'They make it very personal'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 12:21 PM - 120 Comments

Linda Diebel surveys the scene five years after Stephen Harper took power.

University of Windsor political scientist MacIvor is pulling her punches. Asked about Stephen Harper’s style, she describes “an unusually unforthcoming government.” Previously, she’s criticized the PM’s “quite remarkable” degree of control and secrecy, with the same blunt, take-no-prisoners approach she adopts for politicians of all stripes … Instead, this time, MacIvor says she’s “become self-censoring on the subject of the Conservatives. Life is too short for so much stress.”

She expects to take lumps for her political opinions. What’s changed with this government is that she says she’s portrayed as “an enemy of the party” and “fair game” for vicious, personal attacks, which fill her inbox. “I should be able to speak my mind on political issues, but I’ve found members of the Conservative party seem to be more sensitive to criticism than other parties,” she says. “They make it very personal.”

Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 12:10 PM - 0 Comments

Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, is taking a second medical leave of absence from the company nearly two years after he took a similar a six-month leave for a liver transplant. Jobs, 55, has survived pancreatic cancer, but said he needs to take care of his health for now. In an email to Apple employees this morning, he wrote: “At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.” The announcement will rekindle speculation about long-term survival prospects for Jobs, following his treatment for cancer in 2009. “I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.”

The Guardian

Woman freezes to death as neighbours ignore screams

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 15 Comments

A 66-year-old Toronto woman with dementia froze to death within a block of her house Monday morning. Neighbours heard screams, and, according to police, one looked outside and noticed someone stumbling, but none tried to help or call 911. The woman, whose name has not been released, was wearing winter clothes but had removed her jacket and glasses. Her body was discovered by a woman delivering newspapers at about 5:30 a.m.   “It’s a circumstance where we should have been notified to attend. That’s what we do,” said Sergeant David Dubé. ”Could it have saved a life? I don’t know. I would think so.” The woman, whose name has not been released, was last seen by her husband shortly before 2 a.m. He called police at 4:45 a.m. when he awoke and found she was missing.

The Globe and Mail

Moms admit they lie about their kids

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:59 AM - 2 Comments

Almost one-quarter of mothers admit they cover up how much television their kids watch, and one in five lie about how long they spend playing with their kids, according to a new survey of 5,000 people by website Netmums. Mothers often make each other feel “inadequate,” it notes, and the pressure to seem like a perfect parent leads many to lie. Almost two-thirds of moms also said they’d told white lies to other mothers about how well they were coping, and almost half cover up financial concerns. More than nine out of 10 admitted they compare themselves to other mothers.

BBC News

‘Baby Doc’ back in Haiti

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:38 AM - 6 Comments

Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti who was overthrown in 1986 by a populist uprising, has returned to his native country after a nearly quarter-century-long exile in France. In 1971, ‘Baby Doc’ inherited the presidency from his father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, when he was only 19. Duvalier’s rule was characterized by corruption and authoritarianism, while the Haitian people suffered the brutality of his notorious secret police, the Tontons Macoutes, who tortured and killed his political opponents. While the reason for Duvalier’s return from exile is not known, it comes at a time when Haiti is at a perilous crossroads, struggling to rebuild after last year’s devastating earthquake that killed 250,000 people and a subsequent cholera epidemic that claimed 3,750 lives. Haiti is also in the midst of a political crisis following last November’s election, which ended up in a run-off and provoked violent street protests. It is unclear as to whether Duvalier intends to insert himself into the country’s political process.

BBC News

'Social Network' rules, but Colin and Natalie are prom king and queen

By Brian D. Johnson - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:31 AM - 11 Comments

While host Ricky Gervais un-friended half of Hollywood last night as host of the Golden Globes, The Social Network cemented its status as the movie of the year, as both its writer and director went out of their way to make it up to the man they portrayed as a selfish, cold-hearted geek—Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The Social Network won four Golden Globes, including best picture, director, screenplay and score.

Meanwhile a midlife crisis-obsessed Colin Firth and a visibly pregnant Natalie Portman were king and queen of the Hollywood prom, winning best actor and actress for The King’s Speech and Black Swan, respectively. Melissa Leo and Christian Bale won supporting actress and actor awards for their showy turns as white-trash trash talkers in The Fighter. And an exuberant Paul Giamatti gave “the great nation of Canada” a big shout-out as he accepted the best actor in a musical or comedy for Barney’s Version. It was a good night for lesbian portrayals as Annette Bening won best actress in a musical or comedy for The Kids are All Right, and Jane Lynch won a supporting actress for her TV role as the gay gym teacher in Glee, which won three awards. Robert De Niro tried reprising his King of Comedy role with some weakly scripted one liners as he accepted the Cecil B. De Mille Award for lifetime achievement. And at the end of the night a persistently venomous Ricky Gervais eliminated his last possible friend in the room as he thanked God for making him an atheist.

That’s the short version of a three-hour show that was, nevertheless, shorter than the average Oscar night. The universe unfolded more or less as it should, with the Globes setting up a fairly sound set of predictions for the Oscars—although the Oscars don’t have a separate comedy/musical category, so don’t expect Giamatti to spin his triumph into an Academy nod.

