Sean Kelly on Movies

My Thoughts on Star Trek Into Darkness

2013-05-18T21:22:00.001-04:00

This review contains plot details, which may be considered SPOILERS.

After rebooting the Star Trek franchise in 2009, director J.J. Abrams ups the stakes in this follow-up. A rogue Federation agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks Starfleet, which results in Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew, including Spock (Zachary Quinto), McCoy (Karl Urban), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana), being sent to Harrison’s hiding spot on the Klingon homeworld of Kronos in retaliation. However, it turns out that there is more to John Harrison than meets the eye and he turns out to be quite a formidable foe for the crew of the Enterprise.

It has been the worst kept secret for the entire production, so I shall probably start off by saying that yes John Harrison is really Khan Noonien Singh. I don’t know why J.J. Abrams wasn’t more forthcoming with this information, since I figured out John Harrison’s true identity long before he says “My real name is Khan” around the halfway point of the film. In fact, I would argue that much of Star Trek Into Darkness is a thinly veiled remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, since the film blatantly uses many elements of that film, including the infamous screaming of Khan’s name.

The film also has a secondary antagonist in the form of Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller), who ordered the mission as a ruse to kickstart a war with the Klingons. This revelation can be considered a bit more of a spoiler than the reveal of Khan, however Marcus’ ship, the enormous U.S.S. Vengeance, has been heavily featured in the promotional materials for the film. As such, it’s not that much of a surprise that Marcus turned out to be a treacherous character, especially after it was revealed that he lied about who John Harrison was. Also, I was completely unaware that the man who played Robocop was in the film, so it was definitely a joy to see Weller show up. Plus, it gives a bit of back story to the character of Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), who will be familiar to anyone who’s seen Wrath of Khan.

Moving on to the film itself, I can say that I overall liked Star Trek Into Darkness, but it was somewhat obvious that J.J. Abrams really wanted to make this film “Star Trek as Star Wars.” Abrams has made it no secret that he had a preference for Star Wars and he must be gushing at the fact that he was hired on to direct Star Wars: Episode VII, which was announced to be released in 2015. In the meantime, Abrams can make a film that has probably more battles and explosions than all of the past Star Trek films combined. One scene that sticks out to me as particularly Star Wars-like is a high speed chase through Kronos, with Kirk driving a shuttle that looks and acts suspiciously like the Millennium Falcon.

Speaking of Kronos, I should talk a bit about the debut of, original Star Trek antagonists, the Klingons in this new rebooted series, who have been totally redesigned. While there are some elements that will remain familiar to Star Trek fans (i.e. the forehead ridges are still there – albeit less protruding), the new Klingons look like much fiercer (and balder) warriors, who spend the bulk of their screentime wearing metal helmets. Of course, the Klingons only have a small role in the film and not enough time was given for this redesign to settle with me. Perhaps they will make a return in a future Star Trek film.

When it is all said and done, most of my issues with Star Trek Into Darkness are more nitpicks than anything else. Even if his love of Star Wars influenced this film somewhat, there is still a lot in this film for Star Trek fans to like. In addition, even though he was given one of the most iconic Star Trek villains to play, Benedict Cumberbatch made the role of Khan his own and he was definitely one of the main highlights of the film. Overall, I will say that, even if was not the most true to the spirit of Star Trek, this was still an enjoyable film for me.

8 | LIKED IT

This Week in Movies – May 17, 2013

2013-05-17T15:15:00.001-04:00

It’s been a while, but it’s time to return to the grind of posting what’s playing this week.

Wide Releases:

Star Trek Into Darkness *My Pick*

Limited Releases in Toronto

Toronto Film Events/Screenings:

May 2-4 Kegger: Dazed and Confused – May 19, 9:30pm at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
The Rep – Toronto Premiere – May 22, 7:00pm at Revue Cinema

Theatre Thoughts: Night of the Living Dead Live

2013-05-15T23:17:00.001-04:00

Even though film is my main pastime, I still occasionally check out Toronto’s bustling theatre scene. Usually I am attracted to productions that fit my genre-loving tastes, such as Evil Dead: The Musical and Ghost Stories. In the same vein, this evening I checked out Night of the Living Dead Live, which is a stage adaptation of George A. Romero’s 1968 classic.

Even though the film is in the public domain, which resulted in a number of unauthorized knock-offs, the play was made with the full blessing of Romero, producer Russell Streiner, and writer John A. Russo, all of whom are credited as executive producers on the play. I don’t usually write reviews for the plays I see, but since Night of the Living Dead Live is adaptation of a film, I figured that it would fit right in.

Night of the Living Dead Live was co-created and produced by Christopher Harrison and Phil Pattison and was directed and co-written by Christopher Bond, who is best known as the co-creator of the hit show Evil Dead: The Musical. In some ways, Night of the Living Dead Live has a similar overall feel to that previous production. The play is very much a comedy and it pokes fun at various aspects of the original film, most humorously the comatose and damsel-in-distress nature of lead female Barbara. The play is split into two acts, with the first act being a straight adaptation of the film, while the second act presents a number of alternate scenarios. I don’t want to spoil the surprise of what these alternate takes of the story are, but I will say that they get increasingly ridiculous, leading to a very enjoyable finale.

The play is staged in such a way to make it appear somewhat like the original black and white film. This includes grey sets, props, and make-up on the actors. The bulk of the play is performed on a single set made-up to look like the house from the film, though the action occasionally moved to other sets around the stage and there were even moments when the actors and zombies ran through the audience. There was also a full zombie section in the audience, which groaned on cue. It was a very simple, yet effective production.

Overall, I can say that I highly enjoyed myself watching Night of the Living Dead Live. The play is only running through Sunday, so if you are in the area, I would highly recommend checking it out!

10 | LOVED IT

My Thoughts on The Great Gatsby

2013-05-11T17:26:00.001-04:00

Director Baz Luhrmann (Romeo+Juliet, Moulin Rouge) returns with this new visually stunning adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. In the film, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) recalls the summer he became acquainted with the reclusive millionaire Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Gatsby throws extravagant parties every weekend at his New York mansion, in the hopes of attracting his long-lost love Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), who happens to be Nick’s cousin. With Nick’s help, Gatsby and Daisy reconnect and raises the suspicions of Daisy’s husband Tom (Joel Edgerton).

The Great Gatsby is one of the few literary adaptations I’ve seen, in which I’ve previously read the source material, since the novel was part of the curriculum in my Grade 11 English class. I’ve also seen most of the previous 1974 film adaptation, which starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow.

I should probably start off by saying that, for better or for worse, this is very much a Baz Luhrmann film. There are many elements in the first half of the film, particularly Gatsby’s parties, which seemed like a complete rehash of Moulin Rouge, including the use of modern music that clashed with the 1920s setting. I’m sure there would be those, who would be expecting a less stylized adaptation of the novel and get turned off by Luhrmann’s trashy MTV style.

Of course, Baz Luhrmann is also known for creating films that start off very light and get progressively darker as they progress. Anyone familiar with the original novel would know that the story fits Buhrmann’s style to a T. Once the film was done with the crazy parties, with even crazier costumes, it refocuses on the, somewhat tragic, love story that is at the centre of The Great Gatsby. Having read the book, I already knew how this was all going to turn out, however I still cared about the characters and hoped for the best.

I thought that Leonardo DiCaprio excelled in his performance as Gatsby, both when he is playing up the playboy persona, complete with his repeated catchphrase “old sport,” and later on when he reveals the persona is a shell for a more vulnerable person. DiCaprio definitely stands out among a cast you can either give or take. I thought that Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan were decent enough, though maybe Joel Edgerton was a bit too unlikeable in his antagonistic role of Tom Buchanan. One interesting bit of casting in the film is Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan as Gatsby’s associate Meyer Wolfsheim. Anyone who read the novel would know that Wolfsheim is portrayed as very stereotypically Jewish, so I suppose casting an Indian actor in the role would help alleviate the anti-semitic tone of the character (or make it worse, depending on your viewpoint).

Overall, once I was able to get past Baz Luhrmann’s over-stylized nonsense, I thought that The Great Gatsby was overall a decent adaptation of the novel. That said, Luhrmann’s style is starting to get a bit predictable and boring and I think his next challenge as a director would be to make a film that is totally different to everything he has previously done. You can only make a career of these MTV-style films for so long.

