One of last year’s homegrown box-office hits was Ma fille, mon ange, Alexis Durand-Brault’s cross between a police mystery and family melodrama, which is now out on DVD. Karine Vanasse plays a sweet daughter who heads off to Montreal to go to law school. But she’s naughtier and sluttier than mom and dad had anticipated, and before dad (Michel Côté) knows it, Vanasse is flashing her ass (and everything else) on a pay-per-view sex Web site. Truth be told, I was expecting to deplore this movie, seeing as it’s an obviously sleazy ploy: denounce the evils of leering at slutty, young, scantily-clad women, while doing just that. True, the film has the last vestiges of Catholic guilt running through it (the people who made it appear to have only just lapsed recently), but in its favour it’s undoubtedly a very well put together movie. Yves Bélanger’s cinematography is amazing, while editor Richard Comeau’s montage is also well-handled. But just when things seem to be not so awful, Ma Fille culminates with one of the most ludicrous last-minute “explanations” of whodunit that I’ve ever witnessed. This will surely go down in the books as one of the looniest stunt endings in film history.

The fine people over at Paramount Home Video have put out season two of Hawaii Five-O, one of the longest-running cop shows in TV history. I confess, I’m finding this show strangely hypnotic. And it must be noted: Five-O chief Jack Lord bears a striking resemblance to Montreal filmmaker John L’Ecuyer.

by MATTHEW HAYS