Reviews

This filmed Canadian stage production from Stratford Ontario sacrifices some of the beauty of Shakespeare's meter and rhythm for the sincerity of the new world. Colm Feore proves himself once again a national treasure as Lear and Stephen Ouimet is lovely as his fool. Another standout is Jonathan Goad as Kent who brings an unflagging energy to the part. As a fan of the bard and his many film and television adaptations I found this to be a pretty fair mounting of the play.

This film is in the same vein as Gagarin First In Space and Salyut 7. Russian movies that celebrate Soviet era achievements in the space race. And why not?

The Soviet Union had a great many 'firsts'. First satellite (sputnik) First man in orbit (Gagarin) First space walk (Leonov) first woman in space (Terskova) first space station in orbit (Salyut).

Here we finally get Leonov's very dramatic story. It is noteworthy that Leonov himself acted as advisor for the production, though it should probably be taken with a huge grain of salt. You have only to see interviews with him in various documentaries to see his larger than life personality. I was glad to see general Kaminin getting his due alongside Korolov (the chief designer) as the fathers of the Soviet program. Some would criticize the movie for a lack of historical accuracy. But its compensates by being entertaining. Besides, they did get quite a bit of it right, including some of the stuff that defies belief.

The special effects are top notch, the cinematography is beautiful, the acting is perfect and the pacing of the story is at times fast moving and at times marvelously poetic. The score can sometimes be overbearing however. But well worth watching for people (like me) who are interested in the space race.

As an amateur genealogist I was riveted. These 10 young people signed up for quite an adventure in wanting to cross the Atlantic to retrace the steps of their ancestors from he 17th century.

Their living conditions, though drastic from a 21st century stand point, were not nearly as awful as those of the actual colonists heading for New France. To compensate for this the producers gave them the extra duty of acting as members of the ship's crew, taking on sailing, rigging and maintenance of the three masted vessel under the guidance of an almost exclusively English speaking crew.

I found myself quickly rooting for the ten colonists. They were quite a sympathetic lot. As they discovered the difficulties of feeding themselves on board using only 17th century technology as well as improvising clothing, hammocks, etc. Suffering sleep deprivation and constant hunger, the group learns to pull together and offer each other moral support.

Well worth checking out if you can.

The first twenty minutes have great promise as the dying Albert asks his two wartime buddies for a huge favor. Darkly humorous. Once the show goes on the road however the movie starts to lose its charm and the character of Vicki makes no sense at all. I cannot write more without spoiling the twist such as it is. The ending is too obvious and overstated. I was perhaps hoping for too much from the great David Warner.

Marketplace has been a staple of Canadian television watching for nearly fifty years. From it's early days when "Stompin' Tom Connors" sang the opening theme song "...You save a lot of money spendin' money you ain't got!" through a string of hosts, many of whom went on to be national news anchors. "Marketplace" was a show we turned to for the low down on publicity trends, product safety and confidence men praying on unwary consumers. Many people turned to the "Marketplace" team for justice or to expose crooked business men and women. Often large corporations would settle out of court with victims of fraud rather than be exposed publicly on the show. Terrific television.

Arcand's direction is in many ways more polished than Gilles Carle's from "Les Plouffe" but the smaller budget shows.

We are shown the post World War Two years in Quebec. The changing morals and fashions. Ovide is still as uptight as he was in the first film. His marriage to the good time girl Rita Toulouse has not brought him the happiness he desired. He is still the Charlie Brown character of the piece.

Lemelin and Arcand try hard to make this into an exciting thriller but fail. There's just not very much to care about. Ovide is not that compelling a character. Gabriel Arcand is a mesmerizing stage actor, but on screen he lacked the charisma to carry the movie to its climax. By the end I really didn't care if he killed his wife or not. Today I don't even remember if he did it or what his fate ultimately was. Lemelin might have done better to follow up with the story of one of the other brothers. Maybe Guillaume.

