Boot In The Pants

time

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:37:00 +0000

Forgive me. It's been forever. But now we must choose. I feel like a studio executive, because right now I am absolutely sure of what I don't want. Click below

www.shitharperdid.ca.nyud.net

www.projectdemocracy.ca

loss

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:58:00 +0000

Murray Girotti
1948-2010

Gina Wilkinson

1960-2010

light

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:15:00 +0000

Since we've just returned from the wet coast and this...

And since the above photo holds significance for me because the moment I took it represents the loss of a person I love...

I just had to rip and post this, from the Sunday NYT...

Canada Lights Up

Vancouver, British Columbia

When people ask me, an American expat, what it’s like living in Canada, I tell them, “It’s kind of like living in the States, if the States were on lithium.”

This is the price of living in the land of “Peace, Order and Good Government.” With the notable exceptions of Arcade Fire fans and the Alberta tar sands
developers, there’s just not a lot of mania to be found north of the border. But for a few weeks last February, all that changed: Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics, and Canada went off its meds.

From that heartbreaking opening bell sounded by the Republic of Georgia’s Nodar Kumaritashvili when he collided with an unpadded stanchion to become the first Olympic luge fatality in nearly 50 years, to Sidney Crosby’s epic tiebreaker in the men’s hockey final, Canadians rode out the lows along with the highs. For two weirdly warm and sunny weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be winter, even the doomsayers — who saw the Games as a commercial boondoggle — were swayed by the excitement.

Gone was the usual gaze-averting reserve, and in its place was an ecstatic, high-fiving street party the likes of which Vancouver had never seen. The roar of the crowds cheering a Canadian goal against the United States was audible even through the walls of a house sealed for winter. For a brief moment, Canada embraced its inner patriot, and it felt pretty good.

“Canada isn’t one of those countries that wears its flag all the time,” one of my friends said, “but when I rode the SkyTrain, every single person was wearing red and white.” Another described it as a “gradual building of red energy,” adding, “Wherever you went, suddenly people were talking to you, laughing, joyful.”

Vancouver’s Olympic high took other forms as well: the lineup for free bong hits outside Marc Emery’s Cannabis Culture Headquarters was relentless, and there were some unfortunate run-ins with the billion-dollar security apparatus. During the torch relay, one free-spirited Canadian reached toward the Olympic Torch and tried to light ... what? A cigarette, a firecracker, his finger? only to find himself wrestled to the ground by the police.

By March, Vancouver had come back down to earth as well and, by June, our red wave had been replaced by a “yellow zone” on the other side of the country — the security perimeter around the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto. Canada was back to its old self again — reserved, responsible, safe.

But deep in Vancouver’s heart, the memory of that manic red reprieve will be treasured for a long time.

— JOHN VAILLANT, author of “The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival”

xmas

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:41:00 +0000

disconnect

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:30:00 +0000

The way I understand the phrase "passive-aggressive" is as follows: the distribution of umbrage by donning the guise of victim; or an offhand comment framed in the form of a joke which under its surface really seeks to either punish or embarrass another party; or feeling defensive enough to not be truthful about one's feeling of having been offended. After writing those things I decided I should look it up (well, 'google' it anyway). Here's what came back:

Passive-aggressive personality disorder is a long-term (chronic) condition in which a person seems to actively comply with the desires and needs of others, but actually passively resists them. In the process, the person becomes increasingly hostile and angry.

I had no idea it was an actual "personality disorder." From another site I got this:

A defense mechanism that allows people who aren't comfortable being openly aggressive get what they want under the guise of still trying to please others. They want their way, but they also want everyone to still like them.

I think I like the second one better because it's non-medical and speaks to what I'm on about here more acurately. And it's from Urban Dictionary which is a funny place to visit.

Creative people can often be insecure behind a façade of confidence and righteousness. I'm aware that I can be like that sometimes. But the plot thickens when you find yourself in what seems to be a collaborative relationship that quickly turns strange. By strange I mean one day you're part of the collaboration and the next day you're not.

