• The Fog Of War: 9 out of 10. Errol Morris, one of the great documentary film makers, made a film featuring conversations with Robert McNamara. McNamara was Secretary of Defense under JFK and Lyndon Johnson for 7 years, head of the world bank for more than a decade, and president of Ford Motors for about as long as a cup of coffee. As Piers Handling said when introducing Morris, he doesn’t make judgments about his subjects, instead putting everything out there and letting the audience decide. It was fascinating to see this man who was instrumental in the fire-bombings of Tokyo, in the Vietnam war, in the Cuban missile crisis and the cold war in general, to see him explain these decisions and directions not with remorse, but with the questioning nature that wisdom and distance has brought him. He criticizes Curtis LeMay and praises him (or, rather, parts of his nature) in the same breath. He cries when he talks about JFK. He defends Lyndon Johnson furiously, even though audio tapes show that he disagreed with Johnson over Vietnam and tried hard to keep them out (and later withdraw). He refuses to talk about some topics, but then speaks of them anyway. He talks about the use of power and how it should have been applied differently in Vietnam, about the dangers of empire, when you suddenly realize he’s really talking about the current US administration. And I’m blown away by how similar his early footage is to how Donald Rumsfeld acts at the podium now, as if Rumsfeld modelled himself after McNamara; I found myself wondering if, in 35 years, we’ll see Rumsfeld in a documentary.
• Alien: 10 out of 10, obviously. It’s the quintessential sci-fi thriller/horror/tension movie, so there was no question of that. What made it extra-special cool was that Sir Ridley Scott sat 20 feet away from us and watched it with us. Yaphet Kotto was there too, and he’s huge…I had no idea how huge the man was. People still jumped during the scary parts, even though everyone’s seen it god knows how many times. And it was weird to watch Bilbo spew white fluid and attack Sigourney Weaver sans head. Anyway, Ridley Scott spoke before the movie started about the making of it, and both he and Yaphet Kotto answered questions after. We only stayed for a few, as they were either a) specific to the craft of directing, or b) seriously sci-fi/film geek questions (e.g., “there was a real mother/martyr theme throughout the 4 movies…can you speak to that?”). But it was just super-cool to watch a classic film in a cramped theatre with the be-knighted director sitting a few rows away. I love the film festival.

• I Love Your Work: 8 out of 10. Adam Goldberg’s second movie, with Giovanni Ribisi playing a character who seemed to be modelled on Goldberg himself. Kind of a twisting story, and a couple of times I felt smart because I was sure I’d figured out what was really happening, but it didn’t actually go that way, so it kept me guessing and admiring the shots and cuts that got increasingly manic along with the main character. Most of the cast showed up: Goldberg, Ribisi, Franka Potente, Christina Ricci (who’s h-o-t-t hot), etc. They held a Q & A afterward; some guy in the audience asked a really bizarre, long-winded, non-sensical question that had everyone in the audience laughing at him. After, we headed to movie #2.
• The Event: 6 out of 10. I still haven’t seen Thom Fitzgerald’s first movie, The Hanging Garden, or his second, Beefcake, but they won him acclaim in Canada. This was a bigger budget movie for him, and included a good cast — Sarah Polley, Parker Posie, Olympia Dukakis, Don McKellar and Jane Leeves (who, unfortunately, never made me think of anyone but Daphne) — most of whom showed up and answered questions after the film. I thought it was a good idea done clumsily. Parker Posie and Sarah Polley who are usually infallible, in my opinion, seemed wooden, or appeared to be reaching. Olympia Dukakis is always solid, and Don McKellar’s a very underrated actor, so I was expecting more. So it was good, but didn’t live up to how great the cast could’ve been. Interesting note, too: this was the first movie filmed in Manhattan after the terrorist attacks, and it works its way into the movie in subtle shades, and I was glad for that. It would’ve been easy to make a ham-handed attempt to draw the stories together, and I was relieved that they didn’t. Why use one tragedy to batter another out of our heads?

