Rudolf Arnheim 1904-2007

From his obituary...

"Rudolf Arnheim, a pathbreaking psychologist of visual experience in
the arts, died at the age of 102 in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 9
2007."

Read the full text here.

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Nobel Prize-winning novel, Blindness, adapted by McKellar

City of God director Fernando Meirelles, is directing Blindness, a Nobel Prize winning work, adapted for the screen by Canadian Don McKellar ((Thirty Two Short Stories About Glenn Gould). The Canadian co-production has a cast of a half a dozen Canadian actors including Sandra Oh, Maury Chaykin, Don McKellar and Martha Burns. They will star alongside Hollywood actors Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac), Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, and international rising stars Gael Garcia Bernal (Y tu mamá también) and Yusuke Iseya (Afterlife).

Production starts in Toronto in July.

[via the Globe]

Dan Aykroyd drinks a lot

Dan Aykroyd unveils his new 12 million Niagara region winery and kitchen.

Video

[Print via the Globe and Mail]

Canadian films in Canadian theatres: Showtimes

See a Canadian film if you can find one...




Love is Work Calgary link is now fixed.

A vos marques Party!

Montréal
Gatineau/Ottawa


Away From Her

Vancouver
Victoria
Kelowna

Calgary
Edmonton

Regina
Saskatoon

Burlington
Hamilton
Kingston
London
Oshawa
Ottawa
Toronto
Windsor

Gatineau/Ottawa
Montreal

Charlottetown

Halifax
Sydney

St. John

St. John's

Brand Upon The Brain!

Winnipeg
Toronto

Citizen Lambert: Jeanne d'architecture

Montréal

Love is Work:

Vancouver
Calgary

Sharkwater

Vancouver


If we missed your town and a Canadian film is actually playing there this weekend, please feel free to email us at nationalcinema@gmail.com and we'll update this list.

Fido Gets a Good Scratch Behind the Ears

Head on over to aintitcool.com for a rather complimentary review of Fido.

Their review touches on many of the same points I raised in my review sometime back, but they are much more positive.

So, go read the review, then,if you are in the US of A, check to see if Fido is playing near you. See it for yourself. It begins it's limited release on Friday.

t

Worldwide Short Film Festival on now.

The Worldwide Short Film Festival opened in Toronto yesterday, and it runs to the June 17.

Schedule

Find a time (cont'd)


Wednesday June 13

1:30 pm Laughing at Americans: New Voices of American Comedy Cumberland
2:00 pm Official Selection 1: One Big Crappy Family Innis Town Hall
4:00 pm Official Selection 2: Environ(Mental) Cumberland
4:30 pm Official Selection 3: Love You Like Crazy Innis Town Hall
7:00 pm Official Selection 4: The Political is Personal Cumberland
7:15 pm Accidentally Funny: How the World Was Safe Innis Town Hall
9:15 pm Official Selection 5: Portraits of an Artist Cumberland
9:30 pm Official Selection 6: Scenes of the Crime Innis Town Hall

Thursday June 14

1:30 pm Official Selection 7: I'm With the Band Cumberland
2:00 pm Official Selection 8: Animal Instincts Innis Town Hall
4:00 pm Official Selection 9: Fashion Victims Cumberland
4:30 pm Official Selection 4: The Political is Personal Innis Town Hall
7:00 pm Celebrity Shorts Cumberland
7:15 pm Official Selection 10: Sins, Vice and Everything Nice Innis Town Hall
9:15 pm Official Selection 1: One Big Crappy Family Cumberland
9:30 pm Official Selection 11: How Many Calories in This Film? Innis Town Hall

Friday June 15

1:30 pm Official Selection 6: Scenes of the Crime Cumberland
2:00 pm Official Selection 5: Portraits of an Artist Innis Town Hall
4:00 pm Official Selection 11: How Many Calories in This Film? Cumberland
4:30 pm Irish National Film School Spotlight Innis Town Hall
7:00 pm Trilogy of Trilogies Cumberland
7:15 pm Official Selection 7: I'm With the Band Innis Town Hall
9:15 pm Scene Not Herd: Music Videos Cumberland
9:30 pm Official Selection 3: Love You Like Crazy Innis Town Hall
Midnight Midnight Mania: Creepy Cumberland
Midnight Slap n Tickle Innis Town Hall

Saturday June 16

1:30 pm Shorts for Shorties 1: Ages 6 to 9 Cumberland
2:00 pm Official Selection 10: Sins, Vice and Everything Nice Innis Town Hall
4:00 pm Official Selection 12: Honey, I Screwed up the Kids Cumberland
4:30 pm Sci-Fi: Out There Innis Town Hall
7:00 pm Official Selection 8: Animal Instincts Cumberland
7:15 pm Official Selection 9: Fashion Victims Innis Town Hall
9:15 pm Laughing at Americans: New Voices of American Comedy Cumberland
9:30 pm Official Selection 2: Environ(Mental) Innis Town Hall
Midnight Slap n Tickle Innis Town Hall
Midnight Midnight Mania: Freaky Cumberland


Sunday June 17

1:30 pm Shorts for Shorties 2: Ages 9 to 12 Cumberland
2:00 pm LIFT 25th Anniversary: Film is Dead! Long Live Film! Innis Town Hall
4:00 pm Official Selection 12: Honey, I Screwed up the Kids Cumberland
4:30 pm Nordic Spotlight: The Other Great White Norths1 Innis Town Hall
7:15 pm Nordic Spotlight: The Other Great White Norths2 Innis Town Hall
9:15 pm Opening Gala: Award Winners from Around the World Cumberland
9:30 pm Sci-Fi: Out There Innis Town Hall

Top 5 Canadian Films at box office June 1-7, 2007

Playback was nice enough to compile the top 5 Canadian films at the box office.

1. Away From Her, $125,277, 5 weeks, 34 theatres, $901,726 total.
2. La cité interdite, $17, 488. 1 week, 11 theatres, $17,488 total.
3. A vos marques... Party!, $2,613, 10 weeks, 6 theatres, $2,019,265 total
4. Ma fille, mon ange $2,337, 16 weeks, 1 theater, $2,647,039 total
5. Sharkwater, $1,534, 11 weeks, 2 theatres, $665,853 total

As Ted points out, Brand Upon The Brain! is #50 with 4 theatres (1 in LA according to The Digital Bits) and has made $201,013 in 5 weeks.

Canadian Box Office - Weekend of June 8, 2007

1 Ocean's Thirteen Warner Bros. $2.84 mil $2.84 mil
2 Pirates of the Caribbean... Walt Disney $2.34 mil $20.17 mil
3 Knocked Up Universal $1.76 mil $5.39 mil
4 Shrek the Third DreamWorks $1.37 mil $24.21 mil
5 Surf's Up Columbia $973,180 $973,180
6 Eli Roth's Hostel Part II Maple $398,614 $398,614
7 Spider-Man 3 Columbia $322,147 $30.22 mil
8 Mr. Brooks Odeon $289,442 $1.19 mil
9 Spider-Man 3: The IMAX Experience Columbia $67,705 $2.37 mil
10 Away From Her Mongrel Media $60,103 $827,281

Away From Her holds on to the ten spot, and has made $4,962,327 worldwide since its release on May 4.

The only other Canadian film in the charts, Knocked Up, was made by Americans. I had a chance to view it over the weekend, and I have to say, I recant my earlier boycott. This was truly one of the better Canadian comedies I have seen. I believe I noticed about 12 references to Canada in the film - Canadian, Canada, Vancouver, and British Columbia spoke aloud, a red Canada flag tattoo, a sign that crassly read: "Canadian beaver - Pamela Anderson, Elisha Cuthbert" etc., insurance (as in Canadian), a British Columbia license plate which I adored seeing, and a hundred references to pot, there may have been more.

Really, I think we should give up making Canadian comedies all together as the Americans clearly do it better than us. They have all our actors, and they are not restricted to CAVCO points. When Hollywood makes a Canadian film with a 33 million dollar budget and a good script, why even try anymore?

Canadian films: showtimes Friday June 8th, 2007

Wanna see a Canadian film this weekend...


Away From Her

Vancouver
Victoria
Kelowna

Calgary
Edmonton

Winnipeg

Toronto

London
Burlington

Kitchener
Hamilton
Gatineau/Ottawa
Montreal

Halifax

St. John

St. John's

Brand Upon The Brain!:

Vancouver - Vancity Cinemas show times

Winnipeg - Globe Cinema show times

Toronto - Cumberland show times

Love is Work:

Toronto - Canada Square showtimes

If I missed your town and a Canadian film is actually playing there this weekend, please feel free to email us at nationalcinema@gmail.com and we'll update this list.

Friday: 2 new films; Knocked Up (cont'd), Danny Ocean

Two new Canadian films open up today. Guy Maddin's Brand Upon The Brain! opens up with a limited run, and Toronto writer-director-actor Johnny Kalangis releases his second film Love is Work on one screen in Toronto (BTW did anyone see his first? Jack & Jill? Anyone?)

On IMDB Love Is Work is said to be a 2005 film, such is the nature of independent cinema in Canada. Playback has an article on Kalangis' unique distribution plan. I read a scathing review of Love Is Work in the NOW,so I don't hold too much hope for this one. See it while you can folks, it won't last long.

In the Knocked Up Vs. Rebecca Eckler saga, D.B. Scott has further news on his site Canadian Magazine.

And in the "you have to love Québec category" in certain cities and towns Ocean's 13 is called Danny Ocean 13 which is such a better title.

Box Office Québec: Semaine du 01 Jui au 07 Jui 2007 (semaine 23)

1 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT ... Buena Vista 1,213,966 3,516,402
2 SHREK THE THIRD Paramount 743,837 4,608 676
3 KNOCKED UP Universal 357,401 357,401
4 MR. BROOKS Vivafilm 291,979 291,979
5 SPIDER-MAN 3 Sony 260,735 6,716,683
6 FRACTURE Vivafilm 58,211 1,630,698
7 28 WEEKS LATER Fox 33,706 528,680
8 PARIS JE T'AIME Christal Films 31,556 56,810
9 SEVERANCE Christal Films 26,785 26,785
10 APRES LA NOCE Films Seville 24,439 101,640

No more Sarah Polley in Québec, or Lindsay Lohan (thankfully), at least not in the top ten anyway.

[via Box Office Québec]

The Best thing on YouTube: His Girl Friday - Between The Lines Edit

I saw the Guy Maddin event last night as part of Luminato at the Drake Hotel (glad it was free is all I can say). He and Eye Weekly critic Jason Anderson held a "clip off" showing old film clips as representing the "lives they wished to lead." It was rather odd and highly unorganized but interesting none the less. Anyway, I recorded it on audio and will put it up as a podcast shortly once I break it down into something manageable. The event was 90 minutes.

One of the clips Jason Anderson presented was from Howard Hawks His Girl Friday. So as part of reconstructing the talk (I unfortunately couldn't get any video), I was rummaging around and found the above clip, edited by Valentin Spirik.

It's quite amusing since the entire film has had all the dialogue cut out, no mean feat as His Girl Friday is primarily known for having the fastest dialogue sequences in cinema. Clearly it's the best thing I've found on uTube yet (well, other than the entire Beatles Anthology in ten minute segments).

Enjoy.

Radio-Canada gives French language features 12 million; Anglophone filmmakers migrate to Québec

Is this discriminatory?

Can we get the language police to force Radio-Canada to equally dole out the cash to Anglophones ? Can we force Parliament to do something? Can we move to Quebec and establish residency there? How many days do we need? 90? We can use that time to get our screenplays translated into French (we'll dub the film back into English later anyway).

You'd probably have to find someone who could read and write French as well so they can write up a nice proposal to Radio-Canada.

How's this for a plot: Old French grandparents die and leave their grandchildren (3 hot sisters) an old Parisian-style country cottage (if such a thing exists). As a celebration, the sisters have a huge house party. Lots of sex. It turns out to be a haunted house. Lots of gore. Two of the sisters die, and the sole surviving sister turns out to be pregnant with something evil (sequel!).

That would be great in French.

We probably just need an interpreter on set. That's pretty easy especially when most of the dialogue from the script will be replaced with screaming anyway. Clint Eastwood directed a film with an all Japanese cast, we should be able to at least understand a tenth of what we hear from our Québécois actors, given that we've been reading the backs of cereal boxes all these years.

Thanks Mr. Trudeau.

[via Playback]

Parliament set to fast track US lobbyist piracy bill without any debate

That's right, the Conservative government is set to put in motion Bill C-59 without any hearings, or independent study being put forth.

The MPAA snaps it's fingers, and we do anything to quickly please them. It's no wonder that we don't have a thriving domestic film industry, with knee-jerk politicians deciding what is good for us.

Let's be clear, camcording is piracy there is no doubt about that. But without clear studies on the impact of Canadian piracy - especially something that is so short term (camcording effects theatrical runs, as its low-quality-audience-in-frame-people-talking-in-the-background DVD's are quickly abandoned once proper DVD copies can be made from studio replicated copies), we are just blindly accepting what a powerful US lobby group tells us to do without batting an eye, and only putting a Band-Aid on the actual problem.

Dr. Michael Geist (the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa) has the best overview of the new bill on his site which I urge you to read.

Michael Geist: Canada Anti-Camcording Bill

Canadian journalist sues Knocked Up filmmakers.

This is really great. Rebecca Eckler a Calgary journalist, is suing Universal Studios and writer-director Judd Apatow, over plot similarities to her 2004 memoir with the same title, Knocked Up.

"Both my book and the movie feature one night of passion and the nine months that follow. Fine. Whatever," she wrote."But what got me was the fact that 'Alison' was an up-and-coming television reporter; in my book, I was an up-and-coming newspaper reporter."

Here's hoping that this will stall the DVD release of Knocked Up, and force Seth Rogen to move back to Canada, and live the rest of his life in relative obscurity as a comedian doing wonderful comedic work on hit Canadian television shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Royal Canadian Air Farce.

Canadian actors deserve the best Canada can give them. Seriously.

[via The CEEB]

C-59, New Piracy Bill; Capital punishment

Well this didn't take very long (I thought a day was forever in politics?).

Bill C-59 was announced on Friday by Industry Minister Maxime Bernie and our esteemed Heritage Minister, Bev Oda. The new bill proposes to change the criminal code to make it illegal to camcord a film without the theatre managers consent, upon penalty of death.

[via Playback Magazine]

Canadian Box Office: Weekend of June 1, 2007

1 Pirates of the Caribbean... Walt Disney $4.40 mil $16.28 mil
2 Shrek the Third Paramount $2.24 mil $22.04 mil
3 Knocked Up Universal $2.11 mil $2.11 mil
4 Spider-Man 3 Columbia $598,826 $29.65 mil
5 Mr. Brooks Odeon $579,454 $579,454
6 28 Weeks Later 20th Century Fox $108,414 $2.62 mil
7 Spider-Man 3: The IMAX Experience Columbia $93,619 $2.26 mil
8 Georgia Rule Universal $82,848 $2.31 mil
9 Away From Her Mongrel Media $72,051 $711,944
10 Fracture Alliance Atlantis $58,989 $4.80 mil

Well, maybe you thought I was joking when I said to boycott Knocked Up. It made $29 million USD and $2.11 million Canadian, and you've all gone and made Seth Rogen a bankable actor, and now he's off to a great career in Hollywood. So, shame on you all for seeing the only new film that was even remotely original. You should feel really, really horrible about that, and even more horrible if you went and saw Georgia Rule this weekend.

Thank God Callum Keith Rennie will never be a star. We'd hate to lose him.

Sarah Polley on the other hand will never be able to escape Canada, and is holding strong in the top ten and lucky #13 stateside. Away From Her has now grossed $4,448,640 (USD) worldwide in one month. That should almost pay for the budget without P&A.

[via Tribute]

[Correction - Away From Her was mispublished as reading $4,444,64 (which looks a lot like $4,444.64). The correct worldwide gross is now posted above as $4,448,640]

Cry Like A Lion

This past Saturday, the Leo Awards were handed out. For those who don't know, the Leo's are the British Columbian film awards. Also, for those who don't know, these awards are the source of many an inside joke in the production community in BC. I'd type out one of those jokes, but none of them are funny.

Hit here for a list of the winners.


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Hollywood steals yet another comedy actor from Canada

Seth Rogen, a Vancouver native is poised to become a new A-List star in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up", a new comedy from the 40 Year Old Virgin director, which opens today.

Since A.O. Scott, The New York Times critic calls the film "an instant classic", we've for sure lost this Canadian boy forever.

So, my fellow Canadians, I'm urging you to boycott "Knocked Up" to send a message to Hollywood to leave our actors alone!

They belong at home under paid, under appreciated, and on the CBC.

Send your concerns to us and we'll send them to Hollywood.

[via The Globe and Mail]

Québec Box Office: Semaine du 25 Mai au 31 Mai 2007

• 1 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT ... Buena Vista 2 302 436 2 302 436
  
• 2 SHREK THE THIRD Paramount 1 088 767 3 864 839
  
• 3 SPIDER-MAN 3 Sony 391 783 6 449 132
  
• 4 FRACTURE Vivafilm 91 738 1 572 487
  
• 5 28 WEEKS LATER Fox 70 634 494 974
  
• 6 GEORGIA RULE Universal 42 002 283 265
  
• 7 AWAY FROM HER Metropole Films 29 360 92 732
  
• 8 PARIS JE T'AIME Christal Films 25 254 25 254
  
• 9 NE LE DIS A PERSONNE Films Seville 24 516 310 778
  
• 10 APRES LA NOCE Films Seville 23 013 77 201
  

If there is anything to learn about the Québec box office, Québecers like being spoon fed pap, just as much of the ROC (Rest of Canada) does.

Fracture? Georgia Rule?

Tabarnac!

[via Box Office Quebec]