blogovich

Human progress: Movie remakes (promoting TRAILERS!!??) and music reissues

First we had people playing music live. Then they recorded themselves. So we had vinyl records. 78s, 45s, 33 1/3rds. I remember ‘em all, though the 78s only because my grand ol’ dad had ‘em. Red vinyl, if I recall. 45s and 33 1/3rds I owned myself.

Then we had tapes, 8-track and cassette. Hated ‘em. Couldn’t skip lousy tracks. Or, at least, it was harder to than picking up the needle and setting it down again. Then we had, and still have (vinyl, too, I know), CDs. And now, killing all of that (sadly), iPods and such where one never, by choice I guess, never truly discovers the treasures of a full album.

Anyway, CDs brought us to the point where, because our vinyl records were scratched, we had to re-buy them on CD.

Then came the remastered versions of those same CDs.

Then came the re-re-mastered versions of those same CDs with bonus tracks and original artwork.

Then came digi-packs (you know, the cardboard kinda things, like they used to sell vinyl records in, only with vinyl, the packaging by necessity was bigger and you could actually read read the liner notes. That said, as I’ve gotten older, I care less and less about the liner notes because it’s all about the music, right?)

But we digress. Again. So you have the digi-packs, which because of their cardboard construction can be jammed together tighter, like old LP covers (that’s vinyl album covers for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about) so you can fit more in your CD rack than you can with a jewel case, which tend to also break their teeth which causes you to have to go to the CD store to keep buying replacement jewel cases.

Where were we? Right. They have us re-buying everything we already own. Like anniversary editions of our favourite albums. For instance, the expanded 25th anniversary of REM’s Murmur just came out. Not that I’m a huge REM fan, I like ‘em enough but the point is -- one, egad, 25 years already since Murmur --  that here’s yet another “gotta have it” anniversary edition (sorry, no, don't even have the original) with an extra disc and a few, probably, extra guitar licks you’ll listen to once like on all those Hendrix remasters you’ve already been sucked into buying and you’re done with it.

Music is not the only culprit. In the movie world, movies come out. They are reviewed by critics. They do well, or they tank. Then they come out, sooner (most likely) or later on DVD. They get reviewed AGAIN by the same critics and are criticized if they don’t have enough “extras” which everyone might, might, watch once because (usually) they’re five times longer than the actual original flick and who has the time?

Yet people buy them. Again and again. I know this because I see the full racks in the used CD/DVD stores. Hey, I’ve been guilty, usually in the CD realm, once or twice.

So the point of all this? Not sure there’s much point, except that what got me going on all this is I saw an ad in the paper the other day for the remake movie of When The Earth Stood Still, which is getting lousy reviews by the way but that’s not the point. The point is, within those ads you see this: A promo for “the only place you’ll see the world premiere of the trailer for (THE TRAILER! MY EMPHASIS) X-Men Wolverine”.

So, they’re using one crapola movie to sell the TRAILER of another movie in an endless series based on a comic book (because Hollywood is bereft of ideas). Not sure if this is the first time a full-length movie has been used as a selling point for a TRAILER of another, but first I’ve noticed (I’m not all that much of a movie buff). 

CA-RAZY.

So now we have: reissues of reisssues of reissues of CDs . . . all remastered in 20-bit, then 24-bit, then who-knows-how-many-bit, whatever that means, of course. And we have movie critics re-reviewing movies on DVD movies everyone has already seen. And we have movies serving as loss-leaders for the sale of other movies’ TRAILERS.

Ah, how humanity has progressed.

More expressions that drive people nuts

From Eric Boyd in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada:

"Here's two that really get my goat:

1 - 'it's a privilege, not a right' and

2 - 'it's the right thing to do'

Drive me up a wall every time..."

Another, which I've (Blogovich) commented on in the past: Back in the day.

What day, praytell? Completely idiotic.

And, of course, "at the end of the day".

Politicians "throwing their hats into the ring". Yeah, they all form a circle and toss 'em . . . if they actually wear hats and we're not talking backwards ball caps. Yeah, we know the expression stems from old time boxing where guys would actually toss their hats (many wore things like fedoras or top hats then) into the ring as a challenge to fight. But nowadays? C'mon. Ridiculous, cliched expression.

Boring Bills, NFL game in Toronto: Aren't they all when you're talking football?

I had to smirk, reading the reviews of the Buffalo Bills’ regular-season NFL game in Toronto against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

As usual, based on many previous such pre-season game reports when the NFL came to Canada, many (not all) of the same folks who hyped the game were left to observe -- while waving the Canadian football flag -- that it was a dud, it was slow, it was boring, how the hype (that everyone, unless they’re a liar, is susceptible to) of an NFL game didn’t match the product.

Etcetera.

