Shut Up or Die

I awoke this morning to a newscast featuring the latest in Ottawa, our nation’s capitol: Canada’s Humanist Association is holding a protest against the banning of the atheist bus ads of which I’ve spoken, endlessly, in these pages. Yes, in the seat of our egalitarian country, it is forbidden to suggest on public transit that god probably does not exist.

Frequent visitors here don’t need to guess at my reaction to the violence against intellect which this banning represents, but for some reason I was particularly sensitive this morning to the abject stupidity and pig-ignorance of those whose faith is so weak as to need protection from even the mildest suggestion that it’s all for nought. So much so that I opted to avoid the subway today — the worst thing about “public transit” is the “public” part — and opted, instead, for a short cab ride down Yonge Street.

Naturally, this course of action was fraught with its own, special brand of fuckedupedness, as every single intersection where a left turn is allowed had its right lane blocked by a delivery vehicle. So, in the largest city in Canada, the police blithely ignore vehicles which reduce traffic flow down the most recognizable street in the country from two to fucking zero lanes.

And, worse, from the warm taxi, I was treated to endless streams of pedestrians crossing in the middle of the street, crossing against signals, crossing right in front of the taxi, shuffling with zombielike somnambulence, utterly oblivious to both the personal safety they were flouting and the disruption they’re causing every motorist on the road.

From Pontypool, ON, to Toronto

And, to get petty, they looked as if — 75% of them, that is — some shadowy organization had airlifted the ugliest, stupidest, most inbred idiots from a remote Ontario town, forced them to reproduce — while simultaneously culling from them those who displayed the tiniest sentience — and plopped them on the Street of Yonge. (Rest assured that I’m not suggesting the aforementioned are representative of rural Ontario, by the way.) Mindless, they’re able to hold only one thought in their dead brains: the hunger for human flesh must… cross… road.

Oh, Canada! You never cease to funnel your rural zombies to Toronto! Why is it that so many people in Toronto are oblivious to the fact that there are four fucking million people living here, not one of whom care to wait for their barely-conscious selves to get the fuck out of the way?

And, hey, speaking of Canada, I’ve been treated to some CanCon cinema lately. A few weeks ago I attended a sneak preview of the Pacey Joshua Jackson-produced One Week, starring the Dawson’s Creek actor, who, as most of you are already aware, hails from this gorgeous country of ours. And, in fact, if ever there was a cinematic love letter to Canada, One Week is it.

Jackson leaves Toronto in One Week

I enjoyed it. It’s not challenging, it traffics in filmic clichés — cancer victim with only a few months to live! — and it flirts a little too closely with Canadianisms — hockey! Tim Hortons! — which even my mother would find overly obvious. That said, its Crimes of Obviousness are minor and its heart is quite solidly in the right place and, for those of us who’ve traveled the roads down which Jackson steers his motorcycle, it’s a fond reminder of how fucking gorgeous this country really is. More importantly, it celebrates the small, private adventures a full and rich life requires.

Canadian films are, by virtue of their origins, practically defined as independent productions. Contrast the hugeness of the Canada in which Jackson experiences his gem-like adventures escaping Toronto with the claustrophobic paranoia of Bruce McDonald’s new movie, Pontypool:

Video: Pontypool Trailer

Now, I’m a big McDonald fan, and have been since his blistering Hard Core Logo (and despite his lackluster efforts in the execrable Queer as Folk). Andrew O’Hehir, in his review of Watchmen, said “this is the kind of movie that keeps setting off bombs in your brain hours after you’ve seen it.” My mind is still being blown, twelve hours after Pontypool. (Speaking of Watchmen, Pontypool‘s star, Stephen McHattie, appears in both).

What if strip-club rocker Bruce McDonald sat down with avant-art icons William S. Burroughs and Laurie Anderson and hatched a nightmare, transcribed by writer Tony Burgess? Equals Pontypool. It’s kind of impossible to discuss the zombie invasion of a small-town Ontario radio station without addressing the conceit behind the zombie virus transmission, and my mere mention of Burroughs and Anderson will have tipped their fans to the mode of transport, but… No.

I’m loathe to spoil it — though I don’t believe I’ve read a single review which hasn’t — so I’ll leave it to the book (and screenplay)’s author, Tony Burgess, to explain. (And you may thank me for choosing the least-spoilery trailer, above). You’ve been warned, ye who want not to be spoiled in the slightest:

Video: Pontypool writer Tony Burgess

And this film, despite its horror-genre sensibility, is as peculiarly Canadian as One Week, especially in its climax, though I’m heading into spoiler territory again just by stating that.

Most of you won’t even have the opportunity to see this movie in the theatre, its release will be so criminally microscopic. But not to worry, the claustrophobia and tight staging of this film will play well in your living room if you rent it. And rent it you really must. It’s by no means a perfect film, though the lead performances are stellar; McHattie in particular brings an awesome mixture of Don Imus, Noam Chomsky and Roland Barthes (to steal a description from the Toronto International Film Festival’s copy for the film’s debut here last year). The music, editing and design are note-perfect, too.

McDonald scores near-perfectly with the supremely independent Pontypool.

And those zombies on Yonge Street? Maybe they weren’t airlifted from some small, backwater Ontario town. Maybe there’s something, here in Toronto, which has infected them. And me. And maybe you’ve now been infected.