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Movie Moments - Episode #2

Archived in Movies, Entertainment, Reviews, Retro | No Comments

This is (ONLY) Episode Two of my feature column, the Movie Moments on Haddow Drive where arbitrarily rank “The Best or Worst of…” a themed movie moment or movie entire. There is no method here. Just opinions. Patience, Grasshopper. I can only write so fast.

Episode #2: Top Five Most Anticipated Sci-Fi Movies that May Never Be Made

#5 - Battlefield Earth 2 — You know you would go see this. You know this would be a colossal success. Why? Because we would all FLOCK to the theaters to see the movie that was made despite being a sequel to the WORST science fiction movie of all TIME. Battlefield Earth, that pointless drivel of a movie, doesn’t deserve a sequel (thus it will never get made) but we all love watching a wreck in progress and this would be a spectacular example.

#4 - A live action Matrix prequel — It’s just not cool anymore. We all want to know. We all want to absorb ourselves into what happened BEFORE. But the trilogy had it’s day, and I doubt we’ll be seeing anything new from this franchise. Sure, surprises are possible, but it’s far more likely to have this story drop into a (more fleshed out) anime adaptation, or simply to be explored in that unique cross-media way the franchise has become famous for, than to see this one on the big screen anytime soon.

#3 - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe — It wasn’t that Hitchhikers sucked. It was just, well, Disneyfied. Poor Douglas created something of a masterwork of comedic sci-fi, a cult classic that waited years to be made into a feature movie only to be greeted by a giant, group “meh!” Studios are likely not keen to make a sequel to a so-so sci-fi flick, and fans are equally careful not to push too hard for something that may put another tarnish on a beloved classic.

#2 - Red Dwarf: The Movie — If only. There were numerous incarnations of “official” WEBSITES and miscellaneous fan sites that promised there was SOMETHING going on here; pre-production, casting, filming… something. Unfortunately, this seems to be vapor. What we wouldn’t do to see Lister, Rimmer, and the Cat (not to mention Holly) back in the Dwarf, but as series eight ended on a something of a relative low note, I think this may be disturbingly unlikely. Too bad. Buy the DVDs and relive the history instead.

#1 - Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII and IX — So, really it’s three movies. Either way, seeing a geriatric original trilogy cast fulfill their roles in the film adaptation of the ONLY books (See Timothy Zahn) to qualify for these titles would be nothing short of painful. Maybe someday when LucasArts can do what they did for Yoda, replacing not puppets but real actors with CGI then we may get our due. Until then kind, we’re stuck using our imaginations.

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Movie Moments - Episode #1 >> This is Episode One of my feature column, the Movie Moments on Haddow Drive where arbitrarily rank "The Best or Worst of..." a themed movie moment or movie entire. There is no method here. Just opinions. Episode #1: Top Five Most Ridiculous

Television Showdown Index >> Television Showdown on Haddow Drive I’m all into the feature columns so I’ve been fiddling with some ideas around a “television showdown” where I pit two similar shows against each other on a variety of standard criteria. The criteria are always the

Condominium Bust?

Archived in Construction, Real Estate | No Comments

I couldn’t help noticing that as I’ve been driving around the city lately there are a lot of condominiums on the market. Lots. I counted one medium-sized building with eleven properties for sale. I’ve been thinking about this — and talking about it with friends and colleagues — and have usually claimed that this is “STEP ONE” in a down-turn in the housing market, in general. Why, you ask?

1) Simple Investment Properties

Condos tend to make “good” investment properties. At least that tends to be the perception in this kind of bubble-market. People who are on the fringe of true house-flipping tend not to dive in with both feet in a condo investment. After all, it’s just an “apartment.” No yard to tend, no roof to fix, to exterior to wash. The “condo” looks after this, right?

Barring the RISK of something going completely wrong in that equation, condos are the “simple investment properties” for low-key investors. This is not a problem until one realizes two things:

a) In this kind of market there are LOTS of condos owned simply as investments — and thus those are going to be the first to go up for sale at a hint of trouble in the market.

b) The less seasoned investors hold lots of these properties, and stand to lose the most from a bursting bubble.

2) CONSTRUCTION Rush

The work currently being done to satiate this desire for condo investments has resulted in a lot — A LOT — of new development. Never mind the fact that so many new condos has meant a drop in the availability of rental space for people unable to buy, but the demand for these properties means that owners (who are actually buying the condo as a home versus an investment) are moving into half-built complexes, buildings that have been under CONSTRUCTION for (in some cases) more than a year or two and look as if they may continue to be under CONSTRUCTION for much longer.

But, if demand is dipping (which seems that case from the current inventory of condos to be seen simply by taking a short drive around any neighborhood) three questions come to mind:

a) Will the new condominiums ever fill up with tenants?
b) And if they do, are people just moving into new spaces to leave the older buildings vacant? In other words, can they even sell those properties?
c) AND this is all assuming those new buildings — dozens of them — don’t get left hanging by either (still) increasing CONSTRUCTION costs or an all out bust in the market. Will they?

Of course, if the condo market cools I predict that the housing market is not far behind. Inventory in houses in already increasing: for sale sign sightings have increased markedly and they tend to linger for weeks or a month (rather than days). Just the other day an article was published about the state of CONSTRUCTION in this province, overall:

“A senior REAL ESTATE analyst says Alberta’s residential CONSTRUCTION industry faces a “precarious” future due to high labour costs and ballooning prices.”

To me, it all sounds like the music is about to stop: “Hot potato, hot potato…”

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Trophy Homes and Status Symbols >> I can't help but wonder if some of the noise in that undeniable boom in the housing market is fueled by the modern notion of homes as the new middle class status symbol. New notion, you ask? Don't get me wrong.

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