Where the rubber meets the road here is in the process of making a film. In a business as highly specialized as ours each creative task is by and large performed by a specialist. Generally speaking a writer writes, a producer produces, an actor acts and a director...does whatever the hell it is a director does. But more and more the collaboration, at least in my experience, has its caveats. The biggest one being that once the footage gets to cutting room and the director's cut is done the collaboration is over. Whatever give and take there was through the process of prep and production is a dead issue. Sure, feel free to offer notes but under no circumstances get anywhere near the Avid suite or the dubbing theatre--your work is done here.

Why is that?

I suppose a producer and/or a writer feel that they've surrendered the baby to the director to get the thing shot, but not necessarily to get the thing made. Why is it that more and more the director's work is considered finished (in television anyway) once the last set of dailies get digitized?

I opened with definitions of the term passive-aggressive. Often the only way a director (again, my experience) can be shut out of the process after having been "collaborative," is via passive-aggression. On rare occasions which don't involve Canada the method has been aggressive-aggression. "You're done. Get the fuck out of the room." I guess I kind of like that better. It's like the long, drawn out break up versus the big explosion; or removing a bandage. I prefer the quick and clean to the long and arduous. I do know that the other party can continue to claim the moral high ground (read: remain collaborative) by protracting the process. They can invite said director's notes and opinions while still keeping the director from the cutting room. They can claim forgetfulness when yet another network notes call went by and the director wasn't informed. They can tell the director in question that they feel beholden to him, that were he in the room at this stage they wouldn't be able to make unbiased decisions about what's best for the film. Yup, they can do that. But I don't think I'd call it collaborative.

I was at a thing the other night where representatives of the CMF and Telefilm engaged directors. Even they see the disconnect in this country. The disconnect between the people who create content and the marketplace, or what used to be called the consumer. That disconnect is readily apparent when one considers who the gatekeepers are. Most -but not all- of the money Telefilm dispenses every year is triggered by producers. The large budget packages they support (and by large I mean Canada's version of large. Say, $2 million and up) are all producer driven. They do have low budget -really low- programs for projects that are director and writer driven. But the real money needs a producer to trigger it. The CMF is all broadcaster driven. The broadcasters hold the envelopes, the ones with the cheques in them.

The disconnect is that the actual "content creators," or as some among us might call artists, have little or no say in what actually gets made. Mostly they create stuff that the gatekeepers want.

Is this why collaboration comes with conditions?

Passive-aggressive types usually duck confrontation, conflict, argument. They avoid friction at all costs. But sometimes a spirited discussion, a difference of opinion can actually improve a movie. And all too infrequently are those creative arguments given an environment within which to flourish. What's wrong with getting the dander up once in a while? What's the problem with disagreeing with a network note directly...I mean with a person at the network?

Why are we so often afraid to disagree and then work to hammer out a collaborative solution?

It really doesn't matter where one is in the food-chain; producer, writer, director. When it comes to making a better movie wouldn't a spirited discussion among the concerned creative parties actually be a good thing? We're all possessive by nature when it comes to creative output. But this medium (television) is very much a collaborative one. When that collaboration isn't fully realized, when it's cut off at one point or another during the process I believe that the result suffers. Reasons things were done in production are forgotten or lost when the collaboration is discontinued.

If everyone were given their way it would be a dog's-breakfast. But if everyone is given a forum where they can contribute -preferably like adults- then at least the details don't get lost. Some get reincorporated, others consciously omitted. That's collaboration. Makes for better TV I think.

