ARTSzENTERTAINMENT

 

Lalondo, duh, OP Contributor

These days, the whole world is crazy about
anadian media. We all know what the world
hinks of, for example, Toronto indie rock

 

collective Broken Social Scene, or Nepean,
Jntario-born starlet Sandra Oh. However,

 
  
 
   
  
   
 
 
  
   
  
 
  
 
   
   
   
 
  
   

ay after day,.I see the Canadian section at my
ogers Video where I work, small such as it
s, entirely untouched by hands and eyes of
urious audiences-to-be.

“What? There’s a Canadian film section?
h well, I really hated The Sweet Hereafter, do
you have any copies of Little Man in
Ilscreen?”

This in mind, maybe we should all start
ooking inside our own borders when we’re
ooking for a way to relax on a Friday night
ather than checking out the latest attempt by
cuba Gooding Jr. to sneak into the direct-to-
yideo action film genre. But how do you
snow what to look for? Where better than
he OP, yo?

Now before you start worrying that this is
oing to sound like little more than a
anadian Heritage Moment, I should clarify:
Not all Canadian film is great. In fact, like
ost Hollywood productions, it can really lick
alls sometimes. But Canadian cinema, unlike
e blatantly widely-matketed pap we see
coming out of the US, often has the capacity
both lick balls and rock my party all at the
ame time.

Case in point: Last week just saw the
ational distribution of Toronto screenwriter
fichael Sparaga’s 2005 indie fantasy film
idekick, starring Perry Mucci as Norman

Lalondo goes to the (Canadian

Neale, a geeky, introverted techie at a Toronto
financial firm, who spends all his free time
working till at his friend (a shorter, fatter
Baldwin named Daniel) Chuck’s comic book
store. When he realizes that his successful co-
worker Victor Ventura (David Ingram) has
telekinetic powers, Norman enters a world of
nerdy comic book heaven.

Characterized by poor, unflattering light-
ing, cheesy and undet-budget special effects,
and generally mediocre acting, the film imme-
diately takes on the gouda-ish stink of your
typical independent Canadian fromage. But,
believe it or not, I couldn’t stop watching.
Norman, with his all-too-believable desire for
his life to have more meaning that it should,
is only accented by the clichéd dialogue and
behaviour that oozes out of Mucci’s hands
and mouth. The foregone conclusion that
every hero needs a villain, even just a villain
inside, is exactly the kind of nerdy tripe that
made comic books so riveting to start with as
a kid. Even the unappealingly bad production
forces you to use your imagination a little bit.
If I can read and love comics but not believe
in Krypton, then why can’t I love a medium
of film that isn’t entirely believable either?

So is Sidekick a perfect example of
Canadian film? Nope, sure isn’t. It does, how-
ever, embody the widely Canadian rejection
of pretention and banality that most
American cinema embraces so strongly.
Maybe I’d never put on a pair of grey and red
tights, but for an hour and a half of my life, I
love feeling like I could be Victory Man.

 

 

  
  
  
   
   
  
 
   
 
   
 
   
   
   
   
 
  
  

ng of the

/e’re getting close to the end kids. I can feel
coming like a distant night train. But as the
orkload piles higher, the light at the end of
e tunnel grows farther and farther far away.
ou know what I’m talking about. On this,
e penultimate week of the semester, it feels
most as if we are all in prison wiling away
e hours. With classes a week left to run, the
ands of the clock are turning backwards and
me keeps a slouching pace. This is a situa-
on that has been felt by countless students
d prison inmates — why, I feel sometimes
at students and convicts are cut from the
me cloth. At least we both must occupy
blicly funded institutions for a certain peri-
of time, or if we are really unfortunate,
t the rest of our natural lives. Oh, the tor-
e. Anyhow, I’m rambling — again. All this
< about time and punishment has got me
inking about a song — a song that celebrates
its own mournful way the creeping of the
ock and the inherent tragedy of wasted
e. No other song could be more appropri-
e in reflecting the final slog so many of us
e going though right now: ladies and gentle-
en, I give you “Folsom Prison Blues” by
hnny Cash.

I’ve never really known how to categorize
e great Johnny Cash. He’s always seemed

editor@gmail.com

Week:

‘Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash
Patrick Mackenzie, OP Columnista

more rock than country to me. It’s certainly
true that he, along with Elvis Presley and
Jerry Lee Lewis, helped to bring into main-
stream consciousness something called rock
and roll, yet his music, probably more so than
his above-mentioned peers, has always been
inflected with a country twang and swagger.
Johnny Cash’s songs contain the sounds
of passing~trains filled with lonely men on
the run from the law or love. In “Folsom
Prison Blues” it is the very rhythm of trains-
the chucka-chucka-chucka of oiled pistons
and turning wheels that provides the underly-
ing rhythm to so many of his songs. And
“Folsom Prison Blues’ is probably the best
example of the influence of trains on popular
music ever. But here, the sound of trains that
which invite images of motion and freedom
provide nothing but unhappiness for the
singer: “I hear the train a comin’ / it’s rolling
round the bend / and I ain’t seen the sun-
shine since I don’t know when / I’m stuck in
Folsom Prison, arid time keeps dragging on.”
Like the rhythm of passing trains, the
song’s beat is consistent and up-tempo hardly
the beat you would expect for a song about
wasting away in prison while the rest of the
world passes by. For the prisoner, the singer
of the song, the train is the sound of free-

dom; but rather than provide comfort.with
visions of the outside world, of “eating in a
fancy dining car ... [and] drinkin’ coffee and
smokin’ big cigars,” the train can only remind
him of the freedom from which he has been
deprived: “I know I had it coming, I know I
can’t be free / but those people keep a
movin’ / and that’s what tortures me.”

So many of Johnny Cash’s songs are .

about freedom and the real possibility of its
denial, whether through love, want, or mur-
der. Even though the prisoner in “Folsom
Prison Blues” “shot a man in Reno just to
watch him die,” we the listeners are meant to
identify with his loss and reflect on the sor-
row of the bound and shackled man.

Now shut up and get back to work.