This post is pretty late coming, as tonight may be your final chance to see either of these films... but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to highlight the work of genius Canadian auteur Guy Maddin while two of his movies are showing downtown. I've seen four of his features now, and caught his most recent "documentary", the hugely acclaimed My Winnipeg, on the plane ride home from Athens (cheers to those fancy new personal screens.)

That film has been playing in Vancouver for a couple of weeks now, and I imagine come Friday the Tinsletown Cinemas could axe it to open up space for another 'Batman' or 'Pineapple Express' screening (I'll update this when I confirm). The other one is Archangel, his newly-restored second feature, screening tonight at the Pacific Cinematheque. A bit more, and a trailer, after the jump...

Real estate prices are officially down. Nice, now you can afford those extra few square feet to squeeze in Poofie's jogadog.

A quick guide to Beijing's extreme makeover; covers all your bases from turtle blood bans to feline extermination to rainfall-controlling silver-iodide-filled rockets. Apparantly they weren't as prepared for the Muslim separatists. Meanwhile, nature responded in style to that silver rocket bullshit. The government was successful, however, in completely eliminating both Ron MacLean and any sign of natural human life from their capital city.

One of the most interesting pieces yet to emerge from the steady flow of Vancouver history-blogging: The Dope Craze That's Terrorizing Vancouver: a look at how the Downtown Eastside has been a drug haven since the '30s -- we just used to keep it all indoors. Great stuff.

One woman plans to complain to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal after she's told by H&M to take the breastfeeding to the changeroom. Uncalled for, perhaps... but I'd say introducing one's child to H&M at such an early age is the biggest human rights violation in this story.

A visual exploration of how the American diet has changed in the last 30 years, including an overall increase in 1.8 pounds of food consumed per person per week. What we've lost in veal and lard we've more than made up for in cheese & corn. You are what you eat?

World's Worst Person Decides to Go Into Marketing

If you're not too wrapped up in festival fever, debating taser use, or adding to the now monstrous pile of self-indulgent hipster "debate", you'd realize we have a municipal election on the horizon (Novermber 15, to be exact). Barring anything completely out of the ordinary, the team we elect this fall will be our city council during the Olympics, that civically enriching/devastating celebration where our world's nations can come together in beautiful Vancouver and conspire over steroids and figure skating instead of fuel, bombs, or the environment for a few weeks...

Regardless of my cynicism, the next few years will be vitally important to our city, and the way we manage the 2010 Olympics (and all that surrounds them) will have an impact that'll be felt far beyond the upcoming three year mayoral term. This really could be the most important election Vancouver has seen in a long time.

One face we could be seeing a lot of come November belongs to someone who'll be familiar to anyone who keeps up with the Morning Brew or pays attention to DTES advocacy: Pivot Legal's Dave Eby. The lawyer has become an icon for the local anti-poverty movement and the search for affordable housing solutions, and his background could end up proving to be one of our municipal government's most vital assets in the period surrounding 2010. A month after announcing his intention to seek a Vision nomination, Eby will be hosting a Campaign Live Fundraiser at the Anza club on Wednesday night featuring the music of Language Arts, Taxes, Brasstronaut, and DJ Tyler Fedchuk. More after the jump...

Monday is B.C. Day, so, uh... long weekend! The Straight has got your festival linkfest. But if you're not aching for another street festival (Wow, Vancouverites still can't walk and, check, dippin' dots are still inedible. Ok, maybe the Jamaican Festival sounds fun...) you could go out to Abbostford and check out/sabotage the North West Skydive Boogie. There'll be "dual plane formations of up to 30 people along with high speed landings." High speed landings? Well, I suppose hurling yourself out of a plane and into the dirt is a fitter way to celebrate B.C than street sushi or homoerotic exhibitionism.

And while we're talking Pride Parade; I'm sorry I didn't link to it earlier, but I hope all my neighbors have already placed their orders at Pride Pup, so all those pugs are properly decked out come Sunday. I'm totally ordering some stuff to flesh out my (most certainly hidden) hipster cache. Who needs a V-neck or shitty beer when you've got a sweet ironic barrette?

So Translink put on their dictator hat and decided we'll be building a new, tolled Pattullo bridge. Whatever, I sincerely hope we're not all driving this much in ten years time.

Meanwhile, the combination of that rock slide and the five-hour drunken drive to Pemberton makes it pretty obvious we need to figure out how we're going to confidently get the masses to Whistler and back come 2010. People were already pretty pissed last weekend and they had Tom Petty & Jay Z waiting for them. All those Olympic fools have on the other end is twiggy guys in spandex and bobsled replays. Meh, I'd rather sit in my car with the radio and cheap beer anyway.

'Plan A' will change the face of Abbotsford. You know what'll really change the face of Abbotsford? When we're all forced to relocate there thanks to rising tides. Dudes better open up one of those cupcake joints stat...

Drugs are a good business to avoid. But you gotta do what you can to support the the number one city in Canada. Here's more info on Monday's murder from CBC, as well as their interactive map of Metro Van murders in 2008, so you can keep track of how much we rule.

Wanna avoid bike theft? 10 ways to uglify your wheels. Could also double as a guide to increasing your hipster cachet (or cache, even). I so see that fake rust shit catching on around here.

Canadian flight attendants rally to save their jobs. If they start dressing like this again, I'll definitely lend my support. And, needlessly, here's 19,000 airline meals.

One guerrilla gardening Vancouverite has won the 'Greenest Canadian' award. What is guerrilla gardening, exactly? That last link was just an excuse to point out Heavy Petal, a local eco-blog with an irresistible double-pun of a title and lots more info on illicit seeding.

B.Cers prefer to drink... well... ummm... lets just say we like to get drunk and leave it at that. Regardless, we still got nothin' on those Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrews.

American-style helmet law enforcement? Watch one critical mass bicyclist get assaulted by the NYPD. Here's a nice Discover Vancouver thread from the last couple days as well: CRITICAL MASSHOLES. That'll learn ya, you spandex wearing homos. Yep, everyone is online now.

As populations dwindle, B.C has been urged to stop the Grizzly hunt. I'll do what I can by linking to this brand new song by the great NY band Grizzly Bear, as seen on Letterman.

Take a look at Beijing's terrificly creepy Olympic welcoming robots. But don't let them overhear you say 'dictatorship,' or the red one's computer screen turns into a violent, tourist-consuming jaw while the blue one starts shooting lasers outta' the eyes...

The Hells Angels had a huge party in Langley on Friday and Kim Bolan of the Vancouver Sun was covering the event live. That's definitely the type of liveblogging I can get behind (but did they teach her about any cool Wordpress widgets or SEO tricks?? The whole thing feels kinda incomplete.)

With all this talk of the Hells Angels, all I can think about is the money I'd pay for a big budget 'Hells Angels vs Asian Gang' hollywood epic: meth, bikes, kungfu and shotguns... maybe a melee in the middle of Yaletown while Vancouver is hosting BlogHer 2012; shit writes itself. While we're on it, the NYTimes has a writeup of the aforementioned event and a look at "Blogging's Glass Ceiling".

A Vancouver teen was invited up on stage to jam with Peter Frampton. So Frampton saw the only chick in the crowd under 40 and is so irrelevant these days he has to promise 'em stagetime? Only kidding... congrats to Kelly Yu, sounds like a pretty memorable experience. Banging a rock star and all...

Another for the list: Ammunition prices are on the rise. Surrey responds.

Pissed off at hipster hate? Just be glad you're not an emo in Europe.