Don McKellar : The Reviews Are IN: McKellar Bombs

What is everybody afraid of when it comes to reviewing this jerk's garbage films?

Been looking around for reviews of this cross-eyed dork's new flic CHILDSTAR but couldn't find a single one in any of the Toronto papers or media. Really weird, I thought. I had no intention of dropping 17 bucks or whatever to see it at TIFF. Don McKellar is a mediocre nothing talent-wise and I can't stand the guy or the absolutely bizarre way in which he has the world of Canadian film is given to him and his buddies on a silver plate. But I was curious if it was as hopelessly bad as the elements seemed to indicate it would be. Any film written, directed, and staring this egomaniac pseudo-intellectual is going to be abysmal. The only reason that I can come up with as to why there's no reviews around is that everybody is scared in Canada to tell it like it is with regards to this guy and his gang. But what's to be scared of? Is this failure and his friends so powerful? How? Why? They aren't afraid elsewhere.

Anybody read the Variety review of this disaster? I just did. One of the worst slaughterings of a feature film since Battlefield Earth.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=upsell_review&reviewID=VE1117924867&categoryID=31&cs=1

A 5 million dollar road movie staring dorky cross-eyed Don McKellar. Indeed.

I'd be laughing really hard right now if a nice chunk of my *beep* tax dollars didn't go towards supporting this pompous son of a bitch and his self-indulgent garbage and all of his buddies. How much longer can this insanity go on?

It's always an easy out to try and make wild claims about peoples's sanity on a webboard when you disagree and don't have a leg to stand on. That's fine.

Some people have positive opinions about this old boys network, some have negative opinions. I'm simply sharing the overwhelming opinion of at least 95% of the Canadian public. This is evidenced in their complete rejection and disdain for the films. They've voted conclusively for a decade plus with their money. It's beyond any possible denial. It's true. Ask any average educated, intelligent Canadian what they think of Canadian films and they'll tell you. We could have a gigantic poll and it would be overwhelming. Though they are paying most if not all of the bill for this group, they hate what they're getting for their money, and can't stand people like Don McKellar those who know who he is. If I were wrong about that, we'd see Canadians embracing these people and Canadian film wouldn't in the hopeless state it is. We'd have a viable homegrown English Canadian film industry resembling, say, Australia5b4. Or, like we've got in Quebec. But, like most Canadians, they don't speak up. Instead I just get private messages telling me how glad they are somebody is saying something. Finally.

No, I'm going to continue on. Likely I will have little effect I have no illusions about that. But I believe that quality English Canadian filmmakers and actors with mass appeal should have an alternative to Hollywood. As long as this small, highly organized group keeps a grip on the funding sources and are not outed and get the public criticism they've got coming to them, those new talents have little chance but to flee down south as they traditionally have.

I am curious as to how the Canadian public voted with their money. The opportunity is rarely given. What Canadian films other than Foolproof and Men with Brooms have recieved wide distribution among theatre chains and anything that resembles marketing. I enjoy many Canadian films, but it can be quite a chore hunting most of them down. Other than the odd festival or screening at an independent theatre, you don't really get the opportunity.

The only way that the Canadian Public can "vote with their money" is by buying or not buying tickets.

The reason you don't see them is because most of them aren't very good and there isn't really anything to sell or market them with intrinsic in the film. Really good films make their own way out there eventually, whatever country or language they are in, provided they have something that can be "sold" in marketing. How in the world is somebody going to market a road movie staring a cross-eyed zero charisma dork like Don McKellar? I mean, my God it's laughable. Construct a tag line for CHILDSTAR. Then seriously ask yourself who the *bleep* is going to see this? A few hundred people? A public funded five million dollar movie for a few hundred people? It's insane.

Santo is undoubtedly bitter, and more than a little sad at the state of things. Obsessed? Maybe. Sort of. But why not be?

"Have you invested that much time/energy into your own work? Probably not."

Meaning what? If he had, he'd get the attention from the Canadian film mafia that McKellar and Egoyan and others have? If you're even suggesting that, it shows you don't really understand the way things work in the Canadian film game.

Just because Santo says things with a certain degree ofum, passion doesn't make him wrong. At all.

