A Bridge Too Far

Been wondering for some time now what, if anything, to write about the new Canadian crime drama The Bridge, inspired by the life of former Toronto-cop-turned-union boss Craig Bromell. Not sure who I mean? Bromell was (in 1999) the subject of the CBC fifth estate report entitled Bully, produced by Victor Malarek.

Hey, here's a story idea for the first season...The Bridge could include an episode where a homeless man alleges that he was beaten by cops, including the union boss...Nah, who'd believe that?

It's bugged me from the outset that this project takes a lot of "creative license" with its fact-based storyline. I will say no more, but simply refer you to this piquant and excellent posting by Jim Henshaw, over at http://the-legion-of-decency.blogspot.com/

He says it all, and with authority. It's a must read if you care much about honesty and integrity in Canadian TV.

Meet the Press: Hanks and Spielberg on the making of the new mini-series The Pacific

Journalists from across North America gathered in Pasadena in January to meet with the stars, actors and mega-players behind TV’s best new projects. The most impressive is HBO’s The Pacific, a new 10-part miniseries that completes the Spielberg/Hanks Second World War trilogy, which started with the major feature Saving Private Ryan and continued with Band of Brothers. The Pacific debuts tonight on HBO.

What follows are highlights from a transcript of a media conference helmed by Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg to take media questions about the project. Picture this, Hanks, Spielberg and crew assembled in a seriously posh hotel in a ballroom full of journos.

(Remember that scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant pretends to be a reporter from Horse and Hound magazine to meet and interview Julia Roberts? It’s kinda like that, only on steroids… or hallucinogens.) The reporters – and yes I was one of them – were frenzied enough to make Hanks comment, “It’s like the White House.” Saner, thoughtful moments also prevailed.

The Pacific is worthy of the attention. So check in for more coverage and episode updates from week to week.

QUESTION: When you do something like this, do you have to sort of shy away from the things that you did in [the past] and the style of it?

STEVEN SPIELBERG: I had a sense in Saving Private Ryan that I was establishing a template based on the experiences communicated to me by the veterans who fought that morning on Dog Green, Omaha Beach, and their experiences and the way ‑‑ and informed by the very few surviving photographs of the great war correspondent, Robert Capa.

And I combined those photographs to try to find a 24‑frame‑per‑second equivalent about how I can show that kind of terror and that kind of chaos without making a movie that looked elegant and beautiful and in full living color, very much like war movies had been made in the past. It wasn't that I was trying to break the mold of the old war movie approach, visually, but I was simply trying to, I guess, validate all of this testimony ‑‑ if you can call it that ‑‑ that had been communicated to us based on the young men that lived and survived that battle. I didn't know it was going to establish a look for war movies. But it was certainly what I thought was right for that particular story.

QUESTION: And given how pervasive, though, that look has become in subsequent movies, when you do a project of this scale, do you try to get away and try to give it a different look?

STEVEN SPIELBERG: Well, we did give The Pacific a different look because there is a very strong de-saturated quality about Band of Brothers. And in The Pacific, because it was blue skies ‑‑ they weren't fighting in overcast weather. Sometimes monsoons would come in and it was terribly rainy and muddy and you couldn't see the hand in front of your face, but it was a blue‑sky war. It was a hot, dry, humid blue‑sky war. So there are more vivid colors, I think, in The Pacific than we ever had in Band of Brothers because that was the way it was, when you read the books and talk to the survivors of those campaigns.

QUESTION: …Are you telling us that there are little men in HBO that can tell Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg what to do?

STEVEN SPIELBERG: I can simply say that Tom Hanks and I are marvelous collaborators. And they were also giving us a lot of money. Not us, but the production.

TOM HANKS: I'm going to assume that all you crack members of the fourth estate can appreciate sarcasm when it comes your away…We had a great relationship. And, yeah, we fought probably over every single one of these moments throughout the course, including the closing titles that describe where everybody went. And, you know, we knew that once the ‑‑ what is it? ‑‑ the HBO programming blip was gone at the beginning of this, it was our story to tell with our own pacing, and we wanted to include everything that would turn it into a perfectly ‑‑ the perfect book with the opening pages that get into the meat of the thing. So I don't have any true complaints. I just have sarcastic ones. So please report my sarcasm in the spirit for which it was presented.

TOM HANKS: It's been like six years in the making.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: But it's also ‑‑ if I can just add, it was inevitable that we would do The Pacific with HBO because there was such an overwhelming response, not only from the general public that got very involved in Band of Brothers, but we got so much positive mail, but at the same time, mail that said, "I was a veteran of the Solomons." "I fought on Tarawa." "I fought" ‑‑ you know, "I was at Midway." I mean, we got so many letters of veterans from the Pacific Theater of Operations asking us if we could acquit their stories the way we acquitted the stories of the European Theater of Operations.

QUESTION: Having watched the first four hours, you're struck by the enormity of the combat scenes and how riveting and visceral they are. Mr. Spielberg, does it get any easier to do them .....

STEVEN SPIELBERG: It doesn't get any easier because these are all new actors to this experience, and these are all new directors to this experience. So you really have to pose that question to them. But I could imagine that this was a very gruelling and difficult and scary experience, being where Tom and I have been twice before.

Some of the actors mentioned include Canadians and we'll tell you about them in the weeks ahead.

My Olympic Dream (Is that a Copyright Violation?)

I haven’t been sleeping well lately, owing to the constant buzzing of helicopters over downtown Vancouver, but last night I had the worst sleep of my entire life. It’s probably not surprising that I woke up with a headache and a sense of dread; I was startled awake like I was in a scene from Blackhawk Down. I still feel a little foggy, no matter how much coffee I slurp.

