Sicko is Michael Moore’s most mature work to date and almost certainly his best film. As Hillary Clinton found out the hard way, health care isn’t a particularly sexy topic, but with his usual populist’s touch, Moore has crafted a film that’s intellectually and emotionally gripping from start to finish. Without oversimplifying the complex issues [...]
Slings & Arrows
After Twitch City, another outstanding TV show from Canada. Set at a provincial theater, Slings & Arrows is populated with all the stock types: the borderline-mad artistic director, the sell-out manager, the nosy American board member eager to put on Mamma Mia!, the aging diva, the budding ingénue (Rachel McAdams). Don McKellar makes an appearance [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/06/12/slings-arrows/
Kissed
Forget Six Feet Under: Molly Parker plays a necrophiliac embalmer in Lynne Stopkewich’s 1996 debut. She begins her career as a peculiar little girl who likes to bury birds and roadkill, and grows into a woman who likes her men cold. When Matt (Peter Outerbridge) falls hopelessly in love with her, the story is taken [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/06/01/kissed/
Twitch City
Most people seem to know Molly Parker from Deadwood, but to us she’ll always be the stripping drummer in that movie Paul Auster disowned. In this late nineties TV series set in a dinky Toronto apartment, she’s the hapless girlfriend of Curtis, a cereal-munching talk show addict shut-in played by Don McKellar, who also co-wrote [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/04/13/twitch-city/
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man
Not as good as they’d have you believe. The interview bits with Cohen are terrific, but I could have stood to hear him sing some more songs. Instead, half the movie is taken up by a tribute concert with Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Antony, the McGarrigle sisters, Beth Orton, Rufus Wainwright etc etc. Some of [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/03/25/leonard-cohen-im-your-man/
Away From Her
Sarah Polley’s first feature, an adaptation of an Alice Munro short story about a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s, is getting a lot of praise on the festival circuit, and she was appropriately celebrated at the premiere for MoMA’s Canadian Front program last night. Julie Christie plays a woman in her sixties who finds herself putting [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/03/15/away-from-her/







