TIFF 1 of 5: Into The Abyss

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Anytime you can start a festival with a Werner Herzog documentary, you should start a festival with a Werner Herzog documentary. So we started our 2011 fest with Into The Abyss (imdb | tiff) on Thursday night, the first real screening of the fest.

The documentary sprung from footage gathered for a short TV series about death row inmates, but one particular story had enough depth for a feature. That story was of two Texas men, one serving a life sentence and the other on death row, as well as their family and the family of their victims. Herzog makes it clear from the beginning that he is against the death penalty but doesn’t spend time on making that case, instead focusing on the damage done to everyone surrounding a murder. The most interesting and compelling interview subject was a former captain of the ‘death squad’ at Huntsville. I won’t say more than that; you need to watch it for yourself. In classic Herzog style an incredible mix of drama, truth, humour and fascinating subjects bubble to the top and create a lasting impression.

Herzog and his editor took to the stage after the film, and talked extensively. I won’t be able to describe how he wrapped up the Q&A perfectly, echoing the final scene of the documentary, but he did. He was funny and insightful and so much more excited than the last time we saw him at the festival — understandably so;  he’d just lost his adoptive mother. It was a classic Herzog moment. And a classic film festival moment too.

8/10

Hey…this is one day in September!

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Current, the US-based documentary channel, recently put out a list called the 50 documentaries to see before you die. Challenge accepted! I suppose i should be noted that I’ve already seen 32 of them, but I look forward to knocking off the other 18. Maybe I’ll put a dent in the list on the flight to Sydney.

Here it is, in order:

  1. Hoop Dreams
  2. The Thin Blue Line
  3. Roger and Me
  4. Waltz with Bashir
  5. Super Size Me
  6. The War Room
  7. The Celluloid Closet
  8. An Inconvenient Truth
  9. Trouble the Water
  10. Grizzly Man
  11. Paris is Burning
  12. Bowling for Columbine
  13. The Fog of War
  14. Dark Days
  15. Crumb
  16. Bus 174
  17. Street Fight
  18. Food, Inc
  19. Touching the Void
  20. Capturing the Friedmans
  21. Exit Through the Gift Shop
  22. Shut Up and Sing
  23. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
  24. Paradise Lost
  25. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
  26. Murderball
  27. Tarnation
  28. Gasland
  29. Man on Wire
  30. Farenheit 9/11
  31. Jesus Camp
  32. Dogtown and Z Boys
  33. Tongues Untied
  34. Brother’s Keeper
  35. Paragraph 175
  36. Taxi to the Dark Side
  37. Inside Job
  38. March of the Penguins
  39. Biggie and Tupac
  40. When We Were Kings
  41. The King of Kong
  42. Catfish
  43. When the Levees Broke
  44. Burma VJ
  45. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
  46. Little Dieter Needs to Fly
  47. One Day in September
  48. The Kid Stays in the Picture
  49. Madonna: Truth or Dare
  50. Spellbound

Last box, shmast shmox

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Just got the TIFF email. Despite being in the last box to be processed, we got 4 first choices and 1 second choice. Incroyable! That means we’re seeing:

[UPDATE: we decided to trade in the Rampart tickets for a Violet & Daisy screening after all. We rated it higher, it shows earlier in the festival and there’s a chance the director will still be around to talk about the film. So, in the end, despite being in the last box processed we got all five of our #1 picks.]

Pretty excited (and relieved!) right now.

The big TIFF narrow-down

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Actually, not so big this year. Still lots among the ~500 movies that I want to see, but not as thick a crop as it seems to have been in past years. Especially when you filter out all the fancy-pants screenings. Anyway, here’s what we narrowed it down to:

Now…to find the time to fill out the booklet and drop them off!

Nearly an island

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Since last year’s camping excursion went so well we decided to take another crack at it this year. So, last weekend Nellie and I booked a campsite way in advance for the relatively bug-free end-of-August.

There was, however, a bit of a snafu with the rental car reservation. And by “snafu” I mean that I completely bollocksed it up and reserved it for the wrong weekend. Trying to book a rental car 12 hours before you need leads to some predictably ridiculous prices, so once again it was Autoshare to the rescue. We knew we’d have a bit of a mileage penalty, but there was a car nearby and available, so we jumped on it. Crisis: narrowly avoided. Hooray for choice!

The drive to the park was much, much shorter than our drive to Algonquin last year. Presqu’ile is only about two hours away, and since we left Saturday (and came back Monday) we were more or less problem-free on the roads. Our campsite was fantastic too…lots of room, good privacy (relatively speaking…it was a very busy campground) and literally steps to the shore of Lake Ontario. Nellie’s early planning had paid off in a great site. We even had a second picnic table where we could do all our storage and prep!

Because we were so close to the lake, we decided to cool down from all the setup by jumping in the lake. You can’t quite tell from that picture, but trust me…the lake was right there. By the time we got back  in, dried off and changed it was time to make dinner. The first night’s meal was pulled pork (from Cumbrae’s) on hot dog buns, along with corn on the cob. It was amazing.

