Hamilton-made comedy ‘Bike’ getting a cinematic ride
Heading to theatres across country after running as digital web series
The gritty and comedic digital web series “Bike” is riding to the big screen across Canada.
The Hamilton-made six-part series from writer-director Terrance Odette is heading into theatres across the country thanks to distributor IndieCan Entertainment.
The series, which played on Bell Fibe TV1, has played as a movie before, during the Hamilton International Film Festival and at the Playhouse Cinema last month. Each episode was about 10 or 15 minutes long, and the screen version has them all running together in a 72-minute movie.
Odette, best known for the Canadian Screen Awards nominated “Fall” (2014) starring Michael Murphy (“Manhattan” 1979), says even though he wrote it as a series, he says seeing “Bike” as a feature film is more in his ballpark.
It will run in independent cinemas like the Playhouse and Weststreaming dale, but that’s fine with Odette.
“This is the life of an independent filmmaker,” said the 63-year-old Kitchener-native, who has lived in Hamilton since 2006.
“We’ll get it out into the theatres the best we can over the next few months. People have told me they like the film. I’m really encouraged by the response I got.”
In the future, he hopes it gets picked up by a TV network or a service.
“Bike” is about a beer-loving bicycle thief nicknamed Bike. When someone asks for his real name, he says it is “Michael, but I like Bike. Because I like bikes.”
Bike, played by Brian Stillar (“The Samaritan” 2012), tries to straighten out his life by taking a job running errands for a shady real estate lawyer. It goes topsy-turvy when he becomes the only witness to a drive-by shooting.
Spectator reviewer Jeff Mahoney wrote, “Bike” wears Hamilton “like a lake wears water. Odette and cameraman Arthur Cooper have produced some of the most lyrical, gritty, loving, self-critical and truly authentic portrayals of our multiple-opolis I have seen.”
The film was shot at such places as Gore Park, city hall and the Mulberry Coffeehouse in 2022. It also features Melissa Murray-Mutch (Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia”), Gray Powell (CBC’s “Sort Of”, which filmed in Hamilton) and Katie Campbell (“Gone Girl” 2014).
Odette, who first lived in Hamilton between 1984-1986 before moving to Toronto, got into filmmaking in the 1980s when he started making music videos after playing in a band. His father, Dan, was a newspaper person and served as city editor of the Kitchener Record (now the Waterloo Region Record).
Odette wrote his first screenplay for the comedy-drama “Heater” in 1998. He went on to make it with Gary Farmer and it played at the
Sundance Film Festival. He wrote and directed TV shows in the tween-market in the early 2000s, but made the family drama “St. Monica” (2002), and the drama “Sleeping Dogs” (2006). He was nominated in 2015 as best director for “Fall” by the Directors Guild of Canada.
“The Movie Man” is beginning its Canadian theatrical run and will play at the Playhouse Cinema April 12 at 6:45 p.m.
A Q&A will follow with director Matt Finlin.
The documentary is about Keith Stata, who has run the Highland Cinemas in the woods outside Kinmount, Ont., since 1979. After he opened, he added four more screens and has movie memorabilia that would make a movie buff tear up. He also has about 50 cats.
Though Finlin was born in Cambridge, he spent time at his grandparent’s home in Ancaster. He used their home for his first film.
“The Movie Man” had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and its Canadian premiere at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Finlin hopes that at a time when it is hard to get people out to see movies, and small theatres are closing around the world, “our movie reminds people of the magic of the cinematic experience.”