Bon Chance

French "youths" are at it again, only this time they come wielding shotguns and Molotov cocktails. This should make the burning of France in 2005 look like a cakewalk (if you even remember the burning of France in 2005; there wasn't much press on it).

Just Disaffected Youth
The media and their love affair with the term "youths" is about as disgusting as it gets. Reporters and editors are too timid to tell us what this story is really about, and you need a Rosetta stone to figure out who these "youths" are and what they're up to.

Read the following story. Count the number of times the article uses the word "youths." Then tell me what's going on. Bon chance.

So long Europe, it's been a slice.

Photo: AP - Monday

The Mist - Review

Director/Writer: Frank Darabont
Starring: Thomas Jane/Marcia Gay Harden
Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes

Frank Darabont's film version of Stephen King's The Mist is an effective yet strangely cheap looking movie.

Several of King's books involve normal Maine bumpkins getting caught up in terrifying events, supernatural or otherwise. In It, Pennywise the Clown torments the citizens of small town Derry, Maine. In Salem's Lot, an entire town is taken over by vampires and only a regular joe and a little boy can save the day. Even in The Stand, a book containing horror that has global impact, King's heroes are far from the bigtime. The Stand's villain, Randall Flagg, enters the novel as a down-at-his-heels drifter. The heroes turn out to be a young chick, a fat slob, and a man that could have been cast as an extra in Rawhide.

The Mist is similar. The novella appeared in King's Skeleton Crew (1985). That book is chock full of short stories, with The Mist the longest, at a little over 100 pages. Every story in Skeleton Crew deals with smalltime characters confronting horrors big and small. Perhaps this is why King's movies are never cast with Bruce Willis in mind. Ed Harris, Tim Robbins, Tom Hanks, sure. Bruce Willis, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, forget it. You can believe Tom Hanks getting freaked out in Maine, but Brad Pitt would somehow seem ridiculous.

I enjoyed the entire Skeleton Crew collection when I was a kid, back in my Stephen King fanclub days. The Mist was probably my favorite of the stories, though I agree with King that the ending of the story is a rip off. Survivor Type was creepy for its self-cannibalism (yes, self-cannibalism), and The Monkey was probably my least favorite. The Monkey is rumored to be the next film based on King's works and I am not looking forward to it, if only because I thought the story was depressing as hell. Maybe it's because I hated dolls, and still do.

So, The Mist. If you haven't read the story, you won't have a hard time getting the gist of it from the word go. The story opens in smalltown Maine. A thunderstorm hits. The next morning, a mist comes down from the mountains, thick and creepy. It slowly makes its way towards the town as the inhabitants pick up debris and go shopping for supplies.

Thomas Jane plays David Drayton. True to King-type, Drayton is your average man. He has a son, a nice house, a loving wife. The morning after the thunderstorm, he takes his kid into town to shop for goods. He goes to the grocery store. Moments later, a man runs toward the grocery store, blood on his shirt. He enters the store and screams that something is in the mist. He says that whatever it is, it killed his friend. He says the doors should be shut, and they are. The mist descends on the store, blotting out the parking lot and everything beyond. Silence.

The director, Frank Darabont, doesn't waste any time getting into the story. In fact, he follows King's novella almost to a T, as if the novella had been written as a script outline. This should please the people that complain, "The book was better, why'd they change it so much?"

The story might involve a creepy mist and the creatures inside it, but what goes on in the store is the film's true subject. Real people under incredible pressure. First, is there anything in the mist? And if there is, what is it? And if it's dangerous, how do we get out of this situation alive?

Though old, it's a good setup: jam different characters into a small space, apply exterior pressure, and watch the interior pressure rip them apart. That is, the pressure of not being sure about one another, then not trusting one another, and finally turning on one another.

The beauty of a story like The Mist is that it rings true. The "monster" takes a backseat to humanity. If you were surrounded by fog and forced to sit in a grocery store, what would you do? Be afraid of the mist, or be curious about the people around you, wondering if you could believe them and, more importantly, trust them?

King has always been good at the blame game. Seldom do any of his characters place the blame for something on the something that is trying to kill them. King's characters undo themselves by turning on their neighbors. It's the Twilight Zone technique, and King is the master of it.

Unfortunately, movies are made to be seen. Novels can take place inside a reader's head, but a movie has to be splashed right there in front of you. This presents a problem. Because if I say, "Fifty pink elephants knock over a building, then leap over a hill," it doesn't cost me a dime. Readers will picture it, they'll hopefully get it, and the exercise of imagining it won't distract them.

Movies can't do that. So while The Mist's set up is fine, and the characters are presented fairly well, the film's effects are a distraction. That's a nice way of saying that they suck.

Darabont's a big name, and so is King, so I can't see this film as having had a miniscule budget. That said, I don't know where the money went, but it didn't go into the effects. There is one scene in the film involving the tentacles of a ferocious beast. The tentacles look like they are from a 1970s cheapo flick. They're certainly no better than the original 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, and might even be worse. At least 20 000 Leagues used real footage of an octopus and some fake rubber tentacles. In The Mist, it's so obvious that the tentacles are computer generated that it's a supreme distraction.

I wonder why they bothered. The filmmakers had the mist, and all of the creepy what's-out-there stuff to go with it. If they had just kept it like that, the film would have lost nothing, and probably improved.

The film's story is good, as the people in the grocery store turn on each other and eventually split into two camps. One faction is led by Mrs. Carmody, played by Marcia Gay Harden. She is perfect for the role, because Mrs. Carmody is a hateful, shrill woman, and Harden can play those roles like they're nothing. Mrs. Carmody is a Christian fundamentalist, a Bible-thumper. She thinks the mist is an act of God, and that the creatures attacking the store are straight from the book of Revelation. The end is nigh, and Mrs. Carmody thinks she is God's messenger.

This is old territory for King. Many of his stories have crazy evangelical loons. It's a bit dated, and after a while you get pretty tired of Harden laying it on thick, but it works to a degree. Yet Marcia's ramblings feel very pre-9/11, and I was curious why Darabont followed the novella so closely and didn't try to update it.

