Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, a Slim Hope
I haven't seen Trailer Park Boys: The Movie yet, and I want to be able to like it, but this film will fail miserably to recoup its intitial investment, simply because it is a subject matter which has run its course a long time ago and the creators of the TV series really have only created a luke-warm rehash of what's been done a hundred times elsewhere, and much better.
Trailer Park Boys was amusing enough filler TV for the first couple of seasons and there was something kind of charming about its 'diamond in the rough' style, and it was a big improvement over the unwatchable Canadian TV network junk like 11th Hour and whatever. Best of all, it didn't cost anything to watch and it was only a half-hour. But it doesn't have the beans to make it on the big screen as Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, I don't think, in a media world awash with real life trailer park people who are million times funnier and more pathetic on a Jerry Springer and American reality TV, not to mention all the US studio attempts at this material already, and people like K-Fed and Spears and crew in tabloids 24/7.
That dose of reality spashed in the face of this attempt -- it will still be championed as a 'success' for Canadian film, simply because it is getting some sort of wide release in the country. But that doesn't mean it isn't a money-losing bomb and an artistic nothing. The multi-media corporations paying for it, mostly Telefilm Canada, will put as much spin on it as they can, and nobody will be countering them with facts with any media soap box to stand on.
I would like to see it succeed, actually. Not due to its questionable merits, but because of what it stands for. It stands against the fake poseur arteest approach of "Don McKellar" (old cross-eyes) and company who have figure-headed the Canadian Film Culture of Failure for the past decade and a half, almost all of it coming out of our pockets, while they pose and talk about how important their invisible films are to Canadians (even though the public hates them, and refuses to go see them or rent them). In that way, at least it is a refreshing different approach, with a little more honesty. So I can't hate Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, and I don't think the Canadian public will hate it -- Bubbles and the guys are likeable enough three-dimensional characters in a mediocre highly derivitative trailer park world. Just don't expect to see any big box office out of this.
Trailer Park Boys was amusing enough filler TV for the first couple of seasons and there was something kind of charming about its 'diamond in the rough' style, and it was a big improvement over the unwatchable Canadian TV network junk like 11th Hour and whatever. Best of all, it didn't cost anything to watch and it was only a half-hour. But it doesn't have the beans to make it on the big screen as Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, I don't think, in a media world awash with real life trailer park people who are million times funnier and more pathetic on a Jerry Springer and American reality TV, not to mention all the US studio attempts at this material already, and people like K-Fed and Spears and crew in tabloids 24/7.
That dose of reality spashed in the face of this attempt -- it will still be championed as a 'success' for Canadian film, simply because it is getting some sort of wide release in the country. But that doesn't mean it isn't a money-losing bomb and an artistic nothing. The multi-media corporations paying for it, mostly Telefilm Canada, will put as much spin on it as they can, and nobody will be countering them with facts with any media soap box to stand on.
I would like to see it succeed, actually. Not due to its questionable merits, but because of what it stands for. It stands against the fake poseur arteest approach of "Don McKellar" (old cross-eyes) and company who have figure-headed the Canadian Film Culture of Failure for the past decade and a half, almost all of it coming out of our pockets, while they pose and talk about how important their invisible films are to Canadians (even though the public hates them, and refuses to go see them or rent them). In that way, at least it is a refreshing different approach, with a little more honesty. So I can't hate Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, and I don't think the Canadian public will hate it -- Bubbles and the guys are likeable enough three-dimensional characters in a mediocre highly derivitative trailer park world. Just don't expect to see any big box office out of this.
posted by atom bruce mckellar at Friday, October 06, 2006
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