dlhunt

"Joan of Montréal" is definitely a find.

Brigitte Gall as "Joan" articulates the frustration of every young girl who has aspired to ice time with others who enjoy playing hockey without social restrictions.

Conveying the excitement of being the best goalie she can, the audience joins her quest to help the team win. However, it seems that her enthusiasm to be on the same team, striving to win with the rest is discouraged by the nuns at her school and her family.

Joan's predicament recalls somewhat Roch Carrier's "The Sweater," where a young boy is forced to wear a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater received instead of the ordered Habs (Montréal Canadiens) jersey from an Eaton's catalogue. However, the parallel between the rejected sweater and the rejected Joan is literally skin deep and ends there. While the boy can shed his sweater and return to the fold of his team in complete acceptance, Joan cannot shed her gender and receive complete acceptance by the team, the coach, the fans and her family and friends.

Joan's story tells the truth about why women are not as interested in watching men's hockey today as the team owners would like us to be. Adding female commentators, no matter how enlightened, to the sport like the recent addition on Hockey Night in Canada just doesn't cut it. Where the ultimate interest lies is being able to play the sport professionally, be rewarded for good performance and be paid well like the boys who play it.

Every girl should be able to aspire to that.

Peter Jordan is hardly working!

The host of the weekly "It's a Living" show explores some truly fun and unique things people do and get paid for!

How 'bout it gals? For one night, Peter joined "Farmer's Daughter" as a fourth in an all female trio and fulfilled all his obligations including the "touching breasts" ritual before the concert (no hands) -- which was a bit of a squat for tall Peter.

Peter has even starred as an alien corpse in the X-Files. He had to lie still and naked for hours while the camera crew did take after take!

As a Mother's Day florist, Peter peeks into finding the best flowers in the world for customers who in turn give them to their mothers.

As a timpani player, Peter carefully counted his beats bars to ensure that he pounded proper rythmns to classics played by a symphony orchestra.

A virtual star hockey player (number 49 on some team?) in a video game, Peter endured body checks and bruises and offered a lot of audio grunts and groans to help video game programmers to produce the motion required for a hockey player in a video game.

Peter has also dangled from a rescue helicopter, skated short track, shouldered a musket at Fortress de Louisbourg, salvaged logs on the BC coast, figured out bagpipes and helped plan a wedding that was all pride for the bride!

If you are looking for a little chuckle along with some inspiration into what you would like to do with your life, you should tune in to this one, Mondays at 7:30 p.m. on CBC TV!

Miami Vice, move over. Way over! Cold Squad encompasses the drug trade, prostitution, murder, child sex abuse and political corruption. All this is investigated with cold leads that are years, sometimes decades, old.

Ali McCormick (Julie Stewart) is among toughest of cops portrayed on North American TV screens and she leads a team of cops who investigate the grittiest of crimes in the Greater Vancouver area. As a cop with an erratic schedule, Ali decides to become a Big Sister to a pre-teen girl and then develops feelings for the father of the girl. This makes her work/home life more complicated.

The complexities of being a cop on Cold Squad are further complicated by the personalities and talents of other members of the team. There is the ambitious office assistant, Christine Wren, (Joely Collins) who embarrasses superiors with her correctness and knowledge, a former undercover RCMP officer Nicco Sevallis, (Gregory Calpakis), who mixes up his alliances, the hardworking, but not very careful Mickey Kollander (Tamara Craig Thomas) and the right-wing Christian fundamentalist, Len Harper, (Matthew Bennett) who listens genuinely well before making his thoughts known to Ali.

Stewart, who has played motherly and romantic roles in the past, can glory in her success as one of the most watched hard-edged lead roles on TV today as she enters another "seasoned" season.

If her performance and scope continue, in few short years she will take her place alongside actors like Helen Mirren. Go for it, Julie!

An older couple, Bob and Susie, pull up stakes in Canada moving to Florida in the summertime before the July 1st/4th holiday week. Why they don't wait until late autumn like everybody else totally puzzles me.

The neighbours have everything festooned with Stars and Stripes for the upcoming US holiday. Bob, who is hosting a party for the neighbours, is frustrated by neighbour Oscar's comment that he should take down his maple leaf flag for the party. Bob protests that it is Canada Day and that is why the maple leaf flies over his lawn.

Silly attempts by Bob to rid their house of Old Glory do not succeed and Bob is nearly caught by Oscar with a US flag ripped to shreds after his botched attempt to take it down. The barbecue is is only escape and it is only Susie who discovers the flag's remains on the grill after Bob has made "extra efforts" to ensure that the barbecue is fully fired up and ready for the meat from the kitchen.

