A CANADIAN LENS

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.

MADDIN'S DRACULA

The movie which introduced Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin to me was Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988). (I almost keyed in Tales of the Gold Monkey.) I saw it at the Bloor Cinema around 1993... it was the second of two movies that evening. As soon as the screen lit up with Gimli, there was a title card of a 'four-stacker' (early 20th Century ocean liner) done like an old movie studio logo. My feeling then was, "this is going to be a good movie". At that very early point of the film, some people got up and left. Some people are so biased: "Looks like an old movie so I am going to get out of my seat and leave."

Just a minute or two in was enough to convince those of us who decided to give the film a chance, at least, that this was not like the typical Hollywood job. To make a long story short, I loved Tales from the Gimli Hospital. (And I cannot remember the feature played just before. Points for Maddin!)

A couple of years later I saw Careful (1992). Liked it too but not near as much.

The most recent film I saw of Maddin's was The Saddest Music in the World. Great first half hour... then down hill a little. (This is common with his films, I find. He depends so much on various techniques that I feel let down by the lack of focus. Make no mistake, I like Maddin very much. He is a true original and gives Canada a good name. But he occasionally comes across as someone who is looking for a style as opposed to having one of his own. Of course, I am talking through my hat. One could argue that is his style.)

On tonight's big screen (at home) was Maddin's 2002 flicker, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary. I need more time to think about this one. At first blush, my impression is of a fairly straightforward story (at least, in Maddin terms) coupled with fine music and dancing. Dracula held my interest. The usual mix of styles expected of this filmmaker. Not to all tastes, to put it mildly, but worth checking out.

Here is a set of terrific short videos on the Maddin in question... http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-68-1420/arts_entertainment/Guy_Maddin/

DAZED AND CONFUSED

I have found it too easy to pop a movie in the player these last few days. Tonight it was Richard Linklater's 1993 feature, Dazed and Confused. My first screening, in 1993, consisted of a packed Bloor Cinema. It really is a crowd film. And it appealed to my own sense of nostalgia: While I did not spend May of 1976 in Texas, and did not enjoy the ritualistic pleasures of a coming-of-age paddy wacking, Dazed was a look back to that time for me. I would have been the age of the younger kids; hence my keen insight into a lack of paddles on my end.

I saw Dazed again about three years ago. For some reason what was a rear view mirror to me back in February of '93, didn't sustain any longer. In its purest form, the film did provide some kick but now I was looking at a broader picture -- an inconsequential plot.

Well, somewhat like my experience rewatching True Stories last night, Dazed and Confused again felt pretty perfect. I'm three years older since my previous look at this picture; maybe I'm clawing at my youth with more desperation.

I laughed a lot.

The cast is terrific. And that Matthew McConaughey has one of the film's best lines (which earned an explosive laugh from the crowd at the Bloor Cinema): "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, and they stay the same age."

REAL OR HYPER-REAL?

There is an interesting bit on page A2 of today's Globe and Mail newspaper...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080205.A2FICTIONAL05/TPStory/?query=myth+conceptions

Scary stuff!

Reading a piece like this makes you feel good all over if you come out of it having known all along that Charles Dickens was a real guy. A writer of some repute, I think.

I thought that Britney Spears and Simon Cowell were fictitious characters. (I was hoping they were fictitious characters -- a big difference.)

TRUE STORIES

Last night I pulled out -- from my box of archived VHS movies that I dubbed and never watched -- the 1986 David Byrne feature film, True Stories. I saw it with my film school buddy Mike when it came out. He figured I would want to see it since the year before, he and I saw together the great music film about the group Talking Heads (of which Byrne was its main member), Stop Making Sense, and Mike remembered how much I was impressed. He seemed to lap up my enthusiasm as we left the theatre -- I went on about how much I liked the film.

I did not like True Stories in its first release. Maybe I was not in the mood for a disconnected story; one not of the typical story structure.

Cut to last night: I really liked True Stories. Mr. Byrne had a vision. It was obvious. This was a picture of little pictures... vignettes. All were interesting and all rang true. I suppose this is the way life is, more than the stock stories told in your typical or average Hollywood movie. This is where European filmmakers excel. They show the heart of someone's experiences.

David Bryne made a very European or, more importantly, non American film. He was ahead of me and my (self proclaimed) broad tastes in cinema.

TREK MUSIC, TREK MUSIC

The TSO (Toronto Symphony Orchestra) announced today that they will be staging one of those alternative audience grabber concerts on June 20th and 21st. A TSO Star Wars concert happened three years ago and was a success. This time it is Star Trek's turn. As much as I love the music of Prokofiev, Beethoven, and Mozart, I'm the first to say that concerts of the tie-in type are not a bad idea.

Like many organized symphony orchestras, the TSO is forever battling the budget: They must think of creative ways of enticing those who would not normally see an orchestra, to enter through Roy Thompson Hall's main doors.

Outside of musical themes mentioned in the article linked below, I don't know what is being played but I doubt the fans will care... so long as they can imagine the Starship Enterprise floating by; or that space station floating around, from that show with the space station.

The story... http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/300071

BARRY MORSE (1918 - 2008)

I was not surprised when I heard the news this morning that veteran British/Canadian actor Barry Morse passed away on Saturday. The fact is his name had come up in a couple of conversations with friends this past week. Isn't this always a sign of an impending death?

Barry Morse was known to many in this country as a Canadian actor simply because he constantly worked here; having moved to Canada in 1951. He become well known to American viewers with his portrayal of David Janssen's man-of-the-law nemesis Lt. Gerard, in the ABC dramatic series, The Fugitive. As this show was photographed in black & white (except for the final season which was shot in colour... sorry, color), most young folk have not seen it at all. How some of us were introduced to Mr. Morse was through his portrayal of the humanist scientist Victor Bergman, in the first season of Space: 1999. His character was a shot of much needed warmth in that frosty special season. (Morse declined the second season of Space; something about his agent not coming to terms with that series' producers.)

