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Beyonce and Jay-Z published the first photos of their daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, on Friday, posting them to a personal tumblr blog, helloblueivycarter.tumblr.com. The photos are accompanied by a note from the couple that reads: “We welcome you to share in our joy. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this beautiful time in our lives. – The Carter family”

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It’s amazing what millions in 3D can do to a $25 face paint job.

2.5 stars

A long time ago in a … Oh, who are as kidding? Sure, it’s been 34 years since the Star Wars saga, the film that launched a thousand lunch boxes, first landed on the big screen. But between sequels, prequels, re-releases, pay TV, Clone Wars, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and the Christmas Special, we’ve never been more than a few months away from some new iteration of George Lucas’s famous space saga.

Each time one of the films returns, Lucas makes a few special modifications himself — adding computer-generated background characters or souped-up explosions, letting Greedo shoot first or making Darth Vader yell “Nooo!” Yet somehow he has never seen fit to have Jar Jar Binks die in a fiery landspeeder crash, which would earn him the renewed adulation of his older, disillusioned fan base.

This newest release of 1999′s Episode I: The Phantom Menace delivers the story of Darth Vader’s boyhood years in stunning three dimensions, and while it may not change the strengths and faults of the story, it makes everything in it much more arresting to behold.

The opening crawl is still almost criminally boring as it sails into the 3D distance. “Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic.” Really?! Do tell! “The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.” Wait, is this Star Wars or the Parliamentary channel?

The underwater scenes are things of beauty. The star fields look deep and sumptuous, which is more than can be said of the field of stars. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor make fine Jedi buddies, but they’re hampered by Lucas’s wooden dialogue. Natalie Portman has gone on to greatness since playing Queen Amidala, but young Jake Lloyd’s turn as Li’l Darth turned out to be a career killer. And would it have killed Lucas to retro-fit a little Sam Jackson cussing into the mouth of Jedi warrior Mace Windu? “I have had it with the motherf–kin’ Sith!”

But no, for the most part the greatest pleasure to be had watching The Phantom Menace in 3D is just being able to watch it on the big screen once again. Darth Maul’s bad guy with a $25 face paint job looks supremely menacing when projected larger than life, and the Galactic Senate chamber, while mostly a blur, allows a quick peek at a delegation of Wookiees and another of those stumpy horticulturalists from E.T.

The embarrassment in these riches remains Jar Jar Binks: “Me-sah comin’ at you-sah in three-D-sah!” And watching the film this time I noticed he gets a battlefield promotion to General Jar Jar, which is a bit like promoting lettuce to a main course.

The 3D re-release is an increasingly common tactic to squeeze new money out of old movies. Disney has brought out The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story 1 and 2 (part 3 was already in 3D), The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, with more to come. James Cameron is bringing 1997’s Titanic back in 3D, its release date timed to the centenary of the ship’s fateful first voyage.

Star Wars has no special anniversary at present, but it has been five months since the series’ release on Blu-ray, and we wouldn’t want people to forget the name of Yoda. Besides, fans of the older films can take heart in the fact that Lucas plans to unveil one chapter per year until 2017. I’m looking forward to Episode IV: The Reprieve From Jar Jar. Now that’s the will of the Force.

cknight@nationalpost.com

-Get ready for another unfortunately named Hollywood kidlet. Jason Lee and his wife are expecting a child. He already has two kids: Casper and Pilot Inspektor.

-Someone has created a cover for 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy‘s fictional book, Jack Off. I would so read that.

-Daniel Racliffe would prefer it if fans didn’t try to shake his hand at urinals. Such an ungrateful kid, that one.

-Oh, Lourdes! Madonna‘s daughter shaved half of her head.

-Lindsay Lohan doesn’t seem to realize that she’s not the intended recipient of the charity galas she attends.

-The Breaking Dawn, Part 2 trailer will debut before The Hunger Games. Synergy!

-Speaking of the Hunger Games, I’m mesmerized by the cool motion posters they just released.

-Whitney Port‘s reality show may be done, but at least she walked away from it with a new boyfriend.

