The husband unit and I haven’t had a date night in ages. It’s not neglect; it’s the result of a particularly eventful summer that had us moving to our new, decidedly grown-up digs. The final piece of furniture arrived in mid-September, followed by a non-stop whirlwind of fall festivities: Thanksgiving, a visit from Mum, my birthday, Halloween, not to mention a business trip to Orlando.

So it’s our first week with nothing much to do, and I suggest a date night. This usually means a movie at the Cineplex. Based on what I’ve written for Roger Ebert, you might think I’m all art-house, but AMC movies aren’t the husband unit’s cup of tea (and he’s British, so boy knows tea). We always manage to find a happy medium at the Cineplex anyhow, so best to just sit back and let Big Hollywood do all the work.

The movie we settled on? Contagion, which was playing – surprisingly – at the compound’s only IMAX theatre. And you know, I get it about the IMAX, but I still thought it was a strange option for a Soderbergh.

I’m often irked by the IMAX experience. I’m far-sighted and the screen, even in the last row, always seems too close, too bright. The dated IMAX intro is also tedious. But nothing irritates me more than those pointless pre-movie adverts, which are all the more grating when you’re forced to be exposed to them on an even bigger screen.

Maybe it’s because of the screen’s size that I was struck with how each of those ads was a missed opportunity. Here I am, stuck in the theatre – a captive audience – and each ad gives me an incentive to look away and keep reading Cineplex magazine. It’s not the random array of products being pushed that bugs me; it’s that these companies are trying to push them on me like I’m watching TV. But I’m not watching TV; I’m at the movies. I’m not watching a serial story that’ll continue next week at the same time; I’m about to take in a story that’ll engross me and wrap up in about 2 hours. And a bigger version of the ad I ignore at home is simply more aggravating at the cinema.

Like most people – even if few will admit it – I don’t mind being genuinely entertained by great advertising. But there’s more than one way to do it on a screen. Not so long ago, BMW launched a fantastic, web-only, short movie campaign starring Clive Owen. The most popular was probably the shorty featuring Madonna:

But there was a worthy one with James Brown, as himself, trying to get his soul back from the Devil, played by Gary Oldman:

Recently, Philips hosted a short film contest where people had to interpret 5 lines of ambiguous dialogue any which way they pleased. In other words, Philips didn’t even make the winning movies, but they own them now, which gives them distribution rights. Of course, the fashion industry has been doing this sort of thing longer than we’ve been talking about it. All of this is branded content that’s actually enjoyable.

Our favourite pre-movie ads – those we look forward to and hate to miss – are movie trailers. So imagine if we filled some of that extra space with short films. If it helps Cineplex pay the bills, I’d like to see more companies take the time to produce something that’s designed for the experience I’m already paying to have. I also hope that space would be sold to advertisers at a reasonable rate.

We want movies at the movies. As an advertiser, I don’t expect you to know what I like. But I should hope you’ll always keep in mind where I am, what I’m doing there, and how to speak the language.

Well, what are you going to do? I actually had done my research, but people on the Internet are mean. And the fact that it’s unlikely you’ll ever confront them in person makes it so much easier for them to hit and run. Still, I’m getting better at brushing off the kind of criticism you get from willingly writing on the Internet. So I summoned the courage to finally provide a response to a previous post on my favourite devils in cinema. Here, I rounded up some of my favourite gods in movies and TV. Before reading on, please note the following:

1. I will not engage in a theological debate in the comments because…
2. This entry is about interesting characterizations of god or gods. Think of it as a literary review, because after all…
3. These characters are fictional.

So here they are, one blaspheme at a time.

Bender: Futurama

Perhaps because he’s science fiction’s most self-aware robot, Bender’s had two run-ins with godhood. The first occurs in A Pharaoh to Remember, where Bender contrives events to become the next pharaoh, forcing the Egyptian slaves to build his mile-high effigy. Like the Tower of Babylon, Bender’s shrine breaks records before completely breaking down. Only 3 episodes later in Godfellas, when Bender is sent hurtling into space, his godly ideals are challenged when he becomes a god to the tiny organisms that have formed on his body. They worship him unflinchingly, even if his demands ultimately harm them. Eventually, a war breaks out between the organisms and everyone is destroyed. Mournful, Bender continues to hover aimlessly through space where he encounters a galaxy that reveals itself to be the one that hears all of the Earthlings’ prayers. This makes for one of the most interesting conversations on godhood that I’ve heard.

Bender: You know, I was God once.

Galaxy: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

Bender: It was awful. I tried helping them. I tried not helping them.  But in the end, I couldn’t do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?

Galaxy: Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do.

Bender: Yeah, I know. That’s why I asked if what I did was…oh, forget it.

Galaxy: Bender, being God isn’t easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. If you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

Bender: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money!

Galaxy: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

God: Dogma

Though God’s appearance is short and sweet, it’s still impactful.  A lot of time is spent building up God, especially through two fallen angels played by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They question God’s authority and intentions, while wreaking havoc like little children to get her attention. Yep, turns out God’s a “she.” Which wasn’t as much of a twist as Kevin Smith’s playful treatment of her. In one minute, she’s blowing up an angel’s head with the sound of her voice; in another, she’s doing handstands against a tree. Her expression is solemn for a moment, then her head tilts and she flashes a quick smile. Still, she manages to answer the question, “what’s God playing at” by cleaning up a large mess that was left in her name (an all-too-common scenario). Light-hearted and funny? A trifle. Irresponsible and thoughtless? Never.

