the blog quebecois

Have converted to Mohammedism and taken a new name: I. bin Bizzy and probably will be doubly so for this week and much of the next.

That does not mean that research has not been proceeding apace at the prestigious gnotalex Institute for Advanced Blógging Technologies. We are pleased to roll out our latest tactical device, a Fearsome Doomsday Engine that will strike terror into the hearts of our enemies.

Indeed, one could even call it a "Weapon of Ass Destruction." If one were being vulgar, that is.

This is such a devastating apparatus that it will only be triggered in exceptional circumstances, like when a politician says or does something stupid. As such we expect to deploy it no more than three thousand times per day. Four, tops.

With no further ado, then, ladies and gentlemen: the Wheel! Of! Moron!

I plucked a computer game out of a discount bin some years ago. The game -- a simulation of the Le Mans road race -- was a dud, but I really liked the song that kicked off the opening title sequence, "Bohemian Like You," by The Dandy Warhols. (Crappy "3-D" website here.)

Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so: the song was soon featured in Vodafone ads in Europe and no less than three automobile (Chrysler, I think) ad campaigns in North America. Which is kind of ironic (the Le Mans/Chrysler angle, at least) in that the first verse of the song goes thus:

you`ve got a great car
yeah, what`s wrong with it today?
i used to have one too
maybe i'll come and have a look

They didn't highlight that part of it, needless to say, preferring to focus on the bouncy "IlikeyouIlikeyouIlikeyou whoo-hoo!" chorus.

I didn't think there was a video of the song, but it turns out they did do one, a rather ahem! frugal affair (approx. budget = $14.92, plus probably some free drinks for the folks in the karaoke bar). Witness.

Warning: Nudity, albeit with most of the interesting bits pixelated out.

Warning: People in karaoke bar.

I thought I'd lead this off with a quote from Sergei Eisenstein, the masterly Soviet innovator (The Battleship Potemkin, Oktober) of film-editing techniques. Surely he would have had something pithy to say about the subject, like, "Jump cuts been berry, berry good to me."

Alas, what I can find of his writings consists of sludgy Marxist claptrap such as this:

For art is always conflict:
(1) according to its social mission,
(2) according to its nature,
(3) according to its methodology

According to its social mission because: It is art's task to make manifest the contradictions of Being. To form equitable views by stirring up contradictions within the spectator's mind, and to forge accurate intellectual concepts from the dynamic clash of opposing passions.

I don't know what that's all about, but it sounds painful. Here are some clearer examples. We've all seen trailers for movies that, um, turn out to be rather less than advertised. Hey, if you had $100M invested in a turkey, you'd want the exciting bits all spliced together in a two-minute reel, too.

But it's one thing to make a film look more dramatic/humorous/glamorous than it is. It's another to make it look entirely like something it's not.

New York Times:

A few weeks back, [Robert Ryang] said, he entered a contest for editors’ assistants sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors. The challenge? Take any movie and cut a new trailer for it — but in an entirely different genre. Only the sound and dialogue could be modified, not the visuals, he said.

Obviously this has limitations -- you aren't going to turn Saving Private Ryan into The Bridges of Madison County however you manipulate it, but a couple of the entries used clever tricks to make Titanic and West Side Story into horror films.

Mr. Riang's winning entry turned The Shining into a sappy feel-good relationship flick. You will laugh out loud at the music clip he uses about halfway through.

Also, via Hanan at grow-a-brain (who isn't sure if this was part of the above contest), Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho recut as a romantic comedy.

Update: My bad. Link to The Shining now fixed.

oh, i don`t like the look of the look of today
a great grey cloud is coming our way
so I move through the streets on my own
a-huffing and a-puffing and feeling so alone

jane siberry

Everybody's probably seen it by now, but note that my presentation introduces it with a song. Is that value-for-money or what?

A reporter for NBC was covering the flooding in the northeast US triggered by recent heavy rains and decided to dramatize the coverage.

Michelle Kosinski has been on the scene for Today in New Jersey, working the story. In an apparent effort to draw attention to herself, in yesterday's segment she turned up in hip waders, standing thigh-deep in the flood waters.

Taking her act one step further, this morning she appeared on a suburban street . . . paddling a canoe. There was one small problem. Just as the segment came on the air, two men waded in front of Kosinki . . . and the water barely covered their shoe tops! That's right, Kosinski's canoe was in no more than four to six inches of water!

An embarrassed Kosinski claimed the water was deeper down the street but that her producers didn't want to let her go there for fear she'd drift away. But Katie and Matt, perhaps peeved by her attempted scene-stealing, couldn't resist ribbing her.

A good thing I put off on posting this for a couple of days, as Crooks and Liars turned up a longer version of the video, with Couric and Lauer's reaction.

The direct link doesn't work, so go here and click on the third link (" Video-WMP-East Coast Feed") to view it.

Iran Defence.Net (no affiliation with the Iranian Govt.) has dozens of photographs up of military women around the world. Not all of them are as stunning as the Swedish soldier pictured here, but there are some remarkably pretty examples.

