Hot Tub Time Machine has a title that you it tells you EXACTLY what to expect in the film. Much like Snakes on a Plane, you know what you’re getting into with Hot Tub Time Machine.

There’s a hot tub and it serves as a time machine. No further explanation necessary.

The question then becomes, “Is the best thing about this film its title?” Surprisingly (to me, anyway) there’s actually a pretty entertaining movie to go along with the snappy name.

The plot isn’t anything horribly original. Three middle-aged friends are stuck in shitty jobs and shitty relationships and decide to relive their glory days by visiting a ski resort where they spent some of the best days of their youth. The main character’s nephew gets dragged along for the ride and acts as the voice of reason throughout their fantastic voyage.

The resort is not what they remember but they decide to make the most of it by getting drunk in the hot tub. When the haze clears the next morning, they slowly come to the realization that they’ve somehow traveled back in time to 1986. The group quickly decides that they must try to perfectly recreate their original experience so that they don’t trigger a butterfly effect that would cause harm to the future. However they’re quickly overcome by the temptation to right past wrongs.

Hilarity ensues.

There are a lot of elements that are reminiscent of Back to the Future. However, the presence of Crispin Glover permits me to think these things were lovingly referenced instead of blatantly ripped off.

There were definitely things I didn’t like. The love interest seemed paper thin and anytime there’s a time travel movie, there are a hundred little plot points that you could nitpick, but at the end of the day there were quite a few laughs and a good little story that focuses on the importance of friendship.

650,000,000 edmontonians out of 1,000,000,000

Hot Tub Time Machine doesn’t open until March 26^th but you can get free passes by visiting http://eventful.com/campaigns/hottub/edmonton. I signed up and had my tickets emailed to me within 30 minutes but I’ve heard of other people taking up to 12 hours to get theirs. I went to the City Centre screening and the theatre was only about 70% full.

But most people aren’t Tad Hargrave. In an epic feat of putting his money where his mouth is, Tad is opening his home to local musicians (who will have the chance to perform acoustically) and, more importantly, to you jackals, who can buy a ticket into Tad’s Garneau-area home for a suggested donation of just $15.

“Part of it was wanting to create something really special,” Tad tells me in a phone call. “I felt like it was a very easy thing to do to support my friends.”

Tad’s a musician himself, though he’s quick to say that he won’t be performing a living room session anytime soon. He’s really just interested in getting some of the city’s best unknown talent an audience.

“For me, it’s just like, you get to see these hidden gems in Edmonton. You get to have this very personal, intimate concert.”

Tad says the idea for these sessions came from two notions:

“Notion #1: Some music is best enjoyed in intimate, acoustic settings.

Notion #2: Edmonton is full of musical gems that many people, sadly, never discover.

“So this is a venue to introduce people to amazing new music found in their own backyard.”

Speaking of backyard, Tad came up with the idea at a backyard party he attended that featured local artists.

“I’ve been getting all these calls from other musicians I don’t know saying ‘Hey, can I play one of your living room sessions?’”

“The whole process has been teaching me how little musicians get paid,” he says.

100% of the donated “ticket” prices go to the artist.

Tad’s mom liked the idea so much, she even chipped $20 a show for the performer.

It’s 30 people max, first come first serve. For more info visit the Facebook group. (Get on it, there’s a show TONIGHT!)

This is Edmonton's new concert hall.

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THE LIVING ROOM SESSIONS #3

An Evening with Scott Cook

DESCRIPTION: it will be a 45 minute, candlelit evening of musical performance with a fireplace in a backdrop and 30 marvelous people sitting on couches, cushions, chairs and mattresses.

COST: suggested donation of $15 (100% of profits go to the artist)

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

If you listen well, lifelong traveler and musical hobo Scott Cook’s new album may remind you just how rare a commodity honesty is in today’s music scene. There’s an awful lot of talk about it, but very few songwriters really wear their hearts on their sleeve, and even fewer do it with such lyrical craftsmanship and raw feeling as you’ll hear on this record.

It has been two years and a lot of roads traveled since Scott Cook traded in his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan for a full-time living as a musician on the road in North America, and while he’s certainly experienced his share of hardships and struggle along the way, he isn’t thinking of quitting. His self-published 2007 debut, Long Way to Wander, made the national folk top ten on college and community radio, and kept him on the road for the better part of two years, living in his van, playing constantly, picking up stories and passing them on. His newest “love letter to the world” is a fitting follow-up, and his best work to date. Entitled This One’s on the House, it’s a collection of road stories, existential ramblings, and musings on love, loss, and the courage to love again.

A wearer of many hats, Cook also builds websites, writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and co-organizes Taiwan’s Peace Festival, a non-profit music and arts festival that raises money for peace work and charitable work on Taiwan and worldwide.

(album notes via cdbaby)

These are The Mystery Ponies. They are quite good. You can see them play at yegswap March 20.

Good day to you, Edmonton.

Of course I scheduled an off-site meeting the weekday morning there’s the most news (Thursday). Sorry about that. We’ll get right to the show.