We just finished the time-honoured tradition of standing in line for two hours to wait for our tickets. Turns out that, even though we were box #8 and box #30 was selected, we got all the movies we asked for (4 #1 choices and 6 #2 choices). Here’s what we’re seeing:

• I Love Your Work
• The Event
• The Fog Of War
• Alien (Ridley Scott will actually be there to talk about the remastered version of the film!)
• Dogville
• Casa De Los Babys
• Stander
• Young Adam
• Underworld
• Intermission

There were a bunch that we didn’t get, like Lost In Translation, Elephant, The Human Stain, 21 Grams, Coffee & Cigarettes, Wonderland and The Agronomist, but most of those will come to theatres anyway. I’m really looking forward to I Love Your Work and The Fog Of War. I’ll post reviews here, so have an eye. Posts’ll start on the 5th.

I’ve wanted to see them for years. We thought about it in Vegas, we forgot about it in Chicago, and we didn’t have time for it in New York. When the Complex Tour came to Toronto, I slapped my money down on the barrelhead and said “Gimme Blue Man Group tickets”. Last night they played the Sears Theatre at the Air Canada Centre with special guests Tracy Bonham and VenusHum.

First, before I really get started, let me just get this out of the way so it doesn’t give you the impression that I disliked the show: there were annoyances in the crowd. Flyerman (who my be familiar to those of you living in Toronto) was in attendance, and he’d periodically fire up his flashing jacket until security got hold of him. Most annoying, though, was the father and son behind us. The kid hadn’t learned to speak at anything less than a high-pitched yell (even though he was 6; I learned his age when he screamed it into his father’s cell phone), even when the theatre was dead quiet. The father, in addition to singing loudly and badly throughout, just encouraged the kid. The hellion had a special talent, something I can only guess his father had been training him to do, possibly for military use, possibly to appear as a stupid human trick on Letterman in the future. His special talent was to emit the most horrifying, piercing, hair-raising scream I’ve ever heard. I’m talking Banshee-from-the-X-men, Buffy-in-the-Hush-episode, Ned-Flanders-from-the-Simpsons quality screaming here. This kid had no gonads, I’m sure of it. And he screamed constantly, to the point where I got a bad headache. The lady sitting next to me actually ducked for cover whenever he let fly with another shriek. If I ever see the wee fucker on the street, I’ll pre-emptive strike his ass. But enough about that.

I was really happy that Tracy Bonham was opening since I’ve been a fan for 7 or 8 years now. She came on at 8:00, carrying only a fiddle, and launched into “Black Dog”. Never before have I heard Led Zeppelin done only with voice and fiddle, but there it was…and it was awesome. After that she brought out two band members, and they played a nice little set of four or five songs before blowing my mind completely. One guy grabbed his guitar, the other took out a set of spoons, Tracy picked up her fiddle and they proceeded to play “50 Ft. Queenie” by PJ Harvey. I think there were only about 10 of us in the crowd who even knew what the song was. Jaysus. I would’ve paid $30 just to see Tracy Bonham’s 30-minute set.

Recipe for VenusHum: One part Bjork, one part Enya, one part Esthero and one part Underworld. Mix well. Pour down sink. Pour shot of whiskey instead and call for Tracy Bonham to come back out.

After the unfortunate VenusHum incident, there was a 20-minute break. We were kept entertained by a pair of feisty LED readouts until the lights went down, and then the show started for real. This tour was different than most Blue Man Group performances in that it’s a true concert, with a large backing band and light show. The Blue Men themselves play percussion (beating on moveable pipes, hitting giant kettle drums and exploded pianos with maces, whipping antenna-like sticks to create different tones, whipping a tube to keep a quater-note beat, etc.) and interact with the crowd, the band plays and sings and so on, and the other component is the instruction coming from the giant video screen (e.g., “Standard concert movement #1: the head bob. Ready, go.”; “Standard concert movement #2: the one-armed fist pump. Ready, go.”; “Standard concert movement #5: the big entrance.”, etc.), which was often very funny. Basically, it was a rock concert making fun of the rock concert genre, so I loved it.

