In keeping with the atmosphere of progress following Kathryn Bigelow’s two big wins at the Academy Awards and the spotlight of  International Women’s Day, let’s take a look at two prescient Marvel comic books that came out last week: the first issue of the 3-part anthology series, Girl Comics and Valerie D’Orazio’s one-shot Punisher MAX: Butterfly, both of which show the scope of what can be achieved when we have more female voices in the creative industry.

Girl Comics collects a bunch of short stories by female writers and artists that range in tone and style. The intro pages by Colleen Coover are incredibly charming (no really, that’s the word to use, I’m not just trying to sound cultured!), featuring a bunch of different heroines in different poses with different facial expressions. It does a good job showing that although they are all collected here under a title that some might see as reductive, Marvel’s female characters exist across a wide spectrum — or at least they should. “It’s not because we are different…Yet we are all unique,” goes the dialogue.

This line of thinking follows throughout the anthology, where stories range from cutesy to gritty, whimsical to sad.

Not all of them work as well as others, but I’m a big fan of D’Orazio’s Punisher short, as well as Devin Grayson’s take on the Cyclops/Jean Grey/Wolverine love triangle, which usually concentrates on Wolverine’s tragic longing but here offers up something more nuanced from Jean’s perspective. The story will ring true with anyone who has battled stray thoughts or felt the sting of jealousy while in a committed relationship.

In all, Girl Comics is a good read and I’m looking forward to the next two installments. The question remains though whether Marvel treats it as a quirky side-project, or if the series signals a genuine movement towards more female representation both behind the scenes and on the page. We’re seeing strides here and there. Grayson can now count herself as the first woman ever to hold down a regular writing duties on a monthly Batman book, but considering Ms. Marvel just got her series axed, I’m a little skeptical overall. Dollars do the talking, of course, so go out and buy the book.

Girl Comics for me just drives home the importance of diversity of voices. More voices = more and different stories and that’s something that’s always good for us as culture consumers, no matter what medium we’re talking about. To go back to the movie analogy, some have already started to backlash against Bigelow and The Hurt Locker saying that she won by directing a “guy’s” movie. I think the stupidity of that speaks for itself, but even if that statement is correct, the solution is STILL to start giving more opportunities to more women directors.

I mention Bigelow because of the next book, Punisher MAX: Butterfly, which in some ways is very much a “guy’s” comic book. The art is dark and moody, and the story centers around a woman who was sexually abused — something which a lot of people are tired of seeing in comic books. The difference is that while abused females are all too often used as narrative devices by male writers to make the lives of male characters seem more interesting, D’Orazio makes Butterfly strictly about the woman in question. This isn’t a story that abuses its female character. It’s a story about a female character that has been abused. The difference might be splitting hairs to some, but all I have to say is to read the book.

‘Nuff said.

YACHT—”a band, a belief system and a business”—is the kind of act that exceeds every expectation you might have of seeing them live. The dance-pop duo is making their living off of showboating, playing energetic shows masked as old-timey country revivals in small, packed bars.

But before YACHT came on, my friends and I got to Wrongbar in time to catch the very last strains of Bobby Birdman’s set and say a quick hello to electro-pop singer MNDR. Here’s the thing about kooky singers making synth music: it’s never usually very good because so many “artists” are doing it. I mean, sure people will dance around and have a good time, but in the end it doesn’t pull you in. MNDR is precisely the opposite. So she looks weird, with these gigantic white-framed glasses, but she’s working the board and belting her heart out. Talking to the audience, intro-ing songs and telling us about each one also meant we could invest in her performance. It’s incredibly difficult to be a one-woman show and still command attention from your audience, but I’d say everyone was pretty rapt. On a smoke break after her six-song set, I overheard more than a few people saying they enjoyed it—a difficult task for an opener.

Afterward, MNDR DJ’d while the packed crowd waited for YACHT. The backers—including Bobby Birdman on bass—came out first dressed in tuxedos then leads Jona and Claire, Jona in a ’60s, back-country style white tux with suspenders. They jumped, and jumped, and jumped, and jumped. Claire made black lipstick look so good. They sang and played guitar and had more personality than I’ve seen in most performers. They left me wondering why they don’t have a bigger following, because their music is the strangest combination of upbeat pop belying semi-apocalyptic lyrics and themes. At one point, Jona jumped down into the crowd—which had been dancing sweatily for some time now—and got everyone around him to get down on one knee (and we obliged, I mean, who wanted to be the loser still standing?) and follow his lead in an ominously aspirational invocation. So we’re all bent over and Jona is crouched in the middle, preaching to us—telling us to take control of our lives and, essentially, stop letting the man get us down. It really brought home the theme of the show: a glorious indie-pop revival.

At this point, I think it’s redundant to talk about how many plot lines Caprica has up in the air all at once. It’s doing an admirable juggling job, but at some point the novelty of volume wears off. That’s why juggling acts always open with the rubber balls but end the show with just three flaming chainsaws — ultimately it’s not the quantity of what you’re working with, it’s the quality.

By and large, the quality is a mixed bag. Instead of going through a summary, I’m just going to make a point by asking all the questions I now have about this show. Mystery seems to be the major fuel Caprica is running on. Spoilers after the jump.

- Does robot love count as real love?

- Why would you meet with someone from an online dating service for an online date? Doesn’t that just seem lazy?

- Where the hell is Tamara?

- What exactly would be the consequences if Zoe revealed herself?

