Critical reactions

[Re: “Steel Toes,” Oct. 11] All too often, critics writing reviews for Canada’s small entertainment weekly papers seem ready to climb up a ladder to shit on the projects of local filmmakers and theatre artists. Critics will find even the worst American indie to have value, but belittle the best Canadian indies ’cause they aren’t more like big-budget American pics. Is this because they are forced to applaud politely and write puff pieces for infantile major releases, or shows that buy advertising in a meaningful way? Or perhaps it’s simply a question of taste—can’t acquire a taste for what you’re covering? Write about jazz, please.

Perhaps it is the special bile of those who never really took a shot at actually writing something, rather than writing about something—in a blurb with the tensile strength and life span of a soap bubble. Perhaps, someone writing so close to home seems to set these types off on an angry rant.

It is especially discouraging as Malcolm Fraser gives us no context for Steel Toes in terms of what its life has been thus far. The film has played in dozens of film festivals as far away as Shanghai and Warsaw and has done extremely well on the indie circuit in the U.S. There, this (“Canadian therefore low-budget”) film won Best Feature Film 2007, at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, one of 2,000 films submitted with quite varied budgets.

It also won Best Screenplay at the Los Angeles Method Fest, curated by John Anderson, a major (real) film critic with over one-and-a-half decades standing—again, about 2,000 entries from around the world with varied budgets. It won a Special Jury Prize at the Houston International Film Festival for independent cinema, a Cine Golden Eagle for best non-studio affiliated film in Washington, and a Columbine Award in Los Angeles at the Moondance Fest. While we’re at it a Dworkin Prize at les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois, the Gottlieb Prize in Detroit, and a Best Actor award for Andrew Walker in Whistler, B.C. I’m not even going to mention nominations.

Very, very few films do so well even with five times the budget. For me, a Montrealer most of my adult life, it is amazing to see that my film is winning major awards in Los Angeles and subject to scorn at home. But then, this shouldn’t really surprise me, I’ve seen this for 15 years as a playwright—most especially from the small weeklies—while my work is done steadily abroad in the U.S., in Israel, in Germany and in Canada as well... should I be taking a hint and hiring movers?

In concluding, I would like to say, Mr. Fraser get a job, write something more than a sharp little blurb, or at least do the job you have well enough to get off your “snide” haunches and stop taking shots at employed writers as being “earnest” for having something, anything, to say more challenging than your headache inducing drek.

>> David Gow

[Re: “Feeling the pain,” Oct. 11] While Amy Barratt makes some very good points about the writing, research and length of The Carpenter she’s missed the essential good in this play, and that is some magnificent performances, particularly from Patricia Yeatman as Carmela senior and David Calderisi as Silvio senior.

If Ms. Barratt can’t recognize the skill required for these roles, she herself doesn’t possess the ability and knowledge of drama to write an objective review. Not that reviews have to be positive, but it would seem that Ms. Barratt has issues with the writer (Vittorio Rossi) in general and his trilogy in particular.

Some reviewers get personal pleasure from slamming a play—just because they can. It presents as a jaded reviewer wearing blinders.

>> Sharon Adams

Lessons for aliens

[Re: “What would the aliens think?” Letters, Oct. 11] Complaining about the number of letters on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a handful of Mirror readers questioned why this should be an important issue for Canadians. Here’s the answer: when, to pander to the Zionist lobby, Canada rushes to become the first country in the world to punish an entire Palestinian population for voting the wrong way, it is the integrity of all Canadians that is at stake.

When Canada opposes a ceasefire that gives the green light for Israel to continue its bombing of Lebanon that last year killed hundreds of innocent civilians—including a Canadian UN peacekeeper—then Canada becomes a direct accomplice.

When Canada designates as “terrorists” even the political arm of Hezbollah, which has elected parliamentarians in Lebanon, then Canada’s credibility disintegrates.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the mainstream media is regularly skewed in Israel’s favour by the unabashedly Zionist CanWest Global. In its reporting, reality is shamelessly inverted with those under occupation portrayed as aggressors and those inflicting it as victims. The few places open to critical reporting on this issue is the alternative media. That is what this campaign against the Letters section of the Mirror is all about. It is an alarm at the truth coming out.

As for Justin (no family name provided) who wrote that he was “fucking sick and tired” of letters on the Middle East, here’s my humble suggestion: why don’t you simply stop fucking reading them or start fucking writing about what does interest you?

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!