Shutter - Review

Director: Masayuki Ochiai
Writer: Luke Dawson
Starring: Rachael Taylor/Joshua Jackson
Runtime: 1 hr 25 minutes

I have a confession to make: horror movies freak me out. I love them, but secretly I am a behind-closed-fingers kind of guy. When I was kid, I didn't sleep well for 10 days after watching The Exorcist on VHS. I've since seen the film upwards of a dozen times, and it still scares the hell out of me when the priest goes back into the bedroom.

Basically, if a horror movie doesn't scare me, then it is not a good horror movie. Shutter is pretty terrible.

I could go on at length about what a rip-off it is (it is), and how it's time to give the Asian horror re-makes a rest (ditto). But I won't, because I don't think I'll have to. If Shutter doesn't put the kibosh on J-horror (Japanese horror, or Thai, in Shutter's case) for a little while, then nothing will.

Let me sum it up for you in five seconds: Shutter takes The Grudge, The Ring, The Grudge 2, The Ring 2, throws them in a blender, and then chucks the goo onto the screen. As with all Japanese horror films, there's a creepy dead girl with long hair and it keeps hanging in her eyes. Her face is painted ashen grey, she never speaks, and she wants everyone to die a horrible death, which they do. End of movie.

There isn't much to say for Shutter, besides this amazing fact: I liked the ending. Not because it was merciful for the audience to leave the room, but because the ending was genuinely creepy and had some small surprises. Besides that, the film is a stinker.

If you want to see a great horror movie based on Asian material, take another look at The Ring. It is hands down the best of the J-horror remakes, and it still remains my favorite shocker of the last decade.

Photo: Yahoo Movies

Cherry on Suzuki

Don Cherry on Earth gigolo David Suzuki.

I caught it live last night and it cracked me up. Here's the replay:

Lighting Tips from 500 Years Ago

I taped these the other day, but didn't get around to posting them until now. I probably shouldn't be posting these on the day of mighty Earth Hour but, well, screw it. In my line of work, I worship electricity. Just the thought of turning off a 1000w bulb makes me sad.

Here's some lighting tips from 500 years ago. Two parts.

Part 1

Part 2

Earth Hour

Sydney Saves 10 Cents

During Sanctimony Hour!

Polar Bears Pissed!

The Pot Calls the Kettle Red

The Canadian Human Rights Commission might be interested in defamation suits involving religion and hatred...but Canada isn't?

In a strange twist of fate, Canada joined England, France, and other European countries in voting against a UN resolution brought by the UN Human Rights Council. EU officials were wary of allowing more wide ranging religious anti-defamation laws in case they curbed free speech. Sound familiar?

In any event, the resolution passed 21-10, without Canada's blessing. As the Washington Post reports:

The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

Although the text refers frequently to protecting all religions, the only religion specified as being attacked is Islam, to which eight paragraphs refer.

Speaking for the EU, Slovenian Ambassador Andrej Logar said the 27-nation body was committed to tolerance, nondiscrimination and freedom of religion. But instead of a one-sided approach, it would be better to engage in dialogue with mutual respect.

The resolution "urges states to take actions to prohibit the dissemination ... of racist and xenophobic ideas" and material that would incite to religious hatred. It also urges states to adopt laws that would protect against hatred and discrimination stemming from religious defamation.

This comes on the heels of the latest round in the Canadian Human Rights hearing, where Marc Lemire is accused of having racist and xenophobic ideas on his website. Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine will be facing their own human rights complaint later in the year, for allegedly insulting Islamic people.

So which is it, Canada?

Première Femme

Christie's is planning to auction off a nude portrait of Carla Bruni, the French First Lady. The portrait was taken by photographer Michel Comte during a 1993 photo session.

Bruni is the new wife of French President Sarkozy, and apparently she's ticked that someone is going to try to make some cash from her portrait on the eve of her visit to England.

The Daily Mail reports one of her aides as saying, ""Carla is very angry, not to say deeply upset, that a commercial organization has chosen to release this print at such an important time.

"Her priority is to establish herself on the world stage as a first lady France can be proud of."

Well, I don't know about France, but you can count me in as one of the proud.

Since when are nude portraits shameful? I'm not talking about the grainy, paparazzi beach shots of movie stars. I'm talking about models and artists plying their trade to give us something beautiful, which is what Mrs. Sarkozy is.

She was a gorgeous model and someone took her picture. Big deal. Carpenters don't get grief for houses they built 10 years ago, and models shouldn't take any flack for their past portraits, either.

I love the US and Canada, but our prudishness is ridiculous (even the New York Post would only run the portrait's head and shoulders). In the full portrait, you can see Carla Bruni's breasts. They are human breasts. You can see her face. It's a human face. You can see her feet. They are human feet.

She's a human being. Whether film emulsion or water-based paint, all portraits are attempts at showing us the human form, and it's up to us to decide what we see.

Michelangelo, Titian, Da Vinci, Raphael. To be embarrassed by Bruni's portrait is to be ashamed of the greats. It is worth remembering that Da Vinci and the boys used brush and chisel because it is all they had. If they were around today, who knows what they would have done with a Nikon and Photoshop. Maybe they would have been great. Maybe not.

When I look at Bruni's portrait, I don't see naked vulnerability in those eyes. I see a challenge and some pride. I see attitude, and a healthy dose of bravery.

She needs to keep it.

Photos: Daily Mail & Raphael's La Fornarina

Cosmo Girls - Ask Me Anything

I was flipping through the latest issue of Cosmo to keep an eye on what the fairer sex are up to. I stumbled upon the "Ask Him Anything" section. This is the part of the magazine where unknown women write in and, we're told, some great guy has wonderful advice for them.

I think his answers are lame and terribly long winded. Here's my take:

I've been seeing this guy and the chemistry is great. Whenever we're together, we never stop talking. The problem is, he never calls between get-togethers. He texts and emails me, but I want him to call. Should I say something?

If you say something, he will probably start calling you now and then, because he'll be afraid to lose his booty text. Sorry, but that's what you are. I would put the chances of him having another girlfriend at 50-50. The chances that he's sleeping with two or more other women is 90%. I can almost guarantee he's on a dating website.

For the first time in my life, I'm involved in a fling with a guy. But recently, he started bringing emotions into the mix. I just want to have fun! I thought that's what all men wanted.

Well, let's start by skipping the lie about you being involved in a fling for the "first time in your life." Ms. Holier Than Thou decided to wake up one day and start flinging, huh? Right. Anyway, don't worry about it. If you're after a fling, than you shouldn't care what he thinks and just move onto another fling. Wait. What's that? He's presently your only fling? Well then, say hello to your new boyfriend.

