Your Magic is Basic 

These kids were so poorly educated, they formed their own study group.

Like a lot of people, over the holidays I like to revisit old favourites. Be it music, food, books and of course, movies. For the last couple of years I’ve rewatched the Harry Potter series and I’ve made some observations.

It’s the 21st century and they still use a steam train?
The professors dress like 19th century dandies.
No mobile phones?
No Internet, only owls?

This aversion to contemporary technology in the “Wizarding World” brings to mind the well known adage of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

When they do use technology (a camera, an enchanted car, a phonograph), it looks like it came from the 1920s or a 1940s junk shop. By the time the film series concluded, “Muggle Magic” had caught up to “Magic Magic”. For example, “Luminous”, the incantation that produced a glowing wand tip evoked by magical kids is easily matched by the dumbest smart phone. Self driving cars? Tesla, the electric car maker with auto-pilot “safety features” can hardly keep up with demand, and it has GPS and satellite radio. Seeing someone’s memories? In an age of social media it’s almost impossible to not see someone’s memories, whether you want to or not. Truth serums? Too many to mention, though mostly are alcoholic in nature but as a bonus, often come with tiny novelty umbrellas. Killing someone with an unforgivable curse? Please, we’ve been coming up with ways to kill each other since Cain did in his brother. Wizards clearly don’t have dentists. One professor has never even heard of the profession and asks if it’s dangerous. Judging by the teeth of Bellatrix Lestrange and Sirius Black, Azkaban Prison didn’t even have toothbrushes, never mind any charms for dentistry. Magic moving photos in a newspaper? Animated GIFs have been annoying us for two decades now. Why would I send an owl to deliver a parchment when I can just call or text someone anywhere in the world at any time (“Hey Boo, you up?). Mobile phones plus the Internet are a Muggle’s super powers.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
– Arthur C. Clarke

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I Can Get Used to This Lifestyle 

"The COVID-19 Lockdown has cleaned the air over Nepal and northern India. So much so that for the first time in many years, Mt Everest can be seen again from Kathmandu Valley even though it is 200km away." via the Nepali Times

That didn’t take long. Happy one hundred days of self-isolation and counting. I realized as I was making breakfast that I’ve consumed at least 2 kilograms of oatmeal and a litre of maple syrup in that time. I’ve also seen just how much chocolate a man can eat given 3 months in isolation. For me this isolation thing has been fine. Still working. Still getting paid. Full pantry. Yet there is a weirdness that everything is different and it will take awhile for that to go away. The air is cleaner, the waters of the Venice canals have cleared (no sign of dolphins however), people are riding bikes everywhere and everything is different now. How different? This different:

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Seen in Janbruary 

Killing Eve Image via The Movie Db.

The last few weeks have been such a blur that it’s a little shocking to me that it’s the end of February. I’m sure I spent plenty of time on my reliable couch the SS Resolute (yes, I’ve named my couch the Sleepy Sofa Resolute. What of it?) yet it turns out I’ve watched less than one film per week. Of late, I've found solace in re-watching old favourites rather than exploring new things and this is my life now.

The End of the F***ing World S02

Netflix
Our two youthful super sloths have settled into their so-called-lives after their whirlwind Bonnie and Clyde crime spree from season one, but things only get more difficult. There are some that say you can “choose” happiness (barring an actual depression diagnosis) yet no one talks about those who have chosen sadness like a kind of penance. That’s what makes this show hard to watch but somehow you remain hopeful for these two youths who kind of deserve each other.


Killing Eve Image via The Movie Db.

Killing Eve S01-02

Crave
This show about the obsession of two women with each other, one an MI6 analyst and the other a psychopathic assassin is everything critics have said. Funny, engaging, thrilling, gripping and a bit of a wild ride. Sandra Oh earns a lot of respect for playing Eve as intelligent, though somewhat reckless agent and Jodi Comer delights as the assassin who is probably insane, madcap, buoyant, feckless and prone to moods and shopping sprees. A series by women (season one was written by Fleabag creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge) about women that isn’t about feminism but kind of is. Empowered? Yes. Frustrating? Also yes. Great entertainment? Definitely yes.

Neal Brennan: 3 Mics

Netflix
A non-traditional, funny and intelligent new take on the “Stand-up Special”.

Oh Hello Broadway

Netflix
Goodbye Broadway. I’m a fan of John Mulany and Nick Kroll but this filmed stage show about two overly confident and failed senior thespians runs about one hour and thirty minutes too long.

