News

Canadian International Pictures, sister company to the great Arbelos Films, takes upon itself the noble mission of restoring and releasing lesser-seen films from up north. Their next project is a film I’d frankly never heard of, but upon watching a trailer for its restoration I can’t see it soon enough: Allan Moyle’s The Rubber Gun stars Stephen Lack (Scanners) as a Montreal drug-pusher whose makeshift family is put under threat. Ahead of bicoastal premieres––Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque on March 6 (with a Moyle Q&a) and New York’s Roxy Cinema on March 11 (where Lack will do a Q&a on March 15)––we’re pleased to exclusively debut said trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Charismatic painter Steve (Scanners star Stephen Lack) has carved out a reputation as Montreal’s premiere drug connection, trafficking narcotics with a crew of friends (and lovers) living as a makeshift ‘family’ on the fringes of society.

The Bitter Ash

A rather precious thing happened in Montreal in the mid 1970s. Canadian cinema had been dominated by the National Film Board since its formation in 1940, and the generally-perceived character of Canadian film was all educational documentary, and not a lot of fun. Directors such as Claude Jutra, Don Owen, and Gilles Groulx struck off on their own to make the first Canadian new wave fiction films (A tout prendre [1963], Nobody Waved Goodbye, and Le chat dans le sac [both 1964] respectively), on the back of independents like Sydney J. Furie’s groundbreaking A Dangerous Age (1959) and Larry Kent’s student feature The Bitter Ash (1963), but for all their youthful, semi-bohemian trappings, these were still quite po-faced affairs. Then came the “genial loser” films of the 70s, led by Owen’s Goin’ Down The Road (1970), and others such as The Rowdyman (Peter Carter, 1972) and Paperback Hero (Peter Pearson, 1973), for the...