- As a point of movie going etiquette, you lose the right to sit beside the person(s) you came with if you only get to the theatre after the house lights go down. You do not get to ask people to rearrange their seats so that you can sit together. No. That there are not two seats together except for in the front section where everyone hates to sit is entirely your own fault. This is unacceptable behaviour, especially if you’re going to the movies on a Friday night. Obnoxious couple beside me, I’m looking at you.
- This was conceived as a movie version of Douglas Coupland’s Souvenir of Canada, right? Because “hit every national landmark in order to define Canada” seems to have been the big MacGuffin here.
- I thought the tenuous subplot revolving around people whose lives were touched by Ben’s journey of self-discovery was particularly cloying. It amazes me how no one’s lives ever turn out worse for having met the protagonist.
- Haha, Charlie Conway got to kiss the Stanley Cup won by the Mighty Ducks. I wonder how proud Emilio Estevez is at this moment.
- Blatant infidelity aside, I find it rather odd that people engaging in forest sex would actually fully disrobe when getting it on in the great outdoors. Where was the dog, I ask you, where was the dog?
- This movie wants us to sympathize with oppressed creative types who have had their artistic dreams stifled all their lives but this only serves to further underscore how artless and uncreative this movie is and how we’d probably be better off if someone had told the filmmakers when they were children that they were talentless hacks. Sometimes you just have to be brutally honest with kids.
- I have a weird attraction to Gord Downie.
- If I had to guess, I’d say that Steamwhistle financed a large portion of this film. Canadian Tire and Tim Horton’s also probably contributed. I can’t quite pinpoint why I think this. [/lies]
- I imagine they want us to believe that Ben crushed his terminal cancer with joie de vivre, wrote the book he always dreamt of writing, and then went on to live a long productive life as a narrator in radio plays. If I had one week to live in this kind of reality, I’d probably kill myself on the first day.
- I keep telling myself that the only good thing to come of this is that I’m supporting Canadian film. I’m not supporting the right kind of Canadian film, but supporting bad Canadian film is better than not supporting any Canadian film at all. That said, Pontypool also came out today and that is a far superior Canadian film. (I’m not sure if I’ve emphasized it enough, but this is a Canadian film.)
One Week
If I had one week to live, I wouldn’t waste an hour-and-a-half watching this film.
IMDB Plot Synopsis Chronicles the motorcycle trip of Ben Tyler as he rides from Toronto to Tofino, British Columbia. Ben stops at landmarks that are both iconic and idiosyncratic on his quest to find meaning in his life.