El Camino

Netflix
Whatever happened to Jesse Pinkman after he escaped enslavement of a white supremacist drug selling bike gang? Tune in a find out. In many ways this could have been an epilogue episode of the Breaking Bad series rather than it’s own 90-minute plus stand alone movie. Or in all ways when I think about it.
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Dr. Stephen Hawking has some questions while aboard the Millennium Falcon 

Stephen Hawking demonstrating what gravity looks like when there isn't any. Image via Le Devoir

I'm sure we all remember Dr. Stephen Hawking's various appearances before a live audience or on programs such as the Simpsons, but do you remember his Star Wars cameo?

---

Hans Solo:

Welcome aboard Doc!

Stephen Hawking:

Thank you, Mr. Solo or should I call you Captain, or Han or…

Hans Solo:

This is the fastest ship in the galaxy you know, made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

Stephen Hawking:

Oh? How fast was that?

Hans Solo:

Fast enough for you, old man!

Stephen Hawking:

But a parsec is a unit of distance, not time…

Hans Solo:

Exactly!

Stephen Hawking:

Well, that's confusing? Tell me, can you explain to me how gravity is achieved on this vessel?

Hans Solo:

Empire cruisers! Hang on, this might get rough!

Empire cruisers open fire on the Falcon, which sustains a direct hit.

Stephen Hawking:

But wait? If "blasters" (whatever they are), are striking this craft why aren't we pushed away from the point of impact? Come to think of it, why aren't the Empire's cruisers also pushed away in the opposite direction. That is to say the conservation of…

Hans Solo:

The shields can't take much more of this!

Stephen Hawking:

Yes - about the “shields”…

Hans Solo:

Punch it, Chewie!

Stephen Hawking:

Wait? Are we moving at the speed of light?

Hans Solo:

Hyperdrive, baby! We'll be home soon enough.

Stephen Hawking:

How is this possible? Look, back at the cantina, how were so many species able to breathe the same atmosphere? How can so many life-supporting planets be so close to each other? And planets of such different sizes that apparently have the same climate planet-wide not to mention they seem to have roughly the same gravity?

Hans Solo:

You ask a lotta questions, Doc!

Stephen Hawking:

How are there heavier-than-air craft that can defy gravity without wings or without the necessary thrust to create lift yet can enter and exit the atmosphere easily? And how, in a place without schools do so many people know how to build and maintain bi-pedal androids with significant artificial intelligence? Or why would shooting the keypad of a locked door open it? That would be like unlocking a front door by shooting the door bell.

Hans Solo:

Look, Doc, I don’t have time for this.

Stephen Hawking:

Does this entire galaxy run on suspension of disbelief?

Cue theme music, then use every conceivable screen wipe effect at once.

Seen in July 

There are very few things I love more than escaping the summer heat by retreating into an air conditioned theatre to watch a movie about people enjoying the summer. In theatre there is a term, synecdoche, appropriately Greek in origin which is when a singular word or phrase is a stand in for a longer term or larger idea (like saying "Ottawa" when you really mean the entire system of the Canadian federal bureaucracy). Or when the curtain rises on an interior in a Manhattan apartment which is really a set on a stage in Toronto but we all just accept that we the audience are there, in an apartment in another city in another country. The set on the stage is a stand in for another place which is itself inside a place in city within a country. Of course, this shared self-delusion and layering of experience happens all the time in film and theatre. Perhaps it's even a stranger phenomenon in film when we are watching a movie set in London, that was really filmed in a Hollywood studio that we are watching in a theatre in Toronto. For me, the somehow "meta" synecdoche of watching summer movies in the summer only adds to its dreamy otherworldliness and transports me much more easily than say a plane or ferry to a faraway vacation spot. Here's some of the transport I took in July.


Dakota Johnson in A Bigger Splash

A Bigger Splash
Tilda Swinton is a vacationing rock star recovering from vocal chord surgery and enjoying a holiday with her filmmaker boyfriend on a beautiful and remote Italian island when an old flame, played by Ralph Fiennes shows up with his beautiful daughter (Dakota Johnson). Their unexpected arrival causes ripples then waves and ultimately, a dangerous storm. Based on the 1969 film La Piscine the movie reminds me of a lot of other summer dramas involving sunbathing, swimming, meals, music, dance and, of course, tension (like Stealing Beauty, L'Avventura or La Collectionneuse). Ralph Fiennes is great as the enthusiastic old lover hoping to somehow tip a happy relationship into disarray. Tilda Swinton is unbelievably ageless while Dakota Johnson is sort of annoyingly perfect as the overly confident and coy ingenue looking to push whatever boundaries exist.
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Seen in May 

