Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There's no doubt that the Canadian tax shelter filmmaking era could be satirized, but this movie doesn't support that. The movie doesn't really go into depth about the system - I suspect that many viewers (even Canadian) won't know anything about the era, and will be confused by some parts of the movie. (I was fortunate enough to know about the era and the Canadian film industry, so I was able to understand these parts.) Part of this can be blamed on the frequent hurried and rushed feeling of the movie - there is long narration at the beginning instead of showing us what the narrator tells us, for one thing. Movie has a poor sense of time - you never feel this is 1979, and at one point, snow starts falling in the area but later the events of the movie are happening in the late summer! What really sinks the movie are the portrayal of most of the characters. They are thin, but for the most part they are so goofy we can't believe what they do. The few characters that stay serious are good (John Neville does well as the past-his-prime director character), and we see that a movie that would have been more serious and done things that COULD and DID happen would be more engaging (and would probably be a lot more funny.) The movie is also hampered by a low budget that gives the movie a murky and dark look.From the closing credits, it appears that the Canadian government (via the Telefilm Canada film funding agency) financed this movie. This movie is just one example of the millions of dollars Telefilm has spent in financing bad movies no one wants to see. What the Canadian industry really needs is a movie that will savagely attack Telefilm and its questionable practices.

The people who made this movie should have sat down and taken some Ritalin before they began.The story concerns the efforts of Bobby Myers (Matthew Modine), a Canadian lawyer in 1979, to make a movie out of one of his homeland's most beloved novels. It fancies itself as a funny and slightly biting critique of the business and art of making movies and it could have been that if it had just been able to calm the heck down. It seems like when they wrote the script they just threw in every single possible idea anyone could come up with that fit the movie's theme, with the result being a film that can't give any story element the proper attention.Here's a list of the things Hollywood North tries to take on – the distorting effect big stars have on how a movie is made, the Canadian film industry as a tax write-off, how well meaning filmmakers are changed into manipulative bastards by the demands of just getting the movie finished, the capricious and totally nonsensical way scripts are rewritten, the dominance of Hollywood over filmmaking in Canada, a big American star (Alan Bates) who's jingoistic and paranoid over the Iranian hostage crisis, a leading lady (Jennifer Tilly) who lives and dies on the set and dislikes real life, the lure of celebrity and the evolution from a good-hearted and hopeful filmmaker to a toady and enabler of the big star, a young actor (Fab Filippo) getting his first big break and an old director (John Neville) trying to prove he can still cut it, an aspiring filmmaker (Deborah Kara Unger) trying to shoot a documentary of the big budget production while also filming her own movie on the weekends, a scam to use the big movie's resources to get the small movie made, the reasons for on set romances, an out-of-left-field romance between Modine and Unger's characters, the unending stream of rationalization that is used just to keep a film project moving forward and a happy ending that doesn't relate to any of the other things in the movie.That's just too much weight for an 89 minute long comedy to carry. There's not enough time, so almost everything in the film is either too short or too fast to develop in any way. Characters have to say out loud what scenes are about, things that should be important moments in the story come and go and are never heard from again, Matthew Modine's character has to change from frazzled and overwhelmed movie neophyte to cynical and fast-dealing shark and back again at least 3 times because that's what a scene demands.If they could have just relaxed and decided to leave some things out, this could have been a much better film. When Alan Bates character goes nuts at the end and starts punching out extras because he thinks the movie is real, it's pretty funny. John Neville has a really nice scene as the old director trying to pump up the confidence of his nervous young star. There could have been a very nice dynamic between Modine's naïve first-time producer losing his innocence and Unger's more hard-headed artist trying to preserve her self-respect. But is all gets sort of lost in the jumble.Hollywood North lacks a central purpose. Instead of being a movie about one thing, it tries to be everything anyone could ever think of and ends up being something that very few folks would ever want.

I rented this movie on DVD without knowing what to expect - and as I am about to study film-making in Canada of all places, I most certainly will bring this up in class.The story, centered around the probably most unlucky film team in the history of film itself, is brilliantly written and the very talented actors manage to deliver every single pun on time.If you simply couldn't laugh during "Hollywood North" I suggest seeing a psychiatrist right away - you might have serious issues.Besides the wonderful script I also noticed the great chemistry between actors Deborah Kara Unger and Matthew Modine - where they really just acting? Jennifer Tilly (playing a hilariously bad actress) and Martin Landau, also delivered a very edgy, yet funny performance.Great film, even better cast.

Never have I seen the beautiful Jennifer Tilly look as luscious as she does in Peter O'Brien's "Hollywood North". I saw the film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and the movie is still on my mind. That's because "Hollywood North", a comedy about the 'movie biz' actually delivers the cinematic goods.The movie's tech credits are slick all-round and directed with a steadfast assurance by O'Brien, a notable producer of some merit during the Canadian 'tax-shelter' movie scene of the early '80's and '90's, winner of numerous Canadian film awards while giving a break to many up and coming actor/writers. Now its his turn to helm the action and he has turned in a sophisticated and wry comedy about a movie scheme that unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse.Ms. Tilly is quite unforgettable as a sex-starved actress, performing in a low-budget movie titled "Flight To Bogota", with one particular hot scene that rivals Kim Cattral's love-making from another Canadian classic "Porky's". Meanwhile the beautiful Deborah Kara Unger pops in and out of the film sets with a documentary camera crew, putting the finishing touches on HER movie about the making of THIS movie.Matthew Modine is quite hilarious as a befuddled newbie producer, John Neville as an assured, yet doddering director, Kim Coates as a hot-headed actor, Fab Filipo as the young leading man, Joe Cobden as Modine's frizzy-haired co-producer and Alan Bates, as a crazed, gentlemanly actor from the old school.But the real star of this show is Hollywood North itself : the fledgling Canadian film industry of the 1970's searching for culture, indentity and a quest for respectability ...This is an entertaining feature that deserves a wide theatrical release...