It's funny, my belly-ache here has been brewing for a while because I didn't really know it was happening. It donned on me the other night while I listened to those reps from the CMF and Telefilm. They were reaching out to me, and that was a surprise. I'd always assumed them to be disconnected, strutting the corridors of their government-funded ivory towers. But I realized that's not true. They want to connect. They want to collaborate. And the other night they even argued a bit. It was good.

cherry

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Who's crazier, the coach, or the mayor who worships the ground he walks on? Dumb...meet Dumber-

Great piece in today's Globe by Marcus Gee here.

flog

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Above: man sitting on dead horse

U.S. officials have for days warned Canadian officials to expect to see unflattering portrayals in diplomatic cables being leaked on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon confirmed Monday that he expected to see a comment on Canada’s “inferiority complex.”

Now a handful of the cables show U.S. officials not only mentioning the inferiority complex, but explaining to colleagues in Washington the U.S.’s “overwhelming” importance to Canada and complaining about the increasingly negative stereotypes of the U.S. government on Canadian TV. The cables were leaked to the National Post ahead of the WikiLeaks data dump.

Wikileaks blindsides the CBC? Americans actually give a shit about what we think of them? I don't think so. Believe me, kids, this will only be a story here among us winter shut-ins. The so-called data dump that produced this yawn-inducing revelation is covered in this article. It's DOA...well, for most of us it is.

Flogging a dead horse. That's the only thing I can chalk it up to. In reaction to this data-dump John Doyle took the opportunity to take his post-coffee, morning dump all over "The Border," the dead horse in question.

Or have DMc and Doyle had some sort of new off-blog row?

I'm wagering that somebody in the news department decided that this, from John Doyle's piece, was news.

Reading the memo titled “Primetime Images of U.S.-Canada Border Paints U.S. In Increasingly Negative Light” you wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Apparently at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa they spend their evenings scouring CBC shows for signs of anti-American sentiment, wringing their hands about what they find and send reports back to Washington. Among their concerns were The Border, the mini-series H20 (“wildly implausible” says the memo, pithily), Little Mosque on the Prairie and Intelligence. Well, at least they got to see one good show, Intelligence. Otherwise, they must have been going out of their minds with tedium. The boom-boom-boom soundtrack to The Border would drive anyone around the bend.

I'm not sure it is news, but who's Mr. Doyle to turn down the offer of a few column inches in the front section. Other than an opportunity to sling a bit of mud and -rightly- again take the CBC to task for canceling one of the best shows on television, I don't see what Doyle's on about. Unless it's to illustrate his point of view that Americans who move to Canada will always be Americans. But Irish who move to Canada become fully formed Canadians, who just happen to love football (the kind of football played with one's feet and a ball that doesn't look like a turd).

Hmm...wonder what DMc thinks. Wonder if he cares.

blowout

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:44:00 +0000

So much for the rivalry (see below). It was a blowout: Barça-5 Madrid-0.

bankrupt

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:56:00 +0000

As Portugal and Spain seem poised to go the way of Greece and more recently, Ireland, the jitter meter begins to peak again. Are we in for a speed-bump on recovery road, or is this a looming sink-hole, ready to suck the rest of us down too? Portugal looks like it's going to have to beseech the EC for a bailout -and by the EC I really mean Germany (6.9% unemployment and the strongest economy in the zone). Spain, which paradoxically sports an unemployment rate of 20%, remains the fifth largest economy in the Euro Zone. Germany and France are exposed to as much as 60% of Spain's massive debt. But many within and without the country actually think it can survive this crisis.

This past August I spent a couple weeks in and around Madrid and Barcelona with my son. What I noticed was the sheer number of signs on buildings saying "se vende" and "se alquila." For sale, for rent. The economy was falling in on itself, victim to the ripple-effect of the US sub-prime mortgage debacle, and its own crushing national debt load. But on more than one occasion, out of the blue another topic dominated conversations I would have there: football. The season was still weeks away, yet the rivalry to beat all rivalries seemed to be on the mind of every other Spaniard or Catalan I spoke with.

