'My Name is Jonas' screening applauded, alcohol implicated

TORONTO

Fans and well-wishers gathered at the Trash Palace Saturday night for a premiere screening of 'My Name is Jonas', a short film from the creators of 2007's 'The Birds and the Bees'. Sticks and Stones Films hosted the event, showcasing their latest work.

"I had four beers before I left the house," said director Andrew Niblo. "I'm introducing a film with this kind of subject matter to friends and family, and yeah, I need to be dipping into the deep end."

'Jonas' star Mitchell Rathgeb was on hand to answer questions about the origins of his character's story, which revolves around a young man plagued by addiction to masturbation.

"I was at Drew's place, drinking beers before we got started, and he left me up here to explain everything, which is horrifying. I actually hate him," said Rathgeb.

Audience members reacted well to the film, and to the blooper reel screened immediately afterward. Sales at the bar skyrocketed each time a cast or crew member was expected to speak to the audience.

Sticks and Stones anticipates the filming of a new short in the coming months, after some brief time off. Editor Matthew Mollon particularly expressed the need for rest.

"Drew wanted me to make a website or something, I punched him in the mouth though. He's out back," said Mollon.

Co-star Andy Wong was unavailable for comment, but sources inform us he had taken at least 3 different types of narcotic cold remedies. He was discovered later Saturday night attempting to sleep on a fire hydrant.

Sticks and Stones expects to launch their new website in the coming weeks, pending employee sobriety.

Of mice and other obscenely cute things

During the past few days, I have been unable to focus, my attention being somewhat divided between several different things. I could have said three different things, but I honestly thought there was at least one other thing. Apparently it doesn't take that much to distract me.

Anyhoo. While my brain gets pulled in multiple directions, I invite you to discover, as I did earlier today, the funniest thing ever. Or at least today. I could find something funnier tomorrow, but chances are slim.

Basically, if you've ever looked at an adorable animal before, and just thought, 'oh god, I want to just ... punch this cute as shit little whatever in the FACE rather than have to endure its overwhelmingly adorable presence', well, you'll see.

Until later. Don't anyone forget about Saturday night. It's going to get silly.

I can barely see straight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJn5XlbSFk

Now, I'd be the first to point out that no intelligent person should take Fox News all that seriously. I know, I know. But wow. Just wow.

My first reaction to this was to go through this segment point and point and go bat shit insane by the end, hoarse with rage and tired from shaking my fist. But no. That's ridiculous. It's a lot easier to just point out that the overarching premise of this kind of commentary is so completely opposite to the way I look at the world, that trying to dissect it would be a waste.

These people stand behind an idea of American identity, one that is not only perverse, but inaccurate. I won't get into the bit about how Canada has joined the lazy Europeans in their cowering behind the might of America, because I think someone else covered their flawed ideology much better.

Somewhere near the top, one of these fine conveyors of factual information made light of the mounties - and sir, while we do in fact have police officers here in the savage north, I'll grant you that assumption since it doesn't hurt my argument - and boasts that in America, cops wear bullet-proof vests and drive around in heavily armoured cars.

Well, you know what, man? Thank god! It's bloody lucky for your cops, and really for all of you, to be living in a nation where law enforcement officers have to behave as cautiously as the military. Yes, that's something to be proud of. I'll bet the mounties wish they could get off their horses and get shot at just like your boys in blue, right?

I choose to believe that people like this don't represent the greater identity of your country, Americans. Up here, there's obviously going to be some blowback - but what I really hope is that there's some down there, too. It might show some sentiments that are a bit more neighbourly.

Battlestar Galactica: The End

First thing's first, if you haven't finished watching the series, don't read on. Some of you I've tagged here because you're done now, others because you'll be done soon. But if you aren't done, haven't even started, and / or ever intend to watch this show, go now and don't let the spoilers in. They are many and they are large.

Battlestar Galactica is a show that turns a lot of people off just by its title. Despite the wisdom overhanging that one best examine contents and not packaging, I can still sort of get it. It's a dorky name, really. When you say it to people they give you that look. You know the one, if you're into nerdy things you get it a lot. It's the same look you might get when you tell people that you spend your evenings reading comic books or if you're overheard arguing about which Star Trek captain is best. It's hard to characterize the look, because the people giving it range in their judgments from merely perplexed to utterly put off. Nerdy things aren't for everyone. But the packaging is key. Battlestar is packaged in an epic, space-faring, guns blazing, aircraft carrier dramatic vessel. That's what the vessel is, in fact. They're space planes, but it's all a moot point. The contents of that package, though obscured by the busy scenery, are totally and essentially human. Ron Moore and company didn't seem to lose sight of that, either, because as the show wrapped up Friday night, the tech and the toys and the tinsel were stripped away in great thick layers to reveal the last verse in a long poem about people.

