Canadian Essentials: DVD
From 1940s
Quebec to Toronto in 2003,
here are our choices for the 50 most essential
Canadian DVDs.
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Selections 1 Thru 25 |
Selections 26 Thru 50
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Mon Oncle Antoine
Mon Oncle
Antoine is Claude Jutra's masterpiece: A poignant, starkly honest,
but humane film, shot through with authenticity from beginning to end.
Realized with an unflagging artistic vision, Mon Oncle Antoine poetically portrays a young boy's coming of
age, vividly capturing the 1940s Quebec... Read more
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Canada's Team of the Century: The Best of '72
It was the most
dramatic hockey series ever played, won by a historic goal in the last
minute. Featuring the entire eight-game series of the 1972 hockey
summit between Russia and Canada, Canada's Team of the Century
combines the thrill of Canada's national sport with a great moment in
Canadian... Read more
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Trailer Park Boys: The Complete First and Second Seasons
(Collector's Edition)
This wildly
popular show has come to be considered by many to be the pinnacle of
Canadian comedy. Filled with quintessentially Canadian humor and
storylines, Trailer Park Boys, a show about "big plans, little
brains," is brilliant homegrown satire. It will undoubtedly have an
influence on Canadian... Read more
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The Sweet Hereafter (Widescreen)
Ian Holm
- Egoyan's
Masterpiece, The Sweet Hereafter is a beautiful, stark, honest,
poetic, and emotionally devastating examination of human nature and
human resilience in the face of tragedy. A metropolitan attorney
travels to a small B.C. town where 14 children have been killed in a
school bus accident to... Read more
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Goin' Down the Road
Any Canadian who
has left home for Toronto can identify with this movie. The main
characters, Peter and Joey, strike out from Nova Scotia in search of
dreams in the big city. But as in any classic road movie, things never
seem to work out as planned. Peter and Joey would serve as the models
for... Read more
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Also: 50 Most Essential Canadian books
Also: 50 Most Essential Canadian CDs |
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Black Robe (Widescreen)
Lothaire Bluteau
- It's been called
"The Anti-Dances with Wolves." An epic, sprawling re-creation of the
turbulence of the colonization of Quebec, Black Robe
captures a moment when Canada was part of the "New World" still
waiting to be explored and the clash of cultures about to be
unleashed. Gorgeous cinematography... Read more
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Léolo
Leolo
is a black comedy about an impoverished Montreal boy who creates his
own mental world in response to his real-world chaos and his family's
weirdness. This critically acclaimed art-house favourite, directed by
Jean-Claude Lauzon with music by Tom Waits, is rendered in an amazing
series of... Read more
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Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner [2 Discs]
Atanarjuat:
The Fast Runner is the first feature film made in the Inuktitut
language. Based on an ancient Inuit legend, it's an epic tale of love,
betrayal, family, and survival played out against the harsh and barren
white landscape of the Far North. Noteworthy for its
cinematography,... Read more
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SCTV: Volume 1, Network 90
Because of
SCTV’s huge influence on comedy, TV, and movies today.
