Time Traveler in 1928?!

Okay, this is just bizzarre.



More here.

(R)ather (E)xhasuting; (D)isappointing

RED was bad. Feel the seconds of your life running out of your body and onto the floor bad. Walk-out bad. This film was completely flat, under-written, and barely directed. Everyone except Karl Urban phoned in their performances. It wanted to be an action film but didn't have the guts to be violent. It wanted to be a comedy but didn't have the snappy dialogue or pace needed to elicit laughs. This film should have been a cross between Leon (aka The Professional) and Gross Pointe Blank. Instead it was more like a cross between The Dream Team and Kindergarten Cop. So, Producers, you think Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle can save a film? Maybe, but RED ain't that film.

It's a shame this wasn't a better because the source material--a three-issue comic series by writer Warren Ellis and artist Cully Hamner--is a compact, nasty revenge story that zips along to its sad, inevitable conclusion.

RED, the comic, is worth seeking out. RED, the film is worth avoiding.

Buckaroo Dexter

Gah! The minute I give up on Dexter, they add Peter Weller to the cast! No... still not going back...

Bizarro-Toronto?

Fuckin' hell.

And is it just me or does Ford remind anyone else of Sheriff J.W. Pepper (as played by Clifton James) from the early Roger Moore Bond movies?

Revenge of the Office Drones

I see Lifehacker's at it again... posting pointless and extremely juvenile articles. Today's masterwork, "Defeat Food Thieves Once and for All with Laxatives", in which the article writer and commentors discuss many ways to keep others in your office from eating your lunch. Everything short of polite confrontation or keeping your lunch with you, that is.

If high-school revenge pranks are now story material why, then, Lifehacker, have you not responded to my proposals for the following articles?

• Poison Yourself. Without you at work, whose lunch will those thieves steal?
• Social Interaction: Not Just for Team Building Meetings!
• Poison Your Way to a Nicer Workplace
• They Steal Your Lunch, You Steal Their Desk: The Fine Art of One-Upmanship
• Sarin Gas: That'll Teach 'em.
• Death by Chocolate: The Literal Recipe
• You Say "Po-tay-to", I say "Deadly Snake Venom"
• What's for Lunch? A Bag of Bees!
• High Voltage Tuna Salad
  
• Common Decency: A Reappraisal
  
• Lunchroom Death or Fun Prank? A Legal Primer
• Co-Workers, You Can't Kill Them. Wait... Yes, You Can. Here's How

Kevin Eldon

If you like British comedy, you've probably seen Kevin Eldon in supporting roles on many shows such as Brass Eye, Smack the Pony, Look Around You, Jam, I'm Alan Partridge, and in the recent Chris Morris film, Four Lions.

He's a very, very funny man. Here's a link to a series of comedic monologues he did for Resonance FM in London: monologues.

And here is a London Evening Standard piece about him: article.

God, I feel old.

Twin Peaks is 20 years old

Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto

In an attempt to improve my writing, I have decided to review films and books here occasionally. This won't be my usual rant about about the state of Dexter or my offhanded comments about Fringe. These will be short reviews of around 300 words.


First up: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. Gawande is a surgeon who wanted to learn how people successfully handle complex tasks, such as surgeries, flying planes, or constructing a skyscraper. How can they keep track of all the variables? Gawande's two answers surprised me.

One: You can't. But you can keep track of the individuals keeping track of the pieces and schedule communication between them. Complex systems are best managed in pieces by super-specialists. A centralized, top-down approach doesn't work as tasks become increasingly complex and involve more people and equipment. Gawande cites the failure of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina to prove his theory. Wal-Mart did a far better job of providing food, medicines, and supplies to flood victims and first responders than the government because Wal-Mart allowed their employees on the scene to use their best judgment in the moment. Similarly, Dr John Snow did a better job of stemming a terrible cholera outbreak in Victorian London than the government and health officials, because he observed and then acted against accepted wisdom based on his careful observations. [1]

