Pierre Chagnon Movies
- 2000
A joint project of the CBC TV network and the Raido-Canada service, this ambitious documentary series traced the History of Canada literally from the beginning--15,000 BC, to be exact. The subsquent episodes were nothing if not ambitious, covering the progress of the Dominion right up to 1850 AD. The seventeenth and final episode, covering the years 1976 to 1990, was open-ended enough to bear the title "In An Uncertain World". Three years in the making, the series utilized interviews, rare photographs, precious paintings and etchings, and vividly dramatic re-enactments. Telecast in English and French versions, Canada: A People's History ran from October 22, 2000 to November 18, 2001, yielding such ancillary projects as a two-volume book, a website, and a bestselling CD. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- Maggie Huculak, Rene-Daniel Dubois, (more)
- 1996
In this romantic, sophisticated Canadian horror spoof, a family of Transylvanian vampires experiences turmoil when a daughter rebels against her arranged marriage to a Russian bloodsucker. Sick to death of bickering with her parents, Karmina, decides to fly to Montreal to find her estranged aunt Esmerelda, who has found a formula that enables her to function as a human and run a successful dating service. Esmerelda is happy to share the potion with her newfound niece. Karmina then tries to adjust to life as a mortal. Her jilted lover shows up and his determined pursuit hinders her progress. Matters get really sticky when Karmina falls in love with handsome Phillipe, a talented musician. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1989
- R
While on the routines of his job, a Montreal policeman (Michael Ironside) is tormented by flashbacks and hallucinations. He eventually traces the bizarre behavior to the LSD experiments of a CIA scientist (Christopher Plummer). ~ John Bush, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Ironside, Lisa Langlois, (more)
In the expatriate-littered Paris of the 1920s, painter Nick Hart (Keith Carradine) mingles with Ernest Hemingway (Kevin O'Connor) and other leading lights of the Lost Generation while palling around with gossip columnist Oiseau (Wallace Shawn), whose reportage has helped establish the international reputation of the writers and artists who fled America for France after WWI. Older and less successful than many of his fellow painters, Hart relies on gallery owner Libby Valentin (Genevieve Bujold) to sell what she can of his work while he supports himself drawing cartoons for Oiseau's weekly column. In a café one day, Hart spies Rachel Stone (Linda Fiorentino) on the arm of her husband, Bertram (John Lone), a condom magnate and art patron who's trying to buy his way into society. It seems Hart and Rachel share a romantic past of which Stone is completely unaware. At the salon of writers Gertrude Stein (Elsa Raven) and Alice B. Tolkas (Ali Giron), Hart suffers a nasty run-in with the Stones and meets Nathalie de Ville (Geraldine Chaplin), a rich socialite who wants to steal three paintings from her estranged husband. Nathalie plies Hart with sexual favors and the promise of cash in exchange for his help in forging copies of the paintings. Although he's loath to follow in the footsteps of his father, a gifted forger, Hart acquiesces, and soon his rivalry with Stone and his involvement with the forgeries leads to death, destruction, and scandal in the art world. Bujold, Shawn, Chaplin, and Carradine are all regular collaborators of iconoclastic director Alan Rudolph, who filmed The Moderns in Montréal and would go on to lens the similarly intellectual Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, (more)
- 1988
Immigrants from Quebec travel to the Eastern United States to work for French industrialists in this historical drama. Gratien Gelinas plays a venerable Quebecois who recalls in 1988 the era from 1907 to 1920 in a series of flashbacks. He compares the modern computer age with the steadily growing industrial era of the early 20th century. An all-star cast of French and Canadian thespians participate in this miniseries as the Quebecois deal with love, life, politics, and war. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juliette Huot, Gratien Gelinas, (more)
- 1988
And Then You Die is a 115-minute Canadian melodrama starring Ken Welsh as an above-the-border drug czar. Having amassed a fortune on the miseries of others, Welsh intends to retire. But the Mafia, notorious for its poor retirement plan, wants a piece of Welsh's riches. So does a vicious motorcycle gang. And so too do certain double-dealing members of the police squad pursuing Welsh. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kenneth Welsh, R.H. Thomson, (more)
- 1982
- R
This heavy-duty literary drama is about the burdens faced by one family during the end of the Great Depression in the late 1930s and is based on a novel by Gabrielle Roy. The oldest daughter in the family works in a diner to help make ends meet, giving her paycheck to her mother and keeping her tips for herself. After a few encounters with a fast-talking womanizer at the diner she spends one night with him and ends up pregnant and abandoned. At the same time or in short succession, her father loses his job, they move to a miserable, damp location, and the youngest brother contracts tuberculosis -- numerous tragedies that ultimately stem from poverty. The pregnant daughter connives to get engaged to a decent, shy young man who then goes off to war. But because of their engagement, the daughter now has access to a new and large house, and in spite of everything, the family's fortunes may be improving a little. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mireille Deyglun, Marilyn Lightstone, (more)
