Jason Bryant Blog

I’m having a total boys weekend, which isn’t much different from most of my weekends. Cool stuff like watching “I Am Legend” and “No Country For Old Men” on Blu-ray. I have to say, the picture quality is much better than the theater. In fact, the whole experience is much better. It’s why I only went to one movie in the theater last year. That whole ritual is pretty much over for me. Maybe when they get digital cinemas here I might go back. Otherwise it’s all Blu-ray for me.

And one other observation for those who say there is no future for discs. It took ten minutes for me to drive to the video store and get home with two 1080p Blu-ray movies (probably a combined 50GB of data). There is no way, with the bandwidth that is currently available, I would be able to download those movies at that resolution. Not going to happen for a few years yet. Trucks still have more bandwidth then the tubes. That won’t always be the case, but discs have a few more years yet.

Legend was a great movie. I know it got mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it. I loved the look of the film and the atmosphere. It was great that it was mostly Will Smith in the beginning. Very cool. I would have combined parts of the theatrical ending with the alternate ending. I won’t get into specifics because I don’t want to ruin it for you.

No Country, I saw in the theater, but I want to see it again. This time with a friend who hasn’t seen it.

I might play Rock Band a bit later.

It’s been a month of taxes, a winter that won’t quit, the dentist a couple of times, bills and fretting about the future. So I really need to unwind.

I’m just an outside observer, watching the U.S. political season from a small city in Canada. So for what it’s worth, here are my observations on the primaries so far.

I posted about my concerns regarding Hillary months ago.

Doc Searls is right when he says Hillary will lose to John McCain in the general election. Many people say they will vote for Obama if he’s the nominee, but if it’s Clinton, they’ll go with McCain.

Some say Obama is not experienced enough. Well the Bush administration had some very “experienced” people. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Franks. All that experience and nobody thought about what happens after we get rid of Saddam?

I happen to like John McCain as a person. He was bitching about the mis-handeling of the Iraq war long before it was fashionable. But a John McCain presidency is not what the world needs right now. McCain would have been a much better manager of the war. He would have had enough troops, and he would have kept a lid on things. But that time has passed. Force is not what is needed any more. The troops have done all they can. Their presence just fans the flames. As Obama points out, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded.

See Rolling Stone’s The Myth Of The Surge. And this from Matt Taibbi regarding McCain’s lust for war.

That’s the problem with John McCain, he believes in his hear of hearts that it’s man’s nature to be at war. It’s just the natural state of things, in his mind. Given the terrible things that have happened to him, I can see why he would think that. But what we need now is a candidate who believes it’s man’s natural state to be at peace, and that war is the aberration, not the other way around. This core belief is very important.

If a man like McCain was in charge during the Cuban missile crisis, the outcome might have been very different. A nuclear exchange will be more likely under a McCain administration then an Obama Administration (or Clinton for that matter). See McCain’s Bomb Iran interlude. Yes, it was a joke. Ha ha. But excuse me. Bombing people is not a laughing matter. The days of America attacking other countries without a reciprocal response are over. That’s the danger. America will not be safer with McCain in charge. That’s just my gut feeling. That’s how serious this election is.

Do we really want to wake up one morning, in 2008 or 2009, with McCain in power launching a nuclear war with Iran? Wondering if things would have turned out differently if we’d only elected Barack Obama?

The future of civilization is at stake. It’s my belief that Obama’s world view is what we need right now, not John McCain’s. Obama is more likely to win against McCain. So, Democrats, do the sensible thing and nominate Senator Barack Obama.

We can correct past mistakes, but our margin of error is now very small. Lets not make another one.

A movie I worked on, Sleepwalking, had it’s Hollywood Premiere last night. Because I can’t embed scripting on WordPress, I have to send you here to check it out.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, we have the local premiere next week. I previously posted about it here.

A mini-series I worked on, The Englishman’s Boy, makes it’s television debut Sunday on CBC. There is a great write-up in the Globe & Mail.

It’s based on the Governor General Award winning book by Guy Vanderhaeghe. From the cover…

The Englishman’s Boy brilliantly links together Hollywood in the 1920’s with one of the bloodiest, most brutal events of the nineteenth-century Canadian West – the Cypress Hills Massacre.

Many of the extras used were actual descendants of those involved.

I worked as an extra for the 1873 scenes, and as a stand-in for Michael Therriault and Nicholas Campbell for the 1920’s. I saw some amazing sunsets and spent a lot of time hanging out with horses. Here I am (left) with Josh Strait (right).

I read the book when it came out in 1996, but never imagined I’d be on set years later, working on the movie, chatting with the author.

The journey of getting this film made has taken 8 years, and is a stunning achievement. I’m proud to have been a small part of an important and moving piece of work.