- What about Zoebot makes her Cylon so special? If she can enter virtual worlds does that mean she can be duplicated? Stolen?

- Meaning, does that mean Zoebot, although fused with her body, is actually not trapped after all?

- What the hell is the actual purpose of the STO? They are classified as terrorists and bomb cybercafes? All we know is they are vaguely religious, but what do they stand for? What are they protesting? What exactly does monotheism have against Caprican life? Despite it’s fractious and vague parties and plans, we really know absolutely nothing about the show’s main antagonists.

- We finally meet Barnabas, and he lives in the warehouse of a shipping yard? Like, not even in a building, just outside it like some sort of skidrow hobo who flays himself DaVinci code style for religion? That seems wf just for the sake of it no?

- Is Sister Clarice like a crackhead? Why? Why does that even matter? What does that have to do with her role in the grand scheme of things?

- Who gets drunk with their dead daughters principle in the middle of the day? Isn’t Amanda Greystone a former doctor? She doesn’t have any other responsibilities now that she’s quit her day job? No charities or whatever? Didn’t she just start a foundation to funnel millions of dollars from holobands to good causes?

- Why is Virgis so rich compared to Greystone? What exactly has he created that is nearly as ubiquitous as holobands and as lucrative as military contracts? Greystone should be one of the richest dudes in the galaxy and he’s going to bat an eye at the price of a professional sports team? Paul Allen didn’t found Microsoft and the Portland Trailblazers are basically an ant colony for him. To Bill Gates, whom I kind of equate Greystone to, a sports team would be like nothing — where’s the logic there?

- Is it just me, or is Cyrus a little bitch?

- Why is Daniel so shook up about the prospect his theft might have involved a double murder? Isn’t he building KILLER ROBOTS FOR THE ARMY? Does he feel bad if he’s successful and his robots end up killing hundreds of thousands of people in a war?

- If the STS is so anti-technology, how do they have the resources to develop a refrigerator magnet that is advanced enough to decrypt and download data from a government network, not tripping any alerts and doing it completely wirelessly without notice? Also, their holy grail is a computerized replica of the human soul in avatar form. That doesn’t seem anti-technology at all, so why blow up holobands and levitating trains?

- What the hell is Lacey trying to do? What’s she going to do, drop a giant robot off on some planet then hope it doesn’t cause a scene?

- Ditto for Zoebot herself?

- What’s Barnabas’ role?

- What kind of secretary hits on her boss while admiring the tattoo he just got to remember his dead wife by? Can you say insubordination?

- William’s entire appearance this episode was to open a door and look pissed, then close it two seconds later. Does he get paid for that?

Basically, there are lots of questions, and they get more complicated every week, and I’m tired of writing about how complicated and ambitious this show is week after week because nothing really ever happens except maybe one or two minor revelations of information that really only serve to cause more questions.

I.E. Oh, so that’s Barnabs. What a second, who the hell is this guy? What’s he doing? What does he want? Why is he crazy? Who does he work for?

etc. etc. etc.

I’m getting some whiffs of BSG-ego from the writers with all these different threads. All I can say is, although I praised the potential for this show last week, the truth is if the writers don’t have half-thought out end games for all these stories, it’s going to be the saddest television of the year, by far.

Fingers. Crossed.

• I have a confession: I didn’t read anything this week! At least, not on the culture front. Well, not anything that wasn’t Oscar-related, and don’t worry I’ll spare you that headache. Instead, join me in re-watching some amazing Canadian public service announcements. Gawker.tv did a great round-up of clips, everything from “I can put my arm back on,” to “Don’t you put it in your mouth,” and the fun extends into the comments section with “Some people say I eat too many chocolate bars, but…” and “I smell burnt toast, doctor!” Who needs reading? Everything I need to know in life I learned from these clips. Now excuse me while I laugh at all the non-Canadian kids who became pimply epileptic fools with severed arms in their mouths.

• I want to say  this article by Anne Trubek over at GOOD magazine is a must read, except I’m not entirely sure if she technically wrote the thing at all. I won’t hesitate to say this is one of the most inventive uses of the written word I’ve ever seen online, articulating a philosophical debate on plagiarism, writing and originality in a way her own words probably could never have done. Great concept, well executed and probably worth talking about for a few hours over some beers. Seriously, call me after you read it. I’m so lonely.

• When George Lois starting designing covers for Esquire in 1962, he brought in an era that saw the mag push the boundaries and create some of the most memorable imagesto ever be burned into the collective conscious. The Ny Times recently spoke to Lois, and got him to tell the stories behind his 12 favourite covers here.

I'm done with these two!

I’m so glad that Alice in Wonderland is finally coming out. So glad, because finally everyone will stop linking to new trailers and gushing over released photos and fawning over Johnny Depp’s brilliance and losing their minds because they saw Tim Burton speaketh at a comic convention  or got to peek at his high-school doodles at the MoMA. It’s strange, isn’t it?  Strange that in a world of cultural cynics and bald-faced haters Burton and Depp still garner so much goodwill and generate heaps of anticipation, despite the fact it has been two whole decades since these frequent collaborators did anything of lasting note.

Here’s their pre-Alice track record:

• Edward Scissorhands (1990)
• Ed Wood (1994)
• Sleepy Hollow (1999)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

The only great film here is Edward Scissorhands.

I’ll be generous and give you Ed Wood — despite the fact it’s kind of boring — because Depp is brilliant in it and Burton’s connection to the work of B-movie director/legend Wood elevates it to some unfathomable next-level of meta that can’t just be cooked up in a story meeting (even one with Charlie Kaufmann).

But the rest?

Sleepy Hollow is the prototype for everything wrong with Burton, where the admittedly awesome scenery and Gothic atmosphere overshadows any attempts at character development and swallows the plot whole. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, meanwhile, is everything wrong with Burton’s fans, where we salivate over a property that Burton allegedly was Born to Direct! — despite the fact the original was perfection in the first place. I get it, Burton does dream-scape weirdness very well, but the desire to have him re-make every off-kilter project in history is wrongheaded and also boring. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, despite the best of intentions, is a horrible movie.

Corpse Bride seemed promising because it brought back fond memories of The Nightmare Before Christmas (more on that later), but this time with JOHNNY DEPP. It was charmingly quirky but lazy, Burton re-hashing himself and again favouring technique over storytelling. A lot of people said they liked Sweeney Todd, but I don’t believe them. The movie sure does feel refreshing following the fail of Charlie, but it’s really just Burton superficially and hollowly upping the weirdness by having Depp do off-key musical numbers. Doesn’t anyone remember that Burton’s weirdness used to have weight to it?

But the films look great though, right? Yeah, well, so does that Jennifer Lopez flick The Cell, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in that fan club.

I’d like to propose a theory here: Burton and Depp are ruining each other. They need to stop collaborating, STAT. Looking at their filmographies, I don’t think it’s a stretch to surmise that working with Burton has sent Depp into the deep-end of caricature acting, and Depp’s uncanny ability to disappear into his costume design and accomplish so much without the help of a solid script has fuelled Burton to forgo storytelling for simplistic image making.

When was the last time Depp gave a solid performance playing a real person? Donnie Brasco, an amazing movie, was over ten years ago. I had hopes for last year’s Public Enemies but the film was muddled. You might point out Chocolat, but then I’d have to kill you. Other than that Depp’s been coasting off maybe Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and certainly the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, a very dismal high-concept franchise. Depp’s Jack Sparrow has earned him waves of accolades, but again, don’t you miss him playing three dimensional characters? Because he can do that, too. Really well. More than a decade’s worth of praise for him playing a funny pirate is like appreciating Tommy Lee Jones for that time he got his cackle on as Two-Face in Batman Forever.

Burton’s non-Depp projects aren’t much better. Batman Returns was in 1992. Since then it’s been dreck like Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes. The shining stone in his recent collection is definitely The Nightmare Before Christmas, but his animation follow-ups have been Corpse Bride (as director) and the meandering 9 (as producer). He actually only produced Nightmare, and nowadays I’m more willing to credit it’s greatness to director Henry Selick who previously did James and the Giant Peach and followed up with Coraline, both of which are marvellous and succeed where Burton has repeatedly been failing.

While we’re at it, let’s save Helena Bonham Carter too, who is in danger of succumbing to Depp’s Burton syndrome. No more planets of the big fish ape dead brides! Not for Bonham Carter, please, who can do so much more.

But, of course, I can’t stop the hordes. If you are in fact going to watch Alice in Wonderland this weekend, I hope you have fun. Tell me how it is! If you don’t like it though, can you promise me one thing? Please remember that you didn’t, so that the next time these two talented gents collaborate on a project we can keep our wits about us. And hopefully if we do that enough times they’ll go back to being amazing. Which I still believe they are, somewhere, deep in their black hearts.

(Image via and)

I, like many other Canadians, have somehow allowed this annual food gambling tournament to turn into as much a part of our national pastiche as curling, hockey, skating on frozen rivers and drinking milk from bags. If you ever leave Canada to live in a foreign land, I promise you those are the five things you will miss most.

But first let me provide some context.

Being a former barista and theoretically, a writer by trade, my average coffee consumption hovers somewhere in the range of three cups a day. And when I say “cup,” I don’t mean the kind of cup you get at a fancy restaurant. I mean, at least a 14oz paper container or a giant, steaming, mug. Basically, I am a caffeine addict, as anyone who knows me and has seen me sans coffee for any prolonged period can attest. I turn into a disturbingly aloof sociopath. It’s not pretty. Don’t try to sell me things before 9am.

In terms of brand loyalty, I’d say due to pure availability to taste ratio, I drink Starbucks coffee 75 per cent of the time I purchase a coffee, followed by 20 per cent Tim Hortons and 5 per cent misc.

Overall, purchased coffee represents roughly 60 per cent of my total intake, with the rest being home brew of myriad beans and roasts.

I take my coffee seriously, but I am most definitely not a snob. I’ve tried almost all possible permutations of the black goddess, including a recent sample of Chemex brewed Intelligentsia Rwandan. Black. Beautiful.

Why am I boring you with all this? I just want to provide context for the fact that, when Roll Up The Rim To Win is on, I drink *exclusively* Tim Hortons coffee. I don’t know what the marketing term is for when a campaign works so flawlessly it monopolizes its intended demographic, but whatever it is, it’s me.

I will be standing inside a Starbucks, but instead leave for a Tim Hortons somewhere in the neighbourhood instead if I want a cup of coffee. It’s ridiculous and I cannot control myself from acting otherwise. It may be a sickness, but I know I’m not the only one.

Essentially, Roll Up The Rim To Win is like gambling. You convince yourself if you drink a coffee that’s not from Timmies, it will be the equivalent of the one week you forget to play your lucky numbers in the lotto. That one cup could have been a RAV FUCKING FOUR.

Instead, you spent an extra 30 cents for a Venti Pike Place. How could you forgive yourself?

Adding fuel to the flame is the fact I have actually won an iPod before, and so the deranged part of my brain is convinced I could absolutely win $10,000. Why not me? I’m lucky! I can’t even type Roll Up The Rim To Win without capitalizing every word just like the official name.

I am curious what Timmies sales number are like during this promotion. Roll must be pretty mind boggling since McDonalds is literally giving away free coffee to try and counter it.

Anyways, my name is Simon and I have a problem with Roll up the Rim to Win. I just thought I would share so anybody wondering why I’m jittering at 3am knows what the hell is up.

Final random thoughts on Roll Up The Rim To Win:

• Why are employees ever not more repulsed when handed wrinkly, torn, stained, possibly chewed up winning tabs?
• Did you know you can substitute any hot drink for a winning coffee and any baked good for a winning donut?
• The Country Style equivalent is ludicrously bad. I have won 15 cents off of a coffee before there. Every drink is a winner my bum.
• There is an online version this year.
• If you win the RAV-4 then die in a stuck peddle accident, would it be possible to sue Tim Hortons in addition to Toyota?
• This table of cups consumed per geographic area and accompanying winning prize distribution is, to me, fascinating.
• I am not sure why, but I am convinced there are better odds of winning with large cups than any other size.
• I have thought and written way too much about this.
• I’m going to make you read the words Roll Up The Rim To Win one more time because I hate you.

Miles put it best: “Still hot though.”

Knowing that the ingredients for a good LOST episode is a healthy mix of “!!” and “??” Jef and Anupa will be interrobanging the show’s final season every week. As LOST winds down to its conclusion, can its creators dish out all the needed explanations without resorting to exposition? Can they keep up the mystery without succumbing to just more mindfuckery? In “Sundown” we begin with a fight and are set up for a fight, while being reminded along the way that some characters we haven’t seen in a while could definitely still get it. SPOILERS after the jump:

Jef: Wow okay this one is hard to start because I want so bad to start at the end

Anupa: We could if you want

Let’s be non-linear, LIKE LOST

Jef: No I think it’s just because I just finished watching

Well let’s just start with Sayid in general

Do you love this transformation?

Anupa: no

Jef: DO TELL

Anupa: are they making a terrorist analogy?

Jef: Oh. Haha no I don’t think so. I think he’s been fleshed out enough but break it down for me.

Anupa: I’m being simplistic. Just the way he, like, infiltrated and then fucked them up.

It was also written very confusingly: like first he was leaving, then Dogen wanted him back, then he left, then he came back, then he stayed but was going to leave anyway.

I mean, I guess that was done to add to the confusion about whether Sayid is “good” or “bad” and set up the twist at the end, but it left me kind of frustrated.

Also, it was a little TOO much Sayid (I can’t believe I’m saying that)

Jef: Well yeah but therein lies the transformation—the Sayid we saw at the beginning of the episode is not necessarily the same Sayid that we saw at the end.

I kind of loved how seamless they did that whole poison/corruption of his character. I always thought it was like this virus or brainwashy thing, but it was organic enough — rooted in actual events — that it was real even though it was startling.

As for the terrorist stuff—it’s a judgment call on your end I guess. I mean, he’s an Iraqi torturer. That’s been his character and his struggle since we met him.

If it didn’t bother you then, I don’t see why it should now.

Anupa: It’s true. Like I said, I was being simplistic.

But what events do you mean?

Jef: He was being dicked around by Dogen. Smokey gave a hell of a convincing speech. I could see even a character who wasn’t corrupted making the same choices, you know?

The big OH SHIT HE’S EVIL moment comes from Ben when he does the bug-eyed slow retreat, which was AWESOME.

Anupa: Okay, right. So basically him being determined “bad” meant he would always make that choice.

I could see someone like Jack not doing that.

It’s almost like being good and bad is innate.

Jef: Yeah, Jack’s always been trusting to a fault, whereas Sayid’s kind of a paranoid loner.

It was kind of tragic that in paralello-verse Sayid is the one character we’ve seen so far who doesn’t find redemption.

He still kills. He gets to see Nadia but she’s not with him.

Anupa: What’d you make of that? For a second I thought it would be Shannon or someone when the door opened at the beginning, but of course it was Nadia.

Then “Uncle Sayid!”

Jef: It hurt to watch in a way. But it was awesome character-wise and certainly upped the stakes for Universe Two. It doesn’t feel safe there anymore.

It’s like his corruption bleeds over into the new reality and it’s the first bad thing we’ve seen blur over like that.

Anupa: Right. It’s continuity in a way.

I did find that whole Mainlandverse storyline a little humdrum.

I read a great re-cap today on Vulture and the blogger was saying it felt like Nadia fanfic

LOL

All dramatic and filled with longing and pushing and pulling between the two.

Jef: Ha VERY. The whole money-owing plot is mad cliched too.

But I loved the appearance by Martin Keamy, who is a fantastic thug as far as thug characters go.

Something about his asshole face.

I had a lot of fun seeing him back!

Anupa: He’s a hot thug!

Although he looked better with his head shaved and his muscles rippling.

Yum.

I loved how eccentric they make him. Let’s give it up for eccentric bad guys:

“Want some eggs? I make good eggs.”

Jef: HAHA I was just typing that.

And it’s great how he eats the eggs, shovelling them into his asshole mouth.

Anupa: I would’ve said “yes I would like some eggs”

and then he would’ve asked me how I like my eggs

Jef: I am dreading the punchline

Anupa: and I would’ve said “FERTILIZED”

Jef: ZING THERE IT IS

Anupa: shaddap

also, can I point out:

(and I’m not Iraqi so I have no real context)

but Nadia’s accent feels excruciating to listen to

I always hear it in my head and it makes me cringe

Jef: You are bothered by so many accents! What accents do you like?

I fall in love with Irish women off voice only.

Anupa: I like men’s Australian accents

Jef: Haha just not Claire’s.

Sun and Jin?

Anupa: Listen, Jin gets a major pass

that guy is FINE AS FUCK

He has this sexy deep voice too.

Annnnnnyway

Jef: Haha,well that is a good segue

Because after the eggs and the Sayid and the shooting we find Jin in the freezer.

Reality 2 is getting gangster.

Anupa: Yeah that was cool.

I am so curious as to how this will all tie together. OR NOT, in the case of Lost.

Jef: I am wondering if it will all lead back again to Widmore, and of course Desmond, because we met him already, and ultimately Faraday

Who will be the one to explain everything and/or join the universes.

Anupa: At the very least, he’d be the best equipped to do so.

Let’s head back to the Island since not much else happened IRL

Jef: Yeah OK actually back to the opening scene

LOL what did you think of the kung-fu fight between Dogen and Sayid?

Anupa: HAHA

Well my first thought, because I always think about these things, is WHY was he being so damn meticulous about his plants in the first episode if he was so willing to let them get jacked up in that fight?

THE BONSAI!

Jef: It was all a part of his mysterious Asian act?

Anupa: but it was a pretty awesome fight sequence—I feel like we haven’t seen once of those in a while

Jef: Do you think the mysterious Asian act was Dogen’s idea? Or was Jacob like “LOL okay so you’ll wear your hair like this, and you’ll have BONSAI PLANTS!”

Anupa: LOL. He’s just culturally ASIAN!

If he was Indian, he’d have a mustache and spend his time watching old Bollywood movies

Jef: And he’d have a dance with Sayid, not a fight.

But yeah I did think the fight was fun

Anupa: DAMN YOU!

Jef: Sayid was doing all this Jackie Chan shit, throwing the props around!

Anupa: What did you make of the baseball?

Wasn’t a baseball one of the things that Richard brought when he tested young John Locke seasons ago?

Jef: YES I THINK SO

Which stands to reason Dogen picked the baseball

When he was a little tyke.

No yeah, I dunno. The baseball thing kind of missed me but mostly because I still don’t care about Dogen.

Anupa: Well we don’t really have to worry about that anymore.

Jef: It’s just way too late to try and introduce new characters. I’m glad he’s done with.

Anupa: Yeah, I feel like that was a huge fuck up on the part of the writers

It’s cool if they wanted to make them all plot device-y, but they shouldn’t have been so 3D.

Jef: Definitely. That’s kind of why I’m cool with Ilana, because they’re not really asking me to care about her. Dogen died in the Lazarus pit though. You don’t think he might return?

Anupa: I realllllly hope not.

Jef: At the very least I hope Dogen dead gives Miles something to do.

Anupa: haha, yeah, aside from playing Solitaire and saying crazy Claire is hot

You should’ve put him as your Facebook picture for Doppelganger week.

Jef: Aha that was an awesome Miles moment though, him checking out Kate like “Wow” and Claire being “still hot though.” I forgot Miles was all lecherous.

Anupa: It’s really funny how Claire is fucking batshit one minute and then super normal the next.

Jef: I really like the new Claire, and I’m not just saying that for sex reasons. I LOVED that stank face she gave Kate when she was in the pit and Kate told her about Aaron.

That’s totally how I look at Kate all the time.

Anupa: It was kind of weird though, because earlier she had said she would kill Kate if she had taken Aaron, and then Kate confessed and Claire was all giggly and shit.

EMPTY THREATS

Jef: Ha don’t worry though. Kate is far from safe.

Anupa: As evidenced by that WTF look on her face at the end

Jef: I think it woulda been a great moment if at the posse shot at the end Sawyer was there with the whole crew.

I’m sure the writers have better plans, but that would have been a good “oh shit” moment for Kate.

Anupa: Where is he again?

Jef: We don’t know. Last we saw, he agreed to leave the island with Smokey.

So the only ones who are currently WITH Jacob are Jack and Hurley, right?

Smokey is WINNING.

Anupa: Yup.

But again,we have no idea if he’s good or bad.

Jef: You know what though? I’m comfortable now saying that he’s the bad guy.

Anupa: You’re right. They’re setting him up as the bad guy, why not believe it?

Maybe the bad guy wins.

Jef: Not that he IS Satan, but the writers are totally giving him Satan traits. He shape shifts, the cloud is snake-like, and he keeps luring everyone in by promising them free will and independence and shit.

Anupa: Don’t forget he encourages peopl eto do bad shit

Jef: That darn Satan!

Oh and yeah the “Evil Incarnate” thing.

Dude, how do you feel about Ben?

Do you think his story is essentially over?

Anupa: I think he’s essential to the story

But I think he’s just along for the ride now

I don’t think he’ll influence things

Jef: Yeah I hope he plays a bigger part later. He’s too good of a character.

