Upchuck Taylors

This might be the most tasteless tribute to Kurt Cobain yet (and that's saying something); this spring Converse, in honour of their 100th anniversary, will be issuing a limited edition line of Kurt Cobain one-star sneakers.

Okay, granted, they are slightly similar to the pair he was wearing when he killed himself, but let's not dwell on that too much. Besides, never underestimate the power of the Insensitivity Dollar: it's a big market, and his estate is wise to capitalize on it.

Breakfast at TIFF

I have been busy of late with my responsibilities for the Toronto International Film Festival but now it's underway and I can start making plans for seeing some films.

I tend to see niche films during the Festival - for instance last year I barely saw anything except for Zizek's three-parter The Pervert's Guide To Cinema and the Open Vault restoration of Peter Pearson's Paperback Hero from 1973. I have a slightly longer "to do" list this year.

Tonight it's Peter Bogdanovich introducing La Grande Illusion by Renoir, which I've never seen. (I will have a drink out of a flask everytime Bogdanovich says "Orson" in his opening remarks.) Next will be Ken Loach introducing the Czech New Wave film Closely Watched Trains - another hole in my education filled. I'm hoping The Diving Bell and The Butterfly will be as good as I would expect from a Julian Schnabel film starring Mathieu Amalric... I don't think I've ever been inside Toronto's Winter Garden Theatre, certainly not to watch a film (though I did go to the Elgin in the seventies when it was a double-bill house!) so what better way to christen the place in my brain than with the latest Johnnie To action film from Hong Kong, Mad Detective? And then of course Donnie Yen in Flash Point at Midnight Madness the next evening... and I'm very much looking forward to seeing Redacted - a lot of people forget that De Palma was a bit Godard-y when he started out and this film looks to reconcile his political engagement with his technical mastery...as long as it's not Natural Born Killers 2.

Still have to pick a documentary, though it won't be Nathan Barley in Baghdad.

It's Being A Slice

Alliance-Atlantis has rebranded their lifestyle channel The Life Network, adjusting the format overnight as if it was a radio station. I had assumed the name change was at the behest of Time Warner (who you would think must have the rights to a channel called Life) but no, they've reimagineered the channel as simply Slice™ - "guilty pleasure" TV for young women - reality shows, makeover miracles, gossip and shopping. This rebranding is merely a chemical peel - the existing Life Network's programming schedule is fairly identical to what Slice™ offers.

Here is a list of the names Alliance was considering for this new channel - 100% true!

1. Girly TV
2. Sassafras
3. Tickle TV
4. The Jaunty Network
5. Go Girl
6. You Go Girl
7. Lahdeedah

What is Slice™? The people at Alliance-Atlantis will tell you.

"We went and talked to women about what they really wanted to watch on TV and what we heard was that they wanted TV that was confident, irreverent, and just pure entertainment, that simply addictive stuff that allows them to escape for the moment from a day that is filled with everyone else's needs,"

It is pretty hard to find this kind of programming on television, I will admit.

“The key to Slice™ shows is this – do they satisfy a guilty pleasure? Will viewers laugh, love the characters, hate the characters, yell at the screen? If yes, they have a spot on Slice™...With an original blend of the hottest competition formats and docu-soaps, Slice™ programming will be unapologetically entertaining, generating water cooler conversations week after week and we have no doubt viewers will be completely riveted.”

Thank God - no more talk about the war from Brenda Bringdown over at the water cooler.

But for all this aggressive Planet Normalcy, I detect at the same time a pinch, a soupçon of sociopathic hipster irreverence driving the marketing campaign...not only is the slogan "My Vice is Slice™" but also the series of subway posters are shocking in their open contempt towards the commuting demographic - pictures of slack-jawed female cubicle dweller types with cruel captions underneath announcing their ignorance, such as: "If I wanted to feel smarter, I'd watch a book."

Example photo to come.

Whazzzzuppp?

The truth® campaign (sic), the youth smoking prevention initiative run by the American Legacy Foundation that fights cynicism with cynicism, have just changed their pitch up...last week they launched a five-month ad campaign that appears to be designed to get me to start smoking.

Whazzzzuppp?