It's a good thing the showrunners got themselves clear about how to wrap it up, too, because there were not many places left to go after 4 years of humanity with its back firmly pressed to the wall.

Billions dead, survivors numbered in the tens of thousands? Check.

A faster, smarter enemy hunting down those few left running with ruthless efficiency? Check.

Everyone's compromised, placed in impossible situations? Check.

Morality's gone out the window? Check.

Nukes, angels, murder, visions, internment camps, a black market, pregnancy (interspecies, no less), religion, about 1000 bullets fired for every human left alive, Gaeta lost a leg, Tigh lost an eye, Helo accidentally cheated on his wife, and President School Teacher had cancer since day one. Oh and five of the crew were cylons all along, but they found out because of 'All Along the Watchtower'. I'm sure that's every nerd's favourite song, now.

Yeah. I wasn't sure how they could really push that envelope any further. But I underestimated the folks behind the curtain. The finale saw the breaking of Galactica's back, but by god, did she earn it. The central plot point of assaulting the cylon colony was taking, by my watch, less time out of the episode that I had thought. So with a substantial chunk of episode left, the ships were safely orbiting earth, and all of a sudden it's clear that the only place left for this show to go is back. Way back. Not shockingly, the circular story catches up to eat its own tail, and we get (mostly) the closure that we need. Ships flown into the sun, and a blank slate for civilization, and it's over. Assuming it doesn't happen again in 150,000 years or so.

I'm proud to be a fan of the show after all is said and done. It's certainly one of the best finales I've ever seen, but not everyone is going to agree with me on that one, I just know it. The biggest reason will be that while the show certainly ended, it didn't really tie up every nagging question with a lovely red bow. I wasn't expecting as much, but some were, and I'm sad for them. It occurred to me as the last minutes rolled by that Galactica was telling a fable and not a strictly literal story. Those loose ends belong, therefore to the departments of faith and plot contrivance, both of which, as fans of this show, you should be completely aware by now.

I'm proud, indeed, to be able to stand by my usual synopsis of the show, its ending not contradicting me. Yes, I would tell those who might ask, yes it's a show about people in space and there are robots chasing them, but they look like people too, and there's FTL jumping and fun with guns and cylons IS kind of a dorky word, I know. Yes to all that. But beneath all that packaging, it's a show about people. We are boiled down here and stripped of our compass and our comforts and brought to the absolute essential. When all the chips are on the table, your plays are big and risky and sometime awful and unforgivable, but it's either that or you're bust.

I think congratulations are in order for the people who made this show possible. They started out with a deeply disturbing scenario and brought it full circle. From death to birth.

Watchmen: Everyone calm the hell down.

I'm going to do my best to make a simple point and not use too many words doing it. Alan Moore's name is not attached to the film called Watchmen. Zach Snyder, though well-intentioned, doesn't have the author's blessing, and that gives the die-hard fans of Moore's seminal work a great way out. If you decide to check out Watchmen the film, and you decide it doesn't measure up to Watchmen the book, then you can decide to keep your ethereal view of the work just as pure and glowing as ever. Moore's actually gone on record as saying he's not going to bother watching it, and some of his most stalwart fans should consider doing the same. Let's face it, if you're one of the original converts, the ones who discovered the book before there was talk of a film (or at least before you became aware of it, because THAT talk has been around for 2 decades), can it really get any better?

Maybe. I mean, I started from zero last night, so for me, it's a different experience. I had a sense of the overwhelming legendary-ness of the book, which shines through, if nowhere else, in the film's 160 minute runtime. But I didn't feel it dragged, not much. Twenty minutes less wouldn't have hurt, but there was no large chunk of the film that stood out as being easily removable. I enjoyed it all the way through.

The characters were interesting. Not universally likable, but no one was really trying for that, I gather. And again, I didn't have any sense of them going in, so it was all up to the actors. And they all did, at the very least, well. Even Malin Akerman, who seems to be a running thread in the negative criticism of the film's acting merits. She is the weakest link, but Laurie's character isn't very well-written compared to the rest, so she did her best. The rest, by the way, get better (Carla Gugino and Matthew Goode) and better still (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson and Billy Crudup) and finally iconic. Many other people have beaten me to the punch in proclaiming Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach to be gripping and, in the long run, a defining role in his career. It's one of the film's best assets. He is horrifying in his commitment to a character who cannot compromise.

