Sometimes the stars just happen to align. And this week the stars have aligned for me boy howdy. In the various threads I post on here I am pretty upfront about my background, my profession, sometimes relevant family members, hobbies (even ones outside of movies) and most importantly my geographic locations, both current and point(s) of origin. I am an East Coast Canadian and was raised pretty much as far east as one can be while still being on North American soil. And as luck would have it today is Canada Day, the day we forget bad stuff our country may have done and focus on miniature flags and the like.

Cynicism aside Canada actually has a pretty strong film industry. We have a huge country with a variety of great filming locations, a relatively cheaper dollar than the US means it is more cost effective to film here, and as such tax credits and a good infrastructure makes that even easier for film companies. Even if a movie is not completely filmed here it is possible that stories can involve Canada in some way shape or form (being next door to the world’s largest film economy still has some benefits) either as part of a story or just by who is involved in the movie (ie lots of Canadian actors, directors, writers, and the like). I mean personally speaking all it takes to get me a little bit excited during a movie is to hear someone called a hoser or even something as simple as recognizing a localish landmark. Aside from big money projects there are a lot of great indie projects made here in Canada that are rife with local energy, being from Newfoundland and Labrador originally I can attest that pretty much any Newfoundland film project will contain a fair amount of our culture infused into it, and if done properly will need subtitles even though it is technically an english language movie. All this before we even get into CanCon regulations…

So be it the movies themselves, the talent involved or the locations inside this weeks prompt is a simple: “What is your favourite Canadian related movie thing?” For my part I will showcase the movie The King Tide for a variety of reasons. First and most importantly, it is a great movie (made my top five list last year). A compelling story that was impeccably shot and manages to convey tension, love, sadness and the like whenever it is needed. You feel the characters feelings in each scene watching this movie. The second reason is that it is from my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and I like to showcase local (A Nova Scotian zombie movie was close to my pick as well, on a related note amongst films covering Indeginous issues there have been some bangers in recent years), and third in the same vein, when I watched it I found out one of my friends worked on the movie as an assistant director which I thought was pretty cool (bonus points I actually saw the movie before she did). And that is all for me for now. Given the timing of this thread’s release and what the prompt is aboot I hope the discussion can really take off, eh?