The music itself wasn’t spectacular, except for the drumming. The covers of “White Rabbit” and the Donna Summer song “I Feel Love”, featuring Tracy Bonham and VenusHum respectively, were good, but the real highlight was when they broke out Baba O’Riley during the encore (“Standard concert movement #26: the fake ending.”). The Blue Men had these big multi-pipe harnesses so they could play the intro, and the crowd went nuts. Tracy sang, and played the fiddle part at the end. The whole outfit rocked us into a standing ovation; we stayed there for the final song, which encouraged many standard concert movements.

I wanna be a Blue Man.

Jimmy Swaggart once declared music to be “the new pornography”. I immediately declared Jimmy Swaggart to be a flaming idiot, but Carl Newman’s a little more understanding than that, so he just swiped the subtext of the soundbite and formed his side-project band.

And so, last night Mike and I polished off our beers and walked down to The Phoenix to catch the result, the New Pornographers. Through the gay village and past the crack park, to Grandmother’s house we went, with visions of Neko Case dancing in our heads. We arrived in time to catch The Organ; I thought they sounded like The Cure done badly, and I fucking hate The Cure. I’m sure there were some shoegazer girls in the crowd digging on it, but they put me right to sleep.

At 11:00 (punctual…I like it) the New Pornographers took the stage and proceeded to sound the alarm on my little Organ-inspired nap. They rocked. I always like a new CD more after I hear it in concert. Even “Testament to Youth in Verse”, a song I normally have no time for, seemed to work live, especially the little wanky singalong at the end. It amazed me to really think about how complex Carl Newman’s songs are…even in semi-radio-friendly songs like “Letter From An Occupant” or “All For Swinging You Around”, the song shifts themes three or four times. Neko Case…what can I say? She’s incredibly talented (though you don’t see much of that talent in this setting), she’s got the most distinctive voice this side of Tom Waits, she’s hotter than all get out and she really makes this band. Carl Newman is the brains, but Neko’s the pretty face (figuratively speaking)…the flash, the part that grabs the eye and sets the ear to itching. Blaine Thurier, on the other hand, is hilarious. He hasn’t a shred of musical talent (only being admitted to the band ’cause he’s Carl Newman’s friend…he’s a filmmaker for chrissakes!), he’s about as tall as my cat and the way he dances suggests he’s on strings. Honestly, I think they put him there to occasionally take everyone’s eyes off of Neko.

They played about 20 songs in total, pretty much all of Electric Version and most of Mass Romantic, and threw in a cover (which, sadly, I didn’t recognize, nor am I able to remember the words this morning, but given their history it was probably The Kinks) to close the encore. I think they actually came back out for another encore as we were leaving, but I left happy. They’d played every song I wanted to hear and more. Good concert. Well done. And so, in closing, Neko Neko Neko Neko Neko Neko Neko. Neko Neko. Neko Neko Neko Neko. Neko, everybody. Neko.

so, walking up yonge street on friday, i see none other than geddy lee strolling past, chatting on a cell phone. a boyhood idol once removed. if it’d been neil peart, i’d have begun giggling like a nervous sorority girl. i’d probably also have soiled myself.

this is what happened to us this weekend:

