Consolation Champs

It figures that I received a package from Amazon UK today with a whole bunch of Region 2 DVDs that I bought on sale. You see, I’m in the thick of HotDocs, reviewing a bunch of films over at my film blog Toronto Screen Shots. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to check these out over the […]

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I’ve always been a big supporter of the BarCamp concept (a free self-organizing “unconference” where everyone is expected to contribute or participate), although the original BarCamps are way too technical for me to understand, never mind contribute. So I was happy to find out that CaseCamp Toronto is happening again on April 29th. CaseCamp is […]

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The lack of posts around here has been on my mind lately. I’ve just come through an incredibly busy time and can finally relax. A bit. My company’s annual huge wine tasting event was yesterday and I’m hungover in every conceivable way. It’s been a lot of work, and it’s finally finished. But in case […]

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I know this post is long overdue, but it’s actually taken me this long to recover physically and mentally and catch up a bit at work. This year’s SXSW was even bigger than last year, and despite the fears of my friends and I, it was actually somehow a bit more manageable. This was probably […]

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I’ve been back from SXSW since last weekend but of course have been exhausted and swamped with work. I have, however, taken some time to collect all of my film-related writing on a brand-new weblog called Toronto Screen Shots. I’m hoping to collaborate with a few other film writers there and feature some exciting new […]

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The Shutka Book of Records (Director: Aleksandar Manic, Czech Republic, 78 minutes): This month’s Doc Soup screening was one that I’d heard absolutely nothing about beforehand. Shutka is a small town in Macedonia that boasts that it is the unofficial capital of the Roma (Gypsy) people. Though not rich in material goods, its inhabitants are […]

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Yes, it’s hard to believe, but I’ll be attending my seventh South by Southwest in a few weeks. Things will be a little different this year for a number of reasons.

This year, for the first time ever, I’m speaking on a panel. Not seeing anything on the schedule about the subject, I proposed a panel […]

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[The Oscars have] got nothing to do with standards of good moviemaking. And I mean nothing, as in what’s left when you take zero from zero, multiply it to infinity and divide it the number of times Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman or Akira Kurosawa won for Best Director. (Which was zip, by the […]

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I’ve never been to the Sundance Film Festival, and have no burning desire to hang out with the stars in a ski resort in Utah, but I have been trying to follow a bit of what’s going on. Here are a few films that I’m hearing good things about and which, with any luck, will […]

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The nominations were announced for the Oscars yesterday. I’ve been seeing fewer feature films lately, but I do manage to catch more documentaries. Of the five nominees, I’ve only seen two so far, but I plan to try to see all of them if I can before the Academy Awards are handed out on February […]

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