So I watched The Game yesterday, expecting to find a taut, intense thriller. And that it was—more twists and turns than you’ll find in five normal movies. For all of those twists, though, I still hate the movie. (spoilers ahead.)This is different, of course, from dislike; The Game is a film I really want to like, and do in fact appreciate for many reasons. Michael Douglas does a great job as the drowning hero, the extremely wealthy and reclusive investment banker whose life is systematically dissected and destroyed by the mysterious Consumer Recreation Services. Douglas’s character, Nicholas Van Orton, is invited by his brother, the lesser of the family’s two talents, to play a game specifically tailored by CRS to provide “whatever’s missing” in Van Orton’s life.Apparently what Van Orton was missing was a good dose of torture. The game he plays quickly devolves; first a light romp through the city’s back alleys, then a break-in by vandals at his lavish mansion, then a trip to the bottom of the bay inside a taxicab. Finally, after all his bank accounts have apparently been emptied by a malevolent CRS, Van Orton is dumped in a coffin and left for dead in the middle of Mexico, stripped of his identity and with no way to get home.Almost up to the end, when Van Orton tries to take revenge on CRS and reveal the true nature of their dealings, the film has most everyone in its grasp. It is extremely well-paced and the atmosphere is great. Everyone, especially Douglas and Deborah Kara Unger, does a fine job in getting their characters across. As Douglas points a gun at Unger in the penultimate scene and she realizes that it’s a real gun, the audience is left to wonder right up to the end if everything Van Orton has seen is real or constructed for his benefit.But much like Minority Report, all the work Fincher and company put into the film goes completely to waste in the last few minutes. (big spoilers ahead.)The slow-motion sequence near the end of the film should have capped it, although even then there would be questions left to answer; why didn’t anyone see it coming, that Van Orton would be so frayed mentally that yes, he would should whoever was behind the roof door? What kind of person would let the game go on to the point where Van Orton would be in a position and state of mind to kill people? If CRS really was in the business of swindling people, then why such an elaborate setup? Why dump Van Orton in Mexico instead of killing him outright? If it really was all a game, then why play with fire? That gun could have been real; Van Orton could’ve easily found some other way to acquire one that CRS couldn’t have known about. Then his brother really would be dead.But then Van Orton had to go jump off a building—and live. And his brother had to be shot in the stomach—and also live. Hey, guess what? It was a game all along, even after the birthday surprise and the shooting in the gut, and everyone was in on it! Even the “real” gun was a fake! Surprise!Step back for a moment. If you were Van Orton, would your first reaction after attempting to commit suicide really be to give your brother a hug and thank everyone for the rollercoaster ride? No. You’d kill every fucker in the place with your bare hands. Why Van Orton apparently thought what he’d been through was suddenly a life-affirming experience, I cannot say.But even worse are the people who conspired to give Van Orton his “game.” Completely destroying a person’s faith in his family and friends, systematically taking everything he has away from him and leaving him with absolutely no way to support himself in a country he has no connection to, not even a common language, is not a game. By the end of the film, Van Orton is driven purely by revenge; people like that aren’t suddenly back to being okay once they realize what’s happened. People like that are more likely to end up mentally scarred for life. And for what? Because his brother thought Van Orton took his $2000 shoes for granted?Every person involved was a willing participant and thought this sort of thing was a good idea. A good idea. To strip a person not only of his posessions, but of his trust in people and of his entire support system? And all so Van Orton will open up to people and not spend so much fucking money? Putting a person through such psychological duress for the express purpose of giving him new insight into how he lives his life is akin to forcing a teenager to fight in a war because the sight of a whole platoon of troops being ripped apart by a helicopter minigun will make that teenager appreciate the value of human life.To think that anyone could conceive of a situation where this sort of thing is not only acceptable, but commonplace, is frightening; to watch it played out in this movie, without the slightest hint of disapproval at any point, is appalling.

