Pinky swear

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 11:08 AM - 19 Comments

Lawrence Cannon assures that Canada will withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014.

“We might be pressured obviously, but I think the prime minister has made this perfectly clear. March of 2014 is when we will be leaving,” Cannon said at a news conference.

Given the precedent in this regard, this almost certainly means we’ll be there until 2017.

American Idol Will Air Wednesdays and Thursdays

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 8:44 PM - 5 Comments

Fox’s midseason schedule is, as usual, incomprehensible without a secret decoder ring, but it’s a pretty smart schedule all the same. The big move is American Idol, which moves to Wednesday/Thursday. No one knows how much Idol will drop without Simon Cowell, but if it does drop more than expected, then at least the network won’t have killed Glee‘s momentum by moving it in the middle of its emergence as a breakout hit, just for the sake of giving it a post-Idol slot that it no longer needs. And the competition at 8 o’clock on Thursdays isn’t that tough (there’s only one hit show between the other three networks) meaning Idol won’t have as much standing in the way of its continued dominance.

In general, I think Fox’s choices seem like smart ones; like CBS they seem to understand that aggressive scheduling moves can be effective in a psychological sort of way. They’ve shifted the talk from “how much will Idol decline with J-Lo and Steven?” to “how afraid should NBC and ABC and CBS be of Idol on Thursdays?” This movie may not gain Idol so much as a single ratings point, but it makes the network’s midseason position feel stronger, if only because people will be talking about their strengths (Idol, Glee) more than their weaknesses. In other words, if they’d left the show on the same nights, then the only change worth talking about would be the change in judges, and much of the talk would be negative. Now there’s something else to talk about, and it changes nothing about the show or who the judges are, but at least it’s positive (Idol will be a juggernaut that other networks must fear on Thursdays) rather than negative.

As for the competition, the big hit shows (like Modern Family and Big Bang Theory and Grey’s Anatomy) are in no danger even if they go down a bit or even a lot. So the real question is what this means for the “bubble” shows, particularly Community. (Also Vampire Diaries, but I never really know what the CW’s ratings expectations are, and I fear that if I tried to find out, I’d start becoming obsessed with demographics and stuff.) NBC was already hurting Community enough by putting it at 8 — it did a bit better the one time it aired at 8:30 — so if they want it to survive they may need to find a new spot for it. But really, they’ve got so many holes to fill that shifting everything around again may not be an option; all six of the comedies on Thursday will have legitimate complaints about their time slots, and I guess that could be a plus for them because no one will know for sure how much of the blame goes to the shows or their time slots. The Office will be fine for now, of course, and the network’s best bet may be to really milk the Carell departure for as much as it’s worth — plug the hell out of not only the departure episode but the big moments leading up to it, and encourage the writers to play up that angle as much as they can. That could at least help Parks and Recreation do well enough to hang on to next season as it deserves.

Over on ABC, this is the big test for their comedy lineup, particularly The Middle at 8, which has become the definition of a solid show that performs solidly every week (and, better still, is actually good; it’s probably my favourite of their four comedies). Obviously the network is hoping — assuming it stays where it is — that it can continue to perform at somewhere near its current level, which would make it clear that they have two really solid comedy tentpoles (Middle and Modern Family) to launch future shows.

Fringe will go to Fridays, which is not a good sign but is also unavoidable: it’s not compatible with Idol‘s audience and it’s not doing well enough to go anywhere else. It’s odd that Fox has had so much trouble launching science-fiction shows — they all seem to wind up on Fridays now, either in the beginning or the end — when The X-Files was one of their biggest successes. But The X-Files, despite the mythology aspect, had self-contained episodes as a major part of its style. Fringe was at its most popular in the first season when it was trying to be like The X-Files, an episodic show with a larger mystery arc, but the creators’ hearts weren’t in it and neither were their biggest fans’. As the show has moved toward being an impenetrable mythology show, it’s gotten better (though sometimes when I hear lines about “the Senator was a shapeshifter” I start to realize how ridiculous it must sound to a new viewer) but it also probably lost its chance to be the new X-Files.