But before we get to the real news, the big news, the important news, I think we need to talk about this news: Conan O’Brien is coming to the River Cree Casino as part of his “Legally prohibited from being funny on television” tour.

That’s right, he’s on a 32-city tour and he’s coming to our neighbourhood. Stop saying we have to buy “world-class” with a new arena and Expo, baby, we just arrived.

Following up on that point, you actually become world-class by just doing what you do, and eventually others will want to be a part of your action. Sure, that will end up costing money somewhere along the way, but it’s not something you just buy with one or two big-ticket items.

from the Edmonton Journal:

Homeless in the River Valley (An audio slideshow.)

Edmonton City Council puts $17M into rainy-day fund (Interesting to note that the surplus is actually about $17-million since the rest had to go to “previous commitments.”)

Premier’s gaffe tars communications staff (The poor dears. Though, they have a big job making Ed sound on top of things.)

Alberta legislature  question period reorganized after opposition complains

Edmonton’s NAIT to offer nanotechnology

Edmonton developer donates $2.5M to MacEwan

from the Edmonton Sun:

Website called waste of tax cash (No, we aren’t getting tax money to put out this fine product. But we’d take it. This is about Edmonton Stories.)

Businesses fined for fire code violations (I like that some just keep getting fined again and again.)

MLA heads to Europe to tout oilsands (At least we’re doing something about cleaning up the oilsands. We’re cleaning up its image. Don’t mention ducks, McQueen.)

from CBC Edmonton:

Companies spend $167M in Alberta land sale (Oil and gas companies, exploring for said oil and gas.)

from CTV Edmonton:

Parkdale School families gather to save school from closing (Now the Alberta Liberals are jumping on this issue, asking to examine the provincial-municipal policies that clash. Clearly you can’t be closing schools in areas where cities are trying to revamp the neighbourhood.)

City approves artificial turf for Commonwealth (Paula Simons has a few things to say about that.)

from Vue Weekly:

Sexual assault: defining assault

Lubicon rights: The right to govern (Did you know we had an internationally watched/panned land rights discussion happening here in Alberta?)

Aboriginal issues: increased role

Alberta economy, Oil and gas sector makes the rules (I guess people will make up their minds when they see the newest royalty review, today.)

from SEE Magazine:

The mystery of the vanishing home builder

Irrelevant and in your face (The Irrelevant Show is awesomely hilarious.)

from The Gateway (U of A):

Students’ Union prepares for march to legislature

Digital books seen as classroom alternative (And they might end up saving students money too.)

Stelmach’s back-paddling inane (Well, at least we know the Premier’s out of excuses for not paying attention to an international black eye.)

I’m with Coco.

I was all excited when I checked the mail yesterday. There was a stack of flyers to toss, a bill to open with fear later, and a letter to me!

But wait…that writing on the envelope sure looked familiar.

Probably because I mailed this letter…to myself.

Please don't tell me I'm the only one who's screwed up mail this bad.

If you’re a child (or a teen) of the 80s then today has just a tinge of sadness. Surely we knew that Corey Haim had his troubles, but it doesn’t make it any easier to know he’s gone. And all we’ve got now are our VHS copies of The Lost Boys and License to Drive.

Oh, and Corey Feldman.

Man, there are a lot of mixed messages coming from the Alberta Health Services team. Thank goodness it’s not an important department.

At least when Ron Liepert was in charge we knew he was angry all of the time and we were probably going to see private health care options. Now, now I have no idea from one day to the next what’s up.

It’s time for a regime change! Just in energy royalties. We are Alberta and we don’t want to rush a government change or anything.

from the Edmonton Journal:

‘She was our little angel’ (Police are still investigating the death of a toddler in foster care, as a homicide.)

Tailings pond breaks law: federal officer (Someone tell the Premier, since he doesn’t look at the news.)

Student humour needs context (Scott McKeen on The Gateway controversy and other City Hall notes.)

Parkdale a victim of open boundaries (Finally, someone comes out and says what I’ve been thinking about the ability to choose whatever school you want, regardless of your own city neighbourhood.)

New iPhone app allows residents to report problems (You want to complain to the City of Edmonton? There’s an app for that.)

from the Edmonton Sun:

Premier in the soup over ducks (Hey, the best part about the Premier not seeing the oily ducks is that it means he ignores all TV, newspaper and Internet news and opinion. So I could call him a dumb-dummy and he’d never see it. We should probably also do some sort of Premier Ed-Photoshop thing, as he’d also never see that…)

Edmonton eyes deal for artificial turf (Goodbye real grass, at Commonwealth.)

Residents asked to help clean up city (April 28 eh…I’m busy that day.)

Street sweepers at the ready (Yes!)

from The Canadian Press:

Minority report (Though, if “minorities” aren’t really a minority anymore, would you still call them that? Yeah, I just blew your mind.)

from CBC Edmonton:

Contract offer ‘intentionally provocative’: nurses’ union (Oh great, the team that can’t figure out which health care plan they’re using is negotiating contracts with one our most important unions…)

Heaven just got a little more Corey.