Anupa: That scene you mentioned earlier with him backing off all scared and shit from Sayid: that was a great 30 seconds of acting.

Jef: SO GOOD.

Not too many actors can sell the bug-eyed slow retreat.

Anupa: I love slow retreats. Usually they’re hilarious. But this one was real.

Jef: Dude I’m totally going to do one for you IRL. I will bide my time for the appropriate moment.

Anupa: I might pee my pants. You can’t do it if we’re drinking.

Jef: Oh that’s so when it’s going to happen though!

LOL but guy, talk to me:

Aside from being bored by the money-owing subplot, I clearly loved this episode off.

Tell me more about why you didn’t

Anupa: I’ve been thinking about that but I can’t really put my finger on it.

It was clearly a plot advancing episode, with not much new revealed (aside from the big twist) and nothing really answered.

So, I guess I feel in the middle about it—it just didn’t do much for me.

And usually there’s enough going on in both storylines to be engaging but maybe the off-island plot put a damper on things.

Jef: In general, are you a Sayid fan?

Anupa: I dig Sayid, I usually really like his episodes.

He’s layered

Maybe this episode revealed that he’s actually not

His life revolves around two things: Nadia and killing

There is no redemption there

Maybe that’s why he’s bad

Jef: Are you going to hate this show if it ultimately ends up on some fate shit?

Like it really is about this higher power pushing people around on a chess board and there’s nothing they can do about it?

Too soon?

Anupa: No I don’t think so. I’m personally invested in the way it’s carried out, not the final outcome.

I’m pretty fatalistic actually so that’s right in line with my personal beliefs in a way

Jef: LOL

I’m not sure how to end this after THAT.

Anupa: Did you feel this episode was well-written?

Could it have been executed better?

Jef: Aside from some of the Sayid universe 2 plot yeah I liked it.

Great dialogue bits, humour, was able to sneak in really good but short bits for characters that normally don’t register—even Dogen!—and it pushed the plot along in a faster pace than we’ve seen yet in this season.

It’s the first episode where I felt like I was on a ride.

Anupa: I normally trust your opinion, so maybe I’m just way off in my assessment of this episode.

Jef: Well we both agree the side-story was a bit off. You probably just felt it a lot more than I did.

Anupa: I am a lady.

Jef: And I was too busy being happy that Universe Two is no longer this safe happy zone to be angry about how it got there.

This has been am oddly heavy conversation.

I have no jokes to end it.

Anupa: Neither do I.

I give it a .

Jef: LOL

(INSERT: POSSE SHOT)

Leonardo DiCaprio channels ghosts of Hitchcock past in "Shutter Island"

To all of you criticizing Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island because you could see the “twist” ending an hour away: YOU NEED TO RELAX. The reason you saw the surprise coming was because it was hardly the film’s raison d’être. i.e. It wasn’t a surprise, Sherlock. This ain’t no post-The Sixth Sense bait-and-switch Shyamalan screw job. Part of the joy of Scorsese’s latest flick is figuring shit out way before Leonardo DiCaprio’s hard-boiled marshall Teddy Daniels does, and then watching him flounder around in a sad display of confidence and misplaced chutzpah.

Why else would Scorsese send Daniels feverishly up a squeaky spiral staircase in an homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo? Like James Stewart’s doomed lover boy character Scottie, Daniels’s grip on things is furious but tenuous. The more he learns the less he knows. We watch him play detective and work his way up a symbol of enlightenment, a church in Vertigo, a lighthouse in Shutter Island — but by then we fully know he’s more in the dark than he cares to see. Scorsese, the tricksy imp, hasn’t hidden anything from us. We don’t just see the ball under the magician’s cup, we see the cup disappear and re-appear. And by the end he’s not even being coy anymore; he’s dazzling you with everything he has in his bag. He doesn’t care what you do or don’t know, the point is he’s got some shit he wants to show you.

Shutter Island is Scorsese doing what he doesn’t do very often: geeking out. Hitchcock isn’t the only reference to be enjoyed in this noir-ish pulpy genre-fest. The film’s marketing sold Daniels’s investigation of the breakout of Shutter Island’s most dangerous mental patient as a horror flick; one can see why — it’s the easiest angle and Scorsese spends a good deal of time crafting horror movie money shots — but there’s more to it than that. Mood is important here. It’s suffocating. It’s ALL mood. The biggest bait in the movie is that you expect it to be all plot — clues and conspiracies and tight character beats — but with the characters being more ciphers than anything the film floats on its sensualist waves. Memories are more important to Shutter Island than mind games. And what is memory anyway but the ultimate mind game?

The heart of the film is hidden beneath a layer of artifice that likely will alienate some viewers. It begins on a boat with a backdrop water effect (Hitchcock fans might get a stiff one), DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo deliver lines like they drew a “Boston accent” card in an improv class, and Sir Ben Kingsley might as well be petting a black cat, evil and ominous as he is. The film’s hokeyness works though, in all the ways it is supposed to. It’s all brought to a head by DiCaprio’s final line, which unlike the “twist” is the film’s ultimate talking-point. The line haunts in a subtle way, its implications greater and more unsettling than all of the smoke and mirrors that preceded it.

Shutter Island doesn’t do anything new, but it does things I ADORE about movies in general, and this time done by Scorsese. Which is exactly all I was looking for. Call me crazy.

When it comes to hockey my friend is what you would call intensely devoted to a point where you fear for your own safety. Which explains why when he woke me up last Sunday morning to go downtown Toronto and meet him to line up for a bar, before noon, so that I could pay a $10 cover charge to wait for more than three hours for the Canada / U.S.A game to start, I did (with only minor hesitations). As crazy as I thought he was, and as much as I made fun of him for it, this was no joke. The doors opened at 11:30 and I needed to be there to help secure a table for the day. My friend posed it as a question, but it was definitely leaning more towards one of those ’shit I better do this cus if this guy misses out on the game because of me I might not wake up tomorrow’ things. Thing is, I don’t think he is alone in his temporary loss of sanity when it comes to team Canada hockey. Actually, I know he isn’t – the non-stop, all day 45 people deep line that wrapped around the bar could attest to that.

One couple, shockingly, said they travelled from Vancouver to watch the game at this very bar, which, by the way, happens to be eponymous with the greatest hockey player to ever play it, number 99 himself. Gretzky wasn’t at his bar, of course, because he was in Vancouver, where the actual game was. These Vancouverites were, however, which could mean one of two things: either they are pathological liars; or this couple is the perfect synecdoche for how crazy hockey makes an entire nation of otherwise “polite, nice” people. And if it’s that important to watch a big hockey game at a bar named after a big hockey player, then who am I to question it?

No sooner than 12:30 pm and a group of about 20 people inside Gretzky’s start chanting “Ca-na-da, Ca-na-da,” for no reason really. The game isn’t on for almost three hours, and as far as I can see no camera crews have shown up yet. The last time I saw a similar scene was when I was walking by Much Music, but instead of a large group of intoxicated 30-year old men dressed in red and white, it was a gaggle of giddy ‘tween girls in skinny jeans, and they weren’t cheering for team Canada either. It was the Jonas Brothers.

At 1:15 the crowd, which had now been consuming beer on mass for the last hour, started singing “Oh Canada” for the first time of the day, but definitely not the last. At 2:27 the second one kicked in, which also blended into the third, fourth and fifth, competing with several “Go Canada Go” chants. Just to remind you, not only had the game not even started, it hadn’t even been mentioned on the TV. Yet here we were, a group of mostly male adults, chanting for our country’s hockey team even though most of the international media painted us out to be unpatriotic and insipid. And I think we are, or at least, we appear to be, on the outside. On the inside, and inside a safe haven like Gretzky’s, we are as unabashedly and annoyingly patriotic as even the staunchest U.S. supporter, and not one of us feels any shame for it.

The game coverage finally started at 3:00, and by this point the line up outside was only slightly shorter, the doormen letting one person in for every person that left, even though it should be noted that no one had any intentions of leaving.

In fact, the line up continued to grow and stretch around the block, making it clear that the next best thing to watching the game in person was to flock to a sports pub in the tourist district of Canada’s largest city that is identical to Jack Astor’s or East Side Mario’s, except for the fact that it doesn’t have free salad, buttery good bread loaves, and there is hockey paraphernalia locked behind glass. As silly as it seems now, at the time it felt like my patriotic duty, like if I wasn’t there at that exact place, at that exact time, Canada might have lost to the Americans, thus stopping the spin of the globe and life as we know it for the next four years until we had a chance for redemption at the 2014 Games.

When footage of both teams walking from their buses to the dressing room came on the few dozen or so screens, you couldn’t help but notice the American’s poofy silver jackets. This is unlikely the reason why the crowd at Gretzky’s booed, but when the footage switched to the Canadian team, everyone went insane. Some had been waiting for six hours, drinking copiously in that amount of time, and this was the closest yet to the game starting.

When the team finally took to the ice at 3:15 the bar gave them a standing ovation. One guy actually yelled, “cheer like they can hear us from here,” which is of course impossible, geographically, and which of course everyone did. So did I, to tell you the truth. In instances like this, it feels as if you are performing your civic duty by yelling incoherently at the top of your lungs for your country. If you didn’t, not only was this a spot where you would look completely out of place (perhaps similar to Stephen Harper standing beside the real Gretzky at the game, and no one wants to be compared to that), but it would just be bad luck.

Even Jack Layton took this opportunity to show his patriotism that was surely a win-win situation for any politician – cheering for team Canada at a bar, rather than the VIP section of the Olympics. Ever the opportunist, Layton got so into the spirit that he situated himself right in front of the CTV cameras, front and centre for every goal celebration. One of the clips even show Layton trying relentlessly to push his way into the view of the camera, but when that fails, he simply grabs a girls arm who is in front of him, gently moves it down so that it is no longer blocking his face from TV viewers at home, looks at the camera and mugs. Nice and humble my ass. Canadians wanted this medal just like Layton wants to be Prime Minister, and none of us were afraid to show it.

When Toews scored the first goal of the game off a rebound from Richards, the place erupted in double high fives, chest bumps and cheers. Goal two. Perry scores, and I forgot all other inhibitions and start double high fiving anybody who wanted it.  If a hand was raised I was slapping it. I remember an old man with a big rotten bandage on his thumb looked at me, arm in the air, dirty bandage dangling, and I slapped the shit out of it. Hepatitis be damned, Canada was going to win the gold.

Words can’t describe the atmosphere when with just 20 seconds left in the game, the Americans tied it up, sending us to overtime. I was taking celebration pictures at the time and when I kept shooting after that goal, a very somber guy in a Canada jersey came up to me and said with the utmost sincerity, “Just stop taking pictures man.” I thought he was going to cry.

