You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one

"Today we have not only an ecological crisis, we also have a kind of story crisis. That is to say there's something very wrong about the way that we understand who we are and our relationship with the earth." -- Continuum trailer

This is a film that needs to be made. This is a story that needs to be told. But best of all, this is a film that will be made because people believe it is a story worth telling.

Planetary Collective has spent the past three years working on Continuum, a feature-length documentary that tells the story of our interconnection with each other, the planet and the universe. Back in February, they put the project on Kickstarter in an attempt to raise enough money to fund the final push through crowd funding. I watched the trailer, fell in love with the film and decided I had to back the project. If all that was needed to make Continuum happen was a little bit of money from a lot of people then I wanted to be one of those people.

I don't know what excites me more: the film itself or the way Kickstarter has the potential to revolutionize how creative projects get funded. It gives citizens the power to support projects they like and it gives the filmmakers, artists and musicians complete control over their projects. It's democratic, it's participatory and it's refreshingly real in an era of manufactured pop stars and Hollywood schlock. We get to help make something great happen and, in return, we get to be part of that greatness.

Here's how the filmmakers describe Continuum on their Kickstarter page:

"We are in the midst of an ecological crisis of an unprecedented scale, with implications not only for mankind's social, economic and political spheres, but for the life system of the planet as a whole.

One of the fundamental factors underlying this crisis is our worldview: the way we see the world around us and our relationships to each other, the planet, and the cosmos as a whole. Our worldview informs our values, behaviour, and way of life in such a way that some environmentalists have declared the environmental crisis to actually be a 'crisis of worldview'. One dominant feature of our ordinary worldview is the misperception that we are separate from each other and the greater systems we are embedded within.

CONTINUUM is a feature-length documentary that explores this sense of separation and its roots in language, perception and our evolution. The journey will take us from the first stirrings of life to the emergence of a global brain; from the complexity and wonder of a single plant cell to the emerging biomimetic technologies that are changing the way we build the future; and from the appearance of modern humans to the planetary crisis we face today."

The filmmakers hope the documentary "will change the way we think as a species -- to stop seeing ourselves as separate from each other, from the planet and the cosmos -- and inspire us to work together to transform our planetary crises."

I can't wait to see this film when it's finished. In the meantime, I highly recommend watching Planetary Collective's first short film Overview -- which explores the perspective-altering phenomenon that many astronauts experience after being in space.

Out of commission

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. I'm recovering from oral surgery and it's taking a lot longer to return to normal than I expected. Plus, it's kind of hard to think clearly when you're doped up on painkillers.

It was supposed to be a simple surgery but it turned into an epic production. I had to be put under so the surgeon could remove two adult teeth that had never come down. The teeth needed to be taken out so that there would be room to put in implants when my baby teeth fall out (yes, that's right. I still have two baby teeth. You want to talk about being immune to aging? Peter Pan has got nothing on me).

But when the surgeon opened me up, he couldn't tell tooth from bone and spent the next three hours cutting my teeth into little pieces to extract them from the jawbone. To make matters worse, I kept waking up from the anesthetic.

They told me I woke up several times during the surgery but I only remember waking up once. I wasn't fully awake, though. Everything was very foggy. I felt like I was underwater. I remember hearing the drill. I remember moaning. I remember hearing the doctor say something about giving me morphine and I felt him stick a needle in my mouth. I remember hearing the drill again. I tried to open my eyes to let them know I was still awake but I couldn't move. And then I slipped back into unconsciousness.

You might think it would be horrifying to wake up in the middle of surgery. But it wasn't. I was so out of it that while I was aware of what was happening, I didn't care. I simply didn't care. And I say this as someone who suffers from extreme dental anxiety.

It was kind of like waking up from a dream and then falling back asleep again. I don't know what kind of drugs they were giving me but whatever they were, they were very, very good.

Anyway, it's been a week since the surgery and the pain is finally starting to ease off. That's not to say I'm no longer in pain. Everything still hurts, just not as much. My mouth is still too sore to chew and I've been on a diet of soups and smoothies for the past seven days.

On the upside, I can fit into my skinny jeans and my puffy lips make me look like Julia Roberts. And it's always better to lose teeth as an adult rather than as a child because you get treats like valium and morphine instead of a lousy quarter from the Tooth Fairy.

I've been off work all week and have been doing nothing but lying on the couch watching movies. So I thought I would post some mini movie reviews up on my blog until I'm off the pain pills and can think clearly again.

Lars and the Real Girl: Very good. A little precious but not overly so. Didn't think the community's acceptance of Lars' mental illness and his plastic girlfriend was very realistic but was touched by the movie nevertheless. (Although am not entirely sure if warm, fuzzy feeling was due to the movie or the percocet.)

Let's All Hate Toronto: I watched this one twice. But only because I fell asleep the first time. I liked the concept of a traveling "Toronto Appreciation Day" but the execution was a little flat. It wasn't as funny as it could have been. Needed Rick Mercer in the lead role.

Onibaba: Weird, old Japanese movie. It was kind of annoying and boring at first. Started getting into it towards the end of the movie. Overall, pretty good (again, that may be the percocet talking).

Suicide Club: Another weird Japanese movie. Thought it was going to be a thought-provoking film on Japan's high suicide rate but turned out to be a violent slasher film with lots of blood and gore. Plot seemed to be missing but strangely entertaining.

Extras (Season 1 & 2): Brilliant. Is it just me or is Ricky Gervais playing the exact same character on Extras that he played on the Office? It's like watching a show about David Brent after he quits Wernham Hogg and decides to become an extra. It's still awesome, though.

27 Dresses: Horrible. I love bad chick flicks but this was just bad. Follows every romantic comedy formula but without any laughs along the way. Thought I would be able to relate since I am always a bridesmaid, never a bride. But main character got married in the end. Stupid Hollywood ending. How about a movie where the girl never gets the guy and ends up alone for the rest of her life?

Tsotsi: Very good. Depressing, though. Alternated between emphasizing with Tsotsi and wanting to smack him upside the head.

How She Move: You can't ever go wrong with a movie about a girl who dances her way out of poverty. It's been done before but it never gets old. Bonus points for being set and filmed in Toronto. Minus points for reshooting the movie and removing the references to Toronto.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Also very good. Very bleak but not overly so. Enjoyed the sarcastic humour. Felt like a baby for whining about tooth pain.

Souvenir of Canada: Excellent. Had feelings of national pride while watching this. Canada is a good country and Douglas Coupland is a fine ambassador.

Sex and the City: I have free tickets to see this at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Should be fun.

And on that note, I'm heading back to the couch for more movies. Hope to be back to my normal blogging self within a week or two. Until then . . .

One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time

I was part of the National Post's Popcorn Panel this week. I was one of three "lucky" people asked to watch and then write about the movie Jumper.

Jumper was awful to watch but fun to write about. That Hayden Christensen sure knows how to bring the suck.

Here's an excerpt:

Not even the jumping, the plot device on which the entire film rests, is explained. But I sort of like the Zen quality that results. What is the plot? There is no plot, there is only right now. And right now Hayden Christensen is sunbathing on top of the Sphinx. Sweet.

You can read the rest of the review in today's National Post (and save yourself the cost of a movie ticket).

Samuel L. Jackson spends most of the movie trying to kill Hayden Christensen. But we're never really told why. (Jackson's white hair is another mystery.)

An Inconvenient Truth

I had the pleasure of being one of the National Post’s feuding film buffs this week. I was the token "lefty" in a lively panel discussion about Al Gore’s new film An Inconvenient Truth.

Part of our debate was published in yesterday's newspaper. Here’s some of what I said:

Everyone should see this film. Global warming is one of the most serious issues facing humanity in this century. That is not alarmist or extremist. It's scientific fact. Gore gets that point across very effectively in this film. (Who knew a PowerPoint presentation could be so captivating?) Before I saw the movie, I was worried his presence would have a polarizing effect on the audience and make it easy to dismiss global warming as a "liberal" issue. Fortunately, the film explains the dangers of global warming in a non-partisan way. My only complaint is that the overall tone of the film is so stark that it's easy to leave the theatre feeling overwhelmed and powerless, despite the list of "things you can do" spliced in with the credits. If the film's creators are hoping to jolt the public and our political leaders into action, I'm not sure they will succeed. Fear and shame are not positive motivators.

You can read the rest of my thoughts along with the entire debate in the National Post for free here.

Bonus material: Read the juicy bits that didn’t make it into the newspaper here (also free).

I love my job

I’m going to the press screening of Al Gore’s new film An Inconvenient Truth tomorrow. And I’m getting paid to do it. Making money and watching movies -- two of my favourite things together at last!

Crash-lash

I'm officially adding my voice to the backlash (or "Crash-lash" as it's now being called) against Crash's best-picture Oscar win.

It's baffling to think Crash was voted the best movie in 2005. Not only did it not deserve to win, it didn't even deserve to be nominated. Crash was one of the most unoriginal and simplistic analyses of race in America I've ever seen. The characters were nothing more than one-dimensional stereotypes. They weren't even characters. They were caricatures.

Crash is not a serious film about race. It's an uninspired after-school-special about race with an ending so tidy it makes me want to vomit.

Or, as J.T. of Parkdale Pictures says, "It was like a bad liberal lecture driven by the utterly absurd premise that the only way people in LA relate to one another - and thus address hang ups of race - is by crashing their cars. No, the only way it happens is if racist cops pull a black guy out of his car and beat him to near death. That gets people talking."

So how did Crash end up winning the Oscar for best picture? It's no secret that the Academy loves to honour "progressive" or "controversial" movies so it can be seen as a forward-thinking organization.

But there's a catch. These films can't be so progressive or controversial that they're not palatable to the masses. Which is why the Academy ends up honouring middlebrow crap like Crash. That's my theory, anyway.

"The truth is that Crash is a perfect selection for the Academy because it's the type of film that makes white Americans feel guilty, but not too guilty, about that country's racial divide," my film buff friend Dan Brown surmises.

One last thing . . . it irks me that Paul Haggis stole the name of the film from David Cronenberg's darkly erotic movie about people who get off by crashing their cars. That Crash is a great film. This one isn't.

Brokeback Mountain: A (partial) review

I was going to write a review of Brokeback Mountain but the movie broke down about three quarters of the way through. I don't mean the plot went off the rails. I mean the film literally broke down. The screen just went black.

We sat there in the dark for about half an hour while a technician tried to fix the projector. But there was nothing they could do so they sent us home with free movie passes instead.

Since I have no idea how Brokeback Mountain ends, this is a spoiler-free review.

What I saw of the movie, I liked. No, loved. It's probably the best movie I've seen all year (and I haven't even seen the whole thing yet). It is both breathtaking and heartbreaking.

The film opens in the mountains of Wyoming. The setting is wild, rugged and untamed. It is the perfect backdrop against which to set a love story, especially a love story between two men. It is impossible to see their relationship as anything but natural and pure. Which I think (I hope) is the point of the film.

Their environment is completely stripped of externally imposed morals and values. Only in the mountains, under the trees, with sheep and horses and bears for company, are Jack and Enis truly free to be themselves.

I'm oversimplifying it a little. Generally, life isn't black or white. It's mostly different shades of grey. But there are a few things I will passionately defend as being right or wrong. To me, the struggle by gay people for acceptance and equal rights is no different than the struggle by African Americans for the same thing 50 years ago. They are both fundamentally about human rights.

Brokeback Mountain is an important film because it highlights that struggle in a sensitive and moving way. This isn't a story about gay cowboys. It's a story about love.

It's painful to watch Jack and Enis emerge from the wilderness and get married and have children. But in 1960s rural America, they didn't have much choice. They could either suppress their true selves or be open and live with violence, fear and ignorance.

There were two scenes in the movie that stood out for me. The first took place when Jack and Enis spent the summer together up in the mountains. Nothing had happened between them yet. One night, Enis stayed at Jack's camp but chose to sleep outside alone rather than join Jack in the small tent. Enis woke up shivering in the middle of the night after the fire went out. Jack insisted he join him inside the tent where it was warm.

The scene almost made me weep. Not because they finally had sex but because it was the truest depiction I have ever seen of what it's like to sleep in a tent in the backcountry, walled in by mountains, blanketed by stars. You could almost smell the campfire in their hair, the mildew in the tent walls and the sweetness of the forest-filtered air. It's so romantic it hurts.

The other scene that almost made me weep was when Jack and Enis saw each other again for the first time in four years. The film broke down shortly after that so I'm not really sure where the story goes from there. It did seem to be taking a darker turn so I'm curious to find out if it continues to spiral downward.

If you've seen the movie please don't tell me what happens. My sisters and I are going to attempt to see the whole thing later today. More when we return . . .

UPDATE: We've just returned from seeing the entire movie. If the first half was heartbreaking, then the second half was heart wrenching. I don't know what to say. I feel like driving out to Brokeback and throwing myself off the mountain.

Three things I learned the hard way this week

Before you read this and conclude I’m some sort of moron, let me just preface it by saying that I almost never read reviews until after I’ve seen a movie or read a book or tried a new restaurant. The less I know beforehand, the better.

Not reading the reviews means I am always surprised. Sometimes pleasantly, sometimes not. If something has won awards or generated a buzz, that’s enough of a recommendation.

But once in a while, this seemingly brilliant strategy backfires. There’s a difference between not knowing what something is about and knowing so little you go into it ass-backwards.

Three things I learned the hard way this week:

1. Mama Mia is not a musical about ABBA. It is a musical set to the music of ABBA. The plot has nothing to do with ABBA. It would have been nice to know this before the curtain went up on Wednesday night. Instead, I spent the first five minutes of the musical wondering what a wedding on a Greek Island had to do with ABBA.

2. A History of Violence is not an arty title for a movie about a man thoughtfully reflecting on his life. It is exactly what it says it is. A history of a man’s violent past. It would have been nice to know this before the movie started last night. All I knew was that it was a Cronenberg film. I thought the title was ironic. Instead, I found myself sitting through two hours of gratuitous, pointless violence. Actually, the first half of the film was pretty good. But the second half was too bloody. As a whole, it was empty.

3. Black hair care products are not just for black people. It would have been nice to know that smooth, lustrous hair could be found in a $5 tub of African Gold Coconut Oil before spending hundreds of dollars on useless high-end salon products. A friend told me she used the black hair care shelf at Shoppers Drug Mart to keep her thick, wavy hair under control. I bought my own African Gold yesterday and am now a coconut oil convert. It really works.

I’m starting to think that maybe a little research isn’t a bad thing.

Wedding Crashers - Review

So a few of us finally got around to seeing this movie last night. I haven’t laughed this hard since Stephen Harper turned up at the Calgary Stampede dressed like a gay cowboy.

There was one scene in particular -- a certain tryst under the dinner table -- which made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes and my abs hurt.

Wedding Crashers is not exactly high-minded comedy. One reviewer accurately described it as American Pie for grownups. There’s lots of nudity and raunchy humour. The plot is pretty formulaic too.

But it’s still very, very funny.

It’s All Gone Pete Tong

I know I said I was never going to another movie again. Okay, I lied. I went to see this movie tonight because I couldn’t wait for it to come out on DVD.

Most of the reviews described it as "Spinal Tap for the rave set." I don’t think that really does it justice. Yes, it’s hilarious and completely ridiculous. But it’s also very dark and even kind of touching. It wasn’t really what I expected.

It was written and directed by Michael Dowse, the same guy who put the Alberta hoser genre on the map with Fubar. So I figured Pete Tong, a fake biopic about a superstar DJ who goes deaf, would be similar. It’s not. It's better.

It was worth seeing it in the theatre. Although it took a lot of drinks at dinner to convince my friend Jenny to come with me to the 10:15 p.m. show. That’s the best thing about alcohol. You can trick people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do if they were sober.

I just hope I don’t regret it when I have to wake up for work in about five hours.

Why I am never going to another movie again

I don't go to movies very often. I don't really enjoy the whole movie-going experience. Mostly because I am a magnet for the smelliest, tallest and loudest people in the theatre.

The person who has bathed in perfume or smoked a pack of cigarettes right before the show always picks a seat right beside me. The tallest person in the theatre always sits right in front of me. The loudest talkers sit right behind me. And all of these people arrive two seconds before the movie starts, which means it's too late to find another seat.

Last night was the final straw. My sister Hilary and I went to see Million Dollar Baby. It was the first time I had been to a movie in months. In case you haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, the plot is pretty straight-forward: Troubled girl wants to box; troubled man eventually agrees to coach her; girl eventually breaks her neck; girl asks coach to kill her since she cannot do it herself; he agrees. End of story. Not very complicated.

But the basic plot seemed to be beyond the grasp of the couple sitting directly behind us. The husband spent the entire movie pointing out the obvious, like "He's writing a letter to his daughter" or "She bought her own punching bag." Plus, they seemed to get confused a lot, "Who's in jail?" or "What is she talking about?" And they spoke really, really loudly.

This went on every five minutes for the entire two hours. I'm not kidding. I turned around at least four times to glare at them. Glaring at someone in a dark theatre is pretty pointless but I was too spineless to actually ask them to be quiet. Besides, in this city you never know who's going to pull a gun on you. Yes, they were a married couple in their 60s. But still.

At one point, after one particularly inane comment, I whipped around and yelled out "Jesus Christ! Are you really that stupid?" Well, technically, I yelled out "Jesus Christ!" and then muttered "are you really that stupid?" under my breath after I turned back to face the screen. Unfortunately, they didn't hear me (or they chose to ignore me).

Despite the running commentary, I didn't really *get* the movie. I mean, what was the point? Yes, Hilary Swank was fabulous but, uh, that's about it. I was pretty disappointed. Not because she died but because it wasn't all that interesting. And if the whole mercy killing sub-plot was supposed to be thought-provoking or controversial, well, it wasn't.

I might have liked it more if I had rented it. Renting a movie vs. going out to a movie wins every time. It's cheaper, I get to wear pajamas, I can lie down on the couch, there are no loud talkers, tall people sit beside me instead of in front of me, the snack bar is always open. I don't know if I'll ever go to another movie again.

Worst. Movie. Ever (almost).

I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but I feel compelled to issue the following public service announcement: Please, for the love of God, don’t rent the movie Wimbledon. You will never get those two wasted hours of your life back.

I rented this so-called "movie" on Saturday night ("movie" meaning "formulaic schlock"). Technically, I didn’t rent it. My sister did. I was with her at the video store on Saturday night. When she first suggested renting Wimbledon, I said, "No way am I watching that crap."

The problem was the movie we really wanted to see, Friday Night Lights, was out at all three video stores we went to. The other problem was that Jane looked like she had escaped from 999 Queen Street West (which isn’t too far of a stretch considering she used to work there).

She was drowning in blue flannel pajamas patterned with dozens of egg-sized, smiling snowmen wearing top hats. The pajama bottoms were tucked into the kind of serious winter boots you might find someone wearing in the Arctic. She hadn’t washed her hair in a couple of days either.

I too was wearing pajamas, which consisted of yoga pants and a fleece jacket. If I hadn’t also been wearing thick wool socks and my mom’s plastic sandals, I could have passed for someone on their way home from a workout. (In our defense, we had just driven back to Toronto from the farm and were emotionally drained and physically exhausted.)

So there we were, looking like Thelma and Louise near the end of their adventure. We were standing at the counter of the third video store asking if anyone had returned a copy of Friday Night Lights when we heard loud laughter behind us. We turned around to see four people in line staring at Jane and pointing at her outfit.

"Let’s get the hell out of here," said Jane, who was mortified, yet laughing hysterically at the same time.

"We still need to get a movie so just pick something fast," I said.

And that’s how we ended up renting Wimbledon.

The basic plot went something like this: boy tennis pro and girl tennis pro meet at Wimbledon. After a brief courtship, boy and girl sleep together and fall in love. Boy plays really well and advances to the finals because girl inspires him. Girl plays really badly and fails to advance because boy distracts her.

Boy and girl fight. Boy is so upset, he loses first two sets in the finals. Girl sees match while at airport on her way home. Rushes back to cheer him on. He wins. They marry. The end.

It’s not so much the unoriginal and unimaginative plot line I had a problem with. It’s the obvious lack of research that went into the film. Like the way these alleged "tennis pros" drove to some seaside town during the middle of Wimbledon, and stayed up all night drinking wine and having sex. As if! Also, they go for a 10-mile training run and she’s wearing Converse. Converse! This is Wimbledon. Not the Saskatoon Open or whatever.

Real athletes would have focussed on the game and hooked up afterwards. And they would never, ever, go for a run in Converse. How do movies like this get made and who watches them?

Speaking of bad movies, I did not have to watch any on the flight from Toronto to Vancouver today. West Jet has little TVs in every seat with 24 channels of live satellite TV. All passengers get their own personal TV. Had I known this in advance, I would have scheduled my flight when the good shows are on. I was stuck watching Canada AM, Regis & Kelly and A Wedding Story.

I probably should have just slept instead. I think I’ve hit a level of sleep deprivation so deep that I’m no longer tired.