Recently in a Maclean’s video, I shot my mouth off about how the Golden Globes are a joke, and how the choices of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are warped by self-interest—whether it’s honouring The Tourist to lure Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie or honouring Burlesque after taking a free junket to see Cher perform in Vegas.  Of course, I’m not the only one saying this. Everybody is. And shortly before last night’s awards, a former publicist for the Golden Globes show launched a $2 million lawsuit alleging its organizers have taken bribes. Which provided Gervais with fresh material to demolish the folks who had hired him.

Regardless of all that, the Globes are still more fun to watch than the Oscars. Because the party maters more than the awards. And because the stars drink during show. Even the host drinks during the show. Or is that just part of his schtick?

Last night I curled on the couch with a laptop, typing. The time flew by, and I was only watching people drink. (I’ve learned from past experience that typing and drinking don’t mix). You can find a list of all the award winners and nominees here, but here’s my blow-by-blow account of the evening:

8:00 p.m.

Ricky Gervais’s beer is waiting for him on the podium. He takes a sip and says, “It’s going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking, or as Charlie Sheen calls it, breakfast.”

Gervais launches right into the controversial highlights. Admits he hasn’t seen The Tourist, then adds, “It must be good because it’s nominated. So shut up.  I want to quash this ridiculous rumour that the only reason the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated The Tourist is so they could hang out with Johnny Depp. That’s not the only reason. They also took bribes.”

Moving right along to the scandal about the HFPA’s junketeers taking a free ride to see Cher sing in Vegas, Gervais says, “You want to go see Cher? . . . No . . . Why not? . . . Because it’s not 1975.”

Then he draws so groans as he takes a low blow at an easy target, citing heterosexual actors pretending to be gay as “the complete opposite of some well-known scientologist.” Tom Cruise does not appear to be in the room.

Speaking of easy targets, next comes Hugh Hefner’s marriage to twentysomething Crystal Harris, who is 60 years his junior. The joke: that she thought he was 94, not 84. The sight gag: Crystal performing fellatio on the old man while checking her watch and thinking, “Hold out, and just don’t look at it when you touch it.”

8:15 p.m.

Christian Bale takes best supporting actor in a drama for The Fighter. As if determined to erase his image as a cantakerous jerk in a single speech, he thanks everyone on earth, pointing to his wife. Any man would be lucky as hell to be married to her. He’s wearing a beard. A lot of actors are wearing beards. It’s what they do between roles.

Katie Segal, a blast from the past, seems as shocked as we are to see her win something. Yes, that Katey Sagal from Married With Children. She wins best supporting actress in a TV drama for Sons of Anarchy.

Carlos, the spectacular  French TV mini series that Olivier Assayas directed as a super-long motion picture—and is the only ‘movie’ on all the New York Times film critics’ top 10 lists—wins for best TV mini series. So what is it, a movie or a TV show? And will it be eligible for the Oscars? Someone, please Google that.

8:28

Ricky Gervais continues to get away with murder. “Please welcome Ashton Kutcher’s dad, Bruce Willis,” he says, as Demi Moore’s ex walks out. And you half-expect Willis to slug the impudent Limey.

Chris Colfer takes best supporting actor in a TV series for his role as a gay kid in Glee, and makes the evening’s first political statement by dedicating his prize to all the kids that watch the show how he hopes it inspires them fighting the bullies who won’t let them be who they are.

Gervais now introduces his host, HFPA pres Philip Berk, saying he’s so old “I just had to get him off the toilet and put his teeth in.” And as Berk step up to the podium, after that intro it’s impossible not to fixate on the guy’s bad dye job (if it’s his real hair).  Berk apparently has been a member of the HFPA for 33 years, and somewhere along the line seems to have lost his sense of humour. All this talk of bribery and corruption be getting to him, “Ricky,” he says, “next time you want me to help you qualify your movies, go to another guy.” Making it sound more like  a threat than a joke.  Let’s add extortion to the list of the HFPA’s alleged crimes.

8:50 p.m.

Steve Buscemi wins best actor in TV drama for Boardwalk Empire. The prompts are telling him to get off the stage almost before he’s got his speech out of his pocket. Suddenly Buscemi, so often typecast as weasel, seems more human by the second as he devotes most of his gratitude to his family. Yes, he has one.

Gervais says The Social Network was his favorite picture of the year. Sounding serious, more of an opinion than a joke. Then the joke: “The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is worth $7 billion. Or as Heather Mills calls him, “‘The one that got away.’”

I guess that HFPA Vegas junket to see Cher did the trick. The song she sings from Burlesque, “You Haven’t Seen the Best of Me,” wins best song. But it’s the songwriter who accepts, not Cher. Oh right, she’s doing a show in Vegas.

9:08 p.m.

It’s cute-as-a-button teen time as Hailee Seinfeld and Justin Bieber present the animated feature award, which goes, not surprisingly, to Toy Story 3. The guy who accepts wonders if they were even born when the first Toy Story came out.

Gervais introduces Robert Downey Jr., noting that his movie credits—Iron Man, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Two Girls and A Guy, Bowfinger—all sound like porn titles, then adds that “most of you know him from the Betty Ford Clinic and Los Angeles County Jail.”