8 | LIKED IT

Trailer Thoughts: The World’s End

2013-05-08T12:44:00.001-04:00

It’s been nine years since Edgar Wright directed, his first film collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Shaun of the Dead in 2004, with Hot Fuzz following in 2007. Now it is time for so-called “Cornetto Trilogy” to conclude with The World’s End, featuring a pub crawl of apocalyptic proportions.

While Shaun of the Dead tackled zombies and Hot Fuzz spoofed both action and slasher films, The World’s End seems to be all about an alien invasion. A group of friends return to their hometown to reattempt an epic 12 bar pub crawl, only to find out that all of the townsfolk have been taken over by aliens with glowing blue eyes. In some ways this can be seen as a bit of a rehash of Shaun of the Dead, with the aliens taking the place of the zombies. However, I still think that this looks to be a very fun movie and I quite look forward to checking it out when it opens in August (and see how they plan on fitting an Cornetto brand ice cream cone into the plot).

My Thoughts on Iron Man 3

2013-05-08T00:12:00.001-04:00

The second phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins with Iron Man 3. Taking place sometime after the events of last year’s The Avengers, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has been feeling the effects of PTSD and spends his time working on his Iron Man suits, while becoming increasing distant from girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). A new threat emerges in the form of the terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), who has been behind a number of attacks. Somehow connected to The Mandarin is shady businessman Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who developed a virus called Extremis, which creates regenerating super-soldiers. Returning in the film is Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), whose War Machine armour has been upgraded into the Iron Patriot.

After the all-star superhero extravaganza that was The Avengers, the question is whether there can still be interesting solo adventures for the heroes involved? It is obvious that the Tony Stark of Iron Man 3 is now living in a different world than the previous two films. There are no shortage of references to the events of The Avengers and much of the film deals with Tony Stark trying to cope with the traumatic experience of barely surviving an alien attack of New York City.

The inclusion of The Mandarin has been something that I have been waiting for since the first Iron Man film. He is generally considered to be Iron Man’s archenemy and I was looking forward to their showdown in the film. Despite the name, The Mandarin, as depicted by Ben Kingsley, is more the image of a middle-eastern terrorist than the Asian magician of the comics. I don’t really want to go into spoilers about the film, but I don’t really think that the reinterpretation of The Mandarin in this film truly respected the character. While he’s probably not as iconic a Marvel villain as someone like Doctor Doom, I think that The Mandarin has enough importance in the Iron Man mythology, that he should have received a better portrayal. I can understand if they were going a more grounded in reality portrayal, but the film also has characters that regenerate limbs and breathe fire. I think there is room for an Asian sorcerer.

Even though my issues over the portrayal of The Mandarin knocked a few points off my overall opinion, I still thought that this was an OK enough film. As a summer action film, I thought that Iron Man 3 did its job by the end. There’s a lot to suggest that this is the final solo Iron Man adventure, but based on the box office numbers, I’m sure we will still see plenty more Iron Man to come.

7 | FAIR

Hot Docs 2013: Wrap-Up

2013-05-06T18:39:00.000-04:00

This year marked my third time going to the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary festival. With me seeing a grand total of 36 films, this year’s Hot Docs was one of my busiest film festival experiences ever. This year’s Hot Docs selection was at a particularly high quality and I ended up enjoying the majority of the documentaries I saw during the week. Of course, this would make coming up with a list of my favourites a bit more difficult than expected.

Well, without further ado, here is my full wrap up for the festival and I will see you next year.

Top Five Favourite Films

Valentine Road
Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer
Maidentrip
Teenage
Blood Brother

Honourable Mentions

The Ghosts in Our Machine
NCR: Not Criminally Responsible
Shooting Bigfoot

Least Favourite Film

Searching for Bill

Wished I Seen

Expedition to the End of the World
Mistaken for Strangers
A Whole Lot More

Number of Films Seen

8 – Pre-Screened
28 – Watched During Festival

Theatre Tally

TIFF Bell Lightbox - 10
Isabel Bader Theatre – 7
Scotiabank Theatre – 5
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema – 3
Hart House Theatre – 2
ROM – 1

Hot Docs 2013: Films in Review

2013-05-06T18:07:00.000-04:00

I was a very busy person during the 20th anniversary of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Altogether, I watched 36 feature documentaries and 4 short documentaries that played as part of the festival. I’m happy to say that I was able to write-up full reviews for 24 of these films over the course of the week. However, I can’t ignore the films I didn’t have time to get so, this post will feature capsule reviews for the remain 12 feature documentaries, as well as the shorts. For your convenience, I will also include links to all the full reviews.

Full Reviews

Capsule Reviews – Features

Another Night on Earth
Under the back-drop of the uprising in Egypt, a number of taxi cab conversations are recorded between the drivers an unknowing passengers. The film doesn’t really give much context beforehand and it is only through the conversations do you come to realize what is happening in the world outside the cabs. While the subject matter is definitely quite interesting, I thought that the actual execution of Another Night on Earth was little on the dull side and I found myself getting quite bored around the midway point of this film, which is only 54 minutes long. I did perk up late in the film when a passenger goes on a heavily misogynistic rant against a female cab driver. If only the film had more scenes like that. Overall, Another Night on Earth is not a bad film, it just wasn’t enough to keep my attention.
6 | WATCHABLE

Ballerina
Inspired by the autobiography of world-famous Swedish ballerina Elsa Marianne von Rosen, Ballerina features a number of black and white dance sequences, re-enacting moments of von Rosen’s life, interspersed with colour shots of the now 89 year old ballerina. If you are a fan of dance films like Pina, I would think that you would also find Ballerina to be an enjoyable film. There is really not all that much to the film, other repeated pattern of narration, followed by a heavily-choreographed dance sequence. Personally, it’s not really my cup of tea.
7 | FAIR

Tough Bond
Throughout Africa there are countless children, who are forced to live on the streets. One thing all these kids have in common is an addiction to inhaling “Tough Bond” brand furniture glue, which causes them to all-to-briefly escape from their lives. A shocking sight throughout the film is how these kids constantly have a bottle filled with glue hang from their mouths at all times, making it apparent how addicted these kids are to glue. Tough Bond focuses on various areas around Kenya, beginning at the small village of Yomo, where many of the featured kids originated from, all the way to Nairobi, where many street kids congregate. Overall, I thought that Tough Bond was a quite interesting socio-political look at street kids in Africa, as well as the ignorance of elective officials to do anything about them.
8 | LIKED IT

Our Nixon
The bulk of Our Nixon is made up of footage from 500 reels of Super-8 movies, which were shot by Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Special Assistant Dwight Chapin, and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman, and sat in a vault for 40 years. The footage is contextualized with the help of archival audio, including the infamous Watergate tapes, as well as archived news broadcasts and interviews with Haldeman, Chapin, and Ehrlichman. While the film doesn’t really add too much to the story of Richard Nixon, I did find the film to be quite interesting, especially when it came to the secret recordings that were made in the Oval Office (a homophobic rant about All in the Family got my particular attention). In fact, the film is more about the three staff members filming the footage, than Nixon himself, all of whom received jailtime for involvement in the Watergate Scandal. Overall, Our Nixon is an interesting look at Richard Nixon front the point of view of those closest to him.
8 | LIKED IT

Lucky
I have to admit that I was curious to see Lucky based solely on the promotional photos of the film’s heavily tattooed and pierced titular subject. However, this didn’t really turn out to be the kind of film I was expecting it to be. Despite her punkish appearance, Lucky is a highly insecure person, who has lived in the system all her life. She uses her tattoos and piercings as a mask to hide her true self. However, she has since grown to regret her appearance, since it has heavily limited her options. She has very high aspirations, with dreams of becoming famous, though she also seems to have little concern with the realities of life, including raising her child. I couldn’t really find myself drawn too much to Lucky’s story, since I thought she was not a particularly likeable individual. That said, she does show some growth over the course of the film and I think that Lucky still works somewhat as a candid portrait of a very unique individual.
7 | FAIR

Aatsinki: The Story Of Arctic Cowboys
Aarne and Lasse Aatsinki run a reindeer farm in Finland, where they lead a collective of reindeer herders, who manage the last group of wild reindeer in the country. The film gives a cinéma vérité look at the activities on the farm, over the course of one year. With the exception of the occasional conversation, the bulk of the film is entirely silent. I thought that as a whole, Aatsinki was a pretty decent observational documentary about the life on this reindeer farm. Of course, I have to warn that the film does feature some very graphic images of butchers skinning and gutting reindeer for meat. It was enough to cause a few walkouts among those at the screening I was at. However, the slaughterhouse footage only makes up a small percentage of the whole film and rest of the film featured much more happy images, include the stereotypical image of reindeers pulling sleighs in the winter.
8 | LIKED IT

