Cicada Cinema presents: Crime Wave (1985)

All Ages
One of the greatest and most overlooked debuts in Canadian movie history, writer-director John Paizs’s “Crime Wave” announced the birth of a new genre in Canuck cinema: what cultural critic Geoff Pevere dubbed “prairie postmodernism.”

CRIME WAVE centers on an awkward loner, Steven Penny (John Paizs), who turns out bizarre scenarios for color crime movies. Steven wants to turn in the best color crime movie ever, but he has a problem – he can only write beginnings and ends to his scripts. No middles! Living above a family garage in suburbia and befriended by the landlord’s ten-year-old daughter (Eva Kovacs), we see excerpts from a number of Steven’s scripts, zany ideas based on get-rich-quick schemes. Finally frustrated by his creative block, he sets out for Kansas to meet Dr Jolly (Neil Lawrie), the script doctor.