Hot Docs

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop

by James McNally on June 29, 2011 · 1 comment

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop screens across the country at select Cineplex theatres for one night only — Thursday July 7, 2011 — and opens for a lim­ited the­at­rical run in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday July 8, 2011. More inform­a­tion from the film’s Canadian dis­trib­utor, FilmsWeLike.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (Director: Rodman Flender): I haven’t watched late-night tele­vi­sion with any con­sist­ency since the 70s, when I would tune into The Tonight Show to see Johnny Carson, but even I knew about the recent trav­ails of Conan O’Brien. Brought in to replace Jay Leno as host of NBC’s The Tonight Show in June 2009, he was gone just seven months later, a result of some epic bungling on the part of the network’s exec­ut­ives. Leno’s prime­time show was doing poorly in the rat­ings and the net­work decided to push his show later, to 11:35pm, with Conan’s show pushed to 12:05am. The Tonight Show would actu­ally be airing tomorrow, in reality if not in name, and Conan was unhappy with the plan. In January 2010, he reached a deal to leave NBC, returning Leno as host of The Tonight Show. In exchange for a $45 mil­lion set­tle­ment, Conan was leg­ally pro­hib­ited from appearing on tele­vi­sion until September 2010. Boredom and anger at the network’s hand­ling of the situ­ation led to inspir­a­tion, and soon he and his staffers were working on plans for the Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, a 30-city tour across the US and Canada which would put him in front of the many fans who had sup­ported him during his dis­pute with Leno and NBC.

Even before the tour kicked off, he’d lined up his next gig, as host of his own latenight show (Conan) with the TBS Network, and it wasn’t like he needed the money, so why take things on the road for the first time in his life? Flender’s doc shows us all we need to know. What’s not per­haps obvious is that Conan’s depar­ture from NBC put a lot of people out of work. He had his own writers and his own band, plus various assist­ants and other sup­port staff. While he got a gen­erous set­tle­ment, he wanted to keep his friends employed, and although not dis­cussed in the film, he took none of the pro­ceeds from the tour him­self, pre­fer­ring to pay his staff. As well, the tour gave him a chance to work out some of his anger and bit­ter­ness toward the net­work, and as a result the comedy, while likely not his fun­niest work, is some of the most personal.

The title of the film also reveals a lot. For a born enter­tainer like O’Brien, it’s impossible to simply “switch off” as a result of some legal agree­ment with a former employer. He’s a guy with a patho­lo­gical need to enter­tain, and the tour wasn’t just cath­artic, but thera­peutic in many dif­ferent ways. That doesn’t mean to say it was neces­sarily a well-advised move. By the latter stages, Conan’s clearly run­ning on fumes. He’s 47 years old and a road newbie, and the pan­cake makeup can only hide the exhaus­tion for a few hours at a time. Onstage, he gives everything, but as he slumps off more and more drained after each stop on the tour, the strain begins to show. Although unfail­ingly polite to fans, he begins to chafe at all the meet-and-greets and back­stage visits that inev­it­ably go with the rock star life­style. By the time the tour stops at the Bonnaroo music fest­ival in Tennessee, he’s fried. When the organ­izers tell him he’s been sched­uled to intro­duce each musical act in addi­tion to per­forming his own show, he crumples, but then he gets on with it. Although we def­in­itely see the fra­gile, whiny, needy side of Conan, he keeps it between him­self and his staff. And it’s also nice to see that even after 25 years in show busi­ness, his con­fid­ence is still fra­gile when per­forming new material.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop shows us a side of the man that we don’t get to see on tele­vi­sion. At per­haps the most vul­ner­able time in his pro­fes­sional career, he lets a film crew follow him around the country as he per­forms every night without a net. In his incred­ibly rare and pre­cious moments with his wife and young chil­dren, he lets us in. When he’s having a blast and killing the crowds, we’re there, but we’re also there when he slumps off­stage and bitches at his long­suf­fering assistant Sona (who really comes across as the heroine of the entire film). Flender’s film, though not cine­mat­ic­ally ground­breaking, achieves a level of intimacy with the man that allows us to see a fully-fledged human being rather than just a wise­cracking comedian. And did I men­tion that it’s quite often hilarious?

As a fellow member of the Irish Fraternity of the Ginger Cowlick(™?), I’ve always looked up to Conan O’Brien as my much taller, much more tal­ented, and much more extra­verted twin brother. After seeing this film, I’d be proud to count him as a member of my family, for real.

Tagged as: #hotdocs11, celebrity, Television

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Sean Farnel Moving On From Hot Docs

by James McNally on June 20, 2011

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs,News

Sean Farnel at the Hot Docs 2009 press conference

After six years at the helm, Hot Docs Director of Programming Sean Farnel is moving on. In an elo­quent blog post, he reveals that he’s not sure what’s next:

I embrace the notion of having some room to roam, to being a pro­fes­sional omni­vore, a free agent, and at some point to taking your calls to per­suade me to settle down.

Sean has been someone who has been tre­mend­ously influ­en­tial and helpful to me in my own “career” in film. Through him, I was able to con­tribute to two Hot Docs fest­ivals as a pro­gram­ming con­sultant, and he’s always been willing to make time for me when I needed advice, or simply to talk docs. And knowing how much of a hockey fan he is, it’s also been tre­mend­ously grat­i­fying to be involved in a playoff hockey pool with him for the past two years (and thrashing him thor­oughly this time around!).

I have no doubt that Sean will con­tinue to con­tribute to the doc­u­mentary film com­munity, and I hope you’ll join me in wishing him per­sonal and pro­fes­sional suc­cess with whatever he chooses to do next.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Love Shines

by Drew Kerr on May 30, 2011

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Love Shines

Love Shines (Director: Doug Arrowsmith): Love Shines is a first-rate, in-depth por­trait of acclaimed Toronto singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith. Director Arrowsmith, a hard­core Sexsmith devotee, avoids turning his film into a fanboy gush­fest; instead, he unabashedly presents the singer with all of his flaws nakedly on dis­play. Sexsmith is a pain­fully insecure and intro­verted indi­vidual – your classic “tor­tured artist”, as it were – and it’s sur­prising how much access into his life he gives Arrowsmith, in whom he clearly put a great deal of trust. Shot over the course of seven years, the doc­u­mentary was ori­gin­ally con­ceived to stop filming after Sexsmith’s then career high of head­lining at Toronto’s famed Massey Hall, back in 2006. Instead, Arrowsmith kept shooting, which presented the oppor­tunity to chron­icle the recording of Sexsmith’s twelfth album, Long Player Late Bloomer. Those recording ses­sions, which provide some intriguing insight into Sexsmith’s cre­ative pro­cess, are the centrepiece of Love Shines, and the film is sig­ni­fic­antly better because of it.

Sexsmith, for those unfa­miliar with his career (and I counted myself in that group before watching the doc­u­mentary), has been a per­en­nial critics’ favourite since his debut solo album came out in 1995 (he released an album four years prior as a member of Toronto indie band The Uncool). Peers such as Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, Leslie Feist, and Daniel Lanois have been singing his praises for years and do so throughout the film. In fact, Costello, one of Sexsmith’s biggest cham­pions, equates his skill for cre­ating melodies to that of Paul McCartney. Despite the accol­ades, Sexsmith still sells a paltry number of albums, which is a con­stant source of angst for him. The ongoing struggle with main­taining artistic integ­rity while seeking main­stream suc­cess informs much of the nar­rative in Love Shines, leading to the enlist­ment of mega-producer Bob Rock to oversee the recording of Long Player Late Bloomer. Rock is primarily known as a hard rock/metal pro­ducer, based on his earlier work on a number of hugely suc­cessful albums from the likes of Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, and The Cult. Most not­ably, he was Metallica’s exclusive pro­ducer for 12 years and is more than used to working with an artist and having their every move filmed, as was the case for the fant­astic doc on the band, Some Kind Of Monster. In recent years, he’s diver­si­fied his scope to include acts such as Nina Gordon, The Tragically Hip, and Michael Bublé. Sexsmith hopes the pairing will raise his pro­file via the pure name recog­ni­tion that the pro­ducer brings, as well as increase album sales by way of the more com­mer­cially pal­at­able and highly pol­ished sound that Rock gets from the artists he works with. A stellar group of vet­eran musi­cians is brought on board to play on the album, including drummer Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle), gui­tarist Rusty Anderson (Paul McCartney), bassist Paul Bushnell (Elton John, Sugarland), and key­boardist Jamie Edwards (Aimee Mann).

Periodic and intro­spective glimpses back into Sexsmith’s upbringing reveal a shy young­ster who struggled with his con­fid­ence and endured abuse from bul­lies while growing up in St. Catharines, Ontario, even­tu­ally becoming a father at age 19 after get­ting his girl­friend preg­nant at the same moment he lost his vir­ginity. Certain mile­stones from Sexsmith’s career are shown, including a home movie scene where we see his par­ents, watching the 2002 Juno Awards on their home tele­vi­sion, become ecstatic over his win for Songwriter of the Year. In it, his mother is seen excitedly taking pic­tures of the TV screen as her son wins the award, appar­ently unclear of how a VCR works. It’s one of the fun­niest (and sweetest) moments in the film. “Funny” is not exactly a word anyone would asso­ciate with Sexsmith him­self. In his inter­views with Arrowsmith, he comes across as a fra­gile, depressed, and lacking con­fid­ence, which reminded me of a line from Bruce Springsteen’s “Better Days”: “It’s a sad man, my friend, who’s livin’ in his own skin and can’t stand the com­pany.” Most of the theatre audi­ence stuck around for the post-screening Q&A ses­sion with Sexsmith and Arrowsmith, and I must say I felt down­right hor­rible that I had to leave about halfway through to catch my last Hot Docs screening uptown. As I con­spicu­ously des­cended the stairs and walked across the front of the theatre, past the singer to the exit, I couldn’t help but worry that Sexsmith was tap­ping into his ever-present insec­ur­ities and won­dering why someone wasn’t inter­ested in hearing what he had to say. Does that make me nar­ciss­istic or empathetic?

Early indic­a­tions (it came out in March) indicate that Long Player Late Bloomer won’t propel Sexsmith to sig­ni­fic­antly new heights of com­mer­cial suc­cess. The album actu­ally turned out to be a hard sell to pro­spective music labels, with some iron­ic­ally rejecting it as being too main­stream. Still, it should improve on the sales num­bers from his last sev­eral albums and this film (which is now airing on HBO Canada) should help him find a new audi­ence. Whether it’s the excel­lent music, fin­an­cial struggles that one wouldn’t expect a “name” musi­cian to face, the strange dicho­tomy of a guy who hates the spot­light but per­forms in it for a living, or just the fact that Sexsmith makes for a great underdog story, non-fans will find plenty in Love Shines to hold their interest.

Tagged as: #hotdocs11, canada, music

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Superheroes

by Drew Kerr on May 27, 2011

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Superheroes

Superheroes (Director: Michael Barnett): Superheroes do exist, even if they come up a little light in the “super” depart­ment (by way of an obvious lack of super­powers). My first exposure to real life super­heroes (referred to as “RLSH”) was a fas­cin­ating 2008 art­icle in Rolling Stone magazine that took a look inside the sub­cul­ture, which is estim­ated to com­prise 700 indi­viduals world­wide who dress up in cos­tumes and attempt to effect some manner of pos­itive change in their com­munities. Director Michael Barnett turns his camera on the sub­ject in Superheroes, zeroing in on dif­ferent pockets of RLSH in a number of major American cities.

Master Legend, with his pudgy frame packed into a tight silver and black cos­tume partly made up of spray painted pro­tective hockey equip­ment and base­ball catcher shin guards, heads up the Orlando, Florida chapter of the Team Justice net­work. He was prom­in­ently fea­tured in the Rolling Stone piece and gets plenty of camera time here as well, due to his col­ourful per­son­ality, including an occa­sional holy roller speech, pro­clam­a­tions that he actu­ally pos­sesses super powers, fre­quent stops for beer breaks, and a habit of trying to pick up women (all while dressed in his cos­tume). It’s a reality TV series waiting to happen. Mr. Extreme, from San Diego, also has a most unsuperhero-like physique and draws inspir­a­tion partly from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, who he seems to have a fas­cin­a­tion with on a level that just isn’t healthy for a grown man. Zimmer, a gay RLSH from Brooklyn, refuses to wear a mask, equating it with someone who is trapped in the closet. The unima­gin­at­ively named Super Hero, from Florida, takes a little too much pride in his sweet crime fighting ride, a flashy red Corvette Stingray. New York City’s Life takes his cos­tume cues from The Green Hornet and his moral code from a Hasidic Jewish upbringing that instilled strong altru­istic values. These are just a few of the numerous RLSH we meet during the film.

Make no mis­take, these people take what they’re doing very ser­i­ously, even if there’s an unavoid­able comedic ele­ment to adults patrolling big city streets while wearing cos­tumes, some of which are, shall we say, of a highly ama­teurish nature; I believe I saw duct tape on one cos­tume and the outfit of a RLSH named The Vigilante Spider looked like some­thing straight out of a grade school play. The common thread is that all of these people are pas­sionate about trying to make a dif­fer­ence in the world, des­pite the per­sonal risks of bodily harm, social ridicule, and some fin­an­cial burden. Mr. Extreme even moves out of the dumpy rented house he inhabits and into his van, just so he can put more money into his cause, which includes offering rewards out of his own pocket for tips that lead to solving crimes. This begs the ques­tion: are these people of sound mind? Clinical psy­cho­lo­gist Robin Rosenberg, an expert on the psy­cho­logy of super­heroes, provides helpful insight into the topic from time to time throughout the film. Also inter­viewed is super­hero creator-icon Stan Lee, who admires the RLSH chutzpah, but wor­ries about their safety.

Where the film fal­ters is in its lack of action and inter­esting scen­arios where the RLSH do, in fact, fight actual crime. We see one stand up to an intim­id­ating drug dealer ped­dling his wares out in the open in a park, while another New York col­lective of RLSH takes a few more risks. On dif­ferent occa­sions we see them car­rying out “bait patrol” oper­a­tions, which entail having one of their female mem­bers dress up in pro­voc­ative clothing and walk the street, trying to lure poten­tial crim­inals into com­mit­ting a sexual assault. Alternately, they dress Zimmer up in a flam­boyant outfit in hopes of attracting a poten­tial gay basher. The rest of the group is always close by to provide quick backup. It’s an eth­ic­ally dubious way of “fighting crime” and, as a police lieu­tenant informs us, bor­ders on entrap­ment. The most excite­ment we get is watching the group take the keys from a drunk driver who is seen sideswiping other parked vehicles (they assure him they’ll mail them back the next day). They also come to the rescue of a man who gets his foot run over by a passing car. Not exactly edge-of-your-seat adven­ture, is it?

So it turns out that the most sig­ni­ficant impact these people make is simply by being Good Samaritans and doing char­it­able things like handing out care pack­ages to the home­less, and organ­izing Christmas toy drives for under­priv­ileged kids. It may not be flashy (other than the cos­tumes they wear), but it’s still highly admir­able and more than most of us can say we do to help our fellow man.

Superheroes will be airing on HBO this summer and receiving a the­at­rical release later this year.

Tagged as: #hotdocs11

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Inside Lara Roxx

by Drew Kerr on May 20, 2011

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Inside Lara Roxx

Inside Lara Roxx (Director: Mia Donovan): Lara Roxx became semi-famous back in 2004, but not for the reason she had intended when she moved to L.A. from Montreal at the age of 21 to work in the adult film industry. Roxx was named as one of three female per­formers who had con­tracted HIV from male co-star Darren James, which res­ulted in a tem­porary shut­down of the porn industry that garnered inter­na­tional head­lines. The virus is believed to have been trans­mitted during the filming of lit­er­ally Roxx’s first movie scene, which involved double pen­et­ra­tion. Inside Lara Roxx exam­ines the after­math of the phys­ical and emo­tional carnage inflicted from the exper­i­ence on its subject.

The film was shot over a five year period by first time dir­ector Mia Donovan, a pho­to­grapher who used to work as a stripper in Montreal. Donovan fol­lows Roxx as she makes her way back to L.A. to revisit some central fig­ures from her brief foray in adult films, including the person who informed Roxx of her HIV status, former porn star Sharon Mitchell. Mitchell ran the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which reg­u­larly tested per­formers (and, incid­ent­ally, just shut down a couple of weeks ago). Also inter­viewed are some dodgy char­ac­ters like one of Roxx’s former man­agers and the creepy Bob Margold, a former per­former also known as “Papa Bear,” who is now an advocate for the wel­fare of porn actors. Speaking of creepy, the ubi­quitous (in porn circles anyway) Ron Jeremy also weighs in on her plight during an inter­view at an industry con­ven­tion in Las Vegas, where Roxx makes an appear­ance to raise aware­ness of the dangers of unpro­tected sex in the busi­ness. That this is a sub­ject still requiring edu­ca­tion in 2011 is a fairly ridicu­lous notion, yet appar­ently jus­ti­fied, judging by the dis­turbing apathy and hollow sym­pathy to Roxx’s mes­sage and story eli­cited from the con­ven­tion attendees. Unfortunately (but under­stand­ably), Darren James declined to be inter­viewed for the doc­u­mentary. Clips from both Roxx’s films and her appear­ances on various US tele­vi­sion shows after the scandal broke (including one ludicrous guest spot on the bottom-feeding Maury Povich Show) provide helpful context.

Additional inter­views with Roxx’s family and coun­sel­lors from a juvenile deten­tion centre where she stayed paint a pic­ture of an extremely troubled young woman con­sumed by rebel­lion, which led to Roxx working as stripper and escort before her move into porn. Extensive inter­views with Roxx her­self reveal a mildly sym­path­etic char­acter who is incred­ibly naïve and prone to making one bad decision after another (one of her boy­friends who appears briefly in the film, who is a crack addict like her, clearly has “trouble” written all over him). Her poor choices are fur­ther com­plic­ated by being afflicted with bipolar disorder.

Donovan developed a close friend­ship with Roxx during shooting, res­ulting in scenes that show the documentary’s sub­ject at her most vul­ner­able and fra­gile. The movie opens with Roxx being inter­viewed while in treat­ment at a hos­pital psy­chi­atric ward, and between her mental health issues and HIV-related health com­plic­a­tions she looks like she’s barely hanging on. Donovan actu­ally exer­cises admir­able restraint in choosing not to bela­bour their exchange, opting to shut the cam­eras off until Roxx is healthier. A sim­ilar wiser judge­ment might have been used in excising one scene (or at least providing greater clarity) that occurs in Roxx’s apart­ment involving a fracas with a neigh­bour, which is jar­ringly confusing.

It’s because of the trust gained by Donovan that the end res­ults of the film are so dis­ap­pointing; des­pite the intimate access gained by the dir­ector, I was left with a curious and frus­trating arm’s length feeling toward the film’s sub­ject. There’s a com­pel­ling film some­where involving this woman’s sad, tragic life, but Inside Lara Roxx is not it.

Tagged as: #hotdocs11, HIV/AIDS, pornography

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

← Previous Entries