I've been dating my boyfriend for more than a year, and we live together now. Things are great: he's supportive, and our sex life is fantastic. But he doesn't trust me, and he makes comments about my "other boyfriends." What's his problem?

He's probably a jealous headcase. Now that you live with him, you're pretty screwed. Good luck.

I'm 26-years-old and a virgin. Whenever I tell a guy that I haven't done it, he disappears. I'm so frustrated that I'm ready to have sex just so I won't keep scaring away potential boyfriends. How can I tell a guy and not freak him out?

Who have you been dating? Any guy that hears he's got a 26-year-old virgin on his hands would be saying, "Game on." However, if you've waited 8 months to tell the guy and he thinks he's not going to score unless you get married, forget it. Just the way the world works today.

I broke up with my ex more than five years ago, and he is one of my best friends. He's in a new relationship, and his girlfriend is great. However, he's never told her that we used to date. He just calls me an "old friend." I feel like he's lying, and it's sleazy. I've talked to him about it, and he says he just doesn't want to cause drama. What should I do?

He's not being sleazy. You broke up more than five years ago. He's gotten on with his life. Get on with yours. If he thinks it's an issue, he'll do what you just did and tell his girlfriend that the two of you "dated." That could be dinner and movie, or a slice of pizza. He'll tone it down to three dates and make it sound like it meant nothing. If you prefer that, then have him do it. If you want him to tell her how wonderful you were, that you were great in the sack, and that he cherished every moment of your relationship but it didn't work out for one reason or another...forget it. Also, in the game of girl space friend vs. girlfriend, you're going to lose, especially if you instigate the problem.

Dr. Sean appears on Oprah and is a regular contributor to Better Homes and Gardens.

Attention Craigslist Shoppers

Someone found a nasty way to let the air out of Robert Sailsbury's fun balloon.

Sailsbury is an Oregon man who took off for a weekend and had his house ransacked. He found out about it when a woman called him, asking about the horse he was giving away.

News to Salisbury. Turns out there were a couple of postings on craigslist, saying that everything in his pad was up for grabs - free.

Salisbury rushed home to find that he'd been cleaned out. You can read the rest of the story here.

It isn't the first time that the net's been used to crash someone's place. Here's another story I caught last year.

A Modest Response

I received an interesting letter vis-a-vis my take on the CHRC. It reads thus:

The Levant case has nothing to do with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Is it asking too much that you guys do your basic homework?

Never mind. Even Steyn thinks that Section 13 of the CHRA applied to the Levant case. -- Dr. Dawg

My response is as follows:

Dear Dr. Dawg,

re: "Canadian Human Rights Commission"

You're absolutely right. I have fallen into the trap of lumping them together over the past couple of months. To be honest, I can't keep track of who is complaining to whom, and who is hearing which case against which person. It changes from week to week and province to province.

Let's be more specific: the group hearing the Steyn deal is the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The British Columbia Human Rights Commission dropped the proceeding (at least, last I heard). The group that questioned Ezra Levant on You Tube is the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

This is painful stuff for the writer and the reader. Example: "The CHRC could have gone on sailing into the next century, punishing Canadians for speaking their minds, except for three things:

"Steyn [Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ontario Human Rights Commission, not the Alberta Human Rights Commission, and no longer the BC Human Rights Commission], Levant [only the Alberta Human Rights Commission, but not the other ones], Maclean's [lumped in with Steyn and, I think, no longer under the BC Human Rights Commission (if they ever were) but I could be wrong]."

All that for the names of two people and one magazine?

To satisfy everyone, I think we should use Canadian human rights commission(s), (note the parentheses and small caps). "Canadian" in this case doesn't imply the actual Canadian Human Rights Commission, only that the commission(s) are geographically located in Canada. This will make it much simpler for everyone, rather than having to scroll the Rolodex to see which principal's office a person has been called to.

Cheap Greenscreen

Greenscreen for 7 bucks.

Facebook

A decent parody of Facebook.

The Gospel According to Hitchens

In the last few years there have been a number of books declaring the lunacy of religion in general and Christianity in particular. There was one called The End of Faith, another called The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and John Paulos' Irrelgion. Each makes the same point: there is no God (or god with a small "g"), and religion is a hoax.

Nothing new. Nietzche happens to be one of my favorite philosophers, and he couldn't stand Christianity. He despised priests above all other human beings, and argued for their destruction, or at least permanent ridicule.

I never faulted Nietzche for that. It was his take, his murmur, and from the rest of his writings you could see that he hated priests because he thought they were beneath reason. They hindered a human being's will to power, the very core of Nietzche's philosophy.

I'm not sure what I believe, but I don't dwell on it much. I've said before that I'm not the praying type, but that I'm glad many people still are. The pressure to turn our culture completely atheist seems very shortsighted to me, and it doesn't surprise me to see it coming from the media-types and literary wags (by atheist, of course, they mean anti-Christian; it's been a while since I heard an "intellectual" take a turn at bashing the Dalai Lama).

The literary types, like Hitchens, are attempting to be the modern Nietzche, but they fail because of their transparency. Like all socialists, they distrust religion because it gives the natives funny ideas about who's running the show. All socialist dictators that take power immediately outlaw religion, or at least try to bring the religious leaders to heel. Hitler did the latter with the Catholic Church, and did the former with the Jews. Stalin destroyed religion inside the Soviet Union, and made atheism a central tenet of communism.

It's no surprise then, that atheism is the central tenet of the socialists today. They still hold a soft spot in their hearts for Stalin, and at least go along with him in the belief that the peasants can't be left to make up their own minds about what they want they want to believe. The state dictates all, and there can't be any distractions.

Atheism is a funny thing. People that are proud of their total lack of beliefs don't see the irony: that they have created a whole new religion, and zealously believe in it.

After all, what constitutes an organized religion? Take two examples.

One man wears a black coat and a white collar. He stands behind a pulpit. He gazes down at his followers. He tells you to believe in God, and that the words in the Bible are the way to a good life. He can't show you God, but he asks you to take it on faith that God exists. He reads a gospel from his Bible. Later during his sermon, the ushers pass a basket around the room and ask you to toss in a donation. At the end of his sermon, the priest invites you to the front of the church, where he gives you communion. Then he blesses you and says good-bye.

Now take the other man. He wears a dark suit and a necktie. He stands behind a podium (pulpit). He gazes down at his fans (followers). He tells you not to believe in God, because there is no God. He can't prove that God does not exist, but he asks you to believe (take it on faith) that there is no God. He reads a paragraph (gospel) from his book (Bible). During his speech (sermon) his assistants (ushers) pass a microphone around the room to ask for your questions (you've already paid your entry fee (donation) before entering the hall). At the end of his speech (sermon), the man invites you to the front of the hall (church) where you can have a handshake (communion). He will autograph his book (Bible), and he will wish you well (bless you).