I Will Be Murdered
In 2009, a Guatemalan Lawyer named Rodrigo Rosenberg was found murdered. A video-recording was subsequently passed around at Rosenberg’s funeral, which featured the man himself claiming “if you are watching this video, it’s because I’ve been murdered by President Álvaro Colom.” The video becomes a viral sensation and causes an uprising in Guatemala, which is one of the most violent countries in the world, where 98% of murders go unsolved. I Will Be Murdered looks into the investigation of Rodrigo Rosenberg’s murder and how he was so sure that he would be targeted by the country’s president. Some very interesting revelations are made in this case and I thought that overall that I Will Be Murdered was a very intriguing look into this political scandal.
8 | LIKED IT

Alcan Highway
Finnish immigrant Hese buys an old truck in Alaska for $700, which hasn’t run in 40 years. With the help of friends, Hese sets out to repair the car and drive it 4000km to Vancouver Island, where it will become a new mobile home for himself. Despite being an observational documentary, Alcan Highway is edited in such a way to make it appear like a narrative story. The film is evenly spread in three acts, with the first act dealing with the repair of the truck, the second act dealing with the road trip itself, and the third act dealing with the truck breaking down in Prince George, British Columbia. I thought that Alcan Highway was a fairly enjoyable and humorous film, though I do with that the actual “story” of this documentary had more closure, since it never shows the end of Hese’s 4000km roadtrip.
8 | LIKED IT

The Crash Reel
In 2009, while training in Sault Lake City for the 2010 Winter Olympics, snowboarder Kevin Pearce crashed face first, resulting in a terrible concussion. Pearce now suffers from irreparable brain damage and, despite his wishes to do so, he can never participate in snowboarding competitions ever again. The film raises many questions about extreme sports stars, who are not covered by insurance, yet are expected to do exceedingly dangerous stunts in their competitions. The film even brings up last year’s tragic death of Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke, who died after crashing on the same course Pearce had his accident. Overall, The Crash Reel causes us to wonder if these extreme sports are worth endangering these competitors lives.
8 | LIKED IT

The Other Shore
Diana Nayad was one of the all-time best swimmers of the world. Now in her 60s, she decides to come out of a 30 year retirement to try and reattempt the one swim that always eluded her – the 103 mile journey non-stop from Cuba to Florida. Diana has a highly determined “never give up” attitude and I don’t think it will be spoiling too much to say that she tries and fails this swim multiple times over the course of the film. While Nayad’s major challenge is being able to endure the three day swim at her age, she also has some very scary encounters with marine wildlife, particularly the deadly box jellyfish. Overall, while it might be seen by some as one of the “also rans” of this year’s Hot Docs, I can say that I enjoyed The Other Shore and the message it gives about never giving up your dreams.
8 | LIKED IT

Quality Balls – The David Steinberg Story
Quality Balls tells the story of Canadian comedy gem David Steinberg, who was one of the visionaries of modern humour. Steinberg was the son of the Rabbi and he became known for doing stand-up routines in the form of a sermon. These sermonettes were highly controversial and even resulted in the cancellation of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Steinberg was also the second most regular guest, behind Bob Hope, on The Tonight Show and he had impeccable chemistry with Johnny Carson. After some stints in Second City, Steinberg eventually moved on to directing and is currently involved with the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. The film is a fairly straight-forward, yet hilarious, telling of Steinberg’s career, with his recent return to stand-up, after over 20 years, being used as a general backdrop. Steinberg isn’t as well known as other Canadian comedians, so I am happy there was a film where he gets his due.
8 | LIKED IT

Future My Love
At its core, Future My Love is a documentary about 95 year old futurist Jacque Fresco, who wants humanity to abandon their reliance on a monetary economy and utilize technology to its full advantage and create renewable resources that will bring humanity together. This film would’ve have been quite interesting if it wasn’t for the fact that the film was full of black and white avant garde scenes with introspective narration in the form of a love letter to society. The film just does not really work in its current form and I really wish that more focus was spent on Jacque Fresco’s story, instead of using it to create some sort of art film. It’s a shame.
6 | WATCHABLE

Capsule Reviews – Shorts

Derby & Groma
A number of old photos are found scattered along the ground and story of the vaudeville duo “Derby & Groma” is deciphered through the photos and archive footage. The film goes into how important photographs are for preserving a certain point in history. However the story behind photos can be lost and the photos were likely thrown out in the first place, because they held no connection to the current owner. Overall, I thought this was nice little short about the importance photos hold in preserving history.
8 | LIKED IT

Happy Birthday Emily
This wonderful little short focuses on an elderly couple, who loves their dog Emily so much that they throw an elaborate birthday party for dogs in the neighbourhood. The party includes everything from a piñata full of dog biscuits to an elaborate birthday cake made from dog food, rice, and other ingredients. This is very heart-warming short that just shows how much people treat their pets like a member of their family.
8 | LIKED IT

Pink or Blue?
It may be only 7 minutes long, but Pink or Blue? says a lot when it comes to gender identity and stereotypes. The film focuses of a very effeminate young boy, who wants to dress up as a princess for Halloween. The boy is advised to ignore anyone in class who teases him about it and the film gives the message that you don’t have to conform to gender stereotypes. In fact, the film has a very hard-warming ending with two princesses dancing with each other. This was a cute little short.
8 | LIKED IT

Leonardo
A guy returns to his childhood home and reminisces about the time he dropped his old action figure of Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles down the heating vent as a child. All these years later, Leonardo is still down the vent and a belated rescue is underway! I’m sure that everyone can relate to a long lost toy story like this one and I absolutely loved how this film plays out. It was definitely the hidden gem of the Hot Docs short programme.
10 | LOVED IT

Hot Docs 2013 - My Thoughts on Brothers Hypnotic

2013-05-06T12:46:00.000-04:00

To finish finish off my Hot Docs experience for the year, I chose this this upbeat film about a group of brothers, who perform together as the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. All eight members of this band are the sons of anti-establishment Sun-Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran and got their starts performing as buskers on the streets of Chicago. Brothers Hypnotic documents the band’s efforts to develop their career on their own terms, without having to sacrifice their identity to record companies.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are only a percentage of Phil Cohran’s large family, which includes around 15 boys and 7 girls birthed from three mothers. They began by performing for their father and later moved on to performing on their own. They became known by performing and selling CDs on the street, though did not like being considered “street players.” They begin to start hitting it big when they begin performing with the likes of Mos Def and Prince, which attracts the attention of record labels. However, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble fear that get a recording deal will cause them to sacrifice who they are and they are left at a crossroads to decide their future.

Brothers Hypnotic can be described as part history of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and part concert film. The film focuses quite a bit on the band, in relation to their father Phil Cohran, who was known for running an Afro-Arts Theatre, which was known as one of the only black culture centres at the time, until a civics rights controversy caused the theatre to be closed by police (or as the sign said “closed by deceit”). Much of the film is about the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble trying to form their own identity, while also respecting their father’s beliefs. One of the big moments of the film comes when Phil Cohran is invited to participate in the recording of one of the band’s albums.

The film also features quite a bit of performance footage from the band. This ranges from their smaller street performances right up to accompanying Prince on stage, in front of an audience of thousands. The Brass Hypnotic Ensemble has a very interesting sound, which typically involves combing the sounds of their brass instruments with hip-hop vocals. I do have to say that performance numbers are probably the most enjoyable element of the film.

Overall, I would say that Brothers Hypnotic was an entertaining doc about a band of brothers trying to find their own identity. The film was definitely a fun way for me to finish off Hot Docs.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on The Great Hip-Hop Hoax

2013-05-05T11:44:00.000-04:00

The music industry is no stranger to hoaxes. In fact, the story of the Milli Vanilli, the pretty-boy duo of the late 1980s, who were exposed as lip-syncers, probably remains the most infamous hoax of music history. However, compared to Silibil n’ Brains, the main subjects of Jeanie Finlay’s documentary The Great Hip-Hop Hoax, Milli Vanilli’s antics were child’s play.

