The 29th Genie Awards -- generally described as this country's Oscars -- are held tomorrow night in Ottawa, but don't be looking for Brangelina on the red carpet.
The ceremonies will be telecast on tape delay Saturday at 9 p.m. on Global.
As always, the national celebration of movies from the Great White North is a slightly schizophrenic affair, split philosophically between commerce and vision, and further complicated by various issues pertaining to marketing, culture and far-flung geography.
You can see some of the disparate elements vying for attention in the best motion picture category alone, what with Paul Gross' big-budget, blockbusterish, love/war story Passchendaele right there beside Amal, a small, heartfelt first feature from Richie Mehta that concerns itself with the haves and the have-nots in New Delhi.
(Passchendaele was named the 2009 Golden Reel Award-winner for being the highest grossing domestic film at the Canadian box office over the past year. This award does not preclude plenty of grousing about the movie, which is neither a crowd pleaser nor a critical success.)
Another movie on the best picture list is Carl Bessai's Normal, a well-cast but wooden tale of a car accident that upends the lives of all concerned. The movie stars Callum Keith Rennie, Carrie-Anne Moss and Kevin Zegers, but you'll notice that only Rennie rates an acting nomination. Normal falls somewhere between Hollywood B-movie and self-conscious Canadian thought piece -- box office no-man's-land, in other words.
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Also in the best motion picture sweepstakes is Tout est Parfait (Everything is Fine), a drama from Yves-Christian Fournier about teen suicide. Filmmaker Fournier is this year's winner of the Claude Jutra Award for this film, which is his feature directorial debut.
Then there's the film with eight Genie nominations, The Necessities of Life (Ce qu'il faut pour vivre), a quintessentially Canadian tale from Benoit Pilon about an Inuit man with tuberculosis who goes to Quebec for treatment. It was Canada's 2009 submission for a best foreign film Oscar. Set in the 1950s, the story is all about language, culture and identity; our American friends may view the 'fish out of water' genre as a chance to cast Michael Cera as a womanizer, but Canucks never fail to see a chance to teach history and tolerance.
The Necessities Of Life is a wonderful movie, but don't be surprised if it reminds you of those NFB educational films from Grade 10. The film stars Natar Ungalaaq and, as his attentive nurse, Eveline Gelinas; both have acting nominations and the magnificent Ms. Gelinas will be one of the presenters at the Genie Awards.
What the five movies nominated for best motion picture have in common remains a mystery to us.
While we're on the subject of presenters, the confirmed stars handing over hardware include Sarah Polley, Gordon Pinsent, Devon Bostick, Chloe Bourgeois, Marianne Fortier, Rossif Sutherland, Vik Sahay and Sheila McCarthy, among others. Stars rumoured to be attending include Ellen Burstyn, who is nominated for best actress for The Stone Angel, as well as Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow and Susan Sarandon, all of whom have acting nominations for their work in the film Emotional Arithmetic.
So where's the best movie nod for Emotional Arithmetic or the best director recognition for Paolo Barzman? Funny you should ask.
The Genie Awards seem keen to spread the nominations around to as many films as possible, a reflection of the fairness, good manners and inclusiveness for which Canadians are famous.
As for which movies are actually worth seeing, well, that would be a judgmental and potentially hurtful conversation. So we won't have it.
What makes perfect sense at this year's event is the choice of funny guy Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall) as host. Canadians are good at funny. In fact, some people believe that Canadians are actually best at (1) documentaries and (2) comedies, and while movies such as Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Mambo Italiano or Men With Brooms might do boffo box office, they're the toughest movies to get made in Canada.
Sun colleague and comedy aficionado Jim Slotek says that this is because government funding bodies only want to be seen giving money to serious undertakings. Is that why Kristin Booth's acting nomination is the only Genie nod for the comedy Young People F---ing this year?
Just another awards issue lost to history.
Genie noms
Best picture
- Amal
- The Necessities of Life
- Normal
- Passchendaele
- Everything is Fine
Best director
- Richie Mehta, Amal
- Lyne Charlebois, Borderline
- Benoit Pilon, The Necessities of Life
- Carl Bessai, Normal
- Yves-Christian Fournier, Everything is Fine
Best actor
- Paul Gross, Passchendaele
- Rupinder Nagra, Amal
- Christopher Plummer, Emotional Arithmetic
- Aaron Poole, This Beautiful City
- Natar Ungalaaq, The Necessities of Life
Best actress
- Isabelle Blais, Borderline
- Susan Sarandon, Emotional Arithmetic
- Preity Zinta, Heaven on Earth
- Marianne Fortier, Mommy is at the Hairdresser's
- Ellen Burstyn, The Stone Angel
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