Yeti— Il gigante del 20° secolo [Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century] (1977)
(In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) Wow. I mean: Wow. Italian piece of no-budget trash cinema Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century would have been an unbearable watch if it wasn’t for one fundamental aspect of it: It takes place in Canada, and specifically features stock footage of late-1970s Toronto. That makes it almost endlessly fascinating, especially for someone who recently returned to Toronto after a decade-long absence: The underdeveloped downtown! The police cars! The Canadian crowds! It’s a bother that you have to push the film aside to have a look at the historical footage, but there you go: I had quite a bit of fun taking a look at Toronto-the-Good as it existed a few decades ago. The rest of the film? Utter garbage ripping off King Kong in an attempt to relocate it to then-modern Toronto. Lazily conceived, badly executed (although a few shots do suggest some kind of budget) and most of all dull, Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century is probably good for three minutes of Toronto stock footage. Fast-forward the rest.