Try as I might, I can't see the difference between Christopher Hitchens and a priest. They both want you to read a book and believe its findings. Though neither of them can irrefutably prove their points of view, they demand that you believe it, or else they pity you.

By writing Bibles and giving sermons, Hitchens is not an antidote, but simply another brand of the poison that he claims to despise. At tens of thousands of dollars in appearance fees, I hope he gives a pretty good dose.

Photo: Nigel Perry/New York

The Spy Who Trashed Me

CBC's The Border likes to portray Canada as having a crack intelligence service and a first-rate response to terrorism.

This next story shows that life isn't exactly imitating art:

The 26 blueprints were contained in one of seven defense ministry files that a passer-by found on top of garbage bags on an Ottawa street. The other six files are still missing.

Catch the rest of the story here.

Obama the Benevolent Pollster

Obama has come out with another weird take on foreign policy. He asked the rhetorical question of whether the American people want a president who opposed the Iraq war from the start (Obama's position), or one who only started opposing it after running for president (Hillary's take).

How about...neither?

I sigh when I hear Obama trot out the same old line, that he will make a good President because he's "against the war." He think the polls back him up on this, but he's wrong.

It's a rare event, but when you see it, you'll know what it is: a poll that asks American citizens if the war is going well. Guess what? Low numbers. Then another question, seldom given screentime, from the same poll: should American troops be removed from Iraq? Low numbers.

Many Americans do not detest the war itself, but the way that it is being fought. They want a more aggressive campaign, with results to show for it. Now that the number of terrorist attacks in Iraq have been chopped in half since this same time last year, the polls are swinging in a more optimistic direction (and the headlines have dried up; not enough American blood being spilled). This is not a fluke.

Just once I'd like to hear Obama say what he is for, not what he is against. If you're against the war and want to bring the troops home next February, okay, but what are you going to do after that? I suppose you could start writing letters of apology to all of the Iraqi people that get massacred after the American exit. If so, I hope you have a lot of ink. Make it purple, and call it a symbolic gesture.

Fade to Black - Anthony Minghella

I thought Anthony Minghella's movies were on the boring side, but they had a sweeping beauty that couldn't be ignored. He would reach for David Lean majesty, and I admired him for that.

It is a shame that such a good filmmaker died so young. Only 54, Minghella checked into the hospital for a neck operation and died of a brain hemorrhage.

I wasn't a fan of The English Patient or Cold Mountain, though both of them were beautifully photographed.

The Talented Mr. Ripley stands out in my mind as Minghella's masterpiece. Every time I see the film, I get the itch to move to Italy and just hang out in cafes and jazz bars. The pure warmth of that film gets into your bones, and the sheer cold of its ending is fine, gutsy filmmaking.

Not only a director, Minghella penned or adapted most of his own movies. He was damn good antidote to the smash-and-bang Hollywood of today. He'll be missed.

Photo: Yahoo Movies

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I was listening to the morning drive DJ, and he asked if anyone knew which country was the first to throw a St. Patrick's Day parade.

"The United States," I said, to no one in particular.

After the commercial break, the DJ came back on the air and said, "The United States."

I patted myself on the back, because it was purely a guess. Still, it didn't come as any surprise. Nationalism is not as old as St. Patrick (he lived and died sometime in the 5th Century...we think), so it's rare to find "national Saint parades" dating back more than a century or two.

Patrick didn't consider himself Irish. He was Roman-British, and his first trip to Ireland wasn't auspicious. He was kidnapped by Irish pirates and spent 6 years as a captive. He later escaped, only to return as a missionary, trying to spread the word of Christ. When he died is anybody's guess, and March 17 is purely a symbolic date.

The holidays and feast days that we celebrate are historically impossible to nail down. In Paddy's time, they were using a completely different calendar than we have now, and Patrick himself probably would have been surprised to find out that he would become the symbol of the country. For one thing, there were no "countries" when Patrick walked the earth. It wasn't until three hundred years after his death that he became the patron saint of Guinness-land, and no one's even sure which church he belonged to.

What does this all mean?

Not a hell of lot. If you have to be saint, being St. Patrick is a pretty good deal. People say your name, raise a glass of beer in your honor, and get blind drunk singing your praises. That's as good a legacy as any. When you get down to it, a saint that crosses the secular/religious divide is rare, not unlike country singers that successfully make the jump to rock n' roll.

Off the top of my head, only St. Valentine and St. Patrick get their own cross-cultural party day, and it doesn't come with any anti-Christian baggage, either. Say Merry Christmas to somebody and they can get all hot and bothered about the separation of church and state. Say, "Happy St. Patrick's Day," and that person will buy you another beer and say, "Kiss me, I'm Irish!" even if they're not.

Irish people must feel very vindicated by St. Patrick's Day. On March 17th, guys named Jablonski will lie and say they have a little Irish in them. Back when the Irish first came to the New World, they were considered the lowest of the low. There was no other nationality you could be that wasn't worse than being Irish. Now, people are proud to wear funny green top hats, drink green beer, and puke same, all in the name of being from the land of shamrocks.

Sounds good to me. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Gone With The Helium

Having a bad day?

Here's a story that will make you feel a little better than this guy. His name's Lefkos Hajji. He wanted to surprise his girlfriend with an engagement ring hidden inside a helium balloon. His plan was to have her pop the balloon as he popped the question.

Alas, as Lefkos left the store, a wind blew up and the balloon sailed out of his hand. As Reuters reports:

"I couldn't believe it," he told The Sun newspaper.

"I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

"I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me."

Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.

"I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question," he said.

"But I had to tell her the story -- she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring."

He is hoping the ring will still turn up.

"It would be amazing if someone found it," he added.

There's a few different ways of looking at this story. The first way is to say that his girlfriend is a goldigger that only cares about the loot. We're told often that love is all that matters, but for Lefkos' girl, love only matters if it comes with a 12 grand rock.

Another way to look at it is to feel very sorry for Lefkos, but also wonder if the butterfingered fool couldn't have been a little more careful when carrying $12 000 on the end of a string.

And yet another way to look at it is this: who says Lefkos bought a ring?

Asking for Money vs. Begging for Words

If the film grads want some censorship to complain about, they should have a look at this. I'd be 100% behind them on this account, were they raise it as an issue.

Begging for money to complete a film is not censorship. The ancient rule of Crown Copyright, however, comes close.

This piece is an excerpt from an article by Michael Geist:

Dating back to the 1700s, crown copyright reflects a centuries-old perspective that the government ought to control the public’s ability to use official documents. Today crown copyright extends for fifty years from creation and it requires anyone who wants to use or republish a government report, parliamentary hearing, or other work to first seek permission. While permission is often granted, it is not automatic.