RDJ, introducing best actress for comedy and a musical hones in on what everybody by now must be thinking with a line that cuts as deep as anything Gervais has said: “Aside from the fact that it’s been incredibly mean-spirited with mildly sinister undertones, I’d say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far, wouldn’t you?”

Downey Jr., immediately usurping Ricky’s role as the Smartest Guy in the Room, then launches into an ingenious routine, naming all the best actress candidates for a musical or comedy saying, “I don’t know if an actress can do her best work until I’ve slept with her . . . Julianne, I told her I was working with strange new feelings that were confusing me. Annette . . . ” And on it goes. “Just saying, if I could, I would give it to all five of you.” Finally a comic has connected with the audience, rather than just making them wince.

9:21

Annette Bening wins best actress for a musical or comedy, and thanks “the 1962 winner for the GG for most promising actor, my husband, Warren Beatty.” Warren looks like a proud papa.

Gervais introduces Sly Stallone, praising his “versatility” for playing both a boxer and Rambo.

Geoffrey Rush, looking like William Burroughs in a black suit and fedora presents an award with an über-pale Tilda Swinton, who’s all in white and resembles an albino alien. They’re quite the couple; they should go on the road together.

Al Pacino gets a standing ovation as he accepts his fourth Golden Globe, for playing Jack Kevorkian in You Don’t Know Jack and says, “It’s a great honour for me to have played Jack Kevorkian….it’s great for actors who portray real actors. It’s kind of a special thing for an actor when they get to play a real person.” He’s being sincere. I wonder if Jesse Eisenberg feels the same way, knowing he’s unlikely to win even if The Social Network sweeps.

The most passionate speech of the night so far comes from Claire Danes, who wins best actress in a TV movie drama for Temple Grande. The autistic subject of the movie is in the house. Danes, surfing the verge of tears, says no one but HBO would make a movie like this. I wonder: why can’t there be more HBOs?

9:33

Ricky Gervais keeps swinging below the belt, producing more shudders than laughs.

He introduces “the ungrateful Steve Carrell” as a “jobbing actor” who became famous by starring in a remake of his show, The Office. “He’s now leaving that show and killing a cash cow for both of us,” says Gervais. Carrell  deadpans a loud, sarcastic “Ha, ha, ha” but looks genuinely unamused as he says this routine is getting old.

Aaron Sorkin, accepting the screenplay award for The Social Network, thanks Sony’s studio execs for believing “that the people who watch movies are at least as smart as the people who make movies.” He praises director David Fincher for being “able to make scenes of typing, and sometimes just talking about typing” play like bank robberies. And he patches things up  with the movie’s anti-hero, Mark Zuckerberg. Turning his speech into an virtual amendment to the script, Sorkin him a  “visionary” and an “altruist,” then closes off by telling his daughters that “elite is not a bad word, it’s an aspirational one.” Makes you wonder what’s up with those kids.

9:46 p.m.

Jane Fonda, who presents a trailer for Burlesque, looks like Barbarella Redux in a metallic dress with pointy shoulder pads.

Jeremy Irons, in his English Actor voice, out-enunciates everyone as he presents best supporting actress to Melissa Leo for The Fighter. After situating herself—in “ Southern California, the home of my mother, her mother, her mother before her”—she makes sure everyone knows that she almost didn’t go meet the director because she figured she was to young to play Mark Wahlberg’s mother.

9:58 p.m.

Matt Damon presents the Cecil B. De Mille Award to Robert De Niro, who, after the obligatory montage, puts on his King of Comedy hat and joins in the roast of his hosts. “I’m glad you made the announcement two months ago, well before you had a chance to review Little Fockers,” he says. “We’re all in this together, the people who make the movies, and the members of HFPA who pose for pictures with the movie stars. “

After watching the montage, he says, Awakenings was one of my favorite movies, great performance by Robin Williams. I just forgot that I was in it.”

And: “All these movies are like my children. . . except my children are more expensive and you can’t remake them in 3-D to push up the grosses.” Who writes this stuff?

10:14 p.m.

Megan Fox, only moments earlier fodder for a joke by De Niro about full-body scans, arrives in a gown that makes her look like goddess bandaged in pink satin and sequins. She looks fabulous and then demonstrates her inability to read a teleprompter.

Annette Bening presents best director to director David Fincher, who sounds as smart as his films. When he was asked to make The Social Network, he recalls, “I thought, ‘This is so strange because I normally make pitch-black studies of misanthropes or serial killers.” After speed-reading his gratitude with dispassionate cool, he thanks his entire cast by their first names then says, “I’m personally loathe to acknowledge the wonderful response this film has received for fear of becoming addicted to it.” Like Sorkin, he also goes out of his way to praise Zuckerberg, whose life served as “a metaphor for communication and the way we relate to each other.”

This feels unprecedented: filmmakers rehabilitating the reputation of a subject that they have tarnished onscreen. It’s as if Zuckerberg, newborn philanthropist and Time Person of the Year, has spun the movie’s portrayal of him into a fresh Facebook update.

10:28 p.m.

