Although I know I’ve enjoyed watching movies pretty much since I can remember, I have few specific memories from childhood. It always amazes me when people have a clear recollection of “the first movie I ever saw” … I know I went to see movies fairly regularly as a child, British B-movies, Carry On films […]
Filmmaker John Paskievich’s documentary about Winnipeg eccentric and occasional animator Ed Ackerman debuts at the 2013 Hot Docs festival in Toronto.
Although my documentary on Winnipeg movie theatres was originally conceived as a one-hour show, I ended up interviewing almost thirty people who gave me more great material than I could possibly fit into that format. As a result, the project grew to feature length. But even then, there were interesting stories and observations which simply […]
If it’s possible to feel exhilarated and anti-climactic at the same time, that’s how I feel this evening. It’s been just over a year since I shot Going: Remembering Winnipeg Movie Theatres, my documentary about the experience of going to the movies back when there were real theatres instead of multi-screen bunkers, and the process […]
It’s always tough to be original, but I was made nervous last year as I started on my documentary about Winnipeg movie theatres when I learned that local writer Russ Gourluck was working on a book about Manitoba movie theatres called Silver Screens On the Prairie. Russ has written a number of books on local […]
Continuing my partial round-up of recently watched movies … The Innkeepers (Ti West, 2011) Ti West is a filmmaker whose work I really want to like, but each film comes as a letdown – except for his second feature, Trigger Man (2007), a terrific exercise in minimalist terror about three buddies out for a day […]
It looks like I haven’t reported on my home viewing in quite a while, so looking back over my notes, there are far too many titles to comment on in detail. Some of these are films I’ve looked at again because of recent Blu-ray releases – the Alien series, for instance, and the Red Riding […]
My documentary about Winnipeg movie theatres is creeping towards completion – I had a session with the person doing the on-line last Thursday; he’s working on several projects simultaneously, but hopefully mine will be done by the end of the coming week. And the sound files should be going to the person who’ll do clean-up and […]
I recorded the voice over for my documentary last Friday and spent the next few days making final detail changes in the edit. Yesterday, I turned the project over to the techies for on-line picture corrections and sound fix-ups and mix. So the editing is finally done and I’m feeling a kind of post-partum depression […]
Jim McBride was one of the most interesting and accomplished filmmakers to emerge in New York City in the ’60s, debuting with the remarkably assured and inventive David Holzman’s Diary in 1967. One of the earliest, and finest, examples of faux documentary, it fooled many people with its convincing portrayal of a filmmaker (L.M. Kit […]