The Canadian approach stands in sharp contrast to the situation in the U.S. where the federal government does not hold copyright over work created by an officer or employee as part of that person's official duties. Accordingly, government reports, court cases, and Congressional transcripts can be freely used and published.

The existence of crown copyright (or lack thereof) affects both the print and audio-visual worlds. For example, the 9-11 Commission’s report, released last year in the U.S., was widely available for free download, yet it also became a commercial success story as the book quickly hit the best seller list once offered for purchase by W.W. Norton, a well-regarded book publisher.

By comparison, a Canadian publisher seeking to release the forthcoming Gomery report as a commercial title would need permission from the government to do so. To obtain such permission, the publisher would be required to provide details on the intended use and format of the work, the precise website address if the work is to appear online, as well as the estimated number of hard copies if the work is to be reprinted. If the work is to be sold commercially, the publisher would be required to disclose the estimated selling price.

The difference between the Canadian and the U.S. approach is just as pronounced in the documentary film arena. Consider, for example, a Canadian creating a film about a controversial political issue such as same sex marriage or gun control. The filmmaker might want to include clips from politicians speaking to the issue in the House of Commons.

After obtaining the desired video from the House of Commons, the filmmaker would be presented with a series of legal terms and conditions limiting its use to school-based private study, research, criticism, or review as well as news reporting on television and radio outlets that are licensed by the CRTC. Everything else, including any commercial use of the video, would require the prior written approval from the Speaker of the House.

Shut Up and Roll Camera

Mark Steyn has jumped into the ring on the C-10 issue, but he missed the best lines. He's right in pointing out the foolishness of David Cronenberg's statement that cutting off funding for certain films is akin to "something they would do in Beijing."

What other somethings, Dave? Perhaps, say, holding the Olympic Opening Ceremonies?

Yet Cronenberg's real laugher of a line is this one: "You have a panel of people working behind closed doors who are not monitored and they form their own layer of censorship." He then added that Canadian filmmakers make films about dark, edgy places where most people don't want to go. If he's referring to Canadian art cinemas, he's spot on the money.

Let's be straight up about this: by the rules of the CanCon dysfunctional, David Cronenberg is not a Canadian filmmaker. He is a filmmaker that was born in Canada. He hasn't had a need for grant money in decades, and he no longer has a clue what it is like to be a low budget, artsy cameraman. His films have non-Canadian stars, and they do not concentrate on Canadian society. They are not remotely "Canadian." He may be a hero to the small-time Canadian film grads (who are trying to become rich and famous and live in LA), but he is certainly not a bona fide "Canadian filmmaker."

Now, before you start feverishly hitting the keys and telling me that A History of Violence was shot entirely in Ontario, Canada, hang on a minute. You're half right: Cronenberg shot the film in Millbrook, Ontario. Being a proud Canadian, I am sure he wanted to give the union guys some work. He is such a proud Canadian, the town is renamed Millbrook, Indiana, and the end of the film takes place in "Philadelphia."

Cronenberg's "behind closed doors" line is not only asinine, it's ignorant. He is not talking about the CHRC, which will be having a secret meeting at the end of the month in order to decide a Canadian citizen's fate. He is talking about lazy film students that can't draw an audience (which Cronenberg can, by using Toronto as a Philly-backdrop).

Listening to filmmakers whine about a lack of funding and then comparing it to the acts of a totalitarian regime is disgusting. For them to place themselves in the same shoes as people that are shot for political crimes is obscene.

In our own backyard we have a star chamber ruining the lives of Canadian citizens merely for speaking their minds. For years, these same citizens have been subsidizing film school summer projects. What thanks do they get? Not a word from the film grads, and not a peep from Cronenberg.

One last time: you want to make a movie? Then make the damn movie. No one's stopping you. That would be...censorship.

Call Girls - Bad Boys

If you can think of a worse name for a governor that's caught with a hooker, I'd love to hear it. Spitzer. Now, how many jokes can the late night comedy guys come up with for that? It practically writes itself.

People are ganging up on the disgraced NY governor for cheating on his wife, paying a call girl for sex, and for being a moral hypocrite. When he got into office, he took the high ground and came out swinging against against the Wall Street crooks. Now they're having a damn good laugh at his expense and there isn't a thing the guy can do about it.

I'm neither here nor there about what he did. He cheated, got busted, and he's going down. Happens all the time. I just wish he would have remembered the rest of us.

Men, that is.

I happened to be surfing the channels last night. First stop, The Moment of Truth. That's the show where total morons sit in a chair and get asked a series of questions about their personal lives. If they tell the truth, then they can win upwards of five hundred grand. If they lie, it's over. The catch: they have to go through a polygraph test before the show, and if their answers don't line up with the test results, they're done like dinner.

Last night's questions were about as suicidal as you can get:

Have you ever had sexual relations with you wife's sister?

Have you lost your sexual attraction for your wife?

Have you ever had sex with one of your friends' wives?

You get the idea. To the first two questions, the guy went through with flying colors. "No," and, "No." The wife looked suitably pleased. Then the last one: "Yes."

After the guy won a hundred grand, he quit the show and took the money, choosing not to humiliate himself any further by going for the big cash. There were no high fives with the family, no hugs all around. The look on the wife's face said she was already counting how much of that hundred grand was going to wind up in her bank account after the divorce.

After watching that relationship meltdown, I flicked on the evening news and watched Governor Spitzer resign from office. He was sorry this and sorry that. As the wives of cheating politicians do, his wife stared at the podium and looked like she hadn't slept in three days.

What I can't stand about these guys is that they put the men of the country through the ringer. If you watch these programs and news stories while sitting beside a woman, you are in for a very long night. Women always ask what you think of the story, and boy, your answer better be good.

"So, what do you think?" honey might ask.
"'Bout what?" you say, reaching quickly for the remote in order to take away ammunition.
"About him. Look at his wife. She looks awful. Men are scum."
"Sure are."
"Don't patronize me. Tell me what you think."
"Well, he really screwed up."
"Screwed up? How? By getting caught?"
"No, I mean he shouldn't have cheated."
""Screwed up?' Like, made a mistake? So it was a mistake that his prick fell in her hand, huh?"

Last Call
And off you go, down a dangerous road that eventually leads to questions of how many women you've slept with, or whether or not you're a superficial scumbag that doesn't appreciate fat girls, so forth.

Everyone thinks that these guys should think of their wives and families before going to a hooker or sleeping with a friend's wife. I say otherwise. I say that these guys need to think of us, sitting on the coach. No hockey game tonight, dear, we're going to have Gloria Steinem fly in and kick you in the balls.

