A new day

Inglorious Basterds

This film is great as entertainment - not good if you are using it to write a paper on the Second World War. It is brutal and has great cinematography. I have always thought there is a real dearth of decent villains in contemporary movies - until now. Christopher Waltz is brilliant as the SS Colonel Hans Landa. In fact he completely steals the show with his creepy character who hunts Jews for the Nazis. It seems to be a trend - using relatively unknown actors in movies and pays off well here.

The film has lots of characters that fit in Tarrantino’s movies - a nazi hating German that plays a very violent man on the edge. The British spy and the nazi shooting each others testicles in a bar fight.

The actors playing Hitler (Martin Wuttke) , Churchill (Rod Taylor) and Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) are great. Wuttke gives a fine performance of a volatile Hitler. Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is sinister and rather creepy - as I imagine the historical man was.

The violence is brutal and fast paced - one scene in the bar explodes from a brutal shootout at point blank and is over in seconds. The realism of this fight remind me of the Bourne series where there is no ridiculous punch up lasting minutes, or silly slow motion footage.

There is a focus on film-making in Germany prior to and during the Nazi era that is interesting. I know the German theatre rivaled the American prior to the war and never thought much about it.

There is also an apocryphal scene involving fire and film that is inspired and highly memorable.

Definitely worth watching. I would think that Christopher Waltz should be nominated for some awards for his work in this film. I certainly hope to see more of him in future films - he has mostly been in German productions to this point.

My only complaint is the film at times stretches, then shatter believability with the ending.

At first I didn’t mind this one - it is pretty low budget and has some guy talking - peddling bacon. The trouble is they play it all the time and it gets damned annoying.

The award goes to the Olymel Bacon commercials. The narrator has several accents including British, flamingly gay and something like Ralph Cramden. What was at first something amusing becomes very grating, especially where it is repeated ad nauseam.

Why is it that advertizers think we will react positively to english accents? It seems that we are subjected to british accents far too often and it has to stop. I personally find it an obvious attempt at manipulation as well as out of place.

The worst thing about the Olymel commercials is they serve as an ear worm - one of those annoying things that get stuck in your head. I found the Disney song - ‘We are Siamese if you please’ to be the worst example of that myself. One of my friends suffered from the ‘What’s new Pussycat’ song used in selling catfood. It tormented him for days, of course I would sing it after a while when he stopped humming to himself. Maybe the Olymel commercials are karma coming back to me for this evil fun I had at my friends expense.

A christian group is complaining about a donated statue at the Calgary Zoo - citing religious grounds, reported CBC website. Concerned Christians Canada. The three metre statue depicts a dancing anthropomorphised elephant was donated upon the opening of an exhibit in 2006 and is modeled after the Hindu God Ganeesh, though the religious symbolism was removed before it was displayed.

The Concerned Christians Canada letter this week said the display of foreign gods is offensive and does not reflect the views of the majority of Canadians and suggested the zoo erect a cross, statue of Jesus Christ and the ten commandments.

This is a ridiculous attack on a statue at a zoo by what I can only consider narrow minded and bigoted people. Saying that Ganeesh is a foriegn god may be true - but so is the Judeo-Christian and Muslim god. These religious traditions all originate elsewhere.What is really being said is this is the god of foreigners hearkening back to the racist policies of an earlier age where protestant white people were the desired people and all others were seen as undesireable, including even Catholics. The time for this way of thinking is well past in Canada.

What I assume is just under the surface is the idea that Canada is a christian country - and that Hindu gods do not belong here. This is a concept that has been rejected by the majority of Canadians as we are a multi-cultural nation that is tolerant and allows for a range of cultures and belief systems. I am not Hindu but see the display of a statue of a Hindu God or something close to one in front of an elephant display to be inoffensive and interesting.In recent polls in the Vancouver weekly newspaper - the Georgia Straight - many people said that the diversity and opportunities to experience many cultures is one of the best things about the city.

I don’t think the Calgary Zoo will become a site for mass conversions to the Hindu faith and people who are offended by the statue are not in a majority but very much a fringe group of bigots with a dash of zealotry thrown in. I hope that the Calgary Zoo ignores this foolishness.

I have noticed, through personal experience and by observing and discussing the matter with others - that there is a built in problem for many First Nations people who are devoted to their Nations and want to work to further the goals of these Nations. There is little work in these fields where the benefit is truly for the Nation.

There are many jobs for Aboriginal professionals but many of them are for non-Aboriginal agencies - some with mixed agendas. A number of Aboriginal Agencies are stuck in a rut of having undereducated and underqualified upper management. This in tern leads to conflict between Aboriginal professionals and these organisations. They are also subject to wild swings in policy, funding and viability. The challenges for a dedicated Aboriginal person to create a meaningful and stable career in this environment are many. Most of the Aboriginal professionals I know (who care who they work for) face this issue at least some time in their careers.

There was a shooting at the pow wow in North Vancvouver this weekend. A couple of drunk white guys were refused entry to the drug and alcohol free family event. They returned with a rifle and fired at least six shots into the crowd, hitting a woman and two men. The woman was in hospital for a few hours and two men remain in hospital. This violent attack on civillians, if it happened in other countries would be condemned as terrorism. Instead some so-called journalists wrote about this attack, then went on to talk about other incidents on First Nations Reserves, some of them unconnected with the community in question. This is another example of racist reporting.

In one example, Vancouver 24 hours (http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/) the so-called journalist - Bob Mackin - thought it pertinent to talk about violence on another reserve and ended his article with comments about securing reserves for the 2010 Olympics. This is biased and offensive when the violence was perpetrated by white hoodlums on a crowd of people who were enjoying a family oriented cultural event. I am personally troubled by the fact that these criminals are still at large and are willing to fire on unarmed civillians. and by a media who seems to prefer blaming the innocent victems of a heinous crime.

Mr Makin refers to a violent domestic dispute in the community and to an incident in Mission - miles away from the community. These events have little to no relevance to the attack by non-Aboriginal hooligans on a peaceful cultural event and indicate the sort of low-brow reporting which uses stereotypes and negative reporting about Aboriginal people that have been common in British Columbia since newspapers were first established here. Thankfully more respected news outlets are covering the event with more respect and professionalism.

I have no doubt that if the perpetrators were Aboriginal, drunk and fired on a White event the headlines would be very different - and there would be little reference to violence elsewhere among white people. I am feeling angry and unsafe being an Aboriginal person today. I hope that the police catch these perpetrators quickly and they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.