Finally, TIFF favourite ‘I Like Movies’ is on Netflix
Locally shot and set film debuted on the streaming service last week.
It’s not every day a buzz-worthy film comes along that’s both shot and set in the Greater Toronto Area. But I Like Movies is that film, and it's available on Netflix right now.
Written and directed by Burlington-born writer and filmmaker Chandler Levack, the film takes place in 2003 and centres around ambitious teenage movie lover Lawrence Kweller. When Lawrence gets a job at his local video store in order to save money for NYU film school tuition, he starts a pivotal new friendship in the process.
I cannot wait until @clevack’s movie I Like Movies hits theatres so I can pack all my friends in. It’s one of the best films ever made in this country and I can’t remember the last time I felt such sheer delight watching something. What a joy. https://t.co/aJ9TzfAXVz
— @realSarahPolley (she/her) (@realsarahpolley) January 21, 2023
What was the original inspiration for this film?
Chandler Levack: I started writing the first draft of I Like Movies in 2018, a script which was then called Spiderman 3 on DVD. I’d heard about the Talent to Watch Micro-Budget grant that Telefilm awarded and because my first short film, We Forgot to Break Up, had played at SXSW in 2018, that I would be eligible to apply. So my challenge became writing a new script that I could shoot for approximately $125,000.
I knew it had to be actor-driven and primarily take place in one location. I decided I would treat the experience like a second film school to gain experience working with actors and writing a script that could convey my authentic voice as a writer/director.
All of this got me thinking about my last year of high school when I had an anxiety attack in the back room of Blockbuster and how my mom had to coach me through my first-ever panic attack through the wall because my manager wouldn’t allow her to be in the back room with me.
Suddenly, the character of Lawrence started to snap to life for me, which was really surprising. He was a 17-year-old boy and I was then, a 31-year-old woman, but his pain was so urgent and personal for me, I couldn’t help but dig into his story further.
Lawrence is definitely based on my teenage self, but I think I also used him as an avatar to explore some of the strong personalities I’ve encountered along the way as a cultural critic and filmmaker. These are guys who glom onto knowing about movies or popular culture as a shield, so they don’t have to recognize women as people. In many ways, female filmmakers are often relegated to only writing about women, and I wanted to see if I could understand these guys at a pivotal age and set them on a path of healing.
The use of 2000s Canadiana and popular culture is so specific. Why was that importan to you as a filmmaker?
All the Canadian art I love is hyper-specific and deeply about its setting: the short stories of Alice Munro, the films of Guy Maddin, the Toronto comedy of Kids in the Hall and the paintings by Alex Colville.
I grew up in Burlington, Ontario. My high school experience was mostly spent in parking lots waiting for my mom to pick me up, so it was really important to me that I paid tribute to growing up in a bland, amorphous suburb and somehow make it feel cinematic. I always feel like the more personal story you can tell, the more it will feel universal.
We tracked down as many specific props, costumes and locations as we could to really evoke the 2003 time period. Using a combination of Facebook and texting all my friends and family, I managed to score a cherry red PT Cruiser, an eMac and recover my old mini DV video camera that I used to make movies with in high school.
My producer Evan exchanged approximately a million emails with various film distributors, so Lawrence could stock the shelves with The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho 2 and Cabin Fever, as well as Mongrel titles Bollywood/Hollywood and Love That Boy. I reached out to brands like Jones Soda and Cow’s Ice Cream, who reprinted old T-shirt designs. I even managed to get Adbusters Magazine to reissue a pair of their “Black Spot” sneakers so Lawrence could wear them in the film.
Music-wise, the score for the film was written by Murray Lightburn of The Dears, and I’m honoured to be able to include classic Canadian jams like “Fuel Injected” by Swollen Members and “Tinfoil” by Limblifter on the soundtrack, as well as an original commercial by Oliver “The Cashman” Jewellery.
Where was the film shot and how did you create the Sequels Video store?
We shot the film all over the greater Toronto area, including Ajax, Scarborough, Mississauga, Burlington, Etobicoke and Toronto. The bulk of our shoot took place in Ajax, Ontario, at an abandoned thrift store that my brilliant production designer, Clauda Dall’Orso, transformed into Sequels Video.
Having worked at Blockbuster in the early 2000s, I knew I really wanted some of the aesthetic signatures of the iconic chain to be represented in the production design and uniforms. During prep, I did a lot of research. I interviewed former Blockbuster employees and watched old training videos, as I created elaborate documents detailing all the elements that were really important to me, such as a carpet, employee name tags and TVs blasting trailers.
Designing a period-era video store on a micro-budget during a pandemic was really daunting — you couldn’t even buy non-essential items at a dollar store during our shoot.
My executive producer Vicki Lean told me about a Blockbuster Video in Northern Ontario that had been sitting vacant for 10 years. I managed to track down the property manager, who opened up the store for me and my producer Lindsay. It was completely untouched — it felt like I had walked into a time machine, an exact replica of the store I’d worked in 2003 with all the TVs, computers and shelving intact.
We ended up filling a cube truck with all the shelving, computers, phones and props that we would need to tell our story. I have a very odd memory of slicing through an electrical cord with an exacto knife, not knowing if I was going to be electrocuted. After dropping off the shelves and set dec, Claudia went to work.
A few days later, I visited Sequels for the first time and had the very surreal experience of being back in a video store for the first time in several years. The details Claudia created there were so authentic, it felt like I had travelled back in time.
The same goes for the uniforms that my costume designer Courtney Mitchell made. It sounds like it would be simple, but I really wanted to create the exact baggy polo shirt I had to wear at Blockbuster, the kind with sleeves that always land in the crook of your elbows, which she had to design and sew from scratch. And of course, everyone had to wear khakis.
I also called the Last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, who took photos of their computer screens so I could model the customer accounts on their system. My dad is a former advertising copy writer who wrote popular commercials in the 80s and 90s for accounts like Black’s Photography and Canadian Blood Services, and he wrote all the Sequels commercials that you’ll hear me perform in the store. He even came up with our official tagline: “Only at Sequels – where your next great movie is always the best!”
This is an updated version of an article originally published alongside the movies's theatrical release in March 2023.
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