It is axiomatic that women will think that a man going to a call girl is a scumbag, but never once mention the call girl and where she might lie on the morality chart.

Photos: Reuters/NY Post

Semi-Pro - Review

Director: Kent Alterman
Starring: Will Ferrell/Woody Harrelson
Writer: Scot Armstrong
Runtime: 90 minutes

Will Ferrell returns as another goofy sports guy in Semi-Pro and the results are disappointing.

There was a lot of hype leading up to Semi-Pro, all of it funny. Will Ferrell appeared in numerous commercial spots, the highpoint coming during the Super Bowl. There was Will, tight shorts and all, being what he always is: hilarious.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't live up to the hype and you'll find yourself wishing they had just run a bunch of the commercials back-to-back on the big screen. The Bud Light ads had a higher budget than this film, and they were funnier, too.

What struck me most about the film was its sheer lack of production value. Comedies aren't known for having great lighting and camera work, but that's okay because we don't expect it. In Semi-Pro, however, it looks like the budget went entirely to renting the high school gym where the basketball games are played, and the locker room, where most of the one-liners get zinged.

The film is basic in the extreme. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the player/coach of the ABA's Flint Tropics. Word comes down that the ABA is going to be disbanded, but that the top four teams in the league will make it into the NBA. And so the montage marathon begins, as the Tropics try to make it into the top 4, all the while being hamstrung by Jackie Moon's antics.

There's nothing new to the plot, which would be easy to overlook if the movie was funny. Funny movies don't need much in the way of plot to succeed, because if the audience laughs, case closed. Yet Semi-Pro isn't that funny. It's not terribly bad, just not laugh-out-loud good, which is what you want from a Will Ferrell vehicle. When you stick a cliche story line on top of unfunny comedy, you get what you pay for: nothing much.

Woody Harrelson is in the movie as a washed up player looking for a second chance. He does a pretty good job, but the love interest subplot involving him and Maura Tierney is a total waste. She has a grand total of ten minutes screentime in the picture, and we couldn't care less who she is, what she does, and whether or not she'll get back together with Woody. Their scenes together aren't funny, and they don't add anything to the movie. Why was she there to begin with? Search me.

Scot Armstrong wrote this piece, as he did Elf and Old School, two other pictures starring Will Ferrell. He definately has comedy chops. Perhaps first-time director Kent Alterman let this movie get away from him.

If I had to sum up Semi-Pro in one sentence, I'd say it like this: "They phoned it in." It is a very, very poor re-telling of Slap Shot.

Which is too bad, because all the hype leading up to it made me think I might be in for another Ferrell giggle-fest.

Disappointing. Save yourself the money and just look up Will Ferrell on You Tube and watch a bunch of his old stuff. You'll have a much better time.

Name Game

I was flicking through the channels a few minutes ago and ran across The Bachelor. It was the Where Are They Now episode, in case millions of Americans were wondering whatever happened to the desperate chicks that were willing to humiliate themselves on national TV a few years back.

There was a bimbo on the screen and she said she's been happy since her time on the show. She didn't win the dude, but she did eventually score a husband who loves her very much and blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, they've got their whole lives planned out. According to her they're going to have three kids. Two boys and one girl. The boys will be named "Aidan" and "Cooper."

Unsurprisingly, she jumps around during halftime at the Suns games. She calls it dancing.

I'm all in favor of people having kids, but what's the deal with names like Cooper? Aidan I can understand - if you're fresh off the boat from Ireland. But Cooper is right up there with "Connor" as a lame handle. Here's what I had to say about it last July:

Random Musing on Old Stuff:

I miss old words and old names. It’s been ages since I met a guy named Lou. Same with George, Zeke, Ted, Al, Ron, Bill, Gus, Hank, Bart, Max, Bruce, Sam, Ralph, or Joe. Where did they all go? Even at the service stations the guys are wearing two syllable names. Wasn’t it a rule that you had to have a one syllable name to work on a guy’s car?

I miss the old words, too. Stuff you never hear anymore. Like ‘tomfoolery.’ That is a great word, and it’s a shame to think it’s gone. Just once I want to hear an old guy come out of his house and yell at some kid, “Knock off that tomfoolery!”

Where’d ‘nincompoop’ go? Or ‘buffoon’?

I miss them.

Tinker, Tailor, Policeman, Spy

MI5 agents have identified FOUR London Met officers after searching for a cell of fanatics passing Scotland Yard's secrets.

The spooks homed in on the officers in the past few weeks after working with anti-terror police to uncover "sleeper" agents in London's Met. -- News of the World

When I was kid, nothing could separate me from spy stories. I devoured them at a rapid pace, and always came back wanting more. There was something about the world of cloak and dagger that fascinated me.

Quiller was my favorite spy. Written by Adam Hall, the Quiller books were fast and lean. Violent. Fun. Quiller was always getting up to no good behind the Berlin Wall, and Hall managed to paint Quiller into extremely tight corners from which no one could escape. Except, of course, Quiller.

The Quiller Memorandum put Hall on the map, and Hollywood turned the book into a pretty good flick starring George Segal (and Alec Guinness, in a bit-part). As the years went on, Hall (a pen name for Elleston Trevor) churned out more novels, but Hollywood never picked them up. This was understandable. If you've read the Quiller series, then you know that it was written in the first person. First person stories rarely translate well to the big screen because so much of the story is about the character's own thoughts and emotions. It takes a very good script, and a very good director, to show these thoughts to the audience without telling them.

le Carre
It wasn't until I grew older that I could read John le Carre's stuff. Le Carre went in for the hum-drum spy, the quiet machinations of the dark world. As a kid, I couldn't get into it because it bored me, and when I was older I made the big mistake of reading le Carre's post-Soviet Union material.

Like most spy writers, the crashing of the Berlin Wall destroyed le Carre's career. You may argue that many of his post-Wall books have made the bestseller list, but I think that was more on reputation than on quality of writing. As a friend of Stephen King's once told him, "You could write something on toilet paper now and people would still buy it."

One day I was in the book store and I spotted The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. I hemmed and hawed and finally bought it. And I loved it. I was in my twenties and I was finally old enough to let Carre take me through 65 pages of nothing before getting to the point. Until I realized that the 65 pages were the point, and that he had fooled me. Leamas still worked for Smiley, and he was going East.

I read the Smiley books shortly thereafter, and I loved them, too. Le Carre's post-Wall politics as an anti-American panty waist have clouded the fact that he was a very good spy writer. Today, the Left regard him as good people, while the Right figure he sold out (I don't think they truly trusted him to begin with). Me, I just think he's some guy that wrote a few good spy stories.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was probably my favorite, and Smiley's People comes after that. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could write more boring material and make it more interesting. Whole chapters of Smiley reading musty old documents, or talking to alcoholic widows, or wandering around a murky dockyard under overcast skies.