-George Clooney must really want that Oscar. He’s even making nice with the paps.

-A judge praised the “great strides” Chris Brown has made — but still refused to let him off his probation early for good behaviour.

-Chelsea Handler opened up about having an abortion at 16 in an interview with Rosie O’Donnell.

-Speaking of Chelsea, Leann Rimes was a guest on her show — and quickly called the host out for all the trash talk about her.

-Even when told by puppets, Requiem for a Dream is still incredibly disturbing.

-I’m still not going to see This Means War, but I do approve of this (swear-filled) YouTube video of Tom Hardy getting shot in the butt with a paintball on the set.

-How sucky would you feel if Madonna was mad at you? It would be like disappointing your (very cool) grandmother.

-Meanwhile, Madonna‘s stalker has been captured after escaping from a mental hospital.

-You knew this was going to happen sooner or later: Kristen Bell‘s sloth story just got AutoTuned.

-Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony made nice (well, minus all the slapping) while taping an episode of Ellen that will air Monday.

-Macaulay Culkin bailed on his monthly DJ gig in NYC last night after the internet lost its shit when a crazy scary photo of him surfaced.

-Public service announcement: Nic Cage would like everyone to know he’s not a vampire.

-Brace yourself, world! Kirk Cameron has made a documentary.

-Fake or real, this American Horror Story poster isn’t going to convince me to start watching that show.

-Wait, Lizzy Caplan is dating Matthew Perry? When did that happen?!?

-The trailer for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, has landed. It just might be the cutest apocalyptic film ever!

There’s no rule that a movie’s protagonist has to be likable, but it helps if he or she is at least interesting. Unfortunately, the unnamed man at the centre of writer/director Daniel Wilson’s feature isn’t much of either.

The man — let’s call him Jake — starts the film in a suicidal funk, hanging an expertly tied, almost cartoonishly perfect rope noose from his shower. Things almost end right there, but Jake decides that rather than kill himself, he’ll spend a year having anonymous sex with as many women as possible. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?

This project turns out to be almost too easy — the guy could put Michael Fassbender’s character in Shame to shame. But soon the second half of the title kicks in, and Jake (Al Miro) finds himself attracted to a bookish bookshop clerk, despite the fact that neither of them can say one nice, non-sarcastic word to the other.

Bookworm doesn’t have a name either — no one does, in one of the film’s artistic affectations. Played by Amy Clare Lockwood, she is inexplicably drawn to this wounded, death-seeking, sex-obsessed grouch.

Aside from Jake’s many dalliances, the film’s plot revolves around a mysterious tragedy that sent him noose-bound. It may have something to do with a failed relationship, or a dead dog, or even spousal abuse. It doesn’t become clear until late in the film, far past the point where we’ve lost interest, but there are hints in Jake’s occasional Vaseline-on-the-lens romantic flashbacks.

I Hate Toronto should not be confused with Let’s All Hate Toronto, the 2007 documentary by Albert Nerenberg and Rob Spence. In fact, Wilson likes the city very much, and proves it with a tourist’s-eye montage and lots of streetcars. He also pays homage to the city’s independent booksellers. And while this is definitely a love story, it doesn’t quite qualify as a story one can love.

I Hate Toronto: A Love Story opens Feb. 10 for a five-day run at the Underground Cinema, 186 Spadina Ave.

Just before Warren Zevon was diagnosed with his terminal illness, I tracked down his manager through our old agent, Blue. I wanted to send the musician a copy of Tropic of Hockey after reading that his sporting hero was goaltender Patrick Roy. The book was mailed, but Zevon fell ill and I never found out if he’d read it. Still, in my mind’s eye, I imagine Jordan Zevon walking through his dad’s chambers and passing the bookshelf with my work sitting there. This may or may not have happened, but the idea consoled me. I thought to myself: I bet Warren Zevon never read Something Fierce. I also bet he never read The Game because Ken Dryden probably hadn’t sent him his book. Clearly, I was a better person and a better writer because Warren Zevon may or may not have read my book. Still, if this were the case, why were strangers saying awful things about me on the radio?

