Crime Wave (John Paizs, 1985)

Never has the switching on of a simple streetlight seemed so fraught with longing and dread. The sight of it struggling to light itself as darkness is about to engulf a nondescript Winnipeg suburb was one of the many bizarre pleasures peppered throughout Crime Wave, a film about a writer, a girl, and a dream. One of the most unique and inventive cinematic works to come out of Canada during the 1980s, the brainchild of writer-director John Paizs (Top of the Food Chain) puts the creative process underneath one of those newfangled devices that magnify things with an alarming level of detail. A throwback to the days when after school was special and socially maladjusted men could hang out with little girls without it seeming twisted or off-putting, the film uses many different techniques to tell its strange tale. There are parts where it feels like a well-meaning NFB documentary about writing, while others have the air of a cheesy instructional video. A struggling screenwriter named Steven Penny (John Paizs) rents the room above the garage on the property where a girl named Kim (Eva Kovacs) lives with her mom and dad. Thrilled to be in such close proximity with someone involved with the movie business, the curious little scamp, who narrates parts of the story as if it were a school project, takes a keen interest in the solitary writer. Watching him like a hawk, or any number of birds with strong eyesight, Kim starts to collect Steven's discarded writings. While reading what's written on the crumpled paper, she discovers that Steven, despite the illuminating splendour of the streetlight hovering outside his window, is having a spot of trouble coming up with an all-important component to his stories.

You see, he's got a beginning, and an end, but no middle.

The nitty-gritty of Steven's stories mostly involve a series of characters vying for dominance in their particular field of interest. Whether it be music, the world of self-help, or selling Amway (renamed here as "Allway"), an outsider, usually from the northern part of the continent, emerges at "the top," only to end up dying violently when all is said and done. What happens to them on their way to this bloody demise is a mystery, as Steven has no clue how to write it.

The segments that involve the stories without middles are fast paced and boast a loopy sense of humour. The one featuring Skip (Jeffery Owen Madden) and Dawn Holliday (Tea Andrea Tanner), the husband and wife Allway salespeople, in particular, as it had a scene where a woman in a wheelchair is force-fed dog biscuits.

Depressed over the fact that he can't write a middle for what he likes to call his "colour crime movie," Steven passes the time by palling around with Kim (new wave music, taunting rivals, and Freezies), watching a guy count cars, riding his bike and looking at stuff (one of my personal faves - stuff rules), and attending dress up parties as a shirtless bank robber with explosives taped to his chest.

After Dawn (the beguiling Allway salesperson) bludgeons dominant musician Ronnie Boyles (Darrell Barren) with a typewriter in his bedroom (he has since moved from the garage to the house, and has obviously begun to hallucinate), Kim decides to contact a Texan named Dr. C. Jolly (Neal Lawrie) who specializes in creating the middles of screenplays.

The weirdness factor increases somewhat when we hit the sunflower fields of Kansas and meet Dr. Jolly; the spooky look he gives Steven while out the middle of the road will cause you to loose a fair amount of your precious urine.

The decision to make Steven a wordless character was quite risky, as it put the dialogue onus solely on the underdeveloped shoulders of a child actor. Luckily, Eva Kovacs is a spirited delight as the ever curious Kim, a girl whose thirst for knowledge troubles her parents (they think she should focus less on the persistence of vision, and more on her homework). Besides, Steven's voice can be heard loud and clear in the segments I alluded to earlier; in that, he speaks through his ambitious characters.

Filmed over the course of two years, Crime Wave is a fascinating portrait of what must be like to be from Winnipeg and possess an artistic temperament.

Also, if you've seen the Kids in the Hall sketch where Bruce McCulloch plays a little boy who brings a businessman named Mr. Stevenson (Kevin MacDonald) home with him and begs his mom (Scott Thompson) to keep him as a pet, you'll immediately "get" what the film is going for in terms of tone and style. Just substitute "businessman" with "colour crime movie maker," and you'll do fine.

Oh, and only a Canadian film could boast a non-creepy relationship between a little girl and a grown man in such a nonchalant manner.

video uploaded by Reel Canada

Special thanks to Russ for providing the colour crime movie screen captures.

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Top of the Food Chain (John Paizs, 1999)

Who would have thought that the warm, and probably fuzzy, hamlet of Glen Williams, Ontario would be the germinating epicentre of one the strangest and funniest movies to come out of Canada in the last twenty years? Well, for starters, I would never think about such things (such talk is the definition of uncouth). And besides, it's common knowledge that thinking about small towns on the Credit River is the epitome of counterproductive. Anyway, the tiny municipality hosts what I believe to be the crowning achievement in the realm of science fiction invasion movies that revolve around spastic dialogue; bubble-bath-ready he/she sex dolls; atomic scientists from the Atomic Academy (the number one academy for those dedicated to the study of cool fusion); and pantyhose-wearing, banjo salespeople who wear darkly coloured pantyhose. Did you know that their pantyhose-covered feet, despite being sheathed in a super tight pair of high heel shoes, are shielded from harm by the no-nonsense sheer energy emanating from organic structure of their skintight knit hose. (Excuse me, I've got to attend to something. Okay, that's better.) Now, where was I? Um, I think you were going on about some sort elegant realm where women wear close-fitting hosiery and sell banjos simultaneously. No, I mean, what movie was I writing about? Oh, yeah, Top of the Food Chain (a.k.a. Invasion!), it's a full-blown achievement in terms of precise funniness and unmitigated guile. The tongue-near-cheeks sci-fi farce about a small town overrun by flesh-eating aliens, who, strangely, inquire about copulation before they start masticating (it's just their way), is an utter delight.

