U.S. unemployment rate tumbles

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:03 AM - 0 Comments

The U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January, as the national jobless rate fell to a three-year low. The numbers, released on Friday morning, were likely the best news for Obama’s White House since Newt Gingrich won South Carolina.

With Americans heading to the ballot box in just nine months, a continued economic recovery will be key to Obama’s re-election bid. The New York Times’ Nate Silver suggested on Thursday the economy would need to add about 150,000 a month between now and next November for the president to have a solid re-election election chance.

It’s not an entirely rosy picture, however. Long-term unemployment remains intractable and the number of underemployed, scratching by with part-time work, continues to be alarmingly high.

In Canada, meanwhile, the economy added a mere 2,300 jobs last month as the unemployment rate edged up from 7.5 to 7.6 per cent. Job growth, robust only six months ago, has since slowed. The number of full-time jobs actually fell last month, with the slack being taken up by part-time work.

Problems may also loom in the housing market. The Economist warned on Friday that Canadians housing prices may not be sustainable, especially in Toronto and Vancouver. (To which Vancouverites, waking in their 7-figure bachelor condos, responded: “Poppycock!”)

New York Times

New York Times (blogs)

Globe and Mail

Economist

Ghost of Steve Jobs placing sales pitch for Taiwanese firm

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:02 AM - 0 Comments

A Taiwanese electronics company is using an actor playing the ghost of Steve Jobs to pitch its products, CBC reported Friday. That’s the bad news. The good news: There are no reports said ghost is being played by a Canadian bureaucrat. (Hi-yo!)

On a serious note: I have a hard time getting too mad about this story. Jobs was a businessman who made cool stuff. Nothing more. He was also a massively public figure. Is it sleazy to use his ghost to pitch goods? Sure. But it’s nothing worth shaking your fists about. Just laugh and move on.

CBC

That’s Western University to you

By Paul Wells - Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

Let’s begin with an annoying autobiographical pause: I studied at the University of Western Ontario. Well, “studied.” Anyway, onward:

There ‘s much fuss among alumni over the news that Western is changing its name, for most day-to-day purposes, to Western. Or Western University. Or Western University Canada.

What it won’t call itself, in colloquial use, is the University of Western Ontario. That remains the place’s legal name, but it won’t be the name Western travels with.

This is all causing a certain amount of consternation among people with a link to Western and, I think it’s fair to say, to people who follow branding exercises with a certain healthy amount of skepticism. Objections I heard this morning include:

1. This is dumb. Everyone calls it Western already.

2. This is dumb. It’s in Eastern Canada.

3. This is dumb. It’s in Southern Ontario.

To me, it’s not as dumb, but its cleverness takes a bit of explaining. Continue…

China is now predominantly urban

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

The world’s most populous nation has more urbanites than rural dwellers, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. For the first time in China’s history, most of its citizens now live in cities: more than 690 million of 1.3 billion people, or 51.3 per cent of the population. The BBC reports the shift represents a 14 per cent increase in urban dwellers as a proportion of the total population over the past ten years, and includes 21 million citizens who moved to cities in 2011. Many of these were migrant workers, who for the first time have been counted in a census according to where they live, rather than where they are registered based on their place of birth.

BBC

99 stupid things the government spent your money on (V)

By Jason Kirby with Richard Warnica, Gustavo Vieira, Chris Sorensen, Alex Ballingall, Martin Patriquin and Ken Macqueen - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 1:05 PM - 0 Comments

We’ve previously brought you items 1-18, on subsidies and infrastructure, 19-34, on food and job creation, followed by 35-55, the environment, animals, and money for nothing, and 56-73, culture and tourism. Here’s the wrap-up, a sample of questionable spending on employee expenses, patronage, makeovers, studies, polls and surveys as well as lawsuits and lawyers.

Canada’s finances may be the envy of the world, but the bar is awfully low these days. Whether it’s Ottawa, the provinces or municipalities, governments across the country face horrendous deficits. We must tighten our belts, say the politicians. Austerity and cutbacks are the order of the day.

