Before we get to this weekend's opera experience, let's have a little chat about the promotional material. I have long admired the series of posters the Opéra de Montréal uses to promote its productions. Very stylish, they give a little glimpse of the story behind the opera and leave a lasting impression in the minds of those who see them.
A couple of weeks ago, a bit of a kerfuffle around the imagery of the poster. In fact the male lead in the Opera objected that the stylish image used was doing a disservice to the singers. Using a model as they did not only obscured the singers – who are, after all, central to the opera experience – but it also delivered a politically sensitive message about body types and what we would use to promote an event. How could they forego featuring the talented singer in favour of a thinner model just to sell?
The Opéra de Montréal produced an additional poster, this time featuring the male lead (tenor Marc Hervieux), and this is also the image used for the cover of the program. Interesting debate and outcome.
For anyone who is wondering, this is Die Fledermaus, or The Bat, by Johann Strauss II.
I have to say that it was an interesting experience at the opera. Interesting can be good, but not always. There were tons of nods to Montréal, from the opening set featuring the cross on Mount Royal as the scenery outside the window, through explicit references in the spoken parts and even current political jokes. One of the characters trying to pretend to be Italian and having trouble speaking the language in a convincing fashion did the usual run-through of Italian-sounding words, pasta shapes etc. and the added "Zambito". The crowd roared with laughter at this inclusion of the name of the star witness at the Charbonneau inquiry into corruption in the construction industry.
So, yes, I did say speaking parts. There was a lot of speaking in this production, which took me by surprise. And I swear that while I am pretty sure that there was some German in the singing (the original libretto is in German), most of the rest was sung in French, with a bit sung in English. It's too bad, because the song in German was the prettiest operatic piece I think I have heard in German; it would have been nice to hear if the rest was as pleasant to listen to.
Some other extraordinary events that I'm pretty sure Strauss didn't have in mind, but were greeted with applause. An appearance by Josephine Baker at the Prince's masked ball, and she was accompanied by four dancers who were a little classier than the Chippendales dancers in their backless formal vests and were relatively well choreographed. There were a number of choreographed dance routines and they seemed to be well-appreciated by the audience. There was a fair amount of slapstick in the drunkenness of the third act, but that might well have been Strauss' plan, too: the piece is based on a farce.
The best one of all: the large group number with singing and dancing, performed with the choreography of Psy's Gangnam Style. Another eruption of laughter in the crowd. This was also particularly apt politically in light of the setting of the scenes in Outremont and Westmount, our own Gangnam neighbourhoods.
The usual opera things that give me a chuckle: if I put on this little half mask that obscures mostly my forehead and nose, nobody I know will recognize me; likewise, a toge and a wig snatched from the lawyer I found incompetent in the first act will ensure that my wife, who fooled me with the first trick, doesn't see that I am her husband. If I sing at the top of my lungs, but the surtitles are in parentheses, nobody can hear me. Those things are fun in the context of the crazy outlandish plots.
All in all, my companions and I did enjoy ourselves and laughed heartily on a few occasions, so the evening was pleasant. Probably because of the constant interruptions of the sung parts by the speaking parts, I don't actually feel like I have seen this opera. I'm going to have to see a different production of it to see if I really like it, and that's too bad.
I continue to be wild for the costume drama. Okay, wild might be a bit of an overstatement, but let's just say that I like them plenty. Here we have historical costume drama in a setting that I'm not personally used to: Denmark in the 1700s.
It's probably a good idea to not count on cinema to convey historical truths. I'm sure that things in a feudal Denmark were even filthier for the peasants, and my companions and I speculated after the film on just how unattractive the major players might have been by the standards of health and beauty that we now expect (and which are depicted in the film, most likely), versus the reality of the time (the imagery not being pretty, I will spare you).
Aside from aesthetic considerations, there can probably be some debate about how history unfolds. Is it the machinations of a few very powerful people, or are there more elements of mass society and popular values in play. You might also question whether a foreign-born queen (even if the whole of the British monarchy was pretty much German, neighbours to the Danes) and a foreign-born doctor (also German, but not by way of Britain) could really have conspired successfully to usurp the decision-making powers of the structure that predated their arrival on the scene and introduce sweeping progressive reforms.
Or maybe I'm naïve and things unfolded just as in this film.