Watching the Canada Reads debates as a defenceless author is a little like that dream where you’re screaming at the top of your lungs and no sound is coming out. A point would be argued and, as the creator, I would think of the perfect response — “But there are poetic moments!” “Art is inherently political!” and “Touring northern Alberta is every bit as adventurous as life in a Chilean guerrilla camp!” — yet it would all be voiced into a great yawning vacuum. I wrote to my defender, Stacey McKenzie, every night, trying to impress certain theories and tactics upon her, but I was loath to tell her too much, or to make it seem like winning mattered very much to me (even though it did). I asked her to have fun and to maybe memorize a few key lines in the book’s defence. It wasn’t until the show was over that she seemed to relax, and, just before the final vote was cast, she quoted the book’s opening line, getting it wrong. I knew I’d been defeated and, after a while, I stopped screaming. At least Warren Zevon had read Tropic of Hockey before he died. Or had he? Still, they were talking about my book on the radio. My life was successful and amazing. At least I think it was.

The drive from Halifax to PEI was sunny and gorgeous, a perfectly cold and crisp Maritime day. I was with my band, my friends, and they were great comfort. Besides, while Ken Dryden retired years ago from hockey and Carmen Aguirre was now living in Canada writing plays and books, I’d continued on the road — less cold these days, but still — playing rock ’n’ roll and standing behind my book. After finding the CBC on the dial in the rental van, I might have screamed that, too: “This book is relevant because I am HERE: moving past Shubenacadie, Urbania, Londonderry, Springhill, Dartmouth, Pictou, Caribou.” But if I had, nobody would have heard me. The guys were too busy telling me: “Isn’t it great, people talking about you on the radio?” It made me feel better. I didn’t think of Warren Zevon once. I didn’t have to.

The show started and the debates raged. The host, Jian Ghomeshi, with whom I’ve played many times, said a few wonderful, fond things about my book. So, too, did Arlene Dickinson, who I thought hated my book, and so did Shad. In fact, I was feeling so good and relieved and positive about the whole thing that I fooled myself into thinking I might survive the penultimate vote, sending it into the final against either The Game or Something Fierce. Each time anyone mentioned On A Cold Road I sped up. They mentioned it lots. The countryside roared past and road signs became a blur. The car was lurching as the vote neared. I drove faster, terrified of the result.

Just as the votes were being collected, I noticed something in my rear view mirror: lights, blue and red. It was the police. They pulled me over as Jian called out the results. The cop approached the window. “I realize that I was going 160,” I told him. “But I’m on the radio. Listen,” I said, turning up the volume. I explained about Canada Reads and books and literature and Warren Zevon and Anne-France Goldwater and Moxy Früvous in Edinburgh and my first English teacher and my old editor and screaming without making a sound and computers vs. notebooks and the difference between a metaphor and a simile and New Journalism and King Leary when, all of a sudden, it came down to one final, tie-breaking ballot. “Hold on!” I told the cop as he studied my license and registration. “Anne, we need your vote. Which book will be leaving us?”

“On A Cold Road”

The guys in the van groaned. “Sorry to hear it,” said the cop. “I knocked down the speed a little,” he said, sympathetically. I told him that I was grateful, and then he told me to have a good day. I don’t know whether Warren Zevon ever ended up reading Tropic of Hockey. What I do know is that speeding fines in the Maritimes are outrageous and that I owe the Nova Scotia government $280. Before pulling back on the highway, Paul, the guitarist, said: “I think I smell a column…” He did. And here it is.

Now, to the next show.

Calling in to On Air with Ryan Seacrest, Madge responded to the show-stealing controversy calling it immature and a supposedly “nervous” compulsion when she flipped the bird during the live broadcast.

“I was really surprised. I didn’t know anything about it,” said Madonna. “I wasn’t happy about it. I understand it’s punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy, and positivity; it seemed negative. It’s such a teenager … irrelevant thing to do … It was just out of place.”

Guess we won’t be seeing another collaboration between the two anytime soon.

Finally, on the heels of a love fest at Amoeba Records in Hollywood, the singer has opened up in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, admitting, among other things, that she’s currently crashing on an ex’s couch in Williamsburg, New York City.