The film focuses on Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, two friends from Dundee, Scotland, who got together to form a hip-hop group named “B Production.” One day, they headed down to London for an audition, but they just ended up being laughed at by the A&Rs, who called them “The Rapping Proclaimers.” After further rejection, due to their Scottish heritage, they decided as a lark to put on American accents and pretend they were a rap duo from California, named Silibil (Billy) and Brains McCloud (Gavin). To their surprise, they started getting notice and “Silibil n’ Brains” were on their way to getting a record deal.

The story of Silibil n’ Brains’ rise to fame is quite humorously told through a series of animated re-enactments, done by British artist Jon Burgerman. It is quite amazing to see how deep into the music industry Gavin and Billy got under their fake personas. The film describes many moments when they came dangerously close to being exposed, but they managed to talk themselves out of the situation. Since Gavin and Billy had to remain in the characters of Silibil n’ Brains 24/7, they almost began to forget who they really were.

The Great Hip-Hop Hoax also works somewhat in exposing how the music industry cares nothing about talent and more about marketability. Gavin and Billy were essentially performing the same material as Silibil n’ Brains, as they were as B Production. However, the only difference is that it is easier for record labels to market a couple of California rappers, who exhibited extreme hip-hip stereotypes, than a pair of Scottish rappers, who cannot be viewed as anything but Scottish. There is a great bit of irony in the film when, the head of the band’s management, Jonathan Shalit specifically says that “they did not get a record deal because they pretended to be American, they got a record deal because they had talent.” All I have to ask is where was this guy when the duo was being laughed at and called “The Rapping Proclaimers?”

Amazingly Silibil n’ Brains did not come to an end because they were exposed, but more because they were buried in the Sony BMG merger and subsequently fell out with each other. After a huge fight between the two, Billy returned to his hometown of Arbroath, to start a family with his wife, while Gavin stayed in London to develop his music career, which included publicly ending the Brains McCloud character. Even though Gavin and Billy haven’t been together in five years, they are seen freestyling over the end credits and they have apparently recently gotten back together to record new material to coincide with the film’s release.

Overall, I thought that The Great Hip-Hop Hoax was a very fun film and I am quite amazed that this duo managed to get away with their ruse for as long as they did.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Blood Brother

2013-05-04T12:04:00.000-04:00

There comes a moment in everyone’s lives when they reach a crossroads. While many people end up living normal and mundane lives, others find a greater calling. Blood Brother tells the story of Rocky Braat, who decided to move from Pittsburgh to India, in order to help out at a hostel for women and kids with HIV.

Rocky is the best friend of the film’s director Steve Hoover. As shown in a little animation at the beginning, Rocky always had a caring spirit and, when he was a child, he decided to care for his injured cat, instead of euthanizing it. In return, the cat ended up living for many more years. Rocky initially travelled to India as a lark, but he fell in love with the kids at the HIV care centre and decided to pack everything up and move to the country. While in India, Rocky has to face challenges such as immigration issues, prejudice by villagers, and of course, the fact that many of these kids with HIV will not survive.

Blood Brother just goes to show that it does not take much for your entire life to change. The film actually begins with Rocky returning to Pittsburgh, after his VISA was rejected. By this time, Rocky had gotten so accustomed to living in India, that he felt a major disconnect when he returned to America. Rocky eventually returns to India and it is instantly apparently how much Rocky has become to these kid’s lives. When he arrives back at the hostel, the kids come running and crowd around Rocky. Despite being the only white person in the village, Rocky has tried his best to fit in, which includes living in the exact same conditions as everyone else, as opposed to an Americanized living quarters.

You almost forget at times that these kids that love Rocky so much are HIV positive. The kids have to regularly take a cocktail of drugs to stay alive, including anti retroviral (ART) medications that can extend their lifespans to virtually normal. There is a very hard to watch section of the film when one of these kids gets deathly sick and spends many days in the hospital. However, as upsetting as this can be, it also shows how caring a person Rocky is, since he stays at the kid’s bedside and cares for his sores, without any concern about catching HIV himself.

Rocky also has to cope with much prejudice from villagers, especially when they blame him for the death of a sick girl he was driving to the hospital. The villagers are highly religious and believed that the girl would’ve still been alive if she was kept in the temple. There was also additional bias against Rocky, and the kids, once the villagers found out that the kids, who were going to school in the village, had HIV. It’s quite apparent throughout the film that there is a major anti-AIDs bias in India, though the film doesn’t go into too much detail.

The film concludes with Rocky getting married to an Indian women in the village and it is quite obvious that he is in India to stay. Overall, I thought that Blood Brother was a heart-warming, and sometimes upsetting, film about a young man, who gave up life in the western world for a much more meaningful existence.

9 | REALLY LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Teenage

2013-05-03T11:52:00.000-04:00

It has only been within the last century when the second stage of life, known as adolescence, began to be defined. Before then, you were either known as a child or an adult and it was not uncommon to see children as young as 12 working in factories. When child labour laws were introduced in the early 1900s, it began the development of what would become to be known as teenagers. Matt Wolf’s film Teenage is adapted from the book Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture, 1875-1945 by Jon Savage and examines how adolescence developed over the years, until it was formally defined in the years following World War II.

The film consists entirely of archive footage and photographs, accompanied by narration from the likes of Jena Malone and Ben Whishaw, as well as a score by Brandford Cox of the band Deerhunter. The narration of the film is meant to represent the point of view of young people in America, Britain, and Germany. The concept of the teenager, as it is is known today, is primarily an American invention, which inspired youth in other parts of the world. The youth went through many names over the years, such as flappers, jitterbugs, and sub-debs, until finally the term “teen-ager” was formally defined in a 1945 manifesto.

I thought that the history of the teenager presented in Teenage was quite interesting. While kids in America were all about having fun and dancing to swing music, kids of the same age in Germany were required to join the Hitler Youth, which ended up making up many of the soldiers on the frontlines in World War II, many as young as 13-14. There is a very interesting moment in the film, which shows clips of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler giving speeches praising the youth as the people of the future. The film even goes as far to put a quote from Hitler on screen. There were some kids in Germany, who rebelled against the regime and adopted an Americanized lifestyle. However, they often found themselves killed for going against Hitler.

The main theme of Teenage is how youth struggled to find an identity for themselves over the years. This is best represented in a clip of Judy Garland singing the song “In Between,” in which she laments that she is “too old for toys, too young for boys.” To many youth, World War II was a coming of age period and, after participating in the war effort, they did not consider themselves to be kids anymore. For many, the age of 17 was the perfect spot between being an adolescent and an adult. Slowly businesses began to realize that they could market to this age group and, by the end of World War II, the old world was over and the age of the teenager had begun.

I overall thought that Teenage was an excellent invasion of the senses. The combination of the images on screen and Brandford Cox’s excellent score made for a highly enjoyable viewing experience. Teenage definitely sets a high point when it comes to creating documentaries out of existing footage.

10 | LOVED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Searching for Bill

2013-05-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

In Searching for Bill, a man named Bob Maser travels from his home in New Orleans to Detroit, in order to recover his car, which was stolen by a grifter named Bill. After finding Bill’s notebook in the car, Bob decided to go on a cross-country roadtrip to location this elusive figure. In the meantime, we become acquainted with a preacher named Michael and a hitchhiker named Lou. We also meet the rest the Bill’s victims in a film, which turns out to be a hybrid of fiction and reality.

The goal of the film is to use a fictional search for an elusive man named Bill to tell real stories of how the economic and social conditions of the times are changing the western world. Even though there is no real person named Bill, the film is based on real people and actual events. The character of Bill, of whom everyone blames their problems, is supposed to represent the symbol of the vanishing American dream.

The main problem I have with Searching for Bill is that, even though I somewhat understand the intension of the director, I was not too happy with the film’s execution. I saw the film knowing very little about it and it was never once obvious to me that this film was trying to give a message about the economic downturn. What I saw was a film, which was very obviously scripted and it caused me to question whether these were real people or just actors. It probably doesn’t help that some real characters were chosen to be the subjects of this film. One look at Bob Master, with his bald head and bushy beard, is enough to leave you scratching your head and wondering if he’s for real.

Even though it made sense after I had the film explained to me, I was left confused why the film always focused on every individual who appeared on screen. Even though much focus is given on the stories of Michael and Lou, they don’t really factor that much into the main search for Bill until everyone “coincidently” happen to cross paths at one point. I fully began to realize that much of the film was dramatized when Bob begins to read Bill’s diary, which just happens to be narrated by Bill himself.