Contrast that to the final result, a goal by Canada’s next “Great One,” Sid Crosby. The ebullient crowd flooded out into the streets, people jumped on taxis and broke windshields, flags waved, a fire truck drove by and a group of us jumped on as it drove around the downtown core, following the wave-like energy of the crowd that was pulling everyone to Yonge and Dundas Square. That intersection was literally a mosh pit, just with less music and more crowd surfing. People were playing road hockey, faces were being painted, flag wavers had climbed on top of traffic lights over what would otherwise be one of Canada’s busiest intersections.

When I saw a police officer help one of the flag wavers down from the light, then simply pat him on the back and tell him to be careful, I knew this was something different than any other Olympic win this year. This was (men’s) hockey. When other countries try to sum us up as hockey loving simpletons, it comes off as an insulting stereotype. But when we behave like hockey loving simpletons on a day like that, it transcends any notion that other nations may have of us. Truth is, when it comes to hockey in Canada, both the players and the fans become more than just nice, diplomatic and polite. We leave all that in the dressing room and become just like my very serious friend – someone you don’t want to fuck with on game day.

Five episodes in, I can’t help but notice that every episode of Caprica starts with a recap of all the plot points that will be addressed in the upcoming hour. This is important to note, because I think the show realizes without these little summaries, people would quite easily lose track of what’s going on.

Let me reiterate: these recaps are not of what has been going on in the show as a whole. The show has SO MUCH SHIT going on, that it takes nearly 2 minutes just to recap which of the many, many, many plot points we are going to dive into in this particular episode.

Some might hate this, some might love it. Me? I applaud the effort, despite being somewhat skeptical of the result.

More thoughts (with spoilers) after the jump.

Fresh on the heels of last week’s spontaneous bombshell that Greystone Inc. is going to jettison it’s primary resource stream — holobands — in favour of a charitable trust fund, it’s no surprise Daniel’s board members are eager to dump him just as fast.

We finally find out where all this is going this week, as Daniel basically redirects his company from the holoband business headfirst into becoming Cylon Inc., painting the sentient robots as a world changing invention (the viewer knowledge of how prescient he is makes the scenes all the more interesting).

Adding to that emotional tone is the visual of Zoebot jumping between her human self and Cylon body as Daniel asks her to rip her arm off in front of the board. Throughout BSG, although they were clearly intelligent I don’t think viewers were ever led to think of the Toaster-type Cylons as anything remotely approaching human. The idea that they might have all been emoting individuals with personalities frankly puts an interesting spin on BSG canon, but I suppose that remains to be seen.

Most of this episode is spent on the Adama’s though, who have been going through tough times of their own. Joseph is still not over the loss of his wife and daughter, which clearly has affected his role as a father to Bill. As we’ve seen in recent episodes, Willie has been spending more time with Sam as a result, seeking the attention and paternal guidance he’s not getting from home. This comes to a boil this episode as Joseph finally attempts to get his act together only to find out Willie has zero intention of respecting or obeying him anymore — he’s lost his authority as a father, and it’s not going to return easily.

Meanwhile, Avatar-Tamara is running around virtual world trying desperately to get out. She enlists the help of some pseudo-hacker online badasses who vaguely remind me of Will Wheaton’s World of Warcraft clan from The Guild. But less funny.

This is only exacerbated by the fact they then enlist Tamara to help them complete a quest in “New Cap City,” a virtual and lawless replica of Caprica that seems part Grand Theft Auto, part Everquest and part Blade Runner. The deal is, if Tamara helps them steal some gold or something, they will help her “wake up,” and get out of v-world.

This whole storyline seemed kind of silly to me, up to the point where after completing her task Tamara is told nobody can wake her up — her virtual compadres have done some research and, surprise! — they inform Tamara she’s dead, listed among the victims of the maglev train bombing.

Tamara takes the news surprisingly well and basically goes all Neo-in-the-Matrix on their asses. In virtual world, where everyone wakes up when they die (essentially, it’s a game where you only get one life), she is a goddess since she has no physical body to wake up to.

By being a program herself, she clearly has some sort of super powers in coded  v-world and basically ends the episode by sending a dude to find her father IRL, informing him she’s going to be waiting for him in New Cap City, all badass in high heels, popping dudes with her semi-automatic handguns and shit. Whaaaat?

Meanwhile, the kid she sends (who reminds me of what Justin Beiber may be in 10 years) happens to relay his message to Joseph…. oooohh, about 30 seconds after he has some Tauran funeral to finally say goodbye to his dead family for closure. He literally has to say “Goodbye Tamara,” as part of the ceremony. Great pacing since you know that Tamara is going to be in touch any. second. now.

I’m not going to lie, I had no idea Caprica was going to delve so deeply into this MMORPG, what-is-a-human type of existential stuff. I suppose part of me assumed that the reason for a BSG prequel spinoff was going to be simply to explain all the backstory for BSG.

What I’m slowly realizing though is that Caprica is really trying to be a completely different show, just using some BSG lore for interesting pillars of storytelling. I mean, despite all this Cylon business, really that was only what? Five whole minutes of this episode. It’s not fully there yet, but once I make that disconnect I think I’m going to appreciate this show even more than I currently do, accepting it as a separate entity.

Some people are calling this one of the better shows on tv. I don’t think it’s quite there yet, but it certainly has the ambition and potential to be. If you’re willing to sit through the build up for what might be a great, great blossoming, then now is certainly the time to hope on this train.