Childstar
Don McKellar, who cowrote, directed, and stars in this movie, is one of those people who probably has more than his fair allotment of talent. Childstar is about, as you might imagine, a child star. The movie isn't for kids, though. It's a biting look at the movie industry – exaggerated, I hope. My incentive for watching this DVD now is that McKellar is going to be answering questions in the First Weekend Club's forum on Friday, October 7, and while I may not have any brilliant questions for him, I'll definitely be seeing what he has to say. Check out http://www.firstweekendclub.ca for more information, and sign up to participate in the online discussion at http://forum.firstweekendclub.ca. (The First Weekend Club encourages Canadians to see Canadian films at the theatre on opening weekend.)
I saw this at a Vancouver International Film Festival screening last night, and will probably write a full review when I've absorbed it a bit more. Written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden), 3 Needles is thought-provoking, intelligent, and funny, but also piles horrible events on top of tragedies, and ended up being a movie I admired more than liked. It tells the intertwined stories of three sets of people on three continents, all affected by AIDS, and stars Chloe Sevigny, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Shawn Ashmore, Olympia Dukakis, and Stockard Channing. I'm seeing The Squid and the Whale tomorrow.
I'm writing this post as another in my long list of procrastination activities. I should be writing my final review for DVD Verdict, on the 1943 film The Moon and Sixpence, but I'm finding it difficult, partly because I hated the movie. (But not in the fun way where I have a lot to say about it - more in the puzzled “but I liked the book, didn't I? Am I just not remembering how bad it was?” way.) And partly because when I finish writing this final review, it will be over. And while you might argue that, yes, that's the idea of quitting something, it's still a little sad.
- William James
