Movies & TV - The Drafting Table

Mini-Reviews 2021

Last year was a busy year on the personal front (due to a growing family) so I didn't have as much time to write reviews of things I read compared to previous years. Still, I wanted to have some highlights and notes to reference in future posts; the collection below

DIY

Greenland Paddle

In this post, I wanted to share a project I did this year: building a kayak paddle. The paddle I built is more-or-less in the Greenland style. I adapted the instructions/dimensions from here. Here is a summary of the steps I followed: Starting with a piece of white cedar

Movies & TV

Recently Watched: 3 Foreign-Language Films

This post is just a few quick reviews of some movies I've watched recently. Incendies is a French-Canadian movie from 2010. It was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film. It is directed by Denis Villeneuve (who's done a few other movies I like); it's been on my list

Art

Images of the Anthropocene

When I went to the AGO back in the fall I mentioned that there was an upcoming exhibit I wanted to see called "Anthropocene". I didn't make it back to the gallery while it was on, so I watched the accompanying film on iTunes. Anthropocene was made by

Movies & TV

Documentary Notes

Over the holidays I watched some documentaries on Netflix. I thought I'd share some of the things I found interesting for my first post of 2018. To start with, here are a couple of great clips from some BBC nature documentaries: Human Planet showed a traditional narwhal hunt from kayaks:

Movies & TV

Assorted Links (Fall 2017)

Last week I was in a conference in Chicago. I plan to write about it later this month, but for this week I just wanted to share some miscellaneous links (mostly related to things I've written about previously) that I've been saving up. It's quite rambling but hopefully you find

Review

Orbiting Kerbin

A coworker recently recommended the game Kerbal Space Program (KSP) to me. I've been enjoying it. I don’t spend a lot of time gaming, but from time to time I like to get into one. I especially like open-ended games (where you choose what to do instead of following

Movies & TV

A story that wouldn't have been possible a decade ago

This post is about a very unique movie trailer. A new movie called Lion comes out today. It stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman. I heard about it from my girlfriend and it looks like it might be really good. Here is the [conventional] trailer: However, what I actually

Movies & TV

A New Wild

This post is a review of Earth: A New Wild, a nature documentary series. Earth: A New Wild is a five-episode series produced by PBS and National Geographic. I have it on BluRay disc. The National Geographic website includes this description: The series features spectacular natural history footage from the

Movies & TV

A Golden Age for Canadian Sci-Fi

I've noticed that some shows I've been watching on Space have been filmed/produced in Canada, which seemed like an interesting topic for a short post (which is in order after the lengthy one from last week). Wikipedia has a list of science fiction shows produced mainly in Canada. The

Movies & TV

Watch The Expanse

I've previously written about a book series I like. Now it's been made into a TV show. The Expanse is a new show based on the books by James S.A. Corey. It's a pretty close adaptation; having read the books, I didn't get too many surprises from the plot.

Movies & TV

The Operative from Serenity

I'm busy this week, so I decided to share a .gif I made and some quotes I like from the movie Serenity—it's hard to believe that it came out 10 years ago. Here is the .gif, of the scene where the nameless "Operative" (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor)

Review

Orphan Black is almost back!

This post is about what is, in my opinion, the best show currently being filmed in Canada: Orphan Black. Beware of minor spoilers below, but for the most part I've tried to keep this as an overview. The central plot concept of Orphan Black is a hushed-up human cloning experiment