Monday I'm going downtown with a Valencian buddy to watch "El Clasico," one of the two biggest single club football games of the year. The other is the second "El Clasico," to be waged sometime next April. Same teams but with a new score to settle. These two matches pit the bitterest rivals in football against each other. It happens twice every year in La Liga. Los Galacticos contra Barça. Monday it will be in Cataluña at the Camp Nou. Next April they'll return the favour at the Estádio Santiago Bernebéu in a northern suburb of Madrid.

Now, if you go to Wikipedia you'll get a pretty good critique of why the rivalry matters. Historically the clubs representing the two largest cities in Spain were fighting a proxy idealogical war. Catalan nationalism against Spanish identity. Then during the Franco years Barça was the lightening rod for the oppression of Catalan identity by the Franco regime, and Real was the Generalísimo's team.

A trace of that taste still exists in Spain, but by and large it's more about the two best club teams on earth. These are the teams where players like Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Romario, Luis Figo, David Beckham, Roberto Carlos, Zinedine Zidane, Raul & Ronaldinho plied their trade. Pretty much the entire starting lineup of the Spainish national team that won last year's World Cup came from the starting lineups at Madrid and Barcelona. Save for David Villa, who has since moved from Valencia to Barcelona, almost every Spaniard who was on the pitch for "El Clasico" last year had a hand in taking the world game to new heights back in South Africa.

The two teams also employ the two best players on earth. Lionel Messi is from Argentina and plays for Barcelona. Christiano Ronaldo is from Portugal and is Real Madrid's leading scorer. They're kind of counter-intuitive to their teams. Messi is a self-effacing, somewhat shy multi-millionaire with the sweetest touch inside the penalty area. But he plays for the Spanish city that's all flash, fashion and trend. Ronaldo is the brooding, strutting, preening peacock. An absolute magician in the open field, his finishes can be breathtaking. But he plays for quiet, reserved, self-effacing Madrid. Messi just seems more mature somehow, but he plays for the city that acts like Spain's unruly teenager. Ronaldo is the sauntering lady's-man with the evil grin, just a bit too much flash for most people. Yet he plays for the city that on the surface seems more reserved (nothing could be further from the truth-but that's for another time).

Take the two best players in the world and add them to the roster that won the world cup last year, mix Higuain, Özil, Di Maria and Khedira along with Seydou Keita, Maxwell and Dani Alves...add that all together and I believe this represents a kind of All Star Game. Yes there's Champion's League and all the cups, caps and club championships around the world. But the two best teams with the most star-studded rosters on earth will do battle Monday. And they'll do it in Spain, a country on the verge of bankruptcy.

Hey, money ain't everything.

elite

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:36:00 +0000

So, how did I become an "elite?" I didn't study political science in university; in fact I didn't go to university at all. I don't have a law degree (okay, neither do Rob Ford or Stephen Harper). I didn't spend any of my formative years in Etobicoke (as both Misters Ford and Harper did). I grew up in the ass end of St. Catharines -and St. Catharines, much as I love the place, can often feel like it's all ass. My father wasn't an MPP, he was in the precast concrete business. I'm not connected on Bay St. or in the oil patch. I bought my first tuxedo 18 months ago. I wasn't a card-carrying member of the "Calgary school" of economic theory. I don't have an assistant.

I like to go to see live theatre once in a while. I like music. But I used to install burial vaults and strip concrete from greasy steel molds as a summer job. I've tried drugs but I don't remember if I ever inhaled. I tried to get a job in a bank in Calgary 34 years ago, but then I decided to go to Banff and ski for two and a half years.

I'm not sure but I don't think either Mr. Ford or Mr. Harper spent any time touring with a small theatre troupe in northern Ontario, and sleeping on the floor of an uninsulated house in Orillia heated by one wood stove. I wonder if either of them ever held down three jobs at once to pay the bills -I did that in Barrie.

Now if I am elite, it's because I'm a member of a tennis and fitness club. Funny though that all the members there who I would consider "elites," are actually conservatives who voted for both Rob Ford and Stephen Harper. Many of them have condos in places like Turks and Caicos or Whistler BC. I don't. Many of them drive big, expensive German automobiles. I don't...not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford one.

