Blood: On the Web and In the Ear, Baby!

MY EAR is still messed up but my heart is pure. And I'm in Act Four of Five, so that's kind of good. Sort of like the 3/4 turn. Should finish just in time for the Canadian Film Centre barbecue on Sunday.

And then Monday, a gathering of writer types old and new.

What fun!

Meantime, the production company behind BLOOD TIES has just put up a totally redesigned site that's kind of nifty. Access it here.

Um, is Someone Showing Films?

A FEW DAYS ago, I took stick for my reaction to a Guy Maddin profile in the Toronto Star. Yup, I admit, I have a complicated personal history with Canadian film. I want Canadian Films to do well -- I just don't necessarily like "Canadian Film."

The reaction I got on the blog made me want to write more about it, but the thought of composing such a post actually sent me into a soporific coma.

Well, lo and behold, Playback today makes my point for me, and if you believe their spin, this year's Toronto International Film Festival means sunny skies and a new future for Canadian film. Excerpts from the article, "Canuck Films Sizzle With More Commercial Focus." :

But what will mark this year as a watershed point in the evolution of our national film industry is the incredible range of work, and an unprecedented trend toward genre pictures with commercial potential at home and abroad.

"People are playing with genre in a different kind of way -- certainly in the case of [Martin Gero's romantic comedy] Young People Fucking or [Chaz Thorne's black comedy] Just Buried, which is very sharp."

Gravestock observes that Canadian filmmakers are personalizing genre in a way that he's never seen before, making them more audience-friendly.

"They all seem very contemporary -- plugged into what's going on now," he says. "One of the problems with genre is the story doesn't necessarily change from one decade to the next. [This crop] plays with it, and feels very much about the way we live."

Telefilm Canada head Wayne Clarkson agrees that there has never been more diversity in homegrown fare, from the eight first features to the no less than five films based on Canadian literary works. He also clearly sees why.

"It's the changing nature of the business," he says. "I think what's reflected here is the degree of international involvement in Canadian films."

The Telefilm chief -- and former head of the Toronto fest -- also notes that it's a sure sign of the maturing of an industry, one that needs to be able to compete in the world market in order to sustain its growth.

I'm going to see "Young People Fucking" tonight. I have fingers crossed and an open heart. Or that might be the other way 'round. Who can tell nowadays?

Clouds Taste Bionic

IT'S NOT HARD to see the pitch for a new "re-imagining" of The Bionic Woman. (First Step: Lose the 'The'. When we re-imagine, we drop articles entirely.)

NBC-UNIVERSAL is clearly hoping to hit a few demos at once. They're hoping to catch the female viewership that increasingly drives network TeeVee. They're hoping to pick up nostalgia points from grown up geekboys like me, for whom, let's just say, Lyndsey Wagner provided some new, uncomfortable sensations in the tummy back in the day. And then there's the sci-fi and genre fans, who'll watch two episodes of anything they think is vaguely in their wheelhouse. (Note to fanboys: it's time to stop with the letter writing campaign -- Earth2 is not coming back.)

So on a deep level, I was rooting for David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) as he took his shot at making Bionics cool again. Believe me, folks, in the 1970's -- Bionics were the shit. Seriously. The only thing cooler than Bionics was Evil Knievel. Who, come to think of it, had so much metal in him that...

...I digress.

Okay, if you're a spoiler-free person, bail now.

I'd say the pilot for Bionic Woman is competent. (Proviso here: I've seen the same one that's been floating around for months, with Mae Whitman as Jaime Sommers' deaf sister. The part has since been recast and, um, de-deafed) It's got that moody look of everything shot in Vancouver. Michelle Ryan is fine as Jaime Sommers. Her creepy boyfriend who makes her bionic is that great mix of "is he evil/creepy or besotted or both?" Miguel Ferrer shows up playing the Miguel Ferrer part -- the part that Miguel Ferrer has been playing since Twin Peaks. Good thing I like Miguel Ferrer.

And then there's Katee Sackhoff. Ah, Katee.

Katee Sackhoff managed to take the sexist, loudly carping fanboys to the woodshed and beat them around the woodpile with her fearless, brave, funny, awful performance as Kara Thrace on Battlestar Galactica. In Bionic Woman, Sackhoff plays Sarah Corvus, the first Bionic Woman -- the unhinged Bionic Woman. There's a hint, too, of "is she evil or just screwed up?" that makes for delicious speculation.

And Sackhoff isn't the only BSG alumnus that Eick and Co. leaned on. A few others show up in various roles. And right at the end of the pilot, you get the brief appearance of Mark Sheppard -- so memorable as Romo Lampkin in Season 3 of BSG -- as the man who's obviously destined to be Jaime's super-duper nemesis, and potential father-in-law.

The action sequences are okay, if a bit by the numbers. But there's no escaping the fact that what this show has most going for it is leftover goodwill from the first show, and hope for the premise.

Because everybody hopes, I think, that Eick has had a little of that Ronald Moore mojo rub off on him.

The fact is that the potential of this show goes way beyond what the title might suggest -- just like Battlestar Galactica. The reality is: will NBC allow Eick to mine that premise as effectively as Moore did on Galactica?

It's an open question. This isn't cable. It's network. It's not that an ongoing action show with bionic women beating the hell out of each other -- like Alias on Crystal Meth -- wouldn't be fun. It just probably wouldn't be something that held my attention for very long.

What Eick and Moore got really good at on Battlestar Galactica was in sneaking deeper subtext -- even uncomfortable, thought-provoking, dislocating subtext -- under the basic action adventure premise.

How could that find its way into Bionic Woman?

Well, first, I think it bears noting that the original Bionic Woman, as everybody knows, was a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man. They're even using that show's iconic narration: "Better, Stronger, Faster" as the tagline for the new show.

