Hollywood North

It's 1979. Newbie Toronto movie producer Bobby Myers (Matthew Modine) options a Canadian book hoping to make a Canadian movie based in Toronto. He's told to get an American movie star lead and heads off to Hollywood. It's Hollyweird and he's forced to compromise at every turn.

This is a movie about 70's Hollywood and the inferior complex in Toronto. This is a moment in time as the film industry morphs into something different in the 80's. This is trying to be a satire. The problem is that it's not actually funny. It's a little tiresome. The mockumentary isn't actually interesting. Modine is a functional movie lead. In a way, he's the American lead in a movie about Canadian film industry. It's meta but it's not funny and therefore it's not compelling. For a comedy, there are few comedians here. At best, there are a couple of comedic actors. It's all rather flat.

There's no doubt that the Canadian tax shelter filmmaking era could be satirized, but this movie doesn't support that. The movie doesn't really go into depth about the system - I suspect that many viewers (even Canadian) won't know anything about the era, and will be confused by some parts of the movie. (I was fortunate enough to know about the era and the Canadian film industry, so I was able to understand these parts.) Part of this can be blamed on the frequent hurried and rushed feeling of the movie - there is long narration at the beginning instead of showing us what the narrator tells us, for one thing. Movie has a poor sense of time - you never feel this is 1979, and at one point, snow starts falling in the area but later the events of the movie are happening in the late summer! What really sinks the movie are the portrayal of most of the characters. They are thin, but for the most part they are so goofy we can't believe what they do. The few characters that stay serious are good (John Neville does well as the past-his-prime director character), and we see that a movie that would have been more serious and done things that COULD and DID happen would be more engaging (and would probably be a lot more funny.) The movie is also hampered by a low budget that gives the movie a murky and dark look.

From the closing credits, it appears that the Canadian government (via the Telefilm Canada film funding agency) financed this movie. This movie is just one example of the millions of dollars Telefilm has spent in financing bad movies no one wants to see. What the Canadian industry really needs is a movie that will savagely attack Telefilm and its questionable practices.

This movie captures the absurd essence of an overbearing American patriot actor -- one that believes his work (and politics) are as crucial to the American people as the opinions of the President himself. Alan Bates captures this mindset perfectly as Michael Baytes, and I will immortally remember Bates as this character. This is a movie for Canadians and Americans alike. It is a valuable piece of cinema, that which is able to take its audience through the magic of making a film and reveal just how easy it is for the producer and director to lose complete control to the will of the actors and innumerable outside forces. Wonderfully, "Hollywood North" does not suffer from the subject that it portrays: Peter O'Brian directs with precision and complete control, and commands both the serious 'behind-the-scenes' portion of the movie, and the movie-within-the-movie, "Flight to Bogota" with clarity and insight. If you are at all interested in the wit and strength of Canadian cinema, "Hollywood North" is a great place to start.

"Hollywood North" is an euphemism from the movie industry as they went to Canada to make movies because of tax breaks and cheaper costs in a civilized city like Toronto, in this case, later in Vancouver. Peter O'Brian, the director, probably saw a lot of the invaders from California that this movie seems to be the right way to deal with the arriving personalities trying to capitalize on the economics that Canada presented.

Needless to say, "Moon Lantern", the successful novel written by a Canadian author is turned into "Flight to Bogota", which has nothing to do with the original film. A great egotistical has-been, Michael Baytes, who is obsessed with what is happening in Iran, is offered the lead part, which turns to be a disaster.

The film seems to be saying that too many cooks have spoiled the broth, which seems to be the case with the ultimate product, which is saved by its producer, Bobby Myers. With the help of Sandy Ryan, who has been around making a documentary of the film being shot in Toronto, parts of the film are transformed into a cohesive movie at last.

The filming process is hilarious, and the acting, in general, is good.

Never have I seen the beautiful Jennifer Tilly look as luscious as she does in Peter O'Brien's "Hollywood North". I saw the film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and the movie is still on my mind. That's because "Hollywood North", a comedy about the 'movie biz' actually delivers the cinematic goods.

The movie's tech credits are slick all-round and directed with a steadfast assurance by O'Brien, a notable producer of some merit during the Canadian 'tax-shelter' movie scene of the early '80's and '90's, winner of numerous Canadian film awards while giving a break to many up and coming actor/writers. Now its his turn to helm the action and he has turned in a sophisticated and wry comedy about a movie scheme that unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse.

Ms. Tilly is quite unforgettable as a sex-starved actress, performing in a low-budget movie titled "Flight To Bogota", with one particular hot scene that rivals Kim Cattral's love-making from another Canadian classic "Porky's". Meanwhile the beautiful Deborah Kara Unger pops in and out of the film sets with a documentary camera crew, putting the finishing touches on HER movie about the making of THIS movie.

Matthew Modine is quite hilarious as a befuddled newbie producer, John Neville as an assured, yet doddering director, Kim Coates as a hot-headed actor, Fab Filipo as the young leading man, Joe Cobden as Modine's frizzy-haired co-producer and Alan Bates, as a crazed, gentlemanly actor from the old school.

But the real star of this show is Hollywood North itself : the fledgling Canadian film industry of the 1970's searching for culture, indentity and a quest for respectability ...

This is an entertaining feature that deserves a wide theatrical release...