Weird Sex and Snowshoes

I could just write the whole post about 'Talladega Nights : The Ballad of Ricky Bobby'. I could go on and on about how funny it was from the first frame to the last.
I could say how brilliant Jane Lynch and Sasha Baron Cohen were in it.
I could make a glib comment about how comfortable Baron Cohen clearly is with his own sexuality.
I could marvel at how the humour extended even to the continual product placement.
I could snigger at the bitingly funny parody of pseudo-Christianity and of white trash southern States values.
I could mention how much I enjoyed the cameo by Elvis Costello.
I could say how much I've always loved Gary Cole as an actor.
I could point out Amy Adams from Junebug.
And I could end with some snarky comment about why it's always comedic seeing Will Ferrell in his white underpants.
But that would just be obsessive and you could go and read an extensive write up about the movie by some actual film critic.
So all I'll say is, I put off renting this because it appeared to be about car racing. How stoopid of me. It was an absolute GEM.

Last week, Kevin and I watched a documentary about the history of Canadian cinema. I'm actually quite genuinely interested in this because I find Canadian films to be in general very thoughtful, often quirky and well crafted. They also, like many country's own film industries, give a perceptive insight into the Canadian psyche. The documentary was based on a book about the subject, called 'Weird Sex and Snowshoes', so I guess that may give an indication of what she thought Canadian preoccupations might be. I can't personally attest to that, we don't get much snow.

What she really did feel however, was the Canadian sense of outsiderness. I found this very thought-provoking. I like the idea of cinema as a readable genre and I have studied French texts that deal with the feeling of otherness.

In a scene from the Atom Egoyan film 'Ararat', one of the characters says, 'Who remembers the Armenians?' Who indeed, I know I don't, which may not be too astonishing, since the attempted genocide happened between 1915 and 1918, but then it's not often that I can't recall learning anything about a particular moment in history.
But then that's cinema for you, sometimes it fills in the gaps.