Torture and The Human Behaviour Experiments

HI, my name is Candy and welcome to Mister Anchovy's blog. I am going to blog sit while he and Tuffy P are away from blogland. Sorry to start out with such a heavy topic, but the following is in response to the tome of Mister Anchovy's last post.

Coincidently, regarding Mister Anchovy's last post about the RCMP not supporting the rescue from Syrian torture of a Canadian citizen, Stagg and I watched The Human Behaviour Experiments. The documentary focued on a couple of famous experiemnts done in university Psychology course in the 1970's. One of these experiemnts was conducted by Stanley Milgram, and chances are, if you have taken any psych courses in school, you would have seen film on this project. People were directed to ask another person questions, and when that person answered incorrectly, the interogator was to give the an electronic jolt. Of course, the interviewee was an actor, with a hideen tape recorder playing terrible grunts and then screams and protestations that accelerated during the interogation. Meanwhile, a supervisor encouraged and demanded that the interviewer remaiin focused on punishing the interviewee.

The movie also interviews a Standford professor, his former girlfriend and participants of a prison system experiment in contemporary timeframe.. The footage is incredible. A dozen or more, volunteer paid students are divied into prison guards and inmates. The situation within hours is disturbingly familiar. Abu Garaib.

The link above will allow you to see two little clips from this documentary. the filmakers also have made the documentary "Enron".

One of the conclusions of this movie and the interviews seem to find that under orders and certain rules people will be so polite, or submissive they will not step up and refuse to participate. A group mentality and fear of standign up or breaking group dynamic is shown that people will even sit with smoke and fire coming under a door while filling out paperwork. If the person is alone, they will seek help. But in a group, they seem to wait for someone else to step in.

Here is Karen's review of the movie too!

Where is the accountability?

It was very gracious of Mr. Arar to thank the RCMP chief for the apology, given that this Canadian was sent to Syria and tortured on the strength of false RCMP information. I think there should be some public accountability. I heard today on the radio that some of those involved in smearing Mr. Arar have even been promoted. Does that seem right to you? What is to stop these people from doing it again next week, next month or next year? The apology was a start. I'm sure Mr. Zaccardelli was earnest about it. It simply does not go far enough.

Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue

A novel of Pastry, Guilt and Music.

This book looked promising staring back at me on the shelves of Book City on Bloor St. When I started it, I had some second thoughts. It seemed a little disjointed, forced. In fact though, Mark Kurlansky only needed a couple chapters to stretch out and find his rhythm. And it is a book about rhythm, the rhythm of a neighbourhood - the Lower East Side in NYC before it became trendy East Village. The hood is populated by a mixed bag of misfits - a Jewish family that owns property but isn't good at collecting rent; a German, possibly ex-nazi family running a pastry shop; Chow Mein Vega an aging latin boogaloo star, Arnie, who lives on the street on a pallet - and more. The novel is about the relationships that happen to make a community. It centres on an affair between the daughter of the owner of the pastry show, Karoline, and Nathen, son of Harry the landlord....they make pastry as part of their sex life. Nathen's wife is sort of a playwright - she's been working on a play for years...the drug dealers keep the muggers out of the neighbourhood because there is more money in drugs than in mugging...

Very good book - almost 4 salties on the 5 anchovy rating scale.

Etta Baker, blueswoman, 93 RIP

Going to Foz

We're leaving Saturday afternoon, flying to Lisbon. From there, we'll drive about 50 km north to the village of Foz do Arelho. We'll have a rent-a-car, and we're likely going to choose a different place to visit each day.

While we're away, my pal Candy Minx will be blog-sitting.

Michelle Shocked interview

It's no secret around here that I have tons of respect for Michelle Shocked. Follow the link to a short but beautiful little video interview.

The Shaving Cream Conspiracy

via bifurcated rivets

I always secretly believed this was the case.... then I got some of that new hydra gel business....that's like shaving narcotics...

Toronto Star: At what price progress

There was an excellent article in the Toronto Star on Saturday by Murray Whyte titled At what price progress?(linked) Oil sands operations and developments will be allowed to suck 349 million cubic metres from the flow of the Athabasca River every year to separate the crude oil from the muck. This is a huge, huge amount of water. Whyte notes that "as many as 4 1/2 barrels of water are needed to yield a single barrel of oil."

This is all bad news for fish and wildlife - and bad news for the people downstream at Fort Chipewyan. Whyte talks about a "rare cancer of the bile duct found, statistically, in 1 out of 100,000 people. In Fort Chipewyan, with 1,200 people, he found five." However, the Alberta Cancer Board has concluded that the instance of cancer is no more than normal. Meanwhile, mutated fish are showing up. Many people in the area only drink bottled water.


When I have heard or read about the Oil Sands in the past, what I've read is that the oil is difficult and expensive to extract. We need to consider the expense to our people and our land and our fish and animals too. All of this will be very very difficult to control or stop because there is simply so much money involved.

Hustle & Flow

We watched Hustle & Flow for the second time tonight on DVD. The theme of this film: everybody needs to have a dream. It's a story of a low-end Memphis pimp going through a mid-life crisis, who wants a shot at being a hip-hop star. After the first 5 minutes of the film, I thought, man this is going to be grim. The creators of this film do quite a powerful job of making the character of pimp D-Jay strangely endearing - because he is chasing his dream. It takes place in an ugly hip-hop Memphis world, where men are pimps and dope dealers and women are "hos". There is one female character who lives in a more conventional world, and worries about stuff like a promotion at work....but she too is drawn in to the strangely compelling world of D-Jay, his hos, his hip hop dream-mates and the tune with the oh-so-catchy hook, It's hard out here for a pimp....her husband is Key, D-Jay's old school friend, who brings the technical skills to the dream.

The movie was shot in Memphis....some of it at Neeley's BBQ.... Watch for Memphis mainstay Isaac Hayes playing the owner of a bar.

The acting and the writing and the directing and the music are all superb. This low-budget flick was one of my faves last year. On the 5 anchovy rating scale, I give this one a solid 4 salties.

Morning walk - part 2

For those of you wondering where in the world these photos were taken, this is Toronto.

Morning Walk - part 1

This morning we walked up Caledonia to Eglinton, east on Eglinton to Oakwood, down Oakwood to Rogers and west on Rogers to Blackthorn.

Who were ya thinkin of when we were makin love.....

Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender were the Texas Tornados. I stumbled across this video on You Tube tonight. It must have been a promo piece for their first album as the Tornados.

grupo concertinas montargil

The Portuguese refer to the three-row diatonic accordion or button box as a concertina. This is a group of performers of all ages playing traditional music.

Blast from the past

Squeezy has a video clip posted of the Dave Clark Five performing their pop classic, Glad all Over. What fun!
Here's a link to a Dave Clark Five site for more....

John McCartney's drawings

Here are some of John McCartney's drawings. The exhibition is at Lennox Contemporary, at 12 Ossington Ave, just north of Queen St. W. in good old Toronto. This is a wonderful exhibition. John has a delightful improvisational imagination and handles all drawing materials beautifully. These drawings represent a selection from a much larger group of large drawings he did over the last three years. Good going John!

On the 5 anchovy rating scale, mister anchovy gives this exhibition a boxcar full of salties. If you're in the Toronto area, don't miss John's work!

For more pics, be sure to visit Timmer Readtree, and try to spot the anchovy.
We also saw another old friend at the opening, Shelley Adler. Shelly has an exhibition on right now too, at Nicholas Metivier Gallery until the end of the month.

Old friends

Ok, the guy with his eyes wide shut is Timmer Readtree, aka Tim Noonan.
Then, we have John McCartney, whose art opening we were at, with Brent MacIntosh. All of us went to university together, back when paleolithic man wandered the plains..... And then, the fellow with the red shirt is Owen, John's and Anne's son.

Tuffy P hears the ocean

John based his drawings on an interesting shell he had mounted on a little stand. When active, the shell held some kind of little wormy things. Tuffy decided to try to hear the ocean.

My old hood

On the way down to see John McCartney's drawing exhibition tonight, I stopped to look down the alley that runs behind a place I lived for a few years in the 80s. The place was once a hardware store, and it had these delightful pegboard walls...you could hang a painting anywhere. Since I left it has been one of those very dark Vietnamese coffee joints. Before we left another one had opened next door. They played a tape loop of bad 70s music over and over again. I could hear it through the walls. Seasons in the Sun came on every 54 minutes.

