Canuxploitation classic

Canuxploitation. It’s a funny word with an even funnier history that now has a capital ‘F’ funny film entry at the Metro Cinema.

The term refers to a strange period in Canadian cinema where federal tax incentives compelled wealthy business people – many of whom were dentists – to invest in film productions and get full credits for them on their tax returns. The results were not exactly high-quality films. If they were books, they would be considered pulp novels. As movies, they are best described as grindhouse from the great white north. These are B-movies from our own backyards.

Bad City is Edmonton director Carl Bessai’s latest release and it’s a real throwback to this very specific schlocky sub-genre where quality always took a sideline to just getting the film made. He admits that it’s a definite diversion from his earlier “heavier, more serious” works. Make that a 180-degree diversion. He said that he likes to try different things, after all.

“Bad City’s such a funny, weird, special film. For me, a project like Bad City … was a chance to do something off the wall and really whacked with terrible continuity and deliberately bad ’70s production style and work on something broad and comedic. This departure into comedy, for me, is great.”

It’s essentially a movie within a Masterpiece Theatre-type TV show called Film Fridays. Host and Canadian film historian L. Donald Bramante (actor Blu Mankuma) announces the feature for the evening with an overview into Canuxploitation and a look into its stars, including Danish pop sensation MÄşns ÄşsbjĹ™rnder (Dustin Milligan) and former postal worker Frank Lo Zito (Aaron Brooks).

Milligan as ĺsbjřrnder plays Detective Reverend Grizzly Night-Bear while Brooks as Lo Zito plays Detective Franky New-Guinea. This odd couple detective duo must stop a corrupt civic politician who moonlights as a drug lord whose new product has hit the streets and is killing kids.

If you’re familiar with Canadian B-movie staples like Cannibal Girls, Black Christmas or My Bloody Valentine then you’ll know what to expect. They’re so bad that they’re good. Bad City is intentionally bad, complete with all of the overacting, the on-the-nose dialogue, the clunky scene transitions, and the whole nine yards.

It might take a screening or two to really allow the viewer the chance to get into the contrivance but with the right frame of mind, it’s all cool, ya dig? Frankly, it was downright hilarious with a pitch perfect production and the funkiest background music I’ve heard since Shaft or Foxy Brown. It captures the tone and the tenor of those long lost cheesy classics from that forgotten era.

As spoofs go, it’s the boss.

The whole thing came straight from the minds of Brooks and Milligan, the brainchilds who co-wrote and co-starred in the project. Bessai explained that it started with an idea to do a take on the time-honoured buddy cop movie. Naturally, they examined Super Fly and Black Samson, “some of these real awful-slash-great classic American 1970s blaxploitation movies” that offered so much in terms of the template and a catalogue of the many quirks that became staples in such films.

“I just wanted to put these elements in that weren’t laughing at all at the movie but presenting them in a really serious way, even though of course everything they’re saying is non-serious or absurd. I think comedy is better that way: when the comedians aren’t winking at the audience.”

It was so wonderful to create that it became an immersive experience. They ended up coming up with back-stories for the fake actors Lo Zito and ÄşsbjĹ™rnder, along with the film’s fake director Alvy Wang. Visiting the film’s website at www.badcitymovie.com is practically required reading to prepare oneself for this entirely unusual cinematic experience.

“They wrote it so crazy. When we started rehearsing, I really noticed that the more these two got really, really serious about their characters, and how seriously they took their characters, the better and funnier it was. It’s all pretty absurd but we had a lot of fun with it.”

The film plays at the Metro on both Sunday and Tuesday, with real director Bessai in attendance for both screenings.