Among the new shows, the only one of particular interest is The Chicago Code, formerly called Ride-along, the new cop show from Shield creator (and Terriers showrunner) Shawn Ryan. Ryan’s work is never less than interesting. This is another show with title issues, as the network changed the title to emphasize the location. Some have argued that the new title sounds too generic; I personally thought the old title made it sound like a Western. But since I’ve argued before that the choice of title doesn’t make or break a show, I’m not going to worry about it. Seeing a show filmed in Chicago is always something to look forward to (like Detroit 1-8-7, a slightly unfamiliar location can give a jolt to what might otherwise be a standard cop show — and if the show isn’t a standard show, then taking it outside of New York or L.A. can produce really spectacular results, as with Homicide and The Wire).

The other show that might deserve some comment is Bob’s Burgers, the latest attempt to add an animated show that isn’t from the Seth MacFarlane family. This time they’ve turned to Jim Dauterive, one of the most prolific writers for King of the Hill (they had two “camps” of writers, Harvard guys and Texans, and Dauterive was one of the original Texans on the staff). It looks to be a little closer to King of the Hill in terms of style, though it takes place in the East. One thing that I think it has working against it is precisely that it was created by a writer, who didn’t design the show himself. I don’t think animation and scriptwriters don’t mix, the way John Kricfalusi does. But it is true that the most successful prime-time animated shows have been from people who could create and draw the characters, making the drawing style a genuine extension of the writing style. This is what Matt Groening, Mike Judge and Seth MacFarlane — not to mention Hanna-Barbera — have done. When a writer writes a script and then hands it over to someone else to design all the characters, it can wind up feeling as though the quirky or stylized drawing doesn’t have a clear connection to the writing, a reason why the show absolutely has to look that way.

Update/Correction: The above paragraph is rendered inoperative by the fact that the creator of Bob’s Burgers is Loren Bouchard (Home Movies), with Dauterive on board in the traditional way — an experienced network TV writer to help guide the show. The material I was working from indicated Dauterive as the creator; the material was wrong. (Which teaches me this lesson: Double-check on Wikipedia first. They never have inaccurate information.) In any case, the point about the importance of having the look and the writing come from the same mind still stands; it’s just that this is an example of how Fox still understands the importance of it, rather than the other way round.

Easier said than done

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 5:36 PM - 70 Comments

The enduring riddle of opinion polling and the relationship between what people say they want and what people actually want is perhaps best captured by this bit from a new Environics poll commissioned by the Council of Canadians.

71% of Canadians strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: “The money spent on wars and the military would all be better spent on efforts that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change.”

Dan Gardner mocks. The necessary follow-up would be this: Do you agree that all the money in the defence department should be shifted to environment?

Rights and Democracy: The twilight struggle of transparency and accountability

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 2:43 PM - 78 Comments

On Nov. 4 I wrote to Stéphane Bourgon, the new communications director for Rights and Democracy, quoting his own words back to him. “In Le Devoir on Oct. 23,” I wrote, “you are quoted as saying, in regard to the Deloitte forensic audit of R&D: ‘The will of our president is to make the document public as rapidly as possible. As soon as the Foreign Affairs committee asks for it, we will send it to them.’” [I've since added the emphasis, for reasons that will soon become apparent.]

I told M. Bourgon his error lay in situating such a request in the future. The Foreign Affairs committee had already requested the document, and more than once. In this letter from R&D president Gérard Latulippe to the committee, dated May 27, Latulippe acknowledges the committee’s requests for the audit and for other documents and explains, in regard to the Deloitte audit, that it would be finalized “sometime in the month of June at which point it will be provided to the Committee.” [emphasis added, reasons soon to become apparent.]

So, taking phrases like “as soon” and “will” and “at which point” and “will” at face value, I asked Bourgon whether the audit had been delivered yet, and if not, why not. This was on Nov. 4. Continue…

What if the United States ends up with a carbon tax?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 1:24 PM - 50 Comments

The American and Canadian administrations are apparently in agreement that the two countries need to harmonize their carbon pricing schemes, but what if, as the likes of Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum and Michael Bloomberg have argued this week, the United States ends up pursuing a carbon tax? Klein says it’s might be the best option.

At this point, the politics of climate change are dismal. But the reality of the budget situation makes new taxes inevitable. Among the few promising routes left for climate hawks is convincing the political system that if we need more taxes, a carbon tax makes more sense than a VAT. Because we will need more taxes. Perhaps the fiscal crunch can do what climate science could not.