The Hackberry Hop

Who ever heard of Cajun music on a mountain dulcimer? The mountains meet the swamps.

from the exceptionally bad food department

The picture shows death-on-a-plate, the deep-fried Mars bar. This article courtesy of East Texas Red.

Creole and Cajun Recipe Index

Check out this fabulous resource posted by Nola Cuisine. I want to try some of these over the winter. Yum.

Lisbon Art, Fado and Food

A little research for our up-coming trip to Portugal.

Polynesian Voyaging Society

This one is via the always interesting Information Junk, and it's going out to GWB, who knows his canoes.

Living Free

I posted this to accompany a post over at The Gnostic World of Candy Minx. This is Utah Phillips, from back in the Ray-Gun years, singing Railroading on the Great Divide, with commentary.

I love this piece. I hope Utah doesn't mind me posting it. Please buy all his CDs. He's a special guy and he deserves your support. This cut is from a fabulous album called Legends of Folk, featuring Utah, along with Spider John Koerner and Ramblin Jack Elliott, live in Minnisota, in 1990. Among the highlights are Ramblin Jack's performance of 912 Greens and Utah doing Hallelujah, I'm a Bum, as well as a scary little Spider John tune called Creepy John.

Searches that found this place

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slow morning busking

I went out to St. Lawrence Market this morning, arriving a little after 10:00. There was an acoustic guitar player in one of the doorways to the north building, so I left the building to him - my button box would make playing impossible for the guy. Instead, I set up outside among the booths. It was a slow market day. I had played for about 45 minutes or so when a band set up across the street. These characters brought enough amplification with them to play freakin Massey Hall. They sounded like a loud but bad Gypsey Kings tribute band to me. They were so loud, they totally drummed out my button box. So I walked across the street to suggest that if they didn't crank the volume so loud, other buskers could play too. They were neither friendly nor cooperative (translate: assholes). I tried inside the south building but the only spot I could get was poor. There were a lot of players around today.

I packed up and went shopping instead, after only making enough dough to cover my parking, lunch + about $10.

Professor Longhair

Professor Longhair in Montreux

I love this video. Professor Longhair sure could play some mean piano.

The Underground Baker

Please visit The Underground Baker. She makes very, very good food.

Upcoming exhibition by John McCartney

I'm looking forward to seeing this exhibition of drawings by my old friend John McCartney. This gallery is on Ossington, just above Queen St. W. here in Toronto.

Old School Zydeco

Recently, I've created some posts about Zydeco from the 90s. Before I leave the Zydeco theme for a while, though, I can't do it without recognizing some old-school Zydeco. When I first discovered this music, Clifton Chenier (pronounce that shen-eer, s'il vous plait) was the king. You knew it because he wore a crown and a cape - make no mistake. He played a big piano accordion and some of his music featured sax, and other horns as well. His music really fell into two distinct categories - what he referred to as French music - two-steps and waltzes with a cajun feel.....and what is sometimes called bayou boogie.

I've included a cut below, strictly for educational purposes (that means buy the album please) from his 1989 album on Alligator Records, I'm Here. Clifton had some pretty serious medical problems - diabetes, and a lot of people thought he was done recording. I'm Here is a fantasticly driven record, featuring his son CJ on trumpet. CJ has since picked up the big accordion and leads the Red Hot Louisiana Band.

So, here is an example of old-school bayou boogie zydeco - Clifton Chenier covering Glenn Miller's In the Mood. I hope you have your dancing shoes on.

PS...hearing Clifton Chenier many years ago convinced me that the accordion is such an incredible instrument

New blood at City Council?

Royson James is right - it is very difficult to topple a sitting councillor in a Toronto municipal election. All the more reason to get out and vote on November 13. We need plenty of new blood to revitalize our City government. In my Ward, I plan to vote for Alejandra Bravo, a candidate who ran last time out unsuccessfully. Next ward over, Rocky Gualtieri is running against a long time councillor. I know Rocky, and I'm supporting his candidacy. Ward 11 needs a stong leader, and for sure it's time for a change in that ward.

For Mayor, we need some candidates please......

