WATCH GUY MADDIN'S NEW FILM "THE GREEN FOG" FOR FREE ONLINE!

Here is the trailer for the latest offering from Canada's most unique and iconoclastic cinematic genius, offered up as a gift to the world in a time of global crisis.

You can watch the entire film for free on Vimeo, at this link. Witness for yourself why Maddin has earned a reputation as Canada's answer to David Lynch!

MEANWHILE, IN CANADA...

Some dude named Theo wants you to Look at This Picture...

THE BEST END OF THE WORLD FILM YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE

With 1998's Last Night, Canadian director Don McKellar created a work of transcendent beauty and almost unbearably intense emotional poignancy.  The end of the world has never felt so intimate, so possible, so viscerally present as it does in this film. 

If you consider yourself an aficionado of apocalyptic cinema and you have yet to see this film, be prepared to make room in your personal Top Ten list. 

It's incredible to me that McKellar was still in his 30's when he directed this. The thing that he seems to get, and convey so eloquently, is that, in such a global endgame scenario, regret would loom just as large as dread, and that all our emotions - bad and good - will be heightened to an almost supernatural degree. 

Anyway, I've said too much already. Watch, experience, share. This film deserves to be seen by everyone... starting with you.

IF THE PMO RAN THE CBC...

As the most ideologically pure small-c conservative ever to reside at 24 Sussex, there is one thing about which we can be absolutely certain when it comes to our nation’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper: he hates the CBC. He despises it with a deep and abiding malice, viewing it as a socialist-infiltrated cesspit of secular humanism, a seething hive of nepotistic cronies, almost wholly without merit, delivering a service that would be better left to private sector entrepreneurs like SUN Media to provide. It’s just the way his brain is wired. And when you reinforce this inborn predisposition with years of Clockwork Orange style indoctrination at some of the hemisphere’s most reactionary think tanks, it’s almost like it isn't even really his fault.

Unfortunately for Dear Leader, one of the only things most Canadians agree on is that they want him to keep his greasy mitts off the CBC. In every poll, and by every metric, our national broadcaster continues to be one of the most popular federal agencies going, from sea to sea to sea. Although this political reality has forced the PM to keep a tight lid on his true feelings, he does occasionally slip up. For instance, he could barely contain his glee this week when it was announced that the loss of this NHL season could cost the CBC $130 million in ad revenues.

So, public displays of schadenfreude and stealth budget cuts notwithstanding, the bottom line for now is that the CBC isn't going anywhere. Of course, that doesn't mean it’s in the clear. For instance, what if Prime Minister Harper were to suddenly shed his predilections, override all those years of brainwashing and come to the shattering realization that he’d be in a far better position to spread the Good News of conservative dogma to every corner of this great country… from deep INSIDE the Mothership?! What would a typical, average day of CBC programming look like if that were to happen, I wonder?

I think it would look a little something like this…

Read New PMO-Approved CBC Schedule HERE!

ON THIS DAY IN PARA-CULTURE, MAY 29

NO, EINSTEIN, WHY DON'T YOU DO THE MATH?!

POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS ALERT! On this day in 1733, the right of Canadians to keep slaves is upheld in a Quebec City legislative assembly. 100 years later, in 1833, slavery would be abolished throughout Canada. In fact, it is a well kept secret that the only Canadian population to ever enthusiastically practice slavery... were the natives. The Haida were particularly vicious enslavers and slave-traders, venturing as far south as California on kidnapping raids. As for the European side of things, historian Marcel Trudel has documented precisely 4,092 recorded slaves throughout Canadian history, of which 2,692 were native peoples owned by the French, and 1,400 blacks owned by the British, together owned by approximately 1,400 masters. There can be no accurate accounting of native enslavement of other natives, but it surely totals in the millions, over a much longer time span.

Happy Birthday to para-political heavy-weight philosopher Oswald Spengler, who was born in Germany on this day in 1880! Spengler's hugely influential book, The Decline of the West, put forth his fascinating Civilizations Model, which posits that every epoch goes through a cycle of seasons, from Spring to Winter, after which comes an ultimate and unavoidable collapse. Cheerful stuff.

On this day in 1913, the Paris premiere performance of composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Vaslav Nijinski's ballet The Rite of Spring: Pictures from Pagan Russia provokes a riot when detractors and supporters of the gloriously asynchronous, poly-rhythmic music and primal, violent dancing begin fighting each other in the aisles. Despite the ruckus, which spilled out into the street, the 33-minute ballet was performed in its entirety. Stravinsky's score remains one of the most important and impressive pieces of Modernist music ever composed - an "it's all there" key to understanding where serious composition was headed in the 20th century - and, as a well-rounded human being, you really do owe it to yourself to take the time and give this horizon-expanding, mind-blowing, eardrum-pounding creation an uninterrupted listen with your complete and undivided attention. "Farewell la Belle Epoch, welcome the New Age."

In another defining moment of the Modern Age, it was on this day in 1919 that scientists Arthur Eddington and Andrew Crommelin conducted the first-ever real-world test of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. They set up camp on the island of Príncipe, near Africa, and prepared to watch a solar eclipse. According to general relativity, stars with light rays that passed near the Sun would appear to shift due to their light curving through the Sun's gravitational field - an effect only noticeable during eclipses, since otherwise the Sun's brightness would obscure the affected stars. They discovered that Newtonian physics could only account for half the shift that they recorded - a shift that was accurately predicted by Einstein's theory. All of a sudden, the Universe seemed like a whole lot stranger place, indeed... especially to those elite few with minds capable of grasping the physics of it all.

On this day in 1954, at the Hotel de Bilderberg near Arnhem in the Netherlands, the first ever Bilderberg conference is held. The whole ball of wax got rolling when several people, including Polish politicians Józef Retinger and Andrew Nielsen, became concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe. They proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States could come together and promote a better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe and foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues. That's the official line. For a more accurate take on the goals, activities and origins of every conspiracy theorist's favorite honest-to-gosh actual global conspiracy, check out SourceWatch's excellent Bilderberg dossier. You'll be glad you did. Or not...

A PICASSO OF STRAVINSKY - IT DOESN'T GET MORE MODERN THAN THAT!