The only Patti Smith song I have is “Land,” a nine-minute epic that ends up being almost but not quite as interesting as I remember it being. I chalk that up to the missing visuals.The first time I’d ever heard the song was a couple of years ago, during one of the few episodes of Chris Carter’s television series, Millennium, I got the chance to watch from start to finish. “The Time Is Now” was the second season finale, wrapping up an entire year of pre-apocalyptic tension. I’d managed to miss most of it; when “The Time Is Now” first aired, I only had the briefest of sketches in my head describing who the characters were, what was known about the secretive Millennium Group, and what the apocalyptic threat to humanity was.Despite this swiss cheese backdrop, the episode hit like a ton of bricks. The scene where “Land” plays is actually the entire third act of the episode, during which Lara Means has a nightmarish vision of catastrophe upon catastrophe, triggered by her acceptance into the Millennium Group. If you wanted to be harsh, you could call it the nine-minute acid trip that aired on national television. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I’ll likely not see anything like it on television again.Aside from the Lara’s descent into madness, there’s a fair amount of intrigue involved as the Millennium Group’s two factions attempt to play two of the season’s main players, protagonist Frank Black and Peter Watts, against the other side. The infighting and politics were, at the time, only mildly interesting. What made the episode so great in the end was that, unlike so many other television shows that threaten something big all season only to get cold feet in the end, Millennium’s apocalypse finally came in chilling fashion. There was no last-minute solution, no heroic defeat of some unseen enemy, no holding back the tide.The last scene of Frank and his young daughter, Jordan, is still one of the most vivid out of all the television I’ve watched. Having realized only hours ago that his wife has succumbed to the virus and left their secluded cabin to die alone, Frank’s hair has gone completely white. Jordan is oblivious; to the blood stains on the bed; to Frank’s catatonic state; to the chaos hinted at in the very last few seconds of the episode, as the scene disintegrates into staccato bursts of static. Finally, over the sounds of sirens, static and “In The Year 2525,” a single radio broadcast: “We are in desperate need of supplies. Many are dead. This is a general distress call. Send help.”It’s been said that if any show could have ended after a successful season, it was 24. As true as that may be, there was never a more fitting candidate for a series finale than the episode that ended Millennium’s second season—a final episode that called everyone’s bluff and killed off most of the world’s population, or so we thought. Had the third season had actually dealt properly with the events of the second, maybe the success of “The Time Is Now” wouldn’t stand in such stark contrast; but then, that’s yet another matter Chris Carter must one day explain.Speaking of the apocalypse, I’ve been reading A Guide To Apocalyptic Cinema, quite possibly the only book I’ve ever checked out from a university library because I just felt like reading it. You should probably do the same if you’re interested in that kind of thing, seeing as how the book is over $100 Canadian (??!?). Of course, there’s always EmptyWorld.

It’s April. You know what that means?My favourites from 2003.If you’ve never read The War Against Silence before, go take a look. Just once. Volume is questionable as a virtue, but in this case it sort of works; Glenn McDonald has written so much about music and how it’s affected his life that he can probably fill the equivalent of several encyclopedia volumes. He writes decently as well, although over the years our tastes have diverged quite a bit. McDonald’s not interested in giving you capsule album reviews; he dissects them mercilessly, analyzing this bit of vocoder here and that artist’s back catalogue here and hey, look, a dozen references to artists I don’t know.I don’t care for his Tori Amos lovefests, even though I do like her work; despite his intelligent writing, his Tori reviews still veer too close to “selling homemade dolls of her at concerts for $100″ for my liking. Some of his end-of-year choices are particularly strange, too; I couldn’t understand why Jewel’s 0304 made it so high on his top-ten list last year, nor Alanis Morrisette’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie a couple years back.So it will be with this list, only mine a) comes with far fewer words than many of McDonald’s issues, and b) is four months late. Reading McDonald’s 2003 list made me think about my own choices, and so…

