Why Modern Family Is Good, Not Great
By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 35 Comments
Modern Family has a new episode tonight and got a second-season pickup yesterday (along with fellow ABC comedies Cougar Town and The Middle, but not Better Off Ted, which seems doomed), so although it’s a few days old, I’d like to link to David Loehr’s post on why Modern Family doesn’t grab him, despite the high quality of most of its elements. Not all his thoughts are the same as mine, of course, but his feeling about the show is pretty much mine: it’s a very well-made, well-acted show that doesn’t really feel compelling in any way.
Every era has some comedies that strike me that way, shows that are clearly “quality” shows yet don’t have much of a spark. Will and Grace was like that in its early, acclaimed years. Going back another decade, so was Designing Women, a show where all the elements were in place to make a high-quality show, yet never delivered the laughs or even the interestingly quirky moments of a scrappier comedy. (Was Growing Pains a better-written show than Designing Women or Murphy Brown? Yes, it was.) Sometimes a show can be well done in every respect and yet not have anything that makes it linger in the memory; it’s like one of those pop songs that’s got all the right craftsmanship but just doesn’t have a memorable tune.
I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on Modern Family or questioning anyone who likes it. The question of whether a show’s objectively good qualities (well, good writing, acting, etc. aren’t completely objective, but they’re not completely subjective either) add up to more or less than the sum of their parts is one whose answer differs from person to person. It’s a real thing — we have all seen things that are good in every detail but don’t add up to much — but it’s very subjective.
I think the best comparison for MF that I’ve heard, from a couple of people including Justin, is Wings. Especially since both its creators, Chris Lloyd and Steven Levitan, were longtime Wings writers. There was a show whose writing had all the “quality” benchmarks in place, assembled an excellent cast (including Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Tony Shalhoub and Thomas Hayden Church), and was almost always enjoyable to watch, just as Modern Family is — for me — usually enjoyable. But it never added up to more than a pleasantly enjoyable show, easy to watch and forget. The characters were all recognizable as stock types delivering their well-written stock lines in stories that were well-crafted but unsurprising. Wings appeared at a time when there were lots of really good, surprising comedies on the networks, so it was generally regarded as a middle-of-the-pack show. If it came back as a new show today, it might be regarded differently, but it might not deserve it, even now.
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Toronto critics award 'Polytechnique'
By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 5:45 PM - 2 Comments
TFCA Awards (from left) Xavier Dolan, David Cronenberg, Denis Villeneuve
Last night was the Toronto Film Critics Association‘s gala awards dinner, and I’m still buzzing. Full disclosure—I’m president of the TFCA and this soirée is my baby. With generous sponsorship from Rogers, we launched the event last year, pitching it as the Giller meets the Golden Globes on a more intimate scale. And it’s taken off. Last night the cream of Toronto’s film community, and trio of Quebec filmmakers, gathered at Toronto’s Nota Bene restaurant to celebrate a year in film. All but one of the 2009 TFCA Awards, which are voted by the member critics, had been previously announced. But last night our guest of honour, David Cronenberg, announced the winner of the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award and presented it, with a $10,000 cheque, Quebec director Denis Villeneuve for Polytechnique. The other two other finalists, Benoit Pilon (The Necessities of Life) and Bruce McDonald (Pontypool), were both worthy contenders, but Villeneuve’s film was perhaps the most ambitious of the three. If I can quote my own TFCA press release: “Polytechnique is a film of astonishing courage. Without a whiff of exploitation or crude moralizing, Denis Villeneuve brings a sensitive, unflinching eye to the 1989 Montreal Massacre – an event most filmmakers would consider untouchable. Villeneuve conveys the horrific tragedy of the event while exploring underlying issues of misogyny, male guilt and institutional circumstance. Set in a haunting silence of snow and concrete, Polytechnique’s contemplative drama honours the victims by preserving the mystery of an unfathomable crime, and never pretending to unlock the psychology of the killer. With grace, empathy and a stark, formal beauty, Villeneuve shows how a memorial can be an act of imagination.” When Rogers vice-chairman Phil Lind presented the cheque to Villeneuve, the director confessed, “I haven’t paid my Rogers cable bill.”
