We rented 3 DVDs from the excellent Bay Street video this weekend:

Master and Commander was better than I expected. It had been built up so much, oscar nominations and all, that I half-expected Gladiator on water. But it steered away from cheesiness, for the most part, and the superhuman heroism was kept to a minimum. There were sections of dialogue that I missed completely, but the visuals more than made up for it. I was also surprised — pleasantly — by how the action in the movie was balanced with tension…single-ship naval battles back then were less like standing in and trading blows than they were like chases over hundreds or thousands of miles. A perfectly good weekend time-killer.

House Of Sand And Fog was bleak and beautiful. Or bleakly beautiful. Or beautiful because it was bleak. Or all of the above. Ben Kingsley seemed mildly over the top about 2% of the time, but spectacular the other 98%. Speaking of spectacular, Jennifer Connelly is becoming an excellent actor (I just didn’t like A Beautiful Mind, I guess, since I was never that impressed with her performance, nor with Russell Crowe’s, and she sucked in the Hulk), and she seems to have recovered from her heroin-thin stage to become ridiculously gorgeous again. She’s right up there with Salma Hayek now. Anyhoo, back to the movie: the ending was too contrived, but the first 3/4 of the movie were very good…even the visuals that broke up the scenes…shots of fogbanks rolling into San Francisco, clouds, ocean, sunsets…all gorgeous shots to break up the ugliness and misunderstanding. I could sympathize with both main characters, but also got angry at how they acted. Sounds like all the Israel/Palestine documentaries we watched last week…

The Cooler was one we wanted to see last year at the Film Festival, but it conflicted with something else. Alec Baldwin deserves all the accolades he got for his role, William H. Macy…is just always, always good. Always. And Maria Bello surprised me; all I could remember her from was Coyote Ugly, which wasn’t exactly The Godfather. In this, she seemed girlish and world-weary at the same time. Hopeful yet beaten.

All in all, a good movie-watching weekend (and a good weekend for movie watching…it’s been cold, grey and shitty outside all three days). And it was all topped off by a Team Canada comeback win against Sweden to claim the world hockey championship. The juggernaut rolls on…

from Now Magazine: Molson Amphitheatre, Aug 6.

The good: Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, The Flaming Lips, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Von Bondies, Modest Mouse, Gomez, Le Tigre, The Walkmen, Elbow, Broken Social Scene
The bad: Morrissey
The I don’t really know/care: String Cheese Incident, Polyphonic Spree, The Coup, Bumblebeez 81, The Datsuns, The Thrills, The Secret Machines, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Wheat

From CBC: report: Conservatives want Don Cherry to run in federal election

What are the Tories thinking? Just as they get some momentum because of the sponsorship “scandal”, just as they have enough pull to actually accomplish something in the next election, they show themselves to be (in the words of Wayne Gretzky) a Mickey Mouse organization. First you elect Peter McKay, then you bend over for the Alliance party, and now you want to recruit an illiterate xenophobe. Bravo.

Is this the equivalent of American politicians aiming for the Nascar dad swing vote?

• My only must-watch shows: 24, The Daily Show, Sportsdesk
• The best show that never seems to be on: The Shield
• The best show that’s already wrapped up and out on DVD: The Office
• The show I’m only holding on to out of loyalty: The West Wing
• Shows I’d be addicted to if I had HBO: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and probably The Wire
• The only reality TV show I can tolerate: The Amazing Race
• Shows I watch if I have nothing else to do: ER, Law & Order, Jeopardy, South Park
• Constant re-runs that I use as time-fillers: Simpsons, old Law & Order
• What I spend most of my time watching, September through June: hockey & basketball

From the Michael Moore mailing list. Hopefully this won’t stop him from showing it in Canada, and ultimately in the US.

“Disney Has Blocked the Distribution of My New Film… by Michael Moore
May 5, 2004

Friends,

I would have hoped by now that I would be able to put my work out to the public without having to experience the profound censorship obstacles I often seem to encounter.

