A4 - Friday, June 22, 1984 - North Shore News Lawdy, not me! I’m a Canuck who dreams of writing the script for The Great Canadian movie. This giant bilingual beaver is at- tacking the CN Tower... The shocking, horrifying truth is that only two per cent of the movies seen in Canada are of the homegrown varie- ty. And it isn’t just Yankee cultural imperialism at work. While Famous Players is U.S.-owned, Odean Theatres is now mostly Canadian- owned. And it doesn’t show any more Canuck flicks than the competthon. The bottom line, y’know. What pulls the rubes in? It used to be Doris Day. Now it's) Princess Leta. It ain't Martha Henry Canadian identity in cinema can be spotted by the Strictly personal by Bob Hunter At the movies HO IS GOING TO KNOCK culture czar Francis Fox’s efforts (wimpy as they may be) to force open the gates of Canada’s movie screens to Canadian movies? fact that when it finally ex- poses itself on the = silver screen, you get the feeling it has just exited. Nothing has changed since Stephen Leacock wrote Boy Meets Girl in Winnipeg, Who cares? Yet the British manage to shoot flicks that have regal texture and are sometimes even funny. The’ French make, well, oo la la! The Americans are kings of the entertainment galaxy. And even the Aussies make awesomely outstanding movies like Galipago and Breaker Morant. Canada renders Porky and Porky II. To say nothing of Spacehunter. Even the much-praised Grey Fox struck me as derivative. The Sundance Kid makes i= Golden Pond. As one of the legions of word processor- contaminated wretches who makes part of his living by writing scripts, let me il- lustrate the main reason most of us long ago died of starva- tion, and why our only hope in the future is the future itself, if you know what |! mean. Back during the brief era when investors could buy ‘‘units’’ in Canadian-made movies hat were good for a 100 per cent tax write-off (if nothing else), a Toronto pro- ducer took me down to Hollywood itself so we could both learn how to make a movie. Well, what a shock! Every time I'd get a script going, the producer would hustle me over to the office of a profes- sional Hollywood | script- writer, who had = actually worked on movies that got as far as the posters being made up. He'd look at the first two ICBC gives drivers break ICBC ois break In anticipation of an in- creasing number of cars be- ing used to drive to work dur- ing the shut down ot the Lower Mainland Transit System, the insurance com- pany has announced that rules concerning vehicles giving drivers a rated for ‘pleasure only’ will be relaxed for the duration of the strike. Autoplan Underwriting Manager James Cormack said those who do not usually drive to work but are forced to drive their pleasure-rated vehicles to work as a result of the shut down will not be denied coverage if they are involved in an accident. Normally, he said, anyone who drives a pleasure-rated vehicle to work or school more than four times in a month is in breach of the regulations and, of an accident, be denied. in the event a claim would 9:30 - 11:00 am DOORCRASHERS SAT 9301100 AM REAR BAGGER GAS LAWNMOWER ee Hace 247° LIMIT 1 PER CUSTOMER Heer, qty SAT 9 30AM 6.00PM 15% OFF OUR ENTIRE SELECTION OF BICYCLES ef 0; westlynn mall SAT 9301100 AM PUREX BATHROOM TISSUE Hot Baek 250 has, Limit 4 PER CUSTOMER SAT 8301100 AM ARKLA GAS BAR-B-QUE Crores Ete AU ey 147° Limit 1 PEA CUSTOMER Hen, JA ots ‘Only You'll Know How Little You Paid 1175 LYNN VALLEY ROAO NORTH VANCOUVER SAT 9:30.11:00 AM CANVAS PATIO CHAIRS Asst bce boatterrce 597 LIMIT 4 PER CUSTOMER SPEC TAG PURCHASE SAT 9 30AM-6 OOPM 25 OFF OUR ENTIRE SELECTION OF BASEBALt GLOVES Mon Wed Cam “van SS 8 30600 Thurs & Fri 8 30900 Sat 9 306 00 lines of my tenderly-wrought work of cinematic art, and say, ‘‘S---, kid, I’m asleep already!”’ Keep in mind that at any given moment there are 20,000 finished shooting scripts floating around Hollywood. Of these, maybe a dozen will reach the screen. Competitive? Ahem. These guys eat piranha quiche. It took a while to learn that there is a formula. And it ap- ples to every movie. You have a ‘‘plot-point’’ 15 minutes into the feature, the main body of your story line resolves itself by the second plot-point 15 minutes before the end, and that’s all, folks! Why? Don't ask. That's like marvelling aloud about how the emperor’s thing 15 showing. Anyway, it remains Canadian film-makers this Hollywood theory as gospel. It’s like knowing the secret of cash flow. You can’t challenge the mentality. I guess part of the problem is that we’re half-American to begin with. Most of us believe that Mounties actual- ly do sing to Rose Marie in- stead of bugging our telephones. Is there a cure? I dunno. Good luck to Mr. Fox if he’s serious about pushing open the gates — and more impor- tantly the tills — of the movie houses to accomodate Made- In-Canada_ celluloid fan- tasies, but | can’t help wondering if the basic struc- tural problem won't remain the same as it always has been. The Saskatchewn Chain Saw Massacre? Maybe if we bring in Tom Selleck... that take —_ The Bugs are Coming... (at these prices) Window Screens For sliding windows (up to 80 ui.) se hd for push out s 95 windows 1 4 Patio door screens s 4 5 00 Heavy Duty metal and up Free Measuring Installation available $29 00 per house or pick-up and install yourself to save even more! CAPILANO GLASS AND SCREENS LTD. Location #2 1483 Barrow Road, North Van 980-3735 WE ALSO RESCREEN YOUR OLD SCREENS. 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