I’m not fully against documentaries that blur the line between fact and fiction. In fact, many conventional documentaries features scripted scenes, which are portrayed as real life. As such, it shouldn’t really be that bothersome that Searching Bill features scripted elements. However, I thought the that the film fails by blurring the line so much, that I couldn’t really tell what was real and what wasn’t over the course of the film. If I didn’t know better, and I wasn’t watching the film at a documentary film festival, I probably would’ve thought that Searching for Bill was a fully fictional narrative film.

In the end, I would consider Searching for Bill to be no more of documentary than The Blair Witch Project is. The film is trying to be much more smart than it actually is and I wish the director made this subject matter into a more traditional documentary. I just feel that you are playing with the audience’s expectations when you portray a film as a documentary, yet show a fictional story instead. There were better ways to give this message.

4 | DISAPPOINTED

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Buying Sex

2013-05-02T10:00:00.002-04:00

It is commonly said that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. Some believe that sex is a commodity and there is absolutely nothing wrong with exchanging money for sexual services. On the other hand, there are those that believe that prostitution is a form of male oppression, which has no need to exist in today’s world. The documentary Buying Sex, directed by Kent Nason and Teresa MacInnes, takes a look at both sides of the equation, under the backdrop of the recent court battle, which is trying to decriminalize prostitution in Canada.

In the aftermath of 2007 case of serial killer Robert Pickton, who was accused of killing 26 women – many of them prostitutes, a Toronto lawyer named Alan Young sets out to change Canada’s anti-prostitution laws, which he deems as unconstitutional. Young, supported by dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford and former sex-trade worker Valerie Scott, argues that the laws preventing prostitutes from working out of their own homes or “bawdy houses,” put them at greater risk towards predators. However, the case is opposed by a group of women’s rights activists, lead by former prostitute Trisha Bapte, who argues that many prostitutes have been forced into their positions and even if the laws are changed, there will still be prostitutes that get abused by their clients. The debate in Canada is contrasted with cases in New Zealand, where prostitution has been legalized, and Stockholm, Sweden, where it has become outright illegal to buy sexual services.

While the sex industry as a whole is highly controversial, prostitution gets particular flack due to the fact that if often involves men paying women to have sex with them. This is viewed by many feminists to be highly oppressive and abusive to women and some argue that the sex industry equals paid rape. However, there are also sex workers out there, who see nothing wrong with what they are doing. Valerie Scott, who is considered one of the main spokespeople in the fight to legalize prostitution, says that she got into the profession after being quite intrigued by the sultry saloon girls of the old west. Scott does not consider the sex industry to be abusive in her mind and she believes that women should have the choice to sell their bodies. On the other hand, people like Trisha Bapte argues that many prostitutes are abused children, who become abused women, and they aren’t often cognitive of the abuse they are subjected to until long after they leave the profession.

The film features interviews with many real individuals, who hire prostitutes, many of whom understandably hide their identities. The clients of prostitutes comes from all walks of life and reasons for hiring sex workers range from unsatisfactory sex lives in relationships to just wanting to hire the professionals. As someone, who is not really a supporter of casual sex in general, I do find the “male sex drive is part of human nature” argument a bit bothersome. While I suppose men of the right to conduct their sex lives any way they please, the fact that many of these individuals resort to prostitutes because of “vanilla” sex with their significant others somewhat disturbs me.

There is also the issue of prostitutes who work in brothels, in contrast with those who work on the street. When the court ruling was finally made, it ruled in favour of prostitutes working out of their homes or bawdy houses, but still made street walking illegal. Trisha Bapte argues that it is these street walkers, who are subjugated to most abuse. She also argues that there are strict rules about who get to work in brothels and, unless they are a young blonde or Asian, there will be many prostitutes that still have to work on the streets. Also, as seen in the case study of the legalized prostitution in New Zealand, there are many prostitutes that just prefer working on the streets, instead of brothels. There is also major socioeconomic questions about why an 18 year old girl feels that work in the sex trade is the best, and only, option for her.

The debate over the legalization of prostitution is not one that is going to end anytime soon. Even though the courts ultimately ruled in favour of Alan Young’s arguments, they were quickly appealed by the Canadian government and the case is now being brought towards the Supreme Court of Canada. Overall, I thought that Buying Sex was a highly informative documentary, which objectively shows both sides of this debate.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on 12 O'Clock Boys

2013-05-02T10:00:00.001-04:00

In Baltimore, there is an infamous group of dirt bikers named the “12 O’Clock Boys,” who ride through the streets of the city every weekend, often in groups of over a hundred. Their name comes from their ability to pop wheelies and drive completely straight back. The Baltimore police consider the 12 O’Clock Boys to be a dangerous and illegal nuisance, yet find it difficult to enforce the law, since it is too dangerous to outright chase the bikers.

12 O’Clock Boys, directed by Lotfy Nathan, tells the story of a teenage boy named Pug, who dreams of joining the group. Pug and his brothers are raised by his mother Coco, who heavily disapproves of Pug’s obsession with dirt bikes. Coco wishes that Pug should focus more on school and his career aspirations of being a veterinarian, instead of getting himself involved with the highly illegal world of the 12 O’Clock Boys.

The film heavily mythologizes the 12 O’Clock Boys, with many slow motion shots of the bikes going down the street. In a city where people are constantly finding the right way to do the wrong stuff, dirt bikes are considered to be one of the few seemingly positive paths to follow. However, the 12 O’Clock boys constantly find themselves at odds with the police, especially when altercations result in the death of a biker. The 12 O’Clock Boys thrive on videotaping themselves, beginning with early videotapes and moving on to becoming a sensation on YouTube. One, somewhat disturbing, moment of the 12 O’Clock Boys playing up for the camera comes when they grope a woman on the street and tell, the documentary’s, cameraman to focus on certain body parts. It’s a disgusting case of objectfying woman, which also existed on the group’s early videotapes.

While he may be just playing up to the documentary filmmakers, Pug is constantly expressing himself with a very stereotypical ghetto attitude, such as the kind used by rappers. Pug is extremely anti-authority and has no respect at all for the police. His mother has an extremely low tolerance for Pug’s behaviour and is tempted to just let the police take him. I actually found it a bit disturbing how much Pug changes over the course of the film, especially after the death of his oldest brother. It is stated in the film that every ghetto has a kid like Pug and that he is a product of the negative environment. You definitely get a sense by the end of the film, that Pug is more likely to enter a life of crime, than do anything meaningful with his life.

Overall, I thought that 12 O’Clock Boys was an interesting look at this inner-city subculture in Baltimore. While it is definitely sad to think that Pug considers dirt biking to be more important than having a proper education, the film does provide an unbiased look into this world, which is considered by many to be many to be nothing but a bunch of hoodlums endangering the streets of Baltimore.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Free the Mind

2013-05-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

How the mind works remains one of mankind’s biggest mysteries. In fact, the mind is considered to be the most complicated organ in the universe. Even though scientists try, we have still have not fully cracked the inner-workings of the mind, especially when it comes to mental disorders.

Free the Mind focuses on Professor Richard Davidson, who is one of the world’s leading researchers of the human brain. He is a heavy supporter of using compassion meditation, rather than medication, to treat disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The film focuses both on children with ADHD in a research preschool and veterans with PTSD in support group and examines on how Davidson’s alternative method improves the conditions of the subjects.

I have a bit of a personal connection with Free the Mind, since I have been diagnosed with ADHD since I was a teenager. Even though I was briefly prescribed to Ritalin, I am happy that my doctor was smart enough to take me off it when it wasn’t affecting me and I haven’t been on medication since. The film explicitly states that there is a concern about over-prescribing Ritalin and it argues that people with ADHD don’t need to spend the rest of their life on medication. One of the main subjects in the film is a boy named Will, who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 3, in which doctors immediately wanted to prescribe medication. It is definitely not right that the mindset of many medical professionals is to solve mental disorders with a pill.

In addition to Will, the film focuses on the separate stories of Stephen and Rich, who are both veterans who haven’t been the same after returning from action. Stephen described that he was “very good at being a terrible person” and he saw his violent behaviour increase after returning home. Rich, on the other hand, described having to pick up body parts after an explosion, so it’s no wonder he was traumatized as a result. According to statistics, more veterans commit suicide after returning home, than are killed in action.

