Accidental Genius: George Lucas

You didn't see many headlines this week saying "Irvin Kershner, director of Robocop 2, died last weekend at 87."

Many of the obituaries of Kershner, who died Saturday, contain decidedly faint praise. The first one I saw called him a "journeyman director."

But the thing no one can take away from him is that he directed The Empire Strikes Back. That may make him the cinematic version of a one hit wonder, but if your one hit is the equivalent of the combined oeuvre of the Beatles, it's not so bad.

When I started this blog with my friend Mike way back when, we thought up some recurring themes. One of them was going to be called Accidental Genius, about people whose blunders inadvertently spark sublime results. I only ever got around to writing one installment, but Irvin, this one's for you.


George Lucas is an awful, terrible filmmaker. For an excellent recapping of why, check out this weird, twisted 70 minute review of Star Wars Episode 1.

(For those who haven't seen it, I realize how absurd that sounds. I, too, once thought I had far better things to do with my time. And like you, I was wrong. All I can say is give it a chance - it is insightful and well worth the commitment for anyone who appreciates movies.)

Yes, Lucas invented Star Wars. But his early scripts are embarrassingly bad. It took the collaberation of a lot of talented people to get the movie to its final form. Lucas did have a fertile mind to contribute. He also had a knack for special effects and a ton of ambition. And he had greed, and that, ultimately, is what saved Star Wars.

After the first movie became a hit Lucas, consumed by a thirst for power that is in no way ironic considering the content of his films, ceded the director's chair because he needed to dedicate more of his energy to fighting the studios for control.

In the early days his railing against the film establishment lead to greatness. After feuding with Director's Guild of America over the trilogy's famous opening title sequence, Lucas left the guild. It's rumoured he had wanted his friend Stephen Spielberg to direct Empire, but this fell apart after the guild dispute.

Pause for a minute and think about a Spielberg-helmed Empire. Picture Yoda training Luke from the basket of a flying bicycle. Picture Qui-Gon Jinn coming in and crying "This lightsaber! This lightsaber could have saved five more gungans." Picture Tom Hanks somehow being involved.

The horror.

Instead Lucas went with the unconventional choice of Kershner, who excelled at character development, to handle the nitty-gritty directing business.

Because he was busy fighting for merchandising rights, Lucas didn't have time to huff around the set saying "The line is I love you too, Harrison, not I know." Because he was busy setting up sub-companies for every aspect of the production, he was too busy to work a big explosion into the ending.

I submit to you that it was George Lucas's terrible vices that saved us from his even more debilitating faults.

Of course years later he would take back custody of the child that was conceived by him but raised by others, and turn it into an insufferable emo kid. With no studio to rail against, no one to challenge his megalomania, Lucas had the complete control he needed to systematically destroy everything people loved about Star Wars and in turn tarnish the childhoods of millions.

Goddamn you, George Lucas.

But we'll always have the original theatrical cuts of the original movies, where Han shoots first, Boba Fett doesn't have an embarrassing Australian accent, and Luke doesn't look off at Hayden Fucking Christensen at the end of Jedi goddamn you, George Lucas.

Anyway, let's hear it for Irvin, who helped make one of the greatest and most beloved movies of all time. The guy who didn't even want to direct a Star Wars movie, but stepped up to the plate and hit a pinch hit, five-run grand slam.

Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back, died last weekend at 87.

Well, I'm off to America

My fellow Canadians,

I like you guys, but lately you've been driving me nuts.

Everything's been far too Canadian recently and I need a break.

Our country loses a bid to join a group of U.N. hall monitors futily screaming at our peers to stop running and we react by retreating to our rooms to write emo poetry and cry about how the other kids don't like us.

Our government was so distraught it actually tried to claim some offhand negative nellying by opposition leader Michael Ignatieff caused literally dozens of countries to snub us.

Quick, how many opposition leaders of foreign nations can you name off the top of your head?

Yeah.

Meanwhile, though our Prime Minister still won't speak to reporters and access to information laws are being systematically underminded, people decide to freak out because MacLean's Magazine was mean to Quebec. A sensational MacLeans front page? This is not news.

Not content with being content about being kept in the dark, it seems we're now getting openly hostile with people who would inform us.

Some Canadians - even people in the media I respected such as MacLean's Scott Feschuk - freaked out at journalists reporting edited-but-still-disturbing details from the Colonol Russell Williams trial.

"It's never pretty when the media gets to cloak their lurid instincts in the guise of doing a duty," Feschuk wrote on Twitter, presumably after lecturing a hobo on getting a job.

Only in Canada - well, maybe Belarus too - would people argue the public shouldn't have the right to know what's going on in a public courtroom because it's gross.

Come on, Canada, grow some balls. In a land where twitter accounts are assigned at birth and hardwired into our skulls, mabe we could whine about this stuff. But in our world, where buttons like 'unsubscribe,' 'unfollow,' and 'unfriend' exist, we've been given the freedom of choice.

I guess you could argue choosing to fight for not having a choice could be seen as a valid choice... ah, but there I go being all Canadian again.

Closer to home sweet home in Halifax, the debate about whether to put oodles of public money towards a new convention centre was shrouded by secrecy for a long time as government declined to say how much it would cost.

To give government some credit - Christ, there I go again - they did finally unveil the cost of the centre about a week before announcing they would support it. Rather than encourage this openness, Marilla Stephenson, the premier columnist at the province's paper of record, lambasted our elected officials for bothering to level with us.

Rather than analyze the information, Stephenson was exhasperated that the government was still doing their wishy-washy thinking thing instead of taking action. "Why on earth did they undertake the briefing, then?" she chirped.

To amplify this... Marilla Stephenson has scolded the government for not rushing to throw money at a hugely controversial project and only telling the public the cost afterwards.

I've reached my breaking point. I need to be around some assholes. I need to look at someone and think ' I wonder if that guy is carrying a gun.' I need to hate something with as much passion as the synopses in my brain can muster, and not even know or care why.

So I'm off to America, where centrists are fictional, liberals are conservatives, and conservatives are closeted homosexuals.

Where beer is cheap, football has four downs and a man's moral compass is pointed right at the heart of his enemies and instead of a compass it's a handgun.

I need to feel that strange sensation that comes over me whenever I visit the U.S. where anyone who tries to stop me from doing whatever I want is committing a grave affront; where absolute freedom is paramount and I end up screaming "But this is America!" at some 7-eleven clerk in Boston who won't sell me booze at midnight.

So I'm going for a taste. I leave tomorrow but, like a deep-sea diver, I'll first acclimatize myself with a couple days in America Lite - Toronto, with it's new Americany mayor - then I drive down to Washington for the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert-sponsored Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30. One can only hope I'll witness a big brawl between tea partiers and Huffington Post bloggers.

I expect one of two things to happen.

1) Immersed in liberty and cheap beer I will emerge like a Chilean miner into a state of enlightenment. I will then return to Canada, start up a grass-roots libertarian party and lead the charge against our nation's paternalistic system.

2) It will become painfully obvious that the US is a crazed, bipolar country veering towards the edge of a cultural and financial cliff that will make the collapse of the Roman empire look like a lesser episode of Seinfeld.

After viewing our country through the other side of this tragic mirror I'll rush back to embrace all that is Canadian and forgive our occassionally infuraiting complacency.

Seeing as Lady Gaga has become America's voice of reason, my money's on the latter.

Either way I figure I come out on top. So I'll see you all in a week. Come on America, don't let me down now when I need you the most.

Don't wish they all could be Dalifornia Girls

I did not go to Dalhousie University.

Instead I went to the much smaller and seperately chartered University of King's College where I got a combined honours degree in journalism and philosophy (known in the biz as the Dying Industry Special).

Because King's is right next to Dal and they share credits, people often say to me "Oh, isn't King's just part of Dalhousie?" to which I usually reply with some combination of the words "off" and "fuck."

King's students have the stereotype of being Nietzsche-quoting-drum-circle-participating-stoned-NDP-voting snobs who rarely wash. I accept this. I accept this because it is still better than being forced to associate with Dal, and I'd like to thank the Dalhousie Student Union for once again illustrating why.

It started last year when students at l'Université du Québec à Montréal made a big lip sync video to the awful Black Eyed Peas song I Gotta Feeling (sample lyrics include listing the days of the week and repeating "tonight's gonna be a good night" 26 times.)

But it seems they were the first university to do it and they got a ton of media coverage so good on them, I guess. But then Dalhousie (real slogan: Inspiring Minds) decided to one-up their Quebecois counterparts by doing the exact same thing only a year later and with an even worse song.

The result: Dalifornia Girls. I'm sure that somewhere out there the UQAM students are bowing their heads and muttering "touché."

If you haven't figured it out by now,
they're not doing the Beach Boys one.

Fun Fact: They cleverly titled the video "Dalhousie Student Union - California Girls - Lip Dub" so that it is impossible to find it by searching "Dalifornia Girls" in either google or Youtube.

OK, so credit to the DSU for finding one of the rare plays on the word California not already taken by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but did picking a song celebrating the polar opposite corner of the continent not raise any red flags?

Sure all the references to sunshine and beaches and bikinis still could apply to Halifax. They just happen to apply to the only four months of the year students are not here.

Most baffling of all is that according to this Dal News piece the organizers narrowly picked the Katy Perry song over... Joel Plaskett.

So Joel Plaskett, one of Nova Scotia's most famous musicians whose songs continually references his love for his home and would stand distinct from the pop music of previous videos, was beaten out by a tune about palm trees and short shorts.

I'd like to stop here and reiterate that at no point was I registered as a Dalhousie student. I did take a few courses there but they were mandatory credits, I swear.

Except for History of Russian Film, which admittedly was awesome.

Anyway, how did this happen? That's like like Memorial University in Newfoundland passing over Great Big Sea to lipdub the Insane Clown Posse. (On further consideration, that would be awesome. MUN students: please do this one.)

It's curious that the university's official news organ chose to rev up the hype machine rather than quietly face palm. The story interprets the video's almost 9,000 hits as "quickly becoming a Facebook and Twitter sensation" and "going viral."

Farbeit from me to point out when something smacks of desperation, but as of this writing there's a little over 10,000 views, which is still less than the student population of Dal. On the Going Viral scale that barely merits a sneeze compared to the Double Rainbow guy who's on his deathbed clinging for life (On the Going Viral scale, being on the deathbed is good.)

Now it appears some commentors are complaining about the video sending the wrong message.

"Female scholars here work hard & deserve better from you," says one commentor on twitter.

"'I'm saddened that in 2010, Dalhousie is proud to be promoting it's university as a place to meet women. Wrong message. Incredibly embarassing for students, faculty, staff and the community at large," reads a comment on DalNews.

Typical politically correct nilly-nannying. Young women today just choose to express their liberation by flocking behind men wearing pimp apparel in videos made to welcome incoming students. Get over it, grandmas.

Progress.

And to be fair, most of Joel Plaskett's songs include lyrics worse than "we freak in my jeap" and "kiss her/ touch her/ squeeze her buns". I'm pretty sure all his references to "the Khyber" are just filthy metaphors.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out for Dal, but it's not something I will personally be following because - and I cannot stress this enough - I did not go there.

Long-form census revealed!

I've long been a fan of Industry Minister Tony Clement. Back when he was an early promoter of merging the Reform and Tory parties I thought to myself "Well that just makes sense." In 2008 when he was federal health minister I cheered when he tried to shut down Vancouver's Insite safe injection site (needles creep me out).

But I wasn't sure about this long-form census stuff. A lot of people who can count really high seemed pretty mad about the government getting rid of it. I didn't know what all the fuss was about so I tried to get a hold of an actual version of the census.

After a little digging I came across a preliminary version of the 2011 long-form census that had leaked onto the internet. I've got to say, I totally agree with Tony. The questions are just way too invasive and personal to subject your everyday citizen to. For example,


42) How much money did you make last year?

43) How much money would you like to have made last year?

48) How many bedrooms are in your neighbour's house?

53) Describe, in detail, your reaction to the LOST finale.

59) Done anything illegal we should know about?

66) Totally hypothetically, if we were to sell off one of the territories, which one would you miss the least?

70) So what are you wearing?

82) What is your child-to-Jonas Brothers poster ratio? (See calculation chart attachment J)

89) Do you trust that your answers to these census questions are totally anonymous, Larry?

103) With one (1) being 'abstinent' and five (5) being 'aficionado', rate your frequency of casual, unprotected sex.

112) Do you find this census too onerous and confusing? Phrase your answer in the form of a haiku.

116) Ah, I was totally going to ask you something but it's escaping me at the minute. It'll come to me later.

116. b) Oh Christ, this is totally going to drive me nuts.

133) Have you watched CPAC in the last two (2) weeks? How about ever?

146) Have you ever thought about raisins? I mean really thought about them.

167) Including yourself, how many persons in your household have watched the classic 1985 Tim Curry movie Clue?

169) Have you ever felt an inappropriate attraction to someone you're related to? Does it bother you that we can put you in jail if you don't answer this question?

201) Trudeau - visionary or dick?

Bring back Hitler! (but not like that)

Living in an hyper-litigious society can be fun. You can get way too drunk at your office Christmas party and then sue your work when you fall down the stairs. You can threaten legal action when your waiter brings you slightly overcooked steak. Dentist shoots you a dirty look? Sue. Neighbour's dog piddles on your sneakers? Sue! And god help the octogenarian grandmother who just rear-ended you in the Sobeys parking lot. Ka. Ching.

Truly, it's a good time to be alive (Note: This is in no way a reference to the very classic and very copyrighted 1999 Edwin song Alive)

But there's one thing that's always baffled me. Surely, suing every last doubloon from some poor shmo has got to be a rush. But why do so many people launch lawsuits that only hurt themselves?

I could list many examples. Eeven my amigo Rich Aucoin has been a victim when he stole/promoted How The Grinch Stole Christmas and worked it into his act, to genius results. But this time the lawyers aren't just going after broke Canadian indy musicians. This time they're going after Hitler.

Like 1945 Berlin, the popular Hitler meme has come under attack, only this time with takedown orders. Sure, it steals a clip from the movie Downfall and technically the producers can go all Law & Order on the internet.

But why would they?

According to boxofficemojo the story of Hitler's final days did very well overseas but only scraped the lucrative North American market to the tune of $5.5 million.

I first heard about Downfall when it came out about five years ago and always wanted to see it. But I never got around to it until I saw my first Hitler video about Terrell Owens joining the Buffalo Bills. I was hooked, watched a bunch more of them and soon was intrigued enough to seek out the movie.

There's no way to know how often this cycle was repeated, but in an increasingly DVD-centric market I'd bet it's a hell of a lot. Even further, the movie is fascinating enough for a lot of people to recommend it to friends, blog about it or include it in best-of lists. That adds up. And this is coming from someone who spent a few hours writing a Best Movies of the Decade list one bored evening and had it surprisingly 'go viral' and be viewed by over 79,000 people at last count.

So what reason is there to sue? Principle? Uh, these people are making fun of Hitler. And in the process they're giving your movie loads of free advertising to a market you've yet to break into.

Why not just sue yourselves for releasing a trailer? This whole irrational, knee-jerk decision making that's ultimately self-destructive reminds me a lot of... someone. I feel like I watched a movie about this recently but for the life of me I can't remember who it was about.

So lay off the legal blitzkrieg, Downfall producers. You've found a way to profit off of World War II in a way that victimizes Hitler. Personally, I would run with that.

Also, please don't sue me.

An Open Letter to Quebec

Dear Quebec,

Bonjour!

It's been just two months since I last visited you and ever since I've been preparing to go back by taking french lessons and eating lots of your delicious gravy-covered fries.

I love your province. The rural areas are beautiful, Quebec City's historic landscape is breathtaking and Montreal feels wrong in all the right ways. I even love your adorable "french" dialect you so cherish. But while I acknowledge the looming threat of us damn anglos taking over, I think you might have gone slightly overboard with the cultural preservation thing to the point that it's left you with a wee case of virulant racism.

And that's why I'm writing you, Quebec. It's about the Muslim thing.

Specifically, the niqab and your desire to ban it. Look, mon ami, I totally see where you're coming from. I hate the idea of of the niqab. A world view where women should cover their faces in public seems inherently misogynistic to the core, especially when the only sacrifice men have to make is grow out sweet beards.

But the thing is, other people choosing to wear the niqab doesn't actually hurt me, I just don't want them to wear it because I think it's wrong. That's the same strand of logic that prevented gay couples from being allowed to marry for so long, and in some backwater countries still does.

Who am I, as a 20-something male of average height, average weight and average ethnicity, to tell other people what to wear? Like the old saying goes, "if you don't believe in freedom of speech for those you disagree with, then you're a dick."

Besides, do you really think you're that secular? Here's a test: look around and see if you can spot anyone in the zip code who's not Catholic. Last time I was there I talked to several smart, well educated people who had no idea what the protestant religion even involved. They asked me if it involved Jesus, seriously.

If the Pope came to town would you deny him his assortment of funny hats? I thought not. Then again I guess it's not like the strict requirements of the Catholic religion led to any problems for anyone, ever.

Just bite the bullet on this one, mon frere. Do you really want to be known as the one who forced muslim women to choose between their faith and seeing a doctor or going to school? Why not just solve this problem like you do every other and force them to learn french?

Problem solved.

Cordialement,

Paul

PS - Thanks for Mordecai Richler.

How to throw a successful naked sushi party

When my friend Lizzy Hill invited me to a naked sushi party, I mistakenly envisioned a bunch of butt naked people standing around eating.

"I'm in," I told her.

It turns out you go fully clothed and eat sushi off of naked people who lie as still as possible trying to closely emulate a plate. The tradition started in some crazy country - Japan, I assume; the whole thing reeks of Japan - and made its way over here because we love to follow down their crazy paths. Mark my words, our streets will one day be lined with vending machines despensing the underwear of virgins.

Anyway, I arrived at Lizzy's early to help set up. My first piece of advice for throwing a naked sushi party is to have your guests show up good and hungry. After starving for a few hours your body will be ready to eat off any surface, regardless of what feeble protests of "strangeness" and "hygiene" your brain can muster.

Another good strategy is to get everyone drunk. Lizzy had her friends bring a healthy dose of wine to get loosened up. Drugs would also work but nothing too heavy, eating food off a naked person is weird enough without thinking their nipples are talking to you.

Lizzy was able to use her north end scene connections to find two volunteers(!) for the evening. Setup is key. Two tables were prepared and lined with candles in such a way that things wouldn't seem "too gynocological." Guests were corralled into the kitchen of Lizzy's apartment to get buzzed while the models went to a seperate room to psych up and strip down.

Eventually a bell was rung and the dozen or so guests headed to the living room. The covered in sushi part was weird, but the most striking thing was that both models were physically perfect and totally hairless below the eyebrows. They lay face up and totally still, as if in a trance. Guests were instructed not to touch the models - except with chopsticks - or to talk to them.

And yes, you could see prettymuch everything. The girl - an attractive woman named Natalie who is apparently a burlesque dancer - had sea shells over her nipples but that's about it. Both her and Redman, Lizzy's hairdresser, had floral arrangements over their crotches but they did more to more garnish their genitals than conceal them.

It was surprisingly unawkward. People hung out as they normally would and there was no jackass making too-obvious jokes ("Is that a spicy tempura salmon roll or are you just happy to see me?").

Despite the no-talking rule, one girl sweetly clutched Redman's hand, squeezed it, and repeated "you look beautiful." I, meanwhile, was busy greedily plucking sushi from his shoulder and focusing on not dropping any soya sauce in his eyeball.

For music, Lizzy's roommate Lee searched 'background japanese restaurant music' into youtube, which worked kind of well. Eventually people got on the laptop and started playing whatever came to mind. Hip hop didn't quite seem to match the vibe of eating fish off a seemingly-comatose naked stranger but by that point everyone had drank enough wine that it didn't matter.

So what was the point of it all? Honestly, I have no idea. According to the weabsite SushiOrDeath.com (uh, I choose sushi?), the practice is called Nyotaimori and is a sub-fetish of food play. Others say there's nothing sexual about it. Also Nyotaimori, like freedom, is banned in China.

Whatever it is, it isn't sexual. It's too awkward an environment to be arousing, and yet too interesting to really be awkward. All I know for sure is it's a fun story and Lizzy knows how to throw a hell of a unique party. Also, she makes good sushi.