Radiant City

Last updated
Radiant City
RadiantCity.jpg
Theatrical poster
Directed by Gary Burns
Jim Brown
Produced by Shirley Vercruysse
Bonnie Thompson
Cinematography Patrick McLaughlin
Edited byJonathan Baltrusaitis
Music by John Bissell
Natalie Baartz
Joey Santiago
Distributed by Alliance Atlantis
Release date
  • September 10, 2006 (2006-09-10)(TIFF)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
Box office$78,944 [1]

Radiant City is a 2006 Canadian film [2] written and directed by Gary Burns and Jim Brown. It is about the suburban sprawl and the Moss family's life in the suburbs. The film is openly critical towards suburban sprawl and its negative effects, being ironic and amusing at the same time.

Contents

It was revealed to be a mockumentary at the end of the film.

The fictional part is about the five members of the Moss family who have just moved from the city into a new suburban development of Evergreen (part of Evergreen) in Calgary, Alberta. The family discuss and portray the life in the suburbs and the various flaws and advantages of a modern suburban life, with a considerably greater emphasis on the flaws. While the characters and instances in the movie are fictional, the actors that play them all live in real suburban areas.

Interspersed with this narrative, experts speak about their views of the suburbs. These include Ken Greenberg, Joseph Heath, Mark Kingwell, James Howard Kunstler, Marc Boutin, Andrés Duany and Beverly Sandalack. These portions are filmed in different suburban areas of North America, including Oakville, Ontario.

Plot

The Moss family decides to move from the inner city of Calgary to a suburban area called Evergreen to satisfy Ann Moss's desire of living in a new house. Her husband, Evan Moss, is still keeping his job downtown, which forces him to consume two hours of commuting time. Apparently, even if the area offers everything that is needed by a family in walking distance, one is isolated due to constructions, buildings, distance, and the area layout and is constantly forced to rely on the car for every little need. The family carries on its ordinary life with Ann having a positive opinion of their new life and Evan and the kids can see more clearly on the flaws and disadvantages of this lifestyle. However, they go along with it, constantly trying to find their way to justify their choice.

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features songs from Joey Santiago of The Pixies.

Release and reception

Radiant City was presented at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival with a very warm reception. [3] [4] It was also premiered at several film festivals, including Vancouver and Calgary International Film Festivals, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and the São Paulo It’s All True Documentary International Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival and the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. [2]

Critical response

Radiant City has received generally favorable reviews. [3] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 93% rating, and an average rating of 6.8/10 from 15 critics. [5] Metacritic, gave the film a weighted average score of 60 (out of 100) based on 6 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "mixed or average reviews". [6]

Awards and nominations

The film won the Genie Award of Best Documentary at the 28th Genie Awards and the Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Vancouver International Film Festival. It was also the runner up for best Canadian film on the 2007 Toronto Film Critic’s List. [2] [3] [4]

Home media

The movie has also been released in DVD on March 4, 2008. The DVD includes the original English version of the film and the English version with French subtitles.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suburb</span> Human settlement that is part of/or near to a larger city or town

A suburb, more broadly suburban area, is an area within a metropolitan area where most jobs are located. It is primarily a commercial or residential area, and often includes mixed-use areas and can sometimes have more jobs than population. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate political entity. The name describes an area which is either more or less densely populated than an inner city. In many metropolitan areas, suburbs exist as separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdiction, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in the US, and the term encompasses inner city areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrie-Anne Moss</span> Canadian actress (born 1967)

Carrie-Anne Moss is a Canadian actress. After early roles on television, she rose to international prominence for her role of Trinity in The Matrix series (1999–present). She has starred in Memento (2000) for which she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, Red Planet (2000), Chocolat (2000), Fido (2006), Snow Cake (2006) for which she won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Disturbia (2007), Unthinkable (2010), Silent Hill: Revelation (2012), and Pompeii (2014). She also portrayed Jeri Hogarth in several television series produced by Marvel Television for Netflix, most notably Jessica Jones (2015–2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Polley</span> Canadian actress, film director and screenwriter

Sarah Ellen Polley is a Canadian filmmaker, political activist and retired actress. She first garnered attention as a child actress for her role as Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. This subsequently led to her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996). She has starred in many feature films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), No Such Thing (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Splice (2009), and Mr. Nobody (2009).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban sprawl</span> Expansion of auto-oriented, low-density development in suburbs

Urban sprawl is defined as "the spreading of urban developments on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning. In addition to describing a special form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. Medieval suburbs suffered from the loss of protection of city walls, before the advent of industrial warfare. Modern disadvantages and costs include increased travel time, transport costs, pollution, and destruction of the countryside. The cost of building urban infrastructure for new developments is hardly ever recouped through property taxes, amounting to a subsidy for the developers and new residents at the expense of existing property taxpayers.

