Buried on Sunday

Two things make 'Buried on Sunday' worth watching:

1) When Louis Del Grande picks his nose during a Privy Council meeting.

2) When Tommy Sexton spontaneously combusts and tries to put out the fire using Vodka.

Both of which were based on real life events, infusing this film with a dark sense of gritty realism.

This movie has its odd moments, but it's got fun performances from Chaykin (totally in his element), Gross (somehow making "unwashed" look sexy), and Virieux (whose character provides a somewhat saner counterpoint to the other two). Only in a Canadian film could you achieve such seriousness about such silliness, or vice versa, and still manage to throw in dark humor and good-looking leads. Moments of seriousness intrude; insane mobs and philosophizing, not-quite-kosher ministers; government-vs.-the-little-people; nuclear submarines and spontaneous combustion abound. You get to enjoy many of your favorite Canadian character actors with cameo parts ("hey! I've seen that guy somewhere!"), and by the movie's end, you find yourself wanting to don plaid and go catch some fish.

Having had the misfortune to sit through this entire film, I can honestly say it was a complete waste of time. While the premise of poking fun at Canadian/American relations seems to have a lot of promise as a satire, the movie ultimately fails with its weak plot and over-exaggerated characterizations. One almost gets the impression that the writer simply wiped his rear end on a piece of paper and called it a screenplay.

None of the characters in "Buried On A Sunday" are interesting, and I felt incredibly embarassed for all of the actors in this self-indulgent movie such as Paul Gross and Maury Chaykin. Such a waste of talent...but then again, perhaps they simply needed the income.

Thankfully, "Buried On A Sunday" isn't indicative of all films in Canada as there have been a number of good ones made since then (e.g. "The Sweet Hereafter", "Cube", "Lost & Delirious", "Mambo Italiano", "Ginger Snaps", "Spider"). If all films were like this one, then the future of the Canadian film industry would definitely be in jeopardy.

I'm a fan of Canadian movies and I loved this one. It's another underrated gem from the good souls at Salter Street. I'm tired of Canadians whining about how they hate our movies; there are a lot of good ones, mostly those that have never been seen but still very very good. I wouldn't try to group this one in as one of the best Canadian movies you'll see or even use it as an example, but it's worth watching if you like our sense of humour. I for one can't see anything wrong with this movie. I'm sorry that it's not a 'Big Labowski' or 'Dr. Strangelove' to you (both movies I didn't really care for, and no I'm not trying to compare the three) but I guess what Frank Shuster said was right: Canadians really do need to learn how to laugh.

Although I liked the movie, I didn't see the credits given to the original writers of this story...in its original form...the writers of "The Mouse That Roared". Why not?

I'm sure that plagiarism isn't intended in this case...only a good story, set in a Canadian context.

And the research was lame. Among the gaffs, Canadian Naval Officers don't have the "curly-q" on their sleeves, just the rings. The "curly-q" is a Brit thing...we aren't Brits. A small amount of research would replace assumption with fact.

As in most Canadian films, all of the usual suspects were cast. Except...was Leslie Nielson busy?