Humm Online Exclusives - January 2016

Creping Around Town

Our food columnist, Sebastian Weetabix, has these additional crepe resources for you:

• What's the difference between a crepe and a blintz?
• Various ways of spreading crepe batter (video from Krampouz)
• Makin' Crepes! Part 2 - On the Pan (video tutorial)

Films of 2015 - The Best & The Worst

Here you can read Matt Roche's complete Top 10 list (the paper version of theHumm only contains #1-5):

10. Inside Out (Pete Docter)
One of Pixar’s finest films, Inside Out is endlessly creative. We arrive in the mind of a young girl and meet her emotions, voiced by a pitch perfect cast: Joy (Amy Poehler), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). While the young girl matures and has conflicting emotions, we are sent on a wondrous journey through her mind and watch as her own emotions grapple with the change in poignant and hilarious adventures. Inside Out is a joy to watch and it`s unlikely you will ever see anything like it again.

9. Trainwreck (Judd Apatow)
Trainwreck is probably the funniest film of the year. Written by and starring Amy Schumer (who deserves an Oscar nomination for her screenplay), the film shows us what it’s like for someone with a commitment phobia to have an identity crisis. It's is all done with sharp wit and insight and what could have been another formulaic, typically low-brow comedy of the genre, is instead a brave, intelligent and hysterical film.

8.  The Martian (Ridley Scott)
Matt Damon is stranded on Mars. Luckily, Mars is gorgeous, and Scott`s visual effects team did a tremendous job turning the deserts of Jordan into the barren, vast red planet. Damon’s charismatic astronaut Matt Watney uses every trick in the book to keep himself alive while NASA figures out how to get him home alive.  It`s Damon`s performance and Drew Goddard`s impressive screenplay that meld together painfully accurate depictions with a surprising amount of humour that makes this film so exceptional. The Martian is one of the best science fiction films I have seen in a long time. It`s nice to see Scott back in familiar territory and proving yet again why he is one of the great filmmakers of our time.

7. Beasts of No Nation (Cary Joji Fukunaga)
Writer/director Fukunaga, who directed the brilliant first season of ‘True Detective’, has given us another amazing piece of work. At the center of the film we have two powerful performances by Abraham Attah (in his acting début) and Idris Elba (a shoe-in for a nomination). It tells the tale of Agu (Attah), a young boy in an unnamed African country who falls into the hands of the domineering Commandant (Elba), the leader of a battalion of child soldiers. Berated and challenged and exhausted by the sociopathic Commandant, Agu fights the anger, the confusion and the moral ambiguity, trying desperately to find peace. Beasts of No Nation is a gripping, brutal film.

6. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
Sicario (which is Spanish for “hitman”), is an intense, expertly constructed, slow burner of a film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. Hitchcock would have been proud. The entire cast is great here, with Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and especially Benicio Del Toro all delivering noteworthy performances. The screenplay by Taylor Sheridan is as taut and intricate and gripping as the visual ride Villeneuve takes us on. Dealing with drug smuggling, it is both a cautionary tale as well as a heart-pounding thriller. The scene on a gridlocked freeway in Juarez is worth admission alone.

5. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
The Lobster is an acquired taste. If you are at all familiar with Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimas or his films (especially Dogtooth), you will know what to expect: absurdity at its finest. Not since Luis Buñuel passed away has a filmmaker achieved such heights of contemporary absurdist filmmaking.  With The Lobster, Lanthimos has given us his finest film yet, which also happens to be his English language début. Starring Colin Ferrell, Rachel Weisz and Léa Seydoux, The Lobster shows an alternate reality where coupling is mandatory, and if your spouse leaves you you must go to a hotel for 45 days to find another mate. If you fail, you get turned into an animal of your choosing. Now, I’m sure there is an allegory here alluding to contempt of marriage and conformity but you can never know for sure, which is what makes the film so fascinating. It’s beautifully shot, filled with marvellously dry humour and a wonderful deadpan performance from Ferrell.  The Lobster is vivid and abstract and overwhelming, and one of the finest films of the year.

4. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
This is George Miller’s fourth installment to his franchise and it’s also his best. Everything you’d expect is delivered here in spades. Fury Road is essentially one massive chase through a barren wasteland. There is non-stop action and some of the best cinematography of the year. The action is all realistic and authentic; not a stitch of CGI was used in the making of these scenes (except for one scene involving an insane sandstorm) and it’s a testament to Miller’s perseverance to bring this action fable to theatres. Mad Max: Fury Road is the most fun you will have at the theatre this year.

3. Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
Ex Machina is writer Alex Garland’s directorial début and he has made a spellbinding, impeccably realized film. Like this year’s Chappie, it deals with the dangers of an artificial intelligence become self-aware. Garland has created a haunting, subtle film that tackles these issues in a very clever, abstract way, leaving us wondering what exactly happened.

2. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
With It Follows, writer/director David Robert Mitchell has created a truly elegant horror film. His minimalist approach to his material allows the haunting visuals and unbearable tension to rise to a visceral, metaphysical level. Not only is the film an homage to the genre, it is also a highly original and horrifying film that will no doubt become itself a classic. With a brilliantly simple plot and a cast of talented newcomers, It Follows is one of the scariest and one of the best films of the year.

1. The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu)
Without question this year’s finest film, as expected, is Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant — an unrelenting, shocking, breathtaking film.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy have never been better and will get Oscar nominations, if not wins, for their respective performances. And as with last year’s Birdman, Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have given us another virtuoso performance, showing off unbelievably complicated and ambitious camera shots, capturing shocking and beautiful images, creating moments I will never forget. Even writing this I cannot describe the terror I felt when the bear attacked DiCaprio and I screamed out loud, or the absolute disgust I felt for Hardy’s slimy character Fitzgerald, or the awe of following Iñárritu’s camera around, taking in all the beauty and horror. The Revenant is so intense, so elemental, so compelling, it’s a wonder it even got made. It was shot in isolated locations with the cast and crew enduring harsh weather conditions, the production going over-schedule and over-budget, crew members quitting, and Iñárritu’s needing to have a lens created to capture natural light (no unnatural or electrical lighting was used in any way during filming). Yet much like Coppola’s Apocalypse Now production hell, brilliance emerged through the madness. At 2 hours and 36 minutes, you’ll be riveted the entire time, though it is not for the faint of heart. The Revenant is one of the best films of the last twenty years and the must-see film of the year.

And if I may be so bold, I predict Iñárritu will make another Oscar sweep this year, and he couldn’t be more deserving.

A Booklist for the New Year

If you need some help or inspiration to form and stick with resolutions in the coming year, check out these titles, recommended by Kelly Thompson of Renfrew Public Library:

Yesterday Plus: The Simple Art of Making Every Day Better Than the One Before by N.C. Garcia
Meet the New You: A 21-Day Plan for Embracing Fresh Attitudes and Focused Habits for Real Life by Elisa Pulliam
Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin

And if the stress becomes too much, go to: http://www.coloring-pages-adults.com/
Free downloadable colouring pages for adults…a fun way to relax!

In a strange twist of fate, Kelly Thompson was born and raised in Burnstown until the age of 13, and was an avid user of the Renfrew Public Library which she now manages. During her undergrad years at the University of Ottawa, she was hired as a summer student at the Renfrew Library. It was during that summer she realized (1) that she no longer wanted to be a teacher, and (2) that she had no clue how to go about working in a public library. After completing her degree, she returned to the Ottawa Valley in 1995. She was eventually hired to look after the children’s department at the Deep River Public Library, and the rest is history. She currently resides in the lovely town of Eganville with her 14-year-old daughter Lily, a mastiff/St. Bernard mix named Charley, and a very fluffy cat named Suzie.

Cover Artist - Painter Jennifer Noxon

Cover story and photo gallery of the work of this Almonte artist.

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