Ex Machina

I spent most of May binging on two entirely different types of television shows, yet I also saw some of the best films I've seen all year (Nightcrawler from last year), Phoenix and Ex Machina among them. I find in the summer I tend to watch less television and more films. We'll see if that holds up this year, but the spring is off to a good start.
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Toronto the Meh… 

Minimalist Toronto map art by jennasuemaps via BlogTO

we live in a state of confusion and uncertainty to which the only response is ‘Oh dear’

“We live with a constant vaudeville of contradictory stories that makes it impossible for any real opposition to emerge because they can’t counter it with a coherent narrative of their own. But it means that we as individuals become ever more powerless, unable to challenge anything because we live in a state of confusion and uncertainty to which the only response is ‘Oh dear’ but that’s what they want you to say.”
Adam Curtis

I only wish I’d read this before going to a bar last week in Toronto’s Kensington Market. I was there for an event promoting a media criticism podcast called Canadaland. As such, I was surrounded by smart, engaged (apologies for the cliché), funny, Independent-minded and thoughtful people. Unfortunately, meeting people like this isn’t that common but in the last week or so, I’ve met a lot of them.

In 2014, the British documentarian Adam Curtis contributed to Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe series by discussing the strategy of some in government to employ contradictory policies and messages to create a seemingly complex and confusing state of affairs with the aim to keep critics off balance and toothless. Through such actions, the government maintains status quo by catching critics in a hypocritical quandary while appearing to be disagreeing and implicitly agreeing with them at the same time.
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Objects in Mirror 

What a year, huh? What’s the warning from our side view mirrors? “Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.” That’s how looking back at a year feels to me. It’s funny how things that you thought happened last year was really two or three years ago. Stuff that happened this year seems further back somehow. Maybe because it was kinda crappy. Except maybe the Olympics - which also seems crappy in retrospect.


obligatory year in review graphic

How about those Sochi Olympics? Those crazy Russians. Remember that one thing messed up in the opening ceremonies but we didn’t care because a police choir sang Daft Punk’s Get Lucky with Russian accents. Crazy. Remember how good the Canadian athletes were? Remember that insane comeback by the Canadian women’s hockey team? Remember when that Cossack beat Pussy Riot with a whip? You don’t see that everyday. Then again, this was a government that made promoting gay stuff illegal. Not even the Pope is against gay folks anymore. Hey Vlad, you can’t stop a gay party, because a gay party just don’t stop (see above Daft Punk reference)! Then the whole annexing Crimea thing? Crazy Russians. Read more »

Breaking 

This could get bad. Image via Murray Mitchell

I've just started watching Breaking Bad Season 5. The current temperatures in Toronto - mid-30s or around 40 with the Humidex reading, seem in sympathy with a show like this (or Walking Dead where any human is perspiring heavily). The very physical discomfort of sitting in a Toronto apartment match the uncomfortableness and unease of the show's characters. Adding to this discomfort is that I have a cold. So I'm feeling pretty not-so-wonderful in the evenings. The really draining part is not sleeping then dragging yourself to work again. Super. But I shouldn't complain. At least the office is comfortable. Before this heat began, the office seemed over chilled but now it simply feels "not hot".

All I'm saying is: Beer, good show cued up, too hot to move. Don't expect too much of me at the moment.

"Oh Tobias, you blow HARD!"

"…I'm afraid I just blue myself…" I'm glad someone is having "non-porn" fun with Vine, and I'm glad for Netflix bringing back Arrested Development for one more season. This is a bargain.

Seen in April 

A few of the moving pieces of House of Cards

A lot games this month. Games of thrones, card games, silly games of age. There was so much bad news lately (Boston, Texas, Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh) that an entertaining distraction was most welcome. I tried drinking like Don Draper (Manhattan anyone? Whisky Sour to your taste? How about an Old Fashioned?) but I could not keep up and switched back to tap water and TV.

Game of Thrones, Season 2
Why am I watching this? The dialogue drives me nuts. The story is ridiculously convoluted and it can be hilariously melodramatic and pretentious. This isn't "I, Claudius" after all. Still, it does have dragons and swords and wenches and stuff. I maintain that the creator, George R. R. Martin, is more like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons than Tolkien or LeGuin. The story is so confusing. Basically, everyone, everywhere has a "rightful" claim to a throne but have failed to notice the barbarians at the gates etc. Is that right? Whatever – I've fallen for the production design and the mere pretence that something will happen. File this under "guilty pleasure".

Treme, Season 3
Same old, same old. Quality written stories with engaging characters with whom we share their highs and lows in America's beat up, beautiful city of Jazz.

