The Corner Gas Movie: Movie Review

“I love this stupid town and I for one think it’s worth saving.”

Nobody could have said it better than Brent.

DOG RIVER FOR CANADA’S QUAINTEST TOWN?

It’s like no time has passed at all.

Dog River, Saskatchewan, the place where nothing ever happens.

We here in Canada have no blitz and glamour of Hollywood, no bright lights of Broadway, but we do have plentiful humour and Corner Gas.

The show ran from 2004 until 2009 and five years later comes The Corner Gas Movie.

We aren’t known in Canada for our celebrity film world, but with such institutions as TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) we are slowly gaining traction.

Corner Gas, the show and now the movie, they have become a bit of a Canadian staple, but the citizens of Corner Gas and the events of the town could be those to be found in any town, anywhere in the world.

It all started with an idea from creator, writer, actor Brent Butt. He wanted to write a show, based in Saskatchewan, in a fictional town known as Dog River, and with the centre of the town being the gas station.

Brent’s character runs the station, along with his employee Wanda.

Wanda is a tough little lady, always with a fowl mouth, backdoor scheme going and an angle to work.

Brent’s parents are Oscar and Emma, probably the worst example of a married couple there is. HE’s useless at just about everything he tries and she’s often embarrassed by what her crazy husband might be up to. The only way they have clearly survived this many years together…well, the both of them are just plain mean and miserable old geezers.

His favourite catch phrase is the ever popular: “Jackass!”

It’s actually a pretty simple insult, but it has become his catch phrase after all this time.

There’s Dog River’s resident jack-of-all-trades (lousy at them all), chronically unemployed best friend of Brent since childhood, Hank.

Then there’s the Ruby Cafe, owned and operated by Lacey. She’s the sweet one and probably one of the sharpest tools in the town shed, if not a little on the bossy side sometimes.

Finally, the whole town is policed by dynamic duo Karen and Davis. They spend most of their time policing where none is truly necessary. It isn’t quite clear what it is they do actually.

I was hoping this movie would feel like the show before it. I went to see it in its limited time release, extremely limited.

It was playing in theatres from Wednesday, December 3 to Sunday, December 7th only.

Before the start of the film is a live and interactive opening with Brent Butt himself and games such as:

Who said it?
Obama or Oscar?

The town is in a shambles when the movie opens: power, hydro, water, garbage are all piling up and falling into disrepair. Dog River’s mayor has been negligent and careless in his mismanagement.

In the condition Dog River is in, to be awarded the title of Canada’s Quaintest Town is their only hope, but its going to take a lot to become qualified.

This movie has more hijinks, as usual, but a softer side of Emma’s character. She is longing for a grandchild this time.

The show was never known for its romance and now Brent doesn’t seem like the best son to bet on for a hopeful future grandmother. Unfortunately, he is her only son. Maybe love really is in the air.

As things appear to look bleak for the town, Oscar is riding around on a horse, some mysterious real estate agents are going around offering people money for their homes, and Wanda is running an underground saloon/cassino behind Brent’s back.

A rift has opened between best lifelong friends Brent and Hank. Hank has come up with another one of his harebrained schemes and has just assumed Brent would back him.

Alliances seem shaky between police partners and pals Karen and Davis when his contract ends and he takes on a PI business, leaving Karen alone and pregnant and trying to police a dying Dog River.

All seems dyer and beyond all hope. Luckily this is a movie and not just a half hour show. More time to find a resolution.

🙂

I got what I wanted. It felt like one long version of the TV show and I think that’s what all good movies made from television shows should be. Plus, no Canadian film would be complete without a brief clip, a little Kim Mitchell and Go for a Soda.

🙂

The dry and sarcastic humour of Corner Gas and its entirely Canadian creator are clearly still the keys to the success and the familiarity here again. All the beloved characters are back and just as crazy as ever.

The movie only aired for five days and within two weeks it’s being aired on network CTV television.

At the heart of this film is Corner Gas and the man who runs it. Brent cares about his home and the people who live there. He may even be in love with one of them, the destruction of Dog River causing him to fear losing either Lacy or Wanda to a better life in the big city if Dog River is no more.

There is subterfuge and spy tactics afoot with a neighbouring town and perhaps the fate of their own could be left in the hands of townspeople such as Hank or Davis.

Meanwhile, back in dog River Lacey has been appointed leader of the Quaintification Committee.

It’s going to take more than a screw-up-of-a-town-mayor to destroy Dog River, not with its citizens all doing their best and being themselves, all in the name of saving the home they love.

As for this show and the subsequent movie, you may need to be Canadian to get the joke, but this Canadian is pretty proud of what we’ve got here.

I’m a sucker for romance and, no matter who ends up with whom in the movie, creator Brent Butt and costar Nancy Robertson (Wanda) met on set a few years after filming premiered. This gives Corner Gas an underlying love connection and special place in my own heart.

I love Brent’s unique writing style and his dry witty sense of humour, which resinates in everything he does. I was glad to see something like this made by Canadians and it was sweet to see, corny though it was at times, the audience who knew the theme song by heart and who sang unashamedly all around me in that theatre.