Rainer Maria, Long Knives Drawn. This was one of those albums I didn’t feel wholly comfortable liking because of what so many other people think about Rainer Maria: apparently, you’re not really supposed to like them once you’re past the age of 17. To me, though, Rainer Maria is one of those bands that really seems to grow or evolve by leaps and bounds with every release.The compressed guitar screeches of Past Worn Searching are not the poppier licks of Look Now Look Again. Caithlin De Marrais wasn’t that great at singing in key on Look; here she’s in tune nearly all of the time, plus she’s mastered the fine art of singing ballads while belting out the harsher songs better than ever before. The first half of the album is uniformly terrific; “The Double Life” is the first of many weak spots, but Knives recovers with “The Awful Truth Of Loving” (a very hard title to love because of its grade-school qualities) and “Situation: Relation,” another example of what the band can do when they turn down the volume (others being “Rise” from Look and “Atropine” from A Better Version Of Me).Throwing Muses, s/t. Kristin Hersh released two albums on the same day, and it’s a testament to her genius that everyone liked at least one of the two, and that people couldn’t agree on which one was superior. As a fan of Hersh’s solo work, I was surprised that The Grotto seemed like a warmed-over version of Strange Angels, but maybe I just haven’t given it enough of a chance. In the meantime, put me in the camp that loved Throwing Muses to death.I certainly haven’t heard the Muses’ full catalog, but from all reports this was the rawest outing yet. If so, I have high hopes for new offshoot band 50 Foot Wave, because tracks like “Civil Disobedience,” “Mercury” and “Solar Dip” fired on all cylinders and then some. After years of singing interesting but relatively peaceful songs like “Gazebo Tree” and “37 Hours,” it’s great to see Hersh pull out all the stops again. It’s also obvious the other members (including Tanya Donnely!) haven’t lost any of their fire, either. The only sad part is that this will likely be the Muses’ last outing; after successfully pulling off the reunion album, you don’t want to seem them disappear back into the ether so soon. On the other hand, at least this curtain call was planned.Cardigans, Long Gone Before Daylight. Yes, this is the “mature” Cardigans album. No, it’s really not as bad as you think. Basically this took a lot of the mellower aspects of Nina Persson’s side project, A Camp, and expanded on them. A complete 180 from Gran Turismo, which is the late-adolescent angst to Daylight’s sedate early thirties. There are many gems here, though; opener “Communication” is a welcome reintroduction to the Cardigans, while “You’re The Storm” sounds like riding across the open country, Persson’s vocals soaring like seldom before.What really makes the album, however, are the last few tracks. If you didn’t buy the band’s transformation before, it’s convincingly complete by the end. “Live And Learn” is a perfect example of the album’s appeal, all subtlety and craft without any obvious hooks or riffs to drag you in. It’s deceptively addictive. “03.45 No Sleep” is a beautiful showcase for Persson, the sweet lullaby she never really got the chance to sing on previous albums. Bonus track “If There Is A Chance” works in a similar vein.Dressy Bessy, s/t. This Denver foursome were once the poster children of the twee-pop movement, what with their “Little TV”s and “If You Should Try To Kiss Her”s. A mere two albums later, Dressy Bessy have revealed their master plan: retain the sugar, add lots of spice. When Sound Go Round came out two years ago, everyone thought that was the album where Dressy Bessy decided to rock out; songs like “That’s Why” were definitely harder than anything they’d previously recorded. Dressy Bessy blows the doors off Sound Go Round.Tammy Ealom doesn’t actually sound angry on “This May Hurt (A Little)” like some have said, but it’s obvious that on this outing, the band isn’t going to let up for a single second. From lead track “Just Once More” to closer “Tidy,” Dressy Bessy try to crush every addictive hook, every little bit of guitar crunch, as much of Ealom’s cute-but-aggressive vocals as possible into the space of forty minutes. Surprisingly, they manage to do all this while still sounding as poppy as they ever did. Dressy Bessy’s bite may get bigger with every release, but they still know how to get the kids to dance.Junior Senior, D-D-Don’t Stop The Beat. Yeah, this is the album with the song with that video of the squirrel that looks like it was made on an Atari. “Move Your Feet” was the best song of the summer, except maybe for “Rhythm Bandits.” Or “Chicks And Dicks” (In short: Junior’s straight, Senior’s gay, everyone’s happy. How can you not love a song with the line, “Whatcha gonna do-do after dark? / Who ya gonna do-do after dark?”). Or the rest of the songs on this album. Sure, it’s a party album, and as is the case with these sorts of things, if people don’t know the songs, they ain’t gonna dance and they ain’t gonna cheer. In this case, that’s the problem with the people you bring to the party, not the album. By all rights, everyone should’ve known “Move Your Feet” by the end of the summer.Goldfrapp, Black Cherry. I don’t know any of the songs off Felt Mountain so I can’t