Award season

Movie award season has come around and I find myself somewhat more interested than some years. If nothing else, at least the talk of movies and actors is a nice distraction from the alarming events going on in the world.

Movie award trophis — Trophies for the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and SAG awards

However, I haven’t seen that many of the big contenders yet. I am pleased that The Grand Budapest Hotel, which we saw back in April, has been remembered and is getting recognition, as it really was quite delightful. But Wild is only getting recognition for Reese Witherspoon’s acting, when I thought the film as a whole was very good. And the fantastic Pride was up for a Golden Globe, but nowhere in the Oscar list.

So I guess my interest is that I would like to see many of the other contenders as well: The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Into the Woods, Big Eyes, Still Alice, and Boyhood. Mind you, except for Boyhood—which I was deliberately waiting for the rental version of—those are in theatres now. Rather unlikely I find time to see all of them before award show season ends.

We did get to Birdman, however, back in December. And I’m still trying to figure out exactly I what I think of it! It tells the story of an actor who had been the star in a superhero movie franchise, and is now trying to adapt, direct, and star in a revival of a Raymond Carver play on Broadway. The effort of putting on the play is not going smoothly, however, and the stress causes him to break down and hallucinate at times. The hallucinations are largely presented as though they’re actually happening.

So it’s an unusual film, and for me that makes it hard to unabashedly love. But I didn’t dislike it, either. It’s certainly creative, and the actors—star Michael Keaton, Edward Norton as another actor in the play, and Emma Stone as Keaton’s daughter—are very good. And you certainly end up rooting for the main character, despite his flaws. Worth seeing if you’re up for a moderate challenge.

Some of the other Oscar contenders, though, I’ve decided I’m not up for the challenge of: Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Whiplash, American Sniper. All these movies about dark men being nasty. Oscar clearly loves that shit, but I do not.

Oscar also snubbed the Roger Ebert document, Life, Itself, which we had found quite good. Admittedly, though, I didn’t see any of the documentaries they did nominate, so can’t really say whether they were all better than Life, Itself.

Similarly with the animated movie category: I haven’t seen any of the nominees, but I did recently see The Lego Movie.(which was nominated for a Globe, but didn’t win), and found it to be one heck of a fun and entertaining movie, no matter your age. Jean was quite skeptical when I suggested we watch it, but he quite enjoyed it, too. (As an aside, he had the same reaction to 2012’s Pitch Perfect, the movie about the all-women a capella group, so that’s another recommended one from us, if you haven’t seen it already.)

At least the “Everything is Awesome” song was nominated, but I really think Lego Batman deserved more recognition for his work. 🙂

The Globes also give awards for TV shows and actors, and I’ve hardly seen of any of those nominees. But weirdly, many of the few I was acquainted with actually won. The Affair got best dramatic series—which appalled the TV critics—and best actress in a drama., and the star of Jane the Virgin won for best actress in a comedy—which delighted the TV critics. I, of course, have caught up with both of those shows recently.

In the mini-series category, Maggie Gyllenhaal took it for the amazing Honourable Woman, which I did watch on CBC. The network’s commercial insertions were jarring, but the series was a fascinating, complex look at Israeli / Palestian relations, and Gyllenhaal was great in it (as she usually is). And Matt Bomber won a supporting actor award for HBO’s The Normal Heart, an interesting movie about the early days of the AIDS crisis, that I watched not long after I subscribed to HBO.

I leave you with some links.

Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globe) nominees and winners list

Oscar 2015: Nominations in full (in case you really need to know who’s up for sound editing and for hair and makeup)

Oscar snubs: Shocks and surprises from the 2015 nominations (at least according to The Telegraph)

Wild women! Some reviews

It seems apropos to begin with Wild, the movie starring Reese Witherspoon, that we recently saw at the theatre. I was quite looking forward to it, as I’ve really enjoyed every other movie Jean-Marc Vallée has made. I also thought the rugged, outdoors-y story would appeal to Jean.

Wild is the story of Cheryl Strayed, who decides to solo hike the Pacific Coast Trail, which is over 1000 miles long and doesn’t have a lot of “comfort stations.” As her overly full backpack attests, she doesn’t have any experience with this type of trip. As she slogs along, she flashes back to the memories of her past that have led her to this point.

So it’s not inherently the most cinematic movie. The writer, director, and actors deserve credit for making it as compelling as it is.

Cheryl Strayed was kind of wild. Depressed after her mother dies of cancer, she spirals… drops out of schools, engages in casual sex, drinks, experiments with heroin. She does the hike as a kind of act of atonement. Instead she learns that maybe she has nothing to atone for.

The Affair poster The Affair, an HBO Canada (Showtime in the US) series that we finished watching over Christmas, presents another woman for whom a tragic death leads to “bad” behavior—notably, an affair. The conceit of the series is that each episode is show from two points of view: His (Noah’s) and hers (Alison’s). What’s interesting is how differently each of them recalls the same events. With this series, you can never be sure what the truth is.

Underpinning the story of the affair is a murky murder investigation: For the longest time, we’re not even sure who’s dead. But particularly at the start of the series, it’s the personalities and relationships that are of interest, anyway.

Watching this with Jean was added entertainment, as he’d get so frustrated with the characters and situation at times, he’d have to get up and pace to work off the tension. At one point he commented, “I don’t know why she’s so much more sympathetic than he is.” But she is. It’s sad but understandable that the strain of tragedy has damaged the relationship with her husband. Noah, on the other hand, seems to be undergoing a petulant midlife crisis, with his wife and four children as the victims.

It seems like the kind of series in which everything would get wrapped up at the end of the season, but not so much. This is TV, they wanted a season 2, so it ends in a kind of cliffhanger. That’s worrisome, as I don’t see this necessarily continuing to work well for another 10 episodes.

Jane the Viring Jane the Virgin, on the other hand—which we started watching on Shomi about a month ago and have nearly finished already—has enough plot and characters to run for years, probably. Central character Jane is, indeed, a virgin. In a bid to avoid becoming a teenage mom like her own mother, she has vowed to wait until marriage.

Unfortunately, a medical mistake in the first episode causes her to get pregnant anyway. And that’s just one plot among many.

The series is based on and includes Mexican telenovellas, which I know nothing about. But it seems to mean:

Fast-moving storylines
A large cast of intersecting characters
Painfully good-looking actors
High drama

(Or maybe that impression is just the result of watching so many episodes in such a short time.) At any rate, it is highly entertaining. If Jane isn’t wild, the same can’t be said of anyone around her: The number and variety of hookups is astonishing. They all (even her mother) see Jane and her morals as a kind of a mysterious, rare bird. Yet she’s not some preachy, perfect, dull character: She’s just a young woman trying to make the best decisions for herself.

In a really crazy world.

But HBO documentary Captivated: The Many Trials of Pamela Smart remind us that the real world can be pretty crazy as well.

The Pamela Smart story is one you probably think you know, at least if you were around in 1993. She was the pretty, blonde school worker who had an affair with a teenage boy, who later murdered her husband. She was convicted of conspiring to commit murder, the story being that she had seduced her young lover into committing the act. The case inspired the movie To Die For, starring Nicole Kidmann.

The documentary covers the media circus surrounding the case at the time. I hadn’t realized just how nuts it was on American TV, down to presenting a full re-creation of the supposed crime on television before the fully televised trial (the first ever) even took place! It points out which often-repeated “facts” presented in the media weren’t true, and some of the lax aspects of the case itself (such as allowing the four young men involved to stay together in prison pre-trial; and maybe get their stories straight?).

The “seductress” story was so compelling, it seemed any reality that contradicted it got dismissed.

I went into watching this assuming she was guilty, and the documentary wasn’t necessarily trying to establish her innocence. Still, I’m left wondering, particularly given the inclusion of recordings by one of the jurors (made at time of trial), who had extreme doubts about the evidence as presented. Perhaps Pamela Smart is guilty, But after watching this, I don’t think that’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Nevertheless, she’s in jail for life, The actual murderers are due to be released soon.

Masters of Sex

Masters of Sex is an hour-long drama that airs on Showtime in the US and The Movie Network (TMN) in Canada. It is about sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson.

I’ll admit that it was pure prurience that made me check it out. And the opening credits—which someone had way too much fun putting together—seemed to bear that out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve8orWqYzPU

Opening credits

The actual program, however, turned out to be remarkly un-sexy, particularly for something with so much sex in it. The encounters were often clinical, or awkward, or clinical and awkward. And ultimately, the show wasn’t really about that.

Much like Mad Men, it’s about complicated people living in the US at a time of rapid social change: The late 1950s and into the 1960s. Unlike Mad Men, though, these characters are based on actual people.

Mind you, it’s not aspiring to documentary-like realism. It is a drama, so the facts of history are enhanced with made-up stories and side characters to make them dramatic. Bill Masters did start his work with prostitutes, and one of them did suggest it would go better if he had a female partner. Did that woman then go on to change her life and become Masters and Johnson’s office manager? Not that we know of, but it did make for good TV.

Masters of Sex image

And as can be the case, the parts that seem most implausible in the drama are the ones based in reality. As a doctor, Bill Masters is presented as wonderful to his patients, and incredibly progressive. You cheer him as he advocates for them against the ignorance of the times. But as a husband, friend, partner, colleague, Bill Masters can be so cold, and often behaves appallingly (though he is evolving, and we’re getting to understand better why that is). And that is apparently what the historical records: His patients loved him. His colleagues… Eh.

As for Virginia Johnson, Bill Master’s partner (in more ways that one)—her character is much easier to like: She’s charming, warm, beautiful. So her almost pathological need to prevent anyone from getting too close to her are an ongoing puzzle. But again, this is grounded in reality, including the fact that the actual Virginia Johnson insisted she never loved Bill Masters—despite being married to him for 20 years. (A time period the show has not yet reached.)

And the other characters, including Bill’s wife, Libby, are generally given equal attention, presented as true and not stock characters.

Masters of Sex has little violence, no crimes to solve, no underlying conspiracy theories, and not even that much sexy sex. Furthermore, you somewhat know where this is going: Masters and Johnson will publish a book, it will be very popular, they will be recognized as pioneers in their field.

What holds the interest are the characters: Both the ones based on real people and the fictionalized ones surrounding them. Trying to guess these people’s motivation, who will interact with whom next and how that will go, is just incredibly compelling. Even my husband, who will often complain of character-based movies that the plot itself is lacking (“but nothing happened!”), is caught up in it.

Part of that intrigue might also be how the show plays with time. Not only are the characters an ongoing mystery to discover and understand, but we can never be sure how much time will have passed between episodes. Or even during one episode. The next episode may start the day after the last we saw, or it might start four weeks or eight months later. Two episodes this season covered a single day; another single episode took us through three years.

So, being based on some history doesn’t mean that this program is particularly predictable. Still, it’s probably not for everyone. But it is for me. Happy it’s renewed for another season.

Whatever happened to the shows of summer?

Actually, in the good/bad old days, there weren’t really “TV shows of summer”, were there? It was mostly rerun city. But more recently-ish (it is a trend over a decade long) networks have programs they play only in the summer season. And the specialty networks debut programs all year long.

These are three I’ve been particularly enjoying.

Amazing Race Canada

Modeled after the American one (which I also like), this is somewhat more “respectable” reality show—Emmy winning, and basically “just a race”, though with the producers definitely manipulating said race to produce drama, and obviously casting it with colourful people.

I appreciate the very multicultural nature of this year’s cast. And what a strong set of contenders! Except for the two sisters who were, indeed, eliminated the first show, everyone seems quite athletic and potentially capable of winning.

But I did come in with a bias toward Rex Harrington and his fiance Bob, because…. He’s Rex Harrington! Amazing dancer and great judge on So You Can Think Dance Canada.

They did well the first episode (and were so funny!), but in the second became mired in controversy: They gave up and took penalties on not one but two of the episode’s challenges. They only made it through because another contestant got injured and had to withdraw.

But surviving that round made they got to experience the surprising development of this year’s season: It’s no longer restricted to Canada! The teams were off to Hong Kong, with China up next.

I do hope Rex and Bob stick around for a while longer, but they certainly aren’t the smart bet to take it all. That would have to be the team made up of two members of Canada’s women’s gold medal hockey team, who have so far won every leg!

Fortunately, I also like them, as I basically like all the teams, really. I found that about Season 1 as well. That doesn’t tend to happen on the American one. Is likeability a Canadian trait? Bit early to say: Some of teams may get awful once the “killer fatigue” really sets in. TBD.

So You Think You Can Dance

The international travel budget shows that Amazing Race: Canada is a summer show on the rise. Now in its eleventh season, though, Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance is definitely on the decline, struggling for ratings.

They have fewer shows than ever this year, so the audition footage was seriously compressed, and we didn’t get to “know” too many contestants ahead of time. They get only the single 2-hour performance show per week, during which they try to squish in everything, including guest stars. It’s meant no video recaps, no Dance for Your Life for the dancers in the bottom three. And their pre-emption for some baseball game meant that this coming week, they have to eliminate four instead of two dancers. Brutal!

What remains, though, is the what I’ve always loved about this program: Seeing wonderful dance pieces in a great variety of styles, performed by very talented young people who only get better each week.

For example, this hip-hop number from the last week. Can you tell that Tanisha is actually a ballroom dancer? Didn’t think so!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

Or how about this amazing group piece ( again kind of highlighting Tanisha) in the jazz / modern style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPJsbtqy_8

I’d really be sad if this show was cancelled.

Silicon Valley

This is a bit of a cheat to include here, as it is being rerun, currently. But it’s new to me, and its premiere was only in April, so…

This is a comedy about a group of five guys running a startup company in Silicon Valley, and it’s the funniest shows I’ve seen a long time. Jean, however, is not warming to it as much, so perhaps you need some understanding of / interest in tech culture to really appreciate the satire. (Wired explained how Mike Judge went about trying to make it as “based in reality” as possible, down to the math on the white board. )

Now, it is on HBO, but if you do have some understanding of / interest in tech culture, you’re going to have no trouble watching this show even if you don’t get that channel. But if you just want a preview, there a lot of clips on YouTube.

This scene, in which they implement the “scrum” method of organizing their development work, is an example of one in which I almost died laughing, while Jean was just confused. [Warning: Colorful language. It’s HBO!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJoLvRbri0

It’s not television. It’s HBO. (Unfortunately, it’s also Rogers.)

Calling Rogers support is a bit of a crapshoot. You sometimes get a very informed, very helpful employee. Other times… Not so much.

When I last called to make changes to my Rogers services, I hit it lucky. The support person clearly and carefully walked me through the options, helped me pick the right one, and explained exactly what it would mean for my bill. Not only that, but he gave me another number to call, saying I should insist on at least a 20% reduction in my bill. “You’ve been with Rogers a long time,” he said. “And we haven’t done much for you lately.”

And for the past couple years, I have indeed been getting a 20% reduction on my cable and Internet bill. But that discount just expired, making for some serious cable bill sticker shock. Time to reconsider what I’m subscribing to.

The list of cable package prices on the Rogers website shows a big difference between basic cable and the other tiers. And fact is that most of what I watch is on the big networks, not the specialty channels. If I get a real craving for Chopped Canada, it is available to stream from the Food Network website.

And at the whole other end of the Rogers cable package spectrum, at prices so absurdly high that I’d never considered subscribing, is package of all specialty channels + the movie networks.

But poking around revealed that you could get just the movie networks added to your TV line up. That is, you can get the various flavors of HBO Canada and TMN, without all the channels in between (those past 28). It’s not especially cheap, but did appear to be cheaper than what I was paying to add all those specialty channels I barely watched. Also on offer: a 50% discount on that package for the first four months.

I decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, I did not get quite the same quality of phone support this time out. Quite honestly, I now have no idea what this is going to mean for my bill. For one thing, based on past experience, the prices on the website seem to be only an approximation of the actual prices charged. (I have no idea why.) I’m still not sure whether activation or deactivation fees come into. Apparently an extra outlet fee applies to people who have only basic cable but more than one TV (even they get the movie networks, too). And I had to tell the Rogers person that I should qualify for a 50% discount for the first four months, which wasn’t really comforting.

But, dude. There sure is a lot of fantastic programming on those movie networks. In high definition, and commercial free.

Options on TMN

And I don’t even mean the Hollywood movies, though they do have a great selection of those. It’s the series, right? All the ones everyone torrents?

I’m too late for Game of Thrones. It’s in season 4; not jumping in on that now. I’ve read that Girls isn’t quite as good anymore. And I’ve kind of given up on True Blood (which I’d seen on DVD).

But I’m just in time to start with Silicon Valley, a very funny new show about a tech start-up company. Veep is just restarting Season 3, and it doesn’t appear to be necessary to have seen the earlier seasons to enjoy this one. It is a bit confusing jumping into Masters of Sex—a series about Masters and Johnson—mid-season, but enjoyable nonetheless. Then there’s new one called The Leftovers starting soon, that looks really interesting.

And with Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver added to my viewing of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on CTV, my American political satire cup truly runneth over.

