While Senators Snooze, There's Some Heap Good Movie Makin Goin On.

ALL THE FOOFERAL over this Bill C-10 thing has prevented me from writing a proper review of The Englishman's Boy.

The adaptation of the Guy Vanderhaeghe novel, which he adapted himself, is Directed by John Smith (The Boys of St. Vincent.)

I've seen part one. And Holy God it is good. It's REALLY good. How good? Well, let me 'homage' a bit from John Doyle's review today in the Globe and Mail:

The Englishman's Boy (Sunday, CBC, 8 p.m.) is lavish, convincing and superbly done.

This is no small achievement. The novel is dense and layered, with three levels of story operating in different time periods: the present, Hollywood of the 1920s and Saskatchewan in the 1870s. The TV miniseries (continuing a week from Sunday on CBC) is adapted by Vanderhaeghe himself and distills the epic story into two interwoven tales.

The central event, occurring in 1873 and based on fact, is the massacre of 36 Assiniboine Indians in Cypress Hills, Sask., by a band of Canadian and American wolf hunters. In Vanderhaeghe's version, one of those involved is Shorty McAdoo (Michael Eisner), whom we meet first when he is the servant to an Englishman in Montana. When the Englishman dies, the boy falls into the company of one Tom Hardwick, a ruthless, psychopathic wolf hunter and leader of a local hunting crew.

Skip forward to the 1920s and a Hollywood film set, in the age of silent movies, where a western is being made. A stunt goes wrong, because of the ineptitude and uncaring attitude of the director (Don McKellar). An elderly man (Nicholas Campbell), whom we learn is the older Shorty, takes swift and concise revenge on the director. From there we see a writer, Harry Vincent (Michael Therriault, who starred in Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story), make contact with Shorty and gradually extract from Shorty the story of his long and strange life. Vincent wants the story so that Hollywood mogul Damon Chance (Bob Hoskins) can make a "true" American epic from the tale.

The first two hours move swiftly and elegantly through the twin stories. The pace is perfect as the full force of Shorty's life emerges. This is a gripping, tense and sharply made western drama.

Here's why it's important that people watch this movie: as much as I'm generally in favor with the CBC's new direction in trying to go for younger, accessible shows, that shouldn't come totally at the expense of this kind of rich, layered, epic production. This was commissioned under a previous CBC regime and it's been on the shelf a long, long time. There's a danger like with October 1970, or the Levesque movie, this is going to get dumped and "prove" that there's no audience for bigger, more serious movies on the CBC. Watch it, and prove'em wrong.

And if you want a little more meat to chew on while you decide, read Brian Johnson's ASTONISHING, honest, searing profile of Nicholas Campbell (DaVinci's Inquest) in Maclean's this week.

The actor starred in Da Vinci's Inquest for seven seasons, followed by one season with Da Vinci's City Hall, which the CBC cancelled in 2006. He figures his salary ranged from $16,000 to $30,000 an episode. "I thought it was a paycheque that was never going to end," he says. "I was on a successful show. But I was totally irresponsible in my financial dealings. I was living a fool's paradise."

Campbell swears he never gambled large amounts at the track. But between jobs he would spend the whole day there, handicapping 70 or 80 races around the world, and the dollars added up. He also bought horses, owning more than 60 in partnerships over the years. "When I started to get negative energy from the tax people," he says, "I was on the hook with the horses and had to pay my end until they could replace my investment. I thought I'd eventually be able to catch up. It didn't work out that way."

It goes on. Unbelievable article. Wow.

You know, between Mayerthorpe, and Tassie Cameron's Would Be Kings, this has been a HELL of a month for Canadian TV movies.

Not bad for a format everyone says is dead.

I'll try to get my thoughts up about Englishman's Boy before Part 2 airs. Meantime, Sunday night, Please, please, please tune in. To not watch something this good would really be offensive. And you know how Daddy with the helmet hair feels about that word...