Compulsive viewing at Hot Docs has inspired a few bloggers to keep track of the flicks they’ve seen, providing some insights beyond the fact that Natalie Portman – along with co-star Dustin Hoffman and ex-boyfriend Gael Garcia Bernal – was in the audience at the Isabel Bader Theatre for the Canadian premiere of Wordplay. That chronicle of crossword puzzle geekery earned high praise amidst Wholesome Goodness blogger Sameer Vasta’s batch of reviews (”I am somewhat at a loss for words in describing the sheer amazingness of this movie.”). Consolation Champs blogger James McNally offers a comprehensive post on each doc he’s seen, ranked on a scale that seems to be limited to the numbers 8, 9 and 10. A Funkaoshi Production blogger Ramanan Sivaranjan has also typed screening notes that are mostly enthusiastic. Bombippy blogger Jay Kerr hasn’t been as consistently enthused by the festival, left unimpressed by the gushing of the programmers who act as emcee for each film (”What can you say when the director and the producer are standing beside you?”) and further annoyed by what appears to be some poorly calibrated HD projection, resulting in blurry film and ghosted titles. Dan Dickinson also kept score of screenings on his site, noting the advert for the Cadillac Escalade that precedes each festival flick was even screened before OilCrash, which is all about the coming petroleum apocalypse. What’s the Story? blogger Siobhan McLaughlin has been volunteering at Hot Docs, allowing her to catch three programs per day, and reports that a compulsive local film festival volunteer “Harvey” will find himself the subject of his own documentary, which starts shooting soon. Meanwhile, the festival offering that stirred up the most adverse advance reaction, American Fugitive: The Truth About Hassan, directed by the Governor-General’s husband Jean-Daniel Lafond, is subject to analysis by Tart Cider blogger Chris Selley, who concluded that it’s hardly the conspirazoid sympathy trip suggested by those who’d rather demolish Rideau Hall than listen to the theory that Ronald Reagan helped prolong the captivity of hostages in Iran until he moved into the White House: “It’s not Lafond’s fault if university students watch his film and conclude that the real villain is Bush despite him not having a damn thing to do with it,” writes Selley. “University students can come to that conclusion from staring long enough at a ham sandwich.”
[YOUR REVIEWS are welcome below along with any further links.]
4 responses so far ↓
James McNally // May 5, 2006 at 11:11 am
I give this post an 8/10! Thanks for mentioning me and linking to my reviews. I can’t help it, I guess. I love documentaries and I find it harder to “rate” them low, because I usually choose ones whose subject matter intrigues me. So, even if it’s not technically proficient or innovative, I learn something, and so that usually rates at least an 8. Try me at TIFF, where I’m a little tougher (but just a little!). The fact is, I choose the films I want to see and that usually means I’m going to enjoy them.
Jay Kerr // May 5, 2006 at 11:20 am
Nice entry about Hot Docs so far. I wanted to mention that the links to my reviews are now here.
The best film I’ve see so far has to be Runners High (2006). I’m seeing F*ck tonight which should be a fun film with all of the celebrities that are in it.
Max Izod // May 5, 2006 at 11:47 am
I have been attending as many screenings at Hot Docs as I can (and have taken the week off work to do so). I have been going to Hot Docs for the better part of 8 years now and have watched it mature into a huge, strong festival - it seems like just yesterday I was sitting in Lavalounge on College St in the afternoon watching a doc about mountaingoats while eating breakfast with about 10 other people (ah the good old days - before the sell-out screenings and the rush lines).
I think the reason for such high ratings is that these programs are (for the most part) the cream of the crop - a select few picked from a huge number of submissions from all over the world (literally thousands and thousands of docs each year). That’s why this festival is so valuable in my opinion… it’s really hard to strike out seeing anything they have decided to program into the festival.
That Cadillac Escalade ad has been a thorn in a lot of viewers sides at the fest - usually eliciting boos and hisses from the audience. I was most surprised to see it run (ironically) prior to the Ralph Nader “Unreasonable Man” doc (one of my favs at the festival so far). Also, somebody rang their bike bell at the end of the ad before the OilCrash screening which got a round of applause on its own!
Anyway - got to go see more docs!
Sameer Vasta // May 5, 2006 at 3:24 pm
After piling on the docs last weekend and early this week, I’ve been caught up at work so the reviews have been a little sparse recently. There should be two on the way for tonight. Thanks for mentioning my reviews, and I’m going to highly recommend Wordplay again. It’s that good.
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