use that as a basis for comparison. What I do know is this: Black Cherry is the realization of the potential inherent in the Fischerspooner remix of Kylie Minogue’s “Come Into My World.” Black Cherry is sexy and seductive, but more importantly, it’s a fully-formed and fleshed out electroclash album that succeeds on all fronts, not just the slick beats / deadpan vocals one (Ladytron) or the “we’re immense failures, but look, our video is cool!” one (Fischerspooner). Black Cherry has a heart and soul, exactly what electroclash needed.Pretty Girls Make Graves, The New Romance. Not as raw or energetic as Good Health, but with a killer allure all its own. Pretty Girls Make Graves, anchored by the guitars of Nathan Thelen and Jay Clark and the overpowering vocals of Andrea Zollo, have laid down the night to Good Health’s day. “Something Bigger, Something Brighter” takes its time, slowly building up steam until it unleashes a torrent of guitars and keyboards all at once. Romance isn’t as intent on the full-frontal attack as Health, instead choosing its moments of intensity, such as “Chemical, Chemical” and “The Teeth Collector.”Other than the slight shift in philosophy, Romance is an extension of the PGMG sound. Zollo is still a force to be reckoned with, her voice as powerful as Corin Tucker’s but with more emphasis on harmony and nuance than Tucker’s banshee wail. The guitar licks are still as deft, aggressive and irresistable as ever—witness “All Medicated Geniuses” and “This Is Our Emergency.” The best part? At forty minutes, it has twice the goodness of Good Health.Komeda, Kokomemedada. Thanks to the intelligence of Universal Music, this album hasn’t been released anywhere outside of Komeda’s home country, Sweden. (Latest word is that Minty Fresh has again picked up the rights for North American distribution—May 4 is the tentative release date). The MP3s I’ve got, however, are stellar. The latest version of Komeda varies more widely than in the past; the new version of “B.L.O.S.S.O.M” and “Catcher” are more laidback than most of Komeda’s hyper-poppy sugary pop catalog, while “Victory Lane” and “Elvira Madigan” are quite a bit bouncier. “Out From The Rain” is a sweet, charming slice of pop with a twangy twist, while “Reproduce” out-raves The Genius Of Komeda’s “Boogie Woogie/Rock N’ Roll.”Kokomemedada is about as perfect an introduction to Komeda as anything else out there, with most of Komeda’s many moods represented here. While you don’t get as many slick and polished pop gems like What Makes It Go’s “Flabbergast,” or as many jaunty tunes like Genius’s “More Is More,” there’s certainly plenty here to keep any Komeda fan—and most other people, given half a chance—happy.
There were more disappointments than usual this year. Mates of State are quickly becoming the new Quasi; for some reason I’ve fallen out of love with them. My Solo Project is still the blueprint upon which I judge their subsequent work; Team Boo comes closer than Our Constant Concern but is ultimately less memorable than the original product.Similarly, Dirty Three’s She Has No Strings Apollo doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself. There’s no “Sue’s Last Ride,” no “The Restless Waves,” no “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night”—no songs that touched my heart, no songs that seemed to really say something with Warren Ellis’s violin, Mick Turner’s guitar and Jim White’s drums. In their place are a set of songs that meander and go through the motions without amounting to anything brilliant; in anyone else’s canon that would be acceptable, if a bit disappointing. Since this is the Dirty Three we’re talking about, it’s more unfortunate. Finally, there wasn’t a single truly memorable moment from the Weakerthans’ Reconstruction Site. “One Great City!” doesn’t count because it’s been a live staple for so long that it almost doesn’t belong on the album, and probably wasn’t written with the other tracks anyways. The rest of it is basically Weakerthans lite.Then there were the albums that were simply okay: the Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Truthfully Truthfully, the Dears’ No Cities Left, the New Pornographers’ Electric Version, the Gay’s You Know The Rules, the Owl and the Pussycat’s self-titled debut. The Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn / Ginger Brooks Takahasi project, Songs From The Black Mountain Music Project, wasn’t so much an album as it is musical art, with only a couple real songs in between the snippets of impromptu recordings.More notable were the albums I bought this year released previously: Sully’s Bright Lights, Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People, Floraline’s self-titled debut (and last album, as it turned out), the Cato Salsa Experience’s A Good Tip For A Good Time (breaking the rule that a party album has to be a well-known album), Lois’s Bet The Sky, Prolapse’s The Italian Flag, and the Rose Melberg tag-team of Go Sailor (tracks collected from several seven-inches by the band of the same name) and Tiger Trap’s self-titled release.
