Excellent, a Must See

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Still growing in cult popularity, all three seasons of the Canadian dark comedy are well worth owning. Set backstage at a mythical Shakespeare Festival, in a mythical Canadian town, New Burbage, this send up and homage to the famous Stratford Festival is a quiet riot. The show's lead actors, like Martha Burns, Paul Gross, Susan Coyne and Stephen Ouimette (who made his Broadway debut in 2010). All have been real-life Stratford players. Gross played Hamlet, and Coyne played Juliet in Stratford productions.This gem delivers the guts and the glory for all involved. Great, television. Give me more of these stories that go... "right through the ages with Shakespeare..." and raise the high water mark for the entire medium of television. As a cure for fevered greed, Hollywood needs to take a seat on the living room couch and shut off the phones to study this one, because, obviously, audiences exist for shows that engage us with real story, three dimensional characters, and rarest of all - resonant dialog. That is dialog that reflects and echoes internal character arc as well as external action. Instead of slapping an audience across our dull-eyed faces with crude jokes, or non-stop violence and gimmickry.Give me more.By the middle of the second series I knew that-hard as it is to choose-my favorite character was the put-upon office, long suffering, manager/secretary, Anna Conroy, played with pitch-perfect sympathy by Susan Coyne; who ends up with most of the responsibility for daily operations at the New Burbage Theater Festival" and is the moral lynch-pin of the entire company. She walked into my hear quietly, slowly, barely noticeable at first, then, Bam! Brava! More! More!

The huge, main and irrefutable difference between American sitcoms and British comedy is that the "Brits" limit one aspect of it, in order to blow the roof on others. It usually plays only for 6 to 12 episodes a "series" but defies conventions, blows its nose at profitability, and exudes complete ingenuity of content.Canadian television often tries to imitate completely one of the two. Slings & Arrows manages the unthinkable feat of bridging the gap. 6 episodes, an unusual "mélange" of laugh-out-loud funny and character-driven drama, and it's just a whole guilty-pleasure load of commercial fun.Series stars a deliciously exuberant Paul Gross as a washed out stage actor, forced to take over the Shakespearean company of his recently deceased former mentor. His task: mount a festival-closing Hamlet, in less the 5 weeks, with an action-movie star as his lead, no budget, and against corporate hands trying to turn the whole thing into a theme park. Oh! and he just recovered from a much-publicized mental breakdown.Trying to 'explain' Hamlet is already no small task, but the series succeeds with brilliance in not only exploring the makes of it behind the curtain, complete with jabs at corporate America and stings at Hollywood, but in incorporating the bard's numerous themes and characters into its very fabric. Gross' colorful Geoffrey embodies the Danish Prince, a man in the edge of insanity, stuck with visions of his annoyingly dead father figure. The company's sponsor, an American tough broad, reeks of Lady Mcbeth's evil trickery -and dialogs ("Are you a man" she asks her accomplice and honorable man of a Brutus). The mentor himself, before becoming an all-Canadian haunting to his pupil's Hamlet, starts out as King Lear, driven to madness by his "children". And the central play's couple, half of it played by a pre-fame and spot-on Rachel McAdams, brings the Romeo & Juliet theme to sweeter yet compelling levels. The rest of the cast and support players compose many microcosms of unforgettably well written moments of dialog, courtesy of "Kids in the Hall" graduate Mark McKinney, himself part of the cast.When all is said and done, "Slings & Arrows" will rival in Television history with high-level gems the likes of "Blackadder" and "Fawlty Towers", all the while remaining truly Canadian in essence, and completely accessible to anyone out for a good time in front of the tube.

If you're a theatre junkie or have ever been involved in theatre then this show is for you. It's a blast to watch the "behind the scenes" drama of a theatre troupe and it's extremely well written and well executed. It seems as though the producers were completely unable to come up with anything but amazing cast members and the writers seem incapable of creating anything less than great "dramedy" (not a big fan of the word but it fits). The acting is sublime (really just wanted a chance to use the word sublime...just mean that the character interpretations are fantastic and the commitment of the actors to these neurotic characters makes the whole thing believable...this is awfully long or a parenthetic statement isn't it?) I would highly recommend that anyone check it out if they can because I could be wrong about it appealing mainly to a niche audience. I just found it recently while channel surfing and I can't get enough. I might even buy the DVD's even though they're a little pricey for the number of episodes.

You can tell that this TV show came out of a country other the the US because it's so well acted, very funny and just plain brilliant. It's unashamedly aimed at adults with IQ's over 10. I've been a huge fan of Stephen Ouimettes for years so I expected nothing but the best from him, but what a pleasant surprise to find this show chock a block with actors who actually can act. I watched the first two seasons straight through the night purring like a cat with a saucer of cream. It's great fun seeing how the theatre works behind the scenes - at last a show with a unique theme, original ideas and clever writing. I hope this one lasts and lasts.