I’ve been lagging on my “Family Guy” viewing the last few years because I find the show mostly annoying rather than mostly funny but once in a while, they hit something that really makes me laugh – thankfully, I have good friends that bring those tidbits to my attention.
Take, for example, the clip below which appeared in an episode of the show earlier in the year. Now, considering that most of the contributors around these parts are Canadian and to boot film festival fans, I’m sure we all share a shake of the head and disagreement that this isn’t fact but it did still make me laugh.
And as funny as this is, how behind the ball are the writers falling? Isn’t TIFF widely known as the festival that kicks off Oscar season? And if Kurt is right (probably) and I missed the joke and writers were referring to a festival of Canadian film, they obviously haven’t seen any Canadian films recently. Did no one else see Uncle Brian? Apparently not.
Canada will continue to carry the weight of a reputation of Prairie or Maritime depressing family dramas where old ladies make tea and wait for the men to come in from the Asbestos mines. And then there is Guy Maddin’s shadowy uber-art-house earnest/satire/etc. surreal shadow of Canadian cinema.
But the past decade has seen some really fun Canadian stuff shake up the landscape, particularly in smart and witty genre filmmaking: The Ginger Snaps Trilogy, Cronenberg’s output, Vincenzo Natali’s output, FIDO, Pontypool and Bay-esque spoof BonCopBadCop.
Glossy stuff like C.R.A.Z.Y.
Batshit cerebral-deadpan stuff like YOU ARE HERE
And then the dramas: Atanarjuat, Away From Her, Barbarian Invasions, Trigger.
And this doesn’t really scratch the surface of French Canadian Stuff, which really is its own world.
I’m not compensating for the joke, which is mildly amusing, but if you’ve been skipping out on Canadian stuff over the past 10 years, you’ve been missing out.
You are absolutely right Kurt. It’s going to be decades before we shake the old idea of Canadian film (if ever) but all of the national funding options seem to be giving a bigger piece of the funding pie for strange little good films across the great white north. Plus I’ve noticed a real upturn in good, self-funded stuff over the last few years.
As for Quebec, there’s an entire world of fantastic filmmaking going on over there that rarely sees life outside the province which is a real shame. I hope that starts to shift in the coming years but it’s not looking likely.
huh, I was writing about this in another thread.
Passenger Side
This Movie is Broken
Trigger
Beauty Day
I mean come on! Canada is back baby!
And I have rewatched This Movie is Broken, now knowing the music of Broken Social Scene and it is 10x better, I adore this film.
I think that Family Guy joke could have been a lot funnier if they tried a bit harder, but that’s their schtick – a couple of great jokes and a bunch of other stuff they just throw out there. “Mildly amusing” is a fitting description.
I don’t want to be too overly earnest and add more films to the list, but I’m Canadian so I have no choice…The Changeling, Black Christmas and My Bloody Valentine are known as classic horrors (the last two not my favourites though), Allan King is renowned for his actuality dramas (just released on Eclipse) and you have filmmakers like Deepa Mehta, Lea Pool, Atom Egoyan, Gary Burns, blah, blah, blah…Great short filmmakers too, but I suppose most countries can attest to that.
And yeah, Quebec has got crazy talent. I caught “Crying Out” at the end of a 5 film day at TIFF and was completely sucked in.
Well that’s weird. I just watched this episode about two night ago. It was just a random pick on Netflix one night before bed. Emma thought it hilarious.