The Indian Panorama

Tag: Hamilton

  • Canada’s protests settle down, but could echo in politics

    Canada’s protests settle down, but could echo in politics

    Toronto (TIP): Most of the streets around the Canadian Parliament are quiet now. The Ottawa protesters who vowed never to give up are largely gone, chased away by policemen in riot gear. The relentless blare of truckers’ horns has gone silent.

    But the trucker protest, which grew until it closed a handful of Canada-US border posts and shut down key parts of the capital city for weeks, could echo for years in Canadian politics and perhaps south of the border. The protest, which was first aimed at a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers but also encompassed fury over the range of Covid-19 restrictions and hatred of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, reflected the spread of disinformation in Canada and simmering populist and right-wing anger.

    “I think we’ve started something here,” said Mark Suitor, a 33-year-old protester from Hamilton, Ontario, speaking as police retook control of the streets around Parliament. Protesters had essentially occupied those streets for more than three weeks, embarrassing Trudeau and energizing Canada’s far right. Suitor believes the protests will divide the country, something he welcomes.

    “This is going to be a very big division in our country,” he said. “I don’t believe this is the end.” While most analysts doubt the protests will mark a historic watershed in Canadian politics, it has shaken both of Canada’s two major parties.

    “The protest has given both the Liberals and the Conservatives a black eye,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. Trudeau’s Liberals look bad for allowing protesters to foments weeks of chaos in the capital city, he said, while the Conservatives look bad for championing protesters, many of them from the farthest fringes of the right.

    The conservatives “have to be careful not to alienate more moderate voters, who are generally not sympathetic to the protesters or right-wing populism more generally,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

    The self-styled Freedom Convoy shook Canada’s reputation for civility, inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands and interrupted trade, causing economic damage on both sides of the border. Hundreds of trucks eventually occupied the streets around Parliament, a display that was part protest and part carnival.

    Authorities moved quickly to reopen the border posts, but police in Ottawa did little but issue warnings until the past couple days, even as hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters clogged the streets of the city and besieged Parliament Hill. (AP)

  • Mank leads Golden Globe nominations with 6 nods

    Mank leads Golden Globe nominations with 6 nods

    After a year where the pandemic nearly emptied movie theaters, Netflix dominated nominations to the 78ths Golden Globe Awards on Wednesday, Feb 3, with David Fincher’s Mank leading film nominees with six nods and The Crown topping all television series. The Globes, delayed about two months due to the coronavirus, tried to muster some of the awards’ usual buzz on Wednesday in a largely virtual awards season bereft the kind of red-carpet glamour the Globes annual feast on. And perhaps to account for the otherwise lack of it, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association heaped nominations on two lavish period pieces of high royalty — both the Hollywood variety (Mank dramatizes the making of Citizen Kane) and the British kind. Mank, about Citizen Kane co-writer Herman Mankiewicz, landed nominations for best film, drama; best actor for Gary Oldman; best director for Fincher, best supporting actress for Amanda Seyfried; best score; and best screenplay for Jack Fincher, the director’s father who penned the script before dying in 2003. Netflix, which topped all studios at the Globes last year, too, led with a commanding 42 nominations, with 22 coming in film categories and 20 in television. No other studio was close.

    The Crown also landed six nominations including best series, drama, and acting nods for Olivia Colman and Josh O’Connor. The final season of Schitt’s Creek trailed with five nominations, while Netflix’s Ozark (four nods) and The Queen’s Gambit (two nods) also added to the streamer’s totals. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — which is also a Netflix release — came in second with five nominations, including nods for best film, drama; best director and best screenplay for Sorkin; supporting actor for Sacha Baron Cohen; and best song.

    The other nominees for best film in the drama category were Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Florian Zeller’s The Father. Netflix doesn’t report box office figures and both Nomadland and The Father are yet to open beyond a qualifying run in theaters. So the category’s total box office — a historic low of about $265,000 — is due to “Promising Young Woman.” A year after fielding no female nominees for best director — or best feature film nomination for any movie directed by a woman — the HFPA nominated more female filmmakers than it had before. Regina King (One Night in Miami), Zhao and Fennell were nominated for best director, alongside Sorkin and Fincher. The nominees for best musical or comedy film are: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm; Hamilton,; Music; Palm Springs; The Prom. The nominees for best television series, drama, are: The Crown; Lovecraft Country; The Mandalorian; Ozark; Ratched. The nominees for best television series, musical or comedy, are: Schitt’s Creek; Ted Lasso; The Great; The Flight Attendant; Emily in Paris. The nominees for best motion picture, foreign language, are: Another Round; La Llorona; The Life Ahead; Minari; Two of Us.