No one can accuse Toronto critics of being Toronto-centric. Another Quebec filmmaker, Xavier Dolan, showed up to accept the inaugural Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, which carries a cheque of $5,000. This charming wunderkind—who wrote, produced, directed and starred in his much-acclaimed feature debut, J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother), received the award from Atom Egoyan, who was over the moon with enthusiasm for the film. For the full list of the other awards, which were announced last month, go the TFCA website.
After the presentation, I had a long and fascinating chat with Cronenberg, most of which should remain off the record. But he did point out that there was some irony in him presenting the award to Polytechnique, because after the Montreal Massacre, Toronto Star columnist Michelle Landsberg had the bone-headed temerity to suggest that the violence in Cronenberg’s movies might have contributed to the killer’s motivation.
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What was known (II)
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 5:38 PM - 10 Comments
For the record, the NDP motion passed by the House on the evening of December 1, by a vote of 146-129, called for a “a Public Inquiry into the transfer of detainees in Canadian custody to Afghan authorities from 2001 to 2009.”
And the obvious implication of that time frame did not seem to escape the official opposition. Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae noted then that “the conduct of the previous government will be equally subject to scrutiny as the conduct of the current government.” Speaking to another motion later that month, Michael Ignatieff repeated the his side’s willingness to “examine the whole length of the mission in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 under the previous Liberal government.”
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A grim forecast from the PBO
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 5:29 PM - 3 Comments
Parliamentary Budget Office warns of “structural deficits”
The recession is over; so we’ll be back in the black soon, right? Well, not quite. A report from the Parliamentary Budget office predicts that “the downward trend in potential GDP growth observed since 2000 will continue…averaging 1.9 per cent over the 2009 to 2010 period.” The PBO also says Canada will continue to struggle with structural budget deficits, even after the economy rebounds. Structural deficits are deficits that persist even when the economy is expanding. As the name suggests, they indicate a “structural” problem: a systemic gap between income and spending. In the 2008-9 fiscal year, Ottawa went $56 billion in the red.
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Torture: the Liberals knew?
By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 4:48 PM - 79 Comments
The question mark is there only because I haven’t had time to go through all this, and won’t today, but our friends at The Torch are involved so I’m inclined to give it some credence. Aaron links to the details. Does this mean we should have an inquiry into the treatment of detainees going back to before the Conservatives formed the government? Sure. Absolutely. An inquiry with terms of reference that stretch from 2002 to 2007 sounds good to me.
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What was known
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 4:04 PM - 80 Comments
The Torch unearths and translates an April 2007 story from La Presse.
Canadian diplomats stationed in Kabul warned the former Liberal government in 2003, 2004 and 2005 that torture was commonplace in Afghan prisons. In spite of these warnings, the Martin government signed an agreement with the Karzai government in December 2005 to hand over all Canadian-captured prisoners to Afghan authorities, Foreign Affairs documents obtained by La Presse reveal.
From 2002 to 2005, the Canadian practice regarding Afghan detainees suspected of Taliban ties was to hand them over to US military authorities. Ottawa decided to shift its transfers to Afghan authorities, however, in response to abuse allegations at the Guantánamo Bay internment center and the controversy that erupted over revelations of torture and degradation at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ["An Afghan ghost of Abu Ghraib?"].
La Presse likens the documents in its possession to annual report disclosed by the Globe two days earlier. The Prime Minister responded to the Globe’s story that afternoon in Question Period. Here is some of that. Continue…
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'Yesterday, fate once again turned against the people of Haiti'
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 3:48 PM - 7 Comments
An emotional Michaelle Jean has just now delivered a second statement on the earthquake in Haiti. Video is here. Below is the prepared text of her remarks.
