johns and Jians

Standing on a crowded subway train, I had a Now Magazine open to a page spread that gave a full view to the woman peeping over my shoulder of either a Jian Ghomeshi trial analysis or an article about migrant sex workers at odds with well-meaning activists who want to end human sex traffic as a form of slavery. My only thought on human traffic is that an actress from The Walking Dead and the recent sequel to Dumb and Dumber had famously helped out with a sort of "underground railroad" operation to rescue some women who had been exploited that way. Law enforcement may state that they will focus on johns or clients, eliminating the demand for the supply. But then it could be argued that if the supply remains the same and demand is reduced then the price goes down and lower-end clients are attracted. And if those guys absorb all of the arrest risk, they might even take measures to make sure they won't be arrested. Sex workers of any stripe might be in more danger of violence. Just as rape or sexual assault victims in the future might more commonly disappear so the offenders won't be spending ten years waiting for a ticking Cosby or Ghomeshi time bomb to go off. What's in the Now magazine diverges quite a lot from my own concerns that these issues dredge up. Now usually takes the uber-progressive stance, while an umbrella like progressive or feminist or Christian or Humanistic just clouds the specifics. One might sympathize with sex workers not wanting to have contact with police, while at the same time understanding that no segment of society (even police) should be a permanent blind spot where it is understood that there just won't be investigation or policing of any kind. It would be like advertising the section of a bank where the CCTV cameras don't work. One might understand that a woman must be free to express herself as she sees fit in the say she dresses and use her body in sex work if that is her choice; the same could be said about the client using his body as he chooses. Is he merely circumventing the conventions and leagues of society or enjoying a thrill in an otherwise tame surface life, or is he cultivating a detachment from the feelings of a sex partner and a focus on his own whim that can escalate by increments into the demands of a rapist? If the latter possibility is true, then the availability of prostitution may provide baby steps for even the most cowardly character to embolden himself in the various forms or gestures of sexual assault or rape, overt physical struggle or covert with a drug in a drink. That sensibility might not grasp the idea that whatever joy or elevation comes from sex itself is part in parcel of a shared moment of individuals conspiring together like sharing a secret or simply accepting and wanting the contact of another human being. Not that some johns don't have that motivation. But it is all about the anomaly. The Crown prosecutor in the Ghomeshi trail seems like the only person in Canada who did not know how it would play out. The only reason the rest of us knew was by looking at the pattern. It is more difficult to prove rape or sexual assault than it is to create the impression that a witness is not credible. Certain things could have been checked as the witness was prepared. In movies or TV, we see practice runs with hard questions double-checking claims about whether the alleged victim tried to contact the offender at any time afterward. The prosecution team might make sure psychiatrists are brought in as witnesses to establish officially the well known human nature to behave irrationally following an event that is hard to process. They certainly could have done their due diligence to verify that a car specified as the location for an assault was of a make and colour the accused in fact owned and used at the time. Since there is the possibility of a witness lying, a continuity error can't be dismissed. Because there is so much unpunished or unreported abuse, assault and rape around the world, any high-profile case will have the added burden of being an effigy of evil and sadism incarnate waiting for a bonfire. A Ghomeshi or a Cosby might be notorious for behavior that is only finally talked about openly once that individual is vulnerable and people might well want to imprison someone simply for being an asshole. We now know Ghomeshi is not fondly recalled by those who worked with him. We can wait for someone to do a super-cut of interview clips where he is rejected by female guests of Q he asked on dates over the air, like Andrea Martin and Carrie Fisher. Either they dodged a bullet or he did, because entertainment icons don't have to worry about their future and would not likely have taken any quarter from him. The trial of an individual for several different crimes or counts of an offense might be efficient, but it also seems that we assume testimony for one specific incident supports the fact of another alleged incident witnessed by a separate person. But the only thing it bolsters is the character sketch of the accused and the likelihood of a seemingly soft-spoken and friendly persona to do something violent, criminal or otherwise creepy. We might conflate an impression of the accused as a person (two-faced, kinky, mean boss, hypocrite) with whether each allegation witnessed by one person in each case. If fifty women stood watching as Bill Cosby put something into a woman's drink and then grope her once she was asleep, those testimonies would support that case. As separate individuals with unrelated claims, they can only damn the accused in the court of public opinion. If Jian adversary Billy Bob Thornton were said to hit a woman, he would not be a pristine God falling from Mount Olympus. Nobody is salivating to prove Billy Bob is not Bad Santa or not someone capable of a dark side. Had Bill Cosby refrained from lecturing young black men about droopy drawers and staying with the mother of their children and education in general, he might not have angered Hannibal Burress and whoever used a cell phone to record the anti-Cosby bit and he might still be rambling on the Tonight Show for a polite Jimmy Fallon. If Toronto didn't have such a small entertainment community, downsized broadcasting industry, and executive indifference to building on-air personalities or talent in general let alone celebrities, a Jian would not be such a big fish rising under a girl swimmer. Is anyone from CBC checking out Second City or Lunacy Cabaret or other comedy shows around the city? There are veteran comedy folk still getting air-time, as well they should, but there could easily be open floodgates of exposure for a true cutting edge, new blood, and new faces. No need to compromise themselves or be quiet about rotten behavior when there is more investment in opening doors and building new brands.

