Hard Core Logo

Infobox Film
name = Hard Core Logo


imdb_id = 0116488
producer = Brian Dennis
Christine Haebler
director = Bruce McDonald
writer = Michael Turner (novel)
Noel S. Baker (screenplay)
starring = Hugh Dillon
Callum Keith Rennie
John Pyper-Ferguson
Bernie Coulson
music = Schaun Tozer
cinematography = Danny Nowak
editing = Reginald Harkema
distributor = Shadow Shows Incorporated (Canada)
released = October 11, 1996
runtime = 92 min.
language = English

"Hard Core Logo" is a Canadian mockumentary adapted by Noel Baker from the novel of the same name by author Michael Turner. Director Bruce McDonald illustrates the self-destruction of punk rock.

The film, released in 1996, documents a once-popular punk band, Hard Core Logo. The band is composed of lead singer Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), fame-tempted guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), schizophrenic bass player John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson) and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson).

Julian Richings plays Bucky Haight, Dick's idol. Molly Parker plays a member of the riot grrrl band Jenifur.

Several notable punk musicians, including Art Bergmann, Joey Shithead and Joey Ramone, play themselves in cameos. Canadian television personality Terry David Mulligan also has a cameo, playing a fictionalized version of himself.

The film has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada. In 2002, readers of Playback voted it the 4th greatest Canadian film ever made. [ [http://www.playbackonline.ca/articles/magazine/20020902/best.html Playback :: Egoyan tops Canada's all-time best movies list ] ]

In august 2008, McDonald stated that sequels were in the works. [http://www.thestar.com/article/485431]

Production

McDonald grew up in the Vancouver punk rock scene in the late '70s and early '80s and was drawn to Michael Turner's book about aging musicians. McDonald commented in an interview, "what I thought was really interesting is where it is 15 years later, and what are these guys doing now." He had just come off the critically acclaimed "Dance Me Outside" and friends warned him not to repeat himself by making another road movie. However, McDonald did not see "Logo" as a repeat of previous films. "On the other films, they (the anti-heroes of "Roadkill" and "Highway 61" go down the road and meet a nutty person and things happened. Here you're with the same people throughout - and they are the nutty people!"

McDonald had to persuade Dillon to do the movie. "He was going 'Wow, what if the movie is shit, then I'd lose all my fans from the band, I'd lose all my credibility!'" The director auditioned 200 actors for the role but kept coming back to the musician. Dillon remembers, "as soon as he gave me freedom to make the screenplay more believable, I became interested. Bruce allowed me creative input and that's what made it a special piece for me." Dillon drew a lot on his own real life experiences of being in a band.

"Hard Core Logo" screened at the Cannes Film Festival. McDonald remembers, "Cannes was very humbling. You're in the same arena as Bernardo Bertolucci and Czechoslovakian pornographers. It's such a bizarre spectrum." The film went on to be nominated for six Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Director. Quentin Tarantino saw "Logo" at a film festival and liked it so much that he bought the U.S. distribution rights under his Rolling Thunder label and even toyed with casting Dillon in "Jackie Brown".

Awards

The film won the Genie Award for 'Best Achievement in Music - Original Song' for the track "Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?" and was nominated for 5 other awards including Best Film and Best Direction. It took the Best Canadian Feature at both the Sudbury Cinéfest and the Vancouver International Film Festival, it also took the award for Best Canadian Screenplay at the latter. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116488/awards Hard Core Logo (1996) - Awards ] ]

oundtrack

Although music figures heavily in the film, a conventional soundtrack album was not initially released; instead, McDonald had several notable Canadian bands record covers of the songs in the film, and packaged them as if they were a tribute album to a real band. That album, "A Tribute to Hard Core Logo", was also released in 1996. (A proper soundtrack album was released later in 1998 on Velvel Records.)

Other Trivia

*Canadian punk band, Billy Talent, (note the different spelling) is named after Hard Core Logo's guitarist.
*Michael Turner was earlier in a band called Hard Rock Miners.
*In the movie Billy Tallent is reading I Never Liked You, a graphic novel by Chester Brown.
* It grossed $350,000 in Canada.Fact|date=July 2008

References

ee also

*Another State of Mind
* [http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=67 Hard Core Logo, the novel]