The film as a whole focuses a bit more on the PTSD study than the kids with ADHD, though there is one scene that shows them both performing the same breathing and stretching exercises, with the kids clearly having more fun with the activities. There are many moments in the film where Richard Davidson breaks down the science of how the meditation improves the mind. Even though this is done with the help of some on-screen animations, one can be excused for being confused by the many scientific terms used.

In the end, all of the subjects in the film experienced some improvement after undergoing these treatments. As such, the film is meant to show that there are clearly other ways to treat a mental disorders than merely prescribing a pill. Overall, I would say that I found Free the Mind to be quite interesting and educational.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on NCR: Not Criminally Responsible

2013-05-01T10:28:00.000-04:00

When someone is accused of a crime as heinous as attempted murder, it is understandable to jump to conclusions and assume that the person is a monster. However, what if the person was mentally ill and had no control over his actions? Such people are declared “Not Criminally Responsible” for their crimes and sent to a psychiatric institution. NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, directed by award winning director John Kastner, takes a look at one of these individuals and ponders whether he’ll ever be allowed to fully reintegrate into society.

In the late 1990s, Sean Clifton randomly stabbed a girl outside of a Wallmart in Cornwall, Ontario. He was deemed not to have the mental capacity to consciously commit the crime, so he is declared NCR and sent to the Brockville Forensic Psychiatric hospital, where he has remained for twelve years. Today, Clifton is slowly trying to reintegrate into the community and hopes that he will one made receive a discharge from the review board.

Sean Clifton is a man of deep regret for the terrible act he committed. He is diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and paranoid schizophrenia and Clifton has to take anti-psychotic medication for the rest of his life, otherwise he might regress back into a violent state. The supposed motive for the crime came from a dislike for women that emerged due to a lack of romantic success, which caused him to seek out a random woman to harm. The state of his schizophrenia caused Clifton to be completely aware of his actions, yet he had no power to stop himself.

The film also features the victim Julie, who is shown in the film partially hidden. Even though she has managed to move on with her life, she is still quite afraid of Sean Clifton. Since he truly feels regret for the crime, one of the main arcs of the film is Clifton’s attempts to write a letter of apology to Julie and her family.

The film is definitely a quite interesting look into metal illness and how it affects people. Sean Clifton comes off as almost catatonic and, even before the crime, it was always obvious to the people around him that there was something wrong. The film features a few re-enactments, acted out by Clifton himself, about how life for him was was like, both before and after the crime. Even though he committed a very horrible act, it is very easy to sympathize with Clifton and understand that he had no control of his actions when the crime occurred.

The film also focuses somewhat on Clifton’s roommate Will Bilow, who suffers from a delusional disorder, which results in him denying that he even has a mental illness. Even though the film as a whole is played quite seriously, Clifton’s interactions with Will can be seen as humorous, as both take jabs at their situations. While Sean Clifton is the main focus of the film, there is an effort made to keep track of Will’s progress as well.

Overall, the film is trying to make the point that mentally ill people, who did bad things, are still good people and that we should not give up on them. Sean Clifton hasn’t committed any violent acts in the twelve years since the crime and he is still waiting for the moment when he can fully be reintegrated into society. The film is quite successful at showing someone like Clifton as a man and not a monster and it shows that, when it comes to mental illness, everything is not black and white.

9 | REALLY LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Maidentrip

2013-05-01T10:00:00.001-04:00

There are many high profile documentaries, about very important subjects, playing at this year’s Hot Docs films festival. These films typically get the most attention and coverage. However, Hot Docs also features small hidden gems, with heart-warming personal stories. Jillian Schlesinger’s Maidentrip is one of those hidden gems and I am quite happy that this film entered my radar.

Laura Dekker is a Dutch teenager with a dream. She wants to be the youngest person to single-handily sail around the world. Born in New Zealand, while her parents were on a similar trip, Laura spent much of her life on the sea and actually found herself enjoying sailing more than school. Her aspirations actually attracted quite a bit of controversy, as the Dutch government tried to stop her from going on the trip. However, the Dutch court ruled in Laura’s favour and she began her two year journey August 2010, at the age of 14.

The whole film is essentially a video log of Laura’s journey. She travelled 100% unaccompanied, so all the footage was shot by Laura herself. Because of all the, mostly handheld, camerawork in the film, there is the chance that the film may cause some mild motion sickness for the viewer. Laura shows great personality in the film and is very much a teenager. As the film goes on, Laura begins to enjoy her independence and even contemplates spending the rest of her life at sea.

The film utilizes an on-screen animated map to track the overall progress of Laura’s journey. Sailing around the world can be a very difficult task, with one having to cope with terrible storms and equally terrible calm. However, Laura shows herself to be more than capable of meeting these challenges. There is one moment in the film, where Laura spent nearly a month on the Indian Ocean, with little to no wind. However, this isolation didn’t bother Laura at all and she in fact considered the lack of time to be the best feeling.

Laura makes many stops over the course of her journey, where she resupplies and takes in the sights. There is one scene in the film of Laura scuba-diving, which showed some absolutely beautiful sea life. Laura also received constant media attention about her trip, even though she didn’t care too much for speaking with the journalists, who interviewed her.

As a whole, Maidentrip is one highly enjoyable coming-of-age story. Over the course of her two year journey, Laura Dekker grows as a person in so many ways and finds her calling in life. The film can be viewed as a positive message for young people, since it shows that it is quite possible to live out your dreams and that you should never give up on trying to make them happen.

10 | LOVED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Shooting Bigfoot

2013-05-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

It’s fun to think about the fact that there is much in our world that has yet to be discovered. For decades, we have heard rumours of creatures that exist in the wilderness. In the Himalayas it is the Abominable Snowman, in Scotland it is the Loch Ness Monster, and here in North America it is Bigfoot. Shooting Bigfoot takes a look at group of individuals, who takes the search for Bigfoot very serious and determined to prove their existence once and for all.

British director Morgan Matthews has always been interested in the concept of Bigfoot since he was a kid. As he got older, he became more skeptical and found it harder to believe in the existence of Sasquatches. He decides to take a trip to the United States and locate some real Bigfoot hunters to help convince himself once and for all of the creature’s existence.

Matthews begins with friends Dallas and Wayne, who appear to be quite serious in their Bigfoot research, but seem a little bit on the crazy side. A 911 call of an apparent Bigfoot sighting leads Matthews to San Antonio, where he comes across Bigfoot Tracker Rick Dyer. Dyer seems very convinced that there’s a Bigfoot in the area, however Matthews is skeptical, since Dyer was previously involved with a hoax in 2008, where he claimed to have a dead Sasquatch body. Apparently involved with this hoax was Tom Biscardi, who has been hunting Bigfoot since the 1970s. Insulted at Matthews suggestion that he had involvement in Dyer’s hoax, Biscardi dares Matthews to comes along on his next hunting expedition. As such, the film follows Matthews as he accompanies all three groups and goes on a Blair Witch-style hunt for Bigfoot.

I can say without a doubt that this is a very fun film to watch. That said, this is a tricky film to call a true documentary. Even though the subjects are real and you can still call the film non-fiction, there are quite a few convenient coincidences in the film and it is quite obvious that something is not right with the events of the film. The question that must be asked is whether Morgan Matthews was an objective filmmaker, who was duped by these “Bigfoot Experts,” or if he was purposing making a film that can be viewed as a piece of “infotainment.”

Throughout the course of the film, you come to understand what makes these Bigfoot hunters tick. Dallas and Wayne seem dead convinced at the existence of Sasquatches, however it’s also completely obvious that they aren’t the most sane of individuals. There is one scene, where Dallas talks about how he can hear Sasquatches, because he as a piece of sheep bone in his skull, which is quite humorous to hear him explain.

Tom Biscardi also comes off as a true believer, even though he seems more concerned with the fame and fortune of capturing Bigfoot. While criticising someone, who leads the team down a dead end, Tom says that you become delusional after a while. Even though he was talking about another individual, this statement definitely seems to fit Biscardi to a T, since he has become so convinced in Bigfoot’s existence, that he won’t rest until he has one captured and in his possession.

