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I love Gordon Pinsent. So, so much. It must suck to be Kevin Newman, though, don't you think? I wonder if he sits there every year wishing for Peter Mansbridge to be hit by an asteroid and Lloyd Robertson to run off to an artists' colony in Peggy's Cove. Don't worry, Kevin, at least you're the cute one. And I loved Peter Keleghan's "In Memoriam" segment. Spot-on choice of presenters (performers?) for that bit. I love him too. I know it'll never happen, because, well, Canadian show with no real international marketing possibilities, but I would be absolutely thrilled if they'd release Made in Canada on DVD. Oh, and I was also very fond of (ha, did not say "I loved" that time!) those cute little pop art/comic book-style frames they used for the clips and nominee shots. Snazzy! Some of the comedy bits worked better than others, but even when the jokes flopped, I still had the fun of playing my yearly game of "Canadian Celebrity Bingo," and that's always keen. And at least it was far, far less boring than your average US awards show. Well, except for the Golden Globes, where there's always the chance than someone will get tipsy and veer madly off script. Better than nothing, though it pales in comparison to Scott Thompson in a kilt. Maybe we have too many celebrities in the States. I mean, fifty seems to work pretty well for Canada. Anyway, good show and congratulations, Canadian broadcasting industry!
Random Canadian celebrity encounter semi-anecdote: once, when I was living in Toronto, I ran into Colin Mochrie (who was also very funny at the Geminis) at La Maison de la Presse in Yorkville. Ran into, like, ouch! In my feeble defense, it was early, pre-coffee, on a Sunday, so I wasn't awake yet. And I couldn't even figure why he looked so familiar at first, so while I was apologizing for hitting him with eighty pounds of New York Times, I was squinting at him, trying to place him. He ran away pretty quickly, at which point my brain kicked in, of course. Ohhhhhhh, that was Colin Mochrie! And I just bruised him and freaked him out! So yeah, it went pretty well, I think. I've also walked into (ouch!) Tie Domi (also in Toronto) and R. H. Thomson (in Ottawa). Leah Pinsent I saw, but from a distance, so she escaped without injury. My track record is not so good.
In other tv-watching news (coincidentally still Canadian Content, though)- I needed a break from Xena but the stack of Stargate discs wasn't calling to me right now, so instead I've been watching Jeremiah and Dead Zone. Which is a good thing, because yay! Great shows! Just what I wanted! But it's also a bad thing, because the combination is making me so very paranoid. These are not shows designed for sleep-deprived people, let me tell you. I'm jumping at every shadow- "eek! It's a vision of doom! Eek! It's a germ! Eek! It's the eeeevil guv'mint!" Any day now, Ross is going to innocently swipe at my ankle and end up squished under a heart-attack-having owner and a rain of Friskies. Still, a little psychotic paranoia is a small price to pay for good television, right? A far more troubling side effect was my bizarre decision to switch from the Geminis to CBS for half-an-hour to watch Malcolm-Jamal Warner's sitcom, whatever the heck it's called, despite the fact that I A) very rarely like sitcoms, and B) very rarely like Jason Alexander. That... was not a good show. I think I fled back to CBC in time to avoid any permanent damage, but these things can take time to manifest. Still, I did watch long enough to be convinced that Malcolm-Jamal might be even prettier in sharply tailored suits than he is in post-apocalyptic black leather. My, did he grow up nicely. And his two itty-bitty scenes in Generically-Named Sitcom were even pretty funny, though that might just be the visions and the germs and the eeeevil guv'mint talking. Sad to see such a talented guy stuck with such inferior material, but work is work, I suppose.
Another random comment (with no wounded celebrities this time)- aside from (mostly) good writing and (mostly) good acting, both Jeremiah and Dead Zone have really good music, Jeremiah especially. Recent years haven't been kind to television scoring, but there are still bright spots, and genre tv accounts for a high proportion of them. More big, sweeping, highly musical moments than your average sitcom or doctor/lawyer/cop drama, I suppose. It's always nice to see that tradition being upheld. Now where's the second season of Jeremiah on DVD, MGM?
Fingers crossed that this posts this time, and that LJ doesn't get revenge for multiple prior attempts with a flood of duplicate posts. It's no great loss if it gets eaten again, really, but it's the principle of the thing. Stupid LJ.
ETA The Librarian encore (snerk): Holy cats, there's a novelization. Just how much money did TNT have sunk into this thing, anyway?
Random Canadian celebrity encounter semi-anecdote: once, when I was living in Toronto, I ran into Colin Mochrie (who was also very funny at the Geminis) at La Maison de la Presse in Yorkville. Ran into, like, ouch! In my feeble defense, it was early, pre-coffee, on a Sunday, so I wasn't awake yet. And I couldn't even figure why he looked so familiar at first, so while I was apologizing for hitting him with eighty pounds of New York Times, I was squinting at him, trying to place him. He ran away pretty quickly, at which point my brain kicked in, of course. Ohhhhhhh, that was Colin Mochrie! And I just bruised him and freaked him out! So yeah, it went pretty well, I think. I've also walked into (ouch!) Tie Domi (also in Toronto) and R. H. Thomson (in Ottawa). Leah Pinsent I saw, but from a distance, so she escaped without injury. My track record is not so good.
In other tv-watching news (coincidentally still Canadian Content, though)- I needed a break from Xena but the stack of Stargate discs wasn't calling to me right now, so instead I've been watching Jeremiah and Dead Zone. Which is a good thing, because yay! Great shows! Just what I wanted! But it's also a bad thing, because the combination is making me so very paranoid. These are not shows designed for sleep-deprived people, let me tell you. I'm jumping at every shadow- "eek! It's a vision of doom! Eek! It's a germ! Eek! It's the eeeevil guv'mint!" Any day now, Ross is going to innocently swipe at my ankle and end up squished under a heart-attack-having owner and a rain of Friskies. Still, a little psychotic paranoia is a small price to pay for good television, right? A far more troubling side effect was my bizarre decision to switch from the Geminis to CBS for half-an-hour to watch Malcolm-Jamal Warner's sitcom, whatever the heck it's called, despite the fact that I A) very rarely like sitcoms, and B) very rarely like Jason Alexander. That... was not a good show. I think I fled back to CBC in time to avoid any permanent damage, but these things can take time to manifest. Still, I did watch long enough to be convinced that Malcolm-Jamal might be even prettier in sharply tailored suits than he is in post-apocalyptic black leather. My, did he grow up nicely. And his two itty-bitty scenes in Generically-Named Sitcom were even pretty funny, though that might just be the visions and the germs and the eeeevil guv'mint talking. Sad to see such a talented guy stuck with such inferior material, but work is work, I suppose.
Another random comment (with no wounded celebrities this time)- aside from (mostly) good writing and (mostly) good acting, both Jeremiah and Dead Zone have really good music, Jeremiah especially. Recent years haven't been kind to television scoring, but there are still bright spots, and genre tv accounts for a high proportion of them. More big, sweeping, highly musical moments than your average sitcom or doctor/lawyer/cop drama, I suppose. It's always nice to see that tradition being upheld. Now where's the second season of Jeremiah on DVD, MGM?
Fingers crossed that this posts this time, and that LJ doesn't get revenge for multiple prior attempts with a flood of duplicate posts. It's no great loss if it gets eaten again, really, but it's the principle of the thing. Stupid LJ.
ETA The Librarian encore (snerk): Holy cats, there's a novelization. Just how much money did TNT have sunk into this thing, anyway?
