Even when under threat from witch hunters or dark magic, The Secret Circle’s young female witches — played by Britt Robertson, Phoebe Tonkin, Shelley Hennig and… Read More »LIQUIDATION SALE: Cute Clothes from THE SECRET CIRCLE Sale in North Shore Studios
On Day 24 of the investigation into the murder of Seattle teen Rosie Larsen, the detective and political storylines intersect. At a downtown government building, Darren… Read More »THE KILLING Films at Vancouver Public Libary on Day 24 of Investigation – Updated
The yet-to-be-cast 13-episode CTV series Motive, about a “feisty female Vancouver detective” solving murders, is the latest TV drama series to let Vancouver play itself. We’ve gone from zero to four in a very short time– possibly five if Endgame is resurrected.
Why now? Some credit the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games for making our city “cool” and recognizable the world over.
While CBC’s hit adventure series Arctic Air mainly films its Yellowknife interiors on permanent sets in Aldergrove and its exteriors in Yellowknife, when the action is in our city, as it was in the wonderfully-titled episode Vancouver is Such a Screwed-Up City, then Vancouver plays itself.
And Showcase’s out-of-the-box hit Continuum features not one but two Vancouvers. In the part sci-fi, part procedural Continuum, a future police officer travels back in time from Vancouver in the year 2077 to Vancouver in the year 2012, swept up in an escape by a group of terrorists — Liber8 – who plan to change the future from the past by targeting the corporations that will come to rule the world. Here’s Rachel Nichols’s officer-from-the-future at the Vancouver Public Library.
Over at SPACE’s upcoming sci-fi and procedural series Primeval: New World, we can look forward to seeing apartment-building-sized dinosaurs and other primeval creatures rampaging through our neighbourhoods like Stanley Park, Coal Harbour and the Olympic Village. Read More »CTV Orders New Vancouver-Set Procedural MOTIVE to Series
After returning to the Wapi Eagle Casino again, our detective duo Linden & Holder find themselves on the run in Day 24 of the investigation into the murder of 17-year-old Rosie Larsen this Sunday on AMC.
At the end of March, Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden and Joel Kinnaman as Stephen Holder arrived on location in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to film their parts in a chase scene. A stunt double had been driving Holder’s beater car south on Prior Street (dressed with a 22 Ave NW street sign) through the Powell Street intersection in take after take. A blue unmarked chase vehicle gets boxed in as Holder’s car speeds away. Mireille Enos replaced her stunt double in the passenger seat for a shorter scene of Holder’s car making a sharp left turn into an alley.
Less than a week later, I watched them filming Linden & Holder on the run at night at Richmond City Hall dressed as Seattle City Hall, but I’ll hold onto those photos until I know if it’s in Day 24, entitled Bulldog.
To backtrack: Day 22 of the investigation found BFFs Linden & Holder returning to the casino where Rosie Larsen was last seen alive to get access to the 10th floor using her key. While Linden sneaks by, Holder distracts security in a hilarious scene. He’s single-handedly turned The Killing from a dead serious, morose drama into a dramedy: “Hey, what’s up guys. You winning?….Johnny Knoxville you doin’ it man…show me your cards man…I love your haircut man. It’s slick. It’s old-school slick…Where are the ladies?…I’m talkin’ real ladies. Ain’t no party without no trim….What’s up Bobby [casino security chief Roberta Drays] …I just want my phone back cupcake….Probably fell out of my pocket when you kicked the shit out of me the other day…Beware of the She-Wolf, she’ll crack your ribs…..Look at that [lifts up his shirt to show bruises]….Oh I found my phone…My Bad….My boss at SPD will love this one [takes photo with phone]…..Oh I’ll see myself out….Sayonara, Hiawatha!”
Read More »Sneak Peek of THE KILLING’s Linden & Holder on the Run + Recap of Days 22 & 23
Oh Kate. Successful in your professional life. And self-sabatoguing in your private one. Like so many women. How maddening was it in Kiss Me, Kate when she skipped a dinner date with Ben to fall into bed with her ex-husband Justin?
Mind you when your ex is played by Michael Trucco, it would be hard to resist. Here’s Sarah Shahi as Kate Reed on her way to Justin’s apartment, which turned out to be located on Cordova in the Koret Building in Gastown. (Episode 2×09 aired May 11th on the USA Network in the U.S. and last night on Showcase in Canada.)
Love how Sarah Shahi’s Uggs are the same colour as the pumps she wore in the scene.
Usually I’m pretty spoiler-free about Fairly Legal, despite having seen quite a bit of filming here in Vancouver, but I couldn’t help but catch the on-line tirades three weeks ago over Kate’s tryst with Justin. “I was so mad at Kate .. . after last night’s episode, I decided it might be wise to cool my heels to avoid turning this review into one big rant, ” wrote Mary Powers at The Voice of TV. What Kate did may seem crazy but it’s very real. She’s fresh off a divorce from Justin who cheated on her so Ben suprising her with a kiss in the previous episode and then arranging a dinner date in this one scares the bejeesus out of her. She tries to avoid the date and the possiblity of being hurt so desperately that she stands up Ben to sleep with familiar Justin. As Kate’s wise assistant Leo put it: “You know how you have the tendency to blow things up for no reason? BOOM!”
Earlier, I caught scenes of Justin, aka Michael Trucco tracking down a street artist who’d paintbombed a valuable artwork that Lauren bought for the lobby of Reed & Reed. Turns out this street artist’s work had been “appropriated” by the name artist who’d sold the painting for $50,000.
The prop street art featured in this Gastown alley was spectacular. My photo of My Father Who Art in Heaven attracted over a thousand views on Flickr.
Published May 31, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome
Live-tweets turned out to be the best thing about last weekend’s Leo Awards celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television. Tweets from @LeoAwards gave an award-by-award account plus details of all the hijinks in between at both the Celebration and Gala Awards: hijinks that ranged from Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott mock-fighting over their award to Gala co-hosts Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne calling each other evil twin and English MILF to Nancy Robertson and Ryan Robbins pitching a new comedy series to Emilie Ullerup re-enacting Angelina Jolie’s notorious one-leg Oscars pose to acting legend Gabrille Rose swearing on stage while presenting the final award to Sisters & Brothers for Best Feature Film.
It was a great way to let the public share in this celebration of artistic talent after a tough week, which had started with the official cancellation of homegrown sci-fi series Sanctuary, the most-recognized B.C. production by far with 18 Leo nominations going in. Sanctuary ended up winning four Leos for its fourth and final season, but only one on the night of the gala for a guest performance by Arctic Air’s Pascale Hutton, who sang beautifully and turned her head right around in the Glee-meets-The-Exorcist episode Fuge.
I’d hoped for a repeat of last year’s wild times on the red carpet outside the Hotel Vancouver on West Georgia Street, but organizers moved the red carpet inside the hotel this year to the conference floor and restricted access. Most of the nominees kept the party going after the red carpet to take a turn at the new Media Wall by the bar where I had a spot, but it was so dimly-lit I had to jack some light from the pro-photographers’ flashes. Here’s The Express’s Johanna Ward interviewing nominee and eventual winner Johannah Newmarch on the red carpet about her supporting performance in mockumentary Sunflower Hour. Ward later dropped by the Media Wall to wrangle nominees Ali Liebert from Bomb Girls and Emilie Ullerup from Arctic Air as a backdrop to her standup.
You can see the start of Emilie Ullerup’s one-leg Angelina homage and how the popular Cassini brothers photo-bombed the arrangement. That’s Frank on the left and John on the right. Frank Cassini later won a roar from the crowd and a Leo for his supporting performance on Read More »BIG READ: LEO AWARDS Live-Tweets its Hotel Vancouver Gala
Continuum’s debut last night on Showcase was big. How big? 1.7 million Canadians tuned into the two airings. That makes it the #1 drama on cable this year (see press release)
Originally called Out of Time, Continuum is part sci fi, part police procedural about a future police officer Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), who travels back in time from Vancouver in the year 2077 to Vancouver in the year 2012, swept up in an escape by a group of terrorists — Liber8 — who plan to change the future from the past by targeting the corporations that will come to rule the world. Cameron impersonates a present-day police officer and ends up being partnered with detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster), who refuses to give her a weapon in this shootout with the terrorists, filmed in Victory Square this past January. Give her a weapon Fonnegra. She needs one.
Read More »CONTINUUM Debut is Highest-Rated Canadian Cable Drama of Year – Updated
How much does the CBC love its new hit drama series Arctic Air? Heaps. At the CBC upfronts earlier this month in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary to unveil next season’s schedule to advertisers and media, host George Stroumboulopoulos introduced the Arctic Air actors first in the opening Prime Time segment, ahead of the Dragon’s Den Dragons.
And for good reason — Arctic Air was the most-watched debut season for a CBC drama series in fifteen years, averaging just under a million viewers (965,000) for its first ten episodes. I watched all ten and even live-tweeted the finale in mid-March, along with so many other Canadians. Arctic Air is a classic adventure series — filmed mainly on permanent sets in Aldergrove with most exterior scenes filmed in Yellowknife — where the main trio are often in peril. It started with Bobby Martin (Adam Beach)’s return to Yellowknife to help keep alive the maverick airline co-founded by his dead father and the notorious curmudgeon Mel Ivarson (Kevin McNulty). There he reunites with Mel’s daughter Krista (Pascale Hutton), a former flame and hot-shot pilot. In the season finale cliffhanger, much of it filmed near Clinton in B.C.’s Cariboo country, Mel has internal bleeding after helping the other survivors of a plane crash. What? “Mr. Crankypants better be with us next season,” I tweeted.
Read More »ARCTIC AIR Trio Talk about First Hit Season on CBC
Syfy’s official cancellation today of our own little sci-fi success story Sanctuary marks the end of an era in Vancouver. For the first time in a decade, American cable network Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi) doesn’t have a single TV series filming here. They began with the sixth season of Stargate SG-1, then Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, mini-series Tin Man and Alice, Caprica, Stargate Universe, pilot Blood and Chrome, Eureka and Sanctuary, which both wrapped filming here last summer.
Until today there was a sliver of hope for a Sanctuary renewal even though the series, co-created by Stargate star Amanda Tapping, Stargate director Martin Wood and Stargate writer Damian Kindler, had to give up its Burnaby studio and even sell sets while it waited for a decision. Finally it came this afternoon: Sanctuary would not be returning for a fifth season, making last year’s fourth season its final one.
