MTL Blog bungles list of ‘Hollywood Movies Filmed in Montreal’

Pop Goes The News — A blog infamous for getting things wrong is being slammed for publishing a wildly inaccurate list of movies made in Montreal.

The article by Jeremy Hazan, posted on MTL Blog late Tuesday, is headlined: “101 Hollywood Movies Filmed in Montreal.”

“Get lost in a great list,” the subtitle reads.

But most of the films listed are either not from Hollywood or have negligible ties to Montreal. Several Hollywood movies that were, in fact, made in Montreal, are not on the list.

“This has so many mistakes it’s sad,” commented reader Kevin Tierney. Ryan Miller called it “inaccurate and poorly-researched.”

Hazan is identified as the Director of Content at MTL Blog, a website with a reputation for mangling facts.

Hazan’s list of 101 “Hollywood movies” includes at least 29 Canadian productions: The Trotsky, Mambo Italiano, Barney Version, Mommy, Laurence Anyways, Starbuck, Shivers, The Red Violin, Love and Human Remains, Good Neighbours, Maelström, End of the Line, The Assignment, Un 32 août sur terre, Jésus de Montreal, Le Déclin de l’empire américain, Funkytown, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, J’ai tué ma mère, Maurice Richard, Les Invasions Barbares, C.R.A.Z.Y., City on Fire, A Problem with Fear, Les amours imaginaires, Incendies, Polytechnique, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

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Three are Canadian-European co-productions: 2001: A Space Travesty (with Germany), Head in the Clouds (with the UK) and Upside Down (with France).

Nine Lives, filmed in Montreal last summer, is a French production.

Of the remaining 67 films (Hazan listed The Red Violin twice), three are actually TV movies or mini-series (ABC Family’s Picture This, A&E’s Lathe of Heaven, Lifetime’s Human Trafficking).

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Seventeen of the other 64 films listed by Hazan are, in fact, co-productions with some U.S. involvement: The Whole Nine Yards, The Expatriate, The Score, Battlefield Earth, Johnny Mnemonic, The Art of War, Heist, No Good Deed, The Human Stain, Shattered Glass, The Aviator, Lucky Number Slevin, I’m Not There, The Punisher: War Zone, Whiteout, On the Road, and Source Code.

The remaining 47 titles on the list are, indeed, American productions — although many are independent films and not “Hollywood movies.”

But Hazan’s list has some dubious inclusions. For example, The Freshman was shot in Toronto and New York.

Others were almost entirely shot elsewhere — including The Long Kiss Goodnight, Johnny Mnemonic, The Notebook, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Batman & Robin, Catch Me if You Can, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and 12 Monkeys.

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Hazan also listed the 2001 Canadian co-production Heist as The Heist, an entirely different movie.

Missing from the list are several Hollywood films that were, in fact, made in Montreal (White House Down, The Walk, Pawn Sacrifice).

And since Hazan didn’t actually stick to Hollywood flicks, he could have included Mirror, Mirror (a Canada/US/Czech Republic co-production), The Adventures of Pluto Nash (an Australian/American co-production), Brooklyn (an Ireland/UK/Canada co-production) and the independent U.S. film Stonewall.

In a 2014 message to its readers, MTL Blog admitted it is “guilty of making many a mistake” and blamed the factual errors on its “youthful and inexperienced” contributors.

“We are sorry to any we have led astray, or made weary with informational/grammatical errors,” the open letter reads. “A small team of only several individuals, we lack the resources to ensure perfection in the plethora of content pumped out each day, yet we should regardless.”