<i>Crumb</i> (film) 1995 American film

Crumb is a 1995 American documentary film about the noted underground cartoonist R. Crumb and his family and his outlook on life. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell, it won widespread acclaim. It was released in the USA on April 28, 1995, having been screened at film festivals that year. Jeffery M. Anderson placed the film on his list of the ten greatest films of all time, labeling it "the greatest documentary ever made." The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on August 10, 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suburbanization</span> Population shift from central urban areas into suburbs

Suburbanization, or suburbanisation, is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urban areas grow. Sub-urbanization is inversely related to urbanization (urbanisation), which denotes a population shift from rural areas into urban centers.

<i>Born into Brothels</i> 2004 film by Zana Briski

Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids is a 2004 Indian-American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005.

Gary Burns is a Canadian film writer and director. Burns studied drama at the University of Calgary before attending Concordia University, where he graduated in 1992 from the Fine Arts film program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Marc Vallée</span> Canadian filmmaker (1963–2021)

Jean-Marc Vallée was a Canadian filmmaker, film editor, and screenwriter. After studying film at the Université de Montréal, Vallée went on to make a number of critically acclaimed short films, including Stéréotypes (1991), Les Fleurs magiques (1995), and Les Mots magiques (1998).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippe Falardeau</span> French-Canadian film director and screenwriter

Philippe Falardeau is a Canadian film director and screenwriter.

Jim Brown is a Canadian radio personality, best known as a host of programming on CBC Radio One.

Evergreen, which includes Evergreen Estates, is a suburban residential neighbourhood in the southwest quadrant of Calgary, Alberta. It is located south of the Fish Creek Provincial Park, and southeast from the Tsuu T'ina first nation reserve.

<i>Manufactured Landscapes</i> 2006 Canadian film

Manufactured Landscapes is a 2006 feature-length documentary film about the industrial landscape photography of Edward Burtynsky. It was directed by Jennifer Baichwal and is distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It was the first of three documentary collaborations between Baichwall and Burtynsky, followed by Watermark in 2013 and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of suburbia</span>

Criticism of suburbia dates back to the boom of suburban development in the 1950s and critiques a culture of aspirational homeownership. In the English-speaking world, this discourse is particularly prominent in the United States and Australia being prevalent both in popular culture and academia.

<i>Last Train Home</i> (film) 2009 Canadian film

Last Train Home is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Lixin Fan and produced by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin of EyeSteelFilm. It won the Best Documentary Feature at 2009 IDFA and has been distributed by Zeitgeist Films in the US.

Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are a Canadian animation duo. On January 24, 2012, they received their second Oscar nomination, for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film, Wild Life (2011). With their latest film, The Flying Sailor, they received several nominations and awards, including for the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and on January 24, 2023, they received a nomination for the 95th Academy Awards under the category Best Animated Short Film.

John Kemeny was a Hungarian-Canadian film producer whom the Toronto Star called "the forgotten giant of Canadian film history and...the most successful producer in Canadian history." His production credits include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Atlantic City, and Quest for Fire.

David Christensen is an Alberta film director and producer who since October 2007 has been an executive producer with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) at its Northwest Centre, based in Edmonton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Moss (filmmaker)</span>

Jesse Moss is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer known for his cinéma vérité style. His 2014 film, The Overnighters, was shortlisted for best documentary feature at the Oscars. He has directed four independent, feature-length films, and three television documentaries and has produced 15 documentaries.

In the Gutter and Other Good Places is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Cristine Richey and released in 1993. The film profiles three homeless men in Calgary, Alberta who support themselves dumpster diving and bottle picking for recyclable items.

References

  1. "Radiant City (2007)". Box Office Mojo . IMDb . Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 "National Film Board of Canada". 11 October 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 "The Film Reference Library (FRL) - Essays, Andrea Whyte 2006" (PDF). Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Seitz, Matt Zoller (2012). "Radiant City". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  5. "Radiant City (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  6. "Radiant City". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 17, 2012.