Here is a link to a very interesting and timely story done back in 1996 by the CBC and one knitted with their usual high journalistic standards. Titled, appropriately enough, "Battle at the Box Office", this 26 minute piece deals with the problems we Canadians have faced in trying to see our own movies in our own movie houses. It is more complicated than that and this video file will interest those who care...http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-68-1406-9005/arts_entertainment/film_industry/clip8
And no surprise, nothing has really changed since this story was first aired. The only real (or reel) difference is that the Internet has exploded in the interim, thereby opening up some alternatives to traditional film distribution.
I agree with a lot of what producer Ivan Reitman says. Canadian-ness comes through in many Hollywood movies for the simple reason that many directors, script writers, and other production personnel grew up in Canada. Of course, this is not news but it is perhaps a more persuasive argument than what is usually gleaned on the surface. (Filmmaker Norman Jewison has said many times that his Canadian background allowed him to attack the issues presented in the 1967 film, In The Heat of the Night, from a different perspective and allowed more depth to the subject matter than what would have probably been the case had an American directed.)
Journalist and film critic Geoff Pevere also nails some fine points home.
The other interesting point brought up is how 'Canadian' some very successful Hollywood films are. One of my favourite examples is Wayne's World. Right after seeing it I argued that this film could, or should, have been made in Canada. Viewing the picture as a Canadian, it was so obvious where this story took place. (Comedian Mike Myers is from you-know-where.) Admittedly, Wayne's World, the feature film, needed the fact that it originated on an American television show, Saturday Night Live, in order to sell itself. (I had never been an SNL viewer so I was taking this film on its own terms.)
Yes, Saturday Night Live; created by Lorne Michaels, a Canadian who learned his craft in Canada! My brain hurts!
... one for the super-computer.
2 comments:
Lorne Michaels knows what he is doing. The Wayne's World movies were more popular than most SNL films partly because the characters are fun to hang out with, as opposed to The Butabi Brothers, the head-bobbing clubbers whom A Night At the Roxberry reveals to be virgins (the logic being that idiots who think about nothing but clubbing don't get any?). But even that film is entertaining, if scattershot. Superstar's Mary Catherine Gallighar was another loud character that didn't need to be fleshed out into a real human being. But clearly there was a valid reason for those movies: to feature actually talented people. The Blues Brothers survived the long form because they were low key. They were the calm, cool eye of the storm amid car crashes and dancing ghettos. Stuart Saves His Family written by comic/politician Al Franken and directed by Harold Ramis is a box office flop with genuine ambition and a real heart as well as being very funny and - again - underplayed and low-key. Obnoxious "It's Pat" is to date the only SNL movie that I hate. I must have screened it at work years ago on VHS when it wasn't my own time. I saw it again recently to remind myself what was wrong with it: Loud, grating central character and the conceit that Julia Sweeney's terrible costume would result in genuine curiousity about her gender ambiguity instead of mere indifference or disgust. And to top it off, only a couple of characters react realistically to her off-putting and insulting behaviour. David Foley as "Chris" has only one good line during the courtship, "You know what I hate? Senseless evil." as they pretend there is something other than androgeny that brings them together. Pat's only good line is right at the beginning as we emerge from a birth canal, "It all started by taking the road most travelled." Now you know the highlights. No amount of input from Lorne Michaels could have made that movie work. Julia Sweeney's one-woman shows like "God Said Ha" display far more humor and intelligence. At least Lorne and Broadway Video can exploit the brand names created at SNL and give his favourite cast members a chance. Again, her one-woman shows are decidedly low-key and full of gut wrenching candor. But how do you sell that to a studio. Quentin Tarantino is another producer who has helped her. As for The Ladies' Man, it's good for a Billy Dee Williams supporting role and one by Will Farrell which steal the show. Billy December Williams is low-key smooth of course and Farrel breaks the rule by being a loud homophobic cockhold.
Farrell can be expansive or subtle, as can Jim Carey, but those roles only work when they are outright camp and more about movies and commentary-through-charicature than an attempt to engage on a sappy-false-movie-emotional level. People who get that and the anger that goes with it go easier on these types of movies. Carey has taken pride in making Ace Ventura "completely unacceptable."
As for Saturday Night Live itself, any season, like most shows it is hit and miss. It still has the potential to be vital, timely and energetic when it works. It is at least worth looking up the latest skits on nbc.com or Youtube.
SNL has not "worked" for over a decade. Bloated sketches with no structure, generally lacklustre casts. When I see the end credit and see a dozen or 15 writers credited all I can think is "Jezus Fuck, that's the best all those people, who are probably each drawing a very nice salary can do?!"
If you mean that SNL works in the context of the bloated, shallow, attention-less culture it is now a part of, you'd be correct. As a sketch or satire show, SNL fails on every level, save maybe the sets.
N.
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