“[I'm] staying with my ex-boyfriend … I live on his couch,” she conceded in the article, which hits newsstands next week.

As for that much-ridiculed performance on Saturday Night Live, Del Rey said she’s “not by nature a showstopper.”

“I love to write and play songs, but onstage, all these things come into play,” she added. “I’m always saying to myself, don’t mess up. Don’t mess up.”

And as for those fake lips rumours. “They’re real lips,” she insisted. “I mean … in real life my lips don’t look that big. I think because I cartoonized the footage of myself in the video for Video Games things look exaggerated.”

Thankfully, moviegoers in Toronto and Vancouver now have a chance to get out and watch all five animated and live-action shorts in one go. If you can’t make it, here’s a quick cheat sheet to the nominees this year.

Animated

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore  (U.S.A.):  Long title, short film, but it packs a world of whimsy into its 17 minutes. The wordless tale (only one animated nominee, Wild Life, features any dialogue) shows a man who is plucked up by a windstorm, Wizard of Oz style, and deposited in a magical realm of living books. This one deserves the prize.

La Luna (U.S.A.): For the first time in its history, Pixar didn’t crack the best animated feature category, but it sneaked into this one with a seven-minute tale about a boy who helps the moon wane.

Morning Stroll (U.K.): This bizarre three-part cartoon, also just seven minutes long, answers the question: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was being chased by a crazed zombie!

Dimanche/Sunday (Canada): One of two entries from the National Film Board of Canada, this one feels like a spiritual successor to The Big Snit, with its nonsensical depiction of a lazy Sunday in Quebec.

Wild Life (Canada): The other NFB nominee tells the story of an Englishman, looking for adventure in the early-1900s Canadian prairie, who gets more than he bargained for. Sad but sweet.

Live-action

Tuba Atlantic (Norway): Dark as a Norwegian winter but much funnier, Tuba Atlantic tells the story of an old man whose doctor tells him he has six days to live. Can he reconcile with his brother, perhaps by tuba-phone, before time runs out? And how many seagulls can he kill in the meantime? A wonky winner.

Pentecost (Ireland): This 11-minute short imagines altar-boy service as a sporting event, complete with pre-game pep talk and roaring crowds.

Raju (Germany, India): The most serious of this year’s nominees features a German couple who go to Calcutta and adopt an Indian orphan, only to lose him in mysterious circumstances the next day.

The Shore (Northern Ireland): Ciarán Hinds stars as a man who comes back to his Irish hometown in hopes of reconciling with an old flame and an old friend.

Time Freak (U.S.A.): It takes a special kind of obsessive personality to persevere in the creation of a time machine. But what would such a type actually do with the finished device? The answer is surprisingly repetitive.

The Oscar shorts screenings begin Feb. 10 at the Bell Lightbox in Toronto; and Feb. 17 at the Vancity in Vancouver.

cknight@nationalpost.com

Episode summary  Well, that was pleasantly refreshing. Despite my groaning and complaining over the past few weeks, Thursday night’s episode of The Office proved to be, well, actually funny. And occasionally moving. Awkward, even. In short, all the trademarks of the show I once loved so dearly.

Sure, there was one GIANT misstep at the episode’s tail end (which we’ll get to shortly), but by and large, Episode 14: Special Projects, was a reminder of what the show used to do best: mix well-honed character drama with cringe-inducing awkwardness, with hilarious results.

The show’s main plot found Dwight — miraculously, given his treatment by Robert California the other week — being given full responsibility of launching a new chain of Sabre stores. The plum assignment comes complete with a three-week trip to company headquarters in Tallahassee, and the privilege of picking his own team from the Scranton branch. But when I say “privilege” I really mean that he has to obey Andy’s orders, since Dwight’s top picks would pick Scranton’s bones clean. (And as much as we’d all like to see Kevin and Meredith run the office, Andy’s surprisingly right on this point.)

