Let's Bring Canada Back

2006.01.28 - Saturday

It may be called the "Conservative Party", but our new government will be firmly planted in the centre, as it will have to be if it intends on survival. In reality, Harper's Conservatives probably lean more to the left than a typical United States Democratic politician would. Whether this is a cloak of his true values or his honest feelings remains to be seen, not that the former would matter much in the Parliament we're going to have. Honestly I don't care. I don't care about Harper as a person all that much, and I don't care if he does have some insane neo-conservative agenda, because we all know that it won't fly here. All I care about is getting Canada back on track, back to the way I remember it, if it ever was that way, and right now the Conservatives seem to be the only ones interesting in doing just that.

I don't remember the Mulroney government. I remember him being the Prime Minister, just barely, but I don't remember anything about the government. Why should I? Ten or eleven year olds rarely pay attention to politics. I can't speak from personal experience about what it was like, but it seems to me that things have taken a turn for the worse in our 13 years of Liberal rule. I'm not talking about the economy, or health care, or child care, or any of that other socialist crap. I'm talking about basic values; values that all free countries should uphold. I was sickened by the recent Liberal campaign ads talking about how a "social safety net" is a "fundamental Canadian value". That's not a value, it's a program, and it seems like far too many people across this country have lost their moral centre under years of government mothering.

Since when did it become more important for a society to be compassionate than just? When did it become more important to have health care than a military? When did it become more important for the economy to be strong than for government to be strong? I don't know exactly when it happened, if you can even put a date to any of those things. All I know is that all of it has been going on for too long. Canada is a country more concerned with giving immigrant criminals citizenship than with putting our own criminals behind bars. What else can be said for a country where 7 year jail terms for murder or 2 years of house arrest for killing people while street racing are the norm? Canada is a country full of people so afraid of any kind of health care reform, that they'd rather see every other government program bled dry to sustain it. I hope Harper goes through will his arctic defense program, at the very least. In a few decades, when global warming melts enough of the ice up there, the Northwest Passage is going to be a major world shipping route, cutting 4000 miles off the journey from Europe to Asia and almost certainly opening up new oil reserves. Only a fool would hand that over to another country out of simple laziness.

As important as defense and the ability to project sovereignty are, they don't compare to the justice and trust in government issue. It is here where I am most disappointed in my fellow Canadians. You know who you are. Maybe it was my parents, or maybe it was watching too many re-runs of Picard episodes of "The Next Generation", but I always thought that right and wrong were the most important fundamental values. The idea that you should always do the right thing, no matter the cost, no matter what might happen, simply because it's the right thing and you need to believe that a right action will give you a good result. Along side this important principal is the idea that people who don't do the right thing should be punished; stripped of their position or divorced from their privileged freedom. Yet in the election we just witnessed, millions of Canadians believed it was more important to keep the Conservatives out of power than to do the right thing and punish the Liberals. Millions of Canadians believed it was more important that the economy was strong than their government trustworthy. Millions of Canadians, simply out of fear of what might happen, did the wrong thing.

I'm not saying people have to vote Conservative. I would rather have seen more NDP seats in parliament for a change. I wanted to believe that Canadians had these values, that sense of right and wrong, and that they would vote accordingly. Well boy was I wrong. Instead of standing up and showing the world how "great" Canada and Canadians are, all the millions of you who voted Liberal only demonstrated what a poor role model you are to fellow free countries, emerging democracies around the world, and all of our children.

Batman: The Animated Series

2006.01.18 - Wednesday

I watched a couple of the first episodes of "Batman: The Animated Series" last night after getting the DVD set. I haven't seen these since I was a kid so it's neat to see how they hold up. Thankfully, they're still pretty good, although with each episode only being 22 minutes long, the stories do move quite quickly. This is still the definitive screen version of Batman, despite the success of "Batman Begins", for a few reasons.

The suit in the animated series is classic, with no armour plates or built in bullet proof vests. I'm not sure if the "classic" suit could ever look good in a live action production, but it works in animation quite well. Batman's tool set is also quite limited in the series. You'll only ever see him using the tried and true grappling hook, Batarang, as well as the occasional smoke bomb or sleeping gas pellet. No huge hang gliders tucked under his cape, or computer programmed and guided throwing stars. Thank God we didn't see too much of that crap in "Batman Begins".

The main reason why I consider the animated series to be the definitive screen Batman is mostly because of the detective angle. Batman is supposed to be the world's greatest detective, which is barely mentioned let alone seen in "Batman Begins", but features prominently here. For a show with 22 minute long episodes, we're treated to an awful lot of scenes of Batman collecting evidence and analyzing it at the Batcave. The next film version of Batman would do well to add a little more of a detective element, with maybe a dash of MacGyver-esque on the spot problem solving.

It's nice to see these episodes immortalized on DVD. I look forward to watching them and picking up the other volumes.

King Kong

2006.01.16 - Monday

It was last weekend that I finally got around to seeing Peter Jackson's "King Kong". I wasn't sure I was going to like the movie, despite reading the rave reviews and hearing more than a few people's claims of amazement, simply because the whole giant ape thing has never struck any kind of chord with me. Thankfully in Jackson's "King Kong", that didn't matter.