Only, you wouldn’t know it looking at this list. What follows is but a slice of the silly, wasteful, craven and often outright stupid ways governments at all levels spent taxpayers’ money over the last year. To find our 99 items, Maclean’s scoured press releases and auditor generals’ reports, contacted watchdog groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and waded through news reports, looking for examples where the money was either spent or announced in 2011. We also included a handful of egregious instances of waste that only came to light in the past 12 months, even if the actual cash was doled out in previous years.

Not everyone will agree with all these items being on the list. Some will justify handouts to companies and sports teams as necessary to “promote economic activity,” or they’ll say a camping program for new immigrants was a nice thing to do. Sure, it would be great if we could afford everything, but at a time when government spending is under the knife, when services and jobs are being cut, it’s clear many of those with their hands on the public purse have yet to come to terms with Canada’s new fiscal reality.

Continue…

Christopher Hitchens, dead at 62

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 10:51 AM - 0 Comments

Polemicist and author Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday after battling oesophageal cancer since the spring of 2010. Armed with a combative style and a fierce wit, Hitchens was known for training his sights on targets as varied as Mother Theresa, Bill Clinton, and religion as a whole. In the last months of his life, Hitchens wrote often about the cancer that would eventually kill him, insisting it had led him to question neither his rabid atheism, nor his penchant for cigarettes and alcohol. Hitchens died at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.

New York Times

What’s on our pundits’ wish lists for 2012?

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 2, 2011 at 12:57 PM - 0 Comments

Over in that other Cree community, “snail’s pace” progress

By John Geddes - Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 8:57 AM - 0 Comments

The sorry situation in Attawapiskat, Ont., that’s drawing so much attention this week is, of course, nothing new. It follows much the same pattern as the fall 2005 crisis Kashechewan, another remote Cree community on the Ontario shore of James Bay.

As many will recall, the Kashechewan story was portrayed as a severe water-quality problem. The filtration plant at the reserve community of about 1,900 wasn’t working properly, briefly resulting in dangerous E. coli bacteria levels in the water. Chlorine used to kill the bacteria was then blamed for aggravating skin problems, although doctors I talked to at the time thought the lesions and rashes were caused by chronic overcrowding in abysmal housing and doubted chlorine levels mattered much.

So the truly urgent problem was, as it is in Attawapiskat, lousy housing. I wondered if anything was ever done about it, and whether Kashechewan’s experience holds any lessons for Attawapiskat. So I called Jonathan Solomon, Kashechewan’s current chief, to find out.

Solomon explained that soon after the wave of media attention that crashed over his community in fall 2005, the federal government approved a project to renovate at least 60 houses. That project went well, initially (and even won an award). Not only did it provide some decent shelter, the renovation contractors also trained local residents in valuable dry-walling and plumbing skills.

“We certainly made progress at the beginning,” Solomon said. “We did build. But for the past two years we’ve been struggling to get funding. We are told there’s no money.”

It’s not that demand has eased. Solomon says five families with children are living in “shacks” in Keshechewan, as are about 12 single adults. He would like to renovate 80 of the community’s about 200 houses. Some work is on the horizon: the federal government recently approved $450,000 for retrofits, perhaps enough to fix up another 10 or 12 homes. “We’re moving at a snail’s pace.”

It seems that keeping up real momentum is the problem. There is, however, a glimmer of hope in Kashechewan. The community’s water filtration plant—where malfunctions in 2005 led to the evacuation of a quarter of the community at an estimated cost of $16 million—is now running up to provincial standards.

Canadians say Remembrance Day important, don’t show it

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 0 Comments

Only just over a third of Canadians take part in Veterans’ Week, for example by participating in a local Remembrance Day ceremony, even though a majority says it’s important to honor veterans, the Ottawa Citizen reports. “While two-thirds of respondents … indicate that they make an effort to demonstrate their appreciation to Veterans, reported participation in Veterans’ Week activities is much lower,” reads a summary statement of the survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid for the federal government.

The Ottawa Citizen

France calls for “unprecedented sanctions” against Iran

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 2:43 PM - 0 Comments

France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppé called for “unprecedented sanctions” on Wednesday if Iran fails to address questions from the international community about its nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal reports. On Tuesday, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, officially acknowledged for the first time that the Iranian regime appears to have developed technologies needed to produce atomic weapons. “The elements of the IAEA report on the military activities, together with the accumulation of enriched uranium and the intensive ballistic trials program, leave few doubts on Iranian intentions,” Juppé said.