Movies They Should Make: What About Max?

What About Max ? A combined sequel. Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) while vacationing with his wife in a new place at Cape Fear inadvertently takes on psychopath Max Cady (Robert De Nero) as a new client years after Cady survived burning, drowning, a broken jaw and gun injuries in that area to become a folk hero.

Movies They Should Make: Regarding Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr.

Movies They Should Make Regarding Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. In the summer of love, 1968, an archeologist-adventurer gets shot by an antique camera with a bursting flashbulb that sends a fragment into his left eye causing a hematoma that makes him forget meeting his own son, or inter-dimensional beings, or ever being rattled bounced around in a flying refrigerator to escape an atomic blast. His wife Marion helps him recover and gets him a nice eye patch (as seen in the originally aired bookend segments of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in which George Hall played an elderly version of Dr. Henry "Indy" Jones Jr.). Marion introduces Indy to a scientist from the future, Dr. Emmet L. Brown, who has agreed to take his time machine back to the moment before an incident at the Area 51 storage facility. He has made a phone call to arrange American troops to arrive there in advance of Russians disguised as American troops who have kidnapped Indy and his associate Mack. They have ambushed the Russians at the main gate and arrested them as well as detaining Mack for questioning. Unfortunately, in the battle, Area 51 was burned to the ground with its contents unknown.

Movies They Should Make: Jaws 5 (People 0)

In the early 80's, John Hughes was assigned a script that was never produced, National Lampoon's Jaws 3 (People 0) about producers who hire a novice director for a doomed film hoping for him to fail. The aesthetic of Jaws works against the idea of comedy, since there is nothing relaxing about the dangers under the water surface. But if they stay in the realm of fakery, trying to avoid the pitfalls of the original Jaws, and shoot in a tank it might have potential. One gag I remember from the script is the introduction of an actor who is to wear the shark suit with his legs sticking out the bottom (presumably chroma green) as having "experience playing Godzilla." The movie-within a movie could involve more than that version did, which got caught up in jokes that were off topic and not up to the standard that Hughes eventually evolved into. It was more like his work on National Lampoon's Class Reunion, which is not necessary to look for. Suppose there is an audition for a "Young Robert Shaw" for a pre-credit sequence depicting Quint saying goodbye to his first wife and her patting her tummy as he leaves, implying that even if that marriage failed or he died in war there was a child. Events from the Indianapolis could be shown, with Quint the last up the ladder to the PBY after witnessing a fake Great White shark who looks like Bruce kill someone in front of him and appear to flip him the fin and cause him to go from a patriotic believer and optimist to a grizzled bastard who decides to abandon his first family as he suffers post traumatic stress disorder. His granddaughter could show up at a book signing of Matt Hooper and fail to introduce herself because he is a no show due to Richard Dreyfuss refusing to return. The girl might be the opposite of her grandfather. She might be a Greenpeace activist fighting to protect the last Great White shark from extinction. But things go horribly wrong when her fellow activists end up getting eaten one by one and she has to consider whether to enlist the help of her adversaries the shark hunters for protection. She ends up feeding them to the shark. A real shark should invade the tank through a miscommunication with production e-mails and the guy in a shark suit might have to fight it off. Ultimately the novice sacrificial director should end up having to sacrifice executives to the shark. Due to objections from John Williams, the original shark theme should have to be traded out for the A&W Root Beer "Root Bear" theme.

Movies They Should Make: And Another Thing

... And Another Thing is a sequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), set immediately after the events of that film, while also a sequel to The Thing (2011) prequel directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) rides a snow-cat from the devastation of her settlement in the prequel to find a man collapsed in the snow. She passes him by at first but a pang of conscience brings her back to lift his sleeve and check for a pulse. She sees a watch or a tattoo - something inorganic that could not be replicated - and risks reviving him. It is R.J. MacReady (Wyatt Russell, the spitting image of his father Kurt, with a beard) the last survivor of the American camp. He is rambling about Childs, who escaped him and abandoned him after being questioned as a Thing. They have to find the next settlement and/ or communications to alert people of danger without sounding nuts. When they find someone who can fly them, this person turns and they are able to throw him out of the helicopter in mid air as MacReady takes over as pilot. When they land in a more populated area, they have to tread lightly because anyone there could be a Thing, from punks on the street to the police. This premise might be fertile ground for engagement with current concerns despite being set in 1982. There could also be reference to people enjoying the E.T. craze.