Django Unchained
Another revisionist historical revenge fantasy from Tarantino, reformed in his exploitation / pulp genre. Thoroughly entertaining with some great dialogue. Both Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx are great as a successful bounty hunter partnership. Yet… did the script deserve an academy award? Was it anything new? I really hated the extreme camera zooms - which is as dated as patched bell bottoms and the explosive extreme violence was, well, explosive and extreme. I want to not like DiCaprio as the sadistic slave owner but he was having so much fun as the villain it was contagious.

This is 40
I generally liked this Judd Apatow picture of two 40-year-olds realizing everything that used to come easily is harder than it seems. It got poor reviews and a luke warm reaction from audiences but I think it shows some maturity from Apatow. Maybe it was overly long, which seems to sort of be Apatow's thing - let a story wind down at the third act, then create a sort of crisis which extends like an epilogue. There are still some scatological jokes which seemed out of place, but in general I laughed, and it was honest. As a bonus, Apatow and Leslie Mann's daughter plays Mann's daughter on film and the kid has game. Note that this is the second Apatow film with the number 40 in the title and a climatic sequence involving a protagonist in a bicycle accident.

House of Cards
The Netflix original series about a high ranking congressman and party whip, Frank Underwood and his Machiavellian machinations on The Hill. One thing I like is the quality of the production is really incredible. Everything from the sets, musical score to the costumes feels like a feature film. Netflix have made a series before (Lillehammer) but this time, they doubled down. Another thing to like are the performances, particularly Robin Wright, who as the manipulative woman-behind-the man made my blood run hot and cold simultaneously. Generally I find Kevin Spacey a bit scenery-chewing, as though I can see him "acting" but I think the part called for that kind of affected gravitas and guile. Though I find it hard to believe it took until the end of the series to meet his match in political game play in the Warren Buffet-esque character of Raymond Tusk. I've also just finished Season One of Homeland so I've been watching a lot of Beltway drama, so I feel I should temper this with a season of Veep to keep it lighter. I've also just learned that Netflix has all three seasons of the original British series. It could be a long summer.

The Cruelest Month 

image via Boston Globe

I've heard that November is the cruelest month. This year, a span of a week in April has been beyond cruel, landing somewhere around vicious. Wars and time shook off more than a few mortal coils. When Roger Ebert succumbed, it prompted Dick Cavett to muse, "Why isn't ever Dick Cheney?" It may never be it seems, as the former vice president watched Margaret Thatcher put to ground. Then Jonathan Winters faded from light and bowed out. Still no sign of Cheney's demise. Also with no sign of Spring in sight, we buttoned our top button and slung our scarves and leaned to the wind. The wind blew back when two bombs killed three and wounded hundreds in Boston. Poison powder was sent to two US senators, a judge and the president of the United States. A fertilizer plant explosion blew a hole in the heart of Texas killing 14 and injuring over 200 people. Simultaneous car bombs blasted away 30 or more lives in Baghdad and when you weren't looking the Syrian civil war worsened. You wouldn't blame someone for waxing poetic for the time when news had to be printed on paper and delivered the next morning. You couldn't turn it off. The "feed" of information was gluttonous and spewed forth bile with fierce purpose. As though the Universe was trying to teach us all a lesson.
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Seen in January

Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini's 8-1/2 - image via L'Aragosta

I've noticed of late that my descriptions of what I've watched is getting more and more verbose which is curious. In the future I will aim for Twitter-esque, laser-like succinct re-caps, without spoilers, and a minimum of adjudication. Well, less judgement. There will always be judgement.
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Seen in December

Bond awaits Q in London's National Gallery. Image via Sotheby's

December usually delivers some of the best films of the year and I don't think this was so different except I didn't get to see most of them. Here's what I did see:
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It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times 

A weekend in which, a young triathlete named Paula Findlay finished dead last in her Olympic debut and taught me something.



The extraordinary photo finish of the Women's Olympic Triathlon

On Saturday, I experienced a personal triumph. I rode over a 100 km in under 5 hours in some punishing heat (30°C, though the "Feels like…" number was more like 38°C).

one hundred and eleven Kilometres
4:48:50 hr
2750 calories
3 bottles of water
1 bottle of Gatorade
1 can of Coke
1 can of Red Bull
2 cream cheese and jam sandwiches
1 energy bar
2 Hostess chocolate cup cakes
2 Advil
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Master/Slave 

Paul T. Anderson's The Master, just after The Dark Rises, may be Hollywood's most anticipated film of the summer.

I've seen the trailer, showered praise on the sumptuous teaser poster (see above; why are the teasers so much better than the real thing?) I've read the buzz, Katie and Tom are breaking up, which are all signs that this highly anticipated film will live up to its billing. The Master depicts a fictional cult leader who creates a fictional religion that sounds a whole lot like the nonfictional Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard. I just can't get enough of "bringing down a questionable new world religion". I'm sure Paul Haggis will give respectful props to Mr. Anderson (say that like Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith from The Matrix and it sounds better) all the while thinking, "Hey, I called 'dibs' on that ages ago. Bit rude."

