Get Cultured, Canadian-Style

If you've been wondering what became of Mean Girl Rachel McAdams, who's been laying low for more than a year, her new movie, Married Life, opens today. It features the lovely and immensely talented Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Bonus, it was filmed in B.C.

For those lucky enough to get Sundance stateside, as so many of us aren't, catch the debut this week of the 10-week Canadian miniseries, Terminal City. It was made in 2005, but got stopped at the border for the last three years. The programme stars Maria del Mar as a housewife dealing with the aftermath of a breast cancer diagnosis. It co-stars Gil Bellows, late of Ally McBeal (and Canadian - who knew?).

Finally, get a little literary by picking up Mercury Under My Tongue by Quebecois novelist Sylvain Trudel (Soft Skull Press). It's about a teen poet hospitalized with terminal bone cancer. Publishers Weekly wrote that the narrator's "voice is immediate, winning and utterly believable until the end."

You might be needing a little levity after all of this, so in honour of Catherine O'Hara's birthday this week, here's some classic SCTV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZXvR51i5M