A FILMMAKER’S VIEW OF EARTH’S DEMISE
Doc gives many reasons why our destructive habits should leave us afraid — very afraid — for the planet’s future
Racing Extinction at Doc Soup: The Earth has already experienced five mass extinction events over the course of its history. According to the many scientists, experts and activists we meet in Racing Extinction, humankind’s wasteful and destructive habits are hastening on the sixth.
A would-be global wake-up call by The Cove director Louie Psihoyos, Racing Extinction launches Doc Soup’s fall/winter season this week in a suitably urgent fashion. Like so many ecologically themed documentaries — such as Naomi Klein’s and Avi Lewis’s This Changes Everything, out Oct. 9 — Psihoyos’ new film contains a huge bounty of reasons for viewers to be very worried. From the acidification of the oceans to methane buildup due to the cattle industry, there’s no lack of pressing threats to the continued survival of every species.
Indeed, we’re wiping out life on this planet at an even swifter clip than the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. Hey, who needs collisions with giant asteroids when we can get the job done all by ourselves?
Quietly weeping while huddled in your luxury Humvee might seem like the only sensible response, especially since — in an irony that Psihoyos notes with much chagrin — even the making of a film like this has an enormous carbon footprint.
But many of the subjects of Racing Extinction emphasize the idea that it’s still possible for us to change course.
Psihoyos does his best to get people inspired with dramatic underwater footage and suspenseful stories of hidden-video sting operations against illegal sellers of endangered sea creatures.
Though his new film may lack a single figure as compelling as The Cove’s Ric O’Barry, Racing Extinction remains an effective primer on species loss and a manifesto for anyone who’d like their grandchildren to enