The Great Land of Small

aka C'est pas parce qu'on est petit qu'on peut pas être grand!

Fritz, a mystical being from the Great Land of Small, travels to the human realm with a bag of magic gold dust to test the intentions of men. Are they capable of goodness or will they use the gold dust to amass power? After losing his bag of gold dust to a cold-hearted hunter, Fritz teams up with Jenny and David, two young children who want nothing more than to help Fritz get his gold dust back and return home to the Great Land of Small. Something like a mashup of E.T. and The Neverending Story, but with a fraction of their budgets, The Great Land of Small is another Canadian kids movie from the same people who brought you The Dog Who Stopped the War and The Peanut Butter Solution. While not as iconic or traumatic as those other films, The Great Land of Small is a distinctly odd movie that mixes family friendly whimsy with questionable decision making. If for no other reason, I would definitely recommend watching this movie so that you too can witness the glory that is Slime-O.

Rating: 59%

(Image from IMDB)

The Dog Who Stopped the War

aka La guerre des tuques

Going into Christmas vacation, a group of kids decide to fill their free time with an all out snowball war. One faction builds an elaborate snow fort while the other side attempts to seize it. The war rages on every day from sunup to sundown. From the people who brought you The Peanut Butter Solution comes The Dog Who Stopped the War, another cherished Canadian children's film. Between the two movies, The Dog Who Stopped the War is probably remembered more fondly, since it's fairly straightforward and slightly less traumatic. While I wouldn't say that any of the children in the movie were particularly good actors, their characters were well defined and their uniforms were pretty funny.

Rating: 65%

(Image from IMDB)

The Peanut Butter Solution

aka Opération beurre de pinottes

While exploring a burned out building, Michael sees something so terrifying that all of his hair falls out. After a few days, his hair shows no signs of returning. In desperation, Michael tries a hair growth formula given to him by a pair of ghosts. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Michael's hair returns but, because he mixed the formula incorrectly, it won't stop growing. He gets kicked out of school for being a distraction and eventually gets kidnapped by a former teacher, who uses Michael's hair to make magic paint brushes. The Peanut Butter Solution might be the most infamous Canadian children's film ever made. It lives on in the minds of Canadian forty-somethings as a half-remembered fever dream. Many people who saw this movie as a child aren't completely sure whether or not the film was real or if they're actually just struggling to unpack a strange repressed memory.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)