Archive for December, 2007

This Hour Has 22 Minutes: Season One on DVD

Published
by
James McNally
on December 7, 2007
in DVD and Television
. Closed

This Hour Has 22 Minutes: Season One

This Hour Has 22 Minutes: Season One: The good folks at Koch Canada sent me the newly-released first season of Canada’s greatest political satire this week. This Hour Has 22 Minutes began broadcasting way way back in 1993 when Kim Campbell was (briefly) our Prime Minister and we were in the thick of an election campaign. Four Newfoundlanders (the impossibly young-looking Rick Mercer, Greg Thomey, Cathy Jones and Mary Walsh) attacked current events each week in a way which had Canadians spewing our maple syrup. The first season launched such memorable characters as Jerry Boyle and Marg Delahunty, and gave us a glimpse of the huge talent that the group would continue to develop over the next decade. Sadly, though the show is still on the air, most of the original cast has moved on (although Rick Mercer still has his own weekly political satire show on CBC). Much like another institution of Canadian political comedy, the Royal Canadian Air Farce, things tended to get stale after about a decade, so it is refreshing to watch these early episodes, when I’m sure they made a lot of CBC executives nervous.

If I have any complaints about the DVDs themselves, they would have to include the rather hideous menu screens and, more importantly, their absolute lack of any special features. It would have been very interesting to have some commentary from the now older and (presumably) wiser members of the group.

Season Two is also available but I’m not certain what plans there are, if any, for the rest of the show’s run. I suppose it will depend on sales. Despite the bare-bones presentation, the set is a steal at MSRP $32.99. It includes all 21 half-hour (er, 22-minute) episodes.

Buy from Amazon.ca

Wikipedia entry

7/10(7/10)

Audience of One

Published
by
James McNally
on December 6, 2007
in After Dark, Documentaries and Film Festivals
. 1 Comment

Audience of One

Audience of One (Director: Michael Jacobs): I’m finally reviewing this utterly unique documentary that screened at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival way back in October. I was lucky enough to speak to the director by phone tonight and though my recording is (at this point) almost unusable (crappy analog “phone taps”!!), I’ll try to work in some of the stuff we talked about into the review proper.

Richard Gazowsky is the pastor of the Voice of Pentecost church in San Francisco, and didn’t see his first movie until he was 40. But what an experience it must have been, for soon after he discovered the joys of cinema, he experienced a “divine call” to make the greatest biblical epic ever. Audience of One follows Gazowsky as he takes his congregation along on the almost inconceivable journey of making Gravity, a science fiction epic based on the biblical story of Joseph. Though he’s never directed a film before, Gazowsky confidently takes the reins, and forms WYSIWYG (”What You See Is What You Get”) Christian Film Works. Accustomed to dreaming big, he announces that Gravity will be shot in 70mm at 60 frames per second. Despite an all-volunteer cast and crew, the production soon decamps to Italy for some location shooting. Many problems ensue, from bad weather to mechanical problems to a general lack of preparation. Gazowsky presses on, confident that God wants him to complete the film.

Michael Jacobs’ camera captures the drama over a period of 18 months, from the confident beginning through the trials of production and finally to what appears to be Gazowsky’s very public meltdown. Throughout, the pastor seems like an affable man, albeit a little obsessed with the idea of being a filmmaker. Mysteriously promised European funding fails to materialize, the bills pile up and the erstwhile director becomes more and more paranoid, suspecting the major studios of trying to steal his script. The whole enterprise spins further out of control and by the film’s end, it appears that Richard Gazowsky has painted himself into a corner. His obsession is compounded by his faith that God wants him to devote his life to making this film.

Though it doesn’t shy away from the religious aspects of Gazowsky’s “quest,” this is really a universal character study. We see the pastor’s mother, a preacher herself who founded the church, haunting the proceedings with a sad look on her face. “I never should have turned the church over to him,” she laments. Gazowsky is a familiar character, reminding me of Klaus Kinski’s indelible Fitzcarraldo and Harrison Ford’s Allie Fox (from The Mosquito Coast). But in this case, Gazowsky’s pride is unassailable since he claims to be doing God’s work. But it also means he can never admit he was wrong.

Jacobs told me that Gazowsky has supported the film and even participated in some Q&A sessions after screenings. But instead of administering a much-needed wake-up call, it seems to have re-energized him to continue raising funds to complete the film. Despite the immense amount of time and money spent already, only two scenes have been completed, and although they weren’t shown in the film, Jacobs promises to include them on the DVD release.

It seems ironic that, despite the title of his film being Gravity, nothing seems to be able to bring Richard Gazowsky back down to earth.

Official site for the film

8/10(8/10)

A Table In Heaven

Published
by
James McNally
on December 5, 2007
in Doc Soup, Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

A Table In Heaven

A Table In Heaven (Director: Andrew Rossi, 2007): Sirio Maccioni first opened Le Cirque in New York in 1974, after years and years of working his way up from busboy to waiter to maître d’hôtel. His star rose through the 70s and 80s and the restaurant attracted the rich and famous, including Henry Kissinger, Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan. But as the film begins in 2004, the place has grown a bit stale, and the crowd of old regulars (and the emphasis is clearly on “old”) are dying off and no new customers are replacing them. Sirio decides to close and reopen in a new location. With his three sons Marco, Mario and Mauro, he sets out to plot the future of the family business. A new restaurant will be a fresh start, with a new location, a new chef, a new menu, and a new attitude. At least that’s what the younger generation wants. Sirio is from the old school, though, and is not willing to give up his micromanaging ways. Andrew Rossi’s camera was there to capture it all: Sirio’s charming tale of an uneducated Tuscan immigrant made good, his years of building relationships with New York City’s most rich and famous denizens, the gradual fading of his reputation, and then his family’s often fractious effort to get their groove back. Though it seems at times like a particularly rancorous episode of the Food Network’s Opening Soon, there are greater forces at work in the Maccioni story. Sirio complains bitterly of getting old, and refuses to retire. And yet the restaurant culture has changed and passed him by. His sons recognize this and want desperately to attract a younger clientele, but Sirio’s loyalty is to the people who helped him make it, and it hurts his new venture. Resistance to change is really about the fear of oblivion (through death and forgetting) and Sirio’s struggle is one that all of us can understand.

Luckily, the story doesn’t end when the film does, and it appears that the new Le Cirque is finally adapting to the new environment. Instead of singling out celebrities and treating everyone else as second-class citizens, the new culture prefers that everyone have the same experience, and from all accounts, they’re trying. The menu has been freshened as well, despite Sirio’s objections. A bad review from the New York Times, along with the footage of the opening, made it painfully obvious that the restaurant needs more than nostalgia and a charismatic owner to appeal to the new generation of diners.

Rossi has captured more than a restaurant or a family story. He’s given us a glimpse of a man on the run from his own mortality, a man who’s cultivated “friendships” among the most visible and powerful only to realize that it won’t save him in the end. It’s heartbreaking and a little bit terrifying. For me, the most satisfying moments are not in the restaurant at all, but around the table when Sirio’s longsuffering wife Egidiana serves up a simple meal of pasta to the whole family. It’s a shame that the man has so little time for that sort of meal.

Here is the Q&A with director Andrew Rossi from after the screening. Hot Docs/Doc Soup programmer Sean Farnel moderates and asks the first few questions himself:


Duration: 13:46

Official site for the film

7/10(7/10)