Addendum to "Final Score"

Some of my American readers may not be fully aware of just what a big deal this is. Never mind that revelers are taking to the streets in every Canadian city: this win has saved me countless hours of parsing over — with former jocks, thirsty cafe patrons, moms and their strollers — what we did wrong. Now, when I'm greeted with, "Did you see that game?!" I can say, "Killer, eh?" follow that up with a satisfied grin, and be done with it.

Final Score

I am as thrilled as any Canadian over the Gold Medal for Men's Hockey. I thought it was an exciting game — an exciting series — and that Sydney Crosby redeemed the team from the three (or so) minutes of "Let's just dog it, boys" that nearly gave it up to the Americans. I very much want Zach Parise to defect to Canada.

A gratifying and memorable series, to be sure. Various Facebook friends (Canadians all, natch) are speculating that this is the new 1972, but I'm not so sure. Will my daughters (ages 11 and 13) really remember 2010 the way I (aged seven, when I'm not 44) remember 1972?

Movie Catch-Up: It Might Get Loud

I've been hankering for some time to see It Might Get Loud. Alas, a plethora of wacky alternative titles tumbled through my mind as the show wore on ....

Wither Insularity?

Each culture is primarily interested in its own subject, plus whatever is coming out of America. With that arithmetic, we are even with everyone else. We just don't have a market larger than our own to aspire to. We'll occasionally look to Britain, mostly as something to simultaneously aspire to and rebel against, sort of like our father — but for the most part, we honestly believe we are making the great contributions to culture.

Jessa Crispin (aka Bookslut) addresses insularity, and a few other issues, as she reviews Best European Fiction 2010 ed. Aleksandar Hemon (A), here. Weirdly enough, I can't help but wonder if this "Yo: Dad" posture she describes doesn't mirror Canadian novelists' attitude toward their American counterparts.

Movie Catch-Up: Knowing, Inglourious Basterds

My wife has gone international again (Haiti, of course). Solo nights + exacerbated insomnia = perfect opportunity to catch up on the movies we'd rather not waste our “together time” on. Today's cases in point:

Knowing, the infamous Alex Proyas/Nicolas Cage vehicle that Roger Ebert loved, despite the nearly universal chorus of contempt sung by the rest of his cohort. Braced for my own indifference, I was instead pleased to find myself beguiled by a story that was emotionally unsettling from beginning to end. Comparisons have been made, appropriately, to M. Night Shyamalan's Signs — both films attempt to explain the ways of God to men — but Knowing is the better film for its use of ambiguous biblical metaphors that raise deeper, more nettlesome questions than the superficial ones they settle. Having said that, neither film is one I'd care to add to my library: a single viewing with friends, family (or youth group) is enough to generate the desired dinner conversation.

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds — if your idea of a well-rounded meal is Skittles and Beef Jerky, this is probably your idea of a great movie. Well-seasoned moviegoers don't need me to articulate just what a po-mo white trash meta-referencing geek Tarantino is — and if that sounds like a bad thing, I don't necessarily mean it to. It's just that by now Quentin's entire ouevre, with only one exception, has the collective feel of a marathon session of, “Why don't you come over to my back yard, and we'll all play 'Let's Pretend'?” (sorry, correction: “Lett's Pritend”) The tropes are all there: the cheery perambulations around a subject of deadly consequence, the Mexican Stand-Offs, etc. Tarantino's true gift lies in who he entices out to play. Say what you will about Tarantino's little-boy games, he sure knows how to get the girls involved: Mélanie Laurent and Diane Kruger bring the emotional content for Chritoph Waltz to endanger. Waltz deserves Oscars and more, as does Robert Richardson for framing it all so beautifully, and Sally Menke for working miracles in the editing room. But none of these people can rescue Tarantino from the grim fact that he was a wunderkind, whose wunder is fading with his status as kind.

Final verdict: Michael Blowhard used to rate the success of a movie by its lack of “fast-forward moments.” Neither flick prompted me to FF, but I was content to leave Basterds running for a few minutes while I took a bathroom break.

Olympic Mystery

How does a guy from Russell, Manitoba get gold-medal training for an event like the skeleton? For those who have yet to visit the Keystone Province, most of Manitoba looks like this.

Taking Inordinate "Freude" in Vancouver's "Schaden"

I've usually taken pleasure in the Winter Olympic Games, but this year the task seems to require my concentration. Right from the git-go, when the bid was won by Vancouver, I've borne little but ill-will toward IOC and VanOC. Why? Because by awarding Vancouver the games, both committees reaffirmed their innate stupidity: Texas gets more snow than Vancouver does. Personally, I would have bid for Anchorage, if only to see Sarah's Bridge completed.

Adding to my difficulties is CTV's attempt at "hipper-than-thou" television coverage -- the "thou" in this case being the CBC, who used to cover the Olympics with predictable (and repetitive) hokeyness. Stalwarts Brian Williams and Rod Black are about as offensive as soft ice cream, but their various cohorts are insufferable. Yesterday afternoon I caught Elvis Stojko stifling contempt as Dan Levy and Jessi Cruickshank cajoled him into declaring the most sensational figure skating spills of the games thus far. And last night's hockey game, the first event I was actually anticipating with some eagerness, was similarly marred by CTV's "bad boy" approach to commentary. With a united chorus of, "We need 'greasy' goals!" the entire panel looked and sounded like defective Don Cherry clones.

Feh. A pox on all your houses.

Link love: Salon to Canada: "Nice try, but you're fired." More! Canadians get angry (bad idea) while Vancouver mishaps and misjudgments continue. With a tip o' the hat to Rob in Victoria, who, I hope, is having fun.