The Hottest Docs

Last night in Toronto the moon was unusually three dimensional.* This reminded me of what a raging slacker I am. One would think that being unemployed would allow me infinite time to update this blog. One would think. But neveryoumind. Netflix wasn’t going to watch itself. And neither was Hot Docs, the Toronto Documentary film festival which ended May 8th. (Let’s say in this lapse of blogging, I was perfecting my smooth transitions.) Although I didn’t get to see as many Docs as I hoped to, I caught 2 that I loved. So here’s a little summarizing, a few thoughts and some punctuation on them.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
A Concise Summary: Leno leaves The Tonight Show, Conan hosts The Tonight Show, the ratings start to fluctuate, NBC panics, NBC goes cray cray, NBC kicks Conan off The Tonight Show, the world revolts, Conan starts a comedy tour across North America, a dude Conan went to college with documents it.

An Eloquent Summary: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from two seasons of The Larry Sanders show, it’s that talk show hosts are way more interesting when they’re not on talk shows. If there’s one thing I learned from this doc, it’s that Gary Shandling and I were right.

Although this doc didn’t delve as deeply as I thought it might into who Conan is (my misconceptions), it did a damn good job of chronicling his emotional state post-NBC hoopla.

The most interesting bits were Conan pre and post live-show, when his emotions were amplified. Despite the considerable monetary compensation it’s obvious that he was deeply hurt and shaken by the NBC breakup. As the comedy tour continued he seemed more and more wearied by the schmoozing side of show business. We see him graciously shaking hands and taking pictures with fans and V.I.P members, who pay extra money to see him. And a few minutes later, we see him raging about how much he dislikes doing this. And then one show later, we see him obliging fans again. Coco as a contradiction.

I must say though, tired and worn out Conan is fucking hilarious. In one scene Jon Hamm, Jon Hamm’s wife and Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) join Conan backstage and we see Conan going to TOWN on McBrayer, just laying into him, making Alec Baldwin look like Mr. Rogers in comparison. I can't quite describe how amazing this scene was without showing you McBrayer's confused/deadpan face. Also, if you're into watching Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jack White, etc., hang out with Conan, there is a lot of that.

But Conan's assistant, whose name escapes me (shut up. She did leave a memorable impression, the impression just didn’t include a name). For some reason I thought Conan would be flanked at all times by male members of the Harvard astrophysics club who moonlight as editors of The Lampoon in their spare time. How many adjectives can I use? She was the young, sweet, curly haired, spacey but smart and very blunt foil to Conan’s jaded performer.

She was one of the aspects of Conan that cannot be seen between interview segments on TBS. A lot of people my age (erm, let’s say a young 17) grew up with Conan and feel like they know him in some way. I can’t remember who said it or in what (reliable, I know) but I’ve heard people say that Conan is one of the few people who are way funnier in person than they are on-camera. This doc was the difference between seeing a friend at school and seeing that friend at home with their family.

If we’re taking my comparison literally, the sweetest moment during the screening was when Conan was having a writer’s meeting in his house pre-comedy tour. One of his kids ran by him and he grabbed them and hugged them and said something in a Conan-voice, as Conan is wont to do. I’m fairly certain the entire audience felt their ovaries quiver, male and female alike.


The Good Life
A Concise Summary: A Danish 80 something mother and her 50 something daughter live in poverty, after their considerable wealth is lost. This doc chronicles the psychological and emotional effect of moving from extreme excess to extreme want.

An Eloquent Summary: This was hard. It was uncomfortable and hard but in the best way possible. After I watched this, Anita told me that people were comparing it to Grey Gardens, which seems like an accurate likening.

There’s something about watching rich people who become poor that makes me wish against sense and logic that they could be rich again. Like convicts who struggle to function in the real world, Mette (the mother) and Annemette seem too ‘damaged’ by their wealth to negotiate balancing their cheque books, or living within their limited means.

Annemette tells the camera that her old therapist in France told her that having a perfect childhood, like she had, is sometimes a horrible thing for a person. As they live their lives or plan for the future, they can’t conceive of anything better than what has already happened.

That said, director Eva Mulvad does an excellent job of not asking the audience to dislike or like the Beckmans. Rather, she seems most concerned that we understand their predicament. This makes for some uncomfortable but fascinating watching.

Annamette and Mette’s arguments are horrifyingly honest. They are all they havein this world. More importantly, they are the only ones who remember what their former selves were like in their ideal world. That dependency and intimacy seems like too much for any one person to bear for another person. At times it is, but again, Mulvad’s even-handedness balances the raw with the sweet. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s buoyant score helps as well; I don't think I've ever been so enamoured with a documentary soundtrack.

What's truly admirable about The Good Life is the balancing act Mulvad pulls off. It could have been too heavy to swallow, easily a sad-bastard look at two over-privileged, now poverty stricken people. But the portrait it paints is more complex. Like Coco, no one is ever only one thing. Said Captain Obvious.

Until next year Hot Docs, when I will hopefully see more than 2, maybe even 3 documentaries! To dream!

*I am such a raging slacker that a good many days past before I posted this. So in the interest of truthiness, last night the moon was no more remarkably three dimensional than it is on most nights.