In no short order, Dwight causes the staff to go into a furor, as he sews discontent by telling them a paid Florida vacation awaits, and that the only criteria to hop aboard his Tallahassee train is “inherent goodness” or “inherent badness.” The story line pays off rather quickly, with a compromise of sorts: Dwight gets to take along Ryan, arch-enemy Jim, Stanley (a big Burn Notice fan, by the way),  Erin (who’s looking for a way to flee her attraction to Andy) and Cathy.

Now, who is Cathy, exactly? Good question! Remember the replacement hired to do whatever Pam is supposed to do? Well, for one reason or another, she’s still in the office, despite Pam also being back from maternity leave. Dwight aptly calls her “a probably not totally useless enigma” — though as the final few minutes make clear, she may be more involved in the writers’ plans than anticipated.

Yes, the show’s credit-rolling kicker (which you may have missed if you set your DVR to record only until 9:30, and not 9:31) shows Cathy speaking for practically the first time, telling the camera that she plans to go to Florida with the express purpose of seducing Jim (!) because she senses his marriage to Pam is in trouble (!!).

If that makes no sense whatsoever, both in plot and character, then congratulations, we’re in the same boat. Hopefully this plot thread will just die on its own or be totally ignored, a la the Scranton Strangler, because honestly? More false romantic tension/entanglements is not what the show needs at this point.

However, that plot point aside, good work everyone! Dwight is always best when maniacal (but with purpose), and when the staff members are pitted against each other for relatively paltry reward (is Tallahassee all that attractive an option?), the comedic results usually pay off handsomely. Keep up the OK work, Office team. And please ditch Cathy as soon as possible.

• Email: bhertz@nationalpost.com | Twitter: HertzBarry

When I moved back to Toronto in the summer of 2003, after several years abroad in New York and Italy, I discovered that most of my comrades and compatriots, a crew of young writers, editors and assorted literary types I used to argue about books with in various pubs and cafés around town, had scattered — victims of marriages, careers, suburbs or just plain old-fashioned introversion. People were sticking close to home and home was often no longer Toronto.

A few of us tried to start a mailing list, where we could discuss and argue about the same literary issues, alerting each other to great books and damning the weak ones with curses, but mailing lists are notoriously hard to maintain because, frankly, who wants all that email?

Along with one of my best friends, novelist Peter Darbyshire, I decided to create a website for our group of friends to visit. We came up with a silly name, designed a logo and site, posted some links to articles along with our usual saucy commentary, and added an area for discussion. The initial announcement that we’d launched a website probably went out to 25 people. Within two months, several hundred people were visiting the site, which we’d dubbed Bookninja. Within two years, traffic had grown to thousands.

Back when we started, we couldn’t even get publishers to send us review copies — no one really knew what a “book blog” was. (At the turn of the millennium, blogs were not common fodder for news; there was a very personal, clubby feel about them. People who had found a great blog were torn between hoarding it for themselves and crowing to the rest of the world about this strange new way of consuming information.) But then Bookninja started making things happen. Regular commentors from our forums started getting jobs writing reviews for newspapers and magazines, stories we broke started getting mainstream press attention, people started talking about our site at parties. We even started to help sell books. (We ran a feature called the Inverse Omnibus Review, where instead of one reviewer looking at two or three books, we had two or three reviewers concentrate on one book in a roundtable discussion. One of the first books featured was Derek McCormack’s deeply weird novella The Haunted Hillbilly. We were contacted by ultra-cool U.S. punk publisher Soft Skull Press, who subsequently published McCormack in the States.) We also ran contests — to write acerbic haikus, come up with cartoon captions or redesign literary book covers as more sellable genres; this last was so successful it was covered and had images excerpted by The Guardian and The New York Times.

Eventually, even literary celebrities started showing up. After I hosted Irish novelist Roddy Doyle at a book signing in Ontario, he started reading Bookninja, and would tell people it was one of three sites he read daily. After someone dissed one of her authors in the comments, über-agent Anne McDermid chimed in to rebut. Margaret Atwood stopped me at a book event and said, “Oh! So YOU’RE the Bookninja!” and then proceeded to give me some advice on how to better skewer Stephen Harper on his commitment to the arts. What began as a virtual gathering place for friends had gone viral.