Dear friends. Exactly one year ago, I was in Haiti to assess the damage caused by the hurricanes that had cruelly ravaged a country that has suffered so much, and to support the reconstruction efforts there.
Yesterday, fate once again turned against the people of Haiti, who had only just begun to see a glimmer of hope. Continue…
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Drawing a line in the oil sands
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments
Alberta’s pugnacious health minister will likely move to energy
Early indications of Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach’s long-awaited cabinet shuffle give the polarizing current health minister, Ron Liepert, the energy portfolio. Liepert, whose aggressive attempts to reform his province’s health system and whose unapologetic performance during the H1N1 crisis led not a few in Alberta to call for his resignation, promises to bring a take-no-prisoners approach to the oil sands file. Could Liepert’s likely appointment to energy mean that the Stelmach Tories smell a battle with the feds brewing over those darned sands?
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Will Anna Wintour take the A-train?
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 3:28 PM - 0 Comments
Condé Nast cuts staff town cars
Continuing budget cuts at publisher Condé Nast has led to the final indignity: senior Vogue staffers no longer being ferried by private cars and cabs on the company dime. New publisher Susan “Cab-Killer” Plagemann is said to be behind the move to make the fashionistas take the subway. Even associate publisher Lottie Oakley was forced to ride underground last week. A Vogue rep refused to comment.
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Tax Check, please
By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 4 Comments
The taxman is trying to stop a high-tech restaurant scam
It’s been said the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. While there’s little technology can do to prevent the latter, Canadian restaurants are coming under increasing scrutiny for using it to duck the taxman.Last November, the Canada Revenue Agency announced that a two-year probe, which concludes next March, had so far uncovered about $40 million in so-called “phantom” cash sales in Canadian restaurants—sales that went unreported and for which taxes weren’t remitted to the government. Experts say that’s little more than a tiny fraction of the cash that restaurant owners pocket without paying any taxes. With so much cash changing hands, and employees regularly being paid under the table, tax evasion has become the crime du jour of the restaurant business. And the methods are considerably more sophisticated than even the construction industry’s notorious aversion to receipts.
The CRA landed its most high-profile catch to date late last year, charging 11 people in B.C. in what it alleges was a large-scale tax fraud scheme at four Vancouver-area sushi restaurants. The restaurants were accused of using electronic sales-suppression software, more commonly known as a “zapper,” to systematically delete cash-sales records from electronic cash registers. The software, though illegal, is often sold by the same companies that make point-of-sale systems for cash registers. (Two manufacturers in Quebec and another in B.C. have been accused of making and distributing zappers.) The programs cost about $500 and are usually distributed on CDs or USB keys so they can be removed to avoid detection by auditors inspecting the registers themselves. With a few simple commands, a zapper can completely reconstruct a restaurant’s sales reports after making cash sales disappear, rendering the manipulation nearly impossible to uncover.
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“It was like something out of a horror film"
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 3:01 PM - 0 Comments
Swedish girl grows back her face
Nineteen-year-old Eva Uhlin has recovered her looks after suffering a once-in-a-million freak allergic reaction to the commonly used over-the-counter pain killer Paracetamol. The deadly condition, known as Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis, or “Lyell’s syndrome,” attacked her body causing her skin to blister, burn and to scab. During her illness, parts of her chest, arms, back and stomach fell off. At one point, the damage was so bad that her lips grew together. “It felt like something was crawling around under my skin, I was in total shock – it was like something out of a horror film,” she says. After years of treatment at Sweden’s University Hospital of Linkoping, Uhlin is trying to return to a normal life, though she still has to take eye drops twice a day and is sensitive to bright sunlight.
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Drabinsky’s latest Broadway gambit
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2:58 PM - 0 Comments
‘He’s out of his f—in’ mind.’