And man alive, I had the craziest dream.

There I was in a vast icy cavern, frozen to the bone, looking for warmth as strange, massive creatures roamed around me. Instead of helping me, they thwarted my every move. My hands, arms and legs felt stiff from the extreme cold and my teeth chattered. If I couldn't find an escape, then I had to find fire.

Out of nowhere, I spotted Sonny and Cher dancing on a large round drum! It looked like they were singing, but no sound came from their mouths. “I loved you in Tea with Mussolini!” I shouted to Cher hoping she would come to my rescue, but she just swirled her hips and flipped me the bird.

Then the floor suddenly gave way, turning to water, and I was trying to stay afloat amidst a sea of dolphins, seals and whales. “Where are the oolichans?!” I screamed.

It makes sense, considering oolichans are known as ‘saviour fish’ here on the West Coast. Somebody must have been listening - but didn’t quite get the message. A teeming school of salmon surrounded me.

It was the weirdest thing; I was alone but felt like thousands of eyes were on me. Strange. I managed to escape the water and crawl up on to grass next to a magisterial Douglas Fir. The water had left me impossibly cold and possibly delusional.

Everything shifted and Ashley MacIssac appeared, playin’ Devil in the Kitchen in - wait for it – my kitchen. And there were more tattooed Cape Breton step dancers than could fit into my place and cops EVERYWHERE! What a blowout! I should have been having fun, but I was terrified and so I ran, and I ran and I ran...and as if I'd stepped through the Stargate, I was back in the icy cave, not knowing how I got there or how to get free.

I ran past a glowing spirit bear. I ran past a kid who looked like Peter Pan and Harry Potter's lovechild. I ran past Wayne Newton. I ran and I ran and I ran. I ran as fast as my cold, stiff limbs could move, becoming more frightened with every step.

I passed Anne Murray and thought I was dead. But then I spotted Betty Fox and Romeo Dallaire and knew I was OK. I had to keep searching. I thought I spotted a campfire, but it was just a flash from a massive Nikon camera on a tripod.

The situation went from bad to desperate when I ran straight into Donald Sutherland. All he said was, “Miss Daniels can I ask you some questions now?”

I thought I was a goner.

And THEN I spotted number four Bobby Orr. Only oolichans would have made me happier. Number four Bobby Orr told me how to escape the icy cave and where to find fire. I made like Alice breaking free from the rabbit hole.

Vas-y! Go! Vas-y!!! Go!!! Vite vite vite!!!

The governor general was there, pointing me towards the Burrard Inlet. I ran and I ran and I ran. I ran down Robson Street. I ran down Cambie Street. I ran down Georgia Street. I spotted a guy I know who runs the desk at the Sandman Hotel and he ran with me. And then he spotted a guy he knows from Merritt and we hopped a ride on the back of his pick-up truck.

He drove like stink, heading for the Inlet. And then suddenly there it was...a massive fiery cauldron with 20-foot flames being stoked by Wayne Gretzky. Life-saving fire! Saved! Saved!

Wayne Gretzky...the only thing better than oolichans! Saved!

Quoi?

What do you mean that wasn’t a dream?

Temple Grandin: HBO Canada’s new movie a tribute to the human spirit

If you haven’t signed up yet for HBO Canada, there isn’t a better reason than to catch tonight’s screening of Temple Grandin. The extraordinary bio-pic stars a near unrecognizable Claire Danes (Stardust, My So-Called Life) as Grandin, one of the top livestock scientists and animal activists in the United States. She’s described on her own website as “the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world.” Grandin, pictured above, is an author and Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.

Grandin, now 62, overcame enormous obstacles during her childhood and starting a career in humane-methods livestock handling. Along the way she became - and remains - an extraordinary advocate for people, especially children, with autism, as well as an advocate for the respectful treatment of livestock. Grandin, who’s always seen in her signature classic cowgirl wear, is one of the most-influential designers of livestock-moving equipment. Her no-stress system for cattle management is used all over the U.S. She’s also the author of several books, including titles that inspired the movie; Thinking in Pictures, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's, Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, Animals Make us Human and Animals in Translation.

Grandin was fully involved in the HBO project, directed by Mick Jackson (Live from Baghdad) and says she enjoyed it. “It [was] like going in sort of a weird time machine. Just watching the trailer, I [was] getting kind of choked up. I whispered to Claire, I said, ‘Can you believe that's really you?’ She said it was kind of weird for her, too.

“She played me really, really accurate. This is '60s and '70s. This movie ends at the end of the '70s, and the thing about autism is as you learn more and more and more, you keep getting less and less autistic-like. In order for Claire to get some inkling of how to do this part, I found an old TV show tape from the '80s and an old VHS tape from the early '90s for her to watch.”

Thanks to Grandin’s involvement, the film takes great pains to successfully mimic and offer insight into her behavioural patterns and personality; intellectually, emotionally and socially. The film paints a tremendous portrait of a young woman who succeeds, thanks to her own determination and the unfailing support of her mother and educators. Grandin provides an excellent example of what can be accomplished by special needs students when they receive adequate support.

“It's important to get autistic kids out doing different things. I want to emphasize, autism is a big spectrum ranging from somebody who is going to remain nonverbal, all the way up to famous scientists.

“You would have no technical equipment here. You would have no hotel here if you didn't have people that were interested in things, because after all, who do you think made the first stone spear? It wasn't the yackity yacks around the campfire. That's for sure,” says Grandin.

The Autism Society Canada estimates that one in 165 children has an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

http://www.autismsocietycanada.ca

http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/

Temple Grandin, Sat. Feb. 6, at 8 pm on HBO Canada