The Wall Street Journal

Feds likely considering bigger CSIS role abroad

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 7, 2011 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

Now that is has a parliamentary majority, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper may soon dust off plans for endowing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service with powers to conduct covert operations abroad, writes the National Post’s John Ivison. Currently, CSIS can only engage in foreign espionage to stave off a known, direct threat to Canada. In the previous government, hot potato cases such as Omar Khadr’s and Adil Charkaoui’s forced the Conservatives to shelve the plan, adds Ivison citing anonymous sources. Now, though, they seem ready to push for expanding CSIS’s role abroad once again.

The National Post

What are we going to do with all these prisoners?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:35 PM - 0 Comments

While some worry that a change of wording may lead to more prisoner abuse, prison guards worry about overcrowding.

About 13 per cent of the male inmate population is “double-bunked” – housed in cells built for one person – and, under the new legislation, that will increase to 30 per cent (about 15,000 prisoners) before planned new construction is able to “provide relief,” added Sapers.

“Prison over-crowding undermines nearly everything that can be positive or useful about a correctional environment,” he said. “It is linked to increased levels of institutional violence, is a contributing factor to the spread of infectious disease and reduces already limited access to correctional programming and delays the safe and timely reintegration of offenders into the community.”

Consumers sue RIM over BlackBerry outage

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:11 PM - 0 Comments

Research in Motion has been hit with consumers lawsuits in Canada and the U.S. over the four-day BlackBerry outage that disrupted email, instant messaging and browsing services for millions of users on five continents earlier this month, Reuters reports. North of the border, a lawsuit on behalf of all Canadian BlackBerry owners with an active service agreement at the time of the disruption was filed on Wednesday in Quebec Superior Court. In the U.S. a similar lawsuit was filed the same day in federal court in Santa Ana, California. The US complaint said that RIM earns at least $3.4 million per day on fees for a service that, the lawsuit argues, it failed to provide between October 11 and October 14.

Reuters

Newly-obtained documents suggest cabinet picked G8 projects

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 2:24 PM - 7 Comments

Documents obtained by the Toronto Star suggest cabinet ministers had discretionary power to approve G8-related projects in Huntsville. An email exchange involving Vern Freedlander, a media consultant hired by Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty, and Environment Minister Peter Kent implies cabinet ministers John Baird and Jim Flaherty were intimately involved in the decision-making process. “Peter tells me that right now MPs are being asked to provide infrastructure projects to cabinet for direct approvals by Baird and Flaherty,” Freedlander wrote to Doughty and two other senior officials in Huntsville. “They earlier shovels get in the ground the better.” A spokesperson for Kent denied the conversation ever took place, while Flaherty’s office insisted the finance minister “was not part of the process.” Baird’s office said it considers the controversial dossier closed.

Toronto Star

Do school-based obesity interventions really work?

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 3:45 PM - 20 Comments

Alan Cleaver/Flickr

We’re fatter than ever and efforts to reduce our ever-expanding waistlines are failing, according to a new report by the Community Foundations of Canada.

Between 1981 and 2009, obesity roughly doubled across all age groups and tripled for youth (age 12 to 17) in Canada. This translates to a rate of obesity that’s close to 25%.

Our padded figures have left governments scrambling to address the chronic condition. Carrying extra weight increases the risk of a range of health conditions (from Type 2 diabetes to high total cholesterol and several cancers), meaning health-care costs balloon with our waistlines. (The Community Foundations of Canada put the price tag on health spending related to obesity at between $4.6 and $7.1 billion each year.) Continue…

Smuggler’s underwear goes to the birds

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 1:36 PM - 1 Comment

In Australia, tight-fitting men’s swim shorts are known as “budgie smugglers,” but in the Netherlands, it appears they prefer hummingbirds. A Dutch man was arrested this week after border guards in French Guinea found more than a dozen tiny hummingbirds sewn into his underwear. The live birds were individually wrapped in cloth and tucked into little pouches inside the man’s pants. He was spotted by airport guards acting strangely, possibly due to the rows of tiny beaks pointing into his crotch.

