ALSO OPENING
SHADOWS OF PARADISE
The Beatles might have been the most famous followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement, but with the Yogi’s death in 2008, a new generation of followers and practitioners has moved to the fore. In the documentary Shadows of Paradise, filmmaker and TM devotee Sebastian Lange focuses on two such figures — director David Lynch, and Bob Roth, chief executive of the David Lynch Foundation, which was founded in 2005 to fund the teaching of TM in schools. The film moves between Manhattan and India highlighting the very different worlds where the Yogi’s teachings have taken root. Shadows of Paradise opens Feb. 24 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers cinema in Toronto.
DYING LAUGHING
A veritable who’s ha of standup comedy — Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld, the late Garry Shandling, Billy Connolly, Amy Schumer, Emo Philips (!), Jerry Lewis, etc., etc. — takes on the topic of what makes comedians tick, and indeed what makes standup funny in the first place. In between footage of venues and cheap hotels are oodles of interviews about the creative process, how the comedians got started, life on the road, nerves, bombing, what works (Jamie Foxx says he does his blackest comedy in front of the whitest audiences as a test) and how weird it is. Says Bronx- born Paul Provenza: “We’re asking a roomful of hundreds of people to have an i nvoluntary response s i multaneously.” Dying Laughing opens Feb. 24 at the Carlton cinema in Toronto, and on demand.
FABRICATED CITY
Korean director KwangHyun Park delivers t wo hours of car chases and explosions galore in the story of gamer/slacker Kwon Yu ( Chang- wook Ji) who tries to return a lost cellphone to its f emale owner, but finds himself framed with her rape and murder i nstead. Kwon Yu survives a spell in a maximum- security prison (wait, did we mention he knows t aekwondo?), breaks out with the help of a sympathetic inmate, then has to clear his name and find the real killer, all with the help of his video- game teammates. Fabricated City i s scheduled to open in select cinemas on Feb. 24, including in Toronto and Vancouver.
SHARKWATER
When the documentary Sharkwater opened in 2007, the National Post gave the film 3.5 out of four stars, saying it had “the now- ornever urgency of something like An Inconvenient Truth” and calling its Torontoborn, 27- year- old director, Rob Stewart, “t he most earnest filmmaker and activist you’ll ever meet.” So it was a blow to both the filmmaking and environmental communities when Stewart died in early February while diving off the coast of Florida and working on a sequel to the film, called Sharkwater: Extinction. To honour his life and work, select Cineplex cinemas will be screening Sharkwater on Feb. 25. Tickets will be free of charge in exchange f or a donation to WWFCanada. More information at Cineplex. com/ movie/ sharkwater- a- t ri bute- t orob- stewart