Dixie Chicks - Shut up and Sing

We attended the world premier of this film tonight at Roy Thompson Hall, here in Toronto. The film is a documentary about what happened after Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said on-stage that they were ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas. There are lots and lots of bands who can and do make all kinds of political statements without facing the kind of radical reaction the Chicks were faced with. The difference is that the Dixie Chicks were darlings of the country music industry, big sellers, cash cows for their record companies - a band from Texas, Dubya country, the south, the heart of the radical evangelical right wing.

The Dixie Chicks come off as real and reasonable folks, faced with unexpected turmoil, protests and even death threats. They were not an overtly political band. We're talking about nice people, new moms, caring people. They were a band who moved from playing a more traditional kind of music into what is termed in the film a more contemporary country space. This move enabled them to access the machine, Sony music, and even corporations like Lipton Tea. Strangely, the single comment made on-stage had such a profound affect on their ability to function within the country music industry....so much so, that the film talks about them targetting a new market, even talking about touring Canada, visiting places like Kamloops and Moose Jaw.

At one point in the film, we learn about a corporate offer to underwrite a tour, to give them an opportunity to hedge their bets, and I was cheering them on when they refused it. They also began to resist pressure to subject themselves to the marketing whims of the machine. At the same time, though, they made it clear they weren't about to go back to traveling about in an RV playing smokey bars.

This film is kind of like The Revenge of the Dixie Chicks. Maines not only repeats her statement on stage, she also calls Bush a dumb fuck. The religious right who protested their shows are shown in a very ugly light. The Chicks are shown to be complex, emotional, caring and intelligent. It reminded me of Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, who, after the big police raided his house and arrested him because they didn't approve of his album cover art, went on the lecture circuit, proving himself to be articulate and intelligent, if radical.

My reaction when the media storm over Ms. Maines statement started, I remember thinking, what's the fuss all about. I wasn't a fan of their music particularly, although I recognized them to be talented and accomplished musicians. Readers of mister anchovy will know that I prefer music that is more traditionally oriented, or at least less pop oriented - most of the time. Watching the film, I couldn't help but wonder what this band would have been like if they had continued down the Old Time path and avoided the 'contemporary country music space'. I admire them enormously for sticking it out though, in the face of the country music establishment so quickly turning their back on them.

Driving home tonight, Tuffy said, "It's very much like the Johnny Cash finger poster". Interestingly enough, Rick Rubin, the producer who worked with Johnny Cash on American recordings appears in this film too. True enough, the country music establishment were finished with Cash and discarded him, but not because he slagged the President. The film makes it clear what it's about to the machine, though - money money money.

It is perfect that Dixie Chicks - Shut up and Sing premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, as Toronto has remained a strong part of their fan base (as it has remained for performers like Steve Earle, who have also taken on Bush and his crew). In the land of the free, there are high costs associated with freedom of speech, as the Dixie Chicks discovered. The whole ordeal must have been very difficult and scary for these performers. It also put them in a whole different space. They weren't just country-pop singers any more. I'm looking forward to hearing where their music will take them over the next few years, should they continue recording and touring.

Go see this movie. On the 5 anchovy rating scale, I give it dump truck full of salties. A must see.

Foz do Arelho

So, our trip to Gros Morne has somehow or other turned into a quick trip to Portugal. We're flying to Lisbon on the 30th, and we'll be staying in a place called Foz do Arelho, a small seaside village. The nearest city is Caldas da Rainha. A fellow I work with has generously offered us a place to stay at his family's house, which will be empty when we are in Portugal.

La Poule Pend P'us

One more zydeco favourite....
When I first started listening to zydeco, it was all Clifton Chenier and the piano accordion. However, the zydeco I like best today is mostly played on diatonic button accordions. Boozoo Chavis played both the cajun one-row box and three-row boxes.
So here is La Poule Pend P'us by Boozoo Chavis and The Magic Sounds. I love this tune. If you enjoy this, support your local button accordion player.....

I didn't know about pine beetles

Check out Sally McKay's excellent post about pine beetles wiping out BC forests.

Everyone wants to be an artist - wait, everyone is an artist.

via The Presurfer
Don't forget to visit the Buddy Ebsen Uncle Jed Country link

1971 postcard

Frankenmuth, Michigan 48734 - where the gemuetlichkeit of Old Baveria blends with the hospitality of New Amerca. Located 6 minutes off 1-75 Expressway.