I even drink Tim Horton's coffee. Not all the time, but sometimes. I love the Leafs. I hate the Leafs. I can solder copper pipe and hammer a nail. I like fart jokes and every episode of Family Guy. I follow football religiously -not Rob Ford football, but the kind of football one plays with one's foot, and a ball that doesn't look like a turd.

I like films; all kinds of films, even films without subtitles. I prefer television shows that come out of US cable rather than just about anything I see on network TV. Does that make me "elite?"

I wish the CBC was Canada's version of Cable. I wish the CBC had financial stability and a vision other than the "blue sky" bullshit I keep hearing. Does that make me "elite?" I'll never forgive the CBC for canceling "Intelligence."

So, why would guys like Rob Ford and Stephen Harper label a guy like me an elite? Oh, waaaaait...I get it. I live in Toronto. Old Toronto. Not one of the old boroughs. The old city. That's why.

Riiiiiiight...

The link below is John Doyle talking about "elites." Interesting:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/geminis-and-gillers-proof-that-canada-has-a-clueless-elite/article1799869/

dog

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:30:00 +0000

The Big Bang was great and all, but concept artist Jonathon Keats wants God to get busy making more universes. So he’s trying to make the Almighty horny by screening celestial pornography, streamed straight from the Large Hadron Collider to New York City.

“The first porn palace for God will be in Brooklyn via remote web link, instead of in Geneva where the LHC is headquartered,” experimental philosopher Keats told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “If CERN would like to build a porn palace locally, I’d be happy to consult with them. Perhaps a votive altar could even be built inside the LHC tunnel; that would be ideal.”

Yup, God Porn. Now that one crackpot cosmologist has been proven wrong maybe we can get on with the banging. Big banging that is. They cranked up the Large Hadron Collider recently and got about as close to replicating the beginning of it all as they could -for about 1/1,000,000th of a second anyway. The CERN guys heated things up to a million times the temperature of the centre of the sun -for about the same amount of time.

They blew up some quarks real good on the Switzerland-France border the other day, and contrary to what some were fearing, the four horsemen of the apocalypse did not show up.

"Smashing accelerated lead ions, which have 82 protons, produced short-lived minuscule fireballs with temperatures of about 10 trillion degrees Celsius. At such temperatures, atoms melt into quark-gluon plasma, predicted by the theory of quantum chromodynamics."

Wow, I get excited just reading stuff like that.

adrift

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:36:00 +0000

Leafs look mortal. Toronto FC reorganizes...again. Republicans take the house. Canada is shut out at the UN Security Council. City of Toronto elects another mistake; Mel Ford? Rob Lastman? Can't recall his name. Oh, and how about Tottenham Hotspur?

I've been away but to me it looks like same shit, different day. I've been fortunate enough to have been busy this year and that's taken me away from this place. But I think I'm ready to resume, for the short term anyway. It's funny though; in addition to being busy the other reason I gave this space a rest was I was just getting tired of being annoyed.

There was just too much to be annoyed about: the sorry state of Canadian culture, the Canadian government, Major League Soccer, construction on Roncesvalles Avenue, CBC Television's fluff blitz, TV Movies with too many locations and too little money, my inability to control what I eat, my inability to connect with my 13 year old son, Canada's inability to get a seat on UN Security Council, and of course Stephen Harper.

Then there's the middle-east, "Yes We Can," Fox News, CBC News, my knees, Darfur and anyone who shouts too much...which seems like pretty much everyone these days.

So I channeled my pent up angst into the job. And the job's been pretty good to me lately. That said, I'm still pining for the control we all want. Like everybody I think my ideas are the best ones in the room, until I leave the room and let the sound of my own annoying voice fade away.

Deep breath.

So, I'm going to pick it up again and try to be a bit more selective and informed about what I rant about. No promises there. I just said I would try. So back once more to anger and righteousness. A return to the one-sided debate. I hope you'll rejoin the fun when I get my ducks in a row and start firing.

