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stewacide
Reviews
Trailer Park Boys (2001)
must watch for all canucks!
Trailer Park Boys isn't the best show on Canadian TV (that honour probably goes to the amazing DaVinci's Inquest), but it's still IMHO the funniest non-animated comedy on TV. It's very similar to the equally hilarious movie Fubar, which was also a mocumentary about Canadian white trash.
Interesting, it's become something of a fad for Canadian bands to feature the guys from Trailer Park Boys in their videos. Snow (a Canadian rapper) had Bubbles in a recent video, while Bubbles, Ricky, and Julian showed up in the Tragically Hip's "The Darkest One" video (the 'Hip, BTW, are the most popular rock band in Canada).
Now lets get drunk and eat chicken fingers!
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Flawed Greatness
I just got back from watching Bowling for Columbine (in Windsor, Ontario - which is featured in the movie) and on the whole I enjoyed it greatly. Moore's central thesis: that it's fear that's responsible for the much greater number of gun murders in the US, is groundbreaking.
As a Canadian (who has lived in and around Windsor and Sarnia my whole life), I can confirm a number of the films ascertains about this country:
- Most of us don't lock our doors (the lock on my front door in fact doesn't work at all - it broke a few years ago and we haven't seen any reason to fix it) - I agree completely with the guy in Toronto who said locking your door in Canada is tantamount to locking yourself in (as opposed to locking the world out).
- Yes, many of us are gun-nuts (my grandfather, for instance, owns dozens of rifles and shotguns, as well as a handgun or two)
- Despite what Mr. Heston seems to suggest, Canada really is incredibly ethnically and 'racially' diverse - and there's none of the urban black/white urban/suburban segregation so obvious in the US (if Detroit is representative of the US - which I suspect it is)
- Canadian news is NOTHING like US news - and there is certainly no equivalent to the sort of `Action News' common in the US (there's just not enough `Action' I guess :)
- Yes, our `ghettos' (which are generally government sponsored 'geared-to-income' townhouse or apartment complexes) are really that 'nice'
However, I have to point out a few weak points and mistakes in Moore's film:
- His drive to prevent the selling of handgun bullets by K-Mart is inconsistent with his primary message (that guns are not the problem)
- The cartoon, while very funny for the most part, seems a tad ...unfair in its connection of the NRA to the KKK
- Confronting Mr. Heston with the picture of the dead girl was just cheap.
Black Robe (1991)
great movie!
I've seen this movie on TV a number of times and absolutely love it! Very similar in feel to Last of the Mohicans though what I like about this movie is the more human aspect of it. It's been a while since I"ve last seen it so I can remember enough to comment on the plot details, but this is a great movie to check out. 7/10