We here at Canadian of the Week might have fallen a bit behind on our one-time promise to resurface the classic Canadian Heritage Minutes, but we still love them.
And it appears we’re not alone. “Scara,” the venerable founder and editor of GhoulsonFilm.net and good friend of Canadian of the Week, ran into Seth Rogen’s longtime buddy and co-writer Evan Goldberg, who beamed with excitement at the mention of CanadianoftheWeek.com and our mutual love of the renowned Heritage Minutes.
“I contacted the government and asked if we could make new ones like three years ago,” Evan said. “Me, Michael Cera and Seth wanted to go up there and make new ones. We wanted to do part of our future heritage and try to do a thing where we get like Pamela Anderson, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and Seth and Michael Cera — just get, like, every famous Canadian we can to do something like that. I’m still kind of into doing it.”
Scara and her morbid mind went straight to Dr. Wilder Penfield’s infamous “I smell burnt toast” bit.
“Burnt toast! Burnt toast?” Evan repeated. “I lived on Penfield Drive in Montreal. I lived outside the building of the man who came up with that. We’ve got a Chinese railroad worker episode … there’s more, burnt toast, the hockey mask one. Ah, those are the best.”
Our favorite on-screen pregnant teen and upstart roller derby gals Ellen Page is taking a serious and possibly surprising turn in her next role.
The 23-year-old Nova Scotian will be playing a lesbian car mechanic in a film based on the Oscar-winning short documentary, “Freeheld,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The short doc won in 2008 and tells the story of “New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree, who’ll be played by Page, and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester, who both battled to secure Hester’s pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness,” THR reports.
The script is being written by Ron Nyswaner, who was nominated for an Oscar for writing “Philadelphia,” in which Tom Hanks played a gay lawyer who was fired by his conservative law firm after he was diagnosed with AIDS.
Hanks’ daring portrayal earned him his first Oscar win. Could Ellen’s be far behind?
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Olivia Newton-John’s unlikely hockey connection as the Australian starlet has signed up to take part in “Score: A Hockey Musical.”
This bit of casting news makes a little more sense. WENN.com is reporting that Canadian Nelly Furtado is set to make her big-screen debut, playing a woman obsessed with the game, in the movie musical that is set to begin filming soon in Toronto.
Director Michael McGowan says, “Nelly is an incredible entertainer and, after speaking with her, I realized that she fully relished embracing her inner hockey fanatic.”
Real time be damned — especially when there’s a chance to make some real cash.
Kiefer Sutherland has reportedly received the green light to bring his tick-tock drama “24″ to the big screen, although it isn’t clear exactly when a film version of Jack Bauer’s escapades might be released.
The show is currently in its eighth season and is set in New York City for the first time. Last season, it went from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., marking the first location change in the show’s history.
“24″ has been down the movie route before, but only in a made-for-TV sense. “24: Redemption” was a two-hour film that served as a bridge between Seasons 6 and 7.
According to many reports, “State of Play” writer Bill Ray is lined up to write Jack’s big-screen endeavor, which would still reportedly take place over the course of one day, but would obviously not be in real time — because, well, that would make for a hell of a day at the movie theater.
The directorial showdown is complete, but Canadians are looking at one other than the highly reported one between “Avatar” director James Cameron and his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, who directed “The Hurt Locker.”
Canadians might be a little more drawn to Cameron’s head-to-head matchup with Jason Reitman, who was nominated for directing “Up in the Air.” It makes for the first time since 1997 that two Canadian directors are nominated in the same year. Cameron was also part of that mix, with “Titanic,” and went against Atom Egoyan, who directed “The Sweet Hereafter.”
Other Canadian nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards include: writer-director Neil Blomkamp, who was born in South Africa but grew up in Vancouver, who was nominated for best adapted screenplay for “District 9,” which was also nominated for Best Picture.
Set decorator Gordon Sim of Toronto is also part of the team nominated for Best Art Direction for “Nine.”
Canadians did manage to escape the Razzie nominations that were announced a day earlier, and will be handed out the day before the Oscars.
One of Canadian of the Week’s favorite new blogs is Ghouls on Film (ghoulsonfilm.net), where the horror movie genre is written about women, by women, and for women. You could maybe say it’s like Lifetime, but maybe Deadtime, if you know what I mean…
Anyway, the site is beginning a series of tributes to some classic scream queens and it just so happens they’ve started with Vancouver’s own Yvonne De Carlo.
As it turns out, she wasn’t always Lily Munster. In fact, the show only ran for two seasons (followed by two movies), and the 1940s and ’50s were considered the prolific period in the life of the actress who was once dubbed “the world’s most beautiful woman.”
While she’s no stranger to getting physical, we can’t help but wonder what Australian pop star and actress Olivia Newton-John knows about hockey.
Nonetheless, she’s starring in a new Canadian musical film that will begun production next week in Toronto, according a story in the National Post.
“Score: A Hockey Musical,” has every indication of being a sort of reverse “Billy Elliott.” Newton-John is set to play a hippie-intellectual mom who homeschools her son (newcomer Noah Reid), feeds him organic food, takes him to the art gallery and becomes dismayed when he reveals a love for hockey, and turns out to be exceedingly good at it, the National Post reports.
The world of movie musicals is obviously nothing new to Newton-John, who has “Grease” and “Xanadu” to her credit. She’ll also be appearing with Calgary’s Cory Monteith on “Glee” in the spring,
The movie is set to come out in Canada in October.
An emergency room doctor said on Tuesday that watching Canadian director James Cameron’s “Avatar” contributed to a 42-year-old man’s death.
The Taiwanese man, who suffered from hypertension, had a stroke after watching the movie. He was unconscious when he was brought to the hospital and his brain was hemorrhaging.
If ever there was a true honorary Canadian, it’s Brendan Fraser. He was born in the United States, but his parents were both Canadian and he holds the distinction of being the first American-born actor to get the honor of induction to Canada’s Walk of Fame.
Fraser took a moment — really, just a moment — to open up about his Canadian side to Sara Castillo, Comcast.net’s movie editor. She asked him about his “Canadian alter-ego and here’s what he had to tell us:
“I’m half-Canadian,” he said. “The lower half. That’s why I’m such an amazing dancer.”
You might have heard Fraser has a new movie out today, co-starring with Harrison Ford in the based-on-a-true-story docudrama, “Extraordinary Measures.” (Click here to see Sara’s full interview with Fraser, where he talks about working with Ford and taking such an emotional story and trying to keep it from becoming melodramatic.)
We here at Canadian of the Week might have fallen a bit behind on our one-time promise to resurface the classic Canadian Heritage Minutes, but we still love them.
While she’s no stranger to getting physical, we can’t help but wonder what Australian pop star and actress Olivia Newton-John knows about hockey.
An emergency room doctor said on Tuesday that watching Canadian director James Cameron’s “Avatar” contributed to a 42-year-old man’s death.
If ever there was a true honorary Canadian, it’s Brendan Fraser. He was born in the United States, but his parents were both Canadian and he holds the distinction of being the first American-born actor to get the honor of induction to Canada’s Walk of Fame.