Meantime, how about Tottenham Hotspur?

aaaaaah

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:18:00 +0000

Gracias Africa!

excuse

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:11:00 +0000

Time to come clean...
I've been lucky enough to have been busy. Couple that with the fact that I'm a lazy lout -and then there's the World Cup- and you have the best excuse I can muster for my absence.

February through May working in New York, an overtime extravaganza in Toronto, and now a gig in with my people in Nova Scotia sums up my 2010 to this point. I'm knocking wood all over the place. Life's been...busy.

This space has suffered for it. But it's a space, a blank, wanting place which most of the time gives me these small pangs of guilt. Guilt because I started scribbling here, firm in my resolve to stick with it. So, I betrayed my resolve. Who really gives a shit besides me and the three or four of you who may read it?

Ah, but the World Cup: six from much-vaunted South America are whittled to one. Ciao Brazil, Adieu Argentina. Europe, decimated with the abject failures of Italy (where embellished theatrics were perfected), Portugal (ugly stepsisters to their wealthier cousins), England (where club football is dominated by non-English) and France... oh France. What a wonderful display of selfishness, egotism, hubris. What a delightful circus freak-show you are. What a delicious disaster. Was it payback for this?

Was Italy getting its just desserts for what Materazzi said to provoke the above?

And yet it is Europe who overpopulates the semi-finals. Three of the four are from the continent. Germany has taken this title three times in the past, Uruguay twice. Does that make non-winners The Netherlands and Spain underdogs?

Will it be Los Charruas, Oranje, Die Mannschaft or La Furia Roja?

I'm with the chronic underachievers -save for Euro 2008- Spain. But why won't Del Bosque start Cesc Febregas?

loss

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:23:00 +0000

You know you've been somewhere for a while when, lamentably, you have to attend a funeral. I've been in New York since February (home on weekends). I can say that the majority of my television work since 2004 has been here. In that time I've smelled New York, tasted New York, and been lucky enough to work with the best New York has to offer. A couple days ago one of the very best stuntmen in the business passed away--and I would call him one of the very best people I've been lucky enough to know, befriend and work with. Danny Aiello III was the first stuntman I had the pleasure to work with in this great city. To my delight that first opportunity would turn into many. His loss has rippled through the film and television community here like an unwelcome tsunami. Danny had been battling pancreatic cancer for some time, but for any of us who knew him his loss still comes as a great shock. Friends and colleagues who've been fortunate enough to know him much longer than I, have been sharing with me the colossal number of great moments they spent with this wonderful human being. This is the guy the word "mensch" was invented for. A great man, a good friend, a huge loss. Look him up on IMDb; he's been everywhere, done everything, and always had time for every one of us. He takes my love, and that of so many others with him.

anger

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:50:00 +0000

Because it seems so...timely.

hardware

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Some funny stuff here, and this:

end

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:08:00 +0000

Either we will be swallowed in a self-created black hole, or we'll be that much closer to how it all began. The "God particle" is still probably a few years away, but we're getting closer.

"Once upon a time, the universe and everything in it were just a picosecond old. That instant occurred one trillionth of a second — one second divided by 10 followed by 11 zeroes — after the Big Bang, or about 13.7 billion years ago. At the time, the universe was not only very young. It was also extremely small, invisible to what billions of years later would become the human eye."

Some time ago I wrote in this space about the largest, most complex machine ever built by man; the Large Hadron Collider. Oakland Ross wrote about it in today's Star. Well...

"On Tuesday, at precisely 1:06 in the afternoon Geneva time, scientists advanced a critical step further in their 16-year mission to recreate the conditions of the universe as they existed in that trillionth of a second."

It's happening...

It's amazing, and fascinating and just a little scary. This machine is taking us back to the moments immediately following the big bang. String theory, the multi-dimensional universe, God...? Everything's on the table. And it's truly mind-blowing to consider what this machine may be able to tell us about the nature of existence.