Rarely does, folks. Haven’t you grasped that yet? First off, let’s be honest. Football, any brand, is a TV game best viewed on the tube and this is coming from someone who played and loves the game. But a bad football game is easily the worst of any bad game among any of the other major North American spectator sports. At least in basketball and hockey there is constant motion and we expect baseball to be boring, relatively speaking. The fact most of the (mental) action in baseball occurs when there is no physical action is exactly the point of it all.

The bad game syndrome is particularly true of football, whose small field (particularly the American field) perfectly fits the TV screen. When you actually go to a game, the emperor is often revealed as having no clothes. It simply can’t live up to the mythology created through such vehicles as NFL Films, “the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field” in Green Bay, and on and on. Too much down time. 45 seconds between plays in the NFL. Endless commercial timeouts -- “here’s the kickoff. Touchback. Back in a moment.” Cue the “this is a momentous occasion” music as we go to break.

And we haven’t even yet mentioned the interminable delays caused by replay challenges and the endless analysis that goes with each challenge. Here goes . . . 

Typical conversation:

Commentator A: I don’t know that his knee wasn’t down. (they always employ, you notice, the most words possible, this sort of double-negative-positive or however one would term the language mangling . . . instead of just saying “his knee was down.”)

Commentator B: Yeah. Oh, but look at this angle. Let me tell ya, if they’re looking at this angle, that call is reversed. I don’t know that his knee was down. Or was it? Oh, now wait . . .

Commentator A: Let’s not forget the call on the field. It has to be CONCLUSIVE evidence to overturn. 

Commenators A and B: It’s important that we get the right call. That’s why we have instant replay. 

Blogovich: Emphasis on “instant.” Har. Har.

Fans in the stadium: Gone for a few more beers.

Fans at home: Dozed off. Will settle for the sports show replays later. Finally decided that actually watching a sports event on TV is far too much of a time investment for something so ultimately insignificant.

Studies show that just 11 minutes of a so-called 60 minute football game -- that takes more than three hours of real time to play -- contains actual athletic action. Unless it’s the playoffs, why bother? At least if you’re watching on TV you can do something else as you watch, use the TV as a sort of radio and so on.

Admit it. You’ve been to pro football games and been bored stiff. Unless you were too loaded to care or be able to form coherent thought.

Look. The NFL is all about tailgating, the so-called experience and so on. And of course in Canada the post-game reports lament how the tailgating had no atmosphere due to our liquor laws and such.

So what? Go to the U.S., then. Any game where what surrounds the game is usually better than the game itself can’t be much of a game, can it?

It reminds me of what a critic (not me, I like some of their stuff) once said about the Grateful Dead and Deadheads, the band’s amazingly loyal fans. Once people recovered from being stoned while watching/listening to the Dead, they realized what a crapola band they were.

Expressions I want to see die

Can we please get rid of the following idiotic expressions?

Elephant in the room.

500-pound gorilla (this one is used by folks who forget the exact phrasing of "elephant in the room", or vice-versa).

This mortal coil. (it's the earth. our planet. our home. mortal, maybe, given what we are apparently doing to it. but there's nothing coil about it, to my knowledge. and even if there were, what a silly expression. Drop it)

Prorogue. OK. We all learned a new word this week here in Canada. We had some fun with it. Ha ha ha. But enough with the bad puns and so on, already.

Any others you wish to add to the list, folks, please feel free by dropping me a comment.

The Conservatives and flag-waving

Anyone else besides me getting sick of the Conservative party of Canada wrapping itself in the flag every opportunity it gets as the government vs. coalition campaign gets into full swing? Right out of the U.S. Republican party playbook that eventually forced (he should have been stronger) Barack Obama to don an American flag lapel pin.

Pretty soon, no doubt, once martial law is declared it will be a federal offence not to have a Canadian flag in one's home. These guys ever stop to think that, hey, do you have to buy the concert T-shirt to prove you attended the concert? Some of us don't like handing out free advertising. We like what we like, rock band or country, and don't feel the need to broadcast it all the time, says the guy currently wearing a Rolling Stones' tongue T-shirt only because 1. someone bought it for me because they know I'm a Stones fanatic and 2. it's one of those monster T-shirts that is so big, XXXL,  it makes you feel small when you're having a "feeling fat" day because you did a crapola workout yesterday and then pigged out on veggie potato chips.

Besides all of that, anyone ever heard the expression "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel?"

Anyway, at today's rally in Kitchener, there was the good ol' Maple Leaf again. People were singing the national anthem, blah blah blah. They alone, of course, love Canada.

The implication is that those who support the Liberal-NDP coalition are somehow non-Canadian. Why? But of course -- because the coalition has the support of the Bloc Quebecois. As did the Conservatives when they planned the very same thing in an effort to usurp the previous Liberal government.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good attempt at manipulation -- as PM Stephen Harper did the other day when, lying through his teeth, he accused the coalition of signing its agreement in a room that was bereft of Canadian flags when two were clearly evident in photos of the event.

