Crime Wave

An absolute peach of a film about a "quiet man" Steven Penny (played by director John Paizs himself) and his desires to pen the greatest colour crime movie ever told. His attempts are lovingly documented by his chipper and inquisitive neighbour Kim (Eva Kovacs), who becomes fascinated by Steven after reading scraps from his discarded screenplays, which Steven has thrown to the trash. For you see, Steven is a tormented artist. He can write the beginnings and endings of screenplays, but not the middles... and what screenplays they are! They tell sordid tales of hapless and violent Elvis impersonators; murderous Amway recruits; self-destructive self-help gurus! Yet, however sordid these cutaways become, the film retains a giddy innocence amidst the darkness. It also achieves a feat that very few films achieve, which is to use kitsch in a way that is wholly earnest and sincere, rather than ironic. The whole film has the feel of an after-school special, or those awkwardly mannered edutainment titles reserved for the classroom, but the spirit of parody remains wholly affectionate and the film is often touching and beautiful. This is especially impressive for a film with such strong meta-fictional elements, since it would be easy for such an exercise to become distanced and cynical. However, when Kim educates the viewer about persistence of vision, passing on the knowledge given to her by Steven, we are simply caught up in the joy of it, rather than smirking some knowing smirk as to how clever-clever the enterprise is. With the entrance of criminally insane script doctor Dr. Jolly (Neil Lawrie) the film threatens to become rather dark, yet still retains a lightness of touch. It's a magical piece of filmmaking, quite unlike anything you've ever seen before, one infused with the joys of filmmaking, friendship and the wonder of childhood with the experience of being an adult. It's a beaut.

Crime Wave is an absolute gem. In fact, I promise you that it's the best move that you've never heard of -- a post modern masterpiece.

Hopefully a distribution company will come along and make it available to you. Currently, if I'm not mistaken, it's only on VHS, and only in the hands of people, like me, who purchased a second hand copy.

But honestly, if you are a person who likes innovative films, and I'm assuming that you are one of those people, do yourself a favor and find a way to catch this one. I can't imagine it being any better than it is.

Good luck, and enjoy!

"The Top! One man made it!"

John Paizs's "Crime Wave" is one of the most original film produced. Although I'm sure you've heard that before about countless other movies, unless you've seen this film you likely can't imagine just how unique it is.

Writer/director John Paizs pulls triple duty by starring as Steven Penny, a "quiet man" who is intent on creating the perfect version of what he hopes will be the best color crime movie ever: Crime Wave. For this reason, he is often re-writing his script and changing the lead characters for his future film. However, he suffers from an inability to write the middles to any of his (somewhat) different versions of Crime Wave.

Steven lives in the apartment over a family's garage. Their daughter Kim is excited to have him living there, and strikes up a friendship with Steven. Kim is excited to have a "real movie person" living in her garage, and does her best to support Steven during his struggle to write his movie. He reciprocates by teaching her how color crime movies work, and by showing her his stuff.

When Steven loses hope, Kim finds an ad in "Colour Crime Quarterly" placed by Dr. C. Jolly. Dr. Jolly, the ad states, is seeking fresh young talent to collaborate on a script. She secretly send Dr. Jolly a letter and the unfinished middles to Crime Wave, and he responds by sending a bus ticket to Kansas and expense money so that Steven can meet with him.

The movie gets quite odd at this point.

Now, the plotline to John Paizs's "Crime Wave" (not Steven Penny's film of the same name) doesn't sound all that different. It's when you couple it with all the other pieces of the puzzle, however, that you notice that a film like this hasn't been made before or since:

Though he is one of the main characters, Steven Penny has no lines of dialogue in the film; it is narrated entirely by his friend Kim. Also, aside from writing (which he only does at night by streetlight), Steven hardly seems to actually do anything when other people aren't around. One scene has Kim going up to visit Steven, and we see that prior to her arrival he was doing nothing but standing motionless in the center of his suite.

John Paizs's acting, though wordless, is very expressive yet perfectly subtle. You can tell exactly what his character is thinking at all times, or if his character is thinking at all. Eva Kovacs (Kim) also turns in a great performance that completely fits into the world of this film. There are some cast members whose acting is a little on the weak side, but for some reason it all seems to fit in with the film and wouldn't work if it were otherwise. And of course, Neal Lawrie's Dr. Jolly is absolutely one of the most riveting performances I've seen. Ever.

It's a shame this film wasn't distributed better, as it would definitely show up on a lot more lists of cult classics. However, it does tend to make Crime Wave seem even more special when you finally end up owning a copy.

If you would like to locate this movie, don't worry -- it CAN be done! After combing through all the video stores in your area, you may try finding this title on various internet auction sites. It appears that many video rental outlets will liquidate stock this way. Also, there are admirers of this film who will provide you with a copy (don't ask me - I'm not one of them). Since all of the companies that distributed this movie are now defunct, I would imagine that this is the only method of obtaining a new copy until it is (hopefully) re-released.

Also, Canada's CBC television network will broadcast this movie -- usually in a 2:00am or similar time slot. This is how I became aware of Crime Wave, incidentally.

So if this film sounds interesting, get hold of it at any price you feel comfortable with. I guarantee you will not be disappointed with it no matter what you paid.

If you haven't seen Paizs's film work before, you may or may not know that he later directed remote segments for The Kids in the Hall ("It's a Fact!" and "30 Helens Agree", etc). I saw Crime Wave shortly after it came out, and then I taped it off CBC, at which point I've shown it to everyone who's come to my place. 30 viewers agree, it's one of the funniest, darkest, quirkiest movies ever to come out of the Canadian prairies, Canada in general, or anywhere.

The plot points have already been covered in the other reviews, but there are a few other things I could mention. For instance, I figured that the colour and lighting were an homage to all those National Film Board shorts we watched in high school. I asked Paizs about this, and he confirmed it.

The dialogue is sharp, the satire is pointed, and the acting has an edge.

Some fun moments:

Steven and Dr Jolly's dead-of-night meeting in the cornfield outside Sayles, Kansas;

The masquerade party where Steven shows up shirtless, painted up with green camouflage markings, festooned with dynamite and holding a detonator -- his costume was of a guy who blew himself up in a bank;

Inside the traffic-counting booth, where Steven's friend has three buttons to push: left turn, right turn, and straight ahead. When he sees a car sitting at an intersection, Steven's friend has his finger poised and hovering over the buttons, waiting, waiting, waiting to see which button he should push, beads of perspiration forming on his upper lip. Then the car turns left and with relief he pushes the "left" button. Who knew counting cars was so stressful? Go figure;

Eva Kovacs's line delivery throughout the movie, but especially where she shows Steven a letter and says "Steven, Steven, read this! Don't ask why, don't ask how, just read it!";

Steven explaining the concept of "persistence of vision": Keep looking at the dot through two verses of "When the Saints Go Marching In" on the harmonica;

All the assorted movie beginnings and endings that he can't join together, all satires of various genres, and all of which contain the phrase "But from the NORTH!"

This movie is a cult classic and not to be missed!

I only saw this movie once on CBC years ago so it's fuzzy, but the scene with the cowboy and the main character has stuck with me because it has the kind of creepiness that leaves the mouth dry.

Okay, Lynch may not have "ripped" the scene from this movie but when I saw the scene in Mulholland Drive with the cowboy I only took me a fraction of a second to drag out this little scene from Crime Wave which was lost somewhere in my memory banks. I think this is a good thing, because how else could I have reclaimed my interest in Piazs' film, introducing it to you now and maybe even getting you to be interested in it too?

Both scenes have similar settings, a failing light from above, and both involve a meeting with a menacing character in a cowboy hat. When I saw Mulholland Dr. I just KNEW Lynch had to have seen this movie too.

Anyways, you all inspire me: Maddin, Paizs, Lynch, Georges Melies, Miranda July, Godard...