Being Canadian (2015)

I never ever took the time to write a review on a movie, but this movie, I could not help myself. This movie is a documentary exclusively thinking about English Canada. The author rode through Quebec asking about maple syrup and an underage little girl presenting a whole culture. We clearly see how English Canada does NOT understand Quebec. If the author would have been serious about presenting Canada, he should have thought about the following items presenting the second most important culture of the country: Humour: Just for Laughs Festival created by Gilbert Rozon, Andre Phillipe Gagnon (which went on the Tonight Show in the 80s). Jean- René Dufort, Infoman. Sports: Curling? Seriously: Basketball was invented in Montreal at McGill College. Baseball, we had Jackie Robinson. Beat that Toronto. By the way, we have the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Canada, one of the biggest events on planet earth every year. Hockey? What about the Montreal Canadien, the team that won the Stanley Cup most often in history, and how this team defined our emancipation as a people thanks to Maurice Richard? Music: What about Celine Dion, Arcade Fire, Murray Head? Celebrities: By the way, William Shatner is from Montreal. You could have asked him his thought when you talked about Quebec. Television: What about La Petite Vie, Biggest ratings ever in Quebec. Movies: Patrick Huard with Colm Feore (Bon Cop Bad Cop) = Biggest movie box office EVER in Canada. EVER, as in this movie producer can never expect to get to the level of what a Quebec movie did in ratings in all of Canada. This movie confirms the Canadian solitudes of French Canadian versus English Canadian. Not even talking about the fact that independence has been in the thoughts of more than 35% of the people for the last 40 years is quite insulting to saying that this is a documentary about Being Canadian. Also, bypassing any Native Amerindian reserve is also an insult to the whole of Canada. Definitely a movie thought to make Stephen Harper and political conservatives happy, with Western Canada thought process, not taking in consideration the duality and coexistence of two separate and truly distinctive societies living together. Don't expect to see the full picture of Canada thanks to this movie.

Let me first say that I am proud to be Canadian and I believe that am a funny guy who loves comedies and documentaries. I wanted to love this movie! Hell, I would have settled for 'liking' it! But this was a huge let down. The director and writer 'Robert Cohen' seem to phone this one in. I read his IMDb bio and he seems to have co-written a few episodes of TV shows that I like. So I believed that this movie would be informality funny! It was NOT! Robert Cohen seems to love hearing himself talk and seems to think that he is pretty funny, but is not. At least not in this movie. It did have a lot of interviews with famous Canadians, but each being brief and non-memorable. Sure parts of the interviews made me chuckle a little, but I'm not even sure if most of them were with the director. I believe he just salvaged them from the archives. Robert Cohen (director and writer) narrates through the entire movie with his droning on and on. It's like he was trying to be a funny Michael Moore, but failed miserably. There was very little actual content in this movie. I didn't learn anything new, didn't really laugh, and found myself wanting to turn it off, but stuck with it to be loyal and was hoping it would get better. Sadly it never did. I'm guessing the only reason why this movie became a reality is that it was funded partially or in full by the government or was given huge tax breaks because we require legally to produce and air a certain percentage of Canadian content. There are other movies and documentaries about Canada which are funny. This one is not and didn't need to be made. I am actually wanting to apologize to any non-Canadians who were forced to watch this. Robert Cohen reminds me of a high school chemistry teacher who tries to be funny so the kids will think that chemistry is cool and not boring.

Comedy writer Robert Cohen, born in Calgary, Alberta directs this documentary which tries to delve into the Canadian psyche in various ways, including Cohen's perceptions of its love-hate relationship with the United States and the Canadian inferiority complex and apparent self-deprecation.Cohen will try and put a humorous spin on those issues, as well as a number of others, as he travels by minivan across Canada, beginning in Nova Scotia and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia for Canada Day, some 9 days later. Along the way they'll be some interviews with various citizens in different milieus, as well as the perspectives of many famous Canadians, many of whom are household names.As Cohen will come to learn, his original premise may have been rather faulty, and I can say that as an American, who's traveled to Canada a number of times, I've admired the Canadian lifestyle, and could easily see myself living there if circumstances warranted.Note: there were no subtitles on my DVD copy and the sound quality could have been better.Overall, I thought this film can be humorous and filled with interesting factoids about Canada.However, it can become repetitious, at times, perhaps with trying too hard to prove the premises of the filmmaker.

Truth be told I didn't knew much about Canada until I watched this piece of Documentary...A bit surprised knowing not everyone in Canada lives in Igloos...Whosoever taking a shot at understanding Canada in quick fashion by watching this documentary would definitely like Canada more than before... Will wait for part 2 probably after a decade or so when Being Canadian mandatorily covers immigrants of past 20 years from other parts of world and their influence on Canadian culture and adding glory to the already shining establishment. (Not sure but 10 lines of text as an IMDb requirement for a documentary is like telling everything in the review itself).