Sita Sings the Blues

What I love about this movie isn’t the way its deities are portrayed; it’s the multi-layered storytelling, which so aptly echoes the nature of such myths and sacred stories. There are four narrative levels in all. The first tells the story of Sita and Rama in the form of the Rajput paintings we often associate with Indian art. When narrators interject to debate certain story details, they appear as shadow puppets. At various points in the movie, different Annette Henshaw songs are used to illustrate events in Sita’s life, and these are choreographed in distinctive flash animation. Finally, as the story itself is a parallel between Sita and lead animator Nina Paley, the “real life” bits are animated in a less ornate, more primitive “squiggly” style. There are many ways of telling a story, and even more ways of looking at it. That’s Sita in a nutshell.

God: Joan of Arcadia

Though it was a short-lived series, what I liked about this show was its ambiguous portrayal of God. The writers seemed aware that so much was riding on this interpretation, and that it had to be fair and modern while also reflecting well known theological notions. There were even a set of commandments that writers had to follow when creating God. In one of the more powerful episodes, Joan deals with the sudden and cruel death of a friend. Her boyfriend Adam offers the first bit of wisdom when he tells Joan that her friend indirectly killed herself by constantly chasing dangerous situations. Just then, Joan spots God walking three dogs (allusion alert!), and she does what most people do when they have the opportunity to speak to God directly: she asks why. God doesn’t have an answer, perhaps because Adam already gave it. All he can do is show her how to cope: put your feelings in a box and juggle them so you only ever carry as much as you can.

God: Des nouvelles du bon dieu (Eng. “News from the Good Lord”)

In the only veritable on-screen existential crisis I’ve seen, a brother and sister figure their bad luck is down to them being characters in a novel. So they start spreading mayhem to get the author’s attention. They commit just about every crime: they rob a pharmacy; they shoot people; they kidnap a policewoman, who becomes their willing accessory (not to mention the brother’s lover). On the journey, they recruit a number of accomplices, including a priest and a suicidal woman, believing that each might bring them closer to God. Finally, they meet the big G, who’s busy throwing novels into the air and shooting them with a rifle. Is each novel a life that’s come to its merciless end? Perhaps, but that’s different: God has a plan. “You guys can’t just go around exacting chaos because you’re pissed at me,” he warns the brother and sister. But they don’t listen, and shortly after, the whole horde dies in a violent car crash. Maybe we’re all writers and God is the editor, who decides when it’s a good time to finish the story.

The Demiurge: Aeon Flux

You don’t have to know the story of the Demiurge to appreciate this episode. I like to focus on the main conflict. Aeon, who represents anarchy, wants to send the god-like Demiurge into space and rid the world of its presence. Trevor, who represents autocracy, wants to use it to enlighten the masses. The two argue back and forth about knowledge. Aeon wants the opportunity to acquire it for herself, to extract significance from her existence through her own means. Trevor sees the Demiurge as a chance to live in collective peace under the influence of one governing truth. Several characters are resurrected in this episode, each more powerful and virtuous than in their previous form. Trevor tells Aeon she wants to get rid of the Demiurge to avoid facing her sins. Conversely, Aeon calls Trevor on desiring the Demiurge’s salvation for the same reasons.

God: Mr. Deity

This isn’t on TV, but it should be. Until it finds a suitable, gutsy network, it’ll reside on its Youtube channel, where it gets the accolades (and occasional trolls) it deserves. Creator Brian Keith Dalton came from a Mormon family and eventually decided not to follow along. This guy knows his theology, which is what makes the satire so tight. The premise is that God plans to create a world and needs the help of his staff to make sure the whole thing works out. He isn’t particularly smart, he’s rather vain and parts of his plan don’t really hold together well (“We can fix it in post,” his staffer tells him when someone points out that you can’t create flowers without first creating the light they need to grow). The Larry David comparisons are understandable, but Mr. Deity is slightly more likable. Slightly.

Jesus: That Mitchell and Webb Look

As an agnostic, I don’t accept that Jesus is God. I do, however, accept that to many people, Jesus and God are the same person. So it’s worth noting this construct, which takes the Good Book at face value. Was Jesus a racist or wasn’t he? I suppose you’d have to ask a Samaritan.

This is the first clue that got me looking for other chess…stuff. It almost seemed like a perfect set-up: Caiaphas and his priestly gang are all dressed in black (a classic chess colour) and each wears a hat that, in some cases, could be likened to chess pieces. Caiaphas’s headwear is shaped like the top of a pawn piece, and his sidekick Annas’s conical hat is a bit reminiscent of the bishop. I would have left well enough alone if it weren’t for Exhibit B: Scaffolding.

I found it interesting that Caiaphas and his pals of the cloth discuss the outcome of other people’s lives on a structure not unlike a chess board. Okay, it’s not identical to a chess board, but the scaffolding is criss-crossed, and from various angles, the crossings are shaped like squares. This is where they strategize and discuss what their next move should be (“So like John before him/This Jesus must die”). Uncanny though this is, I knew I had to explore this idea further because of Exhibit C: White Jesus.

I’m not referring to Jesus’s ethnicity (although…). I’m referring to what he’s wearing: a white tunic. It’s not new to visually contrast opposing forces in a movie. But when you’re building a case for a visual theme of chess, and you consider that white is the other common chess colour, something like this can be seen as compelling evidence. It’s even more convincing when you see that an effort is made to block Jesus in such a way so as to emphasize the difference between him and the priesthood, like when he’s arrested (or literally check-mated, being “King of Jews” and all):

 White also distinguishes him from, well, everyone:

Nobody else in the movie gets to wear that particularly beaming shade of white . Some of his followers don beige or dark ivory, but only Jesus is as bright. That is, until Judas fulfills his duties as official betrayer, offs himself, and appears to Jesus in a post-mortem vision:

 Until he dies, Judas wears a hot pink outfit. And once he’s done what he was (presumably) preordained to do, he reaches the same level of heavenly holiness as Jesus. At least, that’s what the movie suggests. In some ways, it reminds me of reaching the eighth square, where you can turn a sacrificial pawn into a powerful queen.