But no one is trying to revamp or revise The Six Million Dollar Man. And I think there's a good reason for that. Nobody wants to see a Bionic Man.

The Bionic Man has been lapped in our culture. On the one hand, you have Jack Bauer, who's basically a superhero -- a Bionic Man without any of the electronics. You have Jason Bourne, who can do amazing things without relying on technology. Sure, these guys are damaged in other ways -- but they kick ass something fierce. On the other hand, you've got The Terminator and Transformers. Machines are cool, man. Why have to deal with the middleman -- all that fleshy stuff?

No -- and here's where I get into dangerous waters -- the appeal of Jaime Sommers has never been how strong and powerful she is. That's just how you sell it. The appeal is her weakness. And how she struggles with what's inside her -- metaphorically and literally.

In the original series, which was a product of a less enlightened time trying to be better, I'll grant you -- Jaime was forever coming up against foes that fucked her up royally. There's that famous clip floating around YouTube of the fembot fight...where Jaime is overpowered and then jumps from too high a height and screws up her circuitry. There's always something about the wrong arm, or the powers failing her, or the fact that the deck is stacked against her.

The great potential of Bionic Woman in 2007 is not hard to see. Here we are in a culture where women regularly contort their bodies, undergo all manner of surgeries to cheat aging, or conform to a ridiculous cultural ideal. All of these things are presented as empowering -- of giving women choice...but I have a hard time seeing vaginaplasty as a victory for ... um... just about anybody.

On the one hand they're superwomen who can have it all...but no one has figured out, really, how to career track and have a baby... You can do anything, except bust through the glass ceiling.

Now here comes a woman who's stronger than any man...except, um...she was made that way against her will by a boyfriend. She's "improved." But at what cost? And is it really an improvement? And what about Sarah Corvus? She's labeled a runaway, a loose cannon -- but the glimpses we get of other plot elements in the pilot more than hint that there's a more complex backstory there, too. I think -- I hope -- as the series progresses, we'll start to see that Jaime and Sarah have more in common than either one of them ever dreamed.

Battlestar Galactica started as a way to comment on social cohesion and society in a post 9/11 context. It, like the show's Cylons, evolved into something messier and more interesting, when it started down roads of dramatizing occupation, religious fundamentalism, and the notion of what makes a terrorist, and how far does one go when resisting an occupying army? The show took political concepts that divide America, and put them in the mouths of characters you didn't expect to feel that way. And then, every once in a while, they pulled out a good old fashioned mindfuck.

Women -- and Men -- receive some pretty crazy mixed signals in our culture today. If Eick's able to hide and tease out the provocative subtext at the heart of his series, and not just fall back on the action-adventure tropes that the network will push -- then Bionic Woman could be a very interesting show indeed. I'll be rooting for that show. I hope it shows up.

Bionic Woman premieres Sept. 26.

Ohhh.

Shiny.

TV Done Got Good

SO THE TV season seems set to start whether we like it to or not. For me, it's mostly not. I didn't get my usual summertime layoff from the tube this year. Oh, it wasn't just the hype around The Sopranos ending. Between Burn Notice, Saving Grace, Damages, the return of Weeds (which I'm counting, even though I haven't seen 3rd season episodes yet) and Mad Men, I'm hardly the first to observe that this was the strongest summer for original scripted programming probably ever.

And that's with colossal misfires like John From Cincinatti and Californication in the mix.

Time was I used to enjoy coming inside in August and feeling the cool, cool top of my TV. Cool from lack of use -- such a nice contrast from the heated binging on televisual goodies that characterized the fall.

I intend to write something about all these shows -- hopefully before the deluge of the fall starts in earnest. First up will be Bionic Woman -- maybe later today. But I'm also in the middle of a first draft, so we'll see. Til then, keep clipping those coupons.

Across The River To Motor City Preview

THERE 'S A PREVIEW up on YouTube for the miniseries I co-created and wrote last year. Wow. It's funny how time can go, and the way that moving from project to project can distort the sense of time passing. It's only been a year since I was working on ATR. But you learn, you change, you grow so much through every project that now it feels like I worked on this show when I was nine. But, be that as it may. I think this trailer, while a little hammy, does give you a bit of a taste of the show -- if not quite a true picture of the starmaking turn from our lead, Sasha Roiz, and the always dependable David Fox.

“Across The River To Motor City”
Premieres Monday, November 19th and Thursday, November 22nd
Citytv Winnipeg - Monday, November 19th at 10:00pm CT
Citytv Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver – Thursday, November 22nd at 10:00pm
(CityTV Toronto also available in HD)



Here's one of about, oh, ninety-four descriptions I had to write for the series while we were doing it. I like this one better than the one in the CityTV press release, which I feel gives a little too much away:

Benjamin Ford is an ordinary man living in extraordinary times. On a sunny Friday in November 1963, his girlfriend takes a flight to Dallas – and disappears. Nothing will ever be the same. Not for Ben. Not for anyone.

A mystery that begins the day of the Kennedy assassination reverberates through to the 21st century, pulling in Ben’s adult daughter, Kathleen, and her family. ACROSS THE RIVER TO MOTOR CITY is set against the backdrop of two remarkable eras, seen through two unique and entwined communities.

Detroit and Windsor couldn’t be more different in outlook, size, and temperament. Yet they’re linked as solidly as the steel of an auto assembly line, like the beat of a soul classic: as we all are linked inexorably to our past. The forces that shape and bind us, the mysteries that propel us, the regrets that consume us – ACROSS THE RIVER TO MOTOR CITY explores two nations, two decades, and one unforgettable mystery. It’s about people caught in the sweep of great events – and how families weather the storm of history.