Vancouver hits record temperature of 9 million 3 hundred and 84 thousand, one Hundred and twenty-one degrees Celsius

I know I've been in hotter places.

• Montreal heat wave of '94 - 38 degrees
• Kuala Lumpur stop-over in '98 only left the air-conditioned hotel for an hour - 40-ish degrees
• Darwin about 12 hours later - 44 degrees - got on another plane in 20 minutes
• Adelaide for a few weeks shortly thereafter mid-30s and dropping
• Penang the next month - 40 degrees for 48 hours
• Las Vegas last month 41 degrees, almost never left the conference centre

But I honestly don't think I've ever had it so consistently hot for so long with the humidity so frikkin' ridiculously high. It's day five of really hot weather. (EDIT: Today was apparently the hottest day ever recorded for Vancouver.)The one real relief being that on Saturday night there was a thunder-shower during the fireworks - a show that will remain legendary for years no doubt.

Jodie and I were soaked to the bone and that night wasn't too bad thanks to the rain.

Even before that there was a day or so of warm - though not outrageous - temperatures. They say it's not over yet. Days to go probably. I don't think anyone is sleeping. The whole city is getting cranky.

In '94 - in the Montreal heat wave mentioned above - I was doing a show that took place in a heat wave. I wrote it. In the play one of the lead characters - the one I played had gone over the edge and started killing people. It wasn't the heat that pushed him over the edge, the heat was simply a co-relative thematic element. When his killing streak ended, the heat wave broke.
I'm going on a deliberate tangent here: The play - believe it or not - was a comedy. My character - Nigel - was upset about the lack of upward mobility for his (our) generation so he started an employment agency where he created opportunities for his clients by killing people in their corporate structure who had desirable positions. The show was the Juanabees' most successful show ever. We kicked ass for a few years previous to that, but the reviews of that show were over the top.
Looking back I'm amused that the show - despite the plot I outlined above - wasn't really about that. I mean it was. But it wasn't. (Blame the heat for this lack of clarity.) Nowhere in the plot did we get into the detail of what was being done to stop Nigel's killing spree. In the end he was caught largely by a police officer being in the wrong place at the right time. (Not quite so deus ex machina as that sounds - Nigel ultimately DID make bad choices (other than becoming a serial killer) that directly led to the police officer being able to put things together. Ultimately the play was really about three 20-something Gen-Xers trying to figure out their place in the world.
There was Mark, the career-student, hiding from responsibility, trying to be the moral core of the roommates, but ultimately too lazy to make a stand on anything more important than whose turn it was to do the dishes, Teak, on the surface, your standard issue stoner whose hallucinogenic internal life seems to manifest in the real world (mostly to comic effect). We in fact never showed Teak using any kind of drug - people just assumed; and in the end it turned out that all the weirdness that surrounded his life (much of which I'm still pretty proud of as far a humour goes) actually was a result of him being from another dimension (to which he returns at the end.). And of course the previously mentioned Nigel - frustrated bottom-rung ad-exec turned crusading murderer. They had a fourth roommate - Dale - who was never seen (though occasionally heard) until the last scene where he managed to tie up a number of loose ends with one line and about 20 seconds of stage time and often get one of the biggest laughs of the entire show. Dale was often played by a special guest, but otherwise he was played by the fourth actor in the show (on that tour it was Mike Rinaldi) who played "Everyone Else" and usually stole the show in the process.

Anyhow... so much for that nostalgic sidetrack...

It is SO fucking hot.

Today I had to meet Craig to go over some endgame "Beast..." stuff. We chose a place that required me to go up a hill to get to. I made a point of approaching from a direction that placed the hill last so that I could go from hill to cold drink as soon as possible. Holy crap.

I can see why people have heart attacks from the heat. And I'm starting to see why people 'lose it' in a heat wave. My head is not screwed on right. I'm not in any danger of going all 'Nigel' on folks, but the phrase "crazy from the heat" makes a LOT of sense to me right now.

Dark Knight

I went to Batman yesterday.

It was fantastic.

A number of months ago Dafne asked me who my top five directors were. Chris Nolan was on the bubble at that time, but there is no longer any doubt in my mind. He is an outrageously talented visionary.

There are a few quibbles I have with it, but just minor things really.

The real question though is Heath Ledger. How good is he?

He is wonderful. He seems to have put it in the back of his mind that the Joker is one of the greatest arch villains of all time. The Joker has to earn that, just like anyone else - and he does. It must be a scary proposition to know that you are going to be measured against Jack Nicholson (and no less than one of Jack’s most iconic performances) and Heath is equal to the job. It is very impressive.



It’s also very creepy that at the end, the door is clearly left open for the Joker to return, when we know that he (or at least Heath) can not. It would not have been hard to re-shoot & restructure in such a way that the Joker was clearly gone for good.



But someone needs to say this…

It is NOT an Oscar worthy performance. That is being said for the sole reason that Heath has died after such a promising performance. He probably would have been a perennial had he not overdosed, but that in itself does not make this an Oscar contender. He is great as the Joker. Let me say that again. He is great as the Joker. But most of the depth is in the script (and considering how little is known about the Joker, that doesn’t in fact allow for a lot). He is scary and gross and terrifying. But Oscar noms are worth more than this. This is hype. Well supported hype for a film that hardly needs it.

There we go. Someone said it. Let the tomatoes fly.