In my last blog post, I talked about a subject that is close to my heart, the Canadian film industry. Now this time, I'm going to talk to you about Canadian made films.
* PLEASE NOTE; THIS LIST IS NOT INCLUSIVE OF ALL CANADIAN FILMS MADE, MERELY A CROSS SECTION OF FILMS THAT HAVE EITHER HAD CANADIAN THEATRICAL RELEASE IN EITHER MULTIPLEXES OR INDEPENDENT THEATERS. NO OTHER BENCHMARK IS APPLIED.
There is actually a huge list here of films made before 1960. Not sure of box office for these but I'm going to guess that they were shown in Canadian theaters, at least indie theaters, at the time. I am going to highlight more recent movies that you may or may not know were made in Canada and got some home grown box office.
I will start with GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD, made in 1970, which chronicles the story of two young men from the Maritimes, who decide to leave their east coast home for the bright lights of the big city of Toronto. It won awards and played in theaters, though I have had difficulty finding any box office returns. It should be said that it is a very "Canadian" themed film as it highlights much of the social landscape of the the country at the time; the Maritimes with high unemployment and Ontario being seen as the land of milk and honey to many. Still, it has some interesting performances and great music of it's time, though I will say the first time I saw it I laughed at how cheesy and cheap it seemed. Did it have a more permanent impact on Canadian film being made in Canada. Let's continue.
Next I'll jump to CANNIBAL GIRLS, released in 1973, which launched the career of Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters to name one), Eugene Levy (Schitt's Creek) and Andrea Martin (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), though the latter two would go on to appear on Second City before actually making it big in Hollywood. This film is decidedly cheesy and campy and the story is a weird little horror/comedy gem from early in Reitman's career. I've not seen it, but it was enough to get these folks noticed. Can't find any box office on this either, not even on IMDB.
During the rest of the 70's, there is a long list of Canadian made films, some are French language, some are made by the government, and some made it into Canadian theaters. Some notable titles are THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ, BLACK CHRISTMAS, SHIVERS (David Cronenbergs big splash), and THE CLOWN MURDERS (which has the ubiquitous John Candy in a minor role as a laughing policeman).
But by this time, American distribution companies had established their stranglehold on Canadian theaters. Still, Canadian film was still being made.
In 1980 came ATLANTIC CITY, which starred a very young Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster. There is an infamous scene in the film where Sarandon's character, who works in a fish factory, appears topless and washes her breasts with lemons to get rid of the smell. In that same year, we also had MIDDLE AGED CRAZY, PROM NIGHT and TERROR TRAIN to name a few. The ones I mention, actually made it into Canadian theaters and had box office returns worth noting.
The rest of the 80's had MY BLOODY VALENTINE 1981, SCANNERS 1981, A CHRISTMAS STORY 1983, THE TIN FLUTE 1983, VIDEODROME 1983, and DEAD RINGERS 1988 to name the most notable theatrical releases. As you can see, the gap between theatrically released films that got box office gets larger and larger. The other thing to note is there are more horror films being given Canadian theater screens than any other genre.
But wait, there's more.
The 90's came and while the juggernaut of Hollywood continued to roll over our theater scene, there are movies of note here too.
There was NAKED LUNCH 1991 from Cronenberg, M. BUTTERFLY 1993 Cronenberg again, JOHNNY MNEMONIC 1995, NIGHT TERRORS 1995, SCREAMERS 1995, CRASH 1996 again from Cronenberg, HARD CORE LOGO 1996, AIR BUD 1997, CUBE 1997, just to mention a few that a large portion of the population might have heard of. Box office space for Canadian films seemed to be dwindling.
With the turning of the century, things may have gone from bad to worse. The year 2000 gave us GINGERSNAPS a horror, MEN WITH BROOMS 2002 from Paul Gross riding high off of DUE SOUTH, FOOLPROOF 2003 with a young Ryan Reynolds, EASTERN PROMISES 2007 Cronenberg, GUNLESS 2010, GOON 2012, and then films you may have seen in your local multiplex peter out.
Films are still being created and made by Canadians, they just aren't getting the box office. That isn't to say that small indie films are not worth your time, but the conglomerate of American film distributors which is in turn owned by film production companies and studios, have blocked Canadian films from getting nationwide or even worldwide notice. To be clear, they are NOT specifically blocking Canadian films from theaters, but they have the advertising budget to reach more people and the big name stars that people want to see, thus theaters have to make money and they go with what will sell. Canadian films won't sell as much as the next Avengers, so they don't put the films in theaters. It's a money thing and they are given absolutely no incentive to support Canadian made films by having at least one screen available or a Canadian made film, which is as good as a Hollywood film. Business is business but again, other countries protect their film industry, why don't we.
It's a circular thing too, we don't get the box office so we don't get noticed so we don't get the box office. Vicious cycle.
I would like to see that change in my life time.
Next time I'll talk about indie film companies and how they are finding success.
Ciao for now!
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