CRIME WAVE

The Top! Few guys made it! On the east coast, it was John Waters, whose diabolical dames and sly sense of humor baffled, bemused, and buoyed Baltimore! From the midwest, there was David Lynch, the boy scout charmer with a taste for transcendental meditation and a brain from another dimension! The west coast belonged to Paul Reubens who'd built his pee-wee-sized playhouse into a prodigious empire! Yes, it seemed as if the field of offbeat '50s-Americana-styled comedies with a darker twist was all sewn up and could accept no competition. But! From the north, there was coming a man who would lay claim to his own slice of that delicious pie on mother's window sill. His name was John Paizs. And he had… A DREAM.

A noted influence on Guy Maddin, a director for several short film segments of The Kids in the Hall, and a Canadian treasure in his own right, Paizs is a true cult classic filmmaker still underseen even by film freaks the world over. And CRIME WAVE, the best-known of this least-known director's works, is an utterly unique take on writer's block, "color crime pictures," and Canada's best/worst impression of the American midwest. Don't miss the opportunity to see this rarely-screened gem of the great white north that will teach you how to make it to… THE TOP! (Ziah Grace)