Also, how did I miss this:



I've just become a big fan of this British series, The Inbetweeners so I'll probably seek out the film on DVD.

Oh and a new season of Breaking Bad pretty much cements my summer viewing.

So much for biking a century, running 16 KM or swimming 1600m. …and my figure? Good-bye form-fitting cycling shirts, hello fat pants.

Seen in March 

Sean Bean as Eddard Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones

In five years of tracking what I've watched I don't think I've gone a month without seeing at least one feature film. I have now. I watched plenty of television including an old series on Netflix. I guess it was a bad month for Hollywood. Well, for the record, this is what I did see.

True Blood Season 1
Twilight for grown- ups? Violent, sexual and as melodramatic as any soap opera. I'm not sure how much more I can take of invented vampire lore.

Game of Thrones
Lord of the Rings for grown-ups? It's certainly grittier and more gory. Peter Dinklage is great as Tyrion Lannister (these names are so pseudo-epic) – like he was born to play it – and he has great lines like "A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." but I think I'll need a Dungeons and Dragons-esque manual to follow it. Reminds me a little of Gormenghast in that it sounds more interesting than its confusing story turns out to be. I will say this, every time someone looks at a dagger and says "Valerian steel?" I almost pee myself laughing. I mean really? "Valerian Steel" How many fantasy epics use "Valerian" to describe something? Too many, that's how many. I just keep thinking of valerian tea, aka, "Sleepy Time".

Armisen and Brownstein

The ardently platonic Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, photo by Gabriele Stabile for the New Yorker

I like thinking of Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen as the new Nichols & May of our time though this New Yorker piece on “Portlandia”, their largely improvised comedy program on IFC, never mentions it. Maybe there is no connection. The comedy is certainly different. Satire isn't new but this manner of maintaining a satirical edge with a balance of guile and affection is something rarer. Even stranger, these two comedian/musician/actor/writers are as hip as anyone they make fun of (probably hipper). Still, they manage to retain their own hipness. How? Anything goes in this topsy-turvy, insidey-outsidey world. It is more art than science, me thinks.

“...what Freud called the narcissism of small differences”

We can all recognize the unbearably hip, or as Elvis Costello sang, the tragically hip. It's more difficult to recognize your own excursion into hipster territory, accidental or affected. That's the geography Armisen & Brownstein negotiate so successfully. (See? Armisen & Brownstein. It's already catching on.) It's really well articulated by Talbot in this article as “...what Freud called the narcissism of small differences: the need to distinguish oneself by minute shadings and to insist, with outsized militancy, on the importance of those shadings.”. That's what makes the comedy universal. While Portland may be HQ for Pacific Northwest hipsters, it's the same narcissism of 19th century's Vanity Fair or of pointy toed shod dandys of London, or of a tuque-in-the-summer and heavily tattooed (or "inked") doofus of Queen Street West in Toronto. The penultimate expression of the show is the sketch where a chin-bearded fixie riding dude claims everything "is so over".

I laugh, despite seeing myself in some of that satire. If you can laugh at yourself, that would mean you have at least one redeeming quality, right?

Have a Swim. Feel Better. 

I've been thinking a lot about swimming lately, particularly as I've been too busy to go this week (I usually swim two to three times a week). Not swimming, especially in the summer is rough for an enthusiast such as myself. As an enthusiast, I'm prone to mentally collect lists of films that touch on my chosen diversion. You know what I mean. I cycle a lot, so I note any movie where bikes play a part of the story (think of Breaking Away, or of the cycling montage in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or even The 40-year-old Virgin – where Steve Carrell is caricatured by his use of a bike). If you love hockey, you might list Slapshot or Mystery Alaska in your cerebral library of hockey movies (you’ll probably try to forget Rob Lowe’s Youngblood).

Relax. We'll have a swim. Feel better.

I’ve started to do that same thing with swimming, not just the obvious ones like Swimfan, Big River Man or The Swimmer but ones where a character is shown doing laps in lieu of a “long thoughtful walk on a beach” or something. I guess the idea is we can “see” a character thinking while a voice-over or inspirational music plays. The two scenes that come to mind are decades apart but similar (because they are in a pool – that’s about it really).
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IBM's Wilson 

Alex Trebec spots Wilson $5000 and his competitors applaud his ineffectual effort.

Image of IBM's first and less successful attempt at an artificial intelligent agent appearing on Jeopardy.