paved :: marc weisblott

It might’ve taken a quarter-century, but the nominations for the Golden Raspberry Awards can finally claim to represent more of the Hollywood status quo than the Oscar ceremony it was established to ridicule – which must be a consequence of Tom Green, Ben Affleck and Halle Berry making the effort in the last few years to personally collect their trophies. The contention of Eugene Levy as Worst Supporting Actor for his performances in The Man and Cheaper By the Dozen 2 – two movies shot around these parts – should qualify as a career pinnacle for the SCTV veteran, whose recent bounty of post-American Pie roles ranging from New York Minute (as “Max Lomax”) to Bringing Down the House (as “Howie Rottman”) were left unrewarded. (The straight-to-video American Pie Presents Band Camp was not eligible for Razzie recognition.) Also nominated in the Supporting Actor category is a homeboy whose awfulness has accrued way more vitriol, having already won the category three years ago – Hayden Christiensen for Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. Those hoping middle-aged nebbishness can triumph over that Anakin Skywalker twink can apply for voting privileges in the Raspberry guild – the $15 membership is three times the price of the estimated $4.97 value of the gold spraypainted Super 8 reel that serves as the Razzie statue. (But maybe it will help motivate them to create a website that’s not as unusable as the films are unwatchable.) Next up for Mr. Levy is another Christopher Guest-directed improv mockumentary, For Your Consideration, which is about a troupe of lousy actors garnering movie award season buzz. The Razzies will be dispensed March 4.

Ready for the annual avalanche of statistics leading up to Valentine’s Day? The local gatekeepers of the Harlequin Romance Report know you’re not, which explains why, for the 17th year in a row, they’ve compiled dubious data about how apathetic other folks boast of being when it comes to relationships. Last year, the main revelation was that Canadians preferred sleeping in and skipping work to anything sexual. This time around, the survey reveals that three-quarters of the population suffers from “first-move paralysis”, how men cheat and lie and require a shot of “liquid confidence” in order to string a sentence together, and shriveled-up octogenarian Hugh Hefner ranks above Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama as the celebrity that women most crave an encounter with. Laundromats are cited as the hottest places to meet people, with libraries cited as runner-up. And while seventeen per cent of Romance Report respondents “admit to fabricating an encounter to make it look like an unforeseen meeting”, dropping litter in the path of a female bike courier is not a recommended courtship technique. Just seven per cent of 2,000 respondents express any faith in online dating – would you expect any other result from a publisher banking on women retaining their romantic delusions? Harlequin paperbacks being pitched for lonely chicks to devour on the couch with their half-price bon bons February 14 include Delicious (restauranteur hires artifically inseminated ex-wife to be his chef), The Breakup Club (“Is there life after heartbreak?” the coverline wonders) and Blame it on Chocolate (”Who knew that overindulging in her creation would turn an introverted plant lover into a wild nymphomaniac?”).

The toy fair hosted at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre at the end of each January is a relatively secretive affair closed to the general public, as the process of unleashing the next Tickle Me Elmo in time for Christmas shopping requires nine months of contemplation, and cheap labour. The folks selling Strawberry Shortcake, however, jumped the queue with a press release touting the reincarnation of the character that began her life on a card produced by the American Greetings Corporation in 1979, then was turned into a scented doll just in time to exploit FCC deregulation allowing for kiddie cartoon programs to be indistinguishable from their surrounding commercial breaks. But while the original Miss Shortcake, dressed in puffy bonnet, demure apron dress and wooden shoes appeared destined to grow up spending her days and nights hunched over a weaving loom, with only her cat Custard providing companionship, the post-makeover Strawberry is appropriately tarted up in her ironic schoolgirl outfit complete with stripey shirt, primped for a night of recurring trips to the “bathroom” with Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie. The disappearance of the red flushes from her cherubic cheeks suggests she may not be the kind of character you’d want your daughters dressing up as for Halloween – not because of any egregious behaviour Strawberry Shortcake’s new club-hopping look might inspire down the line, but because it will remind her first generation of fanatics, who grew up to fashion themselves media-savvy sophisticates, of just how impossible it is to fend off any marketing assault directed at the senses of a little girl.

