Barbara Tranter Movies
- 1998
Toronto TV scripter and stage director Jack Blum made his feature directorial debut with this Canadian family psychological drama. Blond 13-year-old Lisa (Elisabeth Rosen), who flirts with the school busdriver, lives with the sister of her mother Margaret (Lenore Zann), a boozing, man-chasing laundromat worker. Margaret begins an affair with quiet Jim (James Gallanders) about the time Lisa moves back into the house. After Jim makes out with Lisa, he tries but fails to dump Margaret, and the triangle soon turns explosive. Shown in the Directors Fortnight section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lenore Zann, Elisabeth Rosen, (more)
This Canadian drama tells the tale of Camille, who works at an uptight Protestant college as a professor of mythology. She has been going out with career theologian Martin for three years, but it appears her real true love is her dog, Bob. Bob dies in a tragic car accident and poor Camille is devastated. She is so upset that she grabs the wrong clothes from the laundromat. The clothes belong to the beautifully predatory Petra. Camille discovers the error and returns them to Petra's workplace, an avant-garde circus in an empty warehouse where Petra confesses that she switched them on purpose so she could seduce Camille. Camille demurs. Petra begins following her, and gets to kiss her in the lobby. Eventually the persistent Petra succeeds and the two become lovers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pascale Bussières, Rachael Crawford, (more)
- 1984
Released in the US in 1989, Unfinished Business was actually completed in 1985. Directed by Don Owen, the film is a sequel to Owen's 1964 docudrama Nobody Waved Goodbye. In the earlier film, Peter Kastner played a disenfranchised young man who descended into petty thievery, while Julie Biggs co-starred as the woman in his life. Unfinished Business details what has happened to that couple in the intervening twenty years, utilizing the same actors. Now divorced, Kastner and Biggs must deal with their troublesome 17-year-old daughter Isabelle Mejias, who apparently has inherited all the negative traits of both her parents. This Canadian Unfinished Business should not be confused with the like-vintage Australian film of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Mejias, Peter Spence, (more)