Daily Mail

Nathan Morlando and Scott Speedman on the making of ‘Edwin Boyd’

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 1:38 PM - 0 Comments

Mandatory minimum sentences are “appropriate”: justice minister

By macleans.ca - Monday, August 15, 2011 at 3:12 PM - 8 Comments

Canada’s justice minister has rejected harsh criticism from Canada’s top legal organization regarding Ottawa’s “tough-on-crime” agenda. An annual conference of the Canadian Bar Association in Halifax issued a resolution Sunday laying out a calling for judges to have more discretion with mandatory minimum sentences, particularly with respect to mentally ill offenders. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responded on Monday by saying the sentencing guidelines were “reasonable and appropriate.”

The Globe and Mail 

Reponse to ‘Opposing prayer in Toronto public schools, with dignity’

By Ron Banerjee - Friday, July 29, 2011 at 3:50 PM - 48 Comments

[This post was written by Ron Banerjee in response to Emma Teitel's article, 'Opposing prayer in Toronto public schools, with dignity']

The Canadian Hindu community has been, and continues to be, victimized by violence and hatred. As representatives of Canadian Hindus, the Canadian Hindu Advocacy is now being subjected to attacks and innuendos, often from biased media.

In the controversy over Valley Park School, terrified Hindu parents had contacted us to complain about Islamic students disrupting classes every week by having imams lead prayers in the cafeteria. They felt that the TDSB was so thoroughly infected with Islamist sympathies that they would suffer consequences for speaking up.

Recently, CHA was approached by a reporter who arrived half an hour before our planned picket and demanded to know on camera where ‘all the Hindus are’. His goal was to discredit the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, despite the known fact that we are a large national group which has published over 100 op-eds and letters to the editor in the National Post, Financial Post, and Toronto Sun over the last few years. All are freely available on our website in our ‘Media’ section.

You cannot get much more mainstream than that. In the current controversy, some fringe Hindu groups are trying to score cheap publicity by attacking our noble organization, or taking contrary views to stoke conflict.

These groups should be aware that we exist to counter hate and oppression, mostly from Sikh and Muslim fundamentalists, that Hindus have suffered from in Canada.

They should note that over 330 mostly Hindus were slaughtered by suspected Sikh Khalistan fundamentalists in the Air India tragedy, while Canadian authorities bungled the investigation, treated victims with contempt, and recently offered a financial package which victim families termed as ‘an insult’.

They should also note that after 9/11, the only religious structure destroyed in Canada was a Hindu temple in Hamilton. When the temple asked the McGuinty government for financial assistance to rebuild, they were told governments cannot fund religious establishments.

The ‘Scamgate’ scandal revealed this same government handed over millions in grants to religious groups, including a dozen Muslim groups and a Sikh temple whose posters celebrate the suspects in the Air India bombing.

These incidents happened because Hindus had no effective clout, while Muslims and Sikhs ran roughshod over Hindu rights with the connivance of Canadian governments and authorities.

Muslims are now twisting the meaning of ‘reasonable accommodation’ to their benefit again. A reasonable solution would have been for Islamic students to pack bag lunches and traipse to the nearby mosque during their hour-long lunch break. Disrupting classes harms everyone and benefits none.

Hindu and other non Muslim students are adversely affected by 400 Muslims marching in and out of class, while Muslims miss an hour of instruction every week.

Canadian Hindu temples and groups have proven themselves unable or unwilling to protect Hindu lives, rights, or property. The Canadian Hindu Advocacy was formed to address this, and our national advocacy shall continue to provide real leadership to our oppressed community, which is by far the most victimized in Canada.

We have formed a multi faith coalition with the Christian Heritage Party and Jewish Defence League of Canada. We will work to restore Canadian values of democracy and freedom, which are themselves a combination of both Hindu and Judeo Christian principles.