Halle Berry presents best actor for motion picture comedy or musical. Johnny Depp is competing against himself for roles in two movies that aren’t really about acting, as the Mad Hatter and Angelina Jolie’s lapdog. Which leaves the field wide open for Paul Giamatti. His win is the ultimate nerd victory. When his name is announced, the star of Barney’s Version gets kissed first by Robert Lantos, his jubilant producer, and then by presenter Halle Berry, which leaves a stronger impression:

“Jesus Christ, Halle Berry. Jesus Christ. Halle Berry,” says Giamatti, who seems more excited by the Berry kiss than by the hunk of metal in his fist. “I’m a little jacked up because I ate 5 boxes of the free Godiva chocolates,” he says. “Halle Berry! I always think a mistake has been made because the other men in this category are superior to me in every regard, as men and actors. . .

“I had three wives in this movie, just a trifecta of hotties. I got to smoke and drink and get laid in this movie and I got paid for it. An amazing thing.” Giamatti goes on to thank “this incredible family of Mordecai Richler,”  who let me snoop around in their private lives. But he lavished his most fulsome gratitude on Richler’s home turf, where the movie was shot: “Montreal—an incredible place in a great nation. Canada! I salute the great nation of Canada!”

Jeff Bridges presents the Globe for best actress in a movie drama to a visibly pregnant Natalie Portman for Black Swan. After thanking her parents and grandparents, she thanks the Black Swan choreographer who is the father of her child, and whose character has a key line in the film, telling the artistic director he wouldn’t sleep with her. “He’s the best actor,” says Portman. “It’s not true! He totally wants to sleep with me!”

Hanks, taking the stage with Tim Allen, tries to even the odds somewhat by taking a swipe at the host: “Like many of you, we recall when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby but very nice comedian.”

10:40 p.m. Colin Firth, showing a glimmer of grey in his hair, gives the night’s most eloquent speech, proving he’s an actor by being able to thank a host of people in lovely language without pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket: “Getting you through the mid-stage of your life with your dignity and your judgment intact can be somewhat precarious. Sometimes all you need is a little gentle reassurance to keep you on track.” Clutching his statuette, he says, “Right now this is all that stands between me and a Harley Davidson.” He goes on to express his affection or director Tom Hooper and co-actor Geoffrey Rush, by referring to “a  surprisingly robust triangle of man-love that has somehow moved forward in perfect formation for the last year and a half of so…Geoffrey, my true friend and geisha girl.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Michael Douglas, cancer survivor, looking good, crowns the evening as he comes up to present Best Picture. “There’s got to be an easier way to get a standing ovation,” he says.

As The Social Network wins the top prize, producer Scott Rudin adds his voice to the filmmakers’ Facebook friending campaign, thanking “everybody at Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg for allowing us to use his life and his work as a metaphor.” At this rate, Zuckerberg will be getting a lifetime achievement Oscar.

11 p.m. Apparently, all is fair in the manufacture of Hollywood fable. It’s all about sportsmanship. And as Ricky Gervais signs off, he thanks everyone in the room for being good sports  . . . “and thank you to God, for making me an atheist.” God, I guess, is the ultimate good sport. But by now, even He has tuned out.

The new Conservative ads

By Paul Wells - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:13 AM - 162 Comments

It’s hard to say much about the new Conservative ad campaign until the party begins broadcasting the ads. If it even does. Political parties often announce ads they don’t pay to broadcast. All they need is the “free media” that comes from newspaper and TV coverage, and bloggers putting hyperlinks on the words “new Conservative ad campaign.”

Conversely, parties sometimes pay for ads they don’t announce, when they want everyone except Ottawa reporters to see their message. The current raft of ads (look down the page; there are five in English) is, I’m sure, aimed at different stations at different times. The very upbeat don’t-switch-horses-in-midstream first ad, with Stephen Harper working late in his office, might help cut into the gender gap the Conservatives have permitted to re-open, to their disadvantage, among female voters. The nastier ones could be for another audience. For now that’s just a guess.

In general, however, a few conclusions suggest themselves already.

First, this is not meant to be the opening volley in an election campaign. It is meant to scare the opposition parties — especially the Liberals, who have believed themselves readiest for a campaign — away from one.

As always, Harper prefers to avoid an election. (He called one in 2008 only after calling all three opposition leaders to 24 Sussex and confirming that they meant to defeat him at the next confidence vote.) His method this time is to remind his principal opponents what a campaign is like. Harper has not campaigned hard against the opposition for a while, and they have convinced themselves an election campaign would be like a five-week bus tour where the only crowds are the ones that want to hear Michael Ignatieff and the only message is one of sadness at Conservative mismanagement. Harper is reminding his opponents that he gets to campaign too. Continue…

Can you trust a man who doesn't drink his coffee from a Beatles mug?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 32 Comments

The Conservatives don’t want an election, but are willing to start the campaign here and now with half a dozen new adverts. In the first clip, we learn that to protect Canada from European rioters, Stephen Harper is sitting alone at his desk all day, doing a lot of paperwork.