So let's step further away from the issue of historical accuracy to see if it was good cinema. It was beautiful, for sure: lovely settings, lovely costumes. It's interesting how so many of these historical films and TV series with references to castles in pristine countryside (and some in more urban settings) are filmed in a number of eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria…). This really makes me want to travel to those countries to see for myself, rather than travelling to the countries they are meant to depict!
King Christian VII was supposedly insane, and the actor certainly worked at that. I'm not sure if he succeeded more in depicting impetuous, foppish or childlike more than truly mad, and at times I was left wondering if he wasn't just crazy like a fox. Still, when you are betrayed by those closest to you and you lose on what you think you have been working on with them, what is there to do but go play with your little African friend? (Quite a cringeworthy element of this depiction, but probably among the most historically accurate!)
The noblemen on the ruling council are all sufficiently self-interested and entitled, and offended when the upstart doctor won't bend the rules for them, and not even for his friends among them. They whip up dissent based on perceived moral failings to get their political power back – sounds a bit like now! There is scheming and half-truths by the boatload and things generally don't end up favourably for those who were on the wrong side of history from our perspective. But then again, we already knew that going in. The emergence of pastry making and coolly designed furniture remain unexplained, so they must have happened in a different historical era.
The film is in Danish with English subtitles. It's kind of fun to hear a language we are not used to, and this element made it easier for me to make up my mind about whether to listen more closely or read more closely (an issue when one understands the spoken and the subtitled language both).
Given my past disclosures, I'm sure you are asking yourself how easy it is for someone with a proclivity for nodding off to follow a subtitled movie. I will say that presents extra challenges, as the "just resting my eyes" periods are a bit blank in plot development terms.
Added bonus information: I think I may be developing a new aspect to my nodding off in movies. This would be verbalizations as I awaken. No words just yet, so my friends have been able to attribute them to outbursts that are film related. I'm sure I'm only a couple of sleep-deprived weeks away from shouting something truly embarrassing in my sleep in the cinema.
I'm bracing for bear attacks, should that ever happen. Or, as we speculated while walking away from the cinema, I might get strip-mauled! Who is to say whether that prospect is an incentive or a deterrent for my anti-social behaviour?
Such a good idea. The Opus card, a rechargeable and durable card for the whole variety of transit fares in the city, from single trips to monthly passes, buses, metro and commuter trains, a staple of public transit in Montréal now.
Then came more convenience: sign up for the "Opus à l'année" program (Yearly Opus) and the monthly payment will be automatically charged to your bank account and you won't even have to go to a recharging station to fill it up each month. Very handy indeed.
And now, the best of all! In recognition of loyalty, Opus à l'année customers are eligible for the Maestro status from their 13th month of belonging to the program. This status allows the Maestro to invite a friend along on any trip in the system after 6 pm or on weekends…for free! The Maestro Opus card will also work on the public transit in Québec City! What an excellent idea!
So usually when I write about things I have something negative to say (I'm a bit of a Debbie Downer that way), and this time is no exception. What could possibly be wrong with this fabulous program and all the encouragement to use public transit? It's all in the flashing lights.
You see, when you put your Opus card on the reader to pay your fare, a light flashes: green for those who pay full fare, yellow for those who pay a reduced fare (children, students and the elderly). The yellow light people all have to have an Opus card with a photo on it to ensure that the user is indeed the person entitled to the lower fare, so I suppose that's why it flashes yellow.
Now the Opus Maestro status. Hmmmm…still paying full fare, but have a card with a photo and must show that side to the bus driver or the metro attendant if bringing a guest. Fine. Flashes yellow. Not as enthusiastic about that!
For the last couple of weeks now, I have been feeling like I need to show the photo side of the card when getting on the bus lest anyone think I am pretending to be a senior for the discount. (We will notice that I don't think anyone would be fooled into mistaking me for a youth or a student, it's the senior thing that I hope I also don't seem to qualify for!)
Oh, I'm fine with my age. But at 52, I don't want anyone else on the bus or metro wondering why I get some kind of special deal and assuming that I'm scamming the system by not paying the whole fare. So why, STM, did you have to make the card flash yellow? We are under strict instructions to show it if we are actually bringing someone with us, so there is no other reason to signal our different status to those around us.
Oh, and if you are going to work on what to give us loyal customers next, may I suggest covering the "exit tax" from the 450 regions south and north (extra fare to pay to board the metro in Longueuil to the south of the island or Laval to the north, both telephone area code 450)? Please don't leave us stranded there! ;-)
It's a good thing that so much of this movie (Oooh…snap! Called it a movie, not a film!) was cheesy, because that sort of lessened the impact of all the blood and guns and constant shooting. It's also a good thing that Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin were in it, because their adorableness allowed me to overlook, somewhat at least, the horrors they were committing as police officers.
I resent being manipulated into cheering for actions of which I cannot approve and which I cannot condone. This happens all the time in Hollywood movies: vigilantes, police breaking free of the constraints of the rules that "tie their hands" and the like. Yes, it's just a movie, but somehow it makes us all a little more accepting of those excesses and our collective reactions to these things happening in real life are not as strong and reasoned as they ought to be.
One of the characters even asks his squad boss at one point to explain the difference between the gangsters and this squad of off-the-books, no names, no badges cops, because he's having trouble figuring out what it might be. I guess that's why he is the member of the squad who – last-minute spoiler alert! – ends up dying first. No one else seems to have those pangs of conscience so the nod to procedure of the arrest warrant for the main gangster unfurls in a scene of mass murder by our heroes. They might have been said to be acting in self-defence but for the fact that they fire first. *Sigh*
All would be forgiven for Ryan Gosling, of course, as long as he would flirt with me like he generally flirts with the female leads in all of his movies. The banter and the attitude don't change much, but I never seem to tire of them. I'm just that shallow. He also looks fabulous in contemporary or period costumes and this is no exception. We get to see him looking most suave indeed in suits and fedoras, but also one little scene of what we can assume is sleepwear, if not the sleepwear he might be prescribed in my house. And look how lovely Emma Stone looks! (She's the one he's practicing on in preparation for meeting me in a classy bar.)
The chief cop-vigilante is played by Josh Brolin. I chose this picture from when he appeared on The Daily Show over his own suave suited and fedora-ed look for some reason…now what might it have been? Actually more interesting as a character is his wife, who smartly chooses the members of this illicit squad of police officers as she pores over the personnel files her husband has left out on the kitchen table. This, of course, is recommended practice for confidential files.
Some other stars of the show I found appealing are actually things that I don't usually find appealing. The cars! There's something elegant about these no doubt horribly gas-guzzling automobiles that I was really drawn to throughout the film. I felt bad when they crashed or got shot full of holes, although I am sure they are as likely to have had stunt doubles as the living breathing actors.
The final thing I am glad of in tonight's cinematic experience is that it was cheap(er) Tuesday, so we paid a lot less for it. Being very ancient, I recall with some clarity $2 Tuesdays, but even so, $6.50 Tuesday is not so bad. The downside of the cheapness in comparison to other nights is the crowding of the room, which makes occupying an extra seat (the coat chair) especially challenging. If we had been self-servingly religious, we would have prayed for the lights to go down quickly for our coat chair to escape the notice of late arrivals, but as it was we were lucky and just avoided any inquiring looks.
After all, when it's -20° C outside before taking into account the wind chill, the outerwear that becomes necessary really needs its own seat. This rule breaking on my part doesn't really phase me when stacked up against all the murdering that was going on in front of me on the screen.
Somewhere on this planet there are a lot of white birds that are missing their plumage. They did not lose it in vain, however, as it was beautifully manipulated into costumes and props for the Compagnia Finzi Pasca production of La Verità at la Place des Arts.
La Verità is a work inspired by a huge stage curtain painted by Salvador Dali for his own reimagining of the Tristan and Isolde story in the form of a ballet, Mad Tristan, performed in New York in 1944. This is not that ballet or the original opera transformed into circus, but an original work with playful references to the Dali work.
Nothing was going to keep us away from this one. It was circus, it was a setting that was new for us, and the Dali element promised enough kookiness to hold our attention. It just isn't going to be possible for me to describe the whole of the show, or even to keep it in the order in which we saw it. My mind and my memory just don't work…that way. So I have to share by stream of consciousness and then possible edit into an order that makes some sense to me. I highly recommend seeing it for yourself to get the intended effect.
How much room can there be in the rafters above this stage? I almost lost count of how many different curtains and scrims we saw, let alone the circus elements of straps and cables and wires and weightier objects that descend and rise again. In fact, as I have no number for you, I did lose count. Each of them was fabulous in its own way and together they added up to an amazing backdrop for the performances.
A couple of the things I liked the most, maybe? The Dali itself was interesting for me in the observation of how its various elements were taken up in costumes or props. Amazing fluid projections, sometimes through the Dali curtain, sometimes through other fabrics, gave us a moving background that reinforced the surreal flavour of the work. And what I probably liked most of all was when there was a solid colour fabric loosely suspended and manipulated by acrobats on the sides while the shadows of others behind the fabric distorted larger and smaller as they moved in relation to a powerful light source. Bear in mind that this was the background, and there were still more things going on in the foreground.
Circus is clearly well-adapted to those of us whose attention can wander from thing to thing: there are always more things to look at that you might have expected.
The absurdity of some of the costumes or characters wandering across the stage, either in front of or behind the main action, was wonderful. Man in a red tutu walking on point across the stage. People with rhinoceros heads hamming it up in the background or peering through a doorway. If you ever wondered how anyone could see and move about wearing an oversized rhinoceros head, you have to see the two rhino-acrobat chimeras manipulate the diabolo…the end of this was almost a "clutch pearls" moment for me.
I always love the reimagining of a circus apparatus. The giant metal contraption that was like a twisted and complicated version of the cyr wheel was fantastic! It rolled an uneven line across the stage, over acrobats lying on the floor and yet not touched by it, with others executing beautiful moves atop and inside it. Another wheel adaptation was the plain cyr wheel, but with two and even three people squeezed into it, spinning across the stage together. Beautiful. I'm sure there were more, but my mind isn't wandering there at this moment.
And the variety of costumes! Lots of boys in dresses, but also lots of processions of elaborately costumed people who might well have marched their way out of a Dr. Seuss book, except that they tended to be bendier and more talented than many of those creatures.
There are always (or almost always) things in a circus that one person or another might not like. For us, it tends to be the contortionist element. Not that it wasn't well done – it really was – but I usually find it a bit creepy. Here is was well done and incorporated a giant marionette manipulated by hidden (by their black costumes) figures, and then it was pleasantly mocked by clowns, but there is still something creepy about a body being twisted in ways we don't expect.
My description is entirely inadequate, but my recommendation couldn't be more clear: go see this show, playing at Place des Arts until 9 February 2013. Here's a small taste in the form of a "behind the scenes" video:
Before I begin this one, bear in mind what I have said previously about not being a reviewer. I have no valve that prevents me from giving away essential plot elements or other content. In fact, I'm just proud to be able to say that I saw them and that they stuck in my memory! Come to think of it, if the passage of time has allowed my memory of this film to evolve into something that didn't really happen (it has been almost two days since I saw it, after all), you'll just need to roll with that, too.
Helpful, no?
The first impression came with the opening credits. No music. It's kind of shocking in our over-produced world, where every ounce of emotion is wrung out of us by exploiting all of our senses. In fact, it felt like there was no score, but that music was used to portray music in the film – we hear the music when they go to a performance, play a CD or get their former music student (now a successful pianist) to play for them in their home.
Their home! I'm so looking forward to the meeting I am going to in Paris in a couple of weeks, not only for the content of that meeting (which will be both interesting and important), but for the feel of the city and the kinds of buildings and living quarters one finds there. Now, I'm not likely to be rattling around an apartment as huge and beautiful as the one inhabited by the characters in this film, but I will imagine myself to be passing by in the street below. It's really lovely.
So what is this music-challenged film in a beautiful apartment about? The wonderful, dignified, aging, loving couple who are going about their day-to-day lives, appreciating the things they have loved over their lifetimes, thrown a curve ball by the deterioration of their health and all of the consequent problems that can bring.
Immediate physical challenges of caring for a spouse who is now partially paralyzed, with support from the state that is limited (three visits a week by a nurse) and with the challenges of what other available help can bring (the scenes with the hired nurse are frightening and uncomfortable). We can see the caring getting more difficult as the husband begins his own decline in capacity – and, as my companions noted, it is odd that several recent films have, like this one, focused on the husband caring for the ailing wife when the reality is generally the opposite.
We also see the frustration of maintaining that loving dedication to the well-being of the other when the physical effort of it is so huge (and growing), the capacity to do that is on the decline and the rewards diminish with the ability to communicate and even the will to live of the other. And apart from the challenges of it, there is the embarrassment of having lost capacity and independence, and not wanting others to see that, no even one's own children. It's all very real and not very happy.
We knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to end well, as the opening scenes were of police opening up the apartment by force, then the sealed room, and finding the body of the wife, sprinkled with flowers and arranged in bed. We are led to how that came to happen, and then we are led to draw some obvious conclusions about where her husband is. My own observation at the end: she killed him back. But you'll have to see it yourself to see what that means.
I'm not by any means a cinematic professional, but I dearly hope that Emmanuelle Riva walks away with the Best Actress Oscar. She really succeeds in portraying that decline in physical capacity and loss of ability to communicate that we all fear, while communicating extremely well through minimal facial expressions and small actions. It's truly remarkable.
And I think that we will have to go see something mindless and/or funny next time out because this was not very spirit-lifting, even if it was beautiful and well done.
Have you noticed the evolution of household cleaning products, and specifically the aromas that differentiate them from one another (or try to)? I'm not talking about "Windswept Tundra" or "Babbling Brook" or anything that is really betting more on the images. I'm talking about the ones that could well be flavours.
In the olden days (when I was young and many of my employees were not yet born), the smell of clean was all about the pine. This was not something I necessarily understood, growing up in a pretty rural area with lots of trees, many of which were pines. For me, if you smelled like pine, it meant that you probably got some pitch on you, and that was anything but clean.
Then of course I saw this campaign on the internet and a whole new level of dirty became associated with pine. (The company has moved on to a much more boring and wholesome approach to seeling its products, but luckily some remnants of the fun one remain available on YouTube.)
Next, as surely as fresh vegetables grown in far away places started to be available in my home town's grocery store, lemons burst upon the scene. At first it was just the furniture polish (does anyone use that anymore?), but it quickly moved on to dishwashing liquid, laundry soap and even floor cleaners. Why, even our old pine-based friend got in on the act…
And if one citrus says clean, why not another? Oranges everywhere! Grapefruit! Specifically pink grapefruit! I have had all of those in dishwashing liquids and I have to confess that I do appreciate the association of citrus with cleaning, especially the citrus that you can eat without being one of those wacky people who eats lemons. Oh, and guess what? Our old piney friend came out in orange, too!
Industry knows, though, that you flash-in-the-pan flavour of the decade will not last, and there were more avenues to be explored in the produce section. What could be more wholesome than apples? And particularly green apples, which almost reek of clean, if you will pardon the mixed metaphor. Oddly enough, our tree-hugging original-flavoured cleaner doesn't seem to have hopped aboard this wagon, but many others have.
My most amusing experience, however, was what spurred me to write this in the first place. Just as the fresh vegetables from far away places were followed into my hometown grocery store by thirteen kinds of mushrooms and fruits that we don't recognize fresh because we have been so used to seeing them dried, along comes the newest flavour of clean.
Oh yes, it's pomegranate. I'm almost speechless.
There's a very good reason for my not being a film reviewer. I have a disturbing and extremely predictable tendency to nod off in films. When I'm lucky, I get all of that out of the way during the previews, but I usually miss a few important elements in the set-up of the plot. I'm pretty sure I don’t snore (I wouldn't want this to happen to me!), but I dare not ask my friends, as they would surely lie to me and say that I am snoring up a storm. Note that there is no disrespect to the films; just me being me.
So tonight's film was no exception. I did nod off at the beginning, probably a few times, but I did pick up on this being about Hitchcock and those around him during the filming of Psycho (I'm bright that way). I couldn't help but wonder if some of the interactions had been modernized a bit (women maybe being more assertive than they might have been at the time…and yes, generalizations are horrible) and if the portrayal of Hitchcock himself wasn't more based on his TV persona (pompous sounding commentary…check!) than on the reality of the brilliant director. Maybe they were the same and I'm totally out to lunch.
My other observations are about the audience, which was the usual very sparse one at the Forum, although the film is in its seventh week, so not much of a surprise. There was a guy sitting down in the front section (roughly in the place of the bear prey in that other post I linked to above) who was guffawing in a most unseemly way! We, of course, guffawed in a seemly way and much more restrained that he.
The other oddity was the person who was sitting one or two rows behind us and off to the left for about three quarters of the film and then suddenly got up and moved to a place two or three rows in front of us. What was that about? It's enough to keep a guy awake, I tell you.
Best feature of the credits (which we do tend to like to watch): there were crow wranglers! Close second: some of this California-situated film seems to have been filmed in Mumbai. Can't for the life of me figure out which parts, so they must have been interior sound stage scenes.
And the cliffhanger mystery question: will I get enough sleep next Thursday night to stay awake Friday through all the ads, previews and the movie? Time will tell.
We cheated and went to the version with the English subtitles (Rust and Bone), but we did think in retrospect that that might have been a good idea, as sometimes the dialogue in French was so low volume that the only saving grace was the subtitling.
Okay, not the only saving grace: this man is beautiful (and I am not the least bit shallow).
Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is travelling with his young son to his sister's, where he tries to find work. He manages a number of different small jobs, some of which will have more consequences than he expects. He also falls into another of his past activities as a way of making money: fighting, but not in the ring, in the street. Chance (and a job as a nightclub bouncer) brings him into contact with Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard). Fleetingly at first, but she will come back. His son seems almost superfluous to his daily reality and seems to be largely cared for by his sister.
A horrific work accident for Stéphanie and her brave phone call out of the blue brings them back together. His brutishness – and I don't mean that as an insult, but as an assessment of his character as someone who doesn't live on his emotions or ride the roller coaster of sympathy and empathy – allows him to respond to her new reality matter-of-factly, jolting a little more life into her existence. (This will change, but I won't spoil it by telling you how.)
This is not an American movie. We see people who stumble through dull or hopeless lives, struggling to make ends meet and not emerging as wealthy winners at the end. Their moral codes do not follow some official line of "acceptable" for the good guys and "reprehensible" for the bad ones. The pace is often quite slow. But isn't that all a little more realistic when you're trying to tell a story about real life?
Oh, and just one message I would like to text to our hero: "Opé?"
One of the things that I do almost without fail each week is to go see a movie – or a film – with friends. Part of this is for the joy of seeing those friends each week, part is the wonder of often having seen most of the films in the running for various awards (at least the North American ones), but mostly it is my way of ensuring that I don't retreat from the world, leaving home only to work and shop for essentials.
The odd thing about this is that I haven't been sharing any of that experience here, at least not on a regular basis. So if I need to frame this in the form of a New Year's resolution, so be it: I resolve to share my film experiences on my blog, with no pretension of being a film reviewer or anything other than some guy who happened to be in the cinema while the projection was going on.
With that out of the way, I shall move on to my first share….
Today, we went to see Anna Karenina, the 2012 version directed by Joe Wright. It was long, but we really didn't feel the length in the way that we did for Les Misérables or Laurence Anyways (which we saw last year, prior to my resolution to share!).
This film was a real feast for the eyes and the ears. Luxurious costumes and sets, lovely musical score, but the best thing of all was just how stylish it all felt. The official trailer will give you a good foretaste of the style…frozen characters who come to life together, the sweeping back of a curtain or the opening of a door that lead to a whole other set. The fact that the horse race thunders across the stage in the ballroom, or that this stage also seems to be the box at the opera when all of the gathered audience turns to stare disapprovingly at Mrs. Karenin.
(I'm just enough of a snob to point out that the addition of an "a" at the end of a Russian surname designates the wife – or at least a woman – but that the name should be naturalized into English without the "a". Or at least that what Vladimir Nabokov thinks, according to Wikipedia.)
So it was beautiful, stylish and what have I forgotten?... oh yes: populated by some extremely attractive actors! Luckily some of those sumptuous costumes do come off, or are substituted for farmhand wear from time to time. One of my friends on Facebook nominated it for the film of 2012 with the largest number of attractive men in the cast, which ought to be a category, as should its corollary. The two hours and nine minutes really flew by and almost left me wanting to see it again.
One last note. We have a habit of watching the credits at the end of the films we see, and given the presence of dogs and horses in this one, we were waiting to see whether we would see the "No animals were harmed®" that are the hallmark of so many film productions. Not this one. No, I don't think they actually shot that horse or even harmed it, but the note at then of this one was even more comprehensive – a note about having been filmed with a view to reducing the environmental impact. Green beats animal rights in my books any day (without endorsing or tolerating any cruelty to animals). But then again, I'm probably only alive because of a certain amount of pharmaceutical testing on animals, so I might be in a conflict of interest.
