Last Stop 174 aims to tell the human side of the bus hijacking in 2000 in Rio de Janeiro. The film felt very real and was like a portrait of a world. It reminded me of City of God, something that was brought up a lot (the main actor was even in City of God).
It [...]

My lack of pop culture (mainly sports) knowledge strikes again. I saw More Than a Game, a doc where filmmaker Kristopher Belman followed a high school basketball team in his hometown that happened to have a young, up-and-coming player named LeBron James, enabling him to document LeBron’s rise to stardom.

My first thought: “LeBron James, sounds kind of [...]

YouTube - Moment of Zen with Paul and Belly Dancer.

Here’s a quick, on the move post. Didn’t see any movies yesterday, but it was still a great day. We met the donor that sponsored our trip at her gorgeous house and garden right in the middle of Toronto.
After chilling in the industry internet lounge and grabbing some free Starbucks, all five of us went [...]

Despite having my name called over the speakers on the airplane before take off and my passport taken by security, we managed to make it to Toronto (the passport was returned and I never found out what that was about). We even made it in time to pick up our industry credentials.
Of course with a [...]

Bad news: I went down from #3 to #too-far-for-me-to-count on the Toronto International Film Festival blog list.
Maybe I should start with the good news. Coffee and Celluloid is listed as one of the blogs for TIFF. I’m not sure if that’s any sort of achievement to celebrate - after all, I was bumped down.
But I [...]

If you need an example of a talking head doc, this is it. For an HBO film1, I was kind of let down, but later it made sense.
The Blacklist is a series of interviews of some of the most�influential�African Americans - Toni Morrison, Chris Rock, Colin Powell, et al. Because these are such fascinating people, [...]

It’s a film about body building, Hulk Hogan, steroids, Sylvester Stallone, and the male image in America. Yes, men have image problems too, Jean Kilbourne. The steroids part was what got me into the the theater, after experiencing the magic1 of Prednisone firsthand thanks to Crohn’s.
While body building isn’t my first topic of interest (I [...]

The program said this is the most comprehensive documentary on graffiti art. It’s probably true. Bomb It covers graffiti around the world, from LA to New York, San Paolo to Japan. And each place has their own uniqueness and style. The fast paced style of the film definitely matches the subject it’s covering.
The film is [...]

Perhaps a little heavy for a 10 AM screening, with an occasional missing head and dead body, I still enjoyed My Daughter the Terrorist. It’s about the civil war in Sri-Lanka - a war I didn’t know was happening. Labeled by the world as terrorists, the film follows two female best friends in the guerrilla [...]