One thing I know for sure -- I'd hate to be the 2nd lieutenant in charge of the platoon that she was in. Never mind getting my men to focus their attention on our mission; I'd be more worried about keeping them from killing each other for the privilege of carrying her rucksack and rifle.

We'd be much more comfortable with this German tentfrau, who appears to be having a very bad hair day.

The streets are strewn with dead leaves and the air is crisp and wintry. It can mean only one thing -- we are in the season of falling. Warning: music.

One should always be polite to the lighting grip in a TV studio. Or he will try to kill you.

What we think of as "risky" is very often not so. An onlooker might be appalled at the recklessness of an act, but the conscientious daredevil has assessed the dangers and instinctively seeks the safest course.

Say you wanted to jump off the roof of a house wearing roller skates. How could that possibly go wrong?

Artist Elizabeth Hickok has created a scale model of San Francisco, complete with Golden Gate Bridge, entirely out of Jello. Why is another question altogether.

It sure does look purdy, though. More pictures here, and a small video showing an "earthquake" here.

National Post:

OTTAWA - Federal and provincial justice ministers will consider a proposal next month to sue U.S. gun manufacturers as part of a plan to stem the flow of illegal handguns across the border, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said yesterday.

Oh, great. This is the same braintrust that hit upon the idea of suing Canadian tobacco manufacturers in US courts, a tactic so novel that it was laughed out of every court they tried it in. Not before it cost us millions of dollars, of course.

Earlier, Prime Minister Paul Martin indicated it was among the issues he intended to raise with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Word that Canadian governments could sue gun makers came as a spate of weekend violence in Toronto continued, with at least two more daylight shootings in Canada's largest city.

Mr. Martin said at a news conference up to half of all gun crimes in Canada are committed by individuals using firearms that have been smuggled into the country.

He added that the U.S. has an "obligation" to get tough on gun smuggling by working more actively with Canada.

Where have I heard this huffy argument before? After 9/11, when it was thought that some of the terrorists had crossed through the Canadian border (none had). But yes, ultimate responsibility rested with US Customs. Just as it is Canada Customs' obligation to control what comes into this country.

It's bad enough you've abdicated our military responsibilities to the Americans; now you want them to perform basic border duties? (The government had to be embarrassed into providing bulletproof vests for [unarmed] Customs officers when US law enforcement agencies started donating used ones to us.)

Tell you what: how about we outsource your jobs to the Yanks? They couldn't possibly be as inept at governance as you clowns.

Cotler wanders off-message:

Mr. Cotler cautioned that the federal government cannot sue gun makers and provincial governments may have difficulty in the U.S., where President George W. Bush has sided with firearms producers when asked to comment on similar domestic court battles.

Well, duh. If your high-priced legal talent had been following the news instead of ordering up new Beemers and Savile Row suits, they might have noticed this item from just last week:

CNN:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive lawsuits brought by crime victims. The White House says President Bush will sign it into law.

The House voted 283-144 to send the bill to the president after supporters, led by the National Rifle Association, proclaimed it vital to protect the industry from being bankrupted by huge jury awards.

Kinda blows a hole in your little rowboat, doesn't it? You want to combat gun violence in Toronto? Harassing farmers in Saskatchewan and duck hunters in Alberta isn't going to do it.

Waving your hands in the air and blaming the Americans isn't going to do it either; but that's exactly what you'll do. It's the Liberal Way.™

Another Worth1000 photoshopping contest in mixing genres; in this case, classical themes and, er, robots.

The original (woman, not robot) was titled "Le Ravissement de Psyche [The Rapture of Psyche]," painted in 1895 by William Bouguereau and can be seen here. (The story of Psyche here.) It's a fine example of representational art, which fell into critical disfavor with the rise of the Impressionists.

There's more of similar calibre at the Art Renewal site (Warning: some nudity, both partial and implied). To my untutored eye, at least, they're comparable to the work of the Renaissance masters.

This is a very well done Japanese (subtitles in English) parody of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

There's only the one clip for your perusal today, but note that it is over three times the length of the usual -- seven minutes in all.

That is sort of the unofficial motto of this blog. Seven minutes of entertainment per week. You can take that to the bank.

Here's the synopsis for a cheery little film called Gallows Hollow:

50 years ago it was rumored that Robert Gallow murdered his young wife, Mary. The following year he was found gutted and hanging in the trees... they left behind a baby girl. This morning the bodies of seven campers were found. They were gutted and hanging in the trees.

It looks quite well done, but I didn't see all of it. It clocks in at some 19 minutes, and as I have the attention-span of a gnat, I started looking at other things, switching back to the window when I heard something interesting, like bloodcurdling screams.

In the meantime I found this video from a band named Turbonegro. (Hey, I don't make up the names. I just report them.) It wasn't the greatest song in the world, but the theme seemed right for a Halloween post.

At that point, something weird happened. The video for the song was playing merrily along when the movie reappeared . . . in the very same window. This went on for a couple of minutes. Then my browser crashed.

I doubt that it was caused by anything Satanic, such as Microsoft. More likely some random supernatural force of evil.

(The jack o'lantern pictured above is one of many distinctive carvings at this site, any of which can be sent as e-cards.)