The hits just keep coming

This is apparently "Beat the Crap Out of Canadian Film and Television Week". And I didn’t even get you a card.

First there was the news that Cinespace, one of Toronto’s largest movie studio complexes, is being evicted by the City of Toronto because they want to start on their long-awaited waterfront development scheme - tomorrow, apparently. Cinespace is begging them to hold off another 18 months until the big new Port Lands studio complex is finished. The City claims that Cinespace has known about this for well over a year and had plenty of time to make other arrangements. I don’t know who to believe any more, but regardless of who’s being the biggest moron here the fact remains that the already desperate shortage of studio space in Toronto is about to get positively dire.

Then ACTRA went on strike, with what are really some perfectly reasonable demands. Unfortunately, this may serve as the final nail in the coffin of the already struggling film and television production business in this town. Regardless of their good intentions, they may just end up putting themselves and all the other poor schlubs who work in and depend on the industry (like my husband) out of work for good. Current productions may be continuing, but upcoming ones like ‘National Treasure 2’ have already canceled and come the summer they’ll be staying away in droves unless this is resolved very soon.

(anyone got a couch we can sleep on in Vancouver?)

Then there’s this yutz:

Cable mogul threatens to withhold millions used to support Canadian shows

Great. That’s so helpful. Makes you wonder why he got into the Canadian cable TV business in the first place when he obviously doesn’t like Canadian TV… oh, I’m sorry, he’s a BEAN COUNTER!

I cannot begin to tell you how sick I am of hearing people like this bitch and moan about how if these shows or movies were any damned good then everybody would want to watch them and we wouldn’t have to subsidize them with our tax dollars.

Read my lips: GOOD does not equal POPULAR. If it did, most of the top grossing movies (‘Big Momma’s House’?) and top rated TV shows (‘Dancing With the Stars’?) would actually be at the bottom of the list, and HBO would regularly beat the tar out of the U.S. networks for ratings.

I find I have a lot to say about why the arts cannot and should not been subjected to the market economy, but I shall leave that for another day. I’ve been making a lot of very long posts already, and besides…

TOMORROW IS MOVIE REVIEW DAY!