This movie is just pure fun. There's nothing in here that's trying to deliver any message, or be too pretentious. Even the central theme of the story, that man is the ultimate monster, barely plays at all. What a relief! The King Kong story could easily be turned into an environmentalist's wet dream, but Jackson obviously decided that he was going to avoid all of that non-sense and remind everyone that movies can just be fun, adventurous tales that don't need a message to be enjoyable.

The big knock against Kong is the length, and at just over three hours, it's a valid criticism. The difference between "King Kong" and "The Lord of the Rings" is that one seems long, while the other seems short. Kong could easily lose entire scenes, and could probably be trimmed to under two and a half hours. Still, it seems like Jackson left a lot out of the movie, since there are several plot elements and suggestive bits of dialogue that are never revisited. What happened to the primitive tribal people? What's the deal with the young sailor? Why was it important that the black guy had been in the army? Who knows, but you can bet that there will be an extended DVD version of Kong that all of the Jackson fan boys will gleefully buy.

Visual effects? Amazing. Breathtaking. Nearly perfect. There wasn't a single bad shot that I could see, and Kong himself is, to date, the most realistic CG character ever done. Gollum is still a better character because he has dialogue and a personality, but Jesus, if you didn't know better, you'd think there really was a 30 foot gorilla in some of these scenes. The island looks fantastic, and the 1930s version of New York is nearly flawless. The most photo real effect in the entire movie has to go to the giant centipedes, I think, with the rest of the bugs a close second. The bug sequence is genuinely disgusting, and had the entire audience gasping, groaning, and withering in their seats. The creepiness of those things is through the roof, and Andy Serkis' character has one of the most memorable death scenes I've ever seen. Ugh! Horrible!

Go see "King Kong" if you've been holding off. It's a fantastically fun adventure film that simply offers some out of this world, over the top sights and good old fashion movie thrills.

Narnia

2006.01.06 - Friday

Sarah and I went to check out "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" last night and definitely came away disappointed. "The Lord of the Rings" this is not.

There's no confusing Narnia for a children's movie based on a children's book. If you split the recent fantasy films into two camps you'd end up with the "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" films in one camp, as movies which can be enjoyed mainly by teenagers and adults but which children will be able to understand on a basic level, and films like "Narnia", "Willow" and "The Neverending Story" in the other, as movies which are very enjoyable for a child audience but quickly fall apart when viewed by the more discerning, intelligent adult.

The media has been all over "Narnia" for it's supposed Christian themes, but just like everything else in the film those themes are dumbed down to a child's level of understanding to the point that they become ridiculously unexplained plot devices to any mature viewer. Take Aslan's sacrifice and resurrection for example. If I hadn't already read about the "deep meaning" of this scene I might have completely missed it. Aslan the lion sacrifices himself to the Witch in order to atone for Edmund's betrayal, but none of this is made clear in the film, ever. I don't see how a young viewer could possibly understand the significance of the symbolism at all because it's never explained. Even after Aslan is killed, there are no scenes with characters coming to grips with his sacrifice. There are scenes where they're sad because he's dead, but they never suggest anywhere that any of the characters understands why he was killed. Does Edmund even grasp what Aslan has done for him? Who knows?

The resurrection is almost worse. When Aslan suddenly comes back to life, he gives some explanation referencing carvings on the stone table which had me reliving episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager". "Once I recalibrate the subspace field manifolds and inverse the quantum dynamic tachyon flow, it will create a magical plot device which will save me from the awful predicament the story has placed me in." There was no meaning, or at least it felt like there was none to me. For a story that's supposed to have such strong ties to Christianity and the Bible, this film does a horrible job of actually telling any of that powerful story.

I could go on and on, but I won't. Oh yeah, the visual effects. Hit and miss for the most part. Some of the creatures were pretty good, like the Fawns, Centaurs and Beavers, while some were awful, mainly the Wolves and the Fox. Most of the shots were hit and miss in general, with some complicated ones being very well done and other simple comps or tracks looking completely off. I really don't know how that happens at a feature level, but there you go.

I don't know what else to say about "Narnia". I was obviously disappointed. I hope they don't make any more of the books into films, but since this one seems to have done fairly well, you can bet it will happen. Still, "The Lord of the Rings" this is not.

Happy New Year!

2006.01.01 - Sunday

Well, another year has come and gone. 2005 was a pretty good one for me, and hopefully a pretty good one for everyone else as well. Usually I make a couple of resolutions for the new year, but I don't have any big ones on my mind at the moment. Eat better, pay off the car, the usual sort of things. Maybe that's a good sign, I don't know.

There should be a lot of cool stuff to look forward to in 2006. Superman is coming out this summer, which will hopefully be awesome. Sony and Nintendo are both supposed to release their next consoles. I'll be watching these closely, Nintendo out of excitement for their new controller, and Sony because I'm seriously considering getting a second console for the first time in many, many years. The Xbox 360 hasn't really blown me away, and considering that the DVD playback is rumoured to be poor and is obviously not HD-DVD or Blue-Ray compatible, I can't see a lot of reasons to get one at the moment. I'm sure the PS3 will blow it out of the water, the only remaining sticking point being the price.

I'm not sure what else is coming up in 2006, but I guess we'll all find out.