This all fits in rather beautifully in a biblical narrative because, if you take it at face value, it seems God controls everything. Every move is calculated and predetermined by the Guy Upstairs, each event bearing proof of God’s omniscience. And in some form, isn’t that what chess attempts to mimic? Instead of one god, there are two, and each predicts the game based on a set of mathematical possibilities and tactical advantages. It only takes one move to impact the rest of the game.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that’s inherent to critiquing movies. So when I found out that Norman Jewison would be at Ebertfest, I figured the time had come to stop guessing and ask the higher power behind Jesus Christ Superstar if the visual theme of chess was something he’d intended.

I thought I might have to go through a publicist or agent to get to ask Norman that question, but the only person he brought with him was his wife. This aptly demonstrates a sentiment that was repeated throughout Ebertfest: it’s not about the movie business; it’s for the love of movies.

I’d hoped for a proper sit-down interview, but in the frenzy of the festival, it never happened. Still, I was fortunate enough to get to ask him that very question during a discussion panel on choices filmmakers make. Here’s what he said:

“Every film that you make, you see the film in your mind’s eye. So that’s why the director can explain to actors and set designers and cameramen what they see, what film they’re making. Because it’s in your mind, in your imagination, it sometimes conjures up images that you get locked into. In Jesus Christ Superstar, I was making a rock opera. There’s only one line of dialogue in the film: ‘forgive them for they know not what they do.’ That’s the only line of dialogue, unlike everything else, which are songs and lyrics. So it’s about the good, the bad and the beautiful. It’s a rock opera. That’s all it is. It’s not a treatise that I was making. So, I was making this musical, and therefore, when it came to costuming and style and period, what period are you dealing with? Well, we’re dealing with today. That’s why I put tanks and planes and guns into the film. Because they’re contemporary. The work itself is contemporary, written by two young Englishmen. So, when it came to costuming, I was trying to do a mixture of biblical and contemporary. That’s the only thing I can say, because when the time came to make the film, I started to walk around the Holy Land, where the story originates, I guess that’s what affected me more than anything. And I was just listening to a walkman, singing to myself, and trying to visualize [it]. And I didn’t want to build big temples and places. I wanted to find them organically, because I felt this is what’s left of the Holy Land. These are the rocks and earth that people walked on. So I think that was it. I tried to give the Romans always a look, [with] the helmets. With the other characters, I tried to give them indications of period, but on top of that, it was all contemporary. It was a t-shirt and things. It was a mixture…it’s hard for me to describe it because it was many years ago, and I was much younger, and I was out in the desert in [inaudible] degrees. I was a little out of it, I guess…[laughing]..But yeah, it’s an interesting look. The picture does have an interesting look, and I like the look very much. I really think it works.”

Later, when the resplendent Chaz Ebert found out that I had not been scheduled to appear on a post-movie panel like other Far-Flung Correspondents, she asked if I had a preference. That’s how I got to co-interview Norman (with the lovely Anath White) on a panel after the showing of a film dear to his heart, Only You.

In retrospect, I wish I’d had more time to prepare questions. I’m good at ad-libbing jokes, but as a journalist, I like to blueprint my interviews. It didn’t matter much since Roger wanted us to ask him about specific things which, all told, made for great stories. That’s one thing I learned about Norman Jewison: the man sure knows how to tell a tale.

That’s why it’s difficult to pin him down to a style or genre. He cares more about the story than anything else, and he wants it to be told with as much compassion and humanity as possible.

One question I’m glad I asked him (and it was ad-libbed to boot) was about how he managed to get such iconic performances from actors. Case in point: Sidney Poitier, Steve McQueen, Cher and Ted Neeley, who’s still playing Jesus, if that’s any indication. In Norman’s response, which led some people to think he was flirting with me (I don’t see it), he said this:

“The relationship between a director and an actor is one of trust. That’s what it’s really about. It’s about the fact that the actor knows that the director trusts the actor, or the actor wouldn’t even be there. So you keep reminding the actor, ‘of all the people in the world, you are the one, you are the one to play this role, because I chose you.’…[Sidney] Poitier was always very concerned about Rod Steiger [while filming In the Heat of the Night]. He would say, ‘he can go over the top, you know. He can get too big.’ And I said, ‘I’ll watch him.’ When Rod Steiger won the Academy Award for his performance, I think it was recognized that he had given a performance in that picture from his heart that was very honest and deep and true. So I think it’s all about believability, isn’t it? And the end result is, do you believe that scene? Do you believe that person on the screen. That’s what the audience is asking themselves every moment they’re watching a picture.”

There are different types of directors out there. There’s the visual director, the actor’s director, and then there are those who, like Norman Jewison, are consistently mindful of the audience’s experience.

I’ve often said that art necessitates an audience. Without it, there is no art. There is no one for the art to matter to. And art has to matter to someone other than the artist to exist at all.

After I asked Norman my question on chess and Jesus Christ Superstar, a lady from the audience came up to me and said, “You know, I never looked at it that way before, but when I think back, you’re right! Those hats. The costumes. I’m going to have to watch it again now.”

I still think there’s a visual theme of chess in Jesus Christ Superstar, but Norman doesn’t see it. He doesn’t have to. I think it was Salvador Dali who said something along the lines of, the artist is not the best authority on their own work.

In the advertising world, there’s something the scares the crap out of clients: blank space.

