Snowballs in the rain - Dr Phil, Cronenberg and Harper are shitlisted - Ian McEwan, Johnny Depp and the Cohen Brohers are not

MOVIE UPDATE

So we saw a couple decent movies of late, and a couple disappointments. Here's the short version:

1. Juno - Enjoyable, because how could anything with Micheal Cera be anything else? Worth the money, and guaranteed to make incredulous parents go "but they're only teenagers!" Ellen Page is good, everyone else is good, its just all around good. Kinda like Saved, if Saved hadn't pussied out.

2. Atonment - Fabulous, and this is coming from someone who hates epics, despises love stories and becomes positively rabid at the mention of an epic love story. We really wouldn't call it an epic though, since despite the wide time span of the story (the second part focuses on the British troops at Dunkirk) it remains squarely focused on the connection between the three main characters, never deviating from their perspectives. And, now that we mention it, we wouldn't really call it a love story either, since it is not about some intangibile, fantasy notion of love, but the difficult task of atonning for one's mistakes (hence the title). So ha! We win! Ian MacEwan spins a beautiful, heartbreaking tale, and this is a fantastic adaptation.

3. The Golden Compass - Decent, until the end, which they changed from the book. Or rather, they decided to end the movie on a high note leaving out the final, devastating climax of the book which essentially fuels the protagonist's journey through the following sequels. So while it looked absolutely stunning, and while the Armored Bears (not Ice Bears, like in the movie) were totally bad-ass, and Lee Scorseby was everything you could hope him to be, this movie still crushed our childhood dreams, proving yet again that big budgets don't make good adaptations.

4. Sweeney Todd - Devilishly delicious! Throats were ripped open, blood gushed, spurted and sprayed all over the place, and Johnny Depp sang love ballads to his straight razors. This movie should have had the tag line "Oh yes, there will be blood", not that stupid, torture porn movie Saw II (and it didn't even have that much blood, not in comparison...).

5. Eastern Promises - Fuck you, Croenenberg. Learn how to create a proper woman character, for once. We aren't all mothers or whores, you know. And your villain needs more motivation than the old "I have a major boner for my chauffeur but daddy would never accept me for the big flammer that I am, so I must do outrageous, immoral things" excuse. Don't insult our intelligence. Go penetrate something, get it out of your system.

6. No Country for Old Men - No words can describe it. Just brilliant. It kinda just makes us flail and moan. Its beautiful, intelligent and terrifying. The Cohen Brothers rocked our socks.

NEWS UPDATE

Dr. Phil is going to cure Britney Spears of crazy. Aren't you relieved? Don't you feel so much better about the whole situation, now that Dr. Phil is on the job? What the shit is this all about? We didn't really like the guy before, but now he's on our list (as Stephen Colbert would say). He's right up there with Donald Trump. Media Whores, both of them. Trump should lend Phil his toupee!

Bhutto was murdered, more soldiers have died in Afganistan , and Kenya is trying to clean up itself up.

Oscar Peterson passed away . He was been married four times and had 7 children (6 with the first wife). That old scoundrel.

Steven Harper is a Douche (with a capital D). Tell him what you think of him: pm@pm.gc.ca

THE END

Eli

PS - That wasn't the end. THIS is the end:

Tonight we had a snowball fight in the pouring rain! We must say, there really isn't anything quite like tearing down Bishop street, leaping over massive puddles and firing off nasty snowballs. Here's to hoping that nothing freezes over night (an appropriate concern, given that it is 10 years since the ice storm)!