I don’t mean to suggest any true comparison, to any hardcore Seinfeld fans, but Corner Gas, in show or film version, is a show about nothing, but it’s the characters and the town’s overall personality that makes it memorable.

Corner Gas is the quintessential story about quaint Canadian life in a quaint Canadian town. After five years since the show rapped up, this made for the perfect one last hurrah, showing that community, friendship, family, love, and tradition are important Canadian values. Also, that Brent Butt knows how to write just as interesting a story and a highly sweet movie as was his TV show all those years.

“Jackass!”

Enough said.

Can Men and Women Really Be Just Friends?

Note: Possible spoilers ahead, but I try to stick mostly to vagueness and hinting, preferring to speak mostly on character and theme. Hope you enjoy my review.

***

This movie sets out to answer the question: can two people of the opposite sex really be just friends?

I suppose this is why I really wanted to see this movie. Sure, Harry Potter himself stars in it, but I don’t think that was my main driving force for watching.

I have always been baffled and fascinated by the above question. Everyone has their own opinions and experiences with this. I’m not just talking friendly or occasional acquaintances though. I mean more like best friends who hang out together on a weekly basis, one-on-one.

Daniel and Zoe play two such friends.

Daniel Radcliffe’s character Wallace is a med school drop-out who stopped trying, in his career and in love.

After catching his x with someone else he dropped out of a valuable future in medicine. The mistakes of his parents were ones he was afraid he was doomed, himself, to end up making.

Now he lives in his sister’s attic, does not get out much, and is his nephew’s only male role model.

His luck changes when he meets a girl at a party, thrown by his friend and college roommate, played by Adam Driver (Hannah’s on-again off-again love interest on the hit HBO series Girls).

Wallace and Chantry (played by Zoe Kazan) strike up a conversation and it turns out their connection is instant, rare, and undeniable.

All goes well, until the walk home when, after exchanging numbers, she casually mentions her boyfriend will be wondering what happened to her.

Against his better judgment, Wallace agrees to be just friends, but tells himself he won’t see this girl again.

Fate has other plans for these two when they meet up at a showing of The Princess Bride, two of them each seeing a movie alone and during the week. They decide to be friends from then on and spend the rest of the film trying to balance their growing and disguised feelings for one another with their expectations on life and on love. After all, Chantry is in a long-term relationship and, after losing her mother at a young age, does not believe in giving up, all while trying to go by the lessons her mother’s death have taught her on holding on to what’s truly good in your life.

Wallace has learned that love is messy and complex, but to intrude on other people’s relationships is just plain wrong. His hard lessons from his previous relationship and his parents’ have made him unwilling to do what it would take to win his best friend’s affections.

Allan is the best friend you’d want to have, (except maybe when he leaves you naked on a beach overnight). He is sarcastic and funny and full of great advice about the messiness of love and relationships. Some of his advice goes something like this:

“Love is messy and complex. If it’s simple you don’t try and if you don’t try you won’t.”

If you follow? 🙂

I may have misquoted a little, but something about that line from Adam’s character struck a cord with me. Maybe you have to hear him saying it to understand. I would recommend you check out the movie, just to hear him say those particular lines. They were touching, uplifting, and so strangely true (emphasis on the strangely).

I will admit that some of the dialogue in this film was all over the place and hard to get at times. At certain points, when watching, I had to ask myself and my sister sitting next to me, “What?” and she could no better explain it to me, but this is what made this particular movie experience so pleasant and different.

Sure, the story of a young guy and girl trying to hide their feelings from one another is not new; however, this romantic comedy delivered on heart and fun. We laughed uncontrollably several times: my sister from a few of the physically humorous scenes and myself from just the sheer oddness of what I was seeing. I was drawn in and Daniel does a good job, although admittedly it is hard to see him in any other roles, without my mind going back to his once-in-a-lifetime role as Harry Potter. That is something, undoubtedly, that he is working to distance himself from for both his audience and for himself.

His character in The F Word is smart and witty and a good guy, just the kind you might want as a best friend or possibly more. I left the theatre smiling and laughing. The writing really is bazaar and a bit out-there at times, but I found that pleasing and a refreshing change from the usual. I still didn’t have any final answers to the question of whether or not girls and guys can be just friends, but I suppose the best questions in life have no true answers.

The F Word originally premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and the city of Toronto is the setting for this story. With a distinct homey feel (for me) with backgrounds such as The CN Tower and familiar streets and other locations, I somehow felt at home when watching. The F Word is up against such blockbusters as Guardians of the Galaxy and the updated version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For a somewhat smaller movie by comparison, this film comes across nicely and is more my cup of tea.

Check out a small taste

Here.

***

I couldn’t believe it when I read how this movie is called one thing in Canada, where I live, and another in the States. Daniel seems to have a problem with having his movie titles altered: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and now The F Word to What If?

WHAT IF the title had been left alone? What horrors would have befallen, I wonder? What would you think if I had titled this post The F Word? Would you automatically jump to the wrong conclusion? Would that have prevented you from reading or have been just the thing to grab your attention and want to read more?

What do you think about this change in titles? Do you think it necessary?

Also: what do you think? In your own experience, can men and women be just friends, or is their almost always more going on?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these matters.