This Town Needs An Enema

Twenty years ago yesterday, my friends and I entered a packed Paramount Theatre in Saint John to watch the premiere of Tim Burton’s Batman. Immediately afterward, I declared it to be the greatest film ever made.

The years have tempered that statement a fair bit. Looking back, for all his visual style, Tim Burton wasn’t very good at directing humans. But the movie did, in many ways, usher in the modern era of comic adaptations although we had to sit through The Shadow and Dick Tracey before we could get to see X-Men and Spider-Man.

In a sense, the 1989 film has more in common with the 1960′s version than the current Christian Bale version with the Cookie Monster voice.

And Jack Nicholson’s line “This town needs an enema!” is really, really dumb.

P’tit Train du Nord

My second entry in the ongoing series “John Tries a Beer He Never Had Before” is P’tit Train Du Nord. Brewed by Microbrasserie St-Arnould, P’tit Train is described on their website as the champagne of Mont-Tremblant.

When I tasted it, I didn’t detect any champagne flavour but, as a pale ale, it had a nice, smooth taste but I wouldn’t necessarily say it had a high drinkability. One at a time was enough for me. That could also be my age talking.

It’s enjoyable and I’d recommend to anyone but I have to say I liked La Griffintown Montrealaise just that much more.

Iran

I saw this a few weeks back in my Google Reader and loved. It was created for this organisation and now, I’m just struck by how relevant that particular Photoshop has become.

On a Possible Summer Election

I’ve been reading Kady O’Malley’s liveblogging of Michael Ignatieff’s response to the Conservatives economic report. Most people were banking on him supporting the government and now, with his insistence that certain demands regarding EI, federal stimulus money, and medical isotopes, the prevailing wisdom just doesn’t seem to be holding.

On Friday, the government could very well be defeated and we could be on our way to our second federal election in a year. This, in itself, doesn’t bother me. For as long as we’re electing minority governments, this will be an issue. And I’m happy to have the right to peacefully change or continue the government when asked.

What bothers me is that the default national choices are so uninspiring. In the Conservative government, you have a paranoid leader who spends his time running attack ads every time the Liberals get a new leader or trying to wrangle his members who either don’t know what they’re doing or are telling people with whom they disagree to fuck off. In the Liberals, I have yet to see them articulate any kind of idea as to what their government would look like. Other than not being Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff hasn’t given us much of a reason to vote for his party.

And so in a month and a bit, we may find ourselves voting on such electrifying issues as the administration of an employment insurance programme that my home province doesn’t participate in (we have our own deal here) and the definition of implementing stimulus money. You can’t accuse us of being a country of big issues.

In the federal and provincial elections in which I have voted, I’ve supported Liberal, New Democrat, and Green Party candidates. I don’t really know who’ll I’ll support this time.

People often complain that Canada has no Obama, someone of such gifted oratory whom people can really rally around. As nice as that would be for us, right now I’d settle for some quiet competence.

Another Take on V

I’ve always liked the science fiction that uses the alien arrival as a metaphor for immigration and integration. In case of the original V, the arrivals were invaders in disguise. The remake I talked about last week will likely take a different approach. In the 1988 film, Alien Nation, the arrivals were effectively refugees.

This summer, a variation on the aliens as refugees theme, arrives in the form of District 9, a South African film which appears to draw parallels with apartheid. I’ve no idea if this will even show up in Montreal but I’d love to see it.