Looming jail time hasn’t dampened Garth Drabinsky’s entrepreneurial moxy. The fallen impresario sentenced to seven years for defrauding investors last year is currently awaiting his appeal in Toronto. In the interim, he’s scrambling to save the Broadway show Finnian’s Rainbow set to shutter this weekend. Drabinsky hasn’t seen the show due to the fact he’ll be arrested if he sets foot in the U.S. But sources says he’s brimming with marketing ideas, even offering to put up US$1.5 million in exchange for rights to produce the musical in Canada. The New York Post reports Drabinsky called several veteran Broadway producers and directors to discuss his plans for the show. “‘Can you believe it?’ one of them marvels. ‘He carried on like he was going to take it over. He was talking about what theater it could go into. He’s out of his f – - – in’ mind.’” Apparently Drabinsky’s on the blower weekly with his old Broadway pals to talk about new ideas for shows. “Garth doesn’t believe he’s going to jail,” says one.
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The new democracy
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2:37 PM - 12 Comments
Perhaps assuming the Prime Minister isn’t going to take him up on that offer, Jack Layton says NDP MPs will join prorogation protests.
“The online protest is very interesting. It’s the new way that politics is being done. I think it’s very exciting,” Layton said in Vancouver on Wednesday.
“We will be attending the rallies across Canada,” the NDP leader promised. “We encourage New Democrats and all Canadians to participate in this grassroots movement to speak out in favor of Democracy.”
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Here's a poll to argue about!
By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2:21 PM - 199 Comments
Conservatives 31, Liberals 30. We are not making this up.
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Among the missing
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2:03 PM - 1 Comment
Former Liberal MP Serge Marcil is reported to be among the missing in Haiti.
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Let's make a deal
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 1:23 PM - 30 Comments
Jack Layton attempts to bargain with the Prime Minister.
“I am calling on the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision to prorogue Parliament,” NDP leader Jack Layton said on Wednesday. ”I call on him to change the date of the recall of the prorogation to January 25,” he said.
“In exchange the New Democratic Party will agree to reinstate all of the bills that were sent back to square one to the place they were at prior to the prorogation, so that we can get on with the business at hand,” Layton told a scrum of reporters outside the Vancouver Public Library.
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“Flesh mob” protests airport scanners
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 1:08 PM - 1 Comment
Germany’s Pirate Party organizes demonstration
Members of Germany’s Pirate Party organized a so-called “flesh mob” of next-to-naked protesters against the use of full-body scanners at airports. Protesters marked their bodies with messages like “Be a good citizen – drop your pants”; one woman dressed in a beige sweater and tights with a sign that said “pixelated” (scanners can be programmed to produce blurred, pixelated images to protect a person’s privacy). Full-body scanners use high-frequency radio waves to produce an image of a passenger’s naked body under their clothes, exposing anything they’re carrying against the body, as well as prosthetic devices and breast implants. Privacy and legal concerns have been raised, especially since it’s unclear if the scanners could find explosives hidden inside the body. A video of the protest, with the soundtrack of Muse’s song “Uprising” (lyrics include “They will not force us. They will stop degrading us. They will not control us. We will be victorious!”) has since been posted to YouTube.
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Canadian to head Red Cross mission in Haiti
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:59 PM - 0 Comments
Jean-Pierre Tachereau to lead an international team of volunteers
The Red Cross has appointed a Canadian official to head the agency’s relief effort in Haiti. Jean-Pierre Tachereau currently runs emergency responses for the Canadian Red Cross and will help the humanitarian body pull together an international team, composed of 60 volunteers from 10 countries. The team will be equipped with portable water and sanitation treatment plants. It plans to fly into the neighbouring Dominican Republic, and then drive across the Haitian border.
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Photo gallery: Disaster strikes in Port-au-Prince
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:58 PM - 7 Comments
A powerful earthquake reduces much of the Haitian capital to rubble
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Lay off the donuts, Canada
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:53 PM - 7 Comments
Less than four in 10 Canadians at their ideal weight
A new study suggests that the fitness levels of Canadian youth and adults has declined significantly since the early 80’s. The Canadian Health Measures Survey compared direct physical measurements, such as body measurements, cardio-respiratory fitness, musculoskeletal fitness, and blood pressure to reach their conclusions. Researchers found a dramatic decrease in fitness levels, especially for adults aged 20-39. They also found less than 38% of adults are at a healthy weight, while about 1% are underweight, 37% are overweight, and 24% are obese. On a more positive note, more than 90% of Canadian adults have acceptable blood pressure, defined as less than 140/90.