Recall here that, despite his warnings that a carbon tax would both “screw everybody” and possibly unravel the country during the 2008 election, the Prime Minister did not entirely dismiss the possibility of such a policy when asked about harmonizing environmental agendas with the United States during 2009 interview.

'It cheers everyone up'

By Leah McLaren - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

Paul Hackett/Reuters

After eight long years, the wait is finally over. This week, Clarence House announced that, after months of speculation and years of on-and-off dating, Prince William will marry his long-time girlfriend, Kate Middleton, in 2011. And in Britain, the reactions were, for the most part, ecstatic. Prince Charles told the press he was “thrilled, obviously,” as the couple, who are both 28, had been “practising for long enough.” Charles’s mother, the Queen, said she was “absolutely delighted” about the news. Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, leaving the Wicked Young Writers’ Award ceremony, joked that the news was “wicked!”

On the bustling streets of central London, the air was abuzz with news of the biggest—and happiest—royal event in three decades. The British media, which has been awash for months in stories of deep budget cuts and economic gloom, leapt on the story with gusto. “Engaged!” and “Will gives Kate Di’s ring” blazed tabloid headlines on the newsstands as commuters rushed to grab copies and pore over the emerging details on the tube ride home.

Continue…

Charest's last stand?

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 12:56 PM - 3 Comments

The Parti Québécois will attempt to bring down Quebec premier Jean Charest’s government next Wednesday with a non-confidence motion. PQ leader Pauline Marois made the announcement Tuesday, citing Charest’s “stubborn refusal to open an independent public inquiry into the construction industry.” Normally, such a motion would be easily defeated by the Liberal majority, but the PQ points out that, under the current circumstances, all that’s needed is for three Liberal MNAs to be late or absent for the opposition parties to win the vote. Should Marois’s gambit succeed, Charest would be forced to resign and call an election.

Montreal Gazette

When persistence precedes essence

By Andrew Potter - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 12:49 PM - 12 Comments

My colleague James Cowan has a profile of Tony Clement in the new Canadian Business. It’s framed around Clement’s attempts to maintain his conservative principles in a government that has none. The piece is interesting throughout, largely because it gives a good sense of how Clement perceives himself, but I found this quotation from the minister on cabinet solidarity particularly interesting:

“We obviously work as a team,” the minister says. “I have never, so far, found a case where I have been in such disagreement with the eventual outcome that I’ve posed the existential question about whether I will continue with the ministry or not.”

After the summer and fall he has had, in which, among other things, he hung a career public servant out to dry, engaged in an orgy of truthiness, and then, most recently, allowed himself to be completely rolled by the prime minister over the Potash deal, it is worth asking the obvious question of the minister:

Mr. Clement, what would lead you to pose the existential question?

When God and politics collide

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 16 Comments

Photograph by Christinne Muschi

So Tony Blair, former prime minister of the Queen’s England, home of the shoe bomber and the London subway terror bombings, a country riven by tension over a growing Muslim population, walks into a Quebec hall to talk about reasonable accommodation.

Fish-out-of-water daydream? Set-up to a tasteless joke? No. The former British prime minister actually did as much in Montreal last week. Blair, at once a devout Catholic and ex-prime minister of notably secular Britain, has spent much of the last three years promoting the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which aims to show how “faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.”

“I became Middle East envoy for Israel and Palestine, so that’s been quite challenging. And then I decided to try and bring religious faiths of the world together and create an understanding, so that’s been quite a challenge, too,” Blair, sitting in an ornate red leather chair, said to a crowd of about 400 gathered in a downtown ballroom. “And then I decided to do some work on climate change, so this is probably an indication of Napoleonic delusion.”

Continue…

'Defence policy if necessary, but not necessarily defence policy'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:56 AM - 12 Comments

Randall Wakelam wonders about what we’re doing and where we’re going.

Conventional wisdom was that voters have, at most, a six-month memory for inexplicable government decisions. Do politicians today employ that same wisdom? If they do, it would certainly explain how and why we buy fighter aircraft without a clear explanation of need; why we allowed ourselves to lose Camp Mirage in the UAE because of civilian landing rights in Calgary and Vancouver that have nothing to do with security and defence matters; and why we are now staying on in Afghanistan for three years in a yet to be defined mission.