There are plenty of us who agree wholeheartedly with him.

But most of us don't.

Thank you, jeb2.

I know that there is an enormous group of people who agree with me. In fact, it is the vast majority. No if ands or buts about it.

The problem is that there is so much indifference and so much contempt for these few people in the inner circle, that as a result there are just so many very talented people that write off any hope of bothering with staying in Canada that they just leave. I mean just think about all the Academy Award winners (not doing animation) who are Canadian who jumped ship. Recent examples of people simply leaving include the writer of MILLION DOLLAR BABY and director/writer of the terrific CLEAN. Okay, didn't win for screenplay, but "Best Picture" ain't bad. Gee, you don't see him around Canada, do you? Yet he was big news as the "great Canadian hope" in the Oscars this past year. Nope not working here in Canada is he? Had some minor success with one of the very few good Canadian TV series that ever existed (DUE SOUTH) and got the hell out. The reason he isn't around Canada tells us all we need to know about how things work. Namely, good writing means NOTHING in Canada and: HE WAS NOT A MADE MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN FILM "ILLUMINATI". Again, I apologize if I sound like some kind of flake on COAST TO COAST am radio, but there is no closer comparison than that made up shadowy organization to what we really have here in Canada in real life.

I'll stand here and tell it like it is. I don't care how many people from Northern Lights Management come on here and secretly post against my posts because I'm speaking the truth about their hyped up clients. Or how many lackies of the Big Boys try and dismiss my viewpoints. They are the viewpoints of the Canadian Public who view Canadian film and its "celebrities" and "auteurs" with the complete contempt that the absolute financial failure of English Canadian films at the box office proves time and time and time again. There is no escaping the hard financial reality of that. Canadians hate "their own" films which are created by the Don McKellars who are mediocre nothings who have weaseled their way to the top and have incredible power to create multi-million dollar vanity projects seemingly at will all at Canadians' ex5b4pense and nobody is doing anything about it! Somebody has to say something some time.

Magnifico

"I know that there is an enormous group of people who agree with me. In fact, it is the vast majority. No if ands or buts about it."

i know im really late on this thread, but i gotta say this. where are you getting your statistics for this statement?? i did a little survey of my own of around 45 people who enjoy Canadian films,or at least have seen a few due to me studying film and forcing them too, and i'd say the VAST majority liked him. they may not have loved him as much as some on this board (some of them did), but there were very few who actually didn't like him, or hated him, i'm not trying to take a persdonal stab, but before you go making assumptions like that (i believe a previous post said something 95% of people didn't like him). of course something ike 45 people doesn't speak fopr the whole canadian audience, but again one of your previous posts said something about only a few hundred people seeing these films, and considering i didn't ask any of the many people posting on this board who enjoy him, i'd say he's not doing too bad gaining the support of Canadian audiences. and one final thing, why don't you get all these people who are apparently leaving you personal messages to actually post on here so the McKellar fans can see, i mean you're trying to pursuade the public that he's talentless, why not let us see this point of view form more than 2 people?? also, the reason Canadian films don't do so well is because of a lack of marketing, and the fact that most popular theatre chains in Canada are actually owned by the U.S. and since these films don't have the typical predictable Hollywood, most audiences aren't interested. they don't want to be challenged, they want the same formula spit out at them all them all the time. and finally, who else is in this "inner circle" that you speak of? which from the sounds of it, is monopolizing the Canadian film market.

"Clean" director Olivier Assayas is French, but not in the Canadian sense. Granting that the film was shot in Canada, I'm not sure we could honour Mr. Assayas with the distinction of being a Canadian filmmaker, much in the same way we would not consider Paul Walker a Japanese leading man for his work in "The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift."

Also, Don McKellar was a featured actor in "Clean," leading me to follow your calculus to the conclusion that the film was tainted, incompetently directed, corrupted by unwarranted federal funding, and, in fact, did not at now or any point truly exist.

As far as I know the only film I saw that he was in was Childstar. I didn't think it was a bad film, but I really disliked his acting and his character. He seemed really egotistical, but I guess I can't really judge since I haven't seen anything else he's been in.