“Can we put something in the top half? It looks a little empty,” they might say. “Shouldn’t we make the discount burst a little bigger?” Or even, “It’s great, but I think it could jump out a little more.” And that’s how a strong ad concept turns into an instruction manual.

Clients become terrified that customers will not interpret a message in a specific way, aiming all manner of doubt at their audience’s intelligence. Yet some of the most effective campaigns in advertising history were practically bare: The Economist, I’m a Mac, Nike’s “Just do it.” Incidentally, none of these companies bothered to offer discounts.

In art, negative space is the space around a subject. In certain exercises, students are taught to see that space as an artistic entity in itself. It adds weight to the subject. It defines its role on the canvas. It allows you to zero in on an idea.

There were two movies at Ebertfest that struck me with a penchant for riffing on that negative space, not to mention a palpable faith in their audience: Tiny Furniture and 45365. Neither of these felt the need to take you by the hand and guide you through their narratives, and these pictures were so tightly focused that it wouldn’t have been necessary anyhow.

It’s fitting that one of my fellow Far-Flung Correspondents described Tiny Furniture as a series of “white people problems.” Of course, he was right. The main character Aura, played by writer-director Lena Dunham, returns home to NYC after completing her Fine Arts degree at a college in Ohio. She’s also just been dumped by her hippy boyfriend, who’s going to work on a hippy project involving trees. Her mother is a famed artist, whose success managed to score the posh multi-level apartment Aura comes home to. Her life screams privilege and culture. All that’s missing is refinement, as evidenced by her bratty behaviour.

Aura is surrounded by blank space, literally. Her mother’s apartment is rife with white surfaces, from the walls to the floors and counters. It frames the characters and amplifies their proportions. It lets the dialogue’s constant subtext cameo its way to the surface. For instance, when Aura asks her mother where the scotch tape is, her mother tells her it’s in the white cupboard. What’s funny is that there are, of course, about 15 identical cupboards to choose from. What’s telling is that Aura knows exactly which one to open.

The white space also serves to highlight Aura’s isolation. It’s here that she works through her post-graduate confusion, disobeys her mother’s reasonable ground rules, and loses an existential turf war against her younger sister. In the same way, her romantic endeavours fail because of a her inability to assert herself, because she keeps using the words that exist outside the ones she should say.

The documentary 45365 comes from the vérité tradition, which has become a rarity in the past few years. Lately, it seems documentary funding falls mostly in favour of political exposés with talking heads, panning still images and little room for free association. There isn’t anything wrong with that – like most people, I enjoyed Supersize Me and what should be its companion, Food Inc. - but this trend looks less like cinema and more like a special report on the nightly news.

Directed by brothers Bill and Turner Ross, 45365 takes place in their hometown of Sidney, Ohio, bearer of the eponymous zip code. Having left that town years ago, presumably to pursue motion picture dreams, it would have been easy for the Ross brothers to portray Sidney with an air of condescension or to turn it into a message movie. Some of the perennial ingredients are even there: poverty, drug deals, an election. Instead, 45365 chooses to show us the intermingling realities of this small town. It follows certain people and their story arcs, it captures clips of non-contextualized conversations and it eavesdrops on intimate moments. There are no gimmicks or scandals, and it’s riveting. The Ross brothers are enchanted by their hometown, as are we.

In this film, negative space is everything we don’t know about these charming little vignettes. It’s everything we have to imagine or infer. Once we’ve gone through the exercise, we realize that what was in the final reel is all we really needed to understand the story. And not a drop more.

Both Tiny Furniture and 45365 rely heavily on pitch-perfect cinematography to heighten the viewing experience. It may seem like a given, but when you consider that a stunning movie like Inception spent most of its time telling rather than showing, you have to wonder.

What I especially appreciate is how the directors of both films trusted us with their experiments in rustic storytelling. Do we need their help in grasping some of the finer points? Not really. And we got there anyway.

Like when Omer Mozaffar asked those of us on the Far-Flung Correspondents panel how we prefer to screen movies. Most panelists said they preferred the large cinema screen. Others said they enjoy big-screen TVs. Some admitted that they don’t mind watching a movie on a computer (which warranted a small but perceptible gasp in the audience). When it came to me, I couldn’t give a straight answer. “It depends on what I’m doing,” I said. “I love seeing special effects on a big screen, but if I’m writing about a movie, I like to toggle between my Word document and media player on the laptop. It lets me pause the movie in specific places more easily.”

I was happy with that answer because it was the truth. But then it occurred to me that the night before, I had a very unique and privileged experience. I got to watch the latest version of Metropolis, and while I did, the Alloy Orchestra played the movie’s score in the pit.

It needs to be said that I’m already a fan of Metropolis. And though a days’ worth of travel made it impossible for me to sit through more than an hour, I was mesmerized for the full 60 minutes.

A lot of it has to do with the Virginia Theater, where we were fortunate enough to watch all Ebertfest movie selections. Having been restored to its original 1920s resplendence, the Virginia Theater lends itself seamlessly to a silent movie viewing. The details on the gilded mouldings hurl the audience to an era when interiors were carved out of sweat and fancy. Most attendees observed that the ornate balcony had some of the best seats in the house.

I’d never given the cinema space much thought. I can certainly tell the difference between a smaller screen and a bigger one. I owned the Koyaanisqatsi DVD for ages and had watched it several times on a cheap 12-inch TV that was handed down to me by a friend. Like most people who take years to stop living like a college student, I never upgraded until I was in my 30s, when I inherited my friend’s 27-inch telly after he got himself a flat-screen. For the short time that I owned it, I never watched important movies. I was busy. And it seemed to stretch and round out the images. It looked strange. Shortly after, however, the soon-to-be husband unit moved in and upgraded our living arrangements to better suit the 21st century, and just like that, it was our turn to get a large flat-screen TV. So I immediately tested out Koyaanisqatsi.