War in Afghanistan escalating

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 43 Comments

The U.S. military is deploying heavily armored battle tanks to Afghanistan for the first time since the war began in 2001, a move that signals an escalation of the conflict. According to a report in the Washington Post, NATO statistics and interviews with senior commanders suggest fighting in the past two months has been more intense than at any other point since 2001. The number of Special Operation missions has tripled over the past three months, for instance, and U.S. and NATO aircraft have deployed an increasing number of bombs and missiles, though exact figures haven’t been made available since 2001. The U.S. military has also been using an increasing number of high-explosive line charges in cities close to Kandahar, a weapon that had been used relatively sparingly before.

Washington Post

MS patient dies after neck surgery in Costa Rica

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:47 AM - 8 Comments

An Ontario man who had multiple sclerosis died in October after controversial surgery to open up a blocked neck vein that he believed was causing his disease. St. Catherines resident Mahir Mostic, 35, died one day after Costa Rican doctors tried to fix a blood clot that emerged shortly after his original surgery in June. Mostic had a fast-moving type of MS that prevented him from walking, so he was willing to risk neck vein surgery, which is not approved by Health Canada. After the surgery, “He started feeling better and got his energy back,” his girlfriend, Bedrana Jelin told CBC News. Then, his symptoms worsened again and he tried to see a specialist in Canada. “They didn’t want to touch him because he was done outside of Canada,” Jelin said. That’s when he flew back to Costa Rica, where Dr. Marcial Fallas treated him with blood-thinning medication to remove a clot that had formed. Fallas says the blood thinners likely caused his death. Dr. Barry Rubin, the head of vascular surgery at Toronto’s University Health Network, says it would have been safer to leave the clot alone. He also said he treated an MS patient recently who had blood clots after receiving neck vein surgery in Mexico. In Canada and the U.S., there are several research studies underway to determine whether vein narrowing surgery is safe and effective.

CBC News

Muskoka handed $50 million for 'inconvenience' of hosting G8

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:41 AM - 29 Comments

The federal government compensated the Muskoka region to the tune of $50 million for “inconveniences” related to hosting world leaders during the G8 summit. Toronto, on the other hand, had no such luck—despite the security issues, closed streets and businesses, and damages to property that occurred during the G20 in the city. Federal officials said much of the generous funding for G8 “legacy” projects was never meant for the summit, but rather as payback to people in the Parry Sound-Muskoka region, a riding held by Industry Minister Tony Clement. Residents across Muskoka saw new sidewalks, public washrooms, bridges and a resurfaced airport runway paid for by the summit “slush” fund, opposition MPs charged Thursday. Many have questioned why Toronto, which hosted the larger G20 meeting and was ground zero for the protesters, was denied similar financial help. So far, officials have been unable to explain why Toronto wasn’t compensated as well.

Toronto Star

Fake doctor gave breast exams in bars

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 12 Comments

A woman in Salmon, Idaho has been jailed for practicing medicine without a license after she convinced at least two other women to undergo breast exams in Boise nightclubs. Kristina Ross, 37, told the women she was a plastic surgeon and gave them advice on surgery after feeling their breasts. Ross allegedly gave the women the telephone number of a real plastic surgeon, presumably to convince them she was a real doctor. Staff at the doctor’s office complained to police after multiple women called to set up appointments with a doctor they had met in a bar. According to The Idaho Statesman newspaper, Ross was born a man but identifies as a woman.

Vancouver Sun

Military burns Russell Williams’s former uniform

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:25 AM - 41 Comments

Although it isn’t standard practice in the military, members of the Canadian Forces have torched the uniform of convicted serial killer Russell Williams. Military officials searched Williams’s Tweed cottage on Tuesday, with his permission, and collected all of his military equipment, clothing, books and manuals. A spokesperson for the Canadian Forces told the Toronto Star that all of Williams’ clothes, including boots, headdress, and shirts, were burned on the same day. The retrieving of equipment is standard procedure, but the burning is not. When asked why they treated Williams’s belongings differently, spokesperson Cmdr. Hubert Genest said, “I could speculate about what could happen to the clothing, but by disposing of it like this, we’re sure it’s not going to be used again.”

Toronto Star

MacKay says relationship with UAE needs work

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:22 AM - 4 Comments

Defence Minister Peter MacKay publicly acknowledged that Canada “has some work to do” to fix the broken relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Thursday. After Ottawa refused to grant the country’s airlines the right to land more passenger aircraft in Canada in October, the UAE booted Canada’s military from its soil. The base, Camp Mirage, was used as a staging ground for the war in Afghanistan. MacKay was in favour of giving up landing rights to keep the base where it was. Canada is now using bases in Germany and Cyprus instead. It has also negotiated with Qatar about the possibility of a new base. The dispute has cost Canada an estimated $300 million.

Toronto Sun

Liberals and Tories collaborated on Afghan mission extension

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:18 AM - 2 Comments

Liberal MP Bob Rae played a leading role in the federal government’s decision to extend the mission in Afghanistan, according to a report in The Globe and Mail. In fact, it was Rae’s assurance the Liberals would support a post-2011 training mission that reportedly made the extension possible, which both sides insist isn’t the product of a deal between the Liberals and the Conservatives. “This is not a government that says, ‘we would like to work with you to craft a position,’” Rae told the paper. “I think the government was looking for confirmation that this was what we actually thought.” Still, finding support for the extension among the Liberal caucus allowed the government to avoid taking the issue to Parliament, something the Conservatives were desperate to do. “It wouldn’t be good for the mission to have a gigantic fight in Parliament while the mission’s still fighting,” said one Conservative.

The Globe and Mail

Obama's hard war

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 39 Comments

A Washington Post article is only one of many lately to chronicle the extraordinary violence with which the Obama administration is pursuing the war in Afghanistan:

“The pace of Special Operations missions to kill or capture Taliban leaders has more than tripled over the past three months. U.S. and NATO aircraft unleashed more bombs and missiles in October – 1,000 total – than in any single month since 2001. In the districts around the southern city of Kandahar, soldiers from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division have demolished dozens of homes that were thought to be booby-trapped, and they have used scores of high-explosive line charges – a weapon that had been used only sparingly in the past – to blast through minefields.”

In deploying tanks to the south, the U.S. is in a sense only catching up to Canada, which has used Leopard tanks for some time in Kandahar. But Gen. Petraeus seems to have gotten over his earlier reluctance to use air support. As Colleague Potter likes to point out, it’s getting harder to find real evidence of counterinsurgency in the Afghan south. Counterterrorism — killing bad guys, in the hopes that’s all you’re killing — has increased radically.

The Facebook by-elections

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 10:07 AM - 12 Comments

Keeping in mind Facebook’s predictive powers, the current tallies show the Liberals ahead in Vaughan, the NDP up in Winnipeg-North and the NDP leading in Dauphin. That last one would likely count as a shock.

Those otherwise interested in this month’s contests are best directed to Pundits Guide’s comprehensive by-election headquarters.

The man who will be king

By Charlie Gillis - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 9:51 AM - 22 Comments

Tim Graham/Getty Images; Anwar Hussein/AP; Reuters

Exhausted and chilled, with a hard wind blowing up from the Thames, William of Wales curled tighter in his sleeping bag to fend off the -4° C cold. He wore a wool hat and grey hoodie, but this was a world away from his bedroom at Clarence House, his official residence near Buckingham Palace. Only a length of cardboard, laid amid dumpsters and ventilation grates near London’s Blackfriars Bridge, protected him from the icy sidewalk.

It was a stunt, of course. Prince William “slept rough” in an alley last December to gain an understanding of the plight of the homeless, and to raise money for Centrepoint, a charity supporting poverty stricken youth once patronized by his mother Diana. But the event spoke eloquently to the prince’s defining traits: his doggedness, his sense of civic duty, his resolve to gain enlightenment through adversity. “I cannot, after one night, even begin to imagine what it must be like to sleep on London’s streets night after night,” he said later in a statement.

Continue…

Hey look: Slow down, Quebec! We can barely keep up with this stuff!

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 9:21 AM - 6 Comments

I would never have thought to chronicle recent developments in Quebec-based corruption, as I do in my column in this week’s print edition, if the members of Parliament you elected and pay with your tax dollars hadn’t fallen all over themselves to use up a bit of their work day crying crocodile tears about how mean — boo-hoo! — we were with our cover story on the same topic several weeks ago.