• get up friday morning, frigging early, 5ish or something. we feed & placate the cats, telling them nothing unusual is happening as we back out the door. we’re hoping they don’t shred/shed/shit the place up. our flight leaves at 9, and we get to la guardia around 10:30.
• we take a yellow cab to the plaza where we find our room isn’t ready yet (oh yeah…it’s only 11), so we leave our bags and strike out in search of food.
• we walk down 5th avenue, fighting the urge to spend. we eat at the first place we see, a little joint called burger heaven. it’s actually a nice place, and while nellie doesn’t like her buffalo chicken (?!) sandwich, my bbq pulled pork sandwich is spec-friggin-tacular.
• our bellies full (well, mine anyway) we decide to kill a few more hours by going to the whitney, one of the museums i really wanted to see. at this point nellie becomes aware that she’s wearing the wrong shoes and her feet start to hurt. regardless, we stroll up madison and make it to the whitney around the time it opens. it’s a great museum: a nice little collection (i love hopper, they have a nice rothko, and there was some very cool art on one of the floors including a huge moving toy robot exhibit…hard to explain) that you can see in an hour, if you move like we do. nellie’s favourite is a situation in yellow by oscar bluemner, but i liked black and white by georgia o’keefe(!).
• we stroll back to the hotel, cutting through central park. it’s still a bit chilly, but the skaters are out.
• we check into our room on the 14th floor, overlooking the park. holy crap, i can see harlem. the park is so huge, and it’s so amazing that someone 150 years ago had the foresight to set aside 843 acres of park right smack in some of the most commercially viable real estate in the world. we look right down on the corner of 5th and central park south, so we can see the skating rink and the pond. we spend 10 minutes sitting in the window box just staring out the window at the upper half of manhattan.
• we walk down to rockefeller plaza to see the ice rink, all the skaters we’ve seen in countless movies and tv shows. as is always the case with such things, it’s smaller than we expected.
• ok, well, it’s not always the case. we walk over to 7th and head south until we get to times square. it’s every bit as massive and busy (in every sense of the word) as i’d imagined. i see anson carter walking around, probably trying to familiarize himself with new york after being traded to the ranegrs earlier that week. funniest moment of the whole weekend: nellie, standing at the intersection of broadway and 7th, amidst all the chaos and giant billboards and surging masses, asks, “where’s times square?”. i near wet myself.
• we walk over to grand central, getting a good view of the chrysler building as we go, and take a few minutes to look at the inside of it. the architecture itself is stunning, but the fact that they’ve made a building that’s so perfect for human traffic flow is mind-boggling.
• we walk back up to the hotel, relax for a bit and then change into our nice duds. we then discover why people say it’s impossible to get a cab in new york sometimes. it’s because it’s impossible.
• finally we make it to smith & wollensky. i ate at a smith’s two years ago in vegas, and i haven’t truly appreciated any steak i’ve had since then. tonight i ordered the sirloin (all 18 ounces of it) and it was like eating meaty butter. i wanted to cry. nellie liked her filet mignon as well, but didn’t shed tears until the cheesecake; like she says, “if you’re gonna have cheesecake, ya might as well go to new york…”. freaky coincidence: our waiter’s name was daniel l, and he was a duke fan! anyway, one obscene bill later and we’re so stuffed we can hardly walk. ‘sides, someone’s feet are hurting again. we take a cab back to the hotel and writhe in bloated agony. then we fall asleep in the extra-comfy king bed. it’s been quite a day.
• saturday comes early, but we beat it back (read: i feel back to sleep), so we don’t get up until about 10. we find a great breakfast place around the corner, get some french toast & bacon & pancakes & sausage and oj and get on the go.
• note to the toronto transit commission: an all-day, unlimited-use pass on the new york subway costs only $4 (though the subway smells like urine). we take a series of trains down to the world trade center site, not out of a desire to gawk, but just out of my need to get a sense of the scale of what happened. i’m a little surprised at the number of people standing around the edge looking in (several thousand, easily), but i guess they’re like me. while we look in, and later when we walk down toward battery park, i keep thinking about the footage i watched a year and a half ago, and i realize that until now new york hadn’t been a completely real place in my mind. it was like hollywood to me, a place that exists on tv and in the movies and, while i know it’s a real city with real people, part of my brain only registers it as an imaginary place. but now, seeing that hole in the ground, imagining two towers that weighed a million tons, remembering the images of dust and ash rushing from underneath them as they came down…just seems eerie now. i used to scoff a bit when i heard newscasters use the term, but it really does feel like hallowed ground.
• the stroll down the hudson to battery park is nice, as we soak up some warm sun and enjoy the quiet. lots of joggers and dog walkers here. we get soem faraway pictures of the statue of liberty and ellis island but decide against taking the cruise & tour, as there’s a 2-hour wait. “2-hour wait” is a phrase we will get to know well today.
• we take the subway up to houston, on the border of soho and greenwich village. we’re not hungry, so we don’t send much time here, just stroll up through nyu, past washington square park to 8th, long enough to get a sense of the neighbourhood. it’d definitely be a great place to hang out, but we’re on a mission! we take the subway up to columbus circle, at southwest corner of central park.
• we decide to walk up the american museum of natural history at 77th street, stopping along the way to see the dakota apartment building where John Lennon lived (and in front of which he was shot), and crossing the street to see strawberry fields, his favourite part of the park, right across central park west. lots of hippies laying flowers, lots of gawking tourists standing right on the memorial so they could get a better picture of it. anyway, the museum had a super-long wait as well, so we headed back through the park to the hotel. we saw a lot more of the park this time, and it being such a nice day (about 11 degrees) there were lots of dogs, cyclists, horses, skater punks, dancers, strollers, walkers, joggers and skaters out. we even got a bit too much sun, lingering too long on the rocks to rest our tired feet. we soothed ourselves with more cheesecake from the restaurant we’d hit for breakfast. it’s just as good this time around
• we thought we’d kill a few hours before dinner at the frick collection, a gorgeous mansion right on 5th avenue. actually, i get on the phone and try to sort out andrew’s reservation problems at the cambridge shits hotel first, and then we head our for the frick. on our way there we see kirsten dunst. i drool so much the sidewalk is probably still wet, but we somehow struggle on and get to the museum. the art inside, while impressive, is a little stuffy for us (where are the toy robots?), but the house itself…wow. So many antiques…mom would go fully nuts in here. we’re out in a hour, so it’s another great museum. too bad we didn’t have time for the met, or to go over to queen’s to see the temporary moma
• we strike out for dinner and end up at a place that bakes pizzas in a coal oven. yummy sausage & sundried tomato pizza for me, nellie gets some deadly-looking pasta. the server is from montreal! we finish up and head out to the last must-see on my list.
• we’re lucky we hit the empire state building when we do, since there’s only about a 45 minute wait to get to the top. when we leave the lineup is around the corner onto 34th. the views from the top would be more impressive had i never been up in the cn tower, but what makes them special is the new york skyline. the chrysler building looks fantastic at night, and the bridges are all lit up as well. it’s too crowded, for sure, but it’s worth the long wait. exhausted, we descend and drag our weary bones into a cab. we secure some snacks and fall asleep watching ghostbusters. it’s funny to see parts of new york in the movie that we now recognize. i think of when i was nine and saw this movie with dad, and that the first part (with the library ghost) scared me. i laugh and start to tell nellie, but she’s zonked. i follow quickly after. new york has beaten us, and we’ve loved it all.
• this morning we get up, have some brekkie, make for la guardia, get an early flight (muchmusic vj amanda walsh was sitting near me), arrive in sunny toronto (it looked hazy though; is there smog in toronto already?), fight through a st. patrick’s day parade and wake sonny & michael with our tired (but happy) return.