We tried to pair it with a Fielding Riesling, which didn’t really work at all, but whatever — we had beer. We stuffed ourselves silly, drank our wine by the fire and enjoyed the warm evening. The clouds blocked out any view of the stars, but we couldn’t really complain. We crashed hard that night and slept like the dead.

We slept in the next morning, rousing ourselves mainly at the knowledge of what was for breakfast: bacon, eggs, fresh blueberries…and leftover pulled pork. That gave us the energy for one of the short walks in the park — walk, not hike. A little boring, I guess, but that’s the tradeoff for the proximity to Toronto. And our little walk was fairly rewarding in terms of flora and especially fauna — butterflies, snakes, frogs and plenty of birds.

We got back to our campsite just in time to cool down with another dip in the lake before the first rain shower of the day began. We hid in the tent until it passed, came out and had lunch. Shortly after we finished cleaning up the real rain started. It was hard for us to know how hard the rain was since we were under tree canopy and strong fly, and we certainly didn’t know that the storm had spawned tornadoes elsewhere in Ontario. To us it actually sounded kind of nice…Nellie fell asleep in the tent while I read, and a couple of hours later it was all over. Our site was pretty wet, but the view from our tent of the sky over the lake was incredible.

We sat on the beach and had a beer, marveling at how calm the lake had become and at the clear skies we could see emerging on the horizon. We relaxed a while longer, then got to work cooking dinner. Evening #2 was centered around plowman’s lunch and a Southbrook Syrah. We ate, cleaning up and spent the evening sitting by the fire, drinking wine and whisky and staring at stars.

When we went to sleep the lake was as calm as a plane of glass, but around 4:30 something — the wind, I suppose — whipped it into a crazy froth; the crashing waves woke us, and kept us awake for hours. We managed to get back to sleep, but were still pretty groggy when the sun came up. We decided not to stick around much longer, instead having some oatmeal and breaking down the site (even with much of our equipment still wet) and jumping in the car. We made it back to Toronto in no time, had a nice long shower, dropped the car off and spent the afternoon on a patio soaking up what remained of the day’s sun.

Not a bad weekend at all.

"Don't let them tell you it can't be done."

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

We arrived home yesterday to news that Jack Layton, leader of the official opposition, long time head of the NDP and even longer Toronto city councilor, had lost his fight with cancer and passed away. Only today, when I had a few minutes to stop and consider the news, and see the impromptu memorials scrawled across Toronto walls, did I really absorb what had happened. Canada had lost its most charismatic politician, and one of its few true leaders.

There’s no point in getting too deep into his life and legacy; others have done that better than I could hope to. I’ll simply highlight a perfect example of what the man was about: the closing paragraph of the letter Layton wrote just two days before his death, when he knew he was out of time. At a time when selfish or defeated thoughts would have been poisoning the minds of even the best of us, Jack Layton chose to inspire rather than lament.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

We’ll miss you, Jack. I’ll miss you.

Not almost. Home.

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Almost exactly one year ago I wrote what was the latest in a number of blog posts about the West Memphis Three. I’ve been following their case for nine years, ever since I read Mara Leveritt‘s book Devil’s Knot. I’ve watched the documentaries. I’ve followed the blogs. I own the t-shirt. I’ve felt personally, if of course distantly, frustrated by what seemed so obviously like a miscarriage of justice. I would get upset when I thought about it. But it drifted to the back of mind and hung out there like a curiosity, not a crusade. For years.

Then this morning, while sifting through tweets from last night on my phone, I saw this retweet from TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey:

@eug eugene hernandez
More on breaking West Memphis 3 story from Arkansas. Will PARADISE LOST subjects be freed tomorrow?? Incredible story: http://ow.ly/679w2

I started to get excited but had to stop myself. It felt like another false signal, like all the others before it…the new DNA evidence, the witnesses changing their stories, the emerging alternative suspects. But then more and more links showed up in my twitter stream. Then there was a hearing called with all sorts of clues…families in attendance, gag orders issues, the WM3 being moved along with all their possessions, and so on. I spent an hour at work, trying to simultaneously write a document, answer emails and watch the live feed outside the Jonesboro courthouse where the hearings were held. Twitter was exploding with news and speculation, as were the newscasters, so much noise and news and then John Mark Byers outside the courthouse like a mad giant ranting about Terry Hobbs, and then…this.

@wm3org WM3.org
Free!

Incredible. Unbelievable. Unfathomable, if I tried for a minute to imagine what they were feeling.

I watched the press conference where they all tried to process the fact that they were out, and free, and now staring down hundreds of cameras. All they wanted to do was go home and hug their families and sleep for a day and drink a beer and eat a Whopper or something, so the presser didn’t last long. No one cared but the reporters. The people who cared about the story wanted to see them walk out of the building. Most of the details about what had happened were already out anyway. Thousands of people who woke up never having heard of an Alford plea had learned the mechanics of how the deal was struck, and knew the technical admission of guilt wasn’t worth shit. But it was so, so moving to watch, just for those few minutes.