I'm stuck in New York these days, but the true centre of the universe is a 27 km underground ring straddling the France-Switzerland border.

mcValues

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:59:00 +0000

Remember Charles McVety? The Canada Family Action Coalition? What about Bill C-10? Yeah, you remember that. Buried under a pile of rocks somewhere in the nether-regions of a colossal tax bill was the notion that the federal tax credit (on film and television productions) would henceforth only be granted if the Minister of Canadian Heritage felt that:

"the public financial support of the production would not be contrary to public policy."

Furthermore, the legislation would have granted the minister the right to retroactively revoke those credits.

Old news? Take a look at what the state of Florida is up to right now:

A bill that aims to expand the state’s film incentive program — an effort to attract jobs, which is likely to pass — would add language limiting a proposed 5 percent tax credit to productions that do not exhibit (sic) or imply “nontraditional family values.”

um...

The bill's sponsor, Representative Stephen L. Precourt, an Orlando Republican, told The Palm Beach Post that he wanted to encourage filmmaking akin to "The Andy Griffith Show." On Tuesday, after declining requests to clarify what he meant, he released a statement denying that the new requirement for the tax break was in any way discriminatory.

They're baaaack. Read the article in today's New York Times (it really is remarkable) and temper your glee at the fact it's not happening here because, mis amigos, it may yet only be a matter of time.

message

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:55:00 +0000

Just because it's a simple message delivered beautifully.

canamerica

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:33:00 +0000

What's not to like about Tom Brokaw's piece on NBC:

moving

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:45:00 +0000

Joannie Rochette - Canada

angst

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:51:00 +0000

Almost puked last night...twice. First was Rod Black's dripping, overwrought commentary on Canadian ice dancers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's gold medal performance. A laudable skate; I actually caught all three of their routines over last few days. But listening to Rod Black was like nails on a blackboard after a while. Maybe he was trying to wipe the slate clean. The slate drawn by the Rent to Own the Podium people. Sure, lets count medals, lets make medals count; but lets not get sucked into the jingoistic sinkhole.

The second hurl moment was Brian Williams' fault. As CTV cut away from the rink just after the Canadians had locked up the gold he said, "Ice dancing, a sport that's asthetic aaaand athletic." Oy vay! He continued to work the room fighting hard against those naysayers who decry ice dancing as a non-sport with no business in the Olympics. Hey, I know the Olympics started out as a sporting contest mixed in with an arts and culture showcase. I've got no problem with ice dancing...especially not with the Canadian version of it: the lack of tassles, fringes and war-paint was a great breath of fresh air.

And if I see another one of those Coke commercials with, "Let's make sure they know whose game they're playing," I might blow chunks. And the collective angst over "the hockey game" is beginning to stir my stomach acids. Whatever you want to say about Ryan Miller and Martin Brodeur, we got out-hustled plain and simple.

In the preceding post I quoted an article from the New York Times about how many US viewers along our border miss the good old ceeb and its balanced, international coverage during previous Olympic Games. I miss it too.

Own the podium? If this is what it's going to be like when we win I'd rather give the fucking thing back.

Stinks remarkably similarly to funding bodies who only want to support "commercially viable" films.

Ah. I feel better now.

ceeb

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:52:00 +0000

Somebody loves 'em, the CBC that is. Disgruntled border-strewn Americans are left wanting when they find the CBC isn't carrying these Olympic Games.

From today's (Sunday) New York Times:

Canadian TV Switch Displeases Americans
By JOANNE C. GERSTNER

Published: February 20, 2010

DETROIT — It was an instinctual move, honed through years of watching the Olympics on television. Tom August, a resident of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., changed channels to see what was on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It’s an option available to many American border cities like Detroit, Buffalo and Seattle, and a secret escape for Americans who do not want to watch NBC.

