O Canada: A look at the acting chops of some of our homegrown talent

Happy Birthday, Canada! In honour of Canada’s 144^th Dominion Day, I thought I’d write a piece about our great country. Canada is known for many great things like maple syrup, the beaver, multiculturalism, free health care, the Stanley Cup and the Royal Canadian Mounties. We’re a country rich in talent with world-renowned representatives in the sports world (Wayne Gretzky, Steve Nash), in the arts (Margaret Atwood, The Group of Seven), in music (Neil Young, The Guess Who), and in film.

Canada’s bevy of talented Canucks have become big movers and shakers in Hollywood with roles in hugely successful films. Several Canadian actors have garnered both critical and commercial success to become household names and sought after players in the film industry. As Canada celebrates its 144^th year as a nation, we honour its great acting talent with a look at some great Canadian actors.

Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario. He began his career in comedy performing at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto. He landed his first major starring role in the hilariously popular Ace Venture: Pet Detective, which began the snowball effect of great comedic performances by Carrey in films like The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, The Cable Guy and Liar, Liar. Proving his wasn’t a one-trick pony about to be typecast; he stretched his acting chops in more dramatic films like The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, earning Golden Globe Awards for both performances.

Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams was born in London, Ontario. She graduated from the drama program at York University in 2001. In 2004, she starred in two major motion pictures – Mean Girls and The Notebook – roles which raised her profile in Hollywood and led to other prominent roles in Wedding Crashers and Red Eye. After the success of these films, McAdams was dubbed the new “it girl” and quickly became Canada’s sweetheart. When she’s not making movies, McAdams lives with her brother in a small town outside Toronto. She’s been quoted in People Magazine as saying, “Acting is my job. It's not my life. My life is in Toronto.”

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling was born in London, Ontario. At age 12, he appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club. He earned mainstream success alongside compatriot Rachel McAdams in The Notebook. In the film, they play a young couple whose love affair begins one summer and lasts a lifetime. In a classic case of life imitating art, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved after finishing production on The Notebook and dated for three years before calling it quits.

Switching gears completely, Gosling next starred as a drug addicted middle-school teacher in the drama Half Nelson, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He followed that performance with another staring turn in Lars and the Real Girl, an unconventional love story about a quirky guy named, Lars, who develops a relationship with a doll named Bianca. Critics loved the movie and Gosling’s performance was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Last year, Gosling once again wowed critics with his turn in Blue Valentine.

Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox was born in Edmonton, Alberta. Fox became a household name when he captured the hearts of television viewers in the role of Alex P. Keaton in the sitcom Family Ties. In 1985, he starred in what became the highest grossing film of that year – Back to the Future. Back to the Future was a critical and commercial success and became a pop culture phenomenon. It remains one of the most beloved films of all time and graces numerous “best movies” lists. Fox remains one of Canada’s most beloved actors not only for his body of work, but for his personal and courageous battle with Parkinson ’s disease. He’s become a strong advocate for Parkinson’s disease awareness and research, creating a foundation called The Michael J. Fox Foundation to help advance promising research in finding a cure for the disease.

Sandra Oh

Sandra Oh was born in Nepean, Ontario. Oh became widely known in Canada for her lead performance in Double Happiness for which she won a Genie Award for Best Actress. Double Happiness is about an aspiring actress trying to fulfill her dreams amidst competing duties and obligations. She has starred in other noteworthy Canadian films – Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity and Last Night. In 2004, Oh became known to American audiences when she starred in the Academy Award nominated film Sideways. Currently, in her role as Christina Yang in the medical series Grey’s Anatomy, Oh has solidified herself as one of the best known characters on television.

Leslie Neilson

Leslie Neilson was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. When he was young, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force then worked as a disc jockey. His acting career began with dramatic roles in television, but Neilson found his true niche as a great comedic actor. He is best known for his performances in comedy disaster film parodies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun Series. Neilson’s knack for portraying characters with deadpan seriousness while hilarity and absurdity surrounded him was pure comedy gold. The American Film Institute ranked Airplane! on its list of the top ten comedy films of all time. Neilson passed away in November 2010 due to complications from pneumonia. In an effort to garner one last laugh perhaps, Neilson chose “Let ‘er Rip” as his epitaph.

Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He broke onto the scene with a starring role in the National Lampoon movie Van Wilder. Reynolds displayed his great comedic timing and leading man charisma and went on to star in other funny flicks like Just Friends and Definitely, Maybe. Stretching his acting chops and showcasing his physicality and ability to play darker roles, he strayed from comedy and starred in the supernatural action film Blade: Trinity and in a remake of the horror film The Amityville Horror. Reynolds continues not to favour one genre over another, splitting his starring roles between comedy – The Proposal – and action ­– Green Lantern.

John Candy

John Candy was born in Toronto, Ontario. He began his career as a standup comic and rose to fame as a member of the improv troupe The Second City. Candy’s superb comedic timing and remarkably endearing and hilarious characterizations helped to make films like Splash, Spaceballs, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck great critical and commercial successes. Candy dabbled in drama and took on more serious roles in the early 1990s, but his dramatic films could not rival the success of his funny films. Sadly, Candy died from a heart attack at age 43.

Who are your favourite acting Canucks? Let us know in the comments section.

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Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Jim Carrey takes on another beloved children’s story. I like what Carrey did with Lemony Snicket so hopefully he can bring that same energy to this film.

A Christmas Carol Out of Tune

A Christmas Carol

The massive success of Avatar only cements that 3D films are here to stay. So the question now becomes what requirements does a movie need to warrant this technology? Would Inglourious Basterds or Up in the Air be better or worse if they were done in 3D?

Robert Zemeckis follows up his Old English 3D epic, Beowulf, by revisiting the holiday terrain he first ventured to with his 3D movie, The Polar Express. A Christmas Carol finds Zemeckis tackling Charles Dickens classic tale of Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) who is visited by three ghosts (all Carrey) on the eve of Christmas. The three ghosts will not only show Scrooge the errors of his past and present, but how Scrooge's decisions may lead towards an unsettling future.

Zemeckis has been one of the prominent filmmakers who has been championing the 3D movement for that past 5 years now. While the animation in Zemeckis's 3D films keeps improving, the 3D technology continues to thwart his overall storytelling. A Christmas Carol follows a ever growing number of films that serves no real purpose in 3D format at all. The flow of each ghosts' segment is constantly interrupted for no other purpose than to justify the extra price of admission. As a result we are provided with 3D scenes of Scrooge being shot into space, speeding down the street on a soda bottle, etc. Sure these scenes may please the really young kids in attendance, whose attention spans are small to being with, but for the rest of us this is just plain annoying.

The need to justify the 3D format hurts the one element of the film where Zemeckis actually got it right, the story. Although the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge has been interpreted numerous times, it was actually refreshing to see how close Zemeckis stayed to Charles Dickens' original story. While many incarnations of A Christmas Carol have glossed over, or simply left out, the religious element of the text; Zemeckis does not shy away from it at all. Robert Zemeckis even goes as far as making the ghost of Christmas-present God himself. There is even a great scene where the ghost of Christmas-present, after being questioned by Scrooge, chastises those who use his name as grounds for conducting evil deeds. It is moments like this, and not the 3D snowflakes, where A Christmas Carol really connects with the audience.

Another thing connects, but ultimately gets lost in Zemeckis' 3D excess, is Jim Carrey's performance. Carrey actually does a really good job not only as Scrooge but the three ghosts as well. As Scrooge, Carrey finds the right balance where we believe him as botha crotchety old-man and a misguided soul who just wants one last shot at redemption. In A Christmas Carol, Carrey is actually the best he has been since his 2004 combo of Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is just too bad that Zemeckis inadvertently overshadows Carrey's work with his need to have objects flying off the screen. If A Christmas Carol had just played it straight, it might actually be worth recommending. Unfortunately Zemeckis tries too hard to create a 3D experience for a picture that should not have been in 3D in the first place.