CRTC slapped down again

Usage-based billing in the internet industry is bad.  But the fact that an organization created to protect consumers actually tried to require such billing is nothing short of a travesty.  Thankfully, just about every politician in this country – regardless of ideology – seems to be able to see the problem with the CRTC‘s recent ruling.

And late last night Canadian consumers were finally vindicated. In an ironic show of support for the internet, Industry Minister Tony Clement Tweeted about his stance on the issue:

Borrowed from the Vancouver Sun online. Thanks!

Even better, the Vancouver Sun online has quoted a senior government insider who said:

“The CRTC should be under no illusion. The prime minister and the minister of industry will reverse this decision unless the CRTC does it itself.”

Booyah! That’s how representative democracy is supposed to work!

Now if only we can get some changes made in the CRTC itself.  Two major decisions being over-ruled in as many years definitely indicates that the current decision-makers are out of touch with reality Canadians.

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Alanis Morrisette gives birth to Jesus

Alanis Morissette (*cringe* – *shudder*) gave birth to a boy on Christmas day! Normally, the family life of washed-up singers with grating voices is not very high on my blogging priority list.  But this one stands out… Somehow that fact that her baby was born on December 25 seems oddly appropriate.

Why?

Because in Kevin Smith‘s 1999 flim, Dogma, Alanis has a small but important role – she play’s God.

She plays God in a movie, then her first son is born on Jesus’ birthday?

Weird.

In case you were wondering, they’ve named the kid Ever Imre Morissette-Treadway. Why do celebrities find it so hard to choose decent names?

Oh, and no, it is not ironic.

Good-bye Leslie Nielsen

It’s true. Leslie Nielsen, funnyman and Order of Canada recipient, died earlier today in a Florida hospital.  He was 84.

The ‘Nothing’ is real!

Remember The NeverEnding Story? When I was a kid it was one of my favorite movies – although part 2 and part 3 never really sat too well with me.

In any case, I came across this video a little while ago.  The source website is in a language I don’t understand, so I have no idea what is actually going on. But it looks to me like the Nothing is consuming the land.

Keep watching all the way to then end when they move the camera and give a better view of how the Nothing spreads.

Creepy!

It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here!

Is there anything better than coming home from work to find the package you’ve been waiting weeks for has finally arrived?

Nope!

It almost makes all the disappointed trips to the mailbox worthwhile!

And now you can kick back on the couch with Belle & Sebastian.

Ah….

Sex and the City 2 is bad

Let’s get one thing straight – I didn’t want to see this movie.  My aversion was not because I thought it would be bad – I try to have an open mind – but because I was simply not interested in a story about middle-aged women coming to grips with the fact that they are middle-aged.  Unfortunately, I saw it anyway.

And it was bad.

First, there is no plot. This movie uses a Seinfeld-esque methodology in that a lot goes on, but nothing really happens.  This would be fine if we were still living in 1998, and I were talking about a 30 minute sitcom.  But this is a movie – a very long movie – and I generally expected that something would happen.

Next, the messages that this movie sends are deplorable:

• We have woman #1 who is clearly getting bored with her two-year marriage. In her words, it has lost its sparkle, because she wants to go out partying on a Monday night while her husband would prefer to stay home and relax.  She ends up taking a few days to live away from her husband (in her old apartment which she has apparently kept fully furnished despite being married for two years), and when she comes back she gets upset that her husband wants to be able to do the same thing once in a while.  Somehow, checking out of the relationship for two days was just fine when she wanted to do it, but not when he wants to.  Then woman #1 goes to the United Arab Emirates where she purposely entices and kisses an old boyfriend – a man who has been married for years and has three kids.  Make no mistake, she does purposely entice the old flame, and while this certainly doesn’t let him off the hook, it at least puts her on it with him.  After all of this, woman #1 tells her husband what happened, and how does he respond?  He buys her an enormous diamond ring, which she must wear as punishment! What? How is that punishment?

• We also have woman #2 who is having so much trouble taking care of her two children that she hires a full-time nanny.  She hires the nanny, but when everyone points out that this nanny is hot and doesn’t wear a bra, woman #2 gets worried that her husband is going to cheat on her.  But in the end she finds she had nothing to worry about because the nanny is a lesbian. Huh? So she doesn’t actually trust her husband, or the nanny – she just figures they won’t have sex because of clashing sexual preferences?

• Then we have woman #3, who is so completely liberated as a woman that she goes well beyond the realm of equality and into basic indecency.  We are supposed to laugh because she does all sorts of indecent things in the UAE that supposedly embarrass and enrage the highly conservative culture.  The problem is, most of what she does would embarrass and enrage people in Manhattan too.  I won’t go into the gory details, but I can assure you that if she was acting that way at a restaurant table next to mine, I would be just as angry and far less restrained in my response than the caricatured Muslim people in this movie.

• Finally, we have woman #4 who has a terrible job that pays buckets of money but keeps her from spending time with her family.  So what is the solution?  She quits and finds another job that is equally fulfilling, but less demanding.  This is of course the obvious and sensible thing to do, but for some reason she is made to seem like a hero.  I’m sorry, she’s not a hero – she’s a normal, sensible person.  The writers were clearly trying to use the “inequality for women in the workplace” card here, but it fails.  Why?  Because she isn’t your basic underpaid, overworked, single parent stuck in a dead-end job.  She is a highly paid lawyer who happens to have a crappy boss.  She doesn’t need to courageously quit her job – she knows that she can find another job, and has more than enough money to keep her going in the mean time.

Even ignoring all this, the movie is one long homage to luxurious American excess.  The four women go on vacation for a week and each one gets their own butler and car – while they stay in a suite that is supposedly $22,000 a night. Plus it seems that they each have a new outfit for each hour of the day – none of which are respectful of the culture they are in.

There are definitely some funny moments in this movie, and there is a long scene in a karaoke bar that is clearly meant to be a woman power moment.  Unfortunately, they are all completely overshadowed because of the incredibly unlikable women involved.

This movie is about offensiveness for its own sake – a goal that makes even less sense coming from a middle-aged woman comedy than it does from a teen comedy.

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Chloe

I don’t usually care much for the so-called “erotic thriller”.  I find that most attempts to combine these two very different types  of imagery tend to be slow and disjointed. Even when the “thrilling” scenes are done right they seem so far removed from the eroticism, and the two themes end up being noticeably separated by dull, though certainly artful, pauses.

That being said, I saw Chloe today.

I’d like to say that I was drawn to the film simply because of the mixed reviews. In fact, I do tend to seek out films that cause noticeable critical disagreement – there’s just something uninspiring about seeing a movie that everyone agrees is good.

But in this case, truly, I was just curious about the love scene between Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore. There, I said it. Let’s move on.

Over all, the film was enjoyable. Yes, of course the eroticism was definitely effective, but it was actually the tension between Seyfried and Moore that really won me over. Their characters spend quite a bit of the film in awkward conversation, and that awkwardness is palpable.

My only real complaint is that you see the “big twist” coming a mile away. But in the end, being able to predict the tragic mistake doesn’t  detract from its impact at all.

Bottom line: this one is definitely worth seeing.

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