At its peak, Bookninja’s unique brand of comedic literary commentary reached more than 10,000 people a day. It seemed like everyone in the publishing industry, from writers to editors to publicists to librarians, was reading Bookninja. We were mentioned, quoted and profiled in newspapers and magazines not just in Canada but around the world. I was invited to speak at conferences. Publishers lined up around the block to get their books mentioned on the site — the number of free
review copies got so overwhelming that I held parties at my house during which I’d put out Rubbermaid tubs full of books and demand people leave with at least three or four.

During this time, Bookninja developed a reputation for taking the piss out of the publishing world, whether it be lambasting authors, taking jabs at corporate publishers or skewering poetic pretence. Though mostly everyone knew it was in good fun, it wasn’t always a love-in. At several points, Bookninja became the nexus for nasty battles between some of the writing world’s biggest personalities and their detractors. There was more chopping of tall poppies than in an Afghanistan grow-op. The worst was the conflict of interest scandal involving the young poet Jacob Scheier, who had the bad (or good) luck of having a close family friend, mentor and poetic collaborator on the jury that awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. The poor fellow was skewered for weeks by our commentators, even though the questionable moral choices that led to the win weren’t his.

Peter and I ran the site together for several years, but as the readership mounted, so too did the expectation. There were more books to read than ever. We had to closely monitor the increasingly vitriolic comments section for bullying and libel, less we find a lawsuit on our hands. We’d launched a Bookninja magazine, which included original reviews, interviews and essays, thereby adding to the workload. It was an exciting place to visit, but for those of us running it, the pressure was on. If I was late posting the links, I’d get angry emails from readers asking why there’d been a delay. “Listen, buddy,” I wanted to write back, “It’s a thing we do for FREE in our SPARE TIME!” But, of course, that was the problem — we ran the site around our other work and obligations. A third friend, the writer Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, had joined us to run the magazine and alleviate the workload, but it was just too much. Peter quit to devote more time to his own writing. Eventually, Kathryn left, too, and it was just me. It was kind of like we’d lost two thirds of a street performance troupe and were left with just one crazy guy yelling on the corner.

Through sheer will, and what’s likely undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder, I kept the blog running until last year, but forces in my own life conspired against me: children, jobs, houses, a divorce. I barely had time for the necessities, much less waxing wise about books. Plus, there was this little thing I used to do called “my own writing.” Wasn’t I supposed to be working on a novel? My fellow Ninjas had quit to concentrate on their own books; maybe I should too?

So I did.

Over the years, I’d been in talks with various bigshots about buying the site, but the problem with selling a brand like Bookninja is that the brand is, well, me. So, a year ago Saturday, I posted one last time. There was no goodbye message. No real explanation of why I was calling it quits. To the readers, it must have seemed like the site went out with a whimper, but it was a shocking relief to me.

New book blogs emerged in the years between the rise and fall of Bookninja. Many of them are local, genre or concept specific, offering a specificity we couldn’t match. The big newspapers and magazines started blogs of their own, a few of which were actually good. Most of these seem to rely on longer-form writing, whereas Bookninja relied on links and jokes. Still, people seemed to be reading these more and more. Book blogs no longer have to beg publishers for attention; publicists now actively court blogs — the multi-city book tour has been replaced by the multi-site “blog tour.” Bookninja was still well-read, but it wasn’t really “needed” like it once was. The void it had filled was no longer a void.

In the end, it was a good run, and lots of people had fun. A successful poet in Canada can count on between 500 and 750 readers over the life of a book; a mid-list novelist doesn’t get many more. My brand of literary stand-up comedy was earning thousands and thousands of readers each day. It wasn’t translating to sales at the till (it’s poetry, people, come on), but it certainly made me feel good at parties when people came up to say hi. Do I miss it? Sometimes. But mostly not. To paraphrase The Doors when they were told they’d not be invited back on The Ed Sullivan Show: Hey, man, I was the Bookninja.

• George Murray edited Bookninja from 2003 to 2011. His sixth book is Whiteout, available this April from ECW.