There's some great Canadian cinema in theatres right now.

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

Not sure how this started, but I've been on a bit of Canadian movie kick lately.

First was Charles Officer's Nurse.Fighter.Boy (trailer), a great little indie urban romance that takes place in Toronto and features a heavy Jamaican influence/connection. (Dope soundtrack too)

Then Lars and The Real Girl. (ok, not *really* Canadian, but it was filmed in Canada and Ryan Gosling's a Canadian)

Today I saw Pontypool, a pretty creepy/scary, darkly comedic (in a Canadian way) "zombie" thriller starring Stephen McHattie and directed by Bruce McDonald (of "Hardcore Logo" fame). It's a great flick, I highly recommend it if you like zombie films or thrillers or Bruce McDonald. (Also check out Fido, another great Canadian zombie flick)

To top it all off, we've also got Joshua Jackson (also Canadian) starring in One Week, which as I understand it, is an unapologetic love letter to the Great White North. And of course, Scott Pilgrim being filmed right now in the city, and "Toronto Stories" which I saw in the film fest in the fall.

There's a lot of great Canadian movie making going on it seems, and I'm glad that I live in a city where I have access to this great cinema and great stories. But what does the rest of the country get, outside these urban centers? Confessions of a Shopaholic? Hotel for Dogs?

It's not like any of these Canadian films I've mentioned are particularly artsy or too out there, "criticism" leveled against earlier celebrated Canadian fare from Atom Egoyan and Cronenberg. I think most of these films have strong commercial potential...but you'll never see Pontypool in Tillsonburg, let alone in Pontypool itself.

At least that's the way it feels. I'm not in the industry so I can't comment intelligently about this stuff, but I do remember reading a story about Sarah Polly lamenting the lack of distribution systems for Canadian content in this country. Some great stuff gets made, but only the "elite" in the cities get to see it. How many of you saw the excellent The Rocket, or the actually funny and adequately action-filled Bad Cop/Bon Cop? We have CanCon rules for radio and television, but for cinema they're strangely lacking.

(I shouldn't push for this too much, as I've been meaning to rant and rave about about the CRTC's complete idiocy in contemplating regulation for the internet. Yes, really. I digress...)

Ironically, it may be the internet that brings Canadian cinema into a new Golden Age. By lowering the costs of distribution across this wide spread land, and technology allowing people with great ideas to actually execute those ideas on the cheap and make them a reality (see Sidekick, which is brilliant despite its non-existent budget), we may actually get to see more of *our* stories being told, and more importantly, watched, in towns and cities everywhere.

Heck, we might even find that people in other countries actually *like* our stuff! :)

Anyways...there's some great Canadian cinema being made, and we should definitely be paying more attention to it, and not just because it's Canadian, but because it's *good*.

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