Hard Core Logo

NEW 35mm PRINT! ► Famously championed by Quentin Tarantino, and now both cult favourite and Canadian classic, Bruce McDonald’s fabulous faux documentary, adapted by screenwriter Noel S. Baker from the experimental novel by Vancouver writer Michael Turner, chronicles the tumultuous reunion tour of once-legendary Vancouver punk band Hard Core Logo. Fronted by charismatic, volatile Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon, then singer for The Headstones, now an actor on TV’s Flashpoint), the re-formed band sets off a decade after its initial demise for an ill-conceived whirlwind tour of Western Canada. With documentary crew in tow, the band lurches from dingy club to dingy club, playing raucous shows to largely apathetic audiences, and reviving the old animosities that broke them up in the first place. Callum Keith Rennie co-stars as reluctant guitarist Billy Tallent, ready to ditch the doomed enterprise for a real chance at pop stardom with a hot L.A. band. (Canadian punkers Billy Talent derived their name from the character.) Meanwhile, the schizophrenic bassist has lost his meds, and the loutish drummer is only making things worse. “One of the most formally inventive features ever made in Canada ... It mixes documentary-style sequences and quasi-surreal imagery with Super 8 footage, monologues and journal entries, and a lengthy homage to Apocalypse Now” (Toronto I.F.F.). Colour, 35mm. 94 mins.