17 December 2018, mid-morning
A posse of us went to the members’ premier of Shoplifters at the TIFF Lightbox last week. This is the latest film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, who made Nobody Knows. I haven’t seen any of his other movies, but now feel like tracking them all down. The premise of the film is simple enough. A family of petty criminals find a girl seemingly abandoned by her abusive parents. They take her home and start raising her as one of their own children. The movie moves on from there. It’s an incredible film. Such a sweet sad film. The acting is so great. It’s playing at TIFF still, you should watch it while you can.
More about Shoplifters at TIFF.
Movies
- "I find systemic racism exists in TBPS at an institutional level."
The police services board in Thunder Bay was disbanded and an administrator appointed in its place on Friday after a report found relations between the force and the city’s Indigenous community were in a crisis that constitute an “emergency.â€
It’s unreal just how fucked up Thunder Bay seems to be. I have been listening to the Thunder Bay podcast from Canadaland, which is excellent. Each episode i’m all, “Well this is fucked up. Where do you even go from here?” And then the next episode is even more fucked up.
2 December 2018, early morning
Finished watching the new She-Ra with my daughter. It’s really well done. Noelle Stevenson—of Nimona and Lumberjanes fame—has done a great job here. There is a clear vision and arc for the whole thing, all about friendship and junk like that. The show doesn’t completely repudiate the origin story of the original, but it’s doing its own thing. This first season is about Adora learning she’s She-Ra, working to unite all the princesses of power so they can all be part of a rebellion against the horde. They also give She-Ra and Catra a deeper relationship, and a lot of the show is about each of them realizing they have grown apart. But also it’s a show for like 7 year olds so keep that in mind when you’re watching it. It’s aesthetic is closer to anime I’d say. I don’t think it’s a bold statement to say it’s better than the original.
Television
1 December 2018, the wee hours
I ended up with a free membership to TIFF. My first film as a member was Roma, the latest film by Alfonso Cuarón. When I watched Children of Men I said, “Children of Men is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Holy shit that was good.” I know I am quick to throw superlatives around when it comes to cinema, but Roma was fucking fantastic. It’s one of the best movies i’ve seen in my entire life. The film is clearly autobiographical. There is so much detail and specificity in the 1970s Mexico the film shows us. The movie’s protagonist is Cleo, the servant of a rich family in Mexico city. The film is slow, sometimes funny, sometimes tense. There are two scenes in the movie, one in a hospital, and one on a beach, that are so masterfully put together they make the whole film worthwhile all by themselves. And they are just two scenes. You must watch this film. If you’re in Toronto you’re lucky enough to be able to watch it at the Lightbox: you should do that.
Read the Guardian’s review of Roma.
Movies
31 October 2018, mid-morning
“Go back to China,†some old man yells at some old lady at Lansdowne station. I am walking in to the station, while he is leaving. We come to the same shitty Presto turnstile.
You often wonder what you’ll do or say when you bump up against stuff like this. It’s been so long since I have heard some proper-ass racism in the city. (Has it? I can’t recall, anyway.)
“What the fuck did you say?†So I guess that’s what I am doing.
I stop him from leaving because I want to hear him say something, but he mumbles and pushes past me. The moment is over in seconds. I realize I wasn’t going to get anything worth hearing.
So I turn and yell at the two men working in the operator booth, dealing with the women who was told to go back to China. She’s agitated as well. “What are you even doing when this shit is happening right in front of you?” None of us our white. I bet this old brown dude I am now talking to has seen some shit.
“This happens all the time. Some people are crazy. You just got to ignore them.†Now I am the crazy person he needs to calm down.
I tell him nothing changes if no one says anything as I walk away, but I suspect he is the one that’s right.
Life | Toronto
18 October 2018, early morning
It turned out Demons in Paradise was a documentary. I’m not sure why I thought it was going to be a fictional retelling of the war in Sri Lanka. No matter, it was an interesting film all the same. Directed by Jude Ratnam, the film is a look at the violence of the civil war through the lens of his family’s experience with the war. The movie’s narrative seems to move from violence inflicted on the Tamil community to violence inflicted by the Tamil community (upon themselves). The movie opens in Colombo, discussing Sinhalese violence. The movie ends in Jaffna, discussing Tamil violence. In between is a brief coda in Kandy, that feels a bit out of place except that it separates these two chunks of the film. Ratnam managed to get people to be quite candid about their experiences. An ex-LTTE fighter talks about the TELO massacre. People from other groups talk about the random violence they committed. The film also asks the question (but doesn’t answer) why the civilian population was so blasé about the violence being committed in their name. I liked the film. My friend Fathima (who shuttered her blog!) thought it was muddled and poorly executed. We are a complicated peoples.
I saw Demons in Paradie at Jackman Hall as part of the Rendezvous With Madness Festival.
Movies
- Portrait of a Campaign.
The process selects for candidates who are good at raising money, not winning votes. Fundraising consumes an inordinate amount of our candidate’s time. A campaign that was supposed to be about the voters is instead focused entirely on a class of fickle donors. Going through the slog of perpetual fundraising convinces our candidate that there has to be a better way.
There is! And her opponent has found it.
The incumbent is a middle-aged Republican man who haunts his district like a ghost, appearing once or twice a year for just long enough to frighten children, though never long enough for witnesses to gather. He got elected a few terms ago and has coasted through re-election ever since, often with over 60% of the vote. His comfortable victory margins are less a reflection of his political prowess, and more a symptom of the fact that he has never faced a strong opponent. Every two years, a political novice appears, fails to raise significant money, loses to him by 80,000 votes, and exits the political stage.
- The Movie Assassin.
I’m not sure how to sum this up neatly, but it’s a good read.
Everyone talks about the country falling apart in November 2016, but maybe it fell apart in November 1996, when America went to see The English Patient. What if we had all turned to each other and said, “This garbage is our idea of rave-worthy cinema? Anyone else see a big problem here?â€, and then there had been a massive riot?
This pull quote doesn’t sum up the article, but it’s pretty great.
- Toronto raised my friend. Then it failed him.
In the negotiations over Uber’s regulation two years ago, the city tried to placate cab companies worried about competition by levelling safety standards down, rather than up. That is, instead of imposing the same rules on Uber that the taxi firms faced, it eliminated most of the rules for everyone.
21 August 2018, early morning
Walking home along Bloor at night a stranger turns to me and says, “I interviewed for a job and they offered it to me.†She was so excited she wanted to tell someone, I suppose. We chatted briefly as we walked. I asked her where she was going to work. What she was going to be doing. And then she was on her way.
I had a very long day, but that was a good conclusion.
Life
