Genie Awards!

For those expecting some sort of Valentine’s Day posting, you’ll be collectively disappointed. Much like last year, I’m opting to not do much more than casually acknowledge this “holiday.” Instead, I want to talk a little bit about the Genie Awards, held last night in Toronto. The Genie Awards are essentially the Canadian version of the Academy Awards, but unlike their cousins to the South, are barely even noticed by the general viewing public in Canada.

Anyway, I was looking at the list of winners and something rather obvious jumped out at me: almost ALL the winners come from Quebec! Now I’m not sure if the Quebecois just produce more films per year than English Canada, thus leading to a larger talent pool from which to draw, but it does strike me as odd that the awards were so lopsided. It would be nice to see a bit of competition in both languages one of these years.

In terms of the winners, it seems that the Rocket suffered from a Prince of Tides sort of effect. For those that don’t remember, the Prince of Tides was once nominated for something like 7 Oscars (including Best Picture), but the films director, Barbara Streisand, wasn’t even nominated. Alright, so it’s not the same situation at all. The Rocket was nominated in every major category and won in virtually everything (Best Actor, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, etc) but yet lost out on Best Picture to Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

For a nice change of pace, I’ve actually seen both of the main contenders for Best Film, and for my money I would vote for Bon Cop, Bad Cop. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both films, but I just felt that The Rocket dropped the ball. It felt too… clichéd… to me. My views on Bon Cop, Bad Cop are pretty well known, so I won’t waste too much space on this, but I will say that once you really get the joke, it becomes that much better of a film.
So congratulations to all the nominees and winners! Til next time…

Canadian Content

I got into a discussion recently about the Canadian film industry and it made me start to think. At what point does a film become “Canadian?” No doubt the industry has any number of criteria to distinguish “our” films from those made elsewhere, but indulge me for a moment or two. Climb aboard my train of thought. There are quite a number of Canadian actors, directors, and writers, who work in Hollywood, yet these productions, are never considered “Canadian.” Major films are shot on location in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal; many times using Canadian technical and production staff but these, too, aren’t Canadian.

So what does it come down to? Let’s suppose, for sake of argument that we wanted to make a comedy. No doubt we’d be hunting around for a good comedic leading man. The current poster boy is someone like Jim Carrey, but we could just as easily go for someone like Mike Meyers. If we wanted to go more old school, we could with Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy or Martin Short (though I freely admit that none of these guys can carry a movie nowadays, but that’s not the point). We could easily make a decent ensemble cast out of Canadian comedians.

Alright, so we’ve got the onscreen talent covered. What about behind the camera? There is any number of Canadian directors who might fit the bill for our fictional creation. If we wanted to go with the nostalgia angle even more, we could snag Ivan Reitman (Canadian immigrant) to direct and produce, while getting Lorne Michaels to produce and maybe do some of the writing. Just for additional giggles, we’ll shoot in Toronto. So now we have a film that is written, produced and directed by Canadians, and shot in Canada. Is it a Canadian film yet? I would be inclined to say yes, personally. But what happens if the film is backed by 20th Century Fox?

It seems to me that the moment a film gets picked up by the Hollywood machine that it seems to lose all connection to Canada. Wacky, huh? Is it really all about the money? If Canadian talent is being used in the principle/important roles yet backed by a major studio, then why do we consider it American? I would love to hear some opinions on this. Til next time…