Two: checklists. Yes, checklists. Even the most skilled person can forget or choose to skip simple yet crucial steps in a process because those steps don't usually turn up problems. Until they do. The deadly 1977 Tenerife airport collision of two Boeing 747s (583 fatalities) happened because a pilot skipped a routine procedural step. Simple, crucial-step checklists, not pages and pages of detailed steps, are used with great result by the airline industry. Gawande helped developed a checklist for surgeons to reduce infection rates and human error. This checklist which takes 90 seconds to run through has saved thousands if not tens of thousands of lives and countless millions of dollars and has been adopted in many countries.

You can see how answer one incorporates answer two. Gawande is a great believer in the checklist, and you might be too after reading this book. In an age where our first response is to throw money at problems and add complicated software and technology to the mix, it's nice to read that someone is espousing an incredibly simple and more comprehensive alternative.

The Checklist Manifesto is an excellent read for anyone interested in project management or effective human interactions. I highly recommend it.

Note: [1] See Stephen Johnson's outstanding book, The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World.

The Dulcet Tones of James Earl Jones

I'm not much for parodies, especially Star Wars parodies, but once in a while, someone puts in the time, effort, and talent and comes up with something hilarious. Enjoy!

Wolverine 2

Darren Aronofsky is reportedly directing Wolverine 2 (source). At least it's not a prequel or a reboot.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was unbelievably awful. But then again, 90% of the comics featuring Wolverine have been unbelievably awful. Marvel Comics has so often nearly killed the goose that laid the adamantium eggs with overexposure, contradictory origin stories, convoluted time-lines, and knock-off characters (because more of the same is what the audience demands, isn't it?). Hell, there's even dispute about Wolverine's designation. Is he Weapon X (the letter), or Weapon 10 (Roman numeral X), as suggested in the now-nearly-wiped-out-of-canon Grant Morrison New X-Men stories? At this point, who cares? And of course, the movies versions of the X-Men are different again.

I haven't seen Black Swan yet, but Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler have all been excellent films. No reason why Aronofsky won't succeed with a genre piece. I'll go see it, but to see what he's doing, not Wolverine.

Currently Listening to...

...The Social Network soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's a terrific disc of dense music, packed with lots of slippery electronics and surges. It's one the best things Reznor has done. Like all good soundtracks it enhances the film without distracting. Yet this soundtrack is not uninspired background music. On the headphones, devoid of image, it's a terrifically engaging work.

Filmmakers often use songs to put viewers into the emotional headspace of characters or convey specific emotions. It's a cheap shortcut, one I call "soundtrack over substance". Watchmen is a film loaded with examples of this. The director and producers didn't even have the good sense to license much of music which was directly quoted in the comic, or they changed the scenes so much that when they did use music quoted in the comic, it made no sense in the context of the film. The comic shows two characters approaching an Antarctic fortress on hover bikes. Author Alan Moore imaginatively quotes "All Along the Watchtower": "...two riders were approaching/ And the wind began to howl." The film uses the same music, but the characters are walking towards the fortress, so the lyrics now don't mirror the action, and it becomes an "I wonder why they used Jimi Hendrix here?" moment. The use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" over an overly-long sex scene was just schmaltz.

Doctor Who broke with tradition last season and used a song under a scene wherein Vincent Van Gogh is transplanted temporarily to the 21st century to see a retrospective of his own work. While the perfectly serviceable song by Athlete didn't ruin the scene, I'm not convinced the scene needed such an obvious musical punch, not with Matt Smith, Bill Nighy, Tony Curran, terrific actors all, and the luminous Karen Gillen onscreen.

Some films make great use of songs. Magnolia manages to nicely avoid sentimentality by having the characters lip-sync one of the wonderful Aimee Mann tunes. Basquiat uses period songs evocatively, not literally. Trainspotting busts out "Lust for Life" as an ironic anthem for the "upside" of herion use.

Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Guy Ritchie, and David Lynch all use songs to complement or contrast action and dialogue. Using "Bang Bang" by Nancy Sinatra to Open Kill Bill Volume 1 was inspired, as was re-purposing "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" by David Bowie for Inglorious Basterds. Julee Cruise's vocals added more layers of dread and loss to Twin Peaks.

I'm happy David Fincher and the producers commissioned a proper score for The Social Network, and didn't just fill the film with assorted songs from the years covered in the film. With dialogue like Sorkin's why would you let song lyrics speak for the characters?

The Social Network soundtrack is up there with the soundtracks for Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters and The Hours, both by Phillip Glass; and Mike Oldfield's score for The Killing Fields. What are your favourites?

RIP Dexter

That's it. I'm out. Dexter season five has far too many plot holes and "what the hell--?" moments. To watch any further will just annoy me.

It's been an up and down ride. We went from the brilliant expansion of the slight novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter in season one, through the overlapping but opposite obsessions of Doakes and Lila in season two, then down into a sludgy season three nearly derailed by the bombast of Miguel and a completely lacklustre foe called, I think, the Skinner, who was never explained or explored. Season four saw a return to form thanks to a cohesive story, a grotesquely dark turn from John Lithgow as Trinity, and an unexpected final scene.

Which brings me to the end, my arbitrary end, one-third of the way through season five. This is not the Dexter I've come to enjoy and expect. It's horribly unfocused yet everything is telegraphed. Most the characters are chasing their own tails because the writers can't think of anything new to do with them, or can't be arsed to expand on established traits or plot points from previous seasons. And, just in case you're too slow to follow the meandering story or Dexter's internal monologue, don't worry: Harry, aka The Ghost of Plot Present, will pop up to keep you on track.

Even this episode's "huge reveal" at the end won't bring me back. I've taken my blood slide, already chopped up the body, and taken down the plastic...

Fringe: Not to be Negative, Man...

In early issues of the Doom Patrol (DC Comics), The Chief recounts how Larry Trainor became the Negative Man.

CHIEF: I know how and why you became an outsider--a strange one! Disaster struck as you tested the K2-F, the experimental rocket plane that flew higher than any manned aircraft had ever gone... You lost ground contact... blacked out! For hours your jet skimmed through the still uncharted wave belts of inner space until it suddenly began to nose downward..."

Larry crash-lands the plane, only to find that a "negative energy being" has merged with his own body.

The Negative Man looks like this...

In Fringe, season 2, episode 6, "Earthling", A man sent to space came back with a dark entity in him. Walter learns that the man and the entity are connected and cannot be separated. The entity looks like this:

Swipe or homage? Discuss.

Fringe - another "homage"

Challengers of the Unknown No. 1 (April-May, 1958), DC Comics:

This is how the thieves get in... beamed through the walls...

Fringe, season 1, episode 10: Thieves steal scientific equipment. They enter and leave undetected. How? Beamed through the walls, of course!

I'm digging all these swipes. More as I find them.

Even with the cars, it's beautiful.

Photgrapher: Jason Allies. Source: BlogTO

Infantilization #3

I like Lifehacker (lifehacker.com), but sometimes the articles are ridiculous. One recent article was entitled, "How to Safely Disinfect and Clean Your Gadgets". One commenter, too stupid to realize we have products like dish soap asks,

Any DIY receipe for the iKlenz rather than paying $20 for water and a bit of some secret ingredients? [grammar and spelling uncorrected]

Really?!

If your readers really are this dim, Lifehacker, I would like to propose the following articles:

• Top Ten Tools to Help You Replace a Light Bulb (and how you can purchase them from me)
  
• Sneezing 101
• How to Hold Things
• Using Bar Soap
• Use Electrical Tape to Mark Your Toilet Brush and Ensure You Don't Use it to Wash Your Car, Scrub Your Back, or Brush Your Teeth
• Use a Proper Stance to Increase Your Unplugging Force
• Get Up: What to Do After You Fall Down
• What Could the Phone Ringing Mean? (a ten-part series)
• Using a Keyboard to Type
• Pencils and Eyes: Natural Enemies?
• How to Baby-Proof Blankets
  

Fringe, s03e04: Fringe Lite

This episode felt like filler. I was jolted from my torpor only by the few false starts, wherein Peter says something that could be interpreted as him having figured out that Fauxlivia has replaced Olivia, but then those comments turn out to be about some other things, and Fauxlivia heaves a sigh of relief.