Early favourites for this year? Tracks from the new Mirah and !!! albums sound promising, and there’s word that Neko Case is working on an album full of new material performed in concert (from the two Lee’s Palace shows last week, the Matador shows yesterday and today, and the Horseshoe show I’ve got tickets to). In terms of what’s already out, Sarah Harmer’s All Of Our Names isn’t quite as remarkable as You Were Here but pretty close in some ways and better in others.The one to beat, though, is Kendall Jane Meade’s little masterpiece, Mascott’s Dreamer’s Book. “Off Blue” is the most obviously beautiful out of the set (the nearest touchstone I can think of is Mary Lou Lord, minus the production overpolish and alterna-rock stylings), but from the gauzy, sparkly haze of “L.O.V.E” to the dramatic flourishes of “Song For A Dream,” the whole album is a winner, with nary a weak track in the bunch.

The last time I had a Sarah Harmer album on heavy rotation was four years ago, at a friend’s cottage. I’d gotten You Were Here through mail order from Sarah herself, as the Universal distribution deal wasn’t in place yet. Lucky for me, because that week-long cottage trip wouldn’t have been the same otherwise.The cottage sat on the edge of Lake Erie, with nothing but beach between the deck and the waterline. When it rained, it could get brutal outside, with high winds and pelting raindrops. In the afternoons, though, when it was clear and bright outside, you had a perfect view outside the mural-sized window clear to the pristine lake, with nothing but blue skies above. It was to this scene that we played You Were Here many a time, while playing Trivial Pursuit, while getting drunk at night, while sitting by the fireplace talking. Some of the most vivid memories, though, involved listening to “Coffee Stain” and staring out towards the lake.It was our final summer before university, and a bunch of high school friends and I had made the trip up to the cottage for a final sendoff before we were all scattered to the winds. It was the last weekend I would spend with my then-girlfriend before she left to spend two weeks in Vancouver. When she came back, we parted ways.After she left the cottage three days after arriving, the half of our group that was left stuck around and had a more subdued time of it. Sarah Harmer served as the backdrop to it all; lounging around, reading or sleeping, gave one’s mind the chance to wander. I started listening to the lyrics, something I almost never do. “Coffee Stain” is one of my favourite songs to this day, a track that vividly captures the essence of everything that happened during that week, and in a way, during the entire summer—sitting at the edge of the world and staring out into the abyss, kowing that change was coming but perfectly content to wait for it to come instead of rushing headlong into it. It’s perhaps the most serene I’ve ever felt.It’s fitting, then, that All Of Our Names should come out now, with under a month left in my undergraduate career. Between then and now, there’ve been many missed opportunities to see Sarah Harmer in concert, and many chance near-encounters with her at various concerts throughout Kingston. In the end, though, I don’t really remember Sarah so much as the singer who took control of Weeping Tile for one night in December two years ago for a charity Christmas concert, or for guesting with Luther Wright and the Wrongs and doing a duet with Carolyn Mark at what was possibly the best concert I’ve ever seen. Sarah will always be the one who gave me “Coffee Stain” and a little bit of peace and calm I will never let go of.

Should I go to formal? Check one. (We’ll see what happens tonight.)