Depressing stuff, and maybe that's why the Right don't remember him too fondly. His spy world was not one of gunshots and victory. Smiley was not the typical spy hero. He was fat, old, washed up. His wife had cheated on him with his best friend, and his best friend turned out to be a double agent. He wasn't James Bond.

I never liked Bond. On my scale of spies, I'd put Quiller first, Smiley second, and anybody from Frederick Forsyth third (Forsyth almost doesn't count, because many of his book weren't "spy stories," in the true Berlin Wall sense).

The tension of the Cold War spy books came from one place: over there. The Wall represented a physical reality for a philosophical nightmare: beyond the barbed wire was a land where free throught was outlawed, and free thinkers were jailed and starved. Over there was a place where you could die for writing a poem, and over there was a place you could never leave. If you were born over there, nobody in the West would ever know you existed unless you were a politician or a figure skater.

Then the Wall came down, and the spy writers went with it. No more dragons to slay, no over there to go to.

Fast forward almost twenty years, and the spy racket is in total disrepair. The Bourne movies are about a character that is being hounded by his own people, three times over. Any story involving today's great enemy, Islamic fascism, is run through the political litmus test before it reaches the shelf. If the story is a film, then the litmus test becomes an acid test, as the story is warped into some strange tale about equality between the good guys and the bad guys.

Kim Philby
There are no more real spy stories. They're gone. The Kim Philby disaster that rocked British Intelligence (and gave birth to Smiley) is ancient history. Today, 4 members of the London MET are outed as agents spying for fanatical terrorists, and everybody yawns. In the old days, a spy outed in the newspapers would be crapping his pants and heading for the train station, one step ahead of the noose. Today, the word "treason" in never mentioned and the spy wonders if his lawyer will get him off. And nobody cares. Why?

Because the enemy is already over here, walking amongst us, part of the political theater. Indeed, over there is over here, and vice versa. Treasonous acts are no longer treasonous, they're simply a nuisance. Spies are not spies, they're just people with a different set of beliefs. When a spy is eating dinner at the next table, how dangerous can he be?

I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

Photos: Lenin Imports & Wikipedia

Paper or Plastic?

Ooops.

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” he said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.

“It doesn’t do the Government’s case any favours if you’ve got statements being made that aren’t supported by the scientific literature that’s out there. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren’t made.” -- Times Online

When a dude from Greenpeace says plastic bags are okay, what's an enviro-boob to do?

Turns out the "plastic bag" myth is based on a typo. A 1987 Canadian report said that fishing nets killed a lot of animals and birds. In 2002, an Australian government paper misquoted the text as not "fishing nets," but "plastic bags."

Catch the story here.

Martini Please, But Hold the Olives

There's a new term floating around for women with eating disorders. It's called Drunkorexia.

I read it this morning for the first time, and I had no idea what it was. A strangely stooped dinosaur fossil found in Utah? A misspelling of my last party night, which was a "Drunkorama?"

Drunkorexia apparently involves a total lack of food and way too much sauce. Women with the problem will avoid food all day, in anticipation of their boozy caloric intake that evening.

Now I get it. That skinny woman with the terrible laugh and frazzled hair wasn't an annoying booze hound. She was Drunkorexic.

This is what me and my college buddies used to call "life." When we sat down for a slab of pizza, we'd dig in with reckless abandon until somebody said, "Don't eat too much. We're drinking tonight." At which point the beer-drinking lads would drop crust, while a few others would shrug and say, "I'm on rum."

We weren't too concerned about caloric intake. Nobody said that they were embarrassed to have their mother's thighs, and the only way our problem resembled an eating disorder was the puke factor, which mostly came much later in the evening. I never thought the medical community would come up with a name for it. It may be "Drunkorexia" today, but for us it was a run of the mill study night.

They did a segment on the Today show about the dangers of Drunkorexia, and the earnest host asked a shrink, "So, let's say I'm going to have a couple of drinks tonight, and I decide to skip lunch. Is that a problem?"

Hell, no. As any good drinker knows, skipping lunch has nothing to do with it. It's dinner that counts. Men don't mind if women drink on an empty stomach because there is a greater chance that the woman will take off her tube top while line-dancing on the bar. This can lead to tragedy, however, if the man is actually dating the woman. If he's dating her, there's a real possibility that he will have to hold her hair back at 3am while she projectile vomits into the john. If he's not dating her, he can simply take some photos on his cell phone and have them on the net by midnight.

As a general rule, you shouldn't drink on an empty stomach unless you want to wake up with an ugly person. Most of the heartbreaking "walks of shame" that take place can be blamed on the evil combination of an empty gut and Jello shooters. Women have been known to go home with men that wear lousy shoes for this reason alone.

Why women care what men think is beyond me. Men want to sleep with you anyway, especially if they meet you in a bar. It a scientific fact that every beer a man consumes drops 5 pounds from the woman he's looking at. After a six-pack, most women look great, and after a keg party, it's like the place is full of runway models.

The "Drunkorexia" label smells a little fishy to me. It was probably invented by a woman that was tired of being called a lush. The way the world works now, you can give yourself a label and everyone will be understanding of any asinine thing you do.

Before Drunkorexia:

Janet: "You believe that bitch? She just grabbed Steve's ass."
Sue: "That slut's always hammered."
Donna: "Never saw a martini she didn't like. And what's the deal with her hair?"

After Drunkorexia:

Janet: "Oh, no, she's at it again."
Sue: "Grabbed Steve's ass?"
Janet: "Yeah. He feels sorry for her."
Donna: "She told me that she still needs to lose five pounds."
Sue: "Really? When was this?"
Donna: "I invited her over for dinner and she never showed. Told me to start without her."
Janet: "Then it's serious."

As if guys didn't have a hard enough time getting laid, now they have to fight the medical establishment. The next time you see a hot lady in a bar, you'll have that sneaking suspicion: does she really go to the gym and work out a lot, or is she a mental case that says pass the Corona and hold the lime?

Lighting For Under 50 Bucks

Trying to be part of the solution.

Work lights as a throw (1000w) for $49.99, and a soft key (150w) for $30.00.

Danged French "Youths" At It Again

A story like this next one disgusts me in two ways. One, the fact that people can treat other people like this, all in the name of religion and race. Two, that the media are so cowed by the Islamo-fascist movement that they can't even write a real story.

What's the story?

