{"id":14340,"date":"2016-09-29T14:42:07","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T18:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14340"},"modified":"2016-09-30T01:57:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T05:57:34","slug":"dvd-being-canadian-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14340","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Being Canadian (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BeingCanadian_s\"Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Passion River<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a00\u00a0(NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0September 13, 2016<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Documentary<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Comedic\u00a0TV scribe Robert Cohen travels east to west in a very personal search for what it means to be\u00a0a Canadian.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0(none)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Norway and in Sweden they have the same brutal winters we have, and they come up with death metal, and in Canada, we come up with comedy.\u201d — George Stroumboulopoulos<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question \u2018What is a Canadian?\u2019 is something many citizens have pondered \u2013 \u2018Not American\u2019 is one of the popular answers cited within Robert Cohen\u2019s cheeky documentary \u2013 but for the writer of several successful American TV series (MADtv<\/strong>, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment<\/strong>, The Big Bang Theory<\/strong>) and an ex-pat, it apparently became a thorny issue that needed to be explored within a self-imposed 7 day stretch in which Cohen would trek through the country\u2019s provinces, moving from the east to the west coast, and make it just in time for July 1st, Canada Day.<\/p>\n

Cohen draws from his weighted contact list of industry friends and associates plus his own firm grasp of comedic timing to assemble a snappily edited travelogue that worms its way through classic misconceptions (the Nice thing, the Boring thing), the lack of international recognition four our existence (Do they know we exist?), weird habits (apologizing to inanimate objects and strangers), and the country\u2019s classic iconography of Winter, Beer, and Hockey (with an honorary mention going to curling, and TV\u2019s The Beachcomers<\/a><\/strong>) in what\u2019s less of a feature-length primer for foreigners, and more of a self-help guide for Canadians themselves.<\/p>\n

For its first two-thirds it\u2019s a sharp, giddy little journey with plenty of idiosyncratic moments, but when Cohen eventually nears Vancouver, B.C., for Canada Day celebrations (which of course<\/em> he\u2019ll make on time), there\u2019s the inevitable wrap-up, and it\u2019s a rather tepid summation (\u2018Forget the past; the Canada of today is odd, cool, and wonderful\u2019), if not anti-climactic, given the alternative finale is a validation of the inferiority complex both our host and fellow famous Canadians (Michael J. Fox, Nathan Fillion, Jason Priestley, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Thicke, Alanis Morissette, Alex Trebek, Paul Shaffer, Morley Safer, RUSH, the Bare Naked Ladies, Howie Mandel, Eugene Levy, Russell Peters, sharp-witted David Steinberg, a half-naked Dave Foley, the ever-wonderful Catherine O\u2019Hara, and more) readily admit exists and is part of the population\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n

Being Canadian<\/strong> could be dubbed a vanity project for lacking a broad journalistic scope, but that\u2019s not Cohen\u2019s goal; this is more of a personal media essay on the quirks of a culture, and their advantages \u2013 making us predictable in being odd, brilliantly passive-aggressive, and maybe the world\u2019s largest exporter of comedians \u2013 which ensures we\u2019re not just absorbed as a little brother of the U.S, but regarded as a nation that has transcended the \u2018lowered expectations\u2019 mindset that dominated the 70s and 80s. (A lengthy segment on the instantly recognizable look of sickly-looking Canadian shows of those decades is spot-on; you really could spot a local production based on bad lighting, grainy film stock, and a thing known as CBC light that determined a film print\u2019s colour timing.)<\/p>\n

The tone is satirical, self-effacing, and tongue-in-cheek (plus a little smart-ass, when you acknowledge Cohen\u2019s own sense of comedic timing), and although Being Canadian<\/strong> doesn\u2019t offer enough factual meat to be a formal hard-hitting doc, as a piece of informative entertainment and a personal journey of sorts and at least for most of its running time, it\u2019s a giddy, often hysterical ride that forces viewers to share in the self-deprecating laughter of its author and interview subjects who either retain ties to their citizenship, or have chosen to live in what\u2019s a pretty fine country.<\/p>\n

Passion River\u2019s DVD is a bare bones release with an elemental menu, and in scanning the list of interview subjects on the IMDB, it seems Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City<\/strong>, Ticket to Heaven<\/a><\/strong>), and Micheael Buble didn\u2019t make the final cut, which isn\u2019t likely a loss given Being Canadian<\/strong> runs a brisk 90 mins. Several of Cohen\u2019s interview subjects are decades-old friends, and he mines their wit for an assortment of comments and baffled expressions that don\u2019t come off as staged (although a session with a shrink on the issue of feeling like the not-so-cool cousin to the U.S. is obviously rehearsed).<\/p>\n

One of the biggest conundrums that constantly raise the ire of CanCon fans isn\u2019t addressed in the doc, but is ironically represented by the doc itself: like many Canadian films and TV series, the DVD is only available as an import. Cohen\u2019s film can be bought via two online vendors<\/a> (Google Play + iTunes), but there\u2019s no domestic DVD, and it\u2019s unavailable for digital download from Vimeo. This is of course perfectly poetic, because the doc represents the ongoing apathy of traditional domestic distributors towards their own Canadian film culture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2016 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question \u2018What is a Canadian?\u2019 is something many citizens have pondered \u2013 \u2018Not American\u2019 is one of the popular answers cited within Robert Cohen\u2019s cheeky documentary \u2013 but for the writer of several successful American TV series and an ex-pat, it apparently became a thorny issue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[4668,4667],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3Ji","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14340"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14367,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14340\/revisions\/14367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}