But as August soon realized, that option was not available for the Vancouver Games.
CTV, Canada’s largest private broadcaster, won the rights to broadcast the Vancouver Games, and August’s cable company does not carry it.
“I thought it was weird the CBC was showing ‘Coronation Street’ during the opening ceremonies,” August said. “I’ve just always gone back and forth between NBC and the CBC, usually sticking more with the CBC. It took a second, then it hit me: I’m not going to get to see the Olympics on the CBC. I am going to have to watch NBC.
“I’m not happy about that, because I think NBC does a terrible job. I want to watch sports live, not watch NBC’s commentators talking in front of a fake fireplace.”
August, 38, is not alone in his CBC withdrawal. Watching CBC for Olympic coverage has been a tradition for many Americans since 1992. But CBC was outbid by a broadcasting group of Rogers Media and Bell Globemedia, which owns CTV. The group paid $153 million for the rights to become Canada’s Olympic broadcaster for the Vancouver Games and the 2012 Games in London.
Dan Imby of Shelby Township, Mich., also found himself wandering from NBC to CBC. CTV is available over the air, but most viewers have replaced their antennas with cable or satellite television.
Imby cannot get CTV, and he says he feels stuck with NBC.
“I love watching the hockey on the CBC because they know the sport, they love it all,” Imby, 46, said. “This is only going to be the biggest event of the Olympics, hockey in Canada, and we have no hockey on the CBC. No Don Cherry, no Ron MacLean. Terrible. I always liked how the Canadians showed everything, not just their own teams.”
The loss of the CBC seems to be providing a boost to NBC affiliates along the border. There is no way to determine how many Americans watch Canadian programming, as ratings are determined only within the country.
Ratings for NBC affiliates in Seattle, Detroit and Buffalo have risen in the first week of the Vancouver Games. Detroit’s affiliate, WDIV, had a 55 percent rating increase for the first few days of coverage over the same period of the 2006 Turin Games.
“It’s certainly a difference for us not having the CBC as competition in our market,” said Marla Drutz, WDIV’s vice president and general manager. “I’ve worked in this market for 25 years, and that’s always been a constant during the Olympics — there was a choice of what channel you wanted to watch. The rest of the country never had that choice. I think that’s why it may be jarring for some people not to have the CBC.
“But we’re thrilled with how the Games are playing out for us on NBC; our ratings are strong.”
Buffalo’s NBC affiliate had a 10 percent increase in its ratings over 2006. And perhaps not so coincidentally, Buffalo is also one of the few places in the United States where CTV is available on cable systems.
Sharon Lindstedt, a resident of Buffalo, has been watching CTV’s Olympic coverage.
“It’s better than NBC, but it’s not as good as the CBC,” Lindstedt, 53, said. “I’m trying to like the CTV. They’re a bit flashier than CBC. I know I’m lucky to have it. There is a clear difference between them and NBC. But I’d prefer CBC over them all. They’re more sophisticated, not as flashy.”
She added, “NBC would do well to learn from them.”
Frustrated American CBC Olympics fans are taking their protest to the Internet.
Kurt O’Keefe, a bankruptcy lawyer based in Detroit, started a Facebook page that longs for the CBC.
His Facebook group description reads: “In Detroit, we miss CBC. They covered the Games as if they were about the athletes and the competition, and not self-promotion of network personalities.” O’Keefe, a resident of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., said he was resigned to trying to make the best of this situation.
“I know we’ve been lucky to have options of how we watched the Olympics,” O’Keefe, 56, said. “Maybe we got spoiled. We’re now finding out how the Olympics looks to the rest of the country who can’t watch Canadian TV. Once you’ve had that choice, it makes it really hard to go back to just having NBC.”

huh

noreply@blogger.com (Ken) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:04:00 +0000

Just because it's so completely non-sequitor:

Leprosy diagnosed on Olympic security cruise ship

or paste
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Leprosy+diagnosed+Olympic+security+cruise+ship/2588973/story.html
into your browser