From Jim Slotek of Postmedia Network:
Link: Pat Mastroianni on the ‘Degrassi’ reunion, working with Drake and dropping the F-bomb
Amid all the bad-boy stuff Degrassi’s Joey Jeremiah pulled over the years – including running naked through the school cafeteria – only one was so bad, it merited an F-bomb. Continue reading.Â
From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:
Link: Anne of Green Gables adaptation is sublimely reinvigorated
Anne is adapted this time by Moira Walley-Beckett, who wrote some of the most striking episodes of Breaking Bad. The leap from that to Anne of Green Gables might seem an extraordinarily risky one, but it makes sense. Anne is a rebel, after all. A classic one. This version, on the evidence of Sunday’s two-hour opener, is not reverential, nor is it overcontemporized, but it affords Anne Shirley an agency that is formidable. There is such fierce, uninhibitedly direct longing and defiance in this Anne. Continue reading.
From Bill Harris of Postmedia Network:
Link: Anne, the latest take on the Green Gables saga, goes a little darker than usual
It’s a simple question, but I thought about it quite a lot while watching the first episode of the new series Anne.
This, of course, is yet another take on the well-known Anne of Green Gables story. In Anne, the young Anne Shirley, played this time by Amybeth McNulty, pauses to consider everything she has experienced, everything she has seen, and she is mulling a future which, at that moment, does not appear too bright. Continue reading.
From Victoria Ahearn of the Canadian Press:
CBC’s Anne shows darker past of “accidental feminist” from Green Gables
The chatty Canadian dreamer that is Anne of Green Gables is internationally beloved for her cheery qualities: a big imagination, bold spirit and face full of freckles.
But the new series “Anne,” debuting Sunday on CBC and later this spring on Netflix elsewhere in the world, unearths a dark chapter of her life that shaped her resilience. Continue reading.Â
From Sarah Boesveld of Chatelaine:
Meet the plucky young star of the Anne of Green Gables remake
“She’s such a survivor. She’s so amazing because she’s gone through so much in her life — the bullying, the prejudice, the sexism, everything — and she still has such an incredible spirit. I love that about her so much.” Continue reading.
From Johanna Schneller of The Globe and Mail:
Breaking Bad writer brings ‘dark sensibility’ to Anne of Green Gables
So while the new limited series Anne is nowhere near as black as Breaking Bad, it’s certainly the darkest, truest rendering to date of what being a redheaded orphan in 1890s Prince Edward Island would have been like. Continue reading.
Hailing from Sarnia and then from York University’s Theatre program, Shelley Scarrow has a diverse list of television credits to her name. Recent highlights have included showrunner/executive producer and writer on Ride and writing for Wynonna Earp.
She served as consulting producer and writer on both Lost Girl and Being Erica. She served as creative consultant and writer for the comedy series Sophie. Other credits include Flashpoint, Da Kink In My Hair, Instant Star and Degrassi.
Animation work has included writing and story editing for the upcoming girls’ action series, Mysticons.
[Please note: Mysticons does not have a Canadian broadcaster … yet.]
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From a media release:
Canada’s most prestigious and high-stakes culinary competition is back with Top Chef Canada: All-Stars. For the first time in Canadian franchise history, Top Chef Canada brings some of the country’s most accomplished chefs from past seasons to battle it out for a chance to earn what has eluded them all: the title of Canada’s Top Chef.
Twelve all-star chefs compete in cutthroat challenges and receive bold critiques from the judging panel which includes recently announced host Eden Grinshpan, head judge chef Mark McEwan and esteemed resident judges Chris Nuttall-Smith, Mijune Pak, and Janet Zuccarini. This season, the returning chefs unpack their knives and fight for a chance to win a $100,000 grand prize courtesy of Interac Flash and a Monogram kitchen valued at over $25,000. Top Chef Canada: All-Stars premieres Sunday, April 2 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network Canada.
Meet the 12 chefs returning to the Top Chef Canada kitchen for a second chance at winning it all:
Throughout the competition, the chefs serve up refined dishes for acclaimed culinary guest judges including: Chopped Canada judges Lynn Crawford, John Higgins, Susur Lee and Antonio Park; Sugar Showdown host Josh Elkin; television personality, cookbook author and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich; culinary superstar, chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud; chef/owner of Raymonds in downtown St. John’s Jeremy Charles; celebrity chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Maneet Chauhan; chef/owner of Montreal’s Maison Publique Derek Dammann; food writer and cookbook author Sabrina Ghayour; chef/owner of Montreal’s Toqué! and Brasserie T! Normand Laprise; owner of Big Gay Ice Cream Doug Quint, and chef/owner of Toronto’s Bar Raval, Bar Isabel and El Rey Mezcal Bar, Grant Van Gameren.
Last fall, Force Four Entertainment and CBC teamed for Keeping Canada Alive, a poignant documentary that showed the breadth and depth of our country’s health care in a 24-hour period. (Give Diane’s review of that a read, won’t you?)
Both companies have partnered again for Keeping Canada Safe, a 48-hour whirlwind look—spread over eight half-hour episodes—of the emergency personnel (and sometimes animals) charged with ensuring our safety last summer. With news of walls going up and national security in the headlines of late, Keeping Canada Safe is certainly timely. What sets this series apart from, say Border Security, is the 60-plus cameras dispatched across the country. Rather than being focused on one airport or border crossing—production was granted access to more than 47 organizations in 34 cities across 10 provinces and two territories—the program is able to profile a cross-section of this country and the personalities of folks who do this.
The debut instalment, airing Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC, wasn’t what I was expecting. With Border Security as my only reference, I assumed Keeping Canada Safe would spend most of the time at airports, borders and other high-profile transit points. After having seen Keeping Canada Alive, I should have known better. You do get those broader national security stories here, but Force Four connects with viewers by getting down to a local level, like an enraged Calgary man trying to break into his house as a police helicopter swoops overhead. That situation is used to explain the reason for a helicopter being in the air in the first place: it’s safer for police and citizens for a chopper to track a criminal in a car than a high-speed chase is.
Meanwhile, in rural Prince Edward Island, Lewie Sutherland is the police chief of Kensington and everyone calls him by his first name. Because of the small population—a mere 1,500—everyone knows each other, and the death of a citizen is felt by the community. It’s easy to assume Lewie’s life is easier than that of the guys working in Calgary, but I think it’s harder. In a metropolis, people can become somewhat faceless. But in PEI, a criminal or someone in danger could be your friend.
The most disturbing segment of Episode 1 is devoted to following Winnipeg’s Bear Patrol, a group of volunteers who strive to find missing women in the city. Within the span of mere broadcast minutes (but remember, this is filmed over just 48 hours), a handful of girls and young women are reported missing. The race is on to locate them in a neighbourhood known for violence and the sex trade.
Upcoming stories during the eight-episode run include an all-access look at Pearson International airport, including their K9 Unit, wildlife control with trained falcons and an emergency landing; a Kingston drug bust against a suspected meth dealer; and Ottawa scientists testing a compound of everyday chemicals and a bomb suit for first responders.
Beautifully shot and wonderfully written, Keeping Canada Safe really should be seen, both to be informed about the jobs being done behind the scenes for our security and to celebrate those who are doing it.
Keeping Canada Safe airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.
Image courtesy of CBC.