Let's be honest. If the tables were turned in this political battle, all the arguments the coalition and government are making would still be being made, except it would all be the other way around.

It's unseemly and silly.

Oh, and one other thing. The Bloc cannot take Quebec out of Canada. The Bloc is essentially a bunch of MPs sitting in Ottawa advocating for their province. Now, if this alliance was with the Parti Quebecois -- which if it wins a Quebec election CAN hold a referendum to take Quebec out of Canada -- that would be different and a lot more threatening.

Besides, once again, how different is the Bloc from the Alberta-bred Reform Party from which the current Conservative Party sprang?

You know Alberta. That province where Conservatives can count on 28-0 or 27-1 margins in terms of the ridings standings every federal election in favour of the Tories, with actual voting margins in most ridings averaging in the 20,000 range over the next closest party.

You know Alberta. That province dominated by political dynasties that was governed by the Social Credit party from 1935 to 1971? And by Progressive Conservative governments since then? Heck, it's a one-party state.

And the federal Conservatives, whose strongest base is in Alberta, have the gall to talk about democracy?

Surely, they jest.

Stephen Harper and the culture of fear

What is it about right wing thinkers -- particularly when they are in government -- that always has them default to trying to scare people?

George W. Bush and his puppet masters have been the prime example but there's a long tradition of it in U.S. politics/foreign policy, particularly since World War II.

And now the man who continues to mis-read the centre-left Canadian character and seems to want Canadians to adopt the type of right-wing American agenda that has just been discredited in the U.S. election is trying to stoke the fires of fear here as we essentially embark on yet another election campaign.

Don't worry, folks, Canada will be fine. All is operating as it should, despite what our fear-mongering would-be dictator is suggesting.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has questioned the rights of the coalition to do what it is attempting, calling it undemocratic and thereby showing his ignorance of (or more likely contempt for) our system of government.

I can't say it any better than this post to cbc.ca by "Jazzman13", as follows:

The amount of ignorance regarding how the parliamentary system works is staggering. Canadians did not vote for a "Conservative Minority", we voted for individual Members of Parliament. In a minority, all parties have to work together. Harper continues to demonstrate his unwillingness to work with the House. The NDP, Liberals and Bloc to their credit are willing to work together. It is not a coup, it is not illegal, it is not undemocratic - it's the parliamentary system of government. A lot of people obviously need to take remedial high school Canadian history classes, including sadly, members of the Conservative party.

Harper is the one ignoring democracy, which is his habit.

And tonight Harper goes on national TV to tell us all about a "crisis'' he created because he does not play well with others in terms of the compromises necessary to make minority government function, as it has so many times in the past under such Prime Ministers as John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. Run in good faith and in the proper spirit of compromise, minority governments -- or coalitions for that matter -- have the potential to do the best overall job for the country.

Harper, of course, doesn't see it that way because he cares more for power than progress. He didn't compromise in his first mandate and he hasn't in the short few weeks since he received his second. (Which he never should have had a chance to achieve; the governor general, at the time Harper declared a non-sitting Parliament dysfunctional, should have told him to save taxpayers $300 million, abide by his own fixed-date election law, and make the session work).

Great money managers, aren't they, those conservatives, both as a party and as an ideology? They are now trying to suggest that we should fear the coalition because it includes the socialist NDP which will tax and spend us into oblivion. First off, the NDP won't be running the show alone. There will be compromises, remember, though the current Conservative party ideology does not know the meaning of the word. Secondly, and more importantly, it's long past time we dismiss the myth suggesting conservative governments in any country are those best charged with running the economy. Recent history in both Canada and the U.S. proves that right-wing governments have been anything but fiscally responsible, quickly turning surpluses left them by centre-left regimes into deficits.

So now Harper has thrown a tantrum because the opposition has finally called his bluff.

To try to wiggle out of a "crisis" of his own making, our esteemed leader (remember how he was sold as such an astute tactician?), who used the Bloc Quebecois to prop up his own minority, is now accusing the Liberal-NDP coalition of getting into bed with separatists -- when the Bloc is not part of the coalition and has merely stated it will support the deal for 18 months after leader Gilles Duceppe admitted he could not convince the Liberals and NDP to agree to advance his nationalist agenda.

There naturally is some discomfort in Canada about the Bloc being involved. But after all this time, the Bloc has long since become an accepted political party whose agenda is not so much taking Quebec out of Canada but advocating for Quebec within Canada. Somewhat like the role the Reform Party -- the precursor to the current Conservatives (anyone else longing for the old Progressive Conservatives?) -- assigned itself on behalf of Alberta, it could be argued.

Contrary to the opinion of those who believe the current situation makes Canada look like a banana republic, as at least one economist was quoted as saying the other day, it makes Canada look like the mature country it is, using the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy as they have been set up to be used.