Tagged: Movie Night in Canada

Time to Catch Up on the Movies

Now that we have a smart television we can actually use, my husband and I are learning about the incredible choice of movies now available in our own living room. Even if we watched movies 24/7, we could not possibly take in the cornucopia of choice now available.

Wednesday was National Canadian Film Day. A Livestream featuring Sandra Oh, Ethan Hawke, Colm Feore, Atom Egoyan, and many more actors, directors, and producers active in the Canadian film industry streamed Wednesday evening and is still viewable on YouTube. A curated list of 20+20 Films, Canadian films which are available on CBC Gem, Netflix, Crave, Cineplex, and other streaming services is available on the National Canadian Film Day website. Reel Canada has also produced a list of 150 Canadian films which are available to you to explore. This is your chance to catch up on the classics and those that you have missed.

“Hockey Night in Canada” has given way to “Movie Night in Canada” on CBC at 7:00 p.m. Saturday nights. This Saturday, it is “Still Mine” (2012) and “Brooklyn” (2015). There are questions about how these movies qualify as “Canadian,” but they do, and there is some criticism that the movies are chosen to be unduly family-friendly, but access to Canadian films is a good thing, and my husband can always choose what he likes on Netflix.

Thursday nights, films that were projected to premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival are now being featured on CBC, CBC Gem, and CBC Documentary. The first was Barry Avrich’s “Made You Look: A True Story about Fake Art,” which relates the story of “the largest art fraud in American history.” It’s a fascinating film. See the complete schedule on the link just above.

CBC Gem is available for free as an app for iOS, tvOS, and Android phones and tablets. There are CBC Gem apps for Android TV and Fire TV, too. Gem is also accessible on a PC or Mac via your web browser at gem.cbc.ca. To stream Gem content to your television, use Apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast.

Did you know that the National Film Board of Canada has an online Screening Room featuring over 3,000 productions? It is available at https://www.nfb.ca. The collection includes documentaries, animations, experimental films, fiction, interactive projects, new releases, old favourites, and films from some of Canada’s best-known directors. Films can be streamed at no cost and downloaded for personal use for a small fee. There are films for both adults and children, in English and in French. There are NFB apps available for mobile devices and smart TVs.

On Netflix recently, I watched “The English Game,” an historical story of how professional soccer was born in England, and also multiple episodes of “Dirty Money.” The third episode, on Jared Kushner, is a detailed exposition of how he and his family have made their money. He’s hardly the kind of man who should be the right hand of any American president.