Montreal Love

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 10:51 AM - 3 Comments

Picture: Everett Collection

I watched The Golden Globes only to see how badly that irrepressible prick Ricky Gervais would skewer those assembled in front of him. (He did his job beautifully, perhaps a little too well…)

That said, my cockles were duly warmed when Paul Giamatti took best actor in a musical or comedy for Barney’s Version, and I outright wept when Giamatti threw some serious love at the 514, and the country as a whole, during his acceptance speech. Montreal, he said, is “an incredible beautiful city which I dream about. An incredible place in a great nation, Canada. And I salute the great nation of Canada.”

Whoah. We really are doing something right.

I'll take "Cheap Publicity Stunts" for $1,000, Alex

By Colby Cosh - Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 5:47 PM - 48 Comments

Having lived through the hype over IBM’s 1997 Deep Blue challenge to human chessplayers, I find myself intensely irritated at IBM’s 2011 assault on Jeopardy! The Globe’s tech reporter leads off his rumination with “On the surface, it has all the makings of a gimmick…”. So did Deep Blue; but let it be recalled that in the fullness of time, after public quarrels and investigative reports and documentaries allowed us to attain a historical perspective, the project actually turned out to be…a gimmick.

IBM didn’t exactly cheat in the Deep Blue showdown, but the company refused to let Garry Kasparov study the computer’s games the way he could have for a top human opponent. When Kasparov nonetheless figured out how to lead the computer into traps by studying tactical weaknesses of artificial intelligence, the company, fearing for its prestige, brought in human chessmasters—ringers—to tweak the program’s position-evaluation algorithm and prevent an awkward defeat. Ken Jennings is joining battle, not with an artificial mind, but with a coterie of corporate drones to whom sportsmanship comes second.

The general arc of computer-chess development, and the perpetually disappointing history of AI, were largely unaffected by the Deep Blue-Kasparov contest. Indeed, the main influence of the exhibition was probably the way it intensified research into anti-computer chess styles. Human-versus-computer competition basically reached a stalemate after 2002′s 4-4 draw between Vladimir Kramnik and Fritz, in which the inherent intellectual limitations of the machine and the physiological and nervous ones of the man more or less ended up cancelling out.

Every article about Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing device, should really lead off with the sentence “It’s the year 2011, for God’s sake.” In the wondrous science-fiction future we occupy, even human brains have instant broadband access to a staggeringly comprehensive library of general knowledge. But the horrible natural-language skills of a computer, even one with an essentially unlimited store of facts, still compromise its function to the point of near-parity in a trivia competition against unassisted humans. Surely this isn’t a triumph for artificial intelligence, or for IBM, so much as it is a self-administered black eye?

Jeopardy!, after all, doesn’t demand that much in the way of language interpretation. Watson has to, at most, interpret text questions of no more than 25 or 30 words—questions which, by design, have only a single answer. It handles puns and figures of speech impressively, for a computer. But it doesn’t do so in anything like the way humans do. IBM’s ads would have you believe the opposite, but it bears emphasizing that Watson is not “getting” the jokes and wordplay of the Jeopardy! writers. It’s using Bayesian math on the fly to pick out key nouns and phrases and pass them to a lookup table. If it sees “1564″ and “Pisa”, it’s going to say “Galileo”.

So why, one might ask, are we still throwing computer power at such tightly delimited tasks, ones that lie many layers of complexity below what a human accomplishes in having a simple phone conversation? The Globe‘s Omar el Akkad tells us, in a sidebar, that the University of Alberta’s world-leading poker software “can beat pretty much the best”…but in a two-player limit game, i.e., an unrealistically pure test of odds calculation that is to no-limit hold ‘em what a grade-school track meet is to a Formula 1 race. (The roots of that U of A research program go back almost 20 years.) Meanwhile, “Computer chess players can now beat all but the very best humans”—but that was more or less the state of affairs already attained in 1997 when Kasparov fought Deep Blue. And the obliteratingly total lack of progress toward the gold and silver Loebner Prizes (annual implementations of the famous Turing test) is such an embarrassment that the jury has been quietly adjusting the bar from year to year to keep things interesting.

El Akkad’s claim is that “Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs keep pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence”, but it would almost certainly be more accurate to state that, as Hubert Dreyfus predicted, they keep smacking into those limits without ever breaking through to the accurate imitation of mindlike activity. Dreyfus is, professionally, a specialist in incomprehensible European nonsense; but he was for decades the leading figure among artificial-intelligence pessimists, and his career has effectively been a long series of successful bets against fast AI development. It is rare for a philosopher to be able to claim strictly scientific falsifiability grounds for a finding, but Dreyfus and other AI skeptics arguably can.

Opening Weekend: 'Green Hornet,' 'Another Year,' 'Nostalgia for the Light'

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 6:37 PM - 0 Comments

Seth Rogen (left) and Jay Chou in 'The Green Hornet'

It would be hard to find a more emblematic cultural divide than the choice of movies this weekend: The Green Hornet vs. Another Year. The former is a loud, chaotic blockbuster, retrofitting yet another comic book superhero for a Hollywood franchise. It’s allegedly in 3-D, but feels utterly flat. Another Year is a gem of ensemble acting from director Mike Leigh, a drama ripe with wit and pathos that shows a master of Brit realism at the top of his game. Needless to say, it’s lot more dimensional than The Green Hornet. And if you’re in Toronto, there’s another terrific option. Don’t miss Patricio Guzman’s documentary masterpiece, Nostalgia For the Light, which is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The Green Hornet