All the buzz a media profile can muster doesn’t necessarily sell books, based on the preliminary figures for Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox, a roman-a-clef inspired by her year at the helm of Wonkette. Results from Bookscan (via GalleyCat) show 3,800 copies sold of the novel about summertime in Washington, D.C. – extraordinary numbers for a first-time novelist, but deemed underwhelming given her celebrity. And since the notoriety of Wonkette involved bawdy comments about the GOP, these unremarkable returns on a $275K advance should prompt a few rounds of partisan schadenfreude – while leading other bloggers who scored big-league book deals to wonder if their online attention is capable of translating into customers for their prose in a format not found via search engine. In the five-years-behind tradition of Toronto media, attention is stuck on a pair of novels whose publication is rooted in the millennial newspaper war: How Happy to Be, by former National Post film critic Katrina Onstad, boasts favourable reviews from every outlet in town – while fictional accounts of the psychological experience of slumming amongst celebrities on Conrad Black’s expense account seem to have marginal novelty value, there’s evidently enough under that surface to render it buyable. Longer knives await the mid-February arrival of The Continuity Girl by Leah McLaren, which isn’t about life as a 25-year-old Globe and Mail columnist of unclear credentials, rather about a fictional 35-year-old script supervisor who retreats to London, England in pursuit of a sperm donor. McLaren and Onstad will be swapping anecdotes next Tuesday (Jan. 31) at The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. W.) in what’s either a last hurrah for press baron-funded narcissism, or a payoff for years of opinionated perseverance. Meanwhile, the dearth of autobiographical blogs from youngish females in the GTA indicates such public self-expression might actually be the most unnatural display in the world – or first-person fatigue has finally settled in.

Between rising tuition, the burdens of financial aid and a societal view that real life can’t begin without at least a couple of post-secondary diplomas, there seems to be a marked decline in student activism directed at anything beyond the cost of a Metropass. But the geographical isolation of York University seems to have incubated its own sort of stridency, even if it’s just one dude exercising his angst. A pre-federal election debate held at the Keele Street sarcophagus culminated in ex-immigration minister Judy Sgro being shrieked at by York Federation of Students staffer Daniel Freeman-Maloy when she tried to exit, a confrontation that prompted another candidate to leave. On the day of the federal election, though, Freeman-Maloy and fellow members of the Grass Roots Anti-Imperialist Network (GRAIN) stood still in the Vari Hall rotunda on the first anniversary of a demonstration tied to the re-inauguration of George W. Bush. Back then, paid-duty officers asking for the bullhorns to be turned down were drawn into a fracas that culminated in five arrests – a melee which begat another protest the following day, then a third event drawing media attention to York’s “violent suppression of free speech”. This problem evidently hasn’t been resolved 365 days later. York president Lorna Marsden issued a press release outlining the measures taken to avoid future confrontation; the GRAINiacs countered that “despite continued efforts by the administration to erect bureaucratic barriers to anti-imperialist and other dissident activities, students have organized many successful events, and more are in the works”. Not even the York Excalibur newspaper can accurately keep track of what this recurring mob is griping about – this battle was initiated three fall semesters ago, when Jewish student Freeman-Maloy raised enough of a ruckus at a pro-Israel event to provoke Marsden into expelling him for three years. The decision was legally challenged, allowing this thorn in the president’s side to keep racking up credits toward his Bachelor of Antagonism.

Sam Bulte being routed out of office supplied the federal election with a local dollop of blogger triumphalism – although Michael Geist, who initiated the charges of influence peddling by media industry lobbyists seeking to stamp out file-sharing via Liberal Party legislation, concedes her loss would’ve been unlikely had the NDP not been represented on the ballot by a viable rival like Peggy Nash. (Compare this to American blogging blowhard Captain’s Quarters, hailed in stateside warblogging circles for single-handedly reversing the fortunes of Paul Martin.) The message sent by residents of the Parkdale-High Park riding motivated to boot Bulte from Parliament based on her position on copyright is that the state has no place in the hard drives of the nation. However, Star columnist Martin Knelman points to several haughtier initiatives – from the National Ballet School to the permanent Film Festival Centre to enhancing Canada Council coffers – that can be credited to the losing MP. But these ventures tend to exist in a different dimension from the tastes of those berated as “pro-user zealots” by Bulte; the internet pipeline will be drained of value if the audience is expected to pay a toll to sample so many online options. And while it’s uncertain just how much impact the Conservative minority will have on altering the domain of protectionist culture, the CRTC is soliciting comments on the future of commercial radio policy, leading up to a mid-May public hearing about whether 35-year-old CanCon rules are worth sustaining – a conversation that should belatedly belie ancient delusions that commercial FM radio is the engine of the music business. What’ll be left for the Canadian Recording Industry Association to blame? Well, a report in this week’s Billboard finds disc retailers across the country saying that diminished holiday sales were entirely the result of a lack of products popular enough to get people to buy anything.

Understanding Men, a half-day $150 conference taking place Wednesday (Jan. 25) at The MaRS Collaboration Centre (101 College St.) seems like a throwback to five years ago, when it was impossible to swing your phallus around without being barraged with a moronic marketing ploy aimed at the guy demo – however, the aesthetics of British lad culture didn’t translate too well once projected on the working-class hoser demographic. But all the feminist theories recycled in retaliation were no match for the emergence of female chauvinist pigs, Paris Hilton and the alleged empowerment of porn stars, and amateur exhibitionism caught on camera. Eventually, it was bound to sink in that underneath all of that airbrushing was somebody’s daughter, clearing a path for more sophisticated strategies to target neanderthals. This day-long confab addresses the topic of “Metros vs. Retros”, pondering the Global Male Identity Crisis identified by the Leo Burnett agency, which generated revelations like 15 per cent of men enjoy getting manicures, the vast majority of men think smelling bad is worse than looking bad, and more men would rather end world hunger than marry a supermodel or lead their country. A subsequent presentation involves a case study of how Viagra endeared itself to the marketplace due to the efforts of two women. And, finally, six executives will attempt to answer the burning question, “Is anyone speaking to men the way the Dove real beauty campaign speaks to women?” With these issues being plunked on the table, it’s only a matter of time before the Canadian Tire Guy goes trading in his hedge trimmer for eyebrow tweezers.

Understanding Men: Metro vs. Retro [conference agenda]

James Frey’s engagement in Toronto, originally scheduled for Thursday (Jan. 26) at the posh Winter Garden Theatre, was being advertised late last week under the heading: “The smoking gun missed its target …” But, by the weekend, the Star reported the $80-per-ticket appearance was off – no reason was given for the bail-out, leading one to wonder if the culprit was poor ticket sales due to Frey’s tarnished Oprah aftershow glow, or the author’s shunning any further glare of attention, or a combination of both. A Million Little Pieces seems on track to become the most discussed book within the space of two weeks: There’s a Christian prison evangelist putting out a press release saying he agrees with Oprah on the “redemptive qualities” of Frey’s work; numerous first-person scribes getting a forum to brag about how they would never resort to making stuff up; and the uncovering of Frey’s endorsement of the latest novel by Jay McInerney on Amazon.com meriting an AP wire story all its own. And, two weeks after The Smoking Gun’s initial debunking, The New York Times won’t stop publishing what’s amounted to a daily update on the dubiousness of Frey’s claims: Monday was dedicated to scraping around online for suspicions raised upon the publication of A Million Little Pieces in April 2003; Tuesday’s tale concerned an emerging dispute over the accuracy of how the Hazelden treatment centre is described; by the weekend surely there’ll be someone coming forward with a receipt that scanned a different price than what’s printed on the back cover.

Thank You For Smoking, the directorial debut of Ivan Reitman’s 28-year-old son Jason, whose producer – the instant billionaire who invented PayPal – engaged in some notorious backhanded dealing with distributors at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, earned its pre-release rollout at the Sundance Film Festival. The Washington Post story touting the flick, ahead of its mid-March release, finds the director deflecting the standard accusations of nepotism, on the grounds that Hollywood spawn “are assumed to be uneducated arrogant brats with drug problems”. But this movie, based on the 1994 novel by William F. Buckley’s offspring Christopher about tobacco lobby histrionics in Washington, is alleged to be an exception. Reitman Jr. dispatched a post-screening postcard to USA Today: “Old-fashioned cigarette girls walking around with trays of candy cigarettes. I don’t think I’ve said the words ‘thank you’ this many times in my life,” he describes. “At the end of the night, we ended up at the William Morris condo, eating pizza till 3 in the morning.” (That’d be the William Morris Agency, not a Park City relative of Philip Morris.) The review on Cinematical figures it for “a slick, stagey crowd pleaser with just enough of an insurrectionary spirit to potentially do well on college campuses”. Maybe it’s the kind of farce that would garner its own momentum if there weren’t six months of attention preceding its release – 90 minutes of frantic banter about the virtues of Big Tobacco doesn’t seem like terribly subversive indie cinema, but at least it’s not a satire of the movie business. The permanent site for the TIFF, on the site of the King and John parking lot donated by the Reitman family, awaits a proper groundbreaking this spring, assuming all its funds have fallen in line.

Thank You For Smoking [movie trailer]

Letters From Lehrer, the one-man show rooted in a temperamental correspondence with reclusive American political satirist Tom Lehrer between interpretations of his songs, is playing at CanStage (26 Berkeley St.) through February 25. But what seems like intriguing meta-theatre has garnered weak reviews from those turned off by Richard Greenblatt’s self-indulgence, as described by Silly Little Country blogger Alan Adamson, annoyed by the attempt to carve eternal left-wing grievances into Lehrer’s half-century-old song catalogue: “He appears to have failed to notice as well that the Soviet Union collapsed,” writes Adamson, “and that world poverty has been of late on a pretty good trend of reduction”. Maybe the federal election results here will end the default Torontonian perspective that the most sublime art form in America is anything hostile toward Republicans – at least one-man shows here are deserving of their own rulers to ridicule. Tom Lehrer’s decision to quit performing music in the mid-’60s, in favour of teaching mathematics at Harvard, makes for a decent fable – the American Dream was being obliterated by conflict, which drained his motivation to write whimsical songs about the periodic table, let alone Henry Kissinger. More realistically, Lehrer’s worldview was better served by grappling with the irrationality of numbers than struggling to crank out a few more yucks from behind the piano – he finished his statement before succumbing to self-parody. With his creative output suspended in time, the lousiest reaction Lehrer’s legacy will have ever received can be pegged on somebody else.