The world of Watchmen is a character itself, and it's been animated here to great success. It's dripping with perpetual cold war fear, and uses as elements some of the worst parts of American history (McCarthyism, even). And it's realized on screen by fantastic production design and captivating cinematography. The backdrop is a crumbling, broken civilization and while the camera remains distant, with a few too many slow-mo ramp ups and downs, the world is convincingly and irredeemably filthy.

It's violent, too... as in rated R, but if you can imagine someone screaming the letter 'R' at you, that might be close. Or sawing off your hands while they're yelling, that would be closer, still. At times it was so graphic it was distracting, and I've wracked my brain trying to come up with a good reason for that level of bone breaking, body exploding, power-saw brutality. I guess it was all very stylized. But otherwise, too much.

Snyder has no problem with style of course, and in the case of the violence manages to put the film more than a little over the top. In other things, like music, it all worked for me. Some people have brought up varying arguments with the use of 'Hallelujah', 'All Along the Watchtower', and '99 Red Balloons', but I loved all that. I can only assume everyone else had a different song playing in their head when they read the book.

So, in the end, Watchmen was an enjoyable film to me. I liked it. I didn't love it, and I wouldn't go wild recommending to tons of people. The violence will repel some, others will dodge thanks to the length, the overall broodiness of it, or maybe even because it's a grand pop-pastiche. Some people don't like pop, I'm told. But for the book lovers, if you wanted a trophy of some kind to go home with, then know that I won't be speaking to people about this film the way you do about the book. Now let it go so we can start arguing over Star Trek.

Get it? Because we WATCH them?

Right. If I see one more article title, deck or headline that tries to make a play on words of the Watchmen movie, I'm going to go bomb all the printing presses. And I'll find a way to mess up the internet, too. I've heard it isn't that hard.

I didn't get to see it yet. Having veto-ed that plan Thursday night when it became clear that every IMAX show the following day would be sold out, we instead played poker and oh hell in my front room until we got bored of that (or really frustrated by the poker chips) and moved into the living room to listen to vinyl as loud as possible. It may have been late by this point. Colin seemed to sleep through it all. So did D, though he was actually in the room with all of the music, yelling and dancing all around him. It's kind of impressive.

So I can't talk about that movie just yet, which is unfortunate, because by the time I CAN talk about it, it won't be nearly as timely. Which I guess doesn't matter all that much since almost no one reads this blog.

Of course, now we can't do our podcast on it. Maybe we should pick another movie to cast about next week. A quick perusal of Tribute reveals that a two week berth has been give to Watchmen so nothing much is happening until the 20th. Blah.

I await suggestions. Oh fuck it, we'll just cast about Watchmen late. If it isn't news, it doesn't have to be timely.

Adaptation

I'm curious about how many films haven't been made because someone adapted a book instead. Or a TV show. Or some toys. Some of these films, I guess I take no issue with them. Not on their own. But they exist within the family of unoriginal ideas, of which sequels and remakes are also obese, loud-mouthed members.

Maybe that's unfair. There have been more than a couple good sequels and remakes and adaptations too. Reboots, the mot du jour, manage to cover every base, giving some franchises a much needed do-over. And I'm all for that. I'm all for things not sucking and Joel Schumacher's work being swept into the corner and ignored.

But jesus we need some fresh ideas. All these examples, even when they turn out well, are drawing from places we've been before and there's too much of it. There's always going to be a segment for this, and I'm all for it. They allow our nostalgia to be dusted off from time to time, and if they're handled well, they add something new to the storytelling.

There is of course the risk that what you make will fall below expectations and make the fanboys and girls freak out en masse, levelling the full brunt and power of the internet at you. Or you could just not read the blogs and boards. I bet Zach Snyder is at least a little nervous.

This Canadian's New Favourite Radio Show...

...is 'This American Life'. Thanks Mitch. In case you don't know about this hour-long radio show, and really, unless Mitch harasses you likewise with good recommendations and, I'll say it, some pretty decent sexual innuendo (although I can think of at least one good place where he should start directing the latter), maybe you don't know about the show. It's fair, you don't live in Chicago. And I don't, either, and neither does Mitch, but somehow he caught on to this and caught me onto it and I'm very glad he did. They run with good, interesting themes and get together good interesting stories and they're human and they turn heads. I highly recommend it. For the patient, their podcast updates every week with a new ep, but they don't stay free forever. I've heard four episodes, all outstanding. There. I'm recommending something that isn't put out by the CBC. I'm so totally impartial.

'This American Life'. From Chicago, playing everywhere.