Canadian Film | Cagey Films

Fall 2024 viewing round-up, part four

Posted on December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Stephen Rea chews the scenery as an on-line serial killer in William Malone's fear dot com (2002)

A few more of the movies I’ve been watching this Fall – the feature-length versions of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse homages; David Fincher’s breakthrough thriller Se7en; David Wickes’ two-part TV movie about history’s most famous serial killer Jack the Ripper; Chuck Norris tackling an army of terrorists single-handed in Joseph Zito’s Invasion U.S.A.: John Carpenter’s disappointing remake of Village of the Damned; William Malone’s stylishly confused on-line thriller fear dot come; and Maurice Devereaux’s effective low-budget horror about the Biblical apocalypse End of the Line.

Don Shebib’s Canadian working class poetry: Goin’ Down the Road (1970) and its sequel

Posted on November 29, 2023November 26, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Friends Joey (Paul Bradley) and Pete (Doug McGrath) search restlessly for a better life in Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road (1970)

Don Shebib, who died on November 5 at the age of 85, left an indelible mark on Canadian cinema with his first feature, Goin’ Down the Road (1970), a raw, realist depiction of the country’s economic inequalities and the failed dreams of a pair of working class friends who leave impoverished Nova Scotia for the promised land of Toronto.

Looking back: Jeff Erbach’s The Nature of Nicholas (2002)

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

The discarded part of Bobby (David Turnbull) seeks shelter at Nicholas (Jeff Sutton)'s home in Jeff Erbach's The Nature of Nicholas (2002)

It’s a strange experience to find yourself looking back at work done more than two decades ago and finding yourself face-to-face with what now amounts to a different self. I got the opportunity this week when I attended a screening of Jeff Erbach’s The Nature of Nicholas, a feature I edited in 2001 and hadn’t seen in twenty years.

What I haven’t been writing about

Posted on May 24, 2023May 24, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Mia Goth as a porn actress who encounters a rural killer in Ti West's X (2022)

Although I write regularly here about the movies I watch, there are a lot more I don’t get around to mentioning – the reasons for what write about or ignore are not entirely clear.

Establishing Shots by Kevin Nikkel: book review

Posted on May 17, 2023July 1, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Prairie Gothic: Sara Canning in Danishka Esterhazy's Black Field (2009)

In Establishing Shots: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Film Group (University of Manitoba Press), Kevin Nikkel pieces together the fifty-year history of the WFG through a collection of interviews recorded for the documentary Tales From the Winnipeg Film Group (2017), which he directed in collaboration with Dave Barber.

Political thrillers, horror and metaphor

Posted on February 1, 2023April 8, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Three recent releases blend reality and fiction to explore political themes, with varying success. Alain Jessua’s Les Chiens (1978) is an allegory of Fascism, while Jean-Claude Lord’s Mindfield (1989) and Jayro Bustamante’s La llorona (2019) are both rooted in real crimes, the former turning history into pulp entertainment, the latter into a haunting exploration of national trauma.

Resurrecting a pre-tax shelter classic: The Rainbow Boys (1973)

Posted on December 24, 2022December 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Donald Pleasence, Don Calfa and Kate Reid hit the road in search of gold in Gerald Potterton's The Rainbow Boys (1973)

A relatively new label, Canadian International Pictures, has resurrected Gerald Potterton’s light and charming character-based comedy The Rainbow Boys (1973) in a fine Blu-ray edition with substantial extras. Another CIP release showcases Potterton’s National Film Board short The Railrodder (1965), a travelogue starring Buster Keaton towards the end of his life, along with John Spotton’s documentary about the making of the short, Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), and another NFB travelogue, Eugene Boyko’s Helicopter Canada (1966), made to mark the country’s centennial.

Unearthing memories: BBC’s Maigret and rural Canadian violence

Posted on July 20, 2022July 18, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

A couple of things seen long ago have resurfaced on disk, tugging at vague memories: Network’s 11-disk set of all 52 episodes of the BBC’s classic series based on Georges Simenon’s novels about Superintendent Maigret (1960-63), and Brian Damude’s scrappy Canadian thriller Sudden Fury (1975) from Vinegar Syndrome reveal just how flawed my memory is.

Zale Dalen’s Skip Tracer (1977)
& the Canadian tax shelter era

Posted on July 13, 2022July 19, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Things get dark when John Collins (David Petersen) harasses George Pettigrew (Alan Rose) past the breaking point in Zale Dalen's Skip Tracer (1977)

Writer-director Zale Dalen made one of the most distinctive Canadian features during the tax shelter years, but Skip Tracer (1977) all but disappeared with the tide of low-budget disaster movies and slasher films produced by financial support from the government between 1975 and 1982. Dalen ended up doing mostly episodic television, though he did briefly return to features in the ’90s, culminating in the absurd but entertaining sci-fi martial arts potboiler Expect No Mercy (1995).

Another mixed bag …

Posted on July 1, 2020December 10, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Emily (Mariclare Costello) haunts a Connecticut idyll in John Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Another seemingly random collection of movies, this time including some cheap exploitation, cheesy fantasy, horror and noir. I revisit an old favourite, re-evaluate a low-budget Canadian film from the ’70s, and finally catch up with a couple of movies I’ve wanted to see for decades.

Tag: Canadian Film