Toby Jones makes an appearance. Remember what I was saying about King's characters? Jones plays a grocery store clerk who turns out to be a brave hero, and he is excellent. Jeffrey De Munn also shows up, and he is as good as always.

The entire film is enjoyable, though it doesn't nearly match Darabont's film versions of King's other tales: Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile. Indeed, you wouldn't know that The Mist is a Darabont picture unless the credits tell you so. The film feels a tad on the cheap side, and the production value is surprisingly lean.

The ending of The Mist is quite different than the story. It is satisfying, but a bit trite, as are the reasons given for the cause of the mist. The film simply feels like it is as dated as the story, written in 1985. You'll have to decide for yourself how you like the finale, because King has said that anyone who exposes the ending of this film should be hung by the neck until dead.

I'll take him at his word.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Enviro-Boobs' Plans Backfire on Birds

Ooops. "Environment-friendly" buildings in North America have turned out to be a slaughterhouse for birds. Catch the story here.

In other Enviro-Boob news, Toni Vernelli, an Englishwoman, had herself sterilized at the age of 27 in order to "protect the planet." The Daily Mail did an expose on her, where she says, "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet."

Right. As if homo sapiens aren't part of the planet. But whatever. I'm guessing that Toni thought she was protecting the planet by not producing a future SUV driver. Me, I thank her for protecting the planet from a child raised by her. One less moron is a good thing. Besides, one look at tubby's picture and I'm not sure that the operation was even necessary. I'm wrong on that point, though, because in the article, you find out that Toni got knocked up. I blame it on English binge-drinking. She got an abortion and asked to be sterilized at the same time. Here's her take, as quoted by the Mail:

"I was horrified. I knew straight away there was no option of having the baby.

I went to my doctor about having a termination, and asked if I could be sterilized at the same time.

This time it was a male doctor. I remember saying to him: 'I want to make sure this never happens again.'

He said: 'You may not want a child, but one day you may meet a man who does'. He refused to consider it.

I didn't like having a termination, but it would have been immoral to give birth to a child that I felt strongly would only be a burden to the world.

I've never felt a twinge of guilt about what I did, and have honestly never wondered what might have been.

After my abortion, I was more determined than ever to pursue sterilization.

By then, I had my mother's support - she realized I wasn't going to grow out of my beliefs, and was proud of my campaigning work.

After getting hitched to a twit that she met at an animal rights demonstration (homo sapiens not being animals in the animal rights movement), she found a doctor that could have her neutered. Of that, she says:

After the operation, which is irreversible, I didn't feel emotional - just relieved.

"I've never doubted that I made the right decision. Ed and I married in September 2002, and have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children.

"We love walking and hiking, and we often go away for weekends.

"Every year, we also take a nice holiday - we've just come back from South Africa.

"We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.

"My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision."

Au contraire, nitwit. I am more than happy to accept your decision. Knowing that you will never raise a child does not disturb me in the least.

King's Warning

The early buzz for Stephen King's The Mist appears to be pretty good. I won't be able to catch it until next week, so I'll have to steer clear of the review websites.

I read The Mist when I was a kid, and I loved it. It was a very creepy, very good story. You can find it in King's Skeleton Crew collection of shorts. I wasn't too impressed with The Mist's ending, but it looks like that has been changed for the film version. According to King, "[Director Frank Darabont] wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead."

Nice one. I laughed aloud when I read that. Internet nerds on various websites have complained that King should know the difference between "hanged" and "hung." I say Stephen King has earned the right to slaughter as much grammar and syntax as he likes.

Here's another quotation attributed to King (among others), of which I am very fond: "People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy... and I keep it in a jar on my desk."

Photo: Weekly Reader

No Country for Old Men - Review

Writers/Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin/Javier Bardem
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes

Major spoiler warning: do not read this review if you have not seen the movie and plan to.

No Country for Old Men was without question the best film of the year. It had everything going for it, from a great cast to a superb script. And then it entered act three and completely fell apart. It turned into a shell game played by two great writer/directors, and it is a transparent insult.

Let me put it to you this way: the first three-quarters of the movie has some of the best writing I have ever seen. Ever. At one point in the film, I wanted to turn to my neighbors and say, "Isn't this incredible?" That's the truth. I had to contain myself from saying that.

The film stars Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam vet living in Texas. The time is 1980. Llewelyn spends time hunting in the wide open plains. On one of his hunting excursions, he happens upon the remains of a drug deal gone wrong. Three bullet-ridden cars sit idle. Dead men are all over the place. Llewelyn finds a briefcase with two million dollars inside. He decides to keep it.

And so the long chase begins. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is a hit man without peer. He's an intelligent psychopath, and in the movies, there is nothing more brilliant than a smart psychopath. He is on the trail of Llewelyn, and it makes for one of the great chase sequences in movie history.

By chase, I don't mean a bang-bang shootout chase. There is ample gunplay in the film, but the pacing and the plotting of the chase are done incredibly well. At one point in the film, an entire twenty minutes goes by with barely a word of dialogue. That's great screenwriting. Show us, don't tell us. The Coen brothers do it to perfection. They are so confident in what they do that the movie doesn't even use music to help it along. They're that good.

Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. He wants to find Llewelyn and bring him in to protect him from Chigurh. We first meet Sheriff Bell in voice-over, at the beginning of the film. Over Americana shots of open plains and wind mills, Bell talks about how the world is changing. The crime rate is going up, and the very nature of crime is getting worse. This voice over is an allusion to the movie's title, as Bell tells us that old men won't be able to understand the new world we're living in. It's a good voiceover, and it's a good set-up.

It should have scared the hell out of me. I should have had the "message movie" alarm ringing in both ears. But I let it slide. Surely the Coens wouldn't do me in with a dumb message movie about crime getting worse. I see that in the newspapers every day, and that only costs me a dollar. Why would they do that to me for ten bucks?

They didn't. Yet.

The dialogue in the film is sparse and gritty. Llewelyn turns out to be a very smart prey for Chigurh's brilliant psychopath. They match wits and bullets, and the movie is a hell of an enjoyable ride.