"The Baverian Entertainment comes from as far as Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Germany for the Baverian Festival, held each year the second week of June. The entertainment is a authentic as is available. The Civic Ev ents Council sponsors a Big Tent, seating capacity of 1200 people where entertainment, music, food and refreshments are served."

Photography by John D. Freeman.

Is Disney a front for the Illuminati, or Welcome to the Forest of No Return

Tuffy P saw this in the Globe & Mail today. Walt Disney World has introduced a 'technology upgrade'. They are using fingerprint scanning technology of the type used to control access to high-level security venues and applying it to their parks. Do you believe them when they tell you it's OK? They keep the data independent of their other systems. I'm sure our identities are safe, aren't you? Be afraid.

another groovy zydeco piece

This one is from the late Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi Rollers. Jocque, along with Chris and Sean Ardoin and Boozoo Chavis were real Zydeco forces in the 90s, revitalizing this form - and they all played button accordions, rather than piano accordions.
For educational purposes only, here is Knockin on Heaven's Door, the Bob Dylan tune, as performed by Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi Rollers.

from an old postcard....

From an old postcard:
One of Toronto's happiest nightspots in Flanagan's at the Don Valley Holiday Inn. As Irish a Paddy's Pig and more fun than the Abbey Tavern, Flanagan's swings with lively entertainment in the "come in -join in" tradition.
Irish button boxes are almost always two-row jobs, but they are tuned uniquely. The two rows of notes are tuned a half-tone away from one another so that the instrument becomes a 'sort-of' chromatic box. Other two and three row boxes are tuned in keys a fourth apart...a whole different kettle of fish. Usually Irish players play only the right side.

Searches that brought people here

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As you can see, I'm still getting a lot of residue action from Radmila's post about the Ikea Catalogue Controversy, along with the odd choice search term like The Cat Came Back, gta sundresses, and the ever-popular Johnny Cash finger.

Clara

Better not tell Tuffy P I've been looking at babes with accordions.....heehee

Anniversary Trip

Tuffy and I have been going on a little trip somewhere or another for a week to celebrate our anniversaries. Sept. 29 will make 5 years, and we had this idea we would visit Gros Morne National Park in Western Newfoundland. So I went online and found some great prices on plane tickets on an airline called CanJet. You may have heard that they just announced that they will stop flying September 10. They have promised a refund, but it leaves us with a little problem. The other airline that flies to Deer Lake, Air Canada, offers ticket prices that are almost triple the CanJet prices. CanJet is asking the other airlines to try to take their customers at the same fare, but I'm not holding my breath.

If better AC prices don't pan out, we're thinking of going somewhere else...who knows where. Maybe we'll get some last minute tickets to some surprise destination. Last night we talked about a quick trip to Italy, or perhaps Amsterdam. This morning we talked about flying to New Orleans, spending a couple days there, and driving through Louisiana to Houston, where there are apparently some excellent art museums. In any case, we're not going to make any decisions until we get our dough back from CanJet (they've promised a 48 hour turnaround).

Suggestions are welcome......

Stephen Andrews work at the Justina Barnicke Gallery

Last night we ventured over to the University of Toronto to see Stephen Andrews' exhibition at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Hart House. This exhibition features work from the extensive collection of Salah Bachir.

The work is at once subtle and really lovely yet many of the pieces explore tough and ugly themes of war. The media is often inventive and unusual - there are prints on pigs intestine, for instance - sausage skins pieced together to make what I can only call sausage paper. There is also an animation, and many works that are described as crayon rubbings, although it isn't obvious to me just how the artist accomplished these.

If you have a chance, I recommend you trip on over to the University of Toronto and spend some time with this work.

Papa was a Rolling Stone

While I was driving home from the salt mines this afternoon, Papa was a Rolling Stone popped into my head - the Zydeco version, by Chris Ardoin and Double Clutchin. Once day not too long ago, we had some friends over and I had this tune blasting. One fellow said something like, "so where'd ya get the fuckin polka version, mister anchovy".

Double Clutchin was a great band in the 90s. These days Chris Ardoin fronts NuStep and his brother Sean fronts ZydeKool. They're fabulous players, even if their choices for band names are so-so.

So, here it is, Papa was a Rolling Stone

If you like this stuff, please support your local Zydeco band.

Layton again calls for Afghan pullout, in wake of deaths

I agree with Mr. Layton on this one. It's time to get Canadian troops out of there.

