Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1997
Hayseed (film)
Buy Hayseed (film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Hayseed' is a Canadian comedy film, directed by Josh Levy and Andrew Hayes and released in 1997.Gerald Pratley, 'A Century of Canadian Cinema'. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 95. The film stars Jamie Shannon as Gordon, a naive "hayseed" from a small town in Northern Ontario who travels to Toronto after receiving a tip from a psychic that his lost dog is in the city, and meets a bizarre cast of characters, from prostitutes to gay sex slave traders, during his trip.Josh Brown, "Lights, camera, premiere: First-time filmmaker Josh Levy is off to a good start". 'Hamilton Spectator', September 2, 1997.
The film's cast includes Deborah Theaker, Elva Mai Hoover, Dan Lett, Daniel MacIvor, Scott Thompson, Mark McKinney, Maria Vacratsis, Dan Redican and Bruce LaBruce. The soundtrack included songs by Andy Kim, Babybird, By Divine Right, Local Rabbits, Odds, Pansy Division, Rusty and Treble Charger.
The film premiered at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival, and was subsequently broadcast on television by Citytv.Cheryl Binning, [https://playbackonline.ca/1997/07/28/16305-19970728/ "Ontario Scene: Salter gives Hayseed a hand when comic project hits a snag"]. 'Playback', July 28, 1997.
Critical response
In his 2003 book 'A Century of Canadian Cinema', Gerald Pratley called the film "a low-budget fairy-tale romp and a welcome change from other films claiming to be comedies". Writing for the 'Toronto Star', Mitchel Raphael positioned Levy alongside LaBruce, playwright Brad Fraser and novelist Todd Klinck as one of a wave of "new degenerates" whose work challenged rather than assimilating into the "gay establishment".Mitchel Raphael, "The new degenerates: An eclectic wave of movies, books and plays is challenging the gay establishment". 'Toronto Star', October 18, 1997.
Thomas Waugh's 'MediaQueer' site describes the film as a "Candide-style parable" which "somehow missed entering the Canadian canon, perhaps because the fresh, folksy but sex-savvy satire of innocence adrift was hard to pigeonhole as either queer or otherwise, or because the Egoyan-Cronenberg tastemakers prefer to keep our frothy comic sensibilities on television and reserve the Art Cinema for world-heavy themes."[https://www.mediaqueer.ca/artist/joshua-levy "Joshua Levy"]. 'MediaQueer'.
References
Buy Hayseed (film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1997