I'm still not sure why Fauxlivia was put in charge of the other-dimension's forces on this side when it has been shown time and time again that Newton was doing a pretty decent job and was extremely capable and single-minded (in this episode he kills agents who deviate from the mission). Now he's just a pile of goo/mercury and Fauxlivia has upped her resolve, giving herself to Peter physically in an attempt to keep him distracted. M'eh.

Despite a few comedic moments with Walter and Astrid, and a couple of tiny revelations about the Shape-Shifters, this episode didn't do much for me. The idea that "Shape Shifters could be impersonating people in power and could have been doing so for years" is a such tired sci-fi cliche, it no longer instills the intended dread in viewers. Well, at least not in this viewer.

Knob-ends Add Homemmade Sharrows to McDonnell Ave

So... someone, or a group, painted two way-sharrows on McDonnell Avenue, a one-way street in the west end of the city.

Read the full article on Blog T.O.

Fuckin' Hell. I cannot believe people would act so irresponsibly! I hope the cops find the idiots who did this and give them the maximum penalty.

Guerrilla road-markings have no place in our city. Apart from the obvious--potentially causing serious accidents--they don't foster good relations between cyclists and drivers, many of whom already believe cyclists are taking up more than their share of the road.

Just because you, part-time Guerrilla Painter and full-time Selfish Prick, may want to ride against the traffic on a one-way street because it's a convenient way for you to get to work or wherever, doesn't mean you should be allowed paint a directional arrow and then do it! It's... What's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yes: illegal! Also, for nearly each one-way street in this city there are others nearby, parallel to it, usually going in the opposite direction. You're on a bike; those streets are often under a minute away.

Hey, Perpetrators, what if drivers decided to follow your example, painting over legit sharrows, or removing stop signs to expedite their travel? Sharrows have improved every road they've been put on. Don't diminish their effectiveness by painting your own! Don't make drivers guess which ones are legit and which ones aren't! Roads, whether you're driving a car or riding a bike, are no place for guesswork.

Two Alan Moore items

1. A TV project.

Yay! and

2. A comics store in Florida refuses to sell Neonomicon.

Boo! I mean, it's a free country, sell what you like, but why the need to label Moore's sexual philophies as "bizarre"? Neonomicon is fiction; perhaps the sexual philosophies being espoused belong to the characters, not the author?

More troubling is the blog posting's title, "Secret Headquarters Censors Alan Moore And Jacen Burrows’ Neonomicon". Someone might want to look up the meaning of the "censor".

The Event Canceled

After one episode. By me.

Toronto Sigh-clists Union.

In my inbox today, yet another Email from the Toronto Cyclists' Union (an erstwhile organisation I am proud to support) pushing BIXI (see here for my take on the programme).

It suprises me that a group that supports responsible cycling and cycling infrastructure would endorse what is essentially, a way for the city to convince the public it cares about cycling while spending as little as possible on it. Don't forget, the bikes and the drop-off stations for the bikes will be plastered with advertising meaning more visual noise on our streets. Not to mention that riders become de facto mobile advertisements, endorsing the sponsors whether they support them or not. Do I want to advertise CIBC (or whatever, I don't know who the BIXI sponors will be)? I assuredly do not. I wouldn't plaster my own bike with advertising.

As with many of the things the City does, BIXI may look progressive and novel to tourists, but does next to nothing for those who choose to live and work here.

(Yes the picture above may have been Photoshopped to include a helmet, something BIXI doesn't seem to care about).