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Last night we watched the 1993 film, Searching for Bobby Fischer, at home. I've seen this flick before, but I had forgotten just how delightful it really is. If the film has a message, it is that it is best to have balance in your life and to be a decent person, even in fierce competition (in contrast to the strange behaviour of chess genius Bobby Fischer after whom this film was named. The film is based on the true story of American Chess whiz, Josh Waitzkin. I was a little surprised when I looked at his website to find out that he is also a champion Tai Chi "push hands" player. Push hands is a martial, two-person form of tai chi where combatants try to use one another's energy to cause the other to be pushed off balance.

Here is a nice little bio piece about Bobby Fischer, who is now 64, apparently living in Iceland.

Crocodile Hunter killed by Stingray

I guess it was only a matter of time until some critter got this guy.

There's a good pic posted over at A Blog about Nowt.

Dusty

Check out the excellent post about Dusty Springfield on Diddy Wah

At Home in the Heart of Appalachia

Book Review - At Home in the Heart of Appalachia, by John O'Brian, 2001, Anchor Books

"The development of the book's structure was organic," said O'Brien, who earned a bachelor's degree in English from WVU in 1967. "It wasn't the product of an outline. I was struggling to define Appalachia in my writing, and when my father died, I became desperate to understand his life. The book is a crossing over of these two things."

I came across this book at a used book store while I was in Halifax earlier this summer for my art exhibition.

At Home is at once a personal story about the author's struggle with the past, his father, the idea of Appalachia - and bouts with clinical depression.....but it is also a heartfelt history of an area of America that has suffered great abuse - the land sodomized by the coal companies - good people marginalized as hillbillies and rednecks. O'Brian writes at length about the idea of Appalachia versus the reality that he sees and lives. He sees it as a land of myths and stereotypes, and his arguements are powerful. O'Brian also writes about attempts by missionaries - including contemporary groups like the Woodlands Mountain Institute to "advance mountain culture"

Mr. O'Brien's story, while located specifically and deeply in Appalachia is also very much a broader American story. The tale of people living a happy subsistance lifestyle fucked over by industrialists for the sake of a greasy buck has been repeated over and over and over. It is finally also a book about fathers and sons, and while reading this, I considered my own relationship with my father, and the events of my own childhood that would shape my adult life.

At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is a thoughtful, well-written book. On the Anchovy rating scale, I rate this one a generous handful of salties.

Tuffy P goes shopping

Here's Tuffy P, the Minister of the Interior, at a store called Distil - shopping for stuff for the house.

Out and about this afternoon

We stopped off at the distillery district this afternoon. It was pretty quiet there - I think everyone expected a rainier afternoon than we had. We had a chance to hear some good jazzy blues from the two fellows in the picture though. I'm sorry I don't have both their names (I should have written them down). I know the guitar player is Harris Mark, because we bought his CD of instrumentals called Nancy Dreams (we've been enjoying it this afternoon back at home). These fellows are very strong players! Watch for them around town. Hey guys, if you see this, please add a comment with any info you like.

Mack the Knife

Squeezytunes is featuring a video of the late Jimmy Smith playing Mack the Knife. Mr. Smith's name is synonymous with the Hammond B3 organ, with Leslie speaker. The B3 is a tone-wheel organ - oil is driven through tone wheels to make the sounds in a magical mechanical process. B3s are heavy instruments. Usually the sound is fed through a Leslie, which is a speaker with a section that spins, creating that sound we associate with the Hammond B3. Follow the link, and enjoy the video.

Shoot first, translate later

Bon Cop Bad Cop
Tonight we went out to see a delightful Canadian flick, Bon Cop Bad Cop. Here is the scenerio. A body is dropped from a helicoptor, landing on top of the sign marking the border between Ontario and Quebec. One cop from each jurisdiction is assigned to investigate....they're partners. So, this is a typical buddy movie in a way - goofy, funny, lots of back and forth dialogue. The twist is that the film plays on the differences between Anglophone Ontario and Francophone Quebec. It makes fun of stereotypes and cliches and revels in the same stereotypes and cliches. The bad guy wants to save hockey from the Americans.....

On the five anchovy scale, I rate this one a solid 4 salties. It's well-conceived, well-acted and well-written - and very, very amusing.