Ice Capades

My favourite event of the Olympics has always been couple's free skating :)

moot or hooey?
Roberto Luongo promised to do a triple salchow (sow cow) when they win the Olympic gold tomorrow.

Rice Fields of Japan

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly planted.
Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye.
Instead, different color rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.





A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants.
The colors are created by using different varieties. This photo was taken in Inkadate, Japan.
Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies.
This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inkadate, Japan.
Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives are featured on the television series Tenchijin,
appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture of Japan.
This year, various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan, including designs of deer dancers.
Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees.

The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.

In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

moot or hooey?
the multi-colored harvested rice is sold only to health food restaurants and stores.

an angel of a film

moot or hooey?
angels are all around us

Max Embarrassing Kicks off Reel2Real Festival

Photo: Christian Geisnæs

Denmark in the dead of winter, a home made teeth straightening device, a prisoner, an eccentric neighbour, a young, awkward romance, and a mother who always says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and you have the makings of the award winning Danish comedy, Max Embarrassing.

Director Lotte Svendsen winds a lovely, humorous, story of Max, played by the talented young Samuel Heller-Seiffert, as he tries to impress Ofelia, the new girl in class.

He is the least cool person in school and believes he has the most embarrassing mother (Mette Horn) in the world. Max makes a series of blunders and bad decisions, and when his well intentioned mother steps in to help, things only escalate.

Based on the popular TV series Max, This amusing coming-of-age tale is full of pleasant surprises. It's a well crafted script and an insightful look into the teenage transition.

It may jump around a little in the wrap up, but still delivers a storybook ending. A must see for families and children of all ages.

Max Embarrassing is presented by the Reel2Real International Film Festival for Youth, in their Family Film series.

Sunday January 17th at 1pm, at the Vancity Theatre. (further screenings in March and May).

And stick around after the screening for the free film criticism workshop from 3pm-5pm, open to young viewers ages 10-19yrs.

moot or hooey?
all the actors in the film play the same characters in the tv series.