It was a game-changer.

The movie became so much more than the lesson in non-fiction that had initially introduced me to it. The Philip Glass score started to feel a little less gratuitous and made more sense. The film took on a new rhythm. Ron Fricke’s imagery was graceful despite its weighted largess.

So yeah, a nice big screen makes a difference. It’s not that I didn’t know that; it’s just that it was a given that I’ve come to take for granted. But every now and then, it literally smacks me in the face.

My favourite scene in Metropolis is near the beginning, when the workers toil away at the heart machine. Their movements are choreographed to make it seem like they’re one with the mechanism, like organic extensions of the levers and wheels. The machine itself looks like a pyramid, built to sacrifice humans to nameless, faceless, fickle gods (and the movie will tell us just that a few moments later).

But upon watching it on the Virginia Theater’s massive screen, with the Alloy gentlemen pounding on bedpans and squeezing accordions, a few more things take prevalence. Details I’d noticed before but that are more voluptuous now: the grandiose cityscape that just kind of popped out of Fritz Lang’s head; how Brigitte Helm was possibly the first true film actress that ever was; the subtle prowess of Joh Fredersen, who can disarm subconscious defenses with a raised eyebrow; the flamboyant depths of depravity. And I think, “I can’t believe anyone in the 1920s had the wherewithal to conceive of all this.”

I asked Roger about the Alloy Orchestra the next day, and he said he found them at Telluride. They only perform to silent movies, it seems. Their industrial vibe could have something to do with the fact that their guitarist/keyboardist Roger Miller was once in the post-punk band Mission of Burma.

It feels like this is the most ideal way to watch Metropolis: at the Virginia Theater, to the beat of the Alloy’s drummers, surrounded by people who are sharing exactly what I’m going through.

Of course, none of this will make me a screen snob. If I can, I’m going to want to refer to a movie I’m critiquing immediately. I’ll want to go Word-AVI-Word at will. I like watching some movies alone in the comfort of my own home. That’ll never change. So really, my answer to Omer is still true. Only now, I’ll think twice before underestimating the benefit of a large screen. I’d seen Metropolis before, at home, on my wee little 12-incher. And now it’s clear just how much I was settling.

My zombie dreams are terrifying and rather difficult to get out of. The set-up tends to be the same. Whether I’m in the city or country, it’s down to me and maybe 1 or 2 other living people. We know the world’s been taken over by zombies, and we simply wait for them to close in on us. I’m either lucky enough to wake up just as they’re about to get us, or I have to endure becoming one of them. Just to be sure, in my dreams, there’s never a way out. No heroic Woody Harrelson figure bursts through my door wielding a bazooka. I usually don’t scream much either, not because I’m paralyzed but because what’s happening is inevitable and the only thing to do is wait. I’m trapped. End of.

If I’m transformed into a zombie, I don’t suddenly scour the neighbourhood for non-dead brains. I just stop…being. I don’t do anything, really. I don’t move around or think things or want things. I am nothing. For a very long dream-time minute, until I wake up, my existence is nothing.

Save the brain-chasing, that pretty much sums up your average zombie reality. They seldom, if ever, get characterized in movies, because you can’t give “nothing” a personality. Vampires? Werewolves? Man-eating monsters? They sometimes get the artistic treatment. But zombie stories tend to focus on the experience of the living rather than the thing that’s challenging their living experience.

For many years, I’ve tried to figure out why I have a zombie phobia. Then recently, it dawned on me. I believe what scares me about zombie dreams is what’s scary about zombies in general: they are death itself.

Zombies force us to deal with death. They even force us to look death square in the face: warts, decomposed flesh and all. Zombies differ from vampires, monsters and aliens in that we can’t assign them any sort of “otherness”: they’re us. Not now, but soon enough.

And it’s a bleak future. They weren’t rescued by a forgiving god or a noble scientific process. They just laid there rotting in the ground until some unknown source animated their bodies. But they’re not sentient. They’re not really beings. They’re just piles of worthless flesh that we don’t even pity once they’re shot dead(er).

If zombies took epidemic proportions, we probably wouldn’t have much of a chance against them. We’d all die, but not just because zombies would kill us or turn us into them. Zombies’ food supply would eventually run out and they’d just starve to death. In other words: Buh-bye human race!

Death is already an idea most of us aren’t comfortable discussing. It’s the usual things: the lack of control, what the afterlife has in store, the possibility that there is no afterlife.

Extinction is far worse. It confirms our vulnerability as a species. It’s death with no legacy. It’s as if we were never there, which invites us to wonder if it even mattered that we were. This, of course, suggests that we believe we matter only if we are.

Meaninglessness is something people have never been very good at reconciling. Nihilism comes close, but it’s just no fun. And that’s the problem. Maybe life means nothing at all, but that’s hardly a reason to not have fun doing it. If anything, it’s an incentive to have a massive party.

So while people are hosting Walking Dead parties, I’m still working up the courage to watch the pilot. Some of you might egg me on, telling me to face my fear. And sometimes, facing fears can be fun. But I understand this phobia. I think I’ve been working it out in this post pretty efficiently. What scares me now is the prospect that having figured out the wherefore of this thing won’t prevent me from having more zombie dreams.

Believe me. They’re no fun.

What’s that? You’ve got an army of hundreds? A couple thousand? All on horseback? You’re from 5th-century Middle-Earth? You don’t know what a megaphone is? Listen, I’m not being funny, but I’d be surprised if anyone hears you past the first couple of rows.