what a weekend. there are so many things i didn’t even mention: radio city music hall, the lineup for tickets to saturday night live, seeing an actor from 24 shopping on 5th avenue, the cockroach on our dresser, the subway preacher…too much to mention. all in all, it was a blast, we loved new york, and we won’t be able to resist going back for very long…if only to get another slice of that cheesecake.

ever since i heard the song on one of the episodes of sports night (great dvd set of one of the best shows of all time), i can’t stop listening to “sloop john b” by the beach boys. i know, the beach boys. who’d have thunk it? all these years and i’d never listened to pet sounds, but it’s good. very good. and this song is just so…catchy. and happy. and makes me think of sports night now, which makes me even happier. mmmmmm, natalie.

who cares that barely played for an hour? who cares that i couldn’t hear carrie brownstein’s voice very well? who cares that for most of the show the view of my new hero janet weiss was blocked by a guy even taller than myself? none of that could possibly have ruined the show. sleater-kinney did their best to rescue rock and roll last night, smiling and snarling and shrieking and strumming and slamming and seducing us into becoming acolytes. they played “i wanna be your joey ramone” and “turn it on”, my two favourite s-k songs. they played practically every song i really wanted to hear. they left me wanting nothing.

sleater-kinney and the trail of dead own my soul.

…was crap. nicole kidman, julianne moore and meryl streep all played…well, they all played meryl streep in every other movie. ed harris acted like a high school drama geek trying to impress his girl/boyfriend. only allison janney (because she’s the best) and claire danes (because she’s hot) made it worth watching. i was so bored that i became very aware of how tired i was getting, and how sore my ass was. it’ll probably win best picture, and nicole kidman will probably win best actress, but it was all – say it with me now – crap.