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'Beginners' Director Mike Mills on His Dad Coming Out, Mortality and Self-Discovery

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted Jun 17th 2011 2:30PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Moviefone Canada


'Thumbsucker' director Mike Mills is back in theaters with his second feature film, 'Beginners.' A highly personal film for the indie filmmaker, 'Beginners' followers Oliver (Ewan McGregor) -- a lonely, pensive guy whose old, widowed father (Christopher Plummer) comes out of the closet in his final days, when he is stricken with cancer. As Oliver comes to terms with this new version of his father, as well as his father's mortality, he meets Anna (Melanie Laurent), a mysteriously charming woman who offers a romantic balance to the turmoil in Oliver's life.

Moviefone sat down with Mills last month and talked about how he took truths from his own life -- his father coming out and subsequently dying -- and crafted not a biographical portrait, but rather a look into happiness, loss, and self-discovery.
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'Buck' at Hot Docs: Move Over Cesar Millan, the Horse Whisperer Is Here

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted May 6th 2011 10:15AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Festivals, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


'Buck' is the kind of sweet, easily enjoyable film that grows on you. It might focus on the inspiration for Robert Redford's 'The Horse Whisperer,' but it doesn't have the Hollywood buzz. It doesn't have the media fervor of documentaries like fellow man + animal feature 'Project Nim.' It doesn't have the marketing whirlwind Morgan Spurlock and 'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.' What it does have is heart, and a lot of it, as both an exploratory piece about one man's rise from abuse to happiness and success, and as a film that feeds on our interest in the communicative divide between human and animal.

There's a certain awe-filled curiosity that follows animal whisperers as they magically cross that separation and communicate effectively. In recent years, that curiosity has only increased as Cesar Millan ('The Dog Whisperer') travels across the U.S. taming the meanest and most unruly of dogs. 'Buck' follows Dan Brannaman as he travels across the U.S., teaching horse owners how to kindly and compassionately train their horses to obey even the most minute commands.
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'Becoming Chaz' at Hot Docs: An Exploratory Look at Transitioning

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted May 4th 2011 4:45PM
Filed under: Documentaries, Festivals, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


There's a certain amount of tabloid curiosity surrounding 'Becoming Chaz,' and it's no surprise. This documentary doesn't focus on an unknown figure about to break into the world through cinema; it's about the daughter of Sonny and Cher transitioning from female to male.

Iconic parents, inside scoops and sexual reassignment are the types of factoids that pique public curiosity, but dirt is not served up by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's latest doc. The men behind 'Party Monster' and 'Inside Deep Throat' have worked with Chaz Bono to document his transition, and with Bono acting as an executive producer, this isn't a dirt-digging, revelatory document.

It is, however, one whose worth transcends celebrity curiosity.
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'The Conspirator': An Historic Who's Who

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted Apr 29th 2011 2:00PM
Filed under: Features, New Releases, Moviefone Canada


President Abraham Lincoln's story is on the rise in Hollywood. Ol' Honest Abe is set to fight the fangs in 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'; director Steven Spielberg is still itching to bring the 16th president's real-life, fang-free world to the big screen with 'Lincoln'; and currently playing in theaters, we have 'The Conspirator.'

The latter isn't directly about Lincoln, but rather the aftermath of his assassination. Though actor John Wilkes Booth killed the president, justice didn't live and die with Booth. After practically anyone associated with the assassin was arrested, eight final prisoners faced a harsh military tribunal, including boarding house owner Mary Surratt, who became the first woman executed by the federal government.

But the story isn't so black and white.
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Hot Docs 2011 Preview Guide G-Z: From the Hell of Iraq to 'Wiebo's War'

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted Apr 27th 2011 4:00PM
Filed under: Features, Festivals, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada





'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold'
FOR: Ad fiends
THINK: 'Super Size Me' meets 'Everyone in Silico'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

In 2002, Canadian novelist Jim Munroe wrote 'Everyone in Silico,' a post-cyberpunk tome about a mediated future. Taking a cue from his novel, he wrote invoices to corporations mentioned in the book in an attempt to gain funding. For 'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,' 'Super Size Me's' Morgan Spurlock spins that idea into wild documentarian territory by creating an entire film about his quest for branding, advertising and product placement in his documentary -- essentially creating a documentary about marketing by searching out marketing for the film.

Stay tuned for our review tomorrow.


'Hell and Back Again'
FOR: War aficionados, concerned citizens
THINK: 'Stop-Loss' meets 'The Hurt Locker'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

Most Iraq War films focus on one or the other -- either the dangerous, overseas world of war, or what it's like for soldiers when they return. Danfung Dennis' award-winning documentary merges the two into an immersive experience that intermingles the disorienting life at home, dealing with the daily minutia of everyday life and the danger of being a Marine in Afghanistan. Dennis was right there for the danger overseas, a custom Steadicam offering up footage that looks like it was shot by the Marines themselves, giving the viewer an intensely personal look into war and war's aftermath.


'Hot Coffee'
FOR: Progressive thinkers eager to dig beyond the spin
THINK: 'Spin City' meets ... 'The Verdict,' 'Michael Clayton,' etc.
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

We all know the story of the woman who sued McDonald's over hot coffee. What many don't know is that this seemingly frivolous lawsuit came after the fast food giant refused to pay the medical costs for the woman's horrifically serious burns and health trauma. Using her story as a jumping point, Susan Saladoff's informative documentary investigates the media spin prompted by companies eager for tort reform, and how key details are left out of the discourse to skew serious lawsuits as frivolous.


'How to Die in Oregon'
FOR: Those interested in the "pro" side of the euthanasia debate
THINK: 'A Woman's Tale' meets 'You Don't Know Jack'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

In the '90s, Oregon passed a law allowing for physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Peter D. Richardson's documentary doesn't talk as much about the politics of this incendiary topic, but rather about the intimate exploration of the people who make this decision, and what their rationale is. Stunning audiences in the festival circuit, the film kicks off with a gut punch -- how one man slips into a coma and dies after drinking liquid Seconal.


'Limelight'
FOR: Club-goers of the '70s, '80s and '90s
THINK: 'The Last Days of Disco' meets 'Party Animal'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

When Peter Gatien received a $15,000 settlement in his youth, he didn't waste the money -- instead, he opened a store. That led Gatien to a rock club, and ultimately led the Canadian to a bankrupt nightclub in Florida where the successful Limelight nightspots were born. When Gatien finally hit NYC, he became the man responsible not only for Limelight, but leading clubs like Tunnel, Palladium and Club USA. Filmmaker Billy Corben waxes nostalgic on the era, and how Gatien became the victim of Rudy Giuliani's quest to clean New York, faulty evidence and a whirlwind of drama including club promoter Michael Alig's murder of Angel Melendez.


'Magic Trip'
FOR: Fans of Ken Kesey, LSD and his Merry Pranksters
THINK: 'On the Road' meets 'Dazed and Confused'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

In the 1960s, author Ken Kesey scored a bus, grabbed his Merry Pranksters friends (including Neal Cassady of 'On the Road' fame), and set off across the country to get high, spread love and attend the World's Fair in New York City. The journey was videotaped, but the footage was never fully compiled, save for hours and days-long screenings with viewers high on acid back in the day. That is, until filmmakers Alison Ellwood and Alex Gibney compiled footage. Equal parts an exploration of the '60s and of Kesey and his Pranksters, 'Magic Trip' remembers the arrival of acid and how it intermingled with mainstream society.


'Project Nim'
FOR: Chimpanzee lovers
THINK: 'Grizzly Man' meets 'MVP: Most Valuable Primate'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

After winning the Oscar for 'Man on Wire,' James Marsh returns with another highly regarded documentary about a forgotten figure from the '70s. Nim Chimpsky was a chimpanzee who, just days after his birth, was sent to live with humans to see how human they could become if immersed in the same environment. Unfortunately, those humans were, perhaps, the ones in need of careful nurturing as Marsh outlines a cacophony of caretakers who led the chimp through a psychologically damaging human world.


'Wiebo's War'
FOR: Environmentalists and followers of religious extremism
THINK: 'The Village' meets 'Erin Brockovich'
Hot Docs Screenings and Details

Most documentaries about ultra-Christian communities rest solely on the strangeness and zealotry of its subjects. In 'Wiebo's War,' the beliefs are secondary to the more pressing cause -- a large family battling against the oil and gas industry that's harming their lives and livelihood. After recoiling from modern life, two couples built a mini Christian community (much like the basis of 'The Village') to live outside of the pressures of everyday life. But with the discovery of natural gas in their area, the families started suffering -- animals dying, deformed miscarriages, flammable drinking water. Now they're the prime suspects in a series of pipeline bombings that question which side is right and which side is wrong.

Keep up-to-date with all of Moviefone Canada's Hot Docs 2011 coverage

Hot Docs 2011 Preview Guide A-F: A Tribe Called Quest to Cynical Optimism

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted Apr 27th 2011 4:00PM
Filed under: Features, Festivals, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


One of the best fests (and our favorite) for movie fanatics is Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Celebrating anything and everything documentary, every year Hot Docs is overflowing with great features that not only teach or inspire but also engage us just as skillfully, happily and heart-wrenchingly as mainstream feature films. In recent years, we've learned how 'Girls Rock!'; how Euripides can speak to modern violence with 'Protagonist'; the verbose life of Spalding Gray with 'And Everything Is Going Fine'; and the struggle for Canadian justice with 'Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.'

This year the festival -- which runs from April 28–May 8 -- has a little of everything, from features by award-winning filmmakers like James Marsh ('Project Nim') to the beats of A Tribe Called Quest, horse whispering, Bobby Fischer and the fervor of Mardi Gras.

Moviefone Canada will be offering up daily content about the festival's intriguing films, starting with this guide of some of Hot Docs' notable slate, categorized by interests and cinematic similarities. Hit the jump for A–F or hop over to part two, G–Z.
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Zach Braff Talks 'The High Cost of Living'

By Monika Bartyzel (Subscribe to Monika Bartyzel's posts), Posted Apr 22nd 2011 9:00AM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Moviefone Canada


Last time most of us saw Zach Braff, he was fighting off 'The Ex' and zipping through his final days as a wacky doctor on 'Scrubs.' But now, the actor/filmmaker is getting serious as the lead in Canadian filmmaker Deborah Chow's award-winning debut feature, 'The High Cost of Living.'

Braff plays Henry Welles, an American expat in Montreal who spends his time partying and dealing prescription drugs. One night, he accidentally hits a pregnant woman with his car, panics and drives away. Wracked with guilt, he ends up befriending his victim, though she doesn't know who he is.

The film is gearing up for release in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal this Friday (and available Stateside via Video-On-Demand) and Braff sat down with Moviefone.ca to talk about his experiences on the film, why he hasn't made another feature yet and why he loves 'American Beauty' and 'Real Genius.'
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