Here are a couple of productions that people here might be interested in:
THE ENGLISHMAN'S BOY. Based on the novel of the same name by Saskatoon
author Guy Vanderhaeghe.
http://tinyurl.com/3xsmyy
It's the fictionalized story of the 1873 Cypress Hills Massacre, when a
group of white men killed a large group of Assiniboine Indians in what
is now southwestern Saskatchewan.
http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Saskatchewan/cypress_hills_massacre.htm
This was the incident that prompted the Canadian government to form the
North West Mounted Police.
In this CBC-TV mini-series (two 2-hour parts), the movie, like the book,
switches its narrative back and forth between the 1870s following the
American wolfers as they track the Indians they think stole their horses
and wagons in to Canada, and 1920s Hollywood where a movie studio boss
learns of the incident and wants to make a movie about it. There are no
Mounties, or even any mention of Mounties in this story. It's a story
about haunted memories and regret and also a story about myth-making and
the movies' role in making those myths.
The story was filmed entirely in Saskatchewan and is filled with
sprawling western vistas. The main stars are R.H. Thomson as the leader
of the wolfers in the 1870s and Nicholas Campbell as an aging cowboy
with a story to tell in the 1920s; Bob Hoskins also appears as a movie
studio mogul.
I liked the novel a great deal and this movie, adapted by Vanderhaeghe
from is book, is a very good version of it.
The DVD is already available to order: http://tinyurl.com/37sbqc
THE TROJAN HORSE. This is the sequel to "H2O". This new mini-series
will be broadcast on CBC-TV on March 30 and April 6. Like the original
"H2O", it stars Paul Gross as Thomas McLaughlin, who was Prime Minister
of Canada in the first mini-series, but outsmarted himself and lost the
country to the United States. And, now, in this story, McLaughlin's
schemes continue. Kenneth Welsh appears in this, as well as Tom
Skerritt playing the President of the U.S.
Ed Wilson
--
-- Reality is not enough; we need nonsense, too. Drifting into a world
of fantasy is not an escape from reality but a significant education
about the nature of life. And reality is not an escape from nonsense.
Our education goes on everywhere. - Edmund Miller
-- For the best in misanthropic rantings, visit Cottsweb:
http://briancotts.tripod.com/
-- Stories and essays in prose, scripts, video, comics and audio; it's
Fishclock: http://fishclock.ca/
-- Gayleen Froese, Writing and Music:
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