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What’s really behind Google’s plan to pull out of China
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:44 PM - 0 Comments
Censorship or a simple matter of dollars and cents?
To hear Google tell it, the Internet giant is reviewing the viability of its presence in China in the wake of alleged hacker attacks and concerns over freedom of speech. But as The Economist points out, Google’s pending decision to pull out the People’s Republic “may be as much about poor business prospects as ethics.” To be sure, since Google set up shop in China four years ago and began offering a self-censored version of its search engine, Chinese officials have accused the company of, among other things, providing links to pornographic sites. At the same time, Google maintains that, as of late, its users in China have been the target of what the firm’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, describes as “highly sophisticated” phishing and malware attacks. According to Drummond, Google is planning to stop filtering its search engine, knowing full well that “this might result in having to shut down Google.cn and Google’s offices in China.” But considering the amount it costs Google to run its operation there, and the fact that the search engine remains a distant second in popularity to China’s Baidu, the move may be a simple matter of dollars and cents.
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Paul Martin's British fan club
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:39 PM - 3 Comments
A prophet in the new age of deficits
The Brits are touting Paul Martin, Canada’s deficit-defeating 1983-2002 finance minister, as the man to listen to as their politicians wonder what to do about the new wave of red ink. But Martin rejects the notion that his brand of fiscal austerity fits best with the Tory outlook. He urges a mix of spending toughness and smart investment in education and research—without driving public services to “the lowest common denominator.” Ideologically, he positions himself, for the benefit of UK readers only hazily familiar with Canadian politics, as about the same as a mainstream American Democrat.
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The Most Popular German Movie In The World
By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 21 Comments
You may have noticed the YouTube meme where fake subtitles are added to a movie clip about Hitler, making it seem like he’s ranting about the latest pop-culture outrage (Kanye/Taylor; Jay/Conan). The clip is from the 2004 movie Der Untergang (Downfall) starring Bruno Ganz as the demented dictator in his last days. It was the first German movie in a long time to have Hitler portrayed onscreen, and there was a lot of controversy over whether it was right for a German filmmaker to make a movie that “humanized” Hitler. But from the point of view of YouTube video makers, it’s a godsend, because it provides high-resolution widescreen clips of Hitler screaming and yelling. And that’s how he became the world’s favourite cultural commentator.
These videos are much better when, as in the example below, Hitler is actually Hitler, getting upset about some kind of pop-culture issue; when he’s portrayed as being Hillary Clinton or Stephen Harper, it’s just offensive and not funny.
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.4452855&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
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Dear citizen (II)
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 14 Comments
Charlie Angus writes to his constituents.
Parliamentary democracy creates instability. It’s a pretty loaded statement. But this is the latest explanation from Stephen Harper in justifying his decision to shut down the House of Commons. Harper says he locked out Parliament to send a signal of stability to the markets. This is the kind of assurances one would normally expect from a generalissimo decked out in gold embroidered epaulets. But Harper’s decision to shut Parliament down twice in one year, speaks to a different kind of coup that’s been taking place. This isn’t a coup of generals. It’s a coup of pinstripes.
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The rise of Rotman
By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:12 PM - 5 Comments
Ok, it was one thing when last weekend’s NYT had a glowing story about…
Ok, it was one thing when last weekend’s NYT had a glowing story about Roger Martin’s innovative approach to business school at Rotman. But today, Martin has a column in the Daily Beast of all places, arguing that there’s really no way for politicians to keep Wall Street from giving itself the bonuses it wants. Good things come in threes. What’s next, an appearance on the Colbert Report?
