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A Little Off The Top
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The movie didn't screen during the festival after all, but is DEFINITELY being shown from Friday, August 6 to Thursday, August 12 at the Dollar Cinema, 6900 Decarie (Decarie Square Mall), Montreal, Canada. I'll post any other news or coverage as I learn about it.
In 1996, Corky and the Juice Pigs starred in "A Little Off The Top", a short movie about a street band who unwittingly gets mixed up in a mob war. This movie is not currently available for sale on VHS, DVD, or any other format. If it should become available, I'll list it here.
Movie Details
Written and directed by Liam Kiernan. Based on Chapter 16 of Kiernan's comedic novel Wishbone Alley.
Stars Sean Cullen as Herman, Phil Nichol as Miro, and Greg Neale as El Camino.
Filmed in Toronto.
Review
This short comedy is very surreal, silly, and strange. It is thus a perfect vehicle for Corky and the Juice Pigs. If you like their style of humour, you will love this movie!
After opening with some cute sidewalk-chalk credits, the movie takes a few minutes to really get going. The initial scene feels a bit forced, but once Cullen, Nichol, and Neale are allowed to shine through their own antics, the bizarre humour will tickle the funny bone of any Corky fan.
The basic premise: the band ticks off a local low-life who then rats them out to the mob as having killed another mobster. The mob guys then send the band to entertain a supposedly sad barber, but the barber is actually a hit man who intends to do them in.
The jokes range from base (such as Cullen mouthing that the barber has just farted) to cute (plenty of sound-effect gags) to intellectual (Shakespeare and existentialism). There are also some clips from the band's debut album, plus a brief selection of their strange kimono-clad martial arts bit from their stage act.
Let's be clear: this isn't exactly the most polished film you'll ever see. There are some rough edits, continuity errors (particularly in a scene late in the movie where it's obvious by lighting changes and a different hair style on Phil that the takes were done on different days), and a couple of the supporting actors are weak. This isn't Academy Award material. But it's good, campy fun, and I recommend it to anyone who gets a chance to see it. It's rare, so take any chance you get!
Page last updated in August, 2004.
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