Original-Cin Presents… Films to Fire Your Canada Day (Since Group BBQs are Pretty Much Out)

By Original-Cin Staff

This Canada Day, it’s not as if you’ll be fêting our nation’s 153 birthday by attending a concert or a baseball game. If you’re batshit crazy enough to stage a fireworks display in your backyard, well, good on you but you’ll need to remember to social distance. As with much of the rest of 2020, watching movies might be the only sane — and available — way to safely kill time and have fun.

We put our juicy chess club brains together to assemble this far-reaching list of Canuck bona fides for your consideration. Onwards and upwards.

Shivers (1975)

At 17 in Thunder Bay, I was mainly unaware of the existence of Canadian movies, nor was I aware I was seeing one when my friends and I decided to see a horror film called Shivers one Saturday night in 1975.

Shivers. When you’re hungry for love… and liver.

The inspiration was the TV ads, which promised a demented experience and delivered. A first-time director named David Cronenberg created a monster that looked like a piece of liver, but was "a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will turn the world into a mindless orgy."

Said organ would be passed from mouth to mouth, and make itself known by bubbling up under the skin every so often as if to say hello. The rest was provided by a cast whose singular direction seemed to be to go completely nuts from one end of a Montreal apartment complex to the other whenever the director called, “Action!”

Box office was not news in and of itself back then, so we were unaware that Shivers was the number one English-language Canadian movie. Nor did we know that, a thousand miles away, in the media mecca of Toronto, fusty newspaper columnists like Robert Fulford were decrying it as the beginning of the end of civilization, financed by Canadian tax dollars.

What we got out of it were lines that made us laugh, like, “I’m hungry… hungry for LOVE!” which we would utter out of the blue for weeks to each other, like a secret code.

In later years, I would faithfully see Cronenberg’s follow-ups, like Rabid, Scanners and Videodrome. But nothing beat that first glimpse of a sex-crazed piece of liver. - Jim Slotek

Rip-Off / Face-Off (1971)

For Canada Day, I’m picking a pair of enjoyably cringe-worthy Canadian vintage movies, both released in 1971 with titles that end in “Off.” Rip-Off was Donald Shebib’s follow-up to his critically adored Goin’ Down the Road, following four teens (Don Scardino, Ralph Endersby, Michael Kukulewich and Peter Gross) in their last year of high school, making films, starting a band, and trying to live on a commune. Rip-Off anticipated the raunchy comedy of Porkys mixed with a portrait of youthful disillusionment. Though it was never released on VHS or DVD, you can watch Rip-Off on YouTube, in a grainy video recorded off television.

Could anything be more Canadian than the doomed love story of a hockey player and a folk singer? My second choice is Face-Off (a.k.a. Winter Comes Early), directed by George McCowan and starring very cute couple Art Hindle (as an aggressive young Toronto Maple Leafs rookie) and Trudy Young (as his hippie musician girlfriend).

Along with lots of scene-chewing from older actors (John Vernon), there’s historic film footage of NHL players playing and acting (George Armstrong, Derek Sanderson) and a cameo from Neil Young’s sportswriter dad, Scott Young. You can rent Face-Off on iTunes or on the DVD which includes the excellent SCTV parody, Power Play, also available here. -Liam Lacey

Little Italy (2018)
Sometimes, as the recent documentary You Don’t Nomi ably demonstrated, films are so bad they’re kind of good, at least in a jaw-dropping, head-scratching way. That’s very much the case with Showgirls which — as the abovementioned doc makes clear — has birthed a fanatic cult following centred on its ridiculous dialog and excruciating performances.

A scene from the awful horrible and so, must-see Little Italy.

Time will tell if the same fate awaits the toweringly dreadful faux-romantic comedy Little Italy but given that it is unabashedly set in Toronto in summertime, we’re willing to give it another spin this Canada Day. Seems fitting somehow in this, The Worst Year Ever™.

How bad is Little Italy, you ask? I defer to my own review from 2018:

“Watching the riotously bad Little Italy, it’s hard to know whether to feel more impoverished as a viewer or as taxpayer. Well-cast, led by a reputable director, and cheerily underwritten by multiple levels of government, the feckless rom-com succeeds in only one way: it’s awful by any metric you apply. Like, they’ll-study-this-in-film-school terrible.” Bam! Sign us up! - Kim Hughes

Meatballs (1979)

If you can’t go to camp or send your kids to camp this summer due to the pandemic, the next best thing is the go-to summer camp comedy Meatballs.  

Having attended sleepover camp myself from age 6, I couldn't get enough of this movie when it was released. I have fond memories of watching Meatballs over and over with friends and reciting line after line. (Who can forget “Rudy the Rabbit.”) 

Meatballs, directed by Toronto’s own Ivan Reitman, launched his career and a life-long collaboration with star Bill Murray. It’s hard to believe that Murray’s first big starring film role was head counsellor Tripper Harrison. This Canadian classic follows the summertime antics of counsellors, CITs (counsellor-in-training) and campers at Camp North Star. 

