Watching the XXI Olympiad Games' Opening Ceremony from the comfort of my fellow Canadian friend's apartment last night, gave me the freedom and comfort to pick out what I thought was amazing and what I found to be downright horrific.
The Good:
The cultural expo during the Ceremonies was perhaps the best part of the evening. In what seemed to be a tourism coy for British Columbia, Quebec and the Prairies (yes, Ontario and the Maritimes, you were obviously excluded), viewers were captivated by the use of edgy technology. Lights flickering in the clouds made to resemble Aurora Borealis were cool and the imitation whales moving along gracefully through the ocean were breathtaking. K.D Lang was resurrected and though looking a bit like Johnny Cash, gave an amazing rendition of legendary Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen's "Hallejuah". The opinions on "We are More" by Shane Koyzcan vary and though spoken word was a bit of an odd choice, he still got the message across about our country's apparent identity crisis and the fact is "zed" not "zee." Also, was proud of the minute of silence for Norad Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luger, who passed away early Friday afternoon.
The Bad:
Where to start? The obvious lip synching of Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado's "Bang the Drum" might be a good place. I am a big Bryan Adams fan and appreciate Nelly Furtado's music but what happened there? Miss Furtado wore a dress which was way too tight for her and almost borderline inappropriate for what should be a classy event. Sarah McLachlan's performance was average, her song choice was a bit odd as well, just as was most of the night's soundtrack. An extremely embarrassing situation was the abomination of "O Canada", performed by sixteen year old Liz Yanofsky. That was suppose to be the moment where all of BC Place chimed in to sing the national anthem. It wasn't possible. Also - was Michaelle Jean sleeping at one point?
The Ugly:
Well, it should be labelled "The Obvious". The malfunction and error laden lighting of the Olympic Flame is all I am going to say. However, reference should be made to the faces of grimace, anger and confusion that was apparent of Steve Nash and Wayne Gretzky's faces. It only got more bizarre once "The Great One" was driven through downtown Vancouver, with the torch in hand(in the rain), in the back of a pickup truck. Classy. Now Canadians really look like small-town lumber jacks in front of the world.
Yes, the Opening Ceremonies were a bit stereotypical at certain points and awfully embarrassing in others. John Furlong, the head of the Vancouver Olympic Committee, gave a rather unexciting and mundane speech, which reenforced us as being "boring". But if you were Canadian, you know you couldn't help but feel your heart strings tug at certain parts. I know I did.
V.K.L
No comments:
Post a Comment