Review: "Marie Antoinette"

The key to understanding Marie Antoinette, in my opinion, is its anachronistically modern flavour. I quite enjoyed it. A few years ago I was writing a murder mystery set in the late 19th Century. I needed to do research on the period, and so I turned to the short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. To my surprise, I found that there was very little description of the things I was interested in: hansom cabs, trains and subways, the nature of indoor lighting and plumbing, etc.

Essay: "You are a hiptser"

When I first became aware of the term "hipster" I was not aware that it was an insult. I had a friend who lived downtown, listened to Indie music, and only drank microbrewed beers. I told him casually that he was a hipster and he strenuously denied it.  That's how I learned that the word "hipster" is a term of contempt - because no one will admit to being one.

Essay: "The Purifying Effect of Power"

It's hard to remember now, but not so long ago the biggest impediment to the old Reform party taking power was that someone in their party would say something stupid.  The Reform (or the Conservative Party, after the merger) would be riding high for a while, and then the Honourable Member from Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump or somewhere equally remote would pipe up about how he didn't believe in evolution, or some ghastly personal opinion about immigrants or homosexuals, and then the Liberals would coast to another majority.

Essay: "The Tyranny of Memory"

I have something to confess; I do not particularly like to travel. I mean, of course I like to travel.  I’ve been to China, Uganda, Morocco, and all over Europe. But I seem to like it less than most people.

Essay: "The Modern Professional Class"

I saw the movie “Margin Call” recently and I thought that it was very good.  The cast was strong (Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany) and the story did a good job of encapsulating the financial crisis without a) being confusing; or b) excessive exposition.  But more than that, it seemed to capture some part of the essence of the modern professional class, of which I was a humble member for a number of years. 

Essay: "Stand By Your Phone"

Faithful readers will recall that I recently wrote that I needed a new telephone.  Specifically, I acknowledged that I should probably get an iPhone but admitted that I was not sure that I could bring myself to so.  Well, I finally got my new phone last week.  After briefly considering all of the four major smart phone options (Windows, Blackberry, Android and Apple) I eventually settled on the Nokia Lumia 900, running Windows 7.5.  The main reason for my decision was that the Windows Phone was the only one I had no experience with, and I was curious to give it a try.

Essay: "Regrets"

The greatest disservice done to our generation was that we were told we should do what we were “passionate” about. It’s not our parents fault; they were trying to be nice. They may also have been trying to make up for the mistakes of their parents, or the regrets of their own lives.

Review: "The Grey"

Picture a movie where members of a group of characters are picked off one by one. You already know how it will go, don’t you? The viewers will grow to identify with one or more characters, and those ones will probably make it through the movie. Surely, in any case, they won't all die. That’s just depressing, and people don’t like depressing movies, so they don't often get made.

Essay: "The Difference Between Being Addictive and Good"

When people talk about the quality of a work of narrative art (whether a book, a show, a film or a video game) they often talk about how addictive or compulsive it is. I played it for 8 hours straight, they’ll say, or we watched a whole season over the weekend, or I couldn’t put it down. The recently released Diablo 3 has been called “the most addictive video game of all time.” This is meant as praise, I suppose, although it’s interesting that “addictive” is obviously not seen as being an attractive quality in most other circumstances.

Likewise, when people criticize a work of art, they often talk about how it lacked this quality, how it was boring or tedious. World-weary reviewers take pride in saying they found The Da Vinci Code dreadfully boring, that they were immune to its charms.  In other words, that it did not work on them.

There seem to be remarkably few people who believe that a work of art can be both addictive and dreadful, but that’s what I’ve come to believe.  Works of art aren’t addictive because they’re very good. They're addictive becasue they're designed to be that way.

Essay: "Avon contra Stringer - Part Two"

Last week we discussed Proposition Joe's arrangement with Marlo, where Marlo provided muscle and Joe hooked him up with good drugs.  Now just think, in the context of organized crime, how ridiculous that is.  What would be Joe's recourse if Marlo refused?  A lawsuit?  If you rely on the other guy for the muscle, then you will only have the “connect” as long as he lets you keep it.

Essay: "Avon contra Stinger - Part One"

Spoiler alert! The Wire is the best show ever and this blog post assumes you’ve watched all five season.

When you rewatch great television, what was unpredictable seems inevitable. That’s the hindsight bias. When try to predict the future, we’re bombarded with information, some of it pointing one direction, some in others. When we look back and try to explain the past, the information that pointed towards what actually happened looms very large. That’s why we’re so good at forgetting how bad we are at making predictions.

Review: "Harakiri"

As you probably know, harakiri (or seppuku) is a gruesome form of ritual suicide. It was practiced by the samurai in Japan and was perceived as an honorable death, preferable to being executed, or continuing to live in dishonor. The samurai would sit down, cross-legged, and disembowel himself with a knife or his short sword (his wakisashi). Another samurai (the second) decapitates him with a katana (the long sword of a samurai) once the messier work is done.

Essay: "Why Pay for Art?"

Do you remember those stupid anti-piracy ads they used to run before movies? There was this one with a guy who supposedly painted sets, talking about how piracy personally hurt him. I remembered snickering: yeah, that’s what happens when a movie flops – they stop painting the sets.

The older I get, and the more I learn, the more I think that there isn’t really any good rationale for paying for art at all.

Essay: "Batman, Broken Windows, and the Uncanny Valley: Part Two"

Tim Burton is attracted to weirdos and outsiders and so his explanation for Batman’s war on crime is very simple: Bruce Wayne was a little nuts. Keaton’s Wayne is reclusive and eccentric. He has trouble interacting with people and comes off strangely in ordinary social situations. Only in his hideout (the Batcave) is he relaxed and calm, in control and confident. For him, dressing up as Batman satisfies a deep need, or compulsion. Although it’s not sexual, I would say it’s almost like a fetish. Batman is who he really is.

Essay: "Batman, Broken Windows, and the Uncanny Valley: Part One"

I saw Tim Burton’s Batman in theatres when it came out. I was nine years old and it blew my mind. But at that age, the Adam West Batman television show also blew my mind, and so I have learned to take my youthful assessments of artistic representations of the Caped Crusader with a grain of salt. I recently re-watched Batman for the first time since the Chris Nolan movies came out. I think the general consensus on the Internet is that the Nolan movies are much better than Burton’s but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has held up very well.

Essay: "Haters Gonna Hate"

You know which phone first had iTunes? The Motorola Rokr. I have been the proud owner of this phone since around 2006. It was not great back then, and like most mobile phones, it did not exactly age like a fine wine. And so although I’ve got a Blackberry through my work, it’s time for a new phone, probably.