Nineteen docs into this festival…and I might have just watched my favorite. WASTE LAND is a documentary from Brazil about a project by artist Vik Muniz. Muniz went back to his native Brazil, where outside of Sao Paolo is a landfill dump named Gardin Gramacho. Because Sao Paolo has no recycling program, the dump is…
Hot Docs Reaction: NÉNETTE
One of the best parts of attending a film festival is the way you get to see films you might not have otherwise seen…and might not ever have the chance to see again. Case in point, NÉNETTE – the film that has its audience staring at an Orangutan for seventy minutes. I can see that…
Hot Docs Reaction: THE PARKING LOT MOVIE
As I watched THE PARKING LOT MOVIE, I couldn’t help but think back on Tyler Durden and how he saw so much potential being squandered on people pumping gas and waiting tables…something tells me, he’d include parking lot attendants in that bracket. Indeed, the men of THE PARKING LOT MOVIE all seem to have so…
Hot Docs Reaction: AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE
In some ways it’s difficult to write about a film like AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE. Not to play the cop-out card, but for many reasons you’ll either like it, or you won’t. For starters, there’s the fact that we are listening to a person tell their life story piece by piece through cobbled monologues.…
Hot Docs Reaction: THE COMPLAINTS CHOIR
“My boss outsourced my job but gets to keep his” Funny thing about complaining – we all do it. Heck, the city I call home that is hosting this film festival seems to partake in it with unheralded gusto. Thus a doc about complaining was probably something begging to be made. However, Finnish artists Tellervo…
Hot Docs Reaction: HIS & HERS
As a whimsical score echoes from the soundtrack, HIS & HERS begins with a shot of a newborn infant girl. As it happens, she’s the only woman out of the seventy we meet in the next eighty minutes who doesn’t say a word. Pity – I imagine she has a lot on her mind. The…
Running On Faith: DAVID WANTS TO FLY Plays Hot Docs
Imagine meeting your idol. Imagine that the meeting isn’t just a moment to express admiration, get a photo, or snag an autograph. Imagine instead that they reach out a hand of encouragement. In a practically unsolicited show of support, your idol offers to mentor you in a way that can make you more creative and…