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The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A mock documentary about a pair of Canadian producers, Bobby Myers (Matthew Modine) and Paul Linder (Saul Rubinek), trying to make their first film in the late 1970s. Hollywood North is the comic tale of their struggle to pull everything together, despite a number of conflicting threads.Hollywood North works as a film in a way very similar to why This Is Spinal Tap (1984) works so well. Namely, although exaggerated in some ways, it is very close to the truth, and the truth consists of "behind the scenes" facts that are very different than the public face of the industry. It isn't easy to make a film, and it must have been especially difficult in Canada in the late 1970s. Films involve tens, if not hundreds, of people. Many have incompatible desires, motivations and personalities. Especially crucial are the financiers and the on-screen talent, as if either drops out or becomes undependable at any stage while the film is in production, it could jeopardize the whole affair, either necessitating extensive reshoots or abandoning the film altogether.So it's not surprising that Hollywood North focuses on those kinds of relationships. The result is an excellent film that is both hilarious and tragic at the same time. The script is flawless and the performances are top notch. This is a must-see for any budding filmmaker and anyone with a serious interest in the craft of film-making. It should also be more than entertaining for any viewer with a modicum of intelligence and a sense of humor.A 10 out of 10 from me.

Hollywood North's storyline was good (A producer buys the film rights of afamous Canadian novel known as "Latern Moon" and plans the production, buteverything doesn't go according to plan when Hollywood gets involved and thedocumentary filmmaker catches the whole debacle of film.) and the film hadmuch potential, but most of the acting lacked depth. Hence, the characters were not believable and flat. Unfortunately, they spent a lot of money making a film that did not make very much money in he end. The actor in it that did a great job was Kim Coates.

I saw Network the night before I saw Hollywood North, so I went into it expecting something along the same lines. As a satire, Hollywood North doesn't swipe its targets with a scalpel; the movie doesn't commit to its subject matter enough to cross the line from comedy to satire. This is too bad given the great performances in this movie. This is the first movie I've seen where I didn't hate Matthew Modine, and the rest of the cast is great, especially Deborah Kara Unger and John Neville. . The faults with this movie are in the writing, which failed to take very many chances.But this movie is well worth sitting through for the finale. After the funniest armed standoff I've ever seen, the big American star, modelled on John Wayne, blows up his own trailer, bringing the production of the movie within the movie to an end.

Never have I seen the beautiful Jennifer Tilly look as luscious as she does in Peter O'Brien's "Hollywood North". I saw the film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and the movie is still on my mind. That's because "Hollywood North", a comedy about the 'movie biz' actually delivers the cinematic goods.The movie's tech credits are slick all-round and directed with a steadfast assurance by O'Brien, a notable producer of some merit during the Canadian 'tax-shelter' movie scene of the early '80's and '90's, winner of numerous Canadian film awards while giving a break to many up and coming actor/writers. Now its his turn to helm the action and he has turned in a sophisticated and wry comedy about a movie scheme that unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse.Ms. Tilly is quite unforgettable as a sex-starved actress, performing in a low-budget movie titled "Flight To Bogota", with one particular hot scene that rivals Kim Cattral's love-making from another Canadian classic "Porky's". Meanwhile the beautiful Deborah Kara Unger pops in and out of the film sets with a documentary camera crew, putting the finishing touches on HER movie about the making of THIS movie.Matthew Modine is quite hilarious as a befuddled newbie producer, John Neville as an assured, yet doddering director, Kim Coates as a hot-headed actor, Fab Filipo as the young leading man, Joe Cobden as Modine's frizzy-haired co-producer and Alan Bates, as a crazed, gentlemanly actor from the old school.But the real star of this show is Hollywood North itself : the fledgling Canadian film industry of the 1970's searching for culture, indentity and a quest for respectability ...This is an entertaining feature that deserves a wide theatrical release...