Because of John Candy and Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. And, of
course, because of Doug and Ken McKenzie. |
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Careful [IMPORT]
A self-styled
"pro-incest" movie about a town in the Alps where the fear of
avalanches means that no one speaks above a whisper? When Winnipeg's
Prairie surrealist Guy Maddin, slowly working his way through the
forgotten genres of early film, decided to turn to the German Alpine
pictures of the... Read more
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| 11. |
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Strange Brew (Widescreen)
You gotta love a
movie filmed in "hoserama." Bob and Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis and
Dave Thomas) attempt to scam a free case of beer from the Elsinore
brewery, which is, of course, run by a mad scientist, and only our
beer-swilling, plaid-shirt-and-ski-toque-wearing heroes can stop him
from taking... Read more |
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Tillies Punctured Romance
Marie Dressler
- Several leading
figures of early movies (among them actress Mary Pickford and director
Allan Dwan) were transplanted Canadians, and this landmark film
brought two of them together. When Quebec's Mack Sennett, the
mastermind behind Keystone slapstick comedy, wanted to make the first
feature-length... Read more
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Tales from the Gimli Hospital [IMPORT]
Guy Maddin
turned to (or, rather, on) his own Manitoban Icelandic [ds2]heritage
for his first feature film, Tales from the Gimli Hospital. Made
on weekends with a $20,000 Manitoba Arts Grant, this aggressively
primitive, surrealist mockery of the stoic local sagas of immigrant
Prairie hardship... Read more
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The Last Waltz (Widescreen, Special Edition)
Robbie Robertson - Universally
acclaimed as one of the great concert films, The Last Waltz,
Martin Scorsese's gorgeous account of the Band's star-studded 1976
farewell concert feels at times like a Canadian musical reunion, as
Joni Mitchell and Neil Young join the Band in their celebration of a
long life on the North... Read more
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Fubar
A hilarious
mockumentary about two Canadian metalheads (you knew these guys in
high school) that brilliantly and unapologetically skewers Canadian
rock culture. Gordon Skilling plays Farrell Mitchener, a filmmaker
shooting a documentary about the lives of Dean and Terry, two young
men who drink... Read more
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Also: 50 Most Essential Canadian books
Also: 50 Most Essential Canadian CDs |
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Anne of Green Gables
The orphan Anne
Shirley is a classic character in children's literature, brought to
life in this adaptation of the popular book by Canadian L.M.
Montgomery. This DVD version of Anne of Green Gables
does a fine job of enhancing Montgomery's original story, and as
such it's a strong adaptation of a... Read more
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Exotica
This critically
acclaimed psychological drama-mystery won Atom Egoyan a Genie for best
picture. Exotica was a real breakthrough for Egoyan; his
direction here is deft, and we see his artistic style developing,
which later found full expression in The Sweet Hereafter. |
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Due South: The Complete Third Season with Original Pilot
(4 Discs)
This TV show
about an RCMP mountie (Men with Brooms’s Paul Gross) from the
Northwest Territories going to Chicago to hunt down his father's
murderers ran for only a few seasons but has become increasingly
popular over the years. Due South does a great job of taking
Americans' views of... Read more
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Calendar (Full Screen)
Calendar is one of Atom Egoyan's most courageous
works: Technically experimental but also very human. This strange but
beautiful tale about a love triangle involving a photographer, his
wife, and their guide as they travel through Armenia is required
viewing for fans of Egoyan, one of Canada's most... Read more
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Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould [IMPORT]
Colm Feore - A collection of
vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and
character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist, Glenn Gould.
Directed by Quebec native Francois Girard, it won multiple Genie
awards--including best picture, and best director for Girard--for its
sensitive... Read more
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Mr. Dress-Up: Tickle Trunk Treasures
Ernie Coombs'
Mr. Dressup, along with his puppet friends Casey and
Finnegan, was a staple of CBC's morning schedule for an incredible 32
years. He closed his tickle trunk for the last time in 1996, although
this timeless children's show continues to be rerun today. That same
year, Coombs was... Read more
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Buster Keaton Rides Again: Featuring the Railrodder
Buster Keaton went to Canada in 1965 to star in The
Railrodder, a National Film Board production. The Canadian
railroad is one big playground for an aging Keaton to perform some of
his best stunts in this classic slapstick travelogue. The
Railrodder, a silent, "modern short," is one of the last... Read more
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Nanook of the North (Full Screen)
Nanook of the
North is a true landmark in the history of documentaries. Filmed
around Hudson Bay by American anthropologist Robert J. Flaherty in the
early 1920s, it depicts the life and culture of Nanook and his tribe
of Eskimos. Nanook is really an homage to human perseverance
and survival under... Read more
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I've Heard the Mermaids Singing [IMPORT]
A beautiful film
about underdogs, life in the arts, love, and finding your true
identity. Imbued by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema with some very
memorable moments, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing is
noteworthy also for being made on a shoestring budget and shot in
16mm. It went on to win the... Read more
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The Decline of the American Empire
Writer-director Denys Arcand became an overnight success
with The Decline of the American Empire. Arcand's film is a
cerebral take on the yawning gap of communication between men and
women, as well as on how the genders view each other, relate, and
ultimately seek happiness. Winner of eight Genies,... Read more
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Selections 1 Thru 25 |
Selections 26 Thru 50
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