And then the Coen brothers completely screw you. Llewelyn is smart? Hah! He gets taken out by three bit-part Mexicans in fancy suits. They're so bit-part that we don't even get to see Llewelyn die, and we never learn the names of these killers. Ten minutes before, Llewelyn is on the phone with Chigurh, telling him that he's going to turn the tables and take Chigurh down. Ten minutes later, a scene fades up and there is Llewelyn, dead. Just like that. The bit-part Mexicans are racing away from the motel, machine-guns in hand, as Tommy Lee Jones pulls up in a taxi.

That is not the end of the film, but it is the end of the hero in whom we've invested so much time and emotion. He lies on the floor dead, and it wasn't even the villian that pulled the trigger.

The rest of the film feels like an insult. Tommy Lee Jones has another couple of scenes where we listen to stories that thinly veil the moral of the story: you never know when you're going to get killed. Shit happens. No one knows where the "end" of anything is. Life's funny that way.

Come on. I learn this every time I flip on the evening news. The Coen brothers are far too talented to sink to this level, but that is exactly what they do. There is no redemption in the movie, no ending. It simply ends with one of those smash-cuts-to-black that are supposed to leave you "thinking." I'm with the girl in the fourth row. When the movie ended so abruptly tonight, she simply said, "What?"

Before the film school losers get on my case, give me a break. I am not saying that the movie needed to end with a dumb showdown between Llewelyn and Chigurh. The Coen brothers are good enough to bring an arch plot to a great conclusion. Their version of a showdown would have been fantastic, as it was in Fargo. But this dreck is simply awful. A very bad cliche punctuates the ending, as Chigurh is driving along a suburban street. I said to myself, "Car crash coming." Sure enough, bang, as a car t-bones Chigurh. Shit happens. Chigurh gets out of the car, slings his arm with the help of some kid's t-shirt, and on his way he strolls.

To draw an audience into a genre picture and a mainstream plot, then turn the tables and try to teach a lesson with minimalist crap before cutting to black is simply disappointing.

I look at No Country as a rip-off. If they weren't named the Coen brothers, this movie doesn't make it onto the radar. Yet the critics will love this film. I am going to look at their reviews now, as I always dodge them before I get to see a movie. But I know they will love it, because bad, abrupt endings are "provocative" when done by rich directors.

I could go back through the third act and talk about all of the things that I found atrociously bad, but I won't. I can't. I loved this film so much that when the Coens did me in, I felt physically numb. The movie is that good, and the payoff is that bad.

Sometimes I like to climb on my high horse about supposedly "brave" films, and pooh-pooh the mainstream crowd that doesn't dig them. This time, I'm with fourth-row girl.

"What?"

Photos: Yahoo Movies

The Pen is Mightier than the...Well, On Second Thought...

Here's a piece I found on the Times (UK) website. It's a story about artists in Europe not standing up for themselves because they're afraid of getting their throats cut.

Perry: Radical Chicken
Gotta love the "artists." Whether they work in paint, film, or literature, the vast majority of these thought provoking individuals are a bunch of chickens.

Here's what Grayson Perry had to say, as quoted by the Times. He's a cross-dressing pottery nut, and his pots can fetch over a hundred thousand dollars at auction:

“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organized by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”

Perry’s highly decorated pots can sell for more than £50,000 and often feature sex, violence and childhood motifs. One work depicted a teddy bear being born from a penis as the Virgin Mary. “I’m interested in religion and I’ve made a lot of pieces about it,” he said. “With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time.”

Ah. Playing it safe. That's what we're to expect from the radical art crowd now, is it? Thanks, but I already knew that. 10 000 separate terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11, stacks of dead bodies everywhere, a Canadian mosque that says it's not right to kill "believers" but says nothing about us lowly infidels...and all you guys can come up with is movies bashing the West in general and George Bush in particular.

I can't wait until Dubya is out of office, not because I don't think he's been a good president, but because it will be wonderful to watch the slimy artistic worms try to find something new to deflect attention away from their cowardice.

Theo van Gogh makes a film about the brutal treatment of women at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. He gets shot and stabbed for the trouble. How does the "artistic community" condemn this attack? By portraying the Virgin Mary with a dick and hiding behind such crap as Islam being "very amorphous."

Sure, Grayson. Tell yourself that it's "amorphous," and that you "don't know where the line is." I'll tell you where it is: just across the yellow line that runs down the center of your back.

Photo: Sydney Morning Herald

Beowulf - Review

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Roger Avary/Neil Gaiman
Starring: Angelina Jolie/Ray Winstone
Runtime: 1 hr 53 minutes

I was curious to see if I would like Beowulf. I read the poem when I was a kid, and I'd seen a couple of theatrical takes on it. But I'd never seen it in animated form, and I am not a big fan of animated pictures.

The hero Beowulf has had numerous films made about him, and no wonder: he's the grandfather of an old theme. Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and John Wayne aren't very far from being Beowulf. The premise of "tough guy stranger driving evil forces from a village" has been around in poem and book form for centuries. Film has catapulted the tough-guy-stranger to mythic proportions, updating the story by exchanging his battle axe for a handgun.

This time, Beowulf gets the 3D treatment. I saw it at the Imax, and I had to wear funny glasses to view the production. They look like the type of glasses that old people wear when driving on the highway. The specs cover half your face, leave a red mark on the bridge of your nose, and make you feel vaguely silly, sitting in a dark room wearing sunglasses.

The impact that these glasses bring to the film is truly awe inspiring. The film is so good in 3D that I know it would suffer from seeing it the old-fashioned way. The depth of field in today's 3D pictures is so much better than it was in the old days that it's no comparison. When I was kid watching an Amityville Horror 3D picture and wearing the red/blue plastic sunglasses, I was lucky if anything looked 3D. Most of the time, it was your imagination that led you to think you were seeing something pop out of the screen. "Look! Green smoke!...I think."

Beowulf's effects are much, much better than you think they will be, and the filmmakers should be proud of it. The 3D isn't used as a gimmick. There aren't too many pop-out-to-scare-you 3D moments. The 3D is used to enhance the picture, not dominate it.

But 3D alone would not make Beowulf a great picture. What makes it great is the story. It's been modified by the screenwriter and director, but it is still recognizable as the Beowulf of old. Sure, it's one-dimentional as ever, but who cares? The movie was made for spectacle first, plotlines second. Watching heroes beat up bad guys is fun, in case you've forgotten.

In the story, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) comes to a Danish kingdom that is being harassed by the creature Grendel. The King, played by Anthony Hopkins, has said that he will pay any man a fortune to kill the creature. Beowulf takes him up on the challenge, and into battle he goes.

From there, the story begins to drift away from the original poem, but the characters remain true. There is some political intrigue in the story. The King is not as honest as he seems, and Grendel's mother is as crafty as she is evil (and beautiful, come to that: an animated Angelina Jolie is still Angelina Jolie).

There is a lot of swashbuckling fun in this picture. It bogs down a bit as a few modern Christianity-bashes creep into the film. I'm keeping my eye on this stuff only because it shows me that directors and screenwriters, no matter their desire to create compelling stories, cannot help but insert their religious and political views into any and all motion pictures. In Beowulf, an animated film about a poem from centuries ago, we find lines like, "Maybe we should pray to the new Roman god, Jesus Christ, to help us." The reply is, "No new gods can help us, we need a hero." Later on in the film, several characters are now wearing crosses and looking creepy, and one of them is crucified by an evil interloper. Converted to the new god, did you? Take that!

I bring it up because, really, what is the name Jesus Christ doing in this picture, and in those contexts? There is no subplot in the film dealing with the rise of Christianity in northern Europe, yet here we suddenly have weirdo monks and lines about a new god from Rome. Did medieval Denmark receive word of Christianity over the news wires and suddenly convert for the sheer hell of it? Strange.

I chose to ignore these strange bits of political fluff, which is what they are. More and more films today have pieces of sanctimonious trash floating through their stories, like tumbleweeds from the director's mind.

The action scenes in Beowulf are very good, and the cast is excellent. The animators have done a fine job of making the characters look like their real-life inspiration. Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins are especially well done. Ray Winstone must have kissed the animators after seeing the final cut. Look up his picture on the web, then compare that to Beowulf's six pack abs. Artistic license, to be sure.

The film is a great achievement for the filmmakers and you should see it, but see it in 3D.

Photos: Yahoo Movies.

P2 - Review

Director: Franck Khalfoun
Writers: Aja/Levasseur/Khalfoun
Starring: Wes Bentley/Rachel Nichols
Runtime: 98 minutes

P2 is a flick about a young corporate go-getter that finds herself stuck in an underground parking lot on Christmas Eve. She's all alone, the lights go out, she's kidnapped by a psycho, and a long chase ensues.

That's the movie in a nutshell. On the whole, it's not a very good film. It is derivative, and at times merely silly. For all that, however, it works on its own cheesy plane and some suspense goers might like it if only for a laugh.

Rachel Nichols makes her first turn as marquee star in this movie. It is not a great performance, and she isn't helped by the director or the screenwriter. In many scenes, she is allowed to talk to herself, which is a sure sign of bad direction, bad writing, or both. In one scene, her car won't start. "You've got to be kidding me," she says. To herself.

There are many bad moments like this. Several times in the film, she says, "That's great," and "Oh, come on," when things don't go as planned. At another point in the film, she finds the front doors of the office won't open. "You've got to be kidding me," she says. Again. To herself.

No, Rachel. We are not kidding you. The doors really are locked and the car really won't start. We know it isn't "great," or "wonderful." Get on with your life.

It's a shame that she was allowed to do this, or worse yet, told to. An actor that has to say, "You've got to be kidding me," when confronting pitfalls is heading for a real drubbing from the audience. The audience isn't stupid. They know the car won't start, and they know the doors will be locked. They don't want to hear Rachel Nichols cry foul, they want to see her do something about it.

The film is virtually a two-actor show, as Nichols faces off against Wes Bentley. He plays Thomas, a nutso security guard that is obsessed with making Nichols his girlfriend. A few of their scenes together are quite good, but when it comes to the run away-hide-run away-hide fare, it's as tedious as ever.

Nichols' character is named Angela, and if I ever hear the name "Angela" again in this lifetime, it will be too soon. At one point in the film, Thomas tells Angela to stop calling him by his name because he knows she's using Psych 101 on him. He's one to talk: while he chases Angela around the parking lot, he screams her name upwards of a hundred times.

Suspense fans won't find much to like here, so it will be to their benefit if they can use their experience, realize that what they're watching is the same old-same old, and have a laugh. Wes Bentley is actually quite funny in some scenes, and the teenage crowd will love the cocktail dress that Nichols is stuffed into. It's such an obvious eye candy jiggle-ploy that it's funny and a bit pathetic. Watch as the camera is sure to catch every bit of cleavage it can, even when Nichols is hacking away with an ax, dialing a phone, or cowering in fear.

P2 won't scare you, but it might help you kill some time. With that in mind, wait for the DVD.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Remembrance Day (II)

I have to say that I was pretty impressed with last week's Remembrance Day commemorations. The turn out in Ottawa was big, and the speeches were pretty much on the money. There weren't any moron protesters around, or if there were, you didn't see them on the evening news highlights.

I took a stroll past a Canadian Legion last night. Someone had put white crosses out in front, wreathed with poppies. Each cross bore the name of a conflict, with the number of Canadian dead written beneath it. WWI and WWII are the fights that most come to mind on Remembrance Day, but I was surprised to see that the Boer War had its own cross, as well as Korea and Afghanistan. Something called "Peacekeeping" also had its own cross.

The numbers game is tricky. 69 dead on an Afghanistan cross seems somehow poignant when compared to the 60 000 of WWI. When the number of dead grows above a few thousand, it's hard to remember them as human beings as opposed to "a number." Then you stop and think, and you are floored by that number: 60 000. Another 40 000 for WWII. That's 100 000 men that left Canada in the space of thirty years and got shot, bombed, and gassed on a foreign shore. They slept in mud and crap, froze to death in European winter, and never came home. When compared to that, 69 doesn't seem to warrant the panicky headlines on the Toronto Star every time a soldier gets hit by friendly fire.