Whyn’t you do everyone a favour and make sure there’s enough beer.

Mumzie at CFN-RFC, rocking a 'do she borrowed from the Thompson Twins.

When I was a kid, I was luckier than I imagined. For one, I lived in Germany’s mystical Black Forest. For most of the 10 years that we spent there, my mother worked at CFN-RFC, the TV and radio network for Canadian Forces families stationed in Lahr. Each day after school, I would take the bus to my mother’s office and spend the rest of her shift chatting up producers, directors and announcers. Thankfully, they were a tolerant bunch.

Then the ‘80s exploded. The cause? Music videos and their by-product, video shows. To name just a few, there was Good Rockin’ Tonite with the venerable Terry David Mulligan, Video Hits with Samantha Taylor, and Friday Night Videos. It was an exciting cultural phenomenon, which directly led to many high school girls mimicking Madonna’s “Like a virgin” look for the first half of 1985. Back at CFN-RFC, everyone played “who’s got the wackiest rock star haircut.” Whenever she could, my mother would tape videos on a VHS cassette and bring them home so we could watch them at our leisure. We thought of them as case studies.

Music videos weren’t novel. They’d been around for over 10 years. Only now, they were more stylized, going beyond concert footage and grey backdrops. Some videos told a story and felt more like short films. This period was so experimental, it’s a shame Andy Warhol didn’t live to see the ‘80s to the end. Then again, some of the work was so experimental, it might as well have been made in his Factory. Here are some of the more bizarre videos of the Michael Douglas decade.

Loverboy – Billy Ocean

Starting with an unidentified humanoid creature riding horseback along the Durdle Door coastline, it’s not hard to recognize this video’s absurdity. It’s got it all: a pointless floating pyramid, required “artist singing” scenes set on Mars, and ridiculous alien costumes that beg the question, why didn’t George Lucas sue? If anything really irks me about this piece, it’s that the protagonist – let’s call him Sheephead Guy – walks into a bar, eyes a female whatchamacallit from (presumably) another species, and promptly abducts her. The song justifies this by repeating, “I wanna be your loverboy.” Problem is, I’m not altogether convinced she feels the same. The lyrics don’t advocate barbaric behaviour, but the video seems to promote club-to-the-head courtship. I can appreciate an assertive man, but this is chest-banging, and not the Céline kind. Odd how during a decade that venerated progress and the future, this video romanticizes the Stone Age.

Self Control – Laura Branigan

Somewhat surprisingly (or maybe not), this video was directed by William Friedkin, who also directed The Exorcist. In all, I get the song’s broad strokes: Miz Branigan’s wilderness is unleashed at night, and it kind of scares her. What I don’t understand is how the video proposes to get there. It has a few too many symbolic levels, or at least, just enough to alienate even the cleverest of English majors (ahem). What’s with the masked dude, the city streets covered in flattened garbage bags and that frickin’ doll? The video isn’t exactly all over the place, but it also doesn’t really know where it is. It probably doesn’t help that the original cut was deemed too controversial, so parts were edited out for MTV. There’s a scene that’s clearly supposed to infer an orgy, and another bit where the masked dude looks like he’s about to perform cunninglingus. But none of that explains why dude is wearing a mask.

Gonna Get Close to You – Dalbello

I can’t tell which is stranger: the singer or her video. The song is about stalking, but the video makes me wonder, what for? No one will argue the androgyny of both main characters, yet I can’t help but feel that the lady is barking up the wrong tree. That the man can’t reciprocate Dalbello’s feelings has less to do with the fact that he wears a dress and more to do with the fact that he’s a little nutty. Then again, stalking isn’t a perfect science. If you can get past Lisa Dalbello’s zany hairstyle, the video is beautifully shot and the song is a piece of pop ingenuity. The whole production is peculiar and smart all at once. I’m not sure what the bag of red shoes stands for, but I like Dalbello’s “still life” pad with the grand piano on its side, and I almost wish there was more of the man’s 1950s housewife fantasy.

Big in Japan – Alphaville

I need to mention the awful lip-synching so we can get it out of the way. The lip-synching is just awful: there. Let’s move on to the singer’s incongruous facial expressions in relation to the lyrics: done. Next, short of actually filming in Japan, they lazily conjure up a cliché Japanese symbol: geishas. Then there’s the flag-holding ceremony. Yup: a ceremony. And they, like, hold flags and stuff. I would have included this muddled mess in a blog on the worst videos of the ‘80s, but “Big in Japan” is too outlandish to omit from this entry. Because the band is German I want to believe the video is influenced by early expressionist cinema, but that would be giving it too much credit. The thing was obviously filmed in some warehouse over a weekend, and quite possibly on a whim. That doesn’t make it a lesser piece, just dubiously improvised, a tad sloppy and utterly flaky.

The Wild Boys – Duran Duran

You can’t talk about ‘80s music videos without at least name-dropping Duran Duran. They really sexified the medium and pioneered the “costly production value” trend. Still, even Duran Duran weren’t immune to offbeat eccentricity, and at the time, nothing left people aghast quite like the “Wild Boys” video. We just didn’t know what to make of it. The video was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who also did Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a point that provides a bit of insight. Wikipedia does a decent job of getting into the video’s whys and wherefores, so I’ll just focus on its bonus “weird” points. #1: For primitive “wild” boys, they managed to develop rather sophisticated methods of torture. #2: If they’re so wild, why did they even bother with loincloths? #3: Is the robotic Patrick Stewart bust their leader? If so, there’s your answer. #4: As if it weren’t freakish enough, there’s also a waterborne worm-monster. Wild, huh? I’d bring up the video’s generally disjointed narrative, but given everything else, it’s a moot point.

