikes!