#HotDocs24 Review: A New Kind of Wilderness
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
Maria Gros Vatne and her husband Nik Payne were homeschooling their four kids on a farm in Norway, giving their children a free-range upbringing that included growing their own food and subsisting off the land as much as possible. But when Maria dies of cancer, everything changes, a process that is captured in the heartfelt documentary A New Kind of Wilderness.
Stepdaughter Ronja goes back to live with her birth father, distancing her from younger sister Freja. Nik is no longer able to afford the farm due to not being able to have a full-time job while homeschooling the kids, and is left with the tough decision to move away from their rural home and transition his family into the conventional world that they have tried to avoid.
Directed by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, A New Kind of Wilderness serves as a moving, beautifully shot portrait of a family in flux. The story is partially told through photographs and passages taken from Maria’s parenting blog, offering glimpses into the pastoral life the family had. In its honest exploration of homeschooling versus traditional education, the film captures the glorious complexities of raising a family in an unconventional way.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
A New Kind of Wilderness screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
#HotDocs24 Review: Born Hungry
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
Barry Avrich’s Born Hungry is a wonderful portrait of Sash Simpson, and his journey from homeless street kid in India to top chef in Toronto. Sash’s earliest memories are of getting lost in India and being unable to find his way back to his parents, before being picked up and sent to an orphanage started by a Canadian woman named Sandra Simpson. Sandra would soon adopt Sash and bring him back to live with her and her husband Lloyd in Toronto, alongside their 31 other kids.
Avrich follows Sash as he returns home to India, travelling from Chennai to Mumbai in search of his birth parents. The trip returns him to the streets where he grew up (including visiting the old movie theatre where he used to sleep and take refuge as a homeless kid), and also allows him to sample authentic Indian food (in one scene, he eats goat brains prepared by a local street chef). This is part of the film’s dual narrative, which also charts his start as a chef at North 44 under Mark McEwan, before leaving to open his own eponymous restaurant; Sash.
Sash’s story is obviously an inspiring one, and he is thankful for the life he has been given. But he also acknowledges that his story is about one in a million, and there are many others from where he has come from who don’t get the same opportunities. In this way, Born Hungry (which was produced by Priyanka Chopra-Jones) becomes as much a celebration of Sandra Simpson, the woman who adopted him and graciously welcomed him into her family, giving him this shot at a better life in Canada.
At 77 minutes, Avrich has crafted a dynamic, always compelling film, that is smoothly edited as it cuts between scenes in Toronto and India, delivering moments of emotional impact. It’s an engaging, moving story about family and second chances.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
Born Hungry screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
By John Corrado
New releases for the week of May 3rd, 2024.
Theatrical Releases:
The Fall Guy (Wide Release): Ryan Gosling (Barbie) and Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer) team up in this romantic action comedy from director and former stunt guy David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2, Bullet Train), that serves as a tribute to stunt doubles that kicks off the summer movie season. Reviews are solid for what looks to be a fun throwback picture, and I like both stars, so I’m looking forward to checking it out.
More Releases: Tarot (Wide), Jeanne du Barry (Limited), The Roundup: Punishment (TIFF Lightbox), Lost Soulz (TIFF Lightbox), Mars Express (TIFF Lightbox), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 25th Anniversary (Limited)
Streaming Releases:
Unfrosted (Netflix), The Idea of You (Prime Video), Turtles All the Way Down (Crave), Prom Dates (Disney+), A Man in Full (Netflix)
#HotDocs24 Review: Daughters
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
In their documentary Daughters, co-directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton offer a moving, tender look at a daddy-daughter dance for girls whose fathers are in prison. Patton is the creator of Date with Dad, a program run through her charity Girls for a Change, holding annual dances inside of jails for fathers to reconnect with their daughters. The program started in Virginia when prisons began restricting access to in-person visits, and the film documents the first dance being held at a jail in Washington, D.C.
Rae and Patton focus on four girls taking part in the dance, ranging from child to teenager; Aubrey, Santana, Ja’Ana and Raziah. Aubrey, who is five at the film’s outset, informs the camera that she is the smartest one in her class, and counts how many years (seven) her father Keith has left in his prison sentence and how old she will be by then. It’s an example of how the film can be sweet but also heartbreaking, often at the same time.
The film captures the emotions of the girls waiting to reunite with their dads, but also the remarkable vulnerability of these incarcerated men, as it takes time introducing us to the fathers as well. The men must undergo a twelve week counselling session first with Chad Morris, a life coach who has a way of connecting with them. Morris provides them space to open up about their regrets and fears (will their daughters even recognize them, since some of them were very young when their they were put away?), as well as setting expectations for the dance itself.
This is all beautifully captured by cinematographer Michael Cambio Fernandez, the camera recording the moments when these men let down their barriers. As the prison gymnasium gets transformed into a dance hall, and the men change out of their prison jumpsuits and into the formal suits provided for the evening, we sense their fears, but also a sense of hope. This is one of those films where we know what it is building up to, but seeing the dance play out is no less emotionally devastating.
Patton started the program to help raise awareness of the important role that fathers play in their daughter’s lives, believing that actually allowing prisoners physical contact might be the thing needed to make them want to turn their lives around. There is a time constraint to the dance that makes their time together bittersweet. But these fleeting moments, Patton argues, are all it takes to show both parent and child that a better life is possible. Powerful stuff.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
Daughters screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
#HotDocs24 Review: Fly
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
Standing on the edge of a cliff or tall building and taking the leap with only a parachute or wingsuit to catch you might not be everyone’s idea of a good time. But it’s the regular pursuit of BASE Jumpers, who leap off of mountains for sport and fun, to the point where it almost becomes like an addiction.
In their gripping extreme sports documentary Fly, co-directors Christina Clusiau and Saul Schwarz introduce us to several figures within the BASE Jumping community, including three couples; Jimmy and Marta, Espen and Amber, as well as Scotty and Julia. Jimmy and Marta are colloquially known as the “first couple” of BASE Jumping, who chose not to have kids, instead mentoring up-and-coming jumpers in the community (including throwing annual parties in Las Vegas).
It’s a tight-knit community (many only date other jumpers), where it’s common to know people who have died or were badly injured doing this, which binds them together. They jump together and mourn together, but it’s all done in pursuit of feeling alive. Clusiau and Schwarz capture some thrilling, nerve-wracking footage, utilizing GoPros and drones. We watch as they take wild leaps, and debate the use of parachutes versus wingsuits, which give more mobility in the air but are also inherently more risky.
There can be a hedonism inherent to the community, but Clusiau and Schwarz are able to go beyond that. Shot over the course of seven years, we watch some of the subjects mature as different priorities take hold in their lives, while still finding ways to fulfill their thrill-seeking desires. In this way, Fly serves as both an intense and visually stunning look at the extreme sport of BASE Jumping, but also a multifaceted love story exploring how attitudes towards risk-taking can shift over your life. It’s pretty incredible stuff.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
Fly screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
#HotDocs24 Review: Look Into My Eyes
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
In her latest documentary Look Into My Eyes, Director Lana Wilson (Miss Americana) introduces us to a selection of New York City psychics as well as their clients. While psychics are usually thought to be the domain of scam artists with neon signs hanging in sketchy windows, Wilson looks a little closer to offer a poignant portrait of several mediums, and the people who seek out their services.
The film begins with a series of subjects mid-session, framed in the centre of the screen as if speaking to the camera. They unspool their trauma, seeking closure from someone who has passed on, or guidance around something in their life. Wilson then takes us into the cramped New York apartments where the psychics live, revealing more about them through the spaces they inhabit.
Many of them are avowed lovers of film and theatre (one man is a physical media collector, his tiny space crowded with CDs and DVDs), fitting for a profession that requires them to be both performance artists and therapists. In fact, several of them are struggling actors who felt called to the supernatural for a variety of reasons, and took up doing readings as a way to earn extra cash.
So do they really believe, or is this acting? Wilson doesn’t judge, but also suggests the artifice provides a real emotional experience, even if it is sometimes akin to a live performance. This could have made for a quirky human interest doc, but Wilson has sympathy for her subjects, including the clients who are looking for – and often find – some form of healing from their sessions.
In this way, Look Into My Eyes becomes a moving look at grief, and the power of having someone tell you that it’s okay to move on, even if it comes from someone you are paying to channel a deceased loved one. Working with cinematographer Stephen Maing, Wilson crafts a lovely portrait of New York City and all of its eccentricities. It’s a quiet, patient film (the lack of musical score allows moments of diegetic sound to have more of an impact), but one that becomes as emotionally cathartic an experience for viewers as these sessions are for the clients.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
Look Into My Eyes screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
#HotDocs24 Review: Lost in the Shuffle
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
What if the designs on playing cards actually represent the answer to a long-lost mystery about the real cause of death for France’s King Charles VIII? This is the question that the Vancouver sleight-of-hand magician Shawn Farquhar asks in director Jon Ornoy’s very fun documentary Lost in the Shuffle.
Farquhar, a two-time world champion of magic, has spent most of his life obsessed with playing cards, but has only recently started studying the classic designs and possible symbols hidden within. This brings him to looking a little closer at the King of Hearts, holding what appears to be a sword, and questioning if the card is possibly a doppelgänger for Charles VIII.
Ornoy follows Farquhar as he meets with his magician heroes Richard Turner, Alexandra Duvivier, Michael Vincent and Juan Tamariz, with each one of them revealing their favourite card trick (or magic “plot”) to perform. He finds elements to incorporate into his new act, which serves as a compelling thesis for everything he has learned.
If the film occasionally seems to lose sight of its central mystery, with historians not ready to commit to Farquhar’s playing card theory, Lost in the Shuffle builds to a very satisfying payoff. Farquhar serves as a magnetic guide who takes what he has learned to pull off one heck of a show captured in split screen. It’s a very enjoyable mix of history lesson and glimpse behind the curtain of the art of magic.
Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)
Lost in the Shuffle screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
Director David Hinton’s expansive new documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger offers an absorbing mix of film essay and tribute to these cinematic masters, guided by Martin Scorsese’s enlightening narration.
Hinton’s documentary offers a thorough deep-dive into the work of British filmmaker Michael Powell and Hungarian writer Emeric Pressburger, who teamed up to form The Archers, a production company behind a number of influential Technicolor pictures like The Red Shoes. While Powell would primarily direct, and Pressburger would primarily write the screenplays, they shared directing, writing and producing credits.
Scorsese serves as our guide, with Made in England built around a long-form interview with him that plays alongside archival film footage. The director explains that his relationship with the work of Powell and Pressburger began by watching their movies on TV as a kid, with stations having an easier time getting the rights to British movies instead of American ones.
This led to him obsessively rewatching their operatic Tales of Hoffman whenever it aired, studying the camera movements and how it was made. Scorsese takes time going through each of their collaborations together throughout the 1940s and 1950s, from the initially misunderstood wartime satire of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp to the fantastical, life-affirming A Matter of Life and Death.
Scorsese identifies their 1946 romantic fantasy A Matter of Life and Death as the moment when they rejected realism for an embrace of surrealism (to hear Scorsese talk about the symbolism in the film is quite moving), and led to more experimentation in their filmmaking with the ballet sequence in The Red Shoes and a ten minute sequence set to music in Black Narcissus. Powell continued to push boundaries with his solo film Peeping Tom, a Hitchcockian voyeur thriller interrogating his own relationship to the camera that British audiences weren’t ready for in 1960.
Scorsese draws parallels between their work and his own films, such as the duel in Colonel Blimp inspiring how he shot the boxing scenes in Raging Bull (Powell also famously advised Scorsese on the ending of After Hours). Aside from the obvious filmmaking influences, this project is also personal for him on a deeper level, with Scorsese later becoming friends with Powell, who was married to his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker. In some ways, Scorsese helped revitalize his standing in Hollywood after The Archers broke apart when financing and profits started to dry up.
Scorsese’s voice is compelling, and his passion for these films is palpable and enthralling throughout, despite the documentary’s lengthy 131 minute running time. If you are a fan of Scorsese and Powell and Pressbirger, Made in England serves as an invaluable film history lesson.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
#HotDocs24 Review: So This is Christmas
By John Corrado
The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto
Gorgeously shot on 35mm film, Irish filmmaker Ken Wardrop’s latest documentary So This is Christmas is a tender portrait of lonely people in Ireland trying to make it through the holidays. The observational film goes beyond showing the usual festivities and cheer of the Christmas season, to instead shine a light on working class folks for whom the holidays aren’t the happiest time of the year.
The film’s five subjects are all struggling for various reasons. There’s Jason, a widowed father of two boys trying to make a happy Christmas for them after losing his wife, and Loretta, a single mum with three kids who is barely able to financially make ends meet. Shane doesn’t have a family of his own, celebrating with his little dog and drinking alone at the pub. Mary, who had an eating disorder, always struggles with the food expectations around the holidays. Meanwhile, Annette is an elderly lady who lives alone with her books after a life of pain, with the delivery driver who drops off her packages often being her only human contact.
“Loneliness is one thing, but being invisible and forgotten is something else,” Annette heartbreakingly observes at one point, and it’s a theme that carries through. With its Christmas music on the soundtrack, and shots of decorations going up and quiet streets lit with twinkling lights (all beautifully captured on film by cinematographer Narayan Van Maele), Wardrop’s film evokes the often bittersweet feel of the holidays. It can be a sombre, contemplative experience, but one that still finds small moments of joy.
Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)
So This is Christmas screens as part of the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.
4K Ultra HD Review: Mean Girls (2024)
By John Corrado
Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Mean Girls (2024). For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here.
This musical reimagining of Mean Girls, the modern classic teen comedy from 2004, is receiving a 4K Ultra HD release this week from Paramount, and for a remake, it’s pretty good.
Tina Fey returns to update her satirical screenplay (and reprises her role as the calculus teacher), in this social media-age redo of former home schooler Cady Heron (Angoirie Rice) taking on head “mean girl” Regina George (Reneé Rapp) at her new school.
As I wrote in my initial review, “it’s not as fresh or iconic as the original, but still pretty enjoyable on its own terms.” The new cast does a pretty decent job of taking over these roles from Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams among others, and the musical numbers are mostly fun.
Those who enjoyed the remake in theatres, or fans of the original (which is also receiving a 4K release this week in honour of its 20th anniversary) looking to add this new version to their collections, will be pleased by the 4K presentation of this release.
Film Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)
Bonus Features (4K Ultra HD):
The 4K disc includes a handful of featurettes, with the package boasting over thirty minutes of material in total. A code for a digital copy is also included in the package, which ships with a shiny slipcover.
• A New Age of Mean Girl (5 minutes, 47 seconds): Tina Fey and the new cast members talk about updating the original for the age of social media.
• Song and Dance (11 minutes, 38 seconds): Co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. are joined by cast members, choreographer Kyle Hanagami, and songwriter Jeff Richmond (Fey’s husband), for this look at crafting the film’s musical numbers and adapting the Broadway show for the screen.
• The New Plastics (8 minutes, 13 seconds): The new cast members talk about taking on these iconic roles, and their favourite lines from the original.
• Extended Scene – “I’m Having a Small Get Together at My House” (1 minute, 18 seconds)
• Gag Reel (3 minutes, 46 seconds): A gag reel that is more a montage of outtakes set to score music.
• Not My Fault – Music Video with Reneé Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion (2 minutes, 53 seconds)
• Mean Girls Sing-Along with Select Songs (English Only)
Mean Girls (2024) is a Paramount Home Entertainment release. It’s 112 minutes and rated PG.
Street Date: April 30th, 2024
The Joy of Movies 