My preference has always been to look on the bright side, where I can find one. That’s why I’ve written articles about downtown development in Montreal that were far sunnier than what most Montrealers are writing (for a particularly scathing view of the Quartier des spectacles, check out Robert Lévesque’s ferocious essay in the latest Cahiers du Théâtre français). It’s why I saluted Quebec City’s 400th anniversary and have consistently emphasized Jean Charest’s key and unusual role in promoting Canada-EU trade. It’s why I write about the province’s musicians as often as I can find an excuse.

But my colleagues and I literally cannot keep up with the avalanche of shady business unveiled lately by our counterparts in Quebec City, Montreal and elsewhere. My column details events since September, but the problem is, I wrote it on Tuesday and there is already enough material for another one. Why, you could almost say it’s a veritable festival of resignations, withdrawals and expulsions.

If you can read about all of this and continue to think that Quebec’s biggest problem is Maclean’s, then congratulations. You have what it takes to be a member of Parliament.

What does it take to make Parliament sad?

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 51 Comments

Ryan Remiorz/CP

We now update you on the emotional state of the House of Commons.

On Sept. 29, after this magazine ran a cover story calling Quebec the most corrupt province in Canada, the lower house of Parliament voted unanimously, more or less, to express “its profound sadness at the prejudice displayed and the stereotypes employed by Maclean’s magazine to denigrate the Quebec nation, its history and its institutions.”

This concludes your update on the emotional state of the House of Commons. Your MPs have not passed any motions describing their emotions since. We can only speculate on their mood at Bloc MP Serge Ménard’s claim this week that Gilles Vaillancourt, the mayor of Laval, gave him an envelope with $10,000 cash in it when Ménard was preparing to run for the National Assembly in 2003.

Does this news sadden the Commons, even a little? Does it make the lower house giggly? Your guess is as good as mine.

Continue…

Opening Weekend: Harry Potter, The Next Three Days, Client 9

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 5:58 PM - 1 Comment

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I'

This weekend’s menu offers three movies about guys consumed by a sense of mission. The big ticket item is the penultimate movie about that Potter boy. By now, he knows he’s the Chosen One, like Frodo near the end of The Lord of the Rings, and like Frodo he’s now trekking across wild landscapes to save the world, though at a more leisurely pace. There’s another big difference: a girl seems to be in charge. Only slightly less far-fetched is The Next Three Days, a new movie from Canadian director Paul Haggis, starring Russell Crowe as a mild-mannered mastermind on an obsessive quest to spring his wife from prison. The line between good and evil is more elusive in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, a saga of a crusader who acted like the Chosen One, trying to slay the Dark Lords of Wall Street, only to be taken down in what looks like a set up—at least that’s the picture that emerges from this vital investigative documentary, which is the one must-see movie of the three, unless you’re a Potterhead.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

Full disclosure. I have not read the Harry Potter books, or even seen all the movies. Now I feel like a hockey fan who ignores regular season play then watches the playoffs. Or comes on board just for the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final. But I do know this. The last two Harry Potter movie, based on the seventh and final book of J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster series, are a huge deal. I’ve been reminded of this on a regular basis since at least the spring by a rabid Potter fan in the office. On Monday, she and two other Potterheads from the Maclean’s newsroom joined me at the Toronto premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. That required an expedition to a multiplex that loomed like a space station from the strip-mall mesas of suburban Etobicoke, the heart of Rob Ford country. The field-trip vibe was fitting, as it turned out, because the new Potter film is basically a road movie full of barren wilderness vistas.

In this episode, Harry and friends, who are by now a mess of raging hormones, leave the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry behind and spend much of the movie camping—raising their tent in epic landscapes. By the way, the reason Warner Bros. dragged us to the outer reaches of Etobicoke was to show off the film in a newfangled Cineplex theatre with a wall-to-wall screen and a system called UltraAVX, which plays Dolby 7.1 stereo. (I don’t know about you, but I’ll be satisfied only when technology gives me a separate audio channel for every pixel: Dolby 2000000.1) Anyway, I could feel the bass sound effects vibrate my pant leg, so the audio was definitely up to snuff. And the movie? Well, because I’m not a devotee, unlike most of the fans who will be packing theatres this weekend, for me it’s just a movie. And although the pacing sometimes lagged over the course of two-and-a-half hours, it’s an enjoyable ride, with a few spectacular set pieces, and consistently engaging performances from its the franchise’s three lead actors-in-residence.