It's no novel statement to say that our perceptions of war and death have changed beyond all recognition. 69 deaths in several years would have made yesterday's generals yell with delight. 69? Compared to Vimy Ridge, the number is ludicrously small. 10 000 casualties were suffered in a few days when taking Vimy Ridge in WWI, with over three thousand men dead.

There's no way a war like that could be fought today. The press would never stand for it, and the public would freak out. Times have changed. 4 dead men hit by an American bomb in Afghanistan sits on the front pages for weeks and demands an inquest.

Still, seeing the Canadian people pay honor to all of Canada's fallen is something to take heart in. Perhaps things are not sliding downhill so fast for this country after all.

Redford Lays an Egg

As if we didn't see this coming.

Catch the early buzz here. Not even the left wing press and apologetic movie reviewers can save this bald rehash of Redford's political views.

The Affection Police

I wrote about some childhood memories the other day, and in them I had a line about hitting on girls as a teenager. I said that you'd get arrested today for hitting on chicks, instead of just being told off by the girl and going home with your tail between your legs. Exaggeration?

Nah. Everything is regulated these days. Check out this bonehead: his name is Randy Blakely, and he's the Vice Principal of a grammar school in the US. He saw a girl hugging her friends good-bye after school, so he gave her two detentions for it. He defends the penalty by claiming that he warned the girl about such bad behavior once before, when she hugged a friend at a football game.

Way to go, big shot. As anyone who attended school knows, all girls ever do is hug each other. Maybe you should spend less time checking out the chicks hugging each other, Randy, and more time worrying about their education.

Catch the story here.

American Gangster - Review

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Steven Zaillian
Starring: Russell Crowe/Denzel Washington
Runtime: 2 hr 37 minutes

American Gangster could have been called New American Gangster. Denzel Washington stars as the title character, Frank Lucas, a real-life heavy that controlled the New York heroin scene in the '70s. As the film tells us, Lucas was black, in a time before blacks were regarded as sophisticated criminals. The mantle of Crime Lord in 1970s New York went to the Italians, while blacks were considered petty crooks. Lucas changed that.

It's a dubious honor. John Gotti (life), Michael Corleone (film), Bugsy Segal (life and film), they are all legendary figures. What separates them from the regular losers is the memory of their lifestyles and the amount of dead bodies they managed to stack up. Joseph Stalin, history's most successful gangster, said that one death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic. Crime Lords are cut from Stalin's cloth, and they follow the same rule: a thug that shoots someone is a murderer. A thug that executes dozens of people and pollutes a city with drugs is a lord, a crime figure that has a career.

Lucas was a thug. There is no denying that. He shot people, burned them with gasoline, and executed them on the street. So a thug, yes, but a smart one, which makes his career worth filming. At the start of his career, he was no better than any hustler on the street. As he progressed, he took over the NY drug trade by cutting out the middle man. Rather than buying heroin from domestic suppliers, he flew himself to Bangkok and went to the source. Using US servicemen in Vietnam, Lucas smuggled 100% pure heroin into the United States. Then he cut it up, downgrading its quality somewhat, but still keeping its purity higher than any other dealer's in the city. Because he wasn't using any middlemen, Lucas could afford to the sell his product for less than his opponents could sell theirs. Better heroin, and at a cheaper price? Gold mine.

Ridley Scott directing
The film doesn't glorify Lucas. Steve Zaillian wrote the script and kept it on target: the story of a thug that hits it big. Though Lucas is sometimes seen in fancy clothes and lives in a nice house, we are never allowed to forget what he is doing and who he is: a drug dealer. Director Ridley Scott shows flashes of people using the drugs, getting high, falling over, looking stupid. At other times, he shows flashes of people scratching their arms and dying for their fix.

I was glad the film didn't glorify the pusher, as some crime stories do. Heroin inflicts massive anguish upon a person and a community. The heroin pusher is the scourge of the inner city. Denzel Washington, while likable in parts, plays the role well. Lucas is affable, charming, smart...and a thug.

Russell Crowe is Detective Richie Roberts. He's a clean cop who doesn't take money, and the other cops distrust him for it. In one scene, he has the chance to pocket close to a million dollars from a crook's car. Though he knows he will be ridiculed and hated by fellow detectives, he turns the money in to the evidence room.

Roberts gets on to Lucas after seeing him hobnobbing with various crime lords at a boxing match. Already curious about the "Blue Magic" heroin that is making the rounds in NY and Jersey, Roberts begins investigating Lucas and develops a theory that Lucas is the mastermind of the drug ring.

His fellow policemen are skeptical and hostile. They don't believe that any black man could be a crime boss in New York, and they don't trust a cop that doesn't take bribes. If this seems odd, you should revisit Serpico, starring Al Pacino. It's another film about the systemic police corruption in New York during the 70s. Forty years ago, you would have had a hard time finding a cop in New York City that either wasn't on the take or didn't look the other way.

The film is a tad long, as Roberts develops his case against Lucas, and Lucas goes about his business of killing and dealing. As a period piece, it stands up pretty well. The cars and sets are well used, and you will be reminded of what a pain in the ass it was to find a pay phone every time you had something important to tell someone. Cell phones have made drug dealing and police work a lot easier than it was in the old days.

The Vietnam War is used very well as a backdrop, and it is appropriate. We catch newscasters on the TV in the corner of a room, telling us that the war is going badly, then worse, then worse, then the fall of Saigon, so forth. All of this is very meaningful to Lucas: if the Americans leave Saigon, his pipeline of pure heroin is going to go down the toilet. How he gets over this hurdle is as insipid as it is clever. But, as with a lot of clever plans, you have to be careful with them. In the end, this final ruse is what leads to Lucas circling the wagons.

I enjoyed this film as a crime story and a period piece. It wasn't great, but I don't think it tried to reach for greatness, either, which is strange for a movie that runs over two hours. When a movie starts getting long, you know that the filmmakers are trying for an epic. They didn't here, and they're better for it.

Mall Murmur

I was at the mall today in my hometown. It's been a long while since the place saw my shadow. I was there to buy a pair of shoes, but I had some time to kill, so I walked down to the Timothy's coffee island.