Me and Daddy-O on the big day.

There’s no way to dress it up: I didn’t meet my father until I was 16 years old. Circumstances, more than anything else, had a hand in it. For most of my short life at that time, my father lived on Canada’s west coast while I lived in Germany. When I returned to Canada – on the east coast, mind – I was still too young to travel on my own. So when I was 16, I finally made the cross-country trek.

Until then, I only really knew snippets about my father, mostly from my mother’s glowing reviews. He and I had also spoken on the phone a few times, but this was before phone cards, cheap long-distance plans and Skype. Otherwise, we’d gotten to know each other through correspondence.

My mother had pictures of him, but they all dated back to 1975, a little before I was born. He looked like Cat Stevens, especially with a guitar in his hands. It struck me because it provided a clue about my own musical inclination. Back then, we were all so sure that I’d turn my years of classical piano training into a career in music.

When my father and I finally met in person at the airport, he embraced me urgently, saying, “god, you look like me.” He was right. The rest of our 2-week vacation was largely spent pointing out our similarities and our uncanny body language (we seem to unwittingly cross our arms at the same time).

But it was still a little awkward for me. Being in a household with no female presence felt uncomfortable. My father was no longer a legend. He’d become a real person, with all the flaws that being human entails. He started to look less like Cat Stevens and more like himself. And in all the important ways, he was a stranger. My father picked up on it and told me it was okay for me to feel weirdness or even resentment. I couldn’t really classify any of the emotions, so I swallowed it and told him it was nothing. So he swallowed it too.

One thing I learned about him was that he loves jazz. He even had a show at the University of Victoria’s radio station. He called it Joe’s Garage (a playful cross between my father’s name and the Frank Zappa album). His show featured guitar jazz exclusively. Lots of Steve Vai, Chet Atkins, some Django Reinhardt and Béla Fleck. When I told him there were similarities between baroque music and jazz in that they’re both improvisational, my father turned it into a show, with me as the guest. I remember that he played Lenny Breau’s jazzy rendition of Bach’s Bourrée in E minor to draw the connection for listeners.

Right after the show, we stopped by UVic’s repertory theatre, which was in the same building. This was exciting for me. We didn’t have that sort of thing in Moncton yet. And when I saw that they were playing Tous les matins du monde, with Gérard Depardieu and his swoonworthy son Guillaume, I begged my father to humour me.

The next day, we attended the early show. I didn’t know much about the movie, but I’d heard about it, and Gérard Depardieu’s fame had somewhat trickled down to North America on the heels of Green Card and Cyrano de Bergerac. I knew it was a period piece, but I had no idea it would revolve around baroque music. The discovery delighted us both.

Marin Marais faces his inadequacies in the last few moments his life lets him have.

Tous les matins du monde is a fictional account of the lives of composers who actually existed. (Biopic filmmakers take note: themes are infinitely more engaging than “milestone moments.”) Gérard Depardieu plays Versailles court composer Marin Marais, and his son Guillaume plays the same character at a younger age.

The movie has an exquisite opening shot, with the action happening off-camera. Knowing that death is closing in, Marais confides in his orchestra. He admits he’s an imposter, and segues into the tale of his aloof and  temperamental music teacher, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, played to pitch by Jean-Pierre Marielle.

Sainte Colombe outranks Marais in talent, awareness and proportion. Marais knows this and spends his life trying to understand what Sainte Colombe has that he doesn’t. The set-up is similar to Amadeus, but unlike Salieri, Marais is clueless about his inability, in part because he’s in a hurry to get famous. “You’ll wear lovely robes, you’ll dance for the king’s circus. It might impress some but it’ll never move them,” Sainte Colombe predicts. “You’ll make music, but you’ll never be a musician.” Sainte Colombe isn’t trying to condemn Marais, but he knows that ambition stunts growth.

If only Madeleine had listened to her father.

To complicate things, young Marais has an affair with Sainte Colombe’s daughter, Madeleine, only to leave her for a woman more fit for the court. Madeleine, who had taught Marais for months after her father dropped him in a violent fit, retreats into a resolute sombreness that eventually leads to her suicide.

Matins is also about mourning. Sainte Colombe owes much of his rage to unwavering grief over the death of his wife. It’s why he composes “Le Tombeau,” an opus of viol pieces. Himself a muted man, Sainte Colombe spends most of the movie trying to teach Marais that music replaces the words we can’t say, and says the things there are no words for. Of course, it isn’t until the end that Marais gathers all of his sorrows and weeps, with viol in hand, for his betrayal of Madeleine, for his decades-long ignorance, for the swanky court position he doesn’t deserve. He’s redeemed, just in time to die.

The film’s title comes from a line in Marais’s narration. “Tous les matins du monde sont sans retour.” It translates to, “all the mornings of the world never return,” which is as poetic in both languages, and possibly the most apt description of regret.

When the movie ended, there was a heavy silence in the theatre. I looked around and most people were teary, including my father. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said. He and I spent the rest of the evening discussing the movie: its perfect soundtrack (mostly rendered by violist Jordi Savall), the way the cinematography mirrored baroque paintings, the fact that there really isn’t much dialogue, and the truth about music.

I thought of the movie’s relationships, most of them entrenched in disappointment. Is it so different from how a teenaged girl feels about her parents? As an adult, I’m going to be pleased to put all that behind me. I’ll want to have a friendship with my parents. But at 16, I’m not there yet, least of all with my father.