Based on the novel by Roger Lemelin written in 1948. Les Plouffe tells the story of a roman catholic french Canadian family from Quebec city circa 1930 to 1945. It was adapted as a long running live television series from 1953 to 1959 under the title "La Famille Plouffe" on the french Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Canada) network.

In 1980 film maker Gilles Carle set out to make a feature length motion picture with producers husband and wife Justine and Denis Heroux and John Kemeny. As many of those tax credit deals worked, they needed a signed broadcast deal to get the financing together and Radio Canada stepped. The film was released in 1981 to great acclaim and a longer two part version was later broadcast on CBC television and on Radio Canada television.

While the longer version has more depth of character and takes its time to give further context to its action, the theatrical film moves along and has the virtue of being punchier and more energetic. It is a populist story that shows the social and political context of french Canada between the wars very well. We see the shackles of the Catholic Church and the growing strain the population felt under its restrictions. We see the sentiment in French Canada against the British monarchy and the fear of conscription in the upcoming war. We are shown the unrelieved poverty many french Canadian families lived in during the depression. All four of the Plouffe children live with their parents and work to contribute to the family earnings. Each in his or her own way yearns to get out on their own.

Following the success of "Les Plouffe" Lemelin wrote a sequel book under the title "Le Crime d'Ovide Plouffe" which became an immediate best seller in Quebec. It was quickly adapted into a two part television miniseries directed by Denis Arcand of "The Decline Of The American Empire" fame.

The DVD for "Les Plouffe" would have to wait for release until the 21st century.

One of the few movies where the "remake" was better. The movie "Stones For The Ramparts" 2014 (also released as Warsaw 1944) is based on the same subject. The real life story of a Polish group of underground resistance fighters called the Gray Army. The major beats are the same in both films but the second version is more involving. The cinematography in this earlier version is murky. The DVD transfer on the version I saw was horrible. Still, this version is watchable if you can't find the other one.

This three part television miniseries is in dire need of being released on DVD. This is a co-production by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada and written, produced and directed by one of the best film makers this country has ever given birth to.

It stars one of our really interesting character actors from the 1960s- 70s-80s Sean McCann. As a child remember seeing Mr.McCann in many TV series and movies. A steady, familiar performer in every role he has ever played.

I saw one of the three episodes (the first one, I believe)on TV when it was originally broadcast and loved every minute of it. I never caught the other two. Sadly, the original series languishes (like many other fine productions) in vaults at the Cinémathèque, or at the National Film Board or at the CBC and is not made available for us to see and learn from. This is our history, and a very interesting one indeed.

If you want to see snippets of this production you can view them online at the national film board web site in a thirty one minute docudrama by Ema Buffie called "Mackenzie King And The Conscription Crisis".

But really, there was so much more to this production. When will the NFB and CBC make this series available to Canadians? Stream it or release it on DVD and Blue Ray.

This documentary uses some "new" approaches to showing combat in Europe during the second world war. In addition to the usual black and white footage of soldiers in the field, they use contemporary technology and graphics to illustrate how the weapons of world war two worked and inflicted damage and wounds to combatants.

I was particularly impressed with the sequence where they prepared and used real ordnance to show what being shelled in a fox hole in the Ardennes must have been like.

No Hollywood precut trees, squibs and special effects. The real thing is shocking. How anyone could survive such an ordeal is beyond me.

The interviews are touching. Overall a good but not outstanding documentary about the fighting in Europe after D-Day.

I just borrowed "Death by Moonlight" from the library to refresh my memory as to its contents.

I have just recently read Donald L. Miller's majestic "Masters of the Air" in which he backs up many of the "Death by Moonlight" affirmations about "Bomber" Harris and the whole culture of denial experienced by both American and Allied bomber crews.

Although Miller principally describes American strategic daylight bombing - itself a tragic miscalculation - he also covers the efforts of the RAF to demoralize German civilian populations by carpet bombing their cities with incendiaries.

Canadian and Commonwealth crews could not possibly have had any illusions about what they were doing, knowing they were carrying this kind of ordinance. The innocence and lack of complicity of the fliers is one point the film tries to push that doesn't jibe. On the other hand, one expects that a scared 20 year old whose life expectancy was counted in months (remember only one in three crews survived their tour of duty) had other priorities than to question the overall strategy of bomber command.

In 1993 I was a film student in Montreal and read all about the controversy "The Valour and the Horror" elicited in its original broadcast. The whole story of this film and its two companion pieces brings into question the role documantarians play in the way we see ourselves over time.

This question becomes even more relevant with the manipulation of the media in the war on terror, the invasion of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, 9-11 and various nations jumping onto the American band waggon to war.

This film is too important a document (in Canadian media history) to be dismissed in a cavalier manner. Please take note that I do not refer to it as a "documentary", but nor do I think of it as a work of fiction or "theater" as tombaginski describes it. It is worth seeing as part of the corpus of historical work on Canada's part in World War Two as well as for its controversial role in our media history.

The brothers McKenna brought into question the competence and motives of Canadian and British military leaders during World War Two in their three episode series. They thought they were doing so from the safe platform of a 50 year distance. Veterans living at that time rallied and savagely questioned the validity of the series and the right of both public broadcaster (CBC) and film makers to dare suggest they were anything like war criminals. The McKennas found their credentials and integrity were severely brought into question - very publicly so.

Here is an overview of the controversy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valour_and_the_Horror

I was thinking of how we think about historical events and where we get background information when writing about history. How are myths created? I was going to quote journalist Philip Graham, who in 1963 said:

"So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never be completed about a world we can never really understand."

The key phrase is "the first rough draft of history" - one that becomes all but impossible to erase over time once it sets into the public mind, like concrete. Ironically, as I sought out the originator of the quote I discovered that it's attribution has also been called into question

In a 1943 book review in the New Republic journalist Alan Barth wrote, "News is only the first rough draft of history." It has also been attributed to Douglass Cater.

I hope this film does not sink into obscurity. It should be seen. It deserves to be studied and discussed. Its strengths and flaws should be analyzed.

I saw this when it was originally broadcast on CBC but was not paying enough attention. I have since read more about this very important Canadian. The production values of this series are excellent and the cast are superb.

King was in power for 22 years, the longest run of any democratically elected man in the free world. He nursed a politically volatile country through most of the great depression and world war two.

The fact that he was a complete lunatic makes this achievement all the more noteworthy. His deep belief in spirit ism led him to commune with Leonardo DA Vinci, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his dead mother, and several of his Irish Terrier dogs and President Roosevelt. A lifelong bachelor, he frequently consorted with prostitutes and was possibly an unacknowledged homosexual.

Donald Brittain was one of our best documentary film makers. This docudrama is worthy of released on DVD or blue-ray. (though it is available for streaming on the internet).

As a teen age boy I watched this on memorial day when it was originally broadcast. As a Canadian I was deeply moved by the waste of young lives. It haunted me for years. Memories of this documentary fuelled be later to read every book I could find on the subject.

I especially recommend James Leasor's "Green Beach" "Unauthorized Action" by Brian Loring Villa, Lucien Dumais' "Un Canadien Français à Dieppe", "the Shame and the Glory" by Terence Robertson, "Tragedy to Triumph" by Denis Whittaker.

The film makers combine interviews with veterans with archival footage and beautiful and evocative paintings depicting the events. I was especially impressed with the art work. A superb overview.

Just wanted to put it out there that the Canadian Broadcasting corporation has no idea how to commercialize its product. Many great titles were shown once

This wonderful miniseries, probably the best on the subject is not available on either VHS or DVD. Someone uploaded a really crappy home VHS copy onto You Tube that is unwatchable.

After its original broadcast the copyright was allowed to lapse. It is now in the public domain for commercial exploitation by anybody who wants to hunt down a good quality print and transfer and distribute it.

Rare War Films has made a copy available for purchase from a print with Danish subtitles. It can be ordered online. The quality is doubtful and it comes without packaging.

I just wish one of the original producers would get their act together and put together a proper DVD release.

The shame of this production is that it treats one of history's most successful mass murderers with downright affection. It comes across as a black shirt recruitment film.

I have no problem with biographies that treat historical figures as complex human beings. In fact I think it is important to treat history with respect. I do think we need to be shown the complete story, however. Mussolini and I never shows us the brutality of the fascist regime. We are not really shown the torture chambers, the concentration camps or the complete collaboration the Italians gave the Germans in putting together their FINAL SOLUTION.

The series builds empathy for the mussolini clan. Hoskins delivers a portrayal of Benito ("Benny") as a man of conscience and morality. The other poles of sympathy are Hopkins as the spineless administrator who helped keep Mussolini in power for 22 god awful years.

If this were a series made today about Saddam Hussein viewers and reviewers would be in an uproar. The producers would be crucified for their fascist leanings.

As a Canadian I have a somewhat different take on the American western. In film school we studied it as a genre, rather than as history. Director Reynolds, with the same deep interest most Texans hold in their hearts for the genre, gives us a wonderful, poignant entry to this genre. Costner pursues his abiding love of Westerns, after two marvellous directorial efforts in the genre and even more forays as an actor.

The wonderful thing about both Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds is that they strive to make their westerns as both history and contributions to the genre.

As a French Canadian I also tend to place each film I see in a sort of continuity within an artist's evolution rather than as a singular piece of art. As such it has merits beyond itself. Its more of a European bias that allows me to love a film for its non diagetical qualities. Remnants of the "Nouvelle Vague" way of looking at film.

The Hatfields & McCoys, beyond its own merits as a western or as an historical reference point (and it has many merits) is another chapter in the collaboration and artistic exchange between Reynolds, and Costner. This one seems to be a very healing experience, after the very painful ones of Robin Hood (1991) and Waterworld (1995).

Reynolds is the director who launched Kevin Costner way back when in 1985, when he cast him in Fandango. In 1990, when Costner turned his hand at directing for the first time with another western, the very risky Dances With Wolves, he turned to his friend Reynolds for advice. He even went to far as to give him "special thanks" acknowledgement in the end credits.

After over twenty five years of ups and downs it is satisfying to see them collaborating again. It is great to have them finding success and recognition together. Hopefully there will be more to come.

This series' focus is primarily on the propaganda angle of World War Two. Inevitably, parallels of what has been happening in the world, and particularly in the USA for the last fifteen or so years leap to mind.

The gearing up to war, the creation of scapegoats in the media to promote someone's political agenda. The cult of public image of political figures. It is sad, knowing what we know, that we are still falling for the same old shams.

The information presented by this series is not new, a lot has been written or said in different venues about how Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the Togo government in Japan manipulated or controlled mass media in order to seize and then keep power.

I am into the second episode (of six) of this series. Hopefully as it goes on, the series will bring to light the Allies attempts at propaganda as well as the Axis'.

Of late we have seen a new spat of high quality documentaries and fictional movies on World War Two that, given our media culture are shifting our point of view and perspective about those terrible days.

We are witnessing the passing of living witnesses to the events and we are seeing a new, very savvy generation of documentary film makers sifting through the massive and comprehensive record they have left behind. This has produced films about war correspondents ("Shooting War") or a rumination on the images themselves ("Canada's War In Color") as well as documentaries that try to breathe new life to well known images through restoration and new digital technologies ("Apocalypse: World War Two").

Just as in fiction, "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers", "The Pacific" and other movies are stripping away the image we inherited from a heavily self-censored Hollywood to show a darker more realistic view of the "greatest generation", historians are seeing new subtext in the old records.

This is a very appropriate addition to the corpus of 21st century documentaries about the first half of the twentieth century.

Highly recommended.