In his very long career, Morse worked in radio, film, television and theatre. He was made director of the 1966 Shaw Festival here in Canada.

My own connection with Barry Morse was made in the summer of 1988 when I was leafing through a book in the Yorkville Library (a branch of the Toronto Library system): I stood before a shelf which was up against the wall. My attention was split enough to look over at a figure who was approaching from the left. In the purest Hal Roach sense, I gave a double take. Mr. Morse saw this and kinda looked past me as he walked by. Hey, I would look past me too. He ended up around the bookshelf behind me and started talking. That for sure is Barry Morse's voice.

(For some reason I forgot about this moment when I wrote my blog "Just a Walkin' Down the Street", from last September 9th.)

I told a friend of mine this incident later and he said, "you should have whispered through the shelf, 'hey I know a man by the name of David Kimble'."

THIS IS SUPER BOWL?

This evening I watched my first Super Bowl, ever. Like most at the party I went to, my viewing was loose and casual. I was amused at the seriousness that the broadcasting network takes all this; with the film-style promos, interviews with players, bios, etc. It was so over-the-top it was funny.

It's just a game, after all... and it is not ice hockey. That I realized half way through the game. There is not that excitement you get when watching a battle between two teams in the NHL playoff finals. Two guys visiting from England were at the party and one of them blurted out towards the end of the game -- before there was some interest generated through some dramatic scoring by the NY Giants -- something about sitting for a couple of hours and "watching nothing". (Overseas people care not for the game.)

Sitting with this happy and fun crowd made me realize that I'm not alone in not understanding a lot of what makes North American football run. There were quite a few questions thrown out for others to answer about how some scoring is calculated and what a "tight end" is exactly.

What is amazing to me is how big this day is to many (but not all) Americans. The rumours were true. Super Bowl Sunday and the game itself are terribly anti climactic and not particularly exciting. It really is an issue of selling -- constant selling.

And then I read this morning that this game has been called, in some quarters, "the greatest Super Bowl ever".

What?! Really?!

That is the bar?!

How some people are happy with so little. It's no wonder the game is all but unknown outside of North America. (The truth about the ratings is that very few outside of NA watch the Super Bowl. It is a myth that one billion people, from all over the world, watch the game.)

It would appear to me as if the Super Bowl is not so super, after all: Full of sound and fury, signifying... not a heck of a lot.

(But does my friend Chris know how to throw a party! He and his girlfriend were great hosts. I particularly liked all the food that was passed around.)

10 OF PI

During a recent discussion with a friend (who wanted to borrow Zontar, The Thing from Venus from me) about certain b-movies, there were some titles brought forth which classified not as 'so bad they're great' but more as good or great. One of these was the 1998 Darren Aronofsky low budget black & white flick, Pi. I first heard about this film while watching a news magazine piece (probably 48 Hours on CBS) on that year's Sundance film fest and the independent movies entered. Pi sounded most intriguing and this program covered the director's efforts in the editing room to make the deadline.

I saw Pi when it hit theatres in its limited run back in 1998 and loved it.

Last evening I decided to go into my VHS library and pull out a copy I knew I had made four years ago from a tape I rented but didn't get around to watching before it was due back at the video store (Suspect Video here in Toronto).

Watching Pi again last night reassured me that it is every bit as good as I remembered it being. And I noticed some things this time around that eluded me the first viewing; a sign of a good movie.

The plot is driven: Max Cohen (Sean Gullette), a mathematician, is obsessed with explaining everything through numbers. His drive to find patterns and relationships in these numbers gets him into trying to explain the stock market -- trouble starts. Intrigue follows. We get inside Max's head in addition to the external happenings. His battle with chronic headaches succeeds in torturing him as they add to the figurative headache of his quest, or rather, obsession, to make sense of certain numbers and their sequences.

Pi is not for all tastes -- it is what it is: A fine example of making a film to fit the (very small) budget and limited technical resources contained within, and doing so in exemplary fashion. Aronofsky used the contrasty -- this film was shot on Tri-X reversal film -- image to suit the story. (Reversal film is more 'rigid' and has to be exposed carefully as there is not a lot of latitude.) High contrast imagery such as newspapers, black grease pencils applied on these newspapers, and white cream dispensed into coffee fuses beautifully with the dramatics. Pi is about symbols, numerals in particular, shapes, so the cinematography emphasizes them.

The audio is, at times, a multi track affair with varied volumes and shock chords to great effect... all to tell this story.

Aronofsky understands the tools of the trade. Requiem for a Dream, made by the director in 2000, is indicative of the Pi style, and it too is terrific.

DEATH SLOT (A NETWORK PANICS)

Here we go; the first sign of trouble... or doomnation. The Toronto Sun newspaper has reported that the CBC's new shows, jPod, and MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives are trading places. As I have read too much over the years about television and certain historical examples of time changes, I think I can safely say the Ceeb is panicking too soon. Or at least picking the wrong time slots.

This rings a bell.

jPod currently airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. while its network pal, MVP, plays Friday nights at 9 p.m. The CBC is making this uncomplicated. Just a switcheroo. "Abracapocus".

I'm sure the feeling is jPod will find an audience of young people who have stayed home expressly to enjoy the latest installment of this venerable show.

Now where have I heard of this before? A fragment of a memory about some show which had a plum weekday night slot and was moved to Friday night only to have dissappeared forever. I must be imagining this.

The news... http://www.torontosun.com/Entertainment/Television/2008/02/01/4805487-sun.html