#28 | February 12 - 19, 1998  

That's right folks, those crazy Cannucks are coming out of the woodwork this week. This doesn't mean you should panic, though. Just remember--for every Alanis Morrisette or Crash Test Dummy embarrassing the fuck-all out of the Great White North, there's also a Dudley Do-Right or Kid in the Hall busy putting the rai back in notre rai pays. Shucks, I guess all I'm trying to say is this: let's set aside our differences and mean-spirited jokes (no matter how funny they might seem to us) and see what these lumberjacks can do with a movie camera.

First up is Contact, from Robert Zemeckis. Yeah, I know he's not technically from Canada, but you've got to admit that he seems awfully Canadian, nonetheless. Actually, Bob is originally from just across the lake in Chicago (so my error is understandable), which in a lot of ways is even worse. But that's not why should you avoid his new movie. No, I'm implementing the first ever Krazy Kevin Kino Ban because Zemeckis' previous film was pure evil. I won't even mention that movie's name, but you probably know which one I'm talking about. Supposedly a whole bunch of folks (and not just Americans) thought that movie was just grand. But I know that something sinister was behind its popularity--mass hypnosis, widespread payoffs, whatever. The important thing now is to avoid falling for the same gag twice. I know Contact is supposed to have all kinds of fancy special effects and that adorable Jodie Foster, but you have to stay focused if you're going to kick this thing. If you find that Zemeckis is too nebulous a character to be the target of your hate (as men in glasses often are), then just imagine Foster's costar Matthew McConawhateverhisnameis. Forget for a moment his part in Dazed and Confused and see him for what he really is: the most bogus media concoction since Sandra Bollocks. He also has ludicrous hair (not in a good way, it goes without saying). If you're more of a name- than a face-person, I invite you to do a standard numerological analysis of "Zemeckis." The numbers don't lie!

If you still find yourself wanting to see Contact, you're obviously one of those problem consumers. You'll have to find some other Canadian film to distract you. Perhaps you're thinking along the lines of Titanic. Everyone seems to love it, it's winning all those awards... and what could top a disaster movie with a $200-million budget? And yes, director James Cameron is even from Canada. Case closed, right?

Wrong. Cameron may have been born in Ontario, but he fled to Hollywood at the first opportunity. Some might interpret this as a wise move, but I say it makes him a turncoat.

But what about Titanic itself? I'm not exaggerating or being unfairly nasty when I say that I can't recall a single absolutely good thing about it. Poster boy of the month Leonardo DiCaprio has become the latest hot young actor to (fatally) start believing his own press. Kate Winslet is... actually, I still think she's kinda hot, but she appears to be all bloated throughout the movie. Then there's the cardboard characters (like Billy Zane's villainous aristocrat, for example--admittedly one of the more entertaining characters): it just doesn't get any more one-dimensional than this.

But surely that's to be expected. Everyone knows they slapped that eternal-love bit on as a marketing move. It's really just a disaster pic, right? Well, in fairness, the sinking scene does look pretty cool, but after two-plus hours of half-baked romance, predictable class conflict, and lofty social messages with all the subtlety of Velveeta I was really not in the mood. And as long as I'm claiming to be fair, plenty of other f/x-heavy scenes come off looking cheap or technologically dated. It's like those slacker types who do nothing but smoke weed and are always buying the latest home-video-game system. These guys always want to show you some new game that "looks just like a movie." I can remember at least three shots in Titanic where the digital animation looked no more realistic than last year's Sega games.

Generally, I couldn't care less about effects, but I figure if you're gonna make a big show of being Mr. Obsessive Perfectionist you ought to deliver--especially when we're talking about the most expensive movie ever made. Then again, ad campaigns for the really big films are no longer about getting people to see the movie; these days most viewers are convinced they're going to love a movie before they even see it. As a result, there's no real reason to exert much effort on the film itself--if the marketing department does its job right, no one will even notice the rough edges. That's the theory, anyway. In the case of Titanic, it worked in a major way.

If you're still with me and looking to salvage something from this Canadian invasion, you can either take the easy route and rent Brain Candy... or you can go see Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. Egoyan may have been born in Egypt, but he's as Canadian as Bob & Doug McKenzie. And like the fellows pictured to the right (and unlike certain others we've met today), he had the guts to stay there.

This movie owes a clear debt to Fargo (the opening credits and music, in particular), but don't expect a lot of silly accents (a few "soary"s is about it). There's not much in the way of humor at all, for that matter, despite a whole rural town's worth of potential oddball cracks, such as the Bide-A-Wile Motel or the Spread Eagle bar. Instead, there is only despair, alienation, and finally a dignified perseverance.

But the direction is uplifting where the subject matter is not. The Sweet Hereafter may be a disaster movie, but the focus could not be more different from Titanic's. Notably, the disaster itself, a school-bus crash in which 14 children are killed, is shown only as a brief scene mid-film--probably the film's most serene moment. It is the town's struggle to rationalize and survive the disaster that provides the often jarring conflict. In fact, Egoyan's skillful development of the characters affected by the accident is as good a demonstration as any of just how pointless Titanic actually is. Cameron's characters exist solely to make the disaster possible. For Egoyan, on the other hand, it would only be a slight exaggeration to say that the disaster creates his characters.

This is a big difference--in this case, the difference between good and bad cinema, good and bad Canadians.