Then there’s the specials and documentaries (like the upcoming David Bowie: Five Years), the original movies (like The Normal Heart, replaying the first week of July)…

And all of this is also available on demand (~~though not at high def, for some reason?~~) [Edit: On demand is available at high definition; you just have to pick the right channel.] And everything plays many times “live”. So you don’t really have to worry about missing an episode or special, or arrange your schedule around the TV, or even remember to set the PVR (though I still do, because I’m just in that habit).

So I sure hope I can afford to keep this.

Dancing in the Dark

I’m not great with anniversaries.

I don’t mean my own wedding anniversary. I’m pretty good at remembering its date, including year, from which I can then figure out how many years it’s been.

But, like, work ones. I’m always amazed at people who can rattle off exactly how long they’ve been at a company. I had a big anniversary at work recently, so I’m good there for a bit, but I’ll forget the exact number soon enough. Just as I’m not sure how many years at I’ve lived at my current house, what year my car is, or how old the dress I wore yesterday is.

I was wearing a dress because we went out ballroom dancing. We were seated with a couple who have been dancing only a couple years longer than we have, and so we were trying to remember how long ago we had all started.

Of course, I was no help, but nobody was having much luck, until Jean had a flash of inspiration.

“How long ago was My So-Called Life on TV?”, he asked.

“20 years.” . (Why did I know that? Because I looked it up recently, when writing my Jared Leto blog post.) “But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

Then I remembered: “Dancing in the Dark”.

No, not the Bruce Springsteen song. Episode 2, Season 1 of My So-Called Life, entitled “Dancing in the Dark.”. The one where Angela’s parents, Patty and Graham, try ballroom dance classes to “reconnect”. Only, they just end up arguing.

Patty and Graham ballroom dancing — Patty and Graham at dance class

Upon seeing that episode, Jean opined that he would most definitely be more open-minded to the whole dancing thing than Graham had been. Cut to a few weeks later, and Fred Astaire Studio called offering free ballroom dance lessons. Jean then felt obliged to agree and try it out. That’s how—and when—we started. ‘94.

I don’t know what’s weirder: That we were inspired by a TV show that made ballroom dance class look like no fun at all, or that Jean is the one who remembered that connection, when I am the one who was particularly devoted to that show.

But now, I am happy to have now recollected that bit of information.

Unlike that 20 year thing… Knowing that is not making me particularly happy at all. Shouldn’t we better dancers than we are, having done it so long? But then again, we did have that break from dancing… Not just a few months or anything; we went years without taking dance classes, at one point.

In fact, how long was that break? And when was it? A seven year break, five years ago? A five-year break, seven years ago?

It’s hopeless. I can’t remember.

RIP Collage Video

I’m so old that my first exercise video was not even audio-visual: It was sound-only. An LP.

And it was ridiculous. Of course, the instructor (you may have heard of her—Jane Fonda?) tried to clearly explain what moves to do, but that just didn’t always work. What some of the moves were meant to be remain a mystery to me to this day. (But no, I don’t still have the album…)

So the advent of exercise classes on VHS home tapes were a clear improvement. Not all the moves were easy to do, but at least you could always tell what they were.

And as is true in general, the exercise DVDs were an improvement over those. No more rewinding and fast-forwarding. More content could be put on each disk. Easier to pick and choose to do partial or combination workouts.

I love working out to videos. Nothing’s more convenient, you never have to worry about the weather, and unless you’re buying a crazy number of them, it’s way cheaper than a gym memberships. You get something of the illusion of working out with someone else, and even that illusion is more motivating than working out on your own. And the variety available—aerobics, strength, flexibility, or a combination of all. Short, long, or in between. Dancey or athletic. Easy-going, intermediate, or tough.

Whatever your mood today: There’s a home workout for that.

And so it really pains me to see Collage Video go out of business. They sold nothing but fitness videos (along with a few fitness accessories). And they did it better than anyone else.

They broke down each video by all the factors that home fitness die-hards care about: instructor, length, level, workout type, body part focus. They included video samples so you could assess whether a new instructor or style seemed appealing. They had fantastic forums and review comments. They rated the videos themselves, highlighting some as favorites.

But ultimately, they could not battle the price pressure from the likes of Amazon, nor the general decline in the DVD format.

So when I decided I could use some more workouts with a lower-body focus, I did what I always do: I picked up the latest Collage Video catalog and picked out about five that I thought would do.

Only now I cannot order them from the Collage Video website.