Rick Dyer is probably the most interesting of the Bigfoot hunters, since he is also the most shady. There are a number of homeless individuals living in the woods Rick and Matthews are camping in and the duo befriend an individual named Jack. It eventually becomes apparent that there is something not right about Jack, who repeatedly shows up at the duo’s campsite and becomes increasingly disturbing. When various odd events begin happening around the campsite, Matthews seriously begins to suspect that Dyer is playing a prank on him.

Much of Shooting Bigfoot is played for comedy and it’s obvious that much of the point of the film is to ridicule these “expert’s” devotion to finding Bigfoot. That said, the film does get quite creepy towards the end and there is one hell of a payoff. Sadly, only one of the three expeditions has any real closure to it and the other two stories are sort of left hanging. However, the film goes out with such a bang, that it doesn’t even matter.

Overall, I would say that Shooting Bigfoot is not going to change your mind about the existence of Bigfoot and there is enough evidence to suggest that much of the events of the film were staged, whether or not director Morgan Matthews knew of it. That said, this was a highly entertaining film and I greatly enjoyed myself watching it. Also, I have to emphasize one more time, that the film has one hell of ending, which definitely makes the film in my mind.

9 | REALLY LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on TPB AWK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard

2013-04-30T10:06:00.000-04:00

Continuing right where Napster let off, The Pirate Bay is the world’s largest file-sharing website, generating the bulk of the world’s BitTorrent traffic. While Napster was primarily targeted by the music industry, The Pirate Bay was targeted by Hollywood studios, due to the fact that the BitTorrent protocol allows for the download of large-sized files (i.e. feature length films). As such, in 2008 Hollywood filed a lawsuit against the three Swedish founders of the website.

TPB AWK is a cinéma vérité documentary, which follows the three founders – Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde & Fredrik Neij – over the course of their trial. Particular focus is spent on Peter Sunde, who is considered to be the spokesman for the website. The film also brings up the issue of internet activism, which campaigns for a free and opening internet – devoid of restrictive copyright laws.

To put it bluntly, I thought that the founders of The Pirate Bay came off as a bunch of arrogant jerks, who consider themselves to be smarter than everyone else around them. Since he is the spokesman for the group, I thought that Peter was the most level-headed of the three, even though he too had his negative aspects. Gottfrid was by far the worst of the group and his “big moment” of the film involved mocking the court case by writing a very sarcastic mathematical equation on a whiteboard. Gottfrid actually heads to Cambodia at one point and is never seen for the rest of the film.

The film also focuses on a political party, known as the Pirate Party, which openly campaigns for a free and open internet. The founders warn at the beginning of the film that nothing is going to happen to The Pirate Bay if they are convicted and indeed the founders have huge support from The Pirate Party, which now controls the bandwidth for the site. The Pirate Bay was shut down briefly after a raid in 2006, but was quickly reopened within three days. Probably the most interesting scene of the film involves the visit to one of the site’s secret servers, which is hidden in a cave somewhere.

Being a film about technology, there is a lot of lingo present in the film – including the AFK abbreviation in the title. To make the film more accessible to the general public, definitions of the lingo will appear on screen at various points. While these definitions are useful, I did find it a bit difficult to read the definitions and subtitles at the same time. The film also tries to provide emphasis on the fact that the founders of The Pirate Bay are just a group of computer nerds running a website. They communicate primarily through chat rooms and do not even have a formal office. They consider the world online to be “real life” and prefer the term AFK (Away from Keyboard) to IRL (In Real Life) when they meet in person.

Like Napster, The Pirate Bay rests on a fine line in terms of legality. Technically, they are only provides the means for piracy and are not doing the pirating themselves. In response to the copyright claims that they get, they always say to contact the uploader. An interesting argument made in the film is that copyright is only worth supporting if it encourages creativity. These days, copyright is used more as strict a law, which results in jail time if broken.

Overall, I thought that TPB AFK was an OK film. While it does bring up interesting arguments from both sides, I don’t think it’s going to change anyone’s minds when it comes to piracy. The film itself has an interesting distribution model, in which viewers are encouraged to share the film online and indeed it has been available on The Pirate Bay and YouTube since February. It’s with this model alone that the director tries to make the point that perhaps copyright laws aren’t as black and white as they appear.

7 | FAIR

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Tales from the Organ Trade

2013-04-30T10:00:00.002-04:00

There are people all over the world, who are desperate in need of a new organ to survive. However, there is not enough supply to meet the demand and there are people who end up waiting years for a qualified donor to appear. As such, some people go to extreme measures and spend thousands of dollars to purchase new organs for themselves. Directed by Ric Esther Bienstock and narrated by David Cronenberg, Tales from the Organ Trade takes a look into the world of organ black markets and how there are many shades of grey when it comes to organ donation.

When people are in need of organ donations, they often find themselves waiting for years on donor lists. Mary Jo in Toronto has been waiting for a new kidney for nearly a decade and has been keeping herself alive with a dialysis machine, which she fears will eventually cause her body to deteriorate. In another case, Walter has been on the donor list for two years and fears that he would be dead in less than a decade if he doesn’t find a kidney. Eventually, some people become so desperate that they are willing to mortgage their house and buy organs. This is what a man named Raul did, which resulted in him being put right in the middle of an investigation of one of the world’s most infamous organ trafficking rings.

One of the the prime focuses of the film is the case of the Medicus clinic in Kosovo, where many illegal organ transplants were preformed by the Turkish Dr. Sonmez, who was given names like “Dr. Vulture” and “the Turkish Frankenstein” by the media and he is one of Europe’s most wanted men. They key point of this investigation is whether or not the organs used with stolen, as accused, or given by willing donors. Raul, who received a new kidney from Sonmez, showed absolutely no regret about his decision, even after authorities included him in their investigations. Some of the key figures of this case are located and interviewed and it is quite interesting what they have to say.

There is a very high organ trade in the Philippines, especially within the Quezon province. The main motivation for people in the Philippines selling their organs is to help them get out of poverty. Of course, there is a downside to this. One individual in the film found out that he had a diseased kidney after donating and now required a donor himself. Since the kidney was likely diseased beforehand, it would likely caused problems for the unknowing recipient. It is definitely quite sad that so many people in the Philippines have to resort to this route to get money. Even sadder is the fact that the black market dealers have many prospective clients and can switch to someone else without notice.

The film also tackles the subject of altruistic donors, who voluntarily donate organs to people in need. There are some who are calling for a government regulated system, which will help compensate such donors. However, as soon as money becomes involved, the ethics of organ donations becomes much more complicated, which is why such transactions are considered illegal. Thankfully, a “one in a million” altruistic donor leads to a happy ending for one of the subjects of the film.

Over, I thought that Tales from the Organ Trade brought up some very interesting issues when it came to organ donations. There definitely needs to be a better way to find organ donors, so perspective recipients don’t find themselves waiting on a list for nearly a decade. Authorities constantly going after organ trafficking rings end up doing nothing in the long run, expect drive the black market further underground. If people are allowed to willing donate their organs and get compensated for doing so, it might help to put an end to this problem.

9 | REALLY LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Muscle Shoals

2013-04-30T10:00:00.001-04:00

It might be just a coincidence, but we seem to be getting a lot of “studio nostalgia” documentaries these days. It was earlier this year when Dave Grohl released the documentary Sound City, about the classic rock studio. Now we have Muscle Shoals, which is about a town in Alabama, which is home to FAME Studios, run by Rick Hall. In this studio, with his house band “The Swampers,” Rick Hall developed what would become known as the “Muscle Shoals sound,” which included the soulful R&B songs from the likes of Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin.

FAME Studios is also known for being a place where segregation did not exist. While the rest of Alabama remained heavily racist, black and white artists recorded together in harmony. In fact, many of the black artists who came to record at FAME Studios were surprised the find that the soulful sounds of The Swampers were created by a group of white men. With the help of guitarist Duane Allman (later of The Allman Brothers), the Muscle Shoals sound developed into Southern Rock. The Swampers eventually left FAME to form “Muscle Shoals Sound Studios,” which recorded songs from the likes of The Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd, who reference Muscle Shoals and The Swampers in their song “Sweet Home Alabama.”

The best thing about these “music nostalgia” documentaries is learning all the great songs that were recorded at either one of the two studios featured in the film. These songs include “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge, “Respect” by Aretha Franklin, and “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones. Without a doubt, Muscle Shoals has a very firm place in music history. Of course, the films also emphasizes the “magic” of the Muscle Shoals sound, which is something you can feel deep down in your stomach. The film features a lot of natures shots of the Muscle Shoals area and seems to be suggesting that the area itself affects the music. This perhaps has to do with the Native legend of the “Singing River” in the area, in which you can “hear the river’s songs.”

Muscle Shoals also focuses heavily on the life of Rick Hall, who was unfortunate enough to have a number of people close to him die tragic deaths, including his wife, brother, and father. These tragedies went on to influence the songs he produced, particular the song “Patches” by Clarence Carter. Hall also felt a bit betrayed when The Swampers lefts to create their own competing studio. However, Rick Hall is still seen as the mentor of the Muscle Shoals sound and the film ends with The Swampers returning to FAME Studios to record with Alicia Keys.

Overall, while I can probably give or take the supposed magic of the Muscle Shoals area, I thought that the area still has a very firm place in music history and that Muscle Shoals quite competently told its story.

8 | LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on The Kill Team

2013-04-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

At one point in Dan Krauss’ war crime documentary The Kill Team, one of the film’s subjects has this to day about the situation he is in: “From the day you join, to the day you’re out, your job as infantry is to kill everything that gets in your way. Why are you pissed off when we do it?” That quote effectively sums up the themes of The Kill Team, which focuses on a platoon charged with killing civilians for sport in Afghanistan and the military’s efforts to quickly resolve the issue, which includes punishing the one soldier brave enough to come forward.

Much of the film is focused on Specialist Adam Winfield, who came clean about his platoon’s war crimes, only be charged with murder himself. The story goes that Winfield’s platoon, under the leadership of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, committed three murders over the course of five months in early 2010. The soldiers used “drop weapons” to make it appear like they had just cause for killing the innocents. Winfield was heavily disturbed by the events, but was also scared to speak up, in fear of retaliation by Gibbs. By the time “The Kill Team” was finally caught, Winfield found himself implicated in the third murder, which he was forced to participate in.

While Adam Winfield’s story makes up the main emotional core of The Kill Team, the main goal of the film appears to be examining the cloudy morality of soldiers. Let’s face it, when we think of solders in war, we think of gung-ho heroes in epic battles against the enemy. We don’t think of people who are trained to kill, yet are restrained by rules about who to kill and when. The film establishes that the soldiers, who expected to be in firefights every day, found themselves bored with the realities of being stationed in Afghanistan, which had them doing more humanitarian work than fighting. Then came along an apparent sociopath like Gibbs, who was described as having skull tattoos on his legs, representing every person that he killed. Gibbs was the only member of the platoon not interviewed for the documentary, presumably because he was already in jail for his crimes.

Much time is spent addressing the military’s response to “The Kill Team.” As stated in the quote I opened this review with, the military breeds these men to be killers, yet does not take responsibility when they end up killing for the wrong reasons. No officers were charged in these murders and it seemed like the military just wanted these events to go away. In the case of Adam Winfield, none of his concerns, which began shortly after the first murder, received any action until his platoon was caught and he found himself implicated in one of the murders, though his charge was eventually reduced to involuntary manslaughter for not taking action to stop the murders. Winfield has maintained that if his did speak up, that he would have been killed by Gibb. From this aspect, the film is just as much about bullying, than it is about war crimes.

Overall, I thought that The Kill Teams was a very well done examination of the morality of soldiers. While the platoon ended up being vilified by the media, they maintain that they were the ones who got caught and that there is “always a Gibb.” There is also the point made that, in real life, war is nothing like it is in the movies – it is just a bunch of guys with guns.

9 | REALLY LIKED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Valentine Road

2013-04-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

Just northwest of Los Angeles is the California beach town of Oxnard. There is nothing particularly special about the town and, chances are, the average person wouldn’t even know where it is. Except of course, that Oxnard was the site of a horrendous alleged hate crime, which received nationwide coverage in the United States. Valentine Road examines the events surrounding this tragedy and simply calling this a hate crime isn’t as easy as it seems.

On February 12, 2008, 14 year old Brandon McInerney shot his 15-year-old classmate Lawrence “Larry” King twice in the back of the head, right in the middle of their classroom. The event was apparently the result of Larry, who recently came out as transgendered, asking Brandon to be his Valentine. Quite ironically, Larry later died in hospital on Valentine’s Day. On paper, it quite obviously looked like Brandon shot Larry because of his sexual orientation. However, it turns out that Brandon wasn’t the only one disturbed by Larry’s flamboyant lifestyle. Despite nationwide support from the likes of Ellen DeGeneres and CNN’s Larry King, a “blame the victim” mentality was developing in Oxnard, in which Brandon’s defence was suggesting that Larry’s lifestyle was the cause of his own murder.

Valentine Road is quite a difficult film to look at objectively, since your response to the film will be based on how supportive your are to the LGBT community. In fact, I somewhat applaud director Marta Cunningham managing to capture both sides of the case, without showing any bias to either side. I was actually a bit surprised how much sympathy was being shown towards Brandon, even though he was being charged for murder. Because of the Prop 21 law in California, Brandon was being tried as an adult and his lawyers were arguing that he should be tried in juvenile court. You also definitely feel bad for Brandon’s family, particularly his mother, who kept calling Brandon a “good boy, who never did anything wrong before.”

It quickly becomes apparent that there is much more to this story than simply a guy, who was disturbed that another guy came on to him in school. There comes a point in the film when you realize how homophobic in general the people of Oxnard are. It becomes quite disturbing when certain individuals in the film begin casually condemning Larry for acting too feminine and cross-dressing. I was both angered and disgusted that this type of intolerance towards the LGBT community still exists in the world today. Thankfully, Larry had friends in school, who were highly supportive of the way he was and seemed lightyears ahead of the adults, who were seemingly still living in the dark ages.

Overall, I thought that Valentine Road was an excellent examination of how complicated a crime, which appears to be motivated by hate and intolerance, turns out to be. The film will be released on HBO within the next year and I hope that everyone gets the chance to see this film and join the debate. Human beings, as a race, need to learn to get along with each other, no matter how different we appear to others.

10 | LOVED IT

Hot Docs 2013: My Thoughts on Furever

2013-04-28T12:25:00.000-04:00

I am a huge dog lover and my family’s two dogs provide me with a constant source of happiness. Even though it’s inevitable, I try not to think about the fact that these pets are not going to live forever and will likely die much sooner than any human I’m close to.

Furever examines they various methods that people use to keep the memory of their alive after they die. In some cases, this is as simple as keeping a shrine of the pet’s toys, with perhaps a few hair samples and other “leftovers.” Some people bury their pets in special pet cemeteries or get them cremated and make ornaments (or tattoos) out of the ashes. Then there are the extreme methods of pet preservation, with people resorting to taxidermy, mummification, and even cloning.

While Furever is a somewhat interesting film, it is definitely not easy to watch if you are a pet lover. It is definitely true that pets these days are treated much more like extended members of the family. At the same time, there is a stigma against extended grieving for a dead pet. There is a scene of a pet funeral at a cemetery, which was particularly upsetting for me to watch. It’s also upsetting hearing how pet cemeteries are not utilized as much as they used to and many dead pets are thrown into landfills or mass incinerated.

However, the film went from upsetting to outright disturbing once it began to focus on the people who just can’t let go and resort to extreme measures to preserve their pet. Probably the most unsettling scene in the film comes when a woman is seen showing much more love and affection towards the preserved dead dog on her lap, than the alive dog sitting right next to her! Not only is showing affection for a dead dog inherently creepy (the uncanny valley comes to mind), but the live dog was obviously confused and constantly sniffing at the other “dog.”

By the time the film got to pet mummification (and owners who also wanted to be mummified), I was just going with the flow. Probably the most extreme method used to preserve a pet’s memory is resorting to cloning, which costs thousands of dollars and is performed in a lab in South Korea. The cloning supporter interviewed also had the most ridiculous retort to the “don’t play God” criticism, in which he said that if “God intended us to die, he wouldn’t have given us the brains to do something about it”. Whatever helps your morals.

The overall question asked by Furever is where do we draw the line when it comes to preserving our pets memories when they die? Death is fact of life and people should learn to properly let go of their pets, no matter how much they loved them. The film gives some counter-arguments, using historical evidence of human preservation, however I think that learning to cope with death is one of the most important things you can do as a human being.

Overall, while I personally quite affected by Furever and have no intention of ever seeing it again, I do have to say that it is still a quite interesting look at the extremes people go to preserve their pet’s memories.

8 | LIKED IT