It tore my heart out to see Jessie Miskelley sitting there, looking lost. Maybe he didn’t understand what was happening, or was just having trouble believing it was real. Maybe it was all too overwhelming. Jason Baldwin kept rubbing Miskelley’s head, like a little brother, to say it was okay. And it broke my heart to see that, and wonder whether he’ll ever recover. Then Damien Echols thanked Jason, who didn’t want to take the deal but did anyway so Damien could get off of death row, and they hugged. And everyone lost it. Including me, a little. I don’t know these guys, but I felt anger at their plight, and at that exact second I guess I felt relief and satisfaction and, I think…joy.

And if I felt like that, a guy thousands of miles away, who’s never met them, never been in jail, never even been to Arkansas…if I felt all that, I couldn’t even comprehend what it must have been like for them and for their families.

Joy.

Free. The West Memphis Three. Free.

And I thought the other kind of calculus was bad

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Last Sunday, after a late but enjoyable Saturday evening with friends, Nellie and I were enjoying a nice lazy lie-in, like any other Sunday morning. We didn’t have anywhere to be, so after a few hours we’d probably get up, go find some breakfast, maybe watch a movie, just enjoy the day.

Our plans changed slightly when I was awoken by an excruciating pain in the right side of my back. I’d never felt anything like this…not pulled muscles, not torn ligaments, not a broken wrist. I fell out of the bed, writhing on the floor in pain and generally freaking out because it felt like someone was stabbing me from the inside. Standing up, walking around, sitting down, twisting my back…nothing helped. Nellie, now convinced I didn’t just have a leg cramp or some other silly thing that was unnecessarily interrupting her sleep, was up too, Googling symptoms on her iPhone while I sat, twitching and trying to catch my breath. Nellie guessed kidney stones, and based on the region of the pain I was inclined to agree. Actually, I was inclined to claw that part out of my body, but whatever. A quick call to TeleHealth led us to think we were right, and made it very clear that a hospital visit was required here. I’m not afraid of hospitals, but neither do I enjoy them, so I normally do everything I can to avoid them. However, this was not an avoid-the-hospital scenario. I couldn’t even function.

So, off we walked to the ER at St. Mike’s, which was sure to be a treat on a Sunday morning. Actually, it was quite calm, apart from the kid who’d cooked himself on ecstasy the night before and woulnd’t shut up, and the screaming cursing ranting crazy guy strapped to the bed in the isolation room (who we could still hear), and the wailing meth addict who was admitted right behind us. Just a regular morning at St. Mike’s, I’m guessing, but they treated me as well as they always do. I was quickly on a bed, getting blood drawn and donating some urine, being pumped full of morphine (which didn’t do shit) and Toradol (whoooo!!!!), getting an ultrasound (really never thought I’d have one of those) and finally a CT scan. The doctor’s first guess was confirmed by the tests: yup, kidney stone. Renal calculus. Three of them, to be exact. Small enough, it seemed, to pass without surgery (unlike the dude a couple of beds over, who had one the size of a golf ball!) so they sent us home with prescriptions and best wishes.

We picked up the Percocet and Naproxin along with piles of other stuff at the drug store (never shop whilst high on Toradol), then got McDonald’s for lunch (Toradol: also a bad influence on lunch decisions), then went home to wait the little fuckers out.

That evening, about twelve hours after the Toradol went it, it started to wear off. I took two Percocet without eating anything but half an apple, and promptly puked it all back out. Can’t remember the last time I puked, and certainly not the last time I puked like that. This affliction just kept getting better.

After that I basically settled into two days of pain, nausea and fuzziness. I thought I’d be able to work from home, but I could barely lift myself out of bed when I was drugged and writhed in pain three hours later when they wore off. Seriously, you’d think that two Percocet and a Naproxin every six hours would keep me good and numb, but…nyet. I had just enough energy to drink my own weight in water, emptying and refilling my various containers every half hour or so.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when I was on a ‘sleep for an hour, then pee’ cycle, I felt something…I don’t know, like a bump, in my groin. I looked down, saw a bunch of blood and what appeared to be wine sediment in the toilet, and figured the worst had passed. I did a little silent cheer, went back to the couch, and slept a few more hours. Telling Nellie the next morning felt like the times as a kid when I told my parents I won a tournament or an award at school. SO. PROUD. But mainly, I was just happy that my bladder-y region had stopped the constant spasming. That was weird. On Tuesday Michael (one of our cats) actually attacked my groin under a blanket because it wouldn’t stop twitching.

I spent the rest of Wednesday unfuzzing from the (no longer necessary) painkillers and by Thursday was back to work. Still with some fever and tenderness, but more or less back to normal. As I write this I nearly have my appetite back, I feel very little soreness and it actually seems like a vaguely fuzzy memory…like it happened years ago, or to someone else.

And that is why drugs freak me the hell out. That, and the wailing lady on the floor of the St. Michael’s emergency room.