I like Seth Rogen. And not just because he’s Canadian. I think he’s funny, smart and subversive. So I desperately wanted to this movie to be good.  But it’s  such an infuriating mess I don’t know where to begin. . . Let’s start with the damn 3-D. The Green Hornet offers the most compelling evidence to date that, more often than not, 3-D is a scandal, a box-office scam designed to jack up ticket prices and fool audiences into thinking they’re seeing something they’re not. I’m not against 3-D on principle. It tends to enrich animated features. And it worked well in Avatar, but James Cameron spent time, money and expertise on making it so. When you add a third dimension to a live action movie, it entails a whole suite of creative decisions that have to be meticulously attended to; 3-D can’t just be slapped on as an afterthought. In this case, the 3-D just makes a bad movie worse. The polarizing glasses dim the image and the mindless car chases and shoot-outs produce a headache more rapidly than usual. The only moments in The Green Hornet where the 3-D was impressive seemed unrelated to the rest of the movie—an Expo-like interlude of split-screen images that turned into sliding cubes; and the animated end credits, which most of the audience missed, because they were rushing out  to line up for their camera phones, which had been confiscated and placed in plastic bags—in case anyone was dumb enough to try to pirate a blurry 3-D movie with a phone!

So what about the movie? Rogen and Evan Goldberg (the team behind Superbad and Pineapple Express), wrote the script, which offers some nimble repartee. And the premise has promise: as a louche heir to a publishing empire, Britt Reid (Rogen) concocts his Green Hornet alter ego as a lark, exploiting his sidekick, Kato (Jay Chou), after discovering he not only makes the perfect cappuccino but is a martial arts ace and a weapons wizard who makes Bond’s Q look like an amateur. Our hero is a pompous ass, one insult shy of being a racist creep, who creates his legend by stealing credit for his sidekick’s stunts. It’s a nifty conceit, but it’s all masked-up with nowhere to go. The comedy can’t get beyond cheap shots. Whatever camaraderie develops between Britt and Kato seems disingenuous. As the girl reporter who has to put up with Britt’s sexist advances, Cameron Diaz is wasted, if that’s possible. And as the ineffectual villain, Oscar-winning actor Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) shows the same bad judgment in choosing roles that prompted him to back out of playing Freud in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method to do another Hollywood movie.

Most of the advance skepticism about The Green Hornet focussed on Rogen casting himself against type as a superhero. But I don’t have a problem with that. It’s director Michel Gondry who seems most miscast. This  über-cool French filmmaker, best known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is out of his element at the helm of an action movie. Assaulting us with a lot of noisy, chaotic nonsense just doesn’t cut it. There’s nothing wrong trying to subvert the genre, but only if you can master it at the same time.

(from left) Oliver Maltman, Lesley Manville and Ruth Sheen in 'Another Year'

Another Year

It’s a lot easier to explain what’s wrong with The Green Hornet than to convey what’s wonderfully right about Another Year. First of all, I should confess that I haven’t seen it since last May, in Cannes, but it has sat in my memory as the movie that I’m most keen to see again. (In fact, my wife is on her way to see it now, as I type this, and if I finish typing in typing in time, I may try to join her.) When I saw the film in Cannes, this is what I wrote:

. . . With no real plot aside from ultra-real relationships that unfold on a delicate knife-edge of wit and pathos, Another Year is a quiet masterpiece—a pitch-perfect study of the “quiet desperation” that, to quote Pink Floyd, is the English way.” Leigh has been refining this study for a long time, and here he distills it to the pure essentials. This deft ensemble piece revolves around a needy, flighty, middle-aged divorcee, Mary (Lesley Manville) who is desperate for love, and who clings to a happily married and infinitely tolerant couple, Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen). It’s a gentle yet ruthless portrait of common garden angst (as opposed to the existential French variety),  lubricated by dinner-party alcoholism . . .

Now I’m typing again in 2011, fondly remembering the film’s funny, sad, bittersweet scenes of desperate drinking. Leslie Manville’s basket-case of a character is not the only one who dives hurtling into the solace of alcohol. Drink irrigates this film the way cigarettes fuel French movies. Ken (Peter Wright), a lonely colleague of Tom’s, comes to spend the weekend with the couple, and promptly gets drunk, while making an unrequited play for the equally desperate Mary (Oliver Maltman), who flirts with Joe, the much younger son of Tom and Gerri. Mismatched romantic intentions collide as in Shakespearean comedy, yet with the improv-rehearsed naturalism that is Leigh’s trademark. The drama, with its chapters elegantly divided into four seasons, feels as close to life itself as a movie can be.

There’s not much else to say at this point until I see it another time, except: see Another Year. And I’ll see it again.

An image from Patricio Guzman's 'Nostalgia for the Light'

Nostalgia for the Light

I first saw Patricio Guzman’s remarkable documentary at TIFF, and found it one of the most moving and mind-blowing films of the festival. Guzman takes us to the driest place on earth, Chile’s Atacama Desert, where astronomers  peer through giant telescopes that scan the stars, aided by the area’s unusually transparent atmosphere. The astronomers, as Guzman points out, are actually cosmic archeologists. They’re looking at the cosmic bones of a reality that, by the time its light reaches us, no longer exists. They are,gazing into the origins of life. But they’re not the only archeologists in this desert. There also those who retrieve the remains of 19th century miners, and of their ancestors who were buried 1,000 years earlier and mummified by the dry climate.  And at the heart of this narrative is yet another tribe of searchers, looking for shards of life in the sands: the wives, sisters and daughters of the thousands of “disappeared”, those imprisoned, tortured and massacred in the 1970s by the Pinochet dictatorship. The former mining camp was turned into a concentrations camp, and the desert is littered with bone fragments of the disappeared—what was left after excavation machinery dug up mass graves and dumped the bodies elsewhere, perhaps into the sea.

Observatories in Chile's Atacama Desert

The confluence of these various inquiries, up to the heavens and down into the earth, is a stunning revelation. Even the microscopic texture and substance of the bone fragments—the mineral calcium—is said to contains migrant molecules  from the stuff of stars. The desert vistas are gorgeous. But what finally lends the film such heart-breaking beauty are the words of the women who will not give up their search for fragments of their loved ones. Nostalgia for the Light is an astonishing meditation on memory, with a wide-angle lens that embraces the vastness of the cosmos and the smallest specks of lost humanity. It’s saddening and uplifting all at once. I watched it a second time on video. But this, above all, is a picture that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Airport security forced 82-year-old to reveal prosthesis

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 5:22 PM - 39 Comments

An 82-year-old woman from B.C. was in tears after an airport official in Calgary made her reveal her fake breast, which she had made after she lost one to breast cancer. An airport scanner detected Elizabeth Strecker’s gel prosthesis and an agent forced to lift her arm for a pat down, which caused her physical pain. The incident also caused Strecker emotional pain and embarrassment, she says. She is seeking an official apology. Transport minister Chuck Strahl said that airport security must treat travelers with respect.

Vancouver Sun

Harry Potter in Growing Pains

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 5:02 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking of ’80s sitcoms, I just found this video from 2008, which shows how the Harry Potter cast grew up by using a quick series of still photographs like the old Growing Pains main title. I think it’s one of the better ideas for a main title parody/mash-up (and there are thousands of them on YouTube), because it actually has a point to it. Someone should do an updated version, if there isn’t one already, and then keep updating it — like the “Up” movies, except with Harry Potter and set to an ’80s sitcom theme tune.

In Conversation with Maclean's

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 4:57 PM - 30 Comments

To RSVP to the January 26th event at Dalhousie University, Halifax please click here to send an email to events@macleans.ca

Berlusconi to face “prostitution investigation”

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 4:56 PM - 3 Comments

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s 74-year-old prime minister, is under investigation to determine if he used his political influence to have a 17-year-old Moroccan girl, Ruby, released from jail in Milan. Berlusconi
admits he paid Ruby 7,000 euros for attending a party at his residence and to having made the call to police. But he says she was not paid for prostitution and that he was simply assisting a “person in need” when he telephoned on Ruby’s behalf. The launch of the investigation follows yesterday’s court decision that partially overturned a law he passed that would have made him immune to trial. He is currently facing three corruption and tax fraud trials.

Telegraph

TV: How To Pair Shows Up

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 4:36 PM - 0 Comments

Just a very quick thought based on something that was said at the Television Critics’ Association event. A Fox executive was asked about the future of different types of comedy on the network, and said that they hadn’t given up on any particular type of format, but that it’s very difficult to pick up just one multi-camera or just one single-camera half-hour — they need to be paired with compatible shows. (So having decided, correctly, that Raising Hope was their best bet for the new season, they looked for shows that would fit after Raising Hope. The show they came up with was Running Wilde, but the basic idea was a sensible one.) I nodded when I heard that, since it’s been proven many times in the last five years or maybe more. Think of ABC’s awkward attempts to fit multi-camera shows into otherwise all-single-camera lineups; on the other hand, remember how CBS tried to put the single-camera Worst Week after Two and a Half Men. On Fox, remember how the network has repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to put one live-action comedy into its Sunday night lineup. All these missteps suggest that it’s not enough to put a comedy after another comedy — they have to be at least somewhat compatible in look, feel, format and tone.

And yet while that’s unquestionably true now, I don’t think it was always true. Back when The Simpsons was Fox’s only animated comedy, it was paired with live-action comedies, and while some of them were not successful, others were. That ’70s Show and Malcolm in the Middle are examples of shows that were launched in that slot. As for single-camera paired with multi-camera, it’s harder (unless the single-camera show has a laugh track like in the ’60s) but it’s been done. NBC aired Scrubs after Friends with fair success, enough to get the show enough of a following that it was able to last for years in other time slots. Going back to the ’80s, The Wonder Years successfully aired after Who’s the Boss? and ABC had a year of good numbers for a comedy lineup that alternated single-camera with multi-camera.