Later, I would learn that Guillaume and Gérard Depardieu had a tense father-son relationship, wrought with anger and envy, not unlike Marais and Sainte Colombe. When 37-year-old Guillaume Depardieu died of pneumonia in 2008, people disparaged Gérard for reading a passage from Le Petit Prince as his eulogy. They felt it was further proof of Poppa Depardieu’s rumoured heartlessness, without considering that it might have been too painful for him to speak frankly at his own son’s funeral. I suppose they would have preferred him to give the performance of his life.

Gérard never denied his difficult relationship with the troubled Guillaume, but any criticism always came with a sliver of admiration. “He’s a great man,” he once said of Guillaume, “and especially a great actor.” After Guillaume’s death, in an interview with Paris Match, Gérard said, “He had his excesses, and I had my foolishness, but there was no conflict between us. He didn’t have issues with drugs. His real problem was life.”

Family ties are complicated. Children go from needing their parents to wanting them overthrown, and that transition takes almost no time to occur. Naturally, it’s worse when children actually have a reason to begrudge their parents. It’s messy stuff, and I can’t imagine having to live it out in public.

I didn’t want my father and I to have a resentful subtext between us. So eventually, I came clean with emotions I couldn’t comprehend or name. He was my father, but we didn’t know each other yet, and it would take some time. There was bitterness and confusion and love all at once. He graciously understood. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t try to explain his side of the story. He just made himself available for whatever I might need.

And I embraced it because I thought it would be a shame to root our relationship in regret. We had music in common. Isn’t that a good start?

Daddy-O and I singing Karaoke to "California Dreamin'" at the reception.

Okay, I admit that I was happy these two found each other again. Just once, though, I want to see a character called "Juliet" not perish in a most tragic death.

You watched it, didn’t you? If you didn’t, you’re more of a statistic than I am. Because according to ratings reports, 20.5 million of us watched the Lost series finale. All of us optimistically expecting a resolution, despite the inkling that 1 hour and 40 minutes (sans commercials) probably wasn’t enough to cover even the basics of the island’s time-travel properties, let alone most of these unanswered questions.

Based on message boards, reviews and Twitter, the big finish was a big let-down for many. The consensus is that while we’re glad these long-tortured characters get their happily-ever-after, we sure as hell would have liked the writers to throw us a bone about that other character: the flippin’ island.

After a lot of reflection, I’m finally able to articulate the wherefores of my disappointment. You see, the Lost ending decided that the island was a MacGuffin at the last minute, when it had already become much more significant to the audience. And the reason it did was the creators’ fault: they made us care about the island and its mysteries by constantly reminding us that they existed. They even went so far as to imply that the island had motives (quote Benjamin Linus upon Ilana’s explosive death: “I guess the island was done with her”), with the omnipresence of a fickle god.

The thing about a MacGuffin is that no matter how you define it, it’s a plot device. It’s functional. It doesn’t have a personality. While fictional characters can care a great deal about that MacGuffin (be it stolen diamonds or some covert operation), it should almost be a moot point to the audience. It doesn’t really matter why Kate Austen blew up her stepdad. What matters is that she’s convinced she’s not a murderer, and her character’s development relies on her redemption to others, to herself and to you. It’s the story’s job to show you she’s a murderer, but it’s her character’s to convince you she’s not.

In many respects, the creators allowed the island to act like a MacGuffin. It often seems to drive the characters to do things, until the characters make it clear that the island is more than a cluster of still life. The characters often suggest that the island doesn’t just have eccentric, sometimes contradictory functions. Some of them believe these are actual behaviours, that the island wills people to either come to it, to fulfill a duty, to live or to die.

The island occupies an awful lot of space for a mere MacGuffin. It has to be protected; it has electro-magnetic properties; it heals certain types of illnesses; its brightly lit spring needs to be corked or a whole lot of evil will be let loose; babies conceived on the island have a hard time being born; and so forth. In addition to all this, the island’s idiosyncrasies are ultimately consequential to the characters. And this is how it is most unlike a MacGuffin.

An ending not unlike the beginning.

The whole thing feels rushed. The Lost creators didn’t fully demystify the island, and to me, that’s tantamount to not finishing what they started. I came to terms with the “what” of the island, but I wanted the creators to fill me in on the “why.” I wanted to believe that the creators knew exactly what the island was, and not just how it worked. But the ending suggests what many viewers feared throughout the series: the creators were making it up as they went along and didn’t actually understand the island themselves. The creators will argue that they wanted to tell the characters’ stories in the end, but the island had so much to do with the characters we got to know. It’s impossible that the creators didn’t understand that, and entirely likely that they ignored it. Maybe because the hole they dug themselves was too deep. Maybe because they should have started explaining some of the mysteries in Season 4 instead of introducing brand new enigmas. It’s very simple, though. If they didn’t want the island to matter as much as it did, they shouldn’t have let it get so big.

Even the head writers admit that not everything was thought through. When asked what his least favourite Lost episode was, executive producer Carlton Cuse said, “’Strangers in a Strange Land’ (Season 3, Episode 9)… We didn’t yet have an end date for the series, and we were stalling, hoarding our mythology. So the big question/revelation in that episode is how did Jack get his tattoos? And he’s flying a kite with Bai Ling. That really didn’t cut it.”

In the end, the intrigue drew in millions of viewers, which, as creator Damon Lindelof explains, was the point. “Would it be easier if [Jacob] stopped bringing people to the island? Sure. But then our characters never would’ve crashed…and who wants to see a show about a guy weaving?”

Word is, Cuse and Lindelof plan on exposing some of the secrets on the Season 6 DVDs. And if they do, I challenge them to answer at least 25% of these questions:

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All photos used in this blog are courtesy of ABC/Mario Perez. This blog is not for commercial purposes, nor any of the material used herein.