Speaking of which, would you like to engage in the copulatory act?

The rusty doors of the nut factory have been closed for quite some time, all the men have feminine-sounding names (Leslie, Dana, Kim, Jan and Policeman Gayle - "He'll put you in jail" to name a few), and the town's televisions have stopped working, what the quiet burg of Exceptional Vista needs is an atomic scientist with intimacy issues, a leggy banjo salesperson, and a vacuum salesman whose territory includes: Bladdertown, Left Hemisphere, Dunk, Right Hemisphere, Walkadogathon, New Imbroglio and Foetus.

Awash with the kind of overstated dialogue that drives most stuffy playwrights mad with jealousy, tingling in the testicular anus with Campbell Scott's bizarre mannerisms (his Dr. Karel Lamonte seemed to be channeling a socially maladjusted archaeologist from the 1920s), boasting a thrown together brand of off-kilter sexiness (a brunette actress named Fiona Loewi kisses her brother passionately in a sundress), replete with Tom Everett Scott's sublime idiocy, and lightly seasoned with little surrealistic touches peppered here and there, this unusual mix gave the proceedings a minty air of transcendental absurdness. The churlish contents of the lodge banquet buffet and the part where that guy is watching a fishing show while fishing were a couple of my favourite touches.

However, the pinnacle of fancifulness had to be Scott's (Campbell, not Tom Everett) constant talk about the hilly, lumpy, bumpy part of town just outside of town. This bit of tomfoolery was so hilarious, that I almost forgot that he had a he/she sex doll packed in his suitcase.

It's a given that Campbell Scott's nonsensical performance is what drives this film all the way to Laughtown (a made-up place contrived to signify first-rate drollery). All the same, the cagey allure of Fiona Loewi (Love and Death on Long Island) cannot be ignored (you could try, but I'm afraid your efforts would be without a single piece of fruit).

Pluckily proportioning the moderately chiseled confidence of Mr. Scott (Campbell, not Tom Everett), Fiona is an inquisitive ball of sexual frustration in a floral dress. She plays Sandy Fawkes, the smartest resident of Exceptional Vista (she reads books and stuff). The lustful young lass takes a liking to the dapper scientist, but unfortunately, the only thing he likes to penetrate is a plastic doppelgänger with a female body; it's currently languishing in his motel room bathtub. Nevertheless, the odd relationship these two form is as fascinating as it is not fascinating. It gives the film its heart, but it also makes me think of how great it is to watch heterosexuals in their unnatural habitat.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the stellar work of the stunning Elisa Moolecherry (Degrassi: The Next Generation), one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. The moment she appeared on-screen I knew I was about to bask in something extra special. I mean, with a name like Elisa Moolecherry, you know she's gonna deliver the awesome. And boy does she ever deliver, and not just the regular kind of awesome. She brought the best kind of awesome, the kind that makes sane men stand up and say weird, mildly incoherent things; the kind of things that can, and will, get you arrested in the more puritanical parts of your useless, unauthorized pit stain of a town.

The sexiest banjo salesperson to grace the surface of this greenish earth, Miss Moolecherry plays Chris Marlow, a mysterious presence who vexes the holy mimosa out of everyone she comes in contact with. Maybe it was the black pantyhose (accentuated by the modest slit down the front of her skimpy black skirt) or maybe it was the bob hairdo (sculptured to perfection by bob-sculpting artisans). Either way, there's no denying that Elisa Moolecherry was an expert at extracting simplistic joy from this extremely simplistic viewer.

Always lurking in the background, Chris Marlow arrives in Exceptional Vista with a hidden agenda. You see, while she says she sells banjos, you don't actually see her with any banjos. Sure, she could have a stash of banjos tucked away in her room at the Fawkes Den Inn (a quaint Exceptional Vista establishment run by Sandy and Guy Fawkes), but like the like vacuum salesmen, you never see her with the product she purportedly hawks for a living. Observing the sleepy town from a distance (I'm not exaggerating, as we see her using binoculars at one point), her luscious gams encased in the blackest, tightest pair of pantyhose the perverted world has ever had the pleasure of penetrating with their discerning gaze, Chris seems to be gathering information. What could she be looking for? Lizard creatures from the Third Dimension? Boz Scaggs' heavy duty nose hair trimmer? Moon men, perhaps?

Well, whatever she's looking for, the big question is: Will Dr. Karel Lamonte be able to stop whoever is masticating the residents of Exceptional Vista in the nick of time? And will the atomic scientist be able to comfort a distraught woman without it coming across as creepy and awkward? Only time will tell.

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