Yesterday I was told that Disney, the studio that owns Miramax, has officially decided to prohibit our producer, Miramax, from distributing my new film, “Fahrenheit 911.” The reason? According to today’s (May 5) New York Times, it might “endanger” millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will “anger” the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. The story is on page one of the Times and you can read it here (Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush).

The whole story behind this (and other attempts) to kill our movie will be told in more detail as the days and weeks go on. For nearly a year, this struggle has been a lesson in just how difficult it is in this country to create a piece of art that might upset those in charge (well, OK, sorry — it WILL upset them…big time. Did I mention it’s a comedy?). All I can say is, thank God for Harvey Weinstein and Miramax who have stood by me during the entire production of this movie.

There is much more to tell, but right now I am in the lab working on the print to take to the Cannes Film Festival next week (we have been chosen as one of the 18 films in competition). I will tell you this: Some people may be afraid of this movie because of what it will show. But there’s nothing they can do about it now because it’s done, it’s awesome, and if I have anything to say about it, you’ll see it this summer — because, after all, it is a free country.”

The closing night film at the Isabel Bader theatre was Control Room (hot docs | official site), Jehane Noujaim’s latest documentary. The premise of the doc — a look inside Al Jazeera during the Iraq invasion, and at how the US military controlled and spoonfed the western media — intrigued me enough, but I was completely sold after I learned that Noujaim had also directed and produced Startup.com (imdb | official site…in spanish?). Startup was a brilliant film, especially for someone who lived through the tech ex/implosion, so I expected a lot from this as well.

It hardly disappointed. While nothing could really match the previous night’s emotional kick of Death In Gaza, it afforded a good look at a side of the conflict we rarely, if ever, saw. It also reminded me of just how hypocritical Rumsfeld and Bush were in criticizing Jazeera. It did nothing the American networks didn’t do; it just did them for the wrong side.

There were even moments of unintentional hilarity…again, usually from the nattering gob of Rumsfeld, or sometimes a press flack. The two most interesting characters were an Al Jazeera reporter named (I think) Hassan, and a marine press officer named Rushing. Hassan was concise, intelligent and sarcastic, even in English. Rushing, while trained/ordered/expected to spout the party line, was obviously embarassed by having to treat so many intelligent reporters like addle-minded children. I mean, how do you convince reasonable journalists that American warplanes bombing Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and the Palestine Hotel (home to many foreign journalists) all in the same day was an accident? Especially after bragging about the accuracy of the bombs? But he tried. He was an interesting character, and he at least seemed to be honest with the camera. I’m not sure you could even say the same about Hassan, or the head of Jazeera.

Did the film have a position to begin with? Of course. All documentaries do. But Noujaim saw a hole, a gap between what we were being told and what was actually happening. And she stood in that gap with her camera running. Lucky for us.

From the BBC: Album gets ringtone only release

A band from Germany has adopted a novel approach to getting their music heard by millions.

Super Smart have turned their backs on vinyl and CDs and instead have decided to just release their album as ringtones.

The album, Panda Babies, is published by a German company that focuses on digital music for mobile phones.

“Music has to be re-thought,” said Antonio Vince Staybl, founder of the Go Fresh Mobile Music label.

The identity of the four-piece from Munich is shrouded in mystery and in photos they appear with giant panda heads.

Super Smart say this is because they want to avoid interference from the major labels, but it is no doubt a useful gimmick to attract media attention.

They say they decided to release their album as polyphonic ringtones so that they could circumvent the traditional music publishing machine.

Those curious enough to sample the mix of disco pop and electro punk will only have to pay an introductory price of 1.99 euros (£1.32) for Panda Babies.

“We release songs within a few hours across Europe without interfaces to the traditional music industry,” said Toni Werner Montana of GoFresh Europe.

“Our prices for a ringtone album or a compilation of 10 to 12 tracks including a mobile phone video will settle down at four to five euros and the price for a single ringtone at 1.49 euro (99 pence) in the medium-term.”

GoFresh already signed up 20 artists and last month said it has sold a million ringtones in just under a year of operation.

Phone ringtones are big business, with most pop hits available to buy as mobile phone rings for between £1.50 and £3.50.