Ron Banerjee is a director with the Canadian Hindu Advocacy

Half of young Canadians indifferent toward royal couple

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 1:48 PM - 17 Comments

An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll conducted by The Toronto Star reveals that over half of Canadians aged 18 to 34 are indifferent toward Wills and Kate’s upcoming Canadian tour. 37 percent of Canadians over age 55 and 43 percent between 35 and 54 feel the same way. The vice-president of Angus Reid, Jaideep Mukerji, says that young people may be uninterested in William and Kate because they feel the British monarchy is irrelevant in their lives. French-speaking Canadians weighed in as the least interested in the royals, with 64 percent in favour of completely severing ties with the monarchy.

The Toronto Star

Asteroid passes between Earth and moon

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 12:02 PM - 3 Comments

An asteroid the size of a garbage truck sailed between the moon and Earth on Monday, passing harmlessly 12,000 kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The asteroid passed along the same trajectory predicted by scientists. According to the JPL, such an event occurs about once every six years. Even if the space rock, which measured between 5 and 20 metres in diameter, had entered the Earth’s atmosphere, a JPL spokesman said it would have likely burnt up and caused no damage.

Ottawa Citizen

Maclean’s: June 27, 2011 issue

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments

FROM THE EDITORS

The one bureaucrat we’ve all come to trust

THIS WEEK

Good news, bad news

Newsmakers

OPINION

Barbara Amiel: As he lifted his leg, I watched, enviously

Andrew Coyne: Rain or shine, the monopoly must end

Scott Feschuk: A constant reminder of my failings

THE INTERVIEW

Gary Bettman in conversation with with Jonathon Gatehouse

CANADA

The making of Jack Layton

Paul Wells: When Tories agree to disagree

Colonel who?

Paying good money for awesome ideas

Who’s suing whom: A broken desk and a bumpy ride

Mitchel Raphael on Rae’s plans and the new Speaker’s muscle

WORLD

Afghanistan: Another civil war?

United States: What’s blocking up the pipeline?

Syria: Running from the regime

Letter from Europe: No sex please, they’re children

China: A dangerous herder mentality

India: Corruption stories, online

Britain: Archbishop battles ‘Big Society’

France: He really doesn’t like Sarkozy

Australia: Save the Earth, kill a camel

BUSINESS

Hacker attack

The last of his kind

The fashion big leagues

Can I crash at your place?

A Wii problem

Taking big box to Africa

Bright idea: Instant bottle

SOCIETY

The royal visit: Hail to the chief organizer

Blindsided

Greener pastures

Island of earthly delights

Are you going to eat those fries?

The stuff of science fiction

FILM

Bollywood confidential

TASTE

The definitive ($600) cookbook

FAME

The wife with the angry memoir

BOOKS

Review: La Seduction: How the French Play The Game of Life

Review: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

Review: The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

Review: Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped

Review: Infamous Players: A Tale of the Movies, the Mob (and Sex)

Review: The Thirteen

STAGE

World’s most misguided musical returns

ART

Art’s original bad boy does Ottawa

THE END

Virginia Dorothy Little (1942-2011)

John Edwards indicted by grand jury

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 3, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

On Friday, a federal grand jury indicted John Edwards on counts of conspiracy, illegal campaign contributions, and false statements. The former presidential candidate is accused of using party funds to hide his mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his presidential campaign in 2008. The federal investigation leading to Edwards’ indictment spanned over two years. A spokeswoman on his behalf denied existence of the charges and refused further comments.

ABC News

Depp on Cruz control

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 1:09 PM - 4 Comments

Johnny Depp at the Cannes press conference for 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' / photo by Brian D. Johnson

Johnny Depp doesn’t watch his own movies. And after I dragged myself to an 8:30 a.m. screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, I could only think that his morning was better spent than mine. The experience didn’t start well. The damn 3D glasses weren’t working. I wondered, how could that be? First I thought it was the projection, but none of the other several thousand journalists at the screening were fumbling with their glasses. After 20 minutes of dark, blurry images, I left the theatre and handed my glasses to an usher, muttering that they didn’t work.“Oh, monsieur, vos lunettes ne clignottent pas!” Telling me my glasses weren’t blinking. Huh? Then he handed me a fresh pair and, holding them up to the light, showed me that they were were blinking. These are not your granddad’s polarized 3D shades. They’re active-shutter X-pand 3-glasses with lenses that alternately flick on and off at a rapid rate.