Between trying to spark a romance with female head counsellor Roxanne (Kate Lynch), helping shy camper Rudy (Chris Makepeace ) gain more confidence, and the constant barrage of  practical jokes on camp director Morty (Harvey Atkin), Murray’s Tripper makes sure everyone at Camp North Star has an unforgettable summer. – Bonnie Laufer

A scene from Never Cry Wolf

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (1975) / Never Cry Wolf (1983) / The Silent Partner (1978)

If family-fun events were solely up to me, every major holiday would be capped by watching several seasonally themed films. That means Canada Day would (and should) include Canadian movies. Watching movies is my preferred Canada Day activity, well above fireworks, sitting on a crowded beach or attending just about any organized event (this year, even more so).

So, my Canada Day would begin with a family viewing of a light, and (admittedly) poorly received comedy called It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (1975). I would rally enthusiasm for the movie by trumping it up as John Candy’s first film, even though Candy is barely in it, and my daughter isn’t likely to know who John Candy after failed efforts to introduce her to Uncle Buck (1989) and old SCTV episodes.

This one is risky. It’s been 45 years since seeing It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. I was young, and… it seemed like a good film at the time, it might not now. The film was directed by John Trent and boasted of a known cast featuring Anthony Newley (Doctor Doolittle, 1967), Stefanie Powers (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., 1966/67) and Isaac Hayes (Escape From New York, 1981).

I remember sitting in a near empty theatre with my film-geek friend, laughing as Newley plots a madcap kidnapping that goes comically awry. And then there is someone (is it Hayes?) who ends up in a full-body cast. I have no idea if the film holds up, but at the time it was a revelation that Canadian films did not have to be heavy and morose. And like Hollywood films, they can be enjoyable and still be spectacular failures.

Later in the day—let’s say mid-afternoon—I take less of a risk and show my family Never Cry Wolf (1983), directed by Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion), screenplay by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and starring another Hollywood name, Charles Martin Smith. We have all read Farley Mowat’s book from which the film is based on, and Smith won us over for standout performances in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) and American Graffiti (1973).

Going into the theatre in 1983, we were concerned that the film might be tricking us into watching something educational and be tinged with the unsatisfying flavour of being good for us. But Ballard’s film is adventurous and entertaining, and as far as being educational—We did learn about marking our territory with urine.

The third film I reserve for night-time viewing. It’s a tidy, effective little chiller called The Silent Partner (1978). The Silent Partner is something of an amalgamation of the first two movies, not in plot or theme, but, like the first film, John Candy has a small role, and like the second film, it is written by the late Curtis Hanson.

The movie can be nasty at times, but the chance of a good scare, and the occasional reason to hide your eyes, is, I think, healthy in establishing a tight-knit family bond. The movie stars Elliot Gould (M*A*S*H, 1970), Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music, 1965), and Susannah York (A Man for All Seasons, 1966) and in the late 70s, there couldn’t be a more appealing cast. The film also features Gail Dahms, who was a year ahead of us at Grand River High School and well known as the woman who dances and sings in the “I Love Turtles” commercial. Gould plays a bank clerk who intercepts Plummer’s (dressed in a Santa Claus suit) attempts to rob a bank (In Toronto’s Eaton Centre of all places). The failed robbery attempt allows Gould to rob the robber. But Plummer’s character is a vicious psychopath who doesn’t care much for other’s interference.

After that, if the family is still up for more…we head to the Original-Cin website and see what movies my colleagues recommend. And that would be my idea Canada Day. -Thom Ernst

Grown Up Movie Star (2010)

Before she was a sci-fi clone on Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany was a 24-year-old Canadian actor finding her feet in indie films. I’ll always remember the first time I saw her onscreen in a leading role in 2010 Newfoundland-set coming-of-age tale Grown Up Movie Star.

She played tough-talking Ruby, whose family is in turmoil after her mother takes off to chase a pipe dream of Hollywood stardom. Dressed in her mom’s cast-offs, Ruby sees no reason why she can’t be a movie star, too, dressed in a ratty fake fur and staring down adults from over top of her oversized shades.

I thought: She’s got it — and I wonder if she’ll make it?

Maslany’s self-assured portrayal of a teen who discovers she has a strange power over men was as amusing as it was heartbreaking, with Maslany bringing vulnerability and bravado to the role. I was so drawn into her work, the fact Maslany was then 10 years older than her 14-year-old character didn’t matter. She was exceptional.

No surprise, the Sundance Film Festival gave her a breakout role award for her work as Ruby.

When I interviewed her on the Toronto set of writer-director Kate Melville’s low-budget Picture Day in 2011, she talked about heading to Hollywood for pilot season. Her goal was to have “an international career.”

 She achieved that handily with Orphan Black, including the 2016 Emmy for best lead actress in a drama.

But the first time I saw her, playing a surly teen desperate for any kind of attention, big awards and accolades were still to come. I saw talent and unlimited potential. And I’m glad she made it. - Linda Barnard