An estimated £70m of ringtones were sold in the UK in 2003, up from £40m in 2002.

The release of the Super Smart album was first reported by the online magazine, Digital Lifestyles

Last night was the screening of Death In Gaza (hot docs | hollywood reporter). I’m at a bit of a loss to describe it, honestly. The trouble I’m having deciding what to make of it is appropriate, I suppose; the whole situation between Israelis and Palestinians has gone so far beyond a simple conflict, has become so much more complicated than a struggle over land or religion or domination. This movie is the same. Just as you think you’ve seen one side be hopelessly cruel to the other, so as to gain the pity of all watching, the side which has been wronged responds in a way that seems to stretch any imaginings of what cruelty can be. When a conflict becomes something alive, something that eclipses whatever wrought it in the first place, then there is no easy way to solve it. How do you remove the capacity for hatred from the human soul?

I think James Miller felt the only way to help was to show us how the children — always the most human of any of us — were caught up in a fight they were born into, to show us how ridiculous and unnecessary the bloodshed is, to show that there really can be a way to reverse the tide that kills so many innocents. So he did his best to show us the story, reporting from the worst slums of Palestine with the intention to profile Israeli children next. In the end, he represented the horrifying, frustrating madness in the clearest, harshest, most tragic way. One year ago today James Miller was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier, leaving behind a wife and two children.

Justice for James Miller

A double feature (hot docs) last night: the short The Zone followed by the hour-long War Feels Like War. The Zone was actually just a series of still black & white photos with voiceover, about a Jewish photographer who took shots of suburban French neo-nazi gangs years ago. It was disturbing merely for the reason that these gangs actually existed.

War Feels Like War was more current, a look at independant journalists in Iraq. Or, more to the point, in Kuwait City trying to get into Iraq. You could tell it was made by an inexperienced hand, but no less passionate. You felt their frustration, first at being shut out by the US military as punishment for not being “embeds”, then at the Kuwaiti police for not letting them across the border, and finally — when they did get into Iraq — at not being able to help the Iraqi civilians who were losing their homes and lives.

Q&A afterward was interesting, with one very dumb (and yet, persistent) question-asker, one Republican, one rambler and a few intelligent folks thrown in for good measure.

from ZDNet

RIAA files new round of file-swapping suits
By John Borland
CNET News.com
April 28, 2004, 10:52 AM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5201637.html

The Recording Industry Association of America filed a new round of copyright lawsuits against 477 anonymous music file swappers Wednesday, bringing the total number of people sued to nearly 2,500 in eight months.

As with March’s wave of suits, the organization highlighted its litigation against university students, this time at 14 separate schools. Record labels have been particularly concerned about high levels of music trading on campuses, where students often have access to fast Internet connections and little money for music purchases.

“Along with offering students legitimate music services, campuswide educational and technological initiatives are playing a critical role” in diminishing file trading, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. “But there is also a complementary need for enforcement by copyright owners against the serious offenders–to remind people that this activity is illegal.”

The new wave of lawsuits, coming on the anniversary of the release of Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, serves as a stark reminder of how much the digital music landscape has changed in the past year.

Apple announced Wednesday that it has sold more than 70 million songs over the course of its year of digital download sales, providing clear evidence that a genuine market for online music sales is beginning to develop. Meanwhile, iTunes rivals Napster and MusicNet have reached out to college campuses, offering students cut-rate digital plans bundled with their ordinary student fees in hopes of weaning them away from unauthorized file-trading services like Kazaa.

At the same time, the near-monthly announcement of lawsuits against individual computer users has had an undeniably chilling effect on the file-trading networks, even if the size of the impact has been open to debate.

A study released Monday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 14 percent of Americans who use the Internet no longer download music online from unauthorized services. A third of those–or about 6 million people–attributed their decision in part to the RIAA’s actions.

However, the study also said that the number of people who actively download music from peer-to-peer networks has increased to 23 million from 18 million in November and December of last year.

As with the previous few waves of lawsuits, the RIAA actions Wednesday were filed against anonymous individuals, whose identities will come out as part of the court proceedings.