Malls change in the blink of an eye, but the Burlington Mall more or less looks the same as it did when I was a kid. For a laugh, I started wandering through my brain and wondering how many Mall Memories I could come up with. I was surprised: quite a few. In fact, if it weren't for the snotty brats, pushy moms, down-and-out-security guards, or bad music over the PA, the mall would be a nice place to visit from time to time.

Coles bookstore brought up some memories. It used to be on the south side of the building, but some time ago they moved it directly across the hall. Why, I don't know. Anyway, I remember when my dad took me there to buy Stephen King's It. I'd been waiting for it to come out on paperback. When we got to the store, it was in the front window, stacked high. I remember doing a dumb kid-dance, as if I'd just scored a goal. Then we bought the book (or rather, my dad did; I didn't have a job then), and I read the thing in the space of a couple of days. I remember loving that book. I remember hating Stephen King's next one, and never reading another Stephen King novel until last year, Cell. I thought it was just okay.

The food court has moved. It's now beside a Sportchek, a store that didn't exist when I was growing up. But the new food court still serves the same crap. It's home to high school students. Catholic girls in kilts, the hemlines just below their crotches. That's the way it was when I was in school, too. Today, I'm single and I have no kids, but I still can't see how parents let their daughters walk around like broads in a fetish porno.

I got my coffee at Timothy's and I watched the food court and I remembered the time I was sitting alone at a table near the Mrs. Vanelli's pizza. It's gone now, but it was a hit with the kids back in the day. I was alone at a table there one day, and I had that creepy 'sitting alone' feeling that you get when you're a teenager. Around me, other kids were hanging out and chatting, using their text books for elbow props and talking about people behind their backs, so forth. The kids in the mall today were probably still talking about people behind their backs, but they were all doing it on cell phones. We didn't have those when I was in high school. Anyway, during my alone-day, I remember that a guy named Pat with long hair discarded his empty tray on my table and said, "Have a nice lunch." Then he sat with his hot girlfriend (I'm pretty sure her name was Michelle), and he laughed at my aloneness. Michelle frowned sympathetically because she'd hung out with me in grammar school, but that was a hundred years ago and this was high school, so what can you do?

I thought Pat was an asshole for that. I don't think he remembered the jibe, because six years later he was sitting in my dorm room at university, having a smoke and laughing it up with me. We'd "re-met" in a stats class, and we got to talking, and he came by my dorm from time to time to have a smoke and cool his heels. He lived off campus. I was the president of the residence and I had a nice pad all to myself, so there were always people hanging around. I never told Pat that I thought he was an asshole in high school, because that was a hundred years ago and this was university, so what can you do?

By the food court, there used to be an It Store, a place that sold knick knacks and colorful shoelaces and assorted crap. Girls liked it a lot. Beside that there used to be an iron-on t-shirt store. You could get your name printed on the back of your shirt in case you forgot who you were. I never bothered because my name is "Sean" and people just pronounced it "seen" until I corrected them.

There was a Bi-Way at the mall, too, right near the Timothy's where I was now standing. I stole a couple of dinky cars from Bi-Way on a dare and the grammar school principal found out. Turns out the school had a regular crime ring going, and somebody ratted on us. The rat's name was Kevin and he was pissed that nobody dared him to steal anything, so he ruined the whole show by dropping a dime at the principal's office. My dad was damn mad about that, and I had to return the stolen property. I cried like a sissy. The store manager took pity on me and let me off with a warning. I heard later that I was lucky: after the tenth kid turned in his stolen dinky car, the store manager freaked out and threatened to call the cops.

The Zellers is still there. I guess it always will be. Everything there is on sale all the time, and the old ladies in the apartments across the road really dig it. I remember I had a friend named Phil and his mom worked in the restaurant beside Zellers. I thought it was a crap job, being a waitress at Zellers. It didn't occur to me that they were separate establishments. I thought, who the hell eats at Zellers?

Me and that same Phil used to troll for chicks at the mall. We were 11 and we sucked at it. We never got the guts to talk to a girl. But we'd stalk them for a while and whisper about them over pizza and Coke. Today, we'd get arrested, suspended from school, and put through therapy or something. Back then, the girls just stuck out their tongues, we'd get embarrassed, and go home.

The mall entrances are all in the same spot. The old ladies used to walk through the doors with canes and walkers, but now they have all-terrain vehicles. One time, when I was about 12, I went to the mall early to buy my mom a Christmas present. I was too young to think it strange that she gave me her own money so I could buy her a present, but whatever. I used to buy her lots of spoons and pots and over mitts, because she said I should buy her something useful. To this day, she has more utensils than Buckingham Palace.

So one early morning before Christmas, I opened the mall door and looked around. It was dark inside. I called out "Hello," but got no response. I turned around, and there was a cop. He had a mustache. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was Christmas shopping. He told me to come outside. I did. He told me to stand where I was, and he got on his radio. I walked over to sit on a post. The cop yelled, "Stay right where you are." He snarled it. It turns out that someone had broken into the mall, and I had simply opened the unlocked door they'd left behind. The cop made me sit on the post for the better part of a half-hour until my story checked out. Then he wrote down my name and address, and he finally cut me loose. I haven't liked cops since.

I used to like those King's Quest video games when I was a kid. There was a computer store at the mall that sold them. Me and a couple of friends would stay up late at night and play them until our eyes got sore. We were maybe 12 years old. The King's Quest games were tough, and you had to use your wits and figure things out. When you got stumped, it felt like the end of the world. There was no internet to turn to. Sierra, the company that made the games, used to print these "hint books" that would help you out, but they cost fifteen bucks. So me and my friends would go to the mall and one of us would rip the book open while another guy stood look-out for the store manager. We finished all the games. Now that I think about it, the internet has completely destroyed a software company's method of making money by stumping people and selling them hint books.

When I was a kid, I wanted a dog. My mom didn't. I used to pray and pray for a dog. No go. So whenever I was in the mall I would go to the bookstore and read the dog books. How to train dogs, what to feed them, what kinds of dogs make good dogs, on and on. Back then, you weren't allowed to lounge around the book store, enjoy a chai tea latte, and read things without buying them, so I had to read the books on the sly before the manager booted me out. I never did get a dog, but I knew a hell of a lot about them. I didn't grow up to be a vet, and strangely enough, I don't want a dog anymore. I still like them, though.

The second floor of the mall isn't there anymore. I was looking around today and saw that the escalator is gone. I don't know what's on the second floor these days, but you're not allowed up there. When I was a kid, there was a hobby store on the second floor that sold the Dungeons and Dragons games. We used to go there and talk for hours about which game we would buy, because they were ten dollars each and it was a major spending decision. I remember we bought one game that revolved around pirates, and it was crap. Another time we bought one about gold dragons, and it was pretty good.

I worked at the gas station near the mall when I was in high school. It was an okay job for a teenager. For lunch or dinner, we'd get a half-hour break and wander across to the mall food court. I remember one time I went for a slice of Mrs. Vanelli's pizza. There was a guy sitting in the food court. I think his name was Gerald. He was sitting with Sharon, a girl I'd had a crush on for a hell of a long time. He asked me what I was up to and said, "Just getting some supper?" It had been a while since I'd heard anyone say "supper" instead of "dinner," and I have used "supper" quite a bit since that day. I like the easy going sound of it compared to "dinner." As for Sharon, I haven't seen her in at least 16 years, but I still think she was a knock out.

Another time after work, I went Christmas shopping. I'd taken a plastic bag from home in anticipation of all the things I would buy. So I went Christmas shopping and I put the stuff in this big plastic bag. I went walking through the mall towards the exits and I ran into a girl from high school. We shot the breeze for a minute and then she looked at the bag and asked, "Who's the lingerie for?" I turned red as a beet. The bag was white, but in swanky pink script it had the name of some lingerie shop on it.

There's a lot of stuff I remember from the mall. I could probably go on and on, if I put my mind to it. I bet you could, too.

Gone Baby Gone - Review

Director: Ben Affleck
Writers: Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard
Starring: Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman
Runtime: 114 minutes

Ben Affleck's directorial debut is perhaps the most boring, tiresome film I have watched in years.

I struggled to care about the film and its characters. No go. I tried to check out the babe that plays Casey Affleck's private detective sidekick, and I came up with squat. I wanted to relish the scenes with Morgan Freeman, and I found myself embarrassed for him. So I concentrated on Ed Harris, who is always fun to watch, until I saw that he wasn't that into the film, either.

Gone Baby Gone is a knee-jerk story. Those are stories that automatically must be considered relevant or important because of their subject matter. All critics fall for it, and most movie goers, too. Me, I'm not convinced. If you're going to make an important film, it better be done pretty damn well. Crash was about race, so it was grand and won an Oscar, though it has already been forgotten as a film of note. The Accused was about rape, and was considered groundbreaking, though the only thing it is remembered for now is the brutal rape scene. In the case of Gone Baby Gone, it's child abduction. Casey Affleck is a PI on the hunt for a missing girl. He and several other characters say the word "child" a dozen times, and "innocent" a half-dozen more. What could be more important than finding an innocent child?

Nothing, I guess, but if you're going to go the "find an innocent child route," try to make me care about the result.

Ben Affleck with Freeman
Ben Affleck attempts to paint a portrait of southie Boston. Since his Good Will Hunting fame, we've been told that he grew up there and knows the streets. White trash. Fat people with last night's gravy on their shirts. Nobody trusts the cops. The pubs are home to complete jerks that swear every second word. They're tough. They're closed-mouthed. This is a "community." Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) must navigate these mean streets, open people's mouths, and get them to tell him where the girl is.

Which, of course, they don't. They don't trust Kenzie because he is an outsider. They accuse him of talking smart and dressing fancy.

Ah, you're thinking, Kenzie must be wearing a suit and tie with shiny shoes. He must have a Harvard accent, right? Naturally the poor folk won't give him the goods. He's going to have to outsmart them, yes?

Nope. I don't know why the white trash of southie Boston don't trust Kenzie as part of their community, because he dresses like crap, talks exactly like them, and lives in the neighborhood. He knows everybody's name, and he knows where all the crooks hang out. When Ben Affleck decided to make his brother's character a local of the mean streets, the "outsider" stuff should have been tossed out the window. Instead, they try to ride it, and it's so phony as to be laughable. When a foul mouthed bartender accuses Kenzie of being a fancy outsider, I wondered if the bartender was blind. Kenzie could have been his best friend.

So yes, laughable. Except in Gone Baby Gone, there is nothing to laugh at and no one to cheer for. There is no comic relief. The film plods along to a melancholy musical score, apparently lit with one bare bulb. This, I suppose, is meant to give the film mood. In its attempt to make the film a gritty, dreary story of people's darker side, the film comes off as bogus and heavy handed. By the mid-point, you know that the film is trying to steer you in the direction of importance, and by the end, you're glad when the charade is over.

Casey Affleck
Everything about this film feels strangely amateur. Morgan Freeman, who should never look funny, looks funny in a policeman's uniform. It hangs on him like a clown costume. Any one-liners in the film feel placed there as one-liners, and they call attention to the bad writing. The plot is convoluted, but not confusing: confusion implies that you're lost, but still trying to figure everything out. In Gone Baby Gone, I knew that there was no point in making mental notes. The kidnapped girl was somewhere, but the filmmakers weren't going to help me find her. They were going to wait until the end of the film, surprise me with some hacked out plot twist, and use flashbacks to show me where I should have pieced things together. I was right. I won't go into much detail in case I get accused of spoiling it, but I will say this: the plot is preposterous. After you've seen the film, ask yourself if any of the characters would have gone along with such a scheme at the risk of prison sentences and ruined careers.

There is no bad guy to root against, and Casey Affleck is all talk and not much action. He doesn't make events move, but follows along with them. In a crime movie, you either have to care about the victim, or you have to want vengeance on the bad guy. Gone Baby Gone has neither. We know nothing about the little girl, and her mother is a coked out criminal that doesn't give a damn about her kid (except in one extremely bad scene, where the uncaring mother completely goes against type and has a good stage-cry).

Clint Eastwood directed another movie based on a book by Dennis Lehare. It was called Mystic River, and though I didn't like it, I could see how people did. See Mystic River before you see Gone Baby Gone, and perhaps you can use the experience as a film class learning lesson in how not to make a dark crime drama.