Just because something has been done in the past doesn’t mean it can be done now, and based on the experience of the last few years, I believe that network executives are right: they can’t mix and match different types of shows the way they used to. It just seems counter-intuitive. Time slots are supposed to matter less in the DVR and online era, and yet I think it may be that they matter even more; finding the right night, the right block, for a show is vitally important. Maybe as there are more reasons for viewers to switch channels or turn off the TV altogether (and watch TV in some other format, I mean; you won’t catch me suggesting that we read a book), it becomes more essential to give viewers a reason not to change the channel, and that means making sure that whoever tuned in to watch show X will also be interested in show Y. You can’t just assume we’ll stick around based on the assumption that if the last show was good, the next one will be. The network has to prove it by offering something similar.

'This is about choices'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 4:24 PM - 41 Comments

The prepared text of Jack Layton’s speech today on the mission in Afghanistan.

Thank you. And Happy New Year.

A new year — a new chance to build a better world, to learn from past mistakes, to get on the right track. Of course, this is the year we expected to welcome our troops home from Afghanistan

Fully and finally. By vote of Parliament. Long overdue. Canada’s been in this war for nine years now. Six of those in a major combat role. Longer than the second world war.

In 2006, New Democrat members from coast to coast to coast passed a resolution to bring our troops home. We said this was the wrong mission for Canada—the wrong way to bring stability to the people of Afghanistan. Continue…

Opposition fights cuts to party subsidies

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 4:22 PM - 76 Comments

The Liberals and NDP are opposing the Harper’s efforts to kill subsidies for political parties, saying that it is a self-serving pursuit that hampers democracy. In an interview with Postmedia News, Harper revealed that he would make ending the subsidies a key part of the Conservatives’ campaign platform. “A subsidy where parties make no effort to raise money is not acceptable, I don’t think, to Canadian taxpayers,” said the Prime Minister. Opponents to the subsidy cut say Harper is hampering other parties’ ability to raise funds outside of the private sector, giving the Tories a big advantage because of their ties to big business. NDP leader Jack Layton defended the subsidies as a key element to democratic reform, and said, “you’re going to end up with those who are able to ante up the bucks getting heard. And that is not democratic. It’s not right.” The subsidies were introduced in 2003 by the Chrétien government in order to ban contributions from businesses and unions.

National Post

Rioting in Tunisian capital

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 3:34 PM - 2 Comments

People have taken to the streets of Tunis to demand that President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali step down, amid calls to end unemployment, corruption and high food prices. Overnight clashes with police have left 13 people dead, bringing the total to 60 since protests began four weeks ago. The unrest began when an unemployed man immolated himself after police tried to stop him for selling vegetables without a permit. Ben Ali, 74, announced that he will step down in 2014, but protesters are calling for his immediate resignation. Ben Ali, re-elected in 2009 with 89.63 per cent of the vote, is Tunisia’s second president since independence in 1956. In an attempt to quell the protests, Ben Ali has promised that he will end internet censorship and lower food prices, while calling on police to show restraint. Other demonstrations have started up in other Tunisian cities, and tourists have been advised to leave the country.

BBC News

Lives at stake

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 2:10 PM - 78 Comments

The Prime Minister defends the government’s purchase of fighter jets.

“Contracts like this are not a political game,” Harper said, speaking from a blue podium with government Action Plan slogans perched in front of him and behind him. “It is about lives and, as you well know, it is about jobs.”

It is unclear from that report whose “lives” are being invoked in this particular case, but the Prime Minister has in the past invoked the “lives” of Canadian Forces members to defend his procurement policy. Continue…

The Harper appeal

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 1:29 PM - 53 Comments

Joe O’Connor tags along with the Prime Minister.

Archie Brown did something the other day he had never done: He donated $200 to a political party — to the Conservative party … blue-collar guy with a name tag on his blue work shirt, a first-time Conservative party donor and a voter in Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s west-end Toronto stronghold, stood beside a printing gizmo finishing his coffee. His mind was made up.

“What I heard from the Prime Minister today was good news,” he said. “I got to shake his hand. It’s funny. His hand was smaller than I thought it would be. It was the same size as mine.”

"The refusal to deal with crazy is a policy decision"

By Claire Ward - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 12:37 PM - 1 Comment

Shot and edited by Tom Henheffer
Produced by Claire Ward

Read Andrew’s column “‘You can’t outsmart crazy’—or can you?” from the January 24 issue of Maclean’s

Inside the North American International Auto Show

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 12:23 PM - 0 Comments

Read the article “Motor City magic” from the January 24 issue of Maclean’s

RELATED: Sex, speed and loud music—The awkwardness of this year’s Detroit auto show

Tough sledding: a look at the ridings on Ignatieff's winter tour [updated]

By John Geddes - Friday, January 14, 2011 at 12:19 PM - 89 Comments

Political chatter in Canada usually swirls around national polling numbers, but the conversation has shifted lately to clusters of ridings thought to be in play. This narrowing of the frame of reference is prompted partly by Prime Minister Stephen Harper casting his hungry eye on Toronto-area Liberal seats, and also by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff hitting the road to visit only ridings the Liberals don’t now hold.

For the purposes of figuring out what sorts of local races might be most interesting to watch in the next election, Ignatieff’s road trip offers the advantage of an actual list of targeted constituencies. It’s a decidedly mixed bag. These are not by any means all seats that would make any strategist’s realistic list of the constituencies most likely to go Liberal.

Continue…