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My ex-husband (in the States) sent me an interesting link to pictures of the protest against Bush that happened in Ottawa last week.

The interesting thing is the contrast between this and the pictures in The Ottawa Citizen, which showed no crowds, few cops, and only a couple of young, lone protesters. I know there were a lot of people out even though I was in my office all day, working - the crowd spilled over onto Rideau Street, where I could see it. But protest was otherwise hardly mentioned i the newspaper, buried under the headlines of how friendly Mr. Bush was being, but even that was mitigated by the news the next day that Bush was "demanding" Canadian support on military issues and that he hadn't budged regarding beef and lumber. I bet most Americans don't even know about beef and lumber issues - not that there's any reason they should care. Or am I being too cynical? Heck, the "demands" that Bush is making of Canada regarding missile defence in the north probably aren't being reported in the American media. Why should anyone know about them?

Maybe the point is that a peaceful protest - and a protest in the interests of world peace - is invisible to the media; they only report violence. Or maybe The Ottawa Citizen is just a really bad paper. Or maybe newspapers are not a good source of real news any more.

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It's been a strange few days. Not bad, just busy. But not entirely good.... one of my dearest friends blew up at me and two other mutual friends, and we're hard put to know what to do about it, especially when for some days she wouldn't explain what was wrong. And now... she has explained, she's at least willing to talk, and I still don't know what to make of the matter. She's hurting and I feel for her, but I don't know how to help.

Ah well. Last night I visited another old friend and we watched The In-Laws and some anime. My friend makes me laugh: he seems to think I like comedies, which I don't, and tends to produce movies as a surprise - "I got this new DVD, you'll love it". And the funny thing is, he tends to produce comedies that I've never seen (because I avoid comedies in general) but which I actually enjoy every much. This being a case in point. Doesn't matter if it's funny or not, it stars Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, two long-time favourite actors of mine. Besides, the movie is nicely twisty, so that you never know whether Vince (the Peter Falk character) is lying or telling the truth - a Dunnettesque theme I always like, even in comedies.

Alexander

Today I went to see Alexander with Beulah, Lyn and Tasia.

I loved it. I absolutely loved it. After the bad reviews and the various controversies, I wasn't expecting much. I'm not a big fan of Colin Farrell, so he wasn't much of a draw. But... hope springs eternal. It was Alexander. It was another historical movie, and I've been starved for good historical movies. The good ones have been few and far between for a number of decades. And it was Alexander, the world conqueror whom Mary Renault taught me to appreciate and love.

And it was better than I ever imagined. I'm too happy about it, and to tired now, to be analytical. Instead, here's a list of the things I liked about it:

• Bagoas is in it. Bagoas! (For the uninitiated, he is not only historical but also the hero of Mary Renault's novel The Persian Boy.) I was convinced they'd leave him out. He doesn't get lines, he doesn't get story, but we see him - strikingly - in Darius' harem and he's with Alexander from then till the deathbed. He also gets a nice onscreen kiss with Alexander. And he dances. And... he's included. That was delightful.


• The Maxfield Parrish-like settings of magnificent light-filled palaces and exotic landscapes. It's all very National Geographic-like, in the best ways.


• Bucephalos. What a wonderful horse! I feel I've seen three great horses in the past year in movies: Hidalgo, Shadowfax and now Bucephalos. It brings out the horse-lover in me.


• Alexander's parents. I thought Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie both gave wonderful performances - not profound maybe, but with a lot of character. They were fun to see. I loved Olympias' snakes - I always do! - and as usual was left feeling Olympias was an ambiguous figure. Ambiguous even in Alexander's mind.


• Good history. I recognized lines and events - and a few charming verbal anachronisms, none of them a problem.


• Good Persians. Ever since I did a special report (and a wargame) about Xerxes for Honours History as an undergraduate, I've had more than a soft spot for ancient Persians - and reading The Persian Boy probably helped with that - and it was delightful to see Darius looking striking and beautiful before his fall, like a statue of himself, and the Persian warriors - the archers - I'm not usually a big fan of battle scenes but I did enjoy the main battle with the Persians. On the other hand, I was disappointed not to see the palace at Persepolis.
  
• I hadn't realized Jonathan Rhys Myers was in this movie - I was delighted to see him! At first I thought, "That actor looks like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers!" and then promptly: "Omigosh, that actor is Jonathan Rhys-Meyers!"


• They didn't stint on the emotional importance to Alexander of his relationship with Hephaistion, though they were carefully discreet - we didn't get anything quite as overt as a kiss (worse luck) though there were enough hugs, neck-rubs, hand-holding and so on to make up for it - a sense of intimacy that I thought worked quite well. Too bad our only real sex scene was with Roxana - and no complaint there, I liked it, it was quite different, a break from most typical movie sex scenes. It would be nice to think we should get equal time for Hephaistion, but too much to expect even in some mythical extended edition. There were, however, numerous moments where I thought: if Hephaistion was a woman, they'd have kissed at that point. The restraint was awkward. The result (to my eyes) was that the relationship with Hephaistion looked like all love, no lust.

There were things about it that weren't so well done. Pacing and structure were poor, I thought. The story isn't quite chronological, for reasons I couldn't guess - why not? The script was adequate but not great. It needed tightening, it needed a little more of a thematic climax.

But none of that stopped me from loving it.