Well, a 19-year-old Frenchman named Mathieu Roumi was taking a walk in Bagneuax, a Paris suburb, at 10 AM. Broad daylight. Two "youths" approached him. They said that Roumi owed them money. An argument ensued. A third friend of the "youths" helped drag Roumi into a basement. Once there, three more "youths" arrived and helped torture Roumi.

They shoved cigarette butts into his mouth, scrawled "dirty Jew" on his forehead, and threatened that he would die "the way Halimi did." (Halimi was a 23-year-old Jew who was tortured by a "gang" over the course of three weeks, after which he was dumped into the street. He died the same day). The gang that killed Halimi was called "The Barbarians," and apparently this was the gang that now held Roumi.

Not content with using Roumi as an ashtray, the "youths" put a condom on a stick and shoved the rubber in Roumi's mouth. They screamed slurs about his sexual orientation, and yelled that they were proud of Youssaf Fofana. (Fofana was the leader of the gang that tortured and killed Halimi).

Then, in a whacky twist of fate, they let Roumi go. Not because they decided to spare his life, but because one of the torturers had to get going, and he had the only key to the basement. That's a pretty mixed up sense of priorities even for a torturer: it's fine to shove a condom in a guy's mouth, but be afraid someone will break in and steal the condom when you're done?

So Roumi went home, a broken young man. The next day, the police picked up the suspects, who said that they had not meant to harm Roumi.

Now, you're probably wondering what kind of "youths" they have in France. To figure that out, you have to use your Media Rosetta Stone. "Youth" does not mean a young teenager. Nor does "immigrant youth" mean a young man from Poland, Denmark, or Brazil.

What does "youth" mean? It means a Muslim man below the age of 50 that has committed a crime. If you are a Christian or Jew and decide to torch cars or kill people, you're a "criminal." If you're a Muslim, it's "youth." Simple, see?

In this particular piece, you find out in the third line that Roumi's a Jew (if, in fact, he is; the report says his father is Jewish, but says nothing about his mother. Judaism is maternal in lineage, so there's an off-chance that Roumi is Episcopalian or Buddhist).

Over the next few paragraphs, you read about "youths" and "immigrant youths" attacking and torturing him. If you were an unthinking newsreader, you might be forgiven for thinking that some evil Dutch kids had clogged Roumi within an inch of his life. But you're not an unthinking newsreader, are you?

At the end of the piece, you find out that most of the "youths" are actually in their twenties, and that two of them "come from Muslim homes."

Ah. So Roumi's father is a Jew, and therefore we'll take it for granted that he himself is a Jew. The Muslims that tortured him, however, merely come from "Muslim homes." The other torturers were described as Portuguese and African immigrants. But they're still "youths," mid-twenties or not.

The story has a final kicker. It has a quote from a former French policeman, a man who is now in charge of monitoring anti-Semitic activity in the area. He says, "Sadly the lesson of Halimi's murder has not been learned...The fact that angry immigrant youth can kidnap a Jew in broad daylight and abuse him proves that the lesson has yet to be learned."

Read that statement again and tell me what possible lesson he can be talking about. Whose lesson? What lesson? The "angry immigrant youths" aren't going to stop doing it, and the French authorities won't do a damn thing about it. They can't even bring themselves to name who the perpetrators are. The only "lesson" he can be speaking of is that the Jews should get out of Dodge before they get killed.

Unfortunately, he may be right. While the media bury the lead, the Jews of that suburb bury their dead.

For Blank and Country

According to Yahoo News, Jeremy Hall, a soldier in the US, is miffed that he got passed up from promotion, saying the reason he didn't get a new set of chevrons is because he wanted to hold atheist meetings while in Iraq. Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation are now suing the military, and have included Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a defendant.

So much for sleeping with the general's daughter or bombing Hanoi to end the war in Nam. Those are decent excuses for not getting a promotion. Atheist meetings? Talk about dull days in the military.

An attorney that brought the suit said, "It shouldn't matter if one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist. In the military, all are equal and to be considered equal."

Not exactly Full Metal Jacket: "If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here [insert racial bigotry labels]. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?"

Hall didn't receive Hartman's classic piece of motivational speaking. Instead, Hall says that his platoon sergeant told him that not praying with his troops or being able to put aside his personal convictions would be detrimental to leading his men.

If his platoon sergeant really said that, then I have a sneaking suspicion that Hall was not merely an atheist, but a loud-mouth one at that. And his platoon sergeant is absolutely correct. Leading men in battle might be a little easier if you weren't known as the NCO that says things like, "Boys, if you get shot, it's all over. Gomez, put away that Bible. That worthless pack of lies won't save your soul, because you don't have one to begin with. All right, let's synchronize watches."

A while back I read a piece by Ben Stein asking when the US had become an atheist country. Overnight, it seemed that religion (read, Christianity) had taken a nose dive and that it was now uncool to pray. I'm not one way or the other about praying, but I can see why the military would take an interest. The military is only concerned with two things: following orders, and winning. Having someone leading men who are going to die, while at the same time holding meetings that tell the same men their death will have no hereafter, is not exactly a pep talk.

Still, Hall has found the answer: he is going to plead in the biggest church in the USA. The courthouse.

Ron Burgundy and J.C.

A classic from Will Ferrell.

Hillary Still Alive - Media Bummed

I woke up this morning expecting to see Obama's face on the front pages: no more need of "hope," just all smiles after an easy victory in the latest slog of primaries.

Not to be. Hillary took Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, while Vermont went to Obama.

It looks like she's going to stick around, and the press couldn't be more bummed about it. All week I've been hearing their veiled "Hillary's toast" prophesies, and how she had to at least win Texas and Ohio in order to keep her own audacity of hope alive. Then she went them one better, by winning Rhode Island, and this is what you get:

Newsweek: HIllary's Math Problem - Forget Tonight: She Could Win 16 Straight and Still Lose.

Ron Fournier (AP): Consider that a shot across the bow to the Clinton campaign because Brazile — like many other superdelegates — worries that Clinton's only hope for victory is tearing down Obama and dividing the party. Party chairman Howard Dean recently told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he was concerned about the possible impact of a nominating campaign that stretched through the end of the primaries in early June.

Some superdelegates are bracing themselves to intervene on Obama's behalf if necessary.

Patrick Healy (New York Times): Those two states were the battlegrounds where Mr. Obama was going to bury the last opponent to his history-making nomination, finally delivering on his message of hope while dashing the hopes of a Clinton presidential dynasty.

(I take it he means "history making nomination" because Obama is a junior Senator from Illinois. Hillary being the first woman and former First Lady nominated for President wouldn't be history making in the least.)

Nedra Pickler (AP): But even if she wins every contest left, Clinton still would have a hard time overcoming Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead. In fact, her task got even harder because even though she won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island Tuesday night, she didn't do much to close the delegate gap - and with every contest that passes, the number up for grabs drops.