Otherwise, the experience is a complete waste.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Pot Boils On...

This is going to have to be a weekly event, as I try to keep up with the demise of the UK as we know (knew?) it. Sure, that makes me sound like some kind of paranoid guy, but emails from my friends make me think otherwise.

Here's another couple of stories that make you wonder where England is heading:

How do you teach British people about their "Britishness?" By destroying their British heritage, of course.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the EU was the most foolhardy decision that European leaders have ever made. Yes, that is saying a lot, but I'm saying it, anyway.

Catch the story here.

Here's another laugher. Dress-up day at an English school shouldn't make headlines, but this one does. Students and teachers at the school had to dress as Muslims to belatedly celebrate the Eid festival. In the afternoon there was a party, but only women could attend. Of the students, most are Christian. Of the 47 teachers, 2 are Muslim. Yes, you just read that. No word yet on when everyone will have to wear a yarmulke or a Buddhist robe.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day (or Veteran's Day, as it's known in the States) is fast approaching, and I am seeing a lot of plastic poppies out there. They're on the lapels of TV sportscasters, the chick at Starbucks, and the old lady I saw at the mall.

The poppies, of course, are a symbol of WWI dead, thanks to Canadian John McCrae. He was a surgeon-major during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. After a friend died, McCrae sat down on the back of a truck and wrote a poem, casting his eyes on the poppies and graves around him.

The poem was In Flanders Fields, and it almost didn't get published. McCrae tossed the poem away, but it was retrieved by another offer. In England, the Spectator rejected it, but Punch picked it up and published it on December 8, 1915. Three years later, McCrae (now a Lieutenant Colonel) died of pneumonia.

From Ypres, to Starbucks. I'm not sure if the Starbucks chick knows what the poppy means, but I don't really care. I just hope that she goes on wearing it every November. Down in the States, you're accused of being a neocon warmonger if you wear the flag on your lapel. So it is somewhat surprising to still see people wearing a symbol of war on their Canadian chests.

But Sean, you will say, the poppies are not a symbol of war. They're a symbol of war's futility, and a hope for peace.

Fat chance.

McCrae wasn't born in 1998, so he didn't have that kind of blood running through his veins. Though he was tormented by the screams that he heard and the endless line of dead bodies that left his dressing station, McCrae wasn't a pacifist. When In Flanders Fields brought him fame, he hoped it "would show men where their duty lay." When he was taken away from the artillery and ordered to open a new field hospital in Dannes-Camiers, McCrae told a friend, "Allinson, all the goddam doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men."

Those words don't sound strange coming from a fighting man's lips. In all the history I've read on war and conflict, I don't find too many examples of men stating that war is futile. Mainly they are broken up about losing friends, but it is very rare to find them saying that war should not be fought. That is, when you can find them saying a word about war in any context. Fighting men know that we civilian pussies won't get the picture, and therefore don't speak of it to us.

I don't blame them. Some years back, after the US invaded Afghanistan, I was sitting in a bar with a friend of mine. He'd left the Marines the year before, but he had told me some odds and ends about the fighting he'd done overseas. It wasn't top secret stuff, but it wasn't always stuff you found in the papers, either. After going to Afghanistan and fighting there, he called it quits and decided to get a cushy job. He loved the Marines and didn't have a bad word to say about them.

Anyway, we were having a beer. A bunch of friends were around. CNN was on the TV. It was the night the US invaded Iraq. Bombs were dropping on Baghdad, surgically placed so as not to hurt anybody. Just then, a friend of ours walked by. As he passed, he clapped my buddy on the shoulder and said, "Thanks for the war, you assholes."

He didn't mean me. He meant my American buddy and his asshole American friends, family, and comrades. Then he shook his head in disappointment and went on his way.

I wanted to kill him. My buddy just laughed and shrugged him off as a loser.

That moron's statement shows the difference between wars then and now. In WWI, nobody was walking by anybody and saying, "Thanks for the war," then wandering off to drink beer and forget all about it. In WWI, everybody had a very good chance of ending up on the front line. Between the draft, peer pressure, and societal expectation, you would have needed a ton of good excuses for not signing up.

Not that I'm all pro-American on this one. I watched a trailer for Robert Redford's new propaganda film, Lions to Lambs. It sounds like a history film from the last twenty years of the Democratic Party, but I doubt that's how Redford intended it. In the trailer, Meryl Streep makes the old comment that WWII took five years, while the war in Iraq has been going on forever.

First thing's first, Meryl and Bob. Not only are WWII and Iraq two completely different wars, but you don't have the right to get on your high horse about WWII, either. Five years, huh? Hmmm. So where was the US for the first three?

History lesson: WWII started in 1939. The US didn't enter it until 1941 was almost up. The War ended in 1945. Do the math, please.

Comparing wars is lame. Yes, WWII took 6 years to fight. The conflict in Iraq and around the world might take 50. But so what? That's 50 years shorter than the Hundred Years War, so by that standard, things are going splendidly.

Meryl's line is right up there with, "Thanks for the war, assholes." They're both symptoms of the same cultural disease that has been afflicting us since the media turned Vietnam into the new B.C./A.D. The idea that no war should be fought ever, for any reason, and if it must, then it has to be over before anybody gets killed.

Saying that WWII took only five years, but Iraq is taking longer is like a kid asking, "Are we there yet?" on the family trip. The adults know where they're going, sometimes get lost, check the map, re-route, so forth. The kids sit in the backseat, piss their pants, fight amongst each other, and can't see out the windows.

McCrae wouldn't recognize much today. His talk of "duty" and "more fighting men" would fall on deaf ears. In his poem he asks that the torch he passes upon his death be picked up by those who will carry on. The majority of people today would not take the torch for fear of burning themselves.

Remember McCrae and the sacrifice he and his brothers made. Remember that if you don't see where today's conflict is headed, McCrae didn't see where his was going either. He just knew it needed to be won to be stopped. The difference between us and him is that while we think about it, we have the luxury of flipping the channel and watching the football game. McCrae thought about it while watching poppies blow between the graves of dead men.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields