I’ve been on a bit of a documentary kick lately, and recently discovered Living in the Past. One of the first reality TV shows, it was a 12-episode BBC series which documented the experience of 15 young Britons living for a year as Iron Age men and women. They built their own houses, grew their own food, slaughtered their own animals and so forth.
I watched a kind of one-hour summary of the show courtesy of a BBC4 show called What Happened Next? I guess when you’re as big and old as the Beeb, you can produce a show that’s entirely about the future of other past shows.
In any case, I really enjoyed this documentary, despite nobody being kicked off the island. You can watch the whole hour-long show on YouTube:
This is a rare cross-post from this year’s side project, One Year, One Canadian. April is the month I add movies and TV to the list of consumables which must be Canadian.
Now we are getting serious.
Finding Canadian-made household goods has been a challenge, but switching toothpaste and deodorant is, by any standard, pretty much a foamy latte problem. The subsequent months–clothing and investments–have proved interesting distractions more than anything. There’s plenty more to learn in all three categories. However, April is where, to reference a famous American movie, the speeder bike hits the redwood tree.
I love going to the movies. Attending a weekday matinee by myself is one of the sweetest joys of my self-employed life. And I go to a lot of movies. In 2006, I saw 61 films in the cinema.
How many of those were Canadian? None, I’m afraid.
That’s not because I hate Canadian movies. There simply aren’t that many to see in the cinema. At any time in Vancouver, there are zero to one Canadian movies showing in the theatres. Those that are shown are often “good for me”–they’re the granola of movies. I don’t mind these movies, but it’s always an extra effort to go to them.
So, switching to only movies from the Great White North is going to be a sacrifice.
Everything Night in Canada
I don’t actually watch that much television. I’m an ardent Canucks fan, so I see most of their games. I also watch the occasional English soccer game.
After that, though, I download nearly all of my TV. Those shows are either middle-brow dramas like “Dexter” or “True Blood”, or middle-brow comedies like “Community” or “30 Rock”.
Am I loyal to any Canadian television dramas or comedies? Nope. Is that because most Canadian television can’t compare to the best American shows? I’m afraid so.
The saving grace, at least for a few months, is hockey.
What’s Canadian?
In discussing this month, people have been interested in talking about the rules. How will I identify Canadian movies and television? Does Battlestar Galactica qualify because it was shot in Vancouver with a bunch of Canadian actors? Is Juno Canadian because it’s directed by and stars Canadians?
Others bring up the Canadian Content question. Will I just refer to the CRTC’s list of approved programs? I looked into the qualifications for CanCon Television (the CRTC doesn’t oversee movies), and the requirements are pretty byzantine. Here’s the summary provided on their site:
The producer must be Canadian and is responsible for monitoring and making decisions pertaining to the program
The production earns a minimum number of points based on the key creative functions that are performed by Canadians
A minimum percentage of program expenses is paid for services provided by Canadians or Canadian companies
I could go the CanCon route, but there’s actually a simpler criteria. It’s like that old maxim about pornography: we know it when we see it. Danger Bay?Canadian. Battlestar Galactica. Not so much. One Week? Canuck. Juno? Nice try.
That approach may seem overly simple, but I think it’ll work just fine. What do you think? Do I need a more sophisticated approach than “Canadians can spot a Canadian production a mile away”.
Over the past few years, a number of friends have urged me to check out the most recent version of Dr. Who. I’m on holidays at the moment, and there are some Dr. Who DVDs where I’m staying.
I watched the first two episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, and Billie Piper (who I previously knew from Secret Diary of a Call Girl).
I had low expectations. I’m on vacation, after all. But, seriously, both episodes were pretty awful.
Eccleston seems to be acting in an entirely different show–a 30′s vaudeville act?—than the rest of the cast. The dialogue is clunky in an early Star Trek vein, and rarely amusing. Speaking of Star Trek, the special effects look like they belong in The Next Generation, circa 1990. All in all, it felt like television from a different era.
I should interject here that I’m a sincere lover of plenty of British stuff, from Martin Amis to Father Ted. So this isn’t some New World bias.
What is the appeal of this show? Does it depend upon familiarity with earlier versions of the show? Is there a kind of intertextual dialogue that I’m totally missing? The second episode’s story draw from Douglas Adams’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but that’s the only reference I picked up.
It seems apt to compare the newest Dr. Who to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. I found the latter show consistently terrific–dark, contemporary and culturally relevant–without being dependent on its predecessor.
In the past few years, I’ve become interested in the rise of female power, particularly in the realm of money and consumption. Here’s an example from your local drugstore’s magazine rack.
I don’t do this with any sense of resentment. Men have wielded the purse strings for all of human history, after all. It’s high time that pendulum swung the other way.
Last night, it occurred to me television was following other media forms in its reorientation to female audiences. Consider the most popular shows in the US for last week:
Dancing with the Stars
American Idol – Wednesday
American Idol – Tuesday
NCIS
The Mentalist
NCIS: Los Angeles
CSI
Survivor
The Good Wife
Criminal Minds
I can’t speak to all of the shows in the top ten, but the top three definitely have a predominantly female audience. None have an obviously mostly-male audience. This should be no surprise. Women control a huge portion (85%, according to this article) of a household’s income. And–this was news to me–they watch more television. The most recent data I could easily find was from 2004, but in that year, Statistics Canada reported that adult women watched nearly five more hours (25.6 to 20.9 hours) of television a week than men.
Musing on this topic on Twitter earlier today, I asked about TV shows (besides sports and shows about cars) that predominantly appeal to men. Here are some of the suggestions I received that rang true:
Mythbusters
Handyman Superstar Challenge
Dexter
Most Extreme Elimination Challenge
Deadliest Catch
The Simpsons
Family Guy
There were also several suggestions for anything on Spike TV. Is that the only male-oriented channel, besides the likes of TSN and SportsNet? What’s your experience of watching television these days?
In recent months, while watching hockey games, I’ve noticed these L’Oreal For Mencommercials featuring Patrick Dempsey:
The target demographic for these commercials is surely wives and girlfriends. The cliche here is the wife sitting beside her husband on the couch, a little bored as she half-watches LePeiter pass to Huckenchuck and go offside. Then she immediately perks up when Doctor McDreamy or whatever his frackin’ nickname is shows up on-screen.
The ad’s subtext is simple: “Buy this for your man, and he’ll be slightly more similar to Patrick Dempsey”. That’s fair enough–ads employ aspirational messages all the time. That doesn’t make the ad or the product line any less ridiculous. L’Oreal for Men? Seriously? This is one wrong-headed brand extension.
On the other hand, this excellent Old Spice commercial seems to intentionally spoof the Dempsey ads. And I think, given its mix of hunk and humour, it’s going to reach both people on the couch:
“If he stopped using lady-scented body wash, he could smell like he’s me.” Bonus points for the subtle reference to the SNL digital short, “I’m on a Boat” (rated PG for cuss words).
I’m an occasional listener to Stephen Fry’s excellent podcasts, and reader of his blog. I’ve always admired Fry. He’s a Renaissance man–a consummate orator, a great essayist, a skilled actor and he’s got one of the largest functional vocabularies I’ve ever heard. He brings a joyful curiosity and wit to every project on which he works.
One recent project is Stephen Fry in America. It’s a six-part BBC series in which Fry visits every one of the US’s fifty states. All six parts were scheduled in one day over the Christmas break, and I recorded them all. They’re quite enjoyable–it’s always entertaining to see the familiar through a foreigner’s eyes. I’m also learning the odd fact about US geography and history. They’re lightweight fare, but they’re beautifully shot and Fry makes a charismatic host. Here’s a promo:
In writing this post, I was reminded of two other projects involving Stephen Fry. He hosts a very British game show called QI, which stands for ‘Quite Interesting’. To call it a game show is a bit generous, as it’s really just a framework for five funny people to be funny. Here’s an example:
Fry was also involved in Last Chance to See, following in the footsteps of Douglas Adams’s best book of the same name. He accompanies Mark Carwardine, Douglas’s co-author, to re-visit six critically endangered species around the globe. My favourite, by far, is the kakapo. Here’s an enormously funny moment from Fry and Carwardine’s encounter with one of these very odd birds:
In the past, I’ve complained about a film and television trope that I call “can you clean that up a little?” It’s the moment in crime dramas and thrillers when, back at the lab, some nerdy technician spouts technical gobbledygook and uses some fancy version of Photoshop to improbably improve the quality of some grainy security footage.
Today Andy pointed out this great montage of these moments, created by this person:
Over the past week, I’ve been contacted about three new (or at least newish) web series. Vancouverites will recognize a bunch of locations in these first two. The first is a comedy called The Jim–here’s a teaser (rated PG for strong language):
The second is The Vetala, and seems to be a bit X-Files-esque. Aesthetically, this feels heavily influenced by Battlestar Galactica. Here’s the first episode:
The third is the slickest of the three, kind of a sci-fi show featuring a girl and her wolf entitled Riese. Again, the first episode–note the great costuming: