Fetching Cody

The adventures of a Vancouver junkie and his time-traveling easychair have not brought critics to their feet, and instead drew barbs for the film’s uneven mash-up of sci-fi, street life and teen romance. Like ‘a freakish collaboration of John Hughes and Gus Van Sant,’ according to Joe Leydon in Variety, the feature debut of writer/director David Ray, about a drug pusher trying to right the wrongs of his sweetheart’s life, has also drawn unflattering comparisons to The Butterfly Effect, Groundhog Day, The Twilight Zone and ABC After School Specials.

‘Oddly saccharine,’ notes Jim Slotek at the Toronto Sun, going on to add, as do most reviews, that leads Jay Baruchel and Sarah Lind are far too ‘squeaky clean’ to pass for real Downtown Eastside low-lifes. Others found them ‘fresh-faced,’ ‘improbably well-scrubbed’ and ‘milk-fed.’

Curiously, critics were divided on one scene, in which the time-hopping hero fails to prevent the suicide of his girlfriend’s brother. It is either bloodily ‘inappropriate slapstick,’ as written by Susan Walker at the Toronto Star, or the one point where the film ‘finally hits the mark,’ as put forth by Slotek.

Cinematographer Paul Mitchnick drew praise for his footage of the Vancouver slums from CanWest’s Katharine Monk and local Ken Eisner in the Georgia Straight.

Souvenir of Canada

Perhaps – dare we say it? – like the country it examines, critics found this adaptation of the Doug Coupland book quirky, but a little boring.

The Robin Neinstein-directed doc is buoyed by ‘lighthearted wit and cute imagery,’ writes National Post’s Vanessa Farquharson, and by the author’s ‘slight, and slightly amusing’ take on Canuck culture, according to Liam Lacey at The Globe and Mail.

The film is a walking tour of the oddball Canadiana over which Coupland has obsessed, more than once, in print, and which he used to fill his installation art project Canada House in B.C.

The trouble is ‘whether you can stay awake’ through Coupland’s narration, writes Kim Linekin at Eye Weekly, echoing other reviews (‘monotonous,’ ‘rambling’) that the star of the show sounds bored with his own material.