2015 represents the 40th anniversary of the television landmark comedy sketch series, Saturday Night Live, and Hot Docs was fortunate enough to host the international premiere of Bao Nguyen’s film that takes a look at the culture that surrounded, followed and influenced the show. Nguyen openly admits that this is far from the definitive…
Tag: hot docs 2015
Hot Docs 2015: The Visit – Dr. Michael Madsen
If alien life landed on our doorstep, would we be ready? Would we know how to handle it? Are there procedures in place? The simulated experience of an alien’s (the audience) arrival on Earth is put up onto the screen by Madsen, as he puts the United Nations in the spotlight, as the only body in the…
Hot Docs 2015: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead – The Story of National Lampoon – Douglas Tirola
National Lampoon started as a small, rather unprofessional looking magazine at its birth, but its humour, wit and brilliance was there from the get-go. Co-founded by Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard, the magazine, on finding its feet, became ground zero for some of the biggest names in comedy both on-screen and off. The documentary…
Hot Docs 2015: The Nightmare – Rodney Ascher
Eschewing objectivity, or any real investigation into the phenomena and instead focussing on sharing the experience, The Nightmare is quite possibly the first true horror documentary. Director Rodney Ascher sits down and chats with 8 people, Jeff, Ana, Kate, Korinne, Stephen, Chris, Connie and Forrest, people who suffer from the terrifying phenomena of sleep paralysis. I’ve been…
Hot Docs 2015: Monty Python – The Meaning of Live – Roger Graf & James Rogan
I came to the Monty Python phenomena in the late 80s, early 90s during my uni days, which is sad as they’d been around since 69, and had basically not done anything together in a long time at that point. But immediately afterwards I was a devout fan, my favorite member of the troupe…
Hot Docs 2015: Deep Web – Alex Winter
Planetary may have been the most important film at the festival in terms of our species and its relation with our tender planet, but Alex Winter’s documentary, Deep Web, brings to the screen the topical, and argumentative subject of internet privacy. The digital frontier is turning into the latest battleground, a wild west shootout,…
Hot Docs 2015: Journey with Prabhat – Samarth Dixit & Jessica Sadana
Film preservation, and cinematic history are a huge part of Western culture, as we restore, and catalogue our seemingly endless collection of films, so I was rather interested to see how things played out in other countries. Prabhat Studios was a big and well-recognized Indian studio when talkies came along. After that, though it fell…
Hot Docs 2015: Welcome to Leith – Michael Beach Nichols & Chrisopher K. Walker
It will be interesting if this review doesn’t become a tirade, as I’ve never understood racism, and think that those who go around spouting it, are all manner of moronic. So, I settled in to be as objective and open-minded as I could, which proved to be not very. The first time Craig Cobb, and…
Hot Docs 2015: Attacking the Devil – Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War Crime – Jacqui Morris & David Morris
Yesterday, I discovered a new hero. His name is Harold Evans. I love films about newspapers, and when they introduce me to people I should have heard of and haven’t and when they are wrapped up in amazing stories that deals with objective journalism , working to get the truth out, and working for justice…
Hot Docs 2015: Planetary – Guy Reid
Yesterday morning, I sat down and watched perhaps the singularly most important film that is screening at Hot Docs this year, and if you’re not in Toronto, you can track down this film online, as it was released internationally on Earth Day. Over the past century, man has advanced and for the first time,…
The Mind Reels 