Dexter, season 5, episode 3

I think Dexter as a concept is played out. We are now in the Zone of Diminishing returns. Tighten the Kyle Butler noose all you like, it's still not very interesting. Someone has seen Dexter kill or knows what he is? We've seen this before. Twice. Dexter has to hold the person who knows his secret hostage? Wake me when it's over.

Unless there is some sort of way-out plot twist coming, one that actually makes sense in terms of the story, it's time to put Dexter in the kill room.

A Glympse (into the abyss)

Hey, you! Yes, You. I want you to know where I am and let you track my movements on a website in real-time. What's that? You don't give a flying Foursquare? Well, tell that to the programmers of Glympse.

It's a new app that lets Self-Important You broadcast your location to your co-workers, family, or friends so they can then watch your movements on their PCs or smart phones.

My question, as with all these types of things, is "Why?!" I cannot envision any circumstance under which this would be useful. If you're going to be ten minutes late, just be ten minutes late; I don't want track you like I'm running fucking NORAD. I don't know how you work, but if someone I'm meeting with hasn't shown up by the time agreed on, I'm looking over my to-do list, responding to Email, or catching up on reading.

As the chirpy video guide shown above says, "My family likes to watch me as I head home." Listen, Chirpy, If your family has nothing better to do than watch a blip that represents you move towards their location, you might want to get them part-time jobs, or hobbies, or buy them books or something.

Orwell was wrong: we weren't forced into living in a surveillance society, we welcomed it. Big Brother is Watching Us, through channels we've put in place and happily pay for. Congratulations! You're the Mayor of Airstrip One.

Fringe-tastic Four?

You can't tell me that someone working on Fringe isn't a long-time fan of Marvel's Fantastic Four comics. Earlier, I wrote about the similarities between The Observers and The Watcher, both in their appearance and their motives.

Here's another, from the latest episode, season 3, episode 3, "The Plateau", set mostly in the alternate universe. In this episode a character named Milo seems to know when a single, small event will create accidents resulting in specific deaths.

LUCAS: Someone is causing these accidents or purpose.

ASTRID: You're asking me if it is possible for a person to use a ballpoint pen to set off a chain of events that culminates in someone getting killed by a bus, twice? There's no way.

LUCAS: What if someone calculated the variables?

ASTRID: Thirty-seven people in the intersection, twenty-two cars, four trucks, two buses, going speeds of five to ten miles per hour... and that's just to start. In total, we are talking about a hundred and twenty variables in a dynamic system of differential equations. I can't solve that kind of problem, much less manipulate the outcome to my advantage.

But, of course, Milo can.

In Fantastic Four #15 we are introduced to a character called The Mad Thinker, who describes his abilities thus:

Aside from The Mad Thinker's enhancing his own thinking with a Kirby Super-Computer, quite similar to Milo, no? So how are these similar characters defeated? Well, similarly.

In the case of Milo, Olivia does something that Milo cannot predict, ignoring a warning to use oxygen. as Peter-as-imagined-by-Oliva says, "Because you didn't know the protocol... you did something that he couldn't factor in."

In the case of the the Mad Thinker...

I'm not pointing fingers at the writers of Fringe, accusing them of ripping off Lee/Kirby. On the contrary, I'm rather enjoying finding all these parallels. To paraphrase Walter, "I believe [takes a bite of red licorice] that these coincidences are not coincidences at all."

Fringe: Walter smokes Brown Betty, tells story

I rather liked "Brown Betty" with Walter's recasting of the Fringe regulars as noir-film characters to tell an allegorical story. I wish they'd gone all out with the noir aesthetic, but realize they probably couldn't due to budgetary restrictions. Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson seemed to be having fun playing a different riff on their characters. Disappointingly, Lance Reddick and Blair Brown (Broyles and Nina Sharp), played their roles exactly they way they always do. I don't know if this is a fault of the writing or the actors, and it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the episode. How can you not enjoy an episode with singing corpses? Only Walter Bishop would come up with something so bizarre.

I also liked that the Observers were called the Watchers in Walter's fable... a nod to the Marvel Universe? This doesn't seem unintentional. There many nods to the Fantastic Four comics in Fringe.

I was reminded of The Prisoner episode "The Girl Who was Death" while watching this. Both tales use a story-within-a-story setup, where the story being told reflects and adds our appreciation the outer story.


Oh, I also thought the episode "White Tulip" from two weeks* before was a terrific time-travel yarn. It had an unexpected emotional payoff and an antagonist who, if you look at the timeline, never meets our protagonists, yet nonetheless interacts with one of them. It's not very often we get something an unexpected ending on TV that doesn't feel tacked-on for shock value or that isn't a setup for upcoming episodes.

Can someone give Peter Weller a regular role in something please? His conversation with Walter was riveting.

* Sure, I wrote "two weeks before" but I really watched this "White Tulip", "The Man From the Other Side", and "Brown Betty" in one sitting. I prefer to watch week by week. I think that preference is embedded in my pscyhe, having been a pre-VCR child and teenager. Until I'm caught up, however, three episodes of Fringe at a go isn't a bad way to spend an evening.

Fringe... here comes Alternate-Peter

Annnnd, two episodes later, Walter Bishop, ca. 1985, abducts Peter from the alternate dimension. My prize is in the mail, etc.

Coffee, Coffee, Everywhere!

eye Weekly has compiled a subjective list of the 10 best coffee shops in Toronto. Get your fix here.

This is a far better use of column inches than the incredibly juvenile piece entitled "Toronto's Most Huggable Douchebags" a couple of weeks back. (No, no link. If you must read it, go search for it.) Perhaps the eye writers were suffering from a lack of caffeine that week.

Around the City in 24 Cups #2

Second in my "report" on the coffee shops featured on the Indie Coffee Passport. Part one here.

Details on the Indie Coffee Passport here.

#7
Moonbean Coffee Company
30 St. Andrew Street
(in Kensington Market)
October 7, 2010, 4:30 p.m.
Atmosphere/Décor: bright, if a bit ramshackle, like much of the Market.
Seating: Plentiful. Two rooms, front and back patio
Wifi: Yes, didn't try it.
AC Outlets: Didn't look.
Traffic: Lots of take-out service happening, quiet inside.
Staff: Friendly, efficient.
Drink of choice: a large home-made lemonade. I'd had coffee elsewhere in the morning and afternoon.
Would I return? Not sure. This place didn't make much of an impression on me.
Overall rating: 3.5/5

Dexter, season 5, episode 2 (no spoliers)

Apart from the trio of unnecessary shots of dried blood turning wet on a rental truck's floor to indicate Dexter had noticed it and the ghost of Harry still spouting exposition (this will bother me until the end of the entire series), I didn't hate this episode. Some loose ends were tied up and a new killer was found, albeit one who can't really be bothered to dispose of his handiwork very well.

A bit slow, but this installment had some nice character moments for most of the secondary characters.

Dear Fringe, Enough foreshadowing already!

Please, Fellow Viewers of Fringe, please tell me that you were far less than surprised when it was finally revealed that Walter Bishop had taken an alternate-universe Peter as a child to replace Peter from this world who died when he was a boy.

I haven't gotten to this point in the series yet, to this big "reveal". I've just finished watching "The Bishop Revival". No one has told me that this revelation will happen and I didn't read about it on some sci-fi blog, but Come on! you'd have to be six bucketfuls of dumb to miss this. Hints have been dropped--Thud. Thud! THUD!--by Walter and by other characters and through visual clues throughout the series. Forget about being destroyed by a collision with the other dimension... our world will just crack under the weight of all this foreshadowing.

Which leads me wonder... All these hints and two FBI investigators (one who doesn't miss a trick), and Peter (who has been shown to be super-observant) don't follow up? What the what?!

Still hooked on this damn show, though.