So I returned to my seat and found everything crystal clear, including the French subtitles, which hovered annoyingly within touching distance.  Regardless, the movie, directed by Rob Marshall, is an unsightly mess. Don’t get me wrong. I adore both Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz. Throw in Geoffrey Rush and Ian McSwane and this is one fine cast. But it’s a shame to see actors wasted. Amid the two-hour-plus barrage of chaotic action, there’s scarcely an intimate moment between them. How many swordfights can anyone be expected to endure and not be bored silly? Seen one, seen them all. And why does every Pirates movies need such a baroque tangle of plots with three gangs of people fighting over . . . in this case, the Fountain of Youth. The latest additions to the monster menagerie, by the way, are mermaids. One of them falls in love with a Christian missionary. But most  are man-eating vampires that churn up the sea like extras in an over-populated Jaws sequel.

Pirates 4 joins a growing genre of sideshows at Cannes afflicted by the-press-conference-was-more-fun-than-the-movie syndrome. And you can’t not like Johnny Depp, who is as charming off screen as on. Aside from the fact that he’s a close friend of Keith Richards, and has lived to tell the tale, he’s one of the few superstars who can express a humility that is both genuine and insightful. At a jammed press conference for Pirates, he sat next to Penélope Cruz, his partner in grace, and fielded even the dumbest questions with generosity and wit

. I thought of asking him if he longed make a Pirates Unplugged, where the ratio of action to acting would be reversed, so dialogue would dominate. But I already knew the answer. He would laboriously have to defend the process, and the movie. So instead  I asked, “When you were making little, idiosyncratic films with the likes of Jim Jarmusch, did you ever dream you’d be commandeering a franchise like this? And do you miss the intimacy of those smaller films?”

“I’m lucky. I try and work out a balance, angling toward doing what is true to me. And it just so happens that for 20 years or so I made these films that were considered for the most part failures. Flops. I built a career on flops, so I was quite comfortable in that arena. Then a couple of things hit. It’s a very strange little ride and you get used to it pretty quick. You’ve got a film coming out, ooh, he’s on the list again. Maybe he’s on the list. Producers you haven’t talked to for 15 years call you: “How have you been?” Then that film takes a dump, and then they never call you again til the next one.”

I also asked about Keith Richards, who reprises his role as his dad in a fleeting cameo. “He’s amazing to share a trailer with. I could write a book on that myself one day.”

One journalist asked Depp what it takes to be a good pirate. “I can only speak from my experience,” he said. “I suppose you have to be willing to get fired. The only reason I’m still around is that I was so supported by Jerry Bruckheimer and the director on the first one, Gore Verbinsky, in terms of what I was bringing to the table, character-wise. Let’s say there wasn’t a group of the Disney echelon who had any enthusiasm for what I was doing. They wanted to subtitle me.”

Deadwood‘s Ian McShane, who plays Blackbeard in Pirates 4, offered this note on how he prepared:  “I used to play a lot of music, especially Bob Dylan’s song, Boots of Spanish Leather. The way you act any character, you look at the other character in the eye and try not to trip over your sword. My sword is three times as big as anybody else’s. It was also nice to play an evil character–I’ve played quite a few–but one I could actually see with my grandchildren.” Then he added: “We don’t call them evil characters; we call them complicated characters.”

Inevitably, the stars were asked to compare the experience of working on a low budget and big budget. The answer is always predictable. If you’re promoting a low-budget film, it’s kosher to crap on the whole blockbuster ethic. But if you’re promoting the blockbuster, you say the experience of acting is essentially the same, no matter how many trailers are lined up around the block.  Denying there was any difference between acting in a $12 million movie like The King’s Speech and a gazillion-dollar movie like Pirates, Geoffrey Rush noted, “Whether it’s playing the speech therapist or  the pirate, it’s good that I keep working with people called King George.

As for Penélope Cruz, she and Depp said lovely, flattering things about each other.  Johnny, who’s happy to keep making these movies as long as the audience will have them, said he’d be happy to have  Penélope in all of them, if she were willing. But what spoke louder than their public testimony were the shy, electric glances that flew between them, and whatever it was they whispered to each other off-mic.

Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz at Cannes press conference for 'Pirates' / photo by Brian D. Johnson