This is the darkest and most violent of the Harry Potter movies, which I’m told is consistent with the evolution of the books toward more mature terrain. It’s rated PG-13, and parents should be wary of dragging small children off to see it. As usual, it’s a pleasure to see every working actor in England cast in one movie, notably Ralph Fiennes, who makes a meal of his satanic role as Voldemort, Helena Bonham Carter as his obsequious disciple Bellatrix, Alan Rickman as the tragically complicated Snape, Brendan Gleeson as the piratical Mad-Eye Moody, Bill Nighy as the world-weary Minister of Magic Rufus Crimgeour, and Imelda Staunton as its venal bureaucrat.

David Yates, who has directed the lion’s share of the series, creates its Dickensian world with lavish detail. The Ministry’s black-tiled headquarters is an Orwellian vision worthy of fascism, where wizard supremacy conducts police-state purges under the slogan “Magic is Might.” But the movie’s pièce-de-résistance is a stand-alone sequence of animation used to illustrate the Three Brothers fable in The Tales of Beetle the Bard. It’s done in a Tim Burton-like style of shadow puppetry and is truly exquisite. The only problem is its artistry puts to shame the special effects “magic” that is the film’s main event, as Hermione and the boys slog through their quest to destroy the Horcruxes and subvert Voldemort. The big effects are well done, but they are essentially generic, just another day in the life of a Hollywood blockbuster.

What’s unique about the Potter franchise is the extraordinary range of characters. And the three leads, who have literally grown up with the franchise, have a natural chemistry. What surprised me about this movie is that it doesn’t belong to its eponymous hero; it belongs to Emma Watson, who plays the brainy Hermione. She gets the meat of the dialogue, and rules every scene she’s in. When you come down to it, Deathly Hallows Part I is a chick flick. And maybe it’s just Watson’s steely focus and strong brow, but I was struck by her resemblance to Kristen Stewart, star of the Twilight franchise. I realize this comparison may seem like sacrilege, given that Twilight is dreck compared to Potter. But, as in the latest Twilight movie, we have a naïve love triangle in the woods, complete with some giggly double entendres about 10-inch wands. In this case, however, there’s no erotic subterfuge between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Hermione, except in the paranoid imagination of her suitor, the sweet, stalwart Ron (Rupert Grint). The much touted “nude” scene between them is just a fussy mirage, an evil spell.

That’s too bad, because the drama would have more muscle if there was some heavier personal drama to match the cosmic intrigue. With both the Twilight and Potter franchises, however, the filmmakers don’t dare muck with the plot except for demands of concision, for fear of alienating their captive audience of readers, not to mention the authors, who ride herd over the scripts in both cases. But great movie adaptations often succeed by creatively violating their source material, and transforming it—allowing the film to find its own magic. What may ultimately limit the Potter series is its dogged fidelity to its source.

The Next Three Days

Elizabeth Banks and Russell Crowe in 'The Next Three Days'

These days it seems the ultimate test of a relationship is to spring your loved one out of prison when he or she is serving time for murder. Earlier this fall, we saw Hillary Swank starring in Conviction, based on the real-life story of Betty Ann Waters, who earned a law degree to free a brother serving life. Now, in a fictional thriller scripted by director Paul Haggis (Crash)—and adapted from the French film Pour Elle—Russell Crowe plays a Pittsburgh community college professor named John, whose wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks), is suddenly thrown in jail for killing her boss—a crime that she may or may not have committed. But unlike Swank’s character, he doesn’t spend half his life trying to get her out of jail. Once he exhausts the legal channels, and sets up his elaborate plot, he has only three days to engineer her great escape, from the outside-in, before she’s transferred to another facility. The story unfolds like a heist movie, in which our hero is trying to “steal” his wife from a maximum security prison, concocting a byzantine plan that no one knows about, including his wife. Haggis’ script, like John’s scheme, is mined with decoys and diversions. But the diabolically intricate escape plot makes for a diabolically contrived narrative plot. How John finds the time to plot the escape while teaching a full course load and serving as a single father to a young boy escapes me. And why his boy never asks questions about the myriad charts, maps and plans that are pasted up on his father’s study wall is also a mystery. But ours is not to question why. Just buckle up and follow the action.

The Next Three Days is a slim, trim, fast-moving one-man movie. I found myself getting caught up in the action, then hating myself in the morning for being its pawn. Crowe keeps his head down and cranks up the requisite intensity for the role. He makes the movie more than watchable. So does Elizabeth Banks, who carves some intriguing corners out of a constrictive role, and her impulsive personality keeps us guessing about her guilt or innocence. But Haggis’s squeaky-clean moral choices are so uninteresting. If Crowe’s character has to kill someone in the course of his mission, it will have to be a scumbag drug dealer. And his secondary characters are so flat they’re almost zombie-like—such as Olivia Wilde (House, TRON: Legacy), stuck in a dead-end role as single mom who befriends our hero in the playground and becomes an unwitting part of his scheme. And John’s son, a page-boy blond played by eight-year-old Ty Simpkins, is so sulky and passive he’s almost catatonic. But maybe he’s method-acting, playing out his boredom at being cast as an adorable piece of baggage whose only job is to look cute.

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer

Eliot Spitzer's wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, stands by her man

In a year loaded with powerful documentaries, this astounding film is one of the most vital. Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job tackled a much larger canvas—with a sweeping exposé of the dark forces behind the 2008 financial meltdown, it amounted to a 21st-century Das Kapital of whodunnits. But with Client 9, Alex Gibney—the Oscar-nominated director of Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room—zeroes in one one particular and notorious case that illuminates the moral bankruptcy of the rich and powerful, and the gross distortions of the American media. The film falls short of actually pushing a conspiracy theory. But it marshals some highly compelling evidence to suggest that former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was not just punished for his own gross misconduct, as an A-type consumer of high-priced hookers, but that he was taken down by Wall Street titans who were committing grand larceny, and were royally pissed at his gunslinger campaign against them.

Gibney interviews Spitzer, his friends—and his enemies, who are all too eager to appear on camera and gloat over his downfall. We also hear from women associated with the high-end escort agency that Spitzer frequented. Gibney doesn’t get access to the infamous Ashley Dupre, who became the self-promoting poster girl for the scandal. But she, as it turns out, was just a one-night fling, brought in from bench by the escort service when a regular was unavailable. It was Dupre, however, who gave the story traction, supplying the media with a face and a voice to titillate the public. The film suggests that she may have been part of a high-powered attempt to bring Spitzer down. And even without the conspiracy, in the grand scheme of things, the non-crime of hiring prostitutes seems like small potatoes next to defrauding millions of investors and ruining the world economy.

Because Gibney doesn’t indulge in the kind of rhetoric and hyperbole that we’d see in a Michael Moore documentary or an Oliver Stone drama, his argument is that much more persuasive. And he makes no attempt to redeem Spitzer as a human being. Yes, the disgraced former governor does agree to be interviewed on camera. And as he struggles to explain his behavior, without trying to justify it, he looks highly uncomfortable, and not very likable. Unlike Bill Clinton, another liberal statesman who suffered massive public embarrassment for his private indiscretions, Spitzer has no charm. His strong suit was being brash and abrasive. And now he comes across as an unsavory, haunted man who’s trying to crawl his way out of a deep hole of humiliation. But even without liking him, by the end of this movie we become convinced that this latter-day Eliot Ness, no matter how flawed as a human being, was embarked on a heroic, if quixotic, mission—to root out the kind of endemic corruption that would trigger the financial meltdown.  He seems to have felt he was untouchable, which makes him a victim of hubris, and extreme naïveté—unless, like so many powerful men who compartmentalize their dark side, he secretly wanted to get caught.

The consequential times in which we live

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 5:39 PM - 42 Comments

Despite the transcript and the retraction, the Conservatives sent up Shelly Glover before QP this afternoon to demand that Michael Ignatieff apologize for his “insulting and offensive” comments to the Winnipeg Free Press. She pointedly dismissed the Liberal leader’s protestations because the original story was “pushed” on the Twitter account and website of the Liberal candidate in Winnipeg-North.

If he did not believe the story to be true, why would he push it out for all to see? It is simple. He believed it. He does believe that her candidacy is a game.

Charles Adler, meanwhile, blames the vast left-wing media conspiracy.