Saved by a still packaged US flag earlier bought by Susie that he tossed in the trash and then retrieved, Bob flies it from the pole in place of the torn one after Oscar relents about Bob's flying the maple leaf.

Oscar makes a comment to Bob that surprises him and causes him to look to another neighbour's yard and ...

Really worth the chuckle to watch!

Naked News is nothing more than a gimmick laden, shallowly conceived program.

What is this show trying to be? Is it a news show to attract people to watch naked men and women? Is it a show with naked men and women to attract people to watch more news?

The news items they present merely skim the surface and the newscasts are padded with lifestyle and dog hero fluff.

The only thing that gives it redemption, if any, is that it includes Canadian news items.

Quite frankly, this should not have gone beyond comedy sketch status on Air Farce, 22 Minutes or Saturday Night Live.

The story of "The Fast Runner" has finally journeyed home to movie screens in the country of its birth!

Following the details of the plot was a little challenging in the beginning due to flashbacks to the childhood of Atanarjuat and his brother, Amaqjuaq as well as life between the two families involved. However, some of the pieces are picked up later in the film.

Natar Ungalaaq in his role as Atanarjuat goes the distance and more in one extended scene, running from pursuers across vast expanses of snow, ice and bone-chilling water completely naked.

While it would be impossible to say that no animals were "harmed" in the filming of this picture, it would be easy to believe that like the Inuit, the movie cast and crew used every part of the animals used as props. Hunting the Inuit way is still a reality for a very small number of Inuit and other northern peoples. It would be difficult to try to simulate the numerous props and costumes required using non-animal materials in order to demonstrate daily Inuit life.

The movie was nearly three hours long, in Inuktitut and subtitled. In this showing, hardly anyone budged from their seats even when the credits started to roll and they stayed put until the screen went dark. That in itself speaks volumes.

While my mother would tell me stories of what happened when I was younger, the four-hour miniseries, "Trudeau," was like a knowledgeable neighbour filling in the external details about the politics and events of the time.

Through the music of the time, interspersed with clips from actual news footage, and the actors' performances, we were brought through such groundbreaking events as the October Crisis, the Québec Referendum and the bringing home of the Constitution to Canada.

The role that Margaret Sinclair Trudeau played in the life of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his political life is given its due importance in this production. Margaret was played as a strong support to Pierre, in spite of their marriage breakdown and Margaret's escapades with drugs and hanging out with the Rolling Stones.

While it was only touched on during the broadcast, Trudeau's legacy is the maturing of a Canada that welcomes languages and cultures from around the world. Additionally, Trudeau's statement that the government "has no business in the bedrooms of the nation" made it easier for divorcing couples and those with so-called "alternative lifestyles" to have the opportunity to participate more fully in Canadian society.

This piece was casted, not with look-alikes, but with actors who could convey the essence of the players of a generation ago. Anyone with knowledge of the era could easily recognise the premiers, aides and other characters played by a group of very familiar actors, whose performances were nothing less than stellar. Kudos to Colm Feore (Pierre) and Polly Shannon (Margaret)!!!

This production was broadcast with closed captions and descriptive video making it a trendsetter in accessible TV for the hearing and visually impaired.

Some might argue the most memorable line from Trudeau was, "Just watch me!" However, after seeing this miniseries, I think it should be, "This is us! Here we are!"

And we are, indeed!

The middle of three weekday morning shows for children in the 1960s and 1970s, Chez Hélène was broadcast between Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup.

When I "graduated" from pre-school at home to grade one, I truly missed this wonderful show which was the perfect picture of co-operation between three female characters speaking two languages. Hélène spoke French and Louise (Madeline Kronby) and Susie the Mouse (puppeteered by Florence Shreiber) spoke English.

Chatting around the kitchen table about everyday things like waiting anxiously for a letter from a friend or being chased by a neighbour's dog, the 15 minutes was filled with lots of conversation in two languages that made it easy to learn French.

When I was in my teens, I heard the show ended after 14 years. I thought it very sad as children of the younger generation could not enjoy the fun of learning French this way. However, I still have happy memories of weekday mornings with Hélène, Louise and Susie.

This show could be described as a time machine on a shoestring.

Concentrating on the subject and historic accuracy as much as possible, Patrick Watson "interviews" such historic figures as Mata Hari, Alexander Graham Bell, Norman Bethune and Sir John A. Macdonald.

Watson's incisive questions, performances by accomplished actors, sparse period sets and costuming suspended disbelief without any visual wizardry or pretend machinery.

Perhaps, long after Watson has passed on, someone will engage a curious audience with their portrayal of Watson and his prolific journalism career.

Scoop is steamy romance, crime uncovered, media concentration, illegal immigration and scandal all wrapped up in an hour-long package.

Dubbed in English, Scoop covers the issues of the day while digging into the lives of reporters of a fictional daily Montréal Newspaper, The Express.

Stephanie Rousseau (Macha Grenon) and Michael Gagné (Roy Dupuis) find love and conflict in their professional lives at the newspaper office and in the bedroom. The fact that Stephanie's father is the wealthiest man in Québec and owns The Express becomes temporarily, immaterial.

In one episode their relationship appears cemented when Michael is trapped in a mine while covering a story on mine workers and Stephanie waits in hope of good news on the surface.

Michael becomes the "bad boy" when he leaves Stephanie and their baby to live on his own. Will they get back together?

Will Richard (Martin Drainville) ever find fulfillment in writing an arts column instead of sports? Will the source of desk editor, Lionel's (Rémy Girard) drinking on the job and mystery of his roomate come to light?

All this and the reporters continue to cover corrupt government deals, racial discrimination, homelessnes, organised crime and abused women and children.

Fans of the "Lou Grant" series should see this one!

Bob Robertson and Linda Cullen had a half-hour radio comedy show on CBC Radio One that they expanded to an annual New Year's Eve CBC TV special. They have also had a half-hour weekly comedy show on The Comedy Network and CTV.

While Linda's repertoire of "voices" has been limited, partly due to a small number of female public figures worth impersonating, Bob has gone to amazing heights of mimicry in the voices of the Prime Minister, the President of the United States and many others.

If he called you on the phone saying he was the Prime Minister of Canada, I challenge you to tell him from the real thing! Tip: Wait for the joke.

I saw this movie as a child with my family, my mother being the most enthusiastic as it was filmed in Sutton QC, where she grew up. Back then, I thought the idea of going into the mountains and living in one's own treehouse was a fabulous idea!

The familiar scenery of the Green Mountains of southern Québec was breathtaking on the big screen. My mother pointed out the scene where Teddy Eccles' character, Sam, goes to the library in Knowlton, a library she had been to many times.

I understand Eccles attended and signed the guestbook of Olivet Baptist Church in Sutton, the church where my mother grew up.

Certainly, every kid has a dream of some adventure independent of parents and this movie helped me live mine a little.

This weekly program covers the fascinating, gruelling, roller-coaster world of getting new business ventures off the ground in Canada and abroad.

Entrepreneurs, Inventors, and providers of new services assemble financing, suppliers, and test their products. They sometimes succeed and sometimes, it's back to the drawing board.

Frequently, there is follow up on new developments in stories previously aired.

An ex-cop, ex-oil-rig worker, Tom Stone, (Chris William Martin), is sprung from jail to go undercover by a an amateur boxing champion mountie, RCMP Corporal, Marina Di Luzio, (Janet Kidder), to investigate an oil rig scam in Calgary. The mountie is a commercial crime specialist from Toronto and the two of them work on getting the "bad guys."

This series is somewhat reminiscent of the Rockford Files (RF) in its pace, tone and incidental music. The connection with RF becomes clear as this series is directed by Stuart Margolin who also stars as Tom's buddy, Jack Welsh. Welsh, a surly fellow who enjoys his scotch and cigars, is originally from the US.

Another similarity to RF is that Tom lives in a trailer, but with no beach.

Marina and Tom get along with plenty of friction between them which makes for humorous instances. For example, when Marina is trying to set Tom up with a wire and insists, in spite of his protests, he has to take off some clothing, someone walks in on them and gets the wrong idea.

All in all this is a promising new series and should make for some great viewing!

Will (Graham Greene) is a photojournalist who has been through gruelling shoots in dangerous places for the sake of front page pictures in the newspapers. The movie opens with Will being imprisoned in some fictional Latin-American country ruled by the iron fist of a dictator. The only way he frees himself from his solitary makeshift cell -- really a hole in the ground -- is that he does a portrait of the dictator.

Arriving home in Toronto, Will's agent/girlfriend Ellen (Janet-Laine Green) is working to fill his already busy schedule. Then, suddenly, comes the phone call about the death of his mother on a reserve in Alberta. It is upon his arrival at the reserve he sees stark differences in his lifestyle and that of the residents.

Will discovers that he is weeks late for his mother's funeral and then tries to go home to his busy schedule. But the residents of the community try to persuade him to stay in some very funny ways including making him take photos for a yearbook and putting him on the local basketball team.

In the role of Bertha Morely, Tina Louise Bomberry shines as a co-conspirator in trying to keep Will on the reserve. She also helps to engineer the meeting of Will and pregnant Louise (Sheila Tousy) who wants to raise her child alone.

I liked this movie because Graham Greene and Tom Jackson (as Harlan) work very well together. The two are foils for each other in a similar way to comedy teams like Wayne and Shuster.

The movie as a whole says something about what we value in life and how we live it. Do we reconnect with ourselves and does life come into clearer focus when we rejoin our family roots and heritage?

While the humour is not of the belly-laugh variety, it is more gentle schtick. This movie is part of a string of positive stories about our first nations people instead of the old "angry Indian" themes we have seen in other stories on TV and in cinemas.

Worth seeing!

I rather thought of F-Troop when I first saw this show. The concept of the show is quite funny and has lots of potential.

It seems like a sketch from the show, "History Bites," hosted by Rick Green stretched out for a half-hour sitcom.

As most Canadian comedy series go, there are many gags that would go over the heads of our American cousins.

I believe that while this series is probably about 25 years late on the screen, this type of historical comedy needs to be continually explored in different ways for new possibilities.

Can you imagine what The Red Green Show would be like if it was done by women only???

This show preserves the campy humour of its male counterpart while featuring hilarious everywoman characters including a female security guard, Mrs. Ermelini the fastidious cleaning woman, the aunt of the show's hosts and a female psychologist who dresses as a man to observe men's habits. The show's hosts, Kathy who is married and Yvonne who is single, are sisters who sometimes air the funnier family laundry on the show.

The 1960s was a decade of technological and political change. News and documentary shows were also part of that revolution.

New on the scene in 1964 was "This Hour has Seven Days" that approached the week's events in a cheeky, yet intelligent way. The show straddled the news-entertainment line with the satirical songs of Dinah Christie and the insightful and observant input from the other hosts, Patrick Watson, Warner Troyer, Laurier Lapierre, Jack Webster and Larry Zolf.

Its format was a newsmagazine style complete with a bear pit discussion, high profile guests, streeter interviews and a studio audience.

The highest rated show of its time, the show was cancelled after 50 episodes due to the outrage expressed by the so-called guardians of public morality of the day.

Inspired by the satirical British "The Week that Was" this trend-setting show helped pave the way for other newsmagazine shows such as "W5," "60 Minutes" and later, "The Fifth Estate." An obvious reference to the show's title is the news-comedy series, "This Hour has 22 Minutes" which is produced in Canada.

"This Hour has Seven Days," is currently being rerun on TalkTV.

This drama series with a touch of comedy follows the relationships of several different people, some of them couples. The relationship between a Vancouver photographer (Alex Carter) and a Top-40 Toronto radio host (Shauna McDonald) seems impossible over the vast distance, but it is interesting to watch them try to work it out.

I enjoyed this show because it offers something for a variety of interests. There are other couples and singles in the story who have age, race, culture and gender preference differences. The characters have a number of professions including magazine editor, restaurant owner, high school teacher and street vendor. Throw in an American draft dodger (Stuart Margolin) with designs on local politics and you have a show that covers the 30 to 50 something group.

I felt this show spoke of my own coming of "middle age." One can be in any profession or in any relationship and identify with the struggles with self esteem and personal accomplishment as these characters do. While it was filmed in western Canada, it could be in any major Canadian city.

I would look forward to the possibility that this show could come back.

I viewed this film dubbed in English three times. It was worth it every time.

This is really a gentle comedy-romance that in spite of a few scenes could almost be classed as family viewing. It deals lightheartedly with themes of media invitation into and invasion of our lives with a delightful, humourous little twist at the end. Its Montréal location is an ideal setting for the story and gives it a local feel.

Martin Drainville returns an excellent performance as Louis, the very average guy down-the-street clerk in the stereo store. We need to see more of him in any language.

Known for some steamy scenes in the TV series "Scoop," with Roy Dupuis, (also starring Drainville) Macha Grenon drops her bombshell into a cameo appearance as Lola Laflamme in a discothèque encounter with Louis.

In order to preserve its original tone, one might want to view it with subtitles.