Amazon? It had exactly one of them in stock. OK, so I probably didn’t need all five, but I wanted at least one more. I went a-huntin’, and finally located a site that offered one of them as a download. I can burn that to DVD or play it from the computer (which is connected to my TV), so that’s fine. Only, I needed this rubber band thingie for that workout. Collage would have sent it to me with the DVD. With the download… Not so much. So more research for that, resulting in a trip to Walmart to purchase that.

Walmart!

I’m not sure this is progress. I know streaming is the thing now, but the best option there seems to be Gaiam TV, at $10 (US) a month. Not a crazy price, but then, I don’t think I was spending $120+ yearly on exercise videos before…

Jordan Catalano does good

Not sure how many people are just learning about Jared Leto now that he’s scooping up every acting award going for his role as Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club, but he’s been at least semi-famous for a while.

Woman on street of New York: Are you someone famous?

Jared Leto: Sort of.

— Scene from “Artifact”

He first drew my attention back in 1994 (20 years ago!) for his role as Jordan Catalano, object of Angela Chase’s obsession, in the wonderful ABC series My So-Called Life. And who can blame her—or me? Look at this guy:

Jared himself is embarrassed by his work on this series, feeling that while the show was great, he was not. (He therefore did not participate in the DVD release of this series, which is a shame, since most everyone else involved did.)

I think he’s being overly harsh on himself, as I can’t imagine anyone else playing than the part better. From just the script, you’d get a beautiful but shallow dim bulb whose only interest was cars, guitars, and sex. From the acting, you read considerably more going on below the surface: a sensitivity, an intelligence. And you needed that more. Angela Chase intense interest had to be justified by more than just a pretty face.

You’re asking a *man* [to Graham, Brad]—sorry, sorry—to describe someone when I’m sitting here? Here’s what he’s like—fairly—out of it, not unintelligent. Sort of um—stray puppy, you know the type you’re always trying to ease their pain. He may even be a halfway decent person, but let me tell you—*trouble*. *Way* too gorgeous.

— Hallie Lowenthal describes Jordan Catalano to Patty, Angela’s mom

If you’ve never seen the series, you should rectify that, but it was low-rated and lasted only one season.

After that, Jared made movies. And at first, I made some effort to track them down, but the ones he starred in often had limited release, making them hard to get hold of back then (Prefontaine, The Last of the High Kinds, both pretty decent once I did see them), and his parts in movies that were distributed were often tiny (How to Make an American Quilt, Thin Red Line, each featuring him for maybe 5 minutes? His Fight Club role wasn’t huge, either.)

And then there were those movies I was just too wimpy to go see, afraid I’d find them too disturbing: Requiem for a Dream, Chapter 27, American Psycho…

Around 1998, he formed a band with his big brother and some other musicians: 30 Seconds to Mars. With their second album, they achieve significant success, which has only continued. But that’s no thanks to me. I was happy to have someone lend me one of their albums, but I just don’t like it all that much. I don’t think their music is terrible or anything, but it doesn’t really speak to me, either.

So the whole Dallas Buyer’s Club thing has been nice for “reuniting” with this artist. He has a good-size part in it; despite the AIDS theme, the movie is not that depressing or disturbing; it’s been successful and well-distributed; and I really liked it. Yes, he plays a woman in it (a very attractive woman), but he’s very much a man in the extensive publicity he’s done around it and while scooping up all those acting awards. At 42, he looks like this:

That’s some great moisturizer he’s using to stay looking so young and gorgeous. But his Oscar speech also demonstrated great depth, integrity, and warmth. Appears Jordan Catalano really is “not unintelligent” and a “halfway decent person”.

Wouldn’t have guessed Jared Leto for the first MSCL alum to win an Oscar.

— Someone on Twitter

I’ve been following Jared on Twitter, despite that fact that he’s clearly not doing his own tweeting (and whoever is might want to tone down the triple exclamation points and all caps that made him sound like a 16-year-old fangirl). But it contains some useful links on what’s doing, and through that, I’ve learned about his award-winning documentary, Artifact.

It’s currently discounted to a 99-cent rental on iTunes, so I watched it last weekend. Directed by Leto under the name Bartholomew Cubbins, it was originally intended to just cover the making of 30 Seconds to Mars’s new album, but became something else when the band entered into a dispute with their record company. The specifics of the band being sued for $30 million for breach of contract are unusual, but bands fighting for better deals from their labels is not. And this documentary focuses more on that.

So, you don’t need to be a 30 Seconds to Mars fan to enjoy it; in fact, there isn’t that much of their music in the film. But I’d say you do have to be a fan of rock music in general, particularly one who may wonder why bands always seem to be getting ripped off by their record companies. And this documentary suggests: Because that’s their business model. Like, it’s routine that labels charge for “packaging” and “breakage” on sales of digital copies of music! The various reductions on artist’ take means they can earn nothing, or even be indebted, even after selling millions of copies of an album.

And why do artists keep signing with labels? Because of the difficulty of coming up with an alternative model, at least for artists that want more than limited, cult success.

30 Seconds to Mars is still with a record company. How they got there, without paying $30 million, makes for some interesting viewing.

Chopped Canada (or what to do with that freeze-dried shrimp)

I’ve written before—though not for a while—about how I’m not a big Food Network fan, despite liking to cook, and being known to occasionally watch TV.

But I have been somewhat taken with Chopped Canada. I’d seen the American version a few times and found that somewhat interesting, so checked out the Canadian version.

The first episode was fantastic because one competing chef was clearly an unlikable ass, and he ended up going mano a mano with a woman—a cooking school teacher rather than restaurant chef—who at first had seemed hopeless out of her element. (The other two contestants were also men, but of less striking temperament.)

And, satisfyingly, the nice woman won. Deservedly. In the end, she made a better three-course meal.

Although the remaining episodes haven’t had such vibrant personalities, I’ve been continuing to find it entertainment. But I can’t kid myself that it’s any kind of useful.

Because in real life, you are never handed four random food items, some of which are barely food (strawberry drink powder, processed cheese slices, macaroni deli slices?), and told that in exactly 20 minutes (or 30 or 60—depends on the round), you have to turn it into an appealing appetizer, main, or dessert, complete with lovely plating. Just doesn’t come up.

However, in a recent episode, where the ingredients were not so much bizarre in themselves as just not seeming to belong together in one dish, two of the items that had to be used were freeze-dried shrimp and dark chocolate. One of the chefs, having made something lovely with the other two ingredients in that round, seemed at a bit of a loss what to do with these ones. So although he seemed quite dubious himself, he just melted the chocolate, and tossed the shrimp in there, and served that on the side.

Of course, the judges were a bit dubious, too. Yet to a man, and woman, they declared the freeze-dried shrimp in dark chocolate to be absolutely delicious.

So there’s my one takeaway from this show so far: Apparently, some day, I need to get me some freeze-dried shrimp and chocolate-coat them. (If anyone out there is brave enough to try this before me, do let me know how it goes…)

Un-chocolate-coated shrimp…

Netflix is for TV shows

My Netflix account remained sorely underused for a long time.

I was generally unimpressed with the selection of movies. Tunneling through to the US site helped—great to finally see Cabin in the Woods, which was a pretty clever, deconstructionist take on the horror genre, and fun to see Roger Daltrey play a gay man (albeit with no love scenes) in Like It Is—but overall, I’d still rather go to the Princess.

I’d be watching maybe one show a month on Netflix? So even though it’s only $8 a month, it still wasn’t great value for me.

So I was quite surprised the other day to discover that, somehow, I had watched every single episode of The IT Crowd on Netflix. That’s 4 seasons, folks. Now, it’s British show, so the seasons are much shorter than with American shows.

But still. I’ve clearly stepped up my Netflix usage. And it’s not because of the movies; it’s the TV shows.

The IT Crowd is hardly essential viewing. But it generally makes me laugh, sometimes quite a bit. So watching just one more episode was often appealing.

I’m also finding the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black rather addictive. And Jean likes it too, which is a bonus. It focuses on a middle-class, white (race is very prominent in this series) woman who is sentenced to a year in prison after a youthful indiscretion catches up with her. It’s not Oz (in fact, that’s a direct quote from the series), thank God, in that it doesn’t have that intensity and violence. It’s much funnier. But it still makes it clear, lest I had any doubt, that I never want to go prison.

Most episodes end with Piper facing some new, unexpected dilemma in this very odd world (based on an actual memoir, by the way), so you really want to know what’s going to happen next. And it’s Netflix, so all episodes are available for… whenever.

As are all episodes of Friday Night Lights, and Louis, and House of Cards, and Derek, and Mad Men and… Yeah. With no commercials, and no download time. How TV should be?

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Amazing Race Canada

So You Think You Can Dance

Silicon Valley

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