The past week has been an interesting shell game. One moment Hillary must win in order to stay alive, the next she's a winner but it doesn't make a bit of difference.

Ron Fournier's comment is the most revealing. Here I thought it was the Republican party that needs to be united with a cool balm of handshakes and atta-boys. Turns out, the Democratic party is the one with a division problem, as their own chairman gets concerned about a pesky Hillary and some Superdelegates prepare to intervene on Obama's behalf.

In other words, a backroom hit job.

Should be fun days ahead.

Photo: The Telegraph

Will Make Movie For Food

I was goofing off on Facebook when I should have been doing some editing, and I ran across a new Facebook "group."

Groups are what happens on Facebook when a few people get their pants in twist about something, and before you know it some guy from New Zealand is one of 25, 987 people "Pledging to Stop Violence Against Rabbits in Manitoba," or whatever.

Anyway, the latest buzz in the Canadian film scene is Bill C-10. It's full of taxation mumbo jumbo, and somewhere in there is a provision stating that the government won't give tax credits to films and TV shows that it finds offensive, or not in the public interest.

Horrors! Every actor, writer, director and other frequent Starbucks regular instantly went nuclear. As usual, they went ballistic over the whole free speech deal, and are crying about censorship from Big Brother.

Yeah, right. Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, writers both, were up on charges in front of Canadian Human Rights commissions for expressing their views. Where were the film grads then?

As if Canada were in the business of closing the mouths of whacked-out filmmakers. Every night on Canadian TV I see a new acid trip come over the airwaves. Poorly written, poorly shot, and delivered with a healthy dose of sanctimony: "We don't shoot our stuff like Americans. That would be so...American." In other words, Canadian filmmakers airing stuff in Canada make it look like crap on purpose. Who needs production value when you have a maple leaf on your backpack?

For the record, if the government were to end tax credits for garbage films, it is not censorship. Censorship is when the government sends a squad of thugs to your house and throws you in jail for making a film. When a government merely cuts the money supply on people that want to play Spielberg all day while showing Ed Wood ticket sales, it's called good business.

Earlier this year, I had my eye on a couple of grants and thought about applying for them. I wanted to make an independent film and thought that my corporate video background would give me a leg up: completed projects, money made, happy customers, so forth. I had the script set, actors ready, my own equipment. Just a little extra dough for some locations and better lighting gear would give me a green light.

Not a chance. The government has been "censoring" mainstream storytellers for decades. When I talked to the guy in Ottawa about my project, he told me my project "was not very viable," whatever that means. If I had a First Nations angle, or a multicultural story, or something "that is not mainstream, but can only be told through government assistance," then I'd be all right. "Genre films," were out. Also, a film school background would help, especially if the film was "experimental" in nature.

In other words, make something no one wants to see, and that doesn't have a hope in hell of making money.

So it was no go. Did I cry and moan and create a group on Facebook? Nah. I put the phone down and said to myself, "All right. Another four months and I'll be able to finance the lights on my own, then try and draw an investor, and make the damn movie. Maybe next year, if I have to."

Today's storytellers in Canada make me ill. I don't want to talk to a filmmaker that can't make his film without begging from the Feds. You want to make a movie? Then make the damn movie. You spend all your life whining and protesting to the government about every little gripe, and then get surprised when they ask you to put up the goods?

I also don't want to hear from anybody about "experimental filmmakers" needing assistance. No. They do not. They need to get a job, and get a life. Earn some money. Buy a camera, rent some gear, get costumes at Zellers, find some investors, go to Home Hardware and make your own dolly gear. Filmmaking equipment is so relatively cheap and good now, that there is no excuse for not doing it on your own when you have to. Twenty years ago, producing your own film would have been a hell of a task. Now, teenagers are doing it.

Need assistance? Hear you go: a dolly can be made with 1-inch plywood. Make it a 40" x 30" piece (sorry, don't know the metric on that). Take eight rollerblade wheels and bolt them into pairs. Place the four pairs on each corner of the birch board (birch is best). Bolt a stool to the board, and leave space for your tripod. Bolt a handle to the board, so a buddy can push it. Next, lay down two long stretches of 3/4" PVC pipe. Place your new dolly on the PVC pipe. Push.

That dolly just cost you $95.

What's the matter, chumps? Afraid you can't put up? Make your little movie so we all can see it, rather than have the taxpayers blow three hundred grand on a piece of junk that I won't see unless I stay up until 3am watching the Bravo network.

Last week I heard a morning DJ fawning over "I Met the Walrus," a short film about some Canadian guy who met John Lennon back in the day.

The short was up for an Oscar. A six-minute animated flick about a singer who died over thirty years ago.

This is the best Canada can show at the Academy Awards? I wonder why.

Drudge Outs Harry

Prince Harry was pulled out of Afghanistan and sent home yesterday, after the Drudge Report outed the fact that he was there in the first place.

There. I said it. The Drudge Report.

I've been having a good chuckle at the hypocrisy of the mainstream media. They call the war on terror a sham, and demand that the troops come home. In Britain, Tony Blair is dubbed as "Bush's poodle" for putting British troops into action. Then Prince Harry goes to war and suddenly he is a hero, with photos of a gun-wielding Prince gracing the front pages of all the major papers.

So which is it? Prince Harry the hero, but Blair the warmonger? How does that work?

The press's hypocrisy continues. It's no secret that they hate Drudge (he broke the Lewinsky scandal, and they haven't forgiven him since), but what is the Drudge Report really? It's a link site. Drudge makes the headlines, but 99.9% of those headlines lead to other sources. Due to a media blackout on the "Prince Harry Goes to War" story, the papers were mum. Then Drudge links to an Australian news piece that says Harry is in Afghanistan, and all bets are off. The mainstream press didn't wait five seconds to plaster the news all over their front pages.

I scoured the papers and the news services and found one that named Drudge as the source. For the rest, it was "a foreign website," or "an American website."

Well, that's not exactly how you learn to quote sources in Journalism 101, is it? Drudge is not some secret source that they met in an underground parking lot. With one click of the mouse, anyone on the planet can see what he's up to. For them not to quote Drudge by name is like saying, "According to a Washington official," after talking to the President.

But that's the media. The war is a sham, but Harry's a hero, and Drudge is a jerk for running the story, but now we'll make a whole weekend edition out of it without saying his name.

The plummeting ratings and newspaper sales of the mainstream press are not shocking. The arrogant fools are being outscooped all the time by people that own a laptop and a cell phone. For them not to quote Drudge as the source of their lastest windfall is not only arrogant, it's petty. It also shows how frightened these crusanders of hard journalism really are.

Photo taken from the Drudge Report

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