Sunday, October 08, 2006

Clever Title With the Word Pop In It

Impossible to ignore. Last night, walking from FilmPop at the Portuguese Association on St. Urbain to see if we could still get into Holy Fuck and Besnard Lakes (no), you could really see what Pop Montreal is all about. St. Laurent was covered in youth, roaming the venues, hanging around outside the sold out shows, riding from one place to another with just enough time to grab a samosa on the way.

I saw the most hilarious movie about a Posthumous Pickle Party at FilmPop. Some very enthusiastic guys decided to make a movie about eating pickles from the last vat left over by Simcha, deceased owner of Simcha's Fruit & Vegetable Market on St. Laurent and ... I'm drawing a blank, is it Napoleon? Anyway, they go in there, talk to people who knew Simcha (turns out he was "so old school, he hated you"), get a food critic, and have funny rants about the whole thing. My favourite part is when they ask his wife (in a clip from a 1997 movie) how long they've been married... you just have got to see her non-answer. Oh, and some people in far off countries will recall a non-stop-talking American student who was living here last year, Adam. He shows up in the movie! The ironic thing is he doesn't talk at all in it, haha. Ah...

That movie was well worth my $6 and a one-hour wait for the whole thing to start properly. The director did a very commendable job of keeping us entertained with a random Q&A session (sample question "why doesn't he love me?") and a bag of cookies passed around. Mr. Pacino/Serpico, aka Nick from Korova was there, and I was going to ask him WTF is the matter with Kojak (aka Jose, the hideous owner I described earlier) but I left and forgot about it.

In Pop Gossip: An unnamed samosa eater told me about an email the foulmouthed-circus-ringmaster front man for Friendly Rich and the Lollipop People sent Dan Seligman, the guy who basically runs this festival. It was about how horrible a venue BarFly is (the sound was preposterously bad on Friday), respecting artists and whatnot. My source said he'd forward it to me - Can't wait!

Without a show to go to, Ian and I waddled back to Brian's for Goldshlager and graphic images of hockey players and their jugular vein. And BUT OF COURSE we ended up at a nicely vacated Korova (only for kids like us who couldn't get into see any bands elsewhere). My newest tactic: buy nothing! And drink all their free water! The music was a lot "whiter" than usual but what the hey, Laura, Ian, Courtney the Girl, Brian and I danced it up anyway. I can't remember if Brian took off his shirt this time.

I'm missing the movie Mutual Appreciation right now because I cannot leave my apartment in my combo pyjamas/what-I-wore-last-night. It's a beautiful day but Pop Montreal requires more energy than I've got. I don't think I'll make it to Reg-ee-na Reg-eye-na Spektor tonight. Gotta rest up for Thanksgiving celebrations with diverse foster families tonight and tomorrow. The laundry stays undone...

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Hola. Lástima que no sé inglés. O sea igual algo podría hacer con diccionario y su traductor on line, pero sería un proceso muy desgastador y extenso.
Bueno los saludos son universales.
Suerte...

Amy said...

simcha's place was on the corner of st. laruent and napoleon. and i never saw him hate. i used to have long conversations with the guy. he even invited me a few times to have dinner with him. he said that was they only way i'd ever share a beer with him. i remember when he took his wife on vacation right before she died. learning of his death was really sad for me. it seemed to mark the end of an era. i hope he was portrayed in a flattering light...

Anonymous said...

Saint Simcha

Man! I hated going into Simcha's. I would see some nicely priced, fair to decent (never good) quality veggies on a sidewalk table, enter the store only to be pushed back by the aura of old-country black-tobacco smoke. Puaj! City inspectors apparently did not mess with old Simcha, they just outlasted him.

Why is it that when he passed away, pop culture turned him into a saint? Just like they did with Saint The Great Antonio!

Anonymous said...



A Victor Hugo
, (mini-me del Monstruo de la franlit)

Debemos recordarle que ignorancia de la la ley o las lenguas no es excusa.

¡Vitocóoo! ¡Testai perdiendo custiones muy reinteresantes por no dentender gringlés!

Heather said...

I've never heard of FilmPop. Is it a new festival?

Isabel said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Amy: Simcha was indeed portrayed in a very kind way. That's why it was actually really funny when they revealed his "grouchy" side.
And there was a girl in the movie, an artist who looked incredibly familiar, who also was invited to dinners with Simcha. She said they would eat next door, at the Portuguese place, and he would bring his own tomato everytime. Hilarious.
Papa: tambien admitian que la calidad de la verdura era pesima!
Heather: FilmPop is part of the Pop Montreal festival. Did you hear about it? If not, drop me a line and I'll fill you in. It's worth it.

Eve said...

A posthumous pickly party? Sounds like my kind of place!

And goldschlager...yikes. There's something really midieval about drinking gold though - medievally excessive.

Ezra Soiferman said...

Hi!

I'm the director of Posthumous Pickle Party. Thanks for the great review of the film!

Just to let you all know it'll be playing at the Rendez-vous du cinéma Quebecois on Thursday, Feb. 22nd at 7:15pm at the NFB Cinema on St-Denis. See you all there hopefully.

Ezra

Ezra Soiferman
http://ezsezblog.blogspot.com/

 
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