Wisecracks

Last updated
Wisecracks
Directed by Gail Singer
Produced bySusan Cavan
Rina Fraticelli
Signe Johansson
Gail Singer
Ginny Stikeman
Cinematography Zoe Dirse
Robert Fresco
Edited byGordon McClellan
Production
companies
Release date
  • September 1991 (1991-09)(Toronto)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Wisecracks is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Gail Singer and released in 1991. [1] The film profiles a number of women who were active in comedy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Joy Behar, Phyllis Diller, Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopi Goldberg, Geri Jewell, Paula Poundstone, Sandra Shamas and Jenny Jones. [2]

The film premiered at the 1991 Festival of Festivals. Singer's comedy film True Confections was also screened at the same festival, making her the first filmmaker in the festival's history to have both a documentary and a narrative fiction film screened at the festival in the same year. [3]

The film subsequently received a Genie Award nomination for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 13th Genie Awards in 1992. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine O'Hara</span> Canadian-American actress (born 1954)

Catherine Anne O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress. She is known for her comedy work on Second City Television (1976–84) and Schitt's Creek (2015–2020) and in films such as After Hours (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), and the first two installments of the Home Alone franchise (1990–1992). Her other film appearances include the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest; Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006).

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Motion Picture to the best Canadian film of the year.

Elizabeth Yake is a Canadian film producer, who is the founder and president of True West Films. She is most noted for the films Everything's Gone Green and It's All Gone Pete Tong, the latter of which won the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian Film in 2004 and was a Genie Award nominee for Canadian Screen Award for Best Motion Picture at the 26th Genie Awards in 2006.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Achievement in Direction to the best work by a director of a Canadian film.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Achievement in Cinematography, to honour the best Canadian film cinematography.

The Canadian Screen Award for Best Animated Short is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian animated short film. Formerly part of the Genie Awards, since 2012 it has been presented as part of the Canadian Screen Awards.

<i>Who Is KK Downey?</i> 2008 Canadian film

Who Is KK Downey? is a 2008 comedy film directed by Pat Kiely and Darren Curtis. It was produced in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

We're Funny That Way began as an annual charity comedy festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1996. Launched in 1996 by Maggie Cassella, the festival featured stand-up and sketch comedy shows by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender comedians. It ran until 2012 when it took a five-year hiatus, returning in 2017. The festival has grown to a broader performance festival and now includes musicians, story-tellers, burlesque artists, plays, drag performances, generally following the genres associated with live cabaret.

Ric Esther Bienstock is a Canadian documentary filmmaker best known for her investigative documentaries. She was born in Montreal, Quebec and studied at Vanier College and McGill University. She has produced and directed an eclectic array of films from investigative social issue documentaries like Sex Slaves, an investigation into the trafficking of women from former Soviet Bloc Countries into the global sex trade and Ebola: Inside an Outbreak which took viewers to ground zero of the Ebola outbreak in Zaire - to lighter fare such as Penn & Teller’s Magic and Mystery Tour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Screen Awards</span> Canadian media awards

The Canadian Screen Awards are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media productions. Given annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, the awards recognize excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.

Maya Gallus is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, and co-founder of Red Queen Productions with Justine Pimlott. Her films have screened at international film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, SEOUL International Women’s Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, This Human World Film Festival (Vienna) and Women Make Waves (Taiwan), among others. Her work has also screened at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Donostia Kultura, San Sebastián and Canada House UK, as well as theatrically in Tokyo, San Francisco, Key West and Toronto, and been broadcast around the world. She has won numerous awards, including a Gemini Award for Best Direction for Girl Inside, and has been featured in The Guardian, UK; Ms. (Magazine), Curve (Magazine), Bust (Magazine), Salon (Magazine), POV and The Walrus, among others. She is a Director/Writer alumna of the Canadian Film Centre and a participant in Women in the Director’s Chair. She will be honoured with a "Focus On" retrospective at the 2017 Hot Docs festival.

True Confections is a 1991 Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Gail Singer. Based on Sondra Gotlieb's Stephen Leacock Award-winning novel True Confections, it stars Leslie Hope as Verna Miller, a young Jewish woman growing up in the 1950s who rebels against the rigid gender role assigned to women in her era due to her ahead-of-her-time sensibilities and life aspirations.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Feature Length Documentary. First presented in 1968 as part of the Canadian Film Awards, it became part of the Genie Awards in 1980 and the contemporary Canadian Screen Awards in 2013.

Pedro Pires is a Canadian film director. His short film Danse Macabre won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 30th Genie Awards, his short film Hope was a Genie Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 32nd Genie Awards in 2012, and he was a Canadian Screen Award nominee for Best Director at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014 for Triptych, which he co-directed with Robert Lepage.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Award for Best Short Documentary is an annual Canadian film award, presented to a film judged to be the year's best short documentary film. Prior to 2012 the award was presented as part of the Genie Awards program; since 2012 it has been presented as part of the expanded Canadian Screen Awards.

Deadly Currents is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Simcha Jacobovici and released in 1991. The film explores the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, profiling various people on both sides of the dispute.

Battle of the Bulge is a Canadian comedy short film, directed by Arlene Hazzan Green and released in 1991. An exploration of women's body image issues, the film stars Suzanne Cyr as Victoria, a woman whose obsession with thinness results in the creation of Vanna, a significantly fatter alter ego who shows up to taunt Victoria whenever she looks in a mirror or eats food, with their battle of wills building until breaking out into an epic food fight.

Edsville is a Canadian horror comedy short film, directed by Alan Marr and released in 1990.

The Falls is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Kevin McMahon and released in 1991. The film is an exploration of the cultural significance held by Niagara Falls in the collective imagination.

Jane Tattersall is a Canadian sound editor, most noted as a six-time Genie Award and Canadian Screen Award winner for Best Sound Editing.

References

  1. Noel Taylor, "Wisecracks proves that women are funny too". Ottawa Citizen , December 24, 1991.
  2. Mark Bastien, "Funny bone is Canadian film-maker's new target". Montreal Gazette , September 9, 1991.
  3. Craig MacInnis, "Singer: Cracking wise and felling lies". Toronto Star , September 2, 1991.
  4. H. J. Kirchhoff, "French-Canadian films steal Genie show: Cronenberg's Naked Lunch leads the pack with 11 nominations". The Globe and Mail , October 14, 1992.