10 Films for Canadian Cinema
In honour of Canada Day, I wanted to write something about Canadian films, but what? Well I couldn’t do the Top 10 Canadian films of all time, because I can’t even pretend that I’ve seen a significant percentage of them in order to make informed choices. So instead, I chose a list of 10 films with meaning. Whether it’s personal meaning, a greater meaning to the country or film as an institution, these 10 Canadian films are films that mean something.1) The Hockey Sweater
This is probably the first Canadian film we’re all universally exposed to thanks to French class, because if there’s one thing that we can all relate to across language barriers it’s receiving and being forced to wear the wrong team jersey. With a simple script and a theme that not only spans cultures, but spans sports, this NFB short immortalized the rivalry between the Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sweetly funny and engaging with a hint of truth, this animated short, one of many through the 70 years of the NFB, has reached so many Canadians. This one goes to show you: don’t be a menace to Quebec while wearing your Leafs jersey in the hood.
2) Black Christmas
Although horribly remade by Hollywood (but still shot in Canada), the original Black Christmas stands as a cult classic and true Canadian original in ever sense. Four years before John Carpenter “officially” birthed the slasher genre, Bob Clark beat him there, by re-jiggering the old urban legend about the girl being trapped in the house with a psychopath. It worked beautifully with its snowy setting and smorgasbord of young female victims trapped in a sorority house by the weather on Christmas Eve. As an interesting side note, it was also Canada that gave birth to the Prom Night franchise six years later (also, since been remade by Hollywood).
3) Strange Brew
SCTV’s McKenzie Brothers, Bob and Doug, had come to epitomize the (stereo)typical Canadian: back bacon eating, Molson drinking and year-round tuque hosers with a goofy speech inflection. At once, it’s a point of national pride as well as a persistent image of our country that’s been difficult to shake for 30 years. Dave Thomas and Rick Morris created some truly memorable characters in Doug and Bob, and they were justly rewarded with their own film. What was basically a loose remake of Hamlet has come to give two generations of Canadians hours of pleasure with its knowing self-referential humour. A few decades later, Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys would blaze a similar trail, although Bob and Doug didn’t get a sequel.
4) Porky’s
Without Porky’s there’d have probably been no American Pie, period. And without Canadians, there would have been no Porky’s. Sure, it was shot in America by an American director, but it was Canadians
that made it happen, and Canadian actors like Kim Cattrall and Art Hindle that brought it to life. From Fast Times at Ridgemont \High to Sex Drive, Porky’s has been the root ancestor for numerous raunchy teen sex comedies for almost 30 years now. It also remained the most successful Canadian film ever made until Bon Cop Bad Cop was released in 2006. Bon Cop Bad Cop of course, ironically, owes a huge debt to Lethal Weapon. 5) Scanners
It isn’t until you start to dig deep like this that you realize how gruesome Canadians can be, and really no one in Canadian film does gruesome better than David Cronenberg. Eschewing a move south to stay close to home in Toronto, and refusing blockbuster projects like Dune and Return of the Jedi in the process, Cronenberg brought film projects to him; like the remake of The Fly for instance. But perhaps none of Cronenberg’s films quite tug at the gag reflex quite like the head bursting scene in Scanners. It’s since become a pop culture short hand for a character in serious mental distress to make reference to, but what really gets you the first time you watch Scanners is that it’s right there in the first act. No one knows how to surprise, and shock, quite like Cronenberg.
6) Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller
This is the first Canadian movie I remember seeing ads for on TV. The film, about a young stamp collector named Ralph James and his appropriately-named scheming friend Tommy Tricker. Ralph discovers the secret to traveling the globe by literally mailing himself and his friends in the stamps on letters. Preposterous? Yeah, maybe, but you know what? It’s one of those weird little oddities that comes from the joy of discovery in film collecting. Also, it’s worth noting, that Tommy Tricker was the screen debut of Rufus Wainwright, who also sang the catchy theme song “I’m Running.”
7) 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
While The Simpsons have drawn from many sources of inspiration for comedy bits over the years, it’s not many who can say that they inspired whole episodes. The film about the famous, Canada-born piano prodigy was co-written by Don McKellar and starred Colm Feore as the title “character.” The format of the film itself was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, which was Gould’s first, and perhaps most critically acclaimed, recording. Segments range from six minutes to less than one, and they cover a wide range of genres and styles from interviews with people that knew Gould to re-creating segments of the musician’s life. Either way, this film is an inspired look at a single man and his story.
8) Highway 61
Though it’s not Bruce McDonald’s first, it is certainly one of his best, if not the best film of his career. It was his breakthrough film, an ethereal combination of music and mythology told as a road trip movie, and one that helped secure McDonald’s place as the only filmmaker to have two films in Playback’s list of Top 15 Canadian films from 1986-2001. Highway 61 is an oddly Canadian product with screwball characters, sudden plot twists and a mish-mash of genres that creates an atmosphere unlike any other. It’s typical McDonald and it’s typically Canadian cinema demonstrating that eccentricity was a pronounced trait developing in Canadian film a few years before the indie boom in the United States.
9) Heavy Metal
A great number of tremendous animators have come out of Canada, so it should come as not much of a surprise to learn that Canadians do occasionally try and make animated films ourselves. But unlike, let’s say, Care Bears the Movie, Heavy Metal has achieved a significant cult status over the years thanks to its pulp fiction sci-fi vibe. The soundtrack featured a who’s who of hard rock at the time from Black Sabbath to Blue Oyster Cult, although it should be added that no Canadian bands made the cut. Recently it was announced that there may be a new Heavy Metal coming soon to theatres with the likes of David Fincher, Guillermo del Toro, Zack Snyder and Gore Verbinski listed as possible segment directors. Hopefully, it’ll fair better than other recent remakes of Canadian works.
10) Passchendaele
It may be too early to tell if Passchendaele will inherit any kind of status as a classic, but maybe it did however represent a shift in Canadian thinking about their films and their history. First, Alliance marketed it like an American studio would: playing up the war action angle while hinting at the fact that there’s more dramatic (or romantic) content beyond the explosions. Second, the film was written by, directed by, produced and starring Paul Gross, the closest thing our country has to Mel Gibson, or at least pre-anti-Semite Mel Gibson. Third, the film unabashedly calls back our national pride to a time before Canadians were well known peacekeepers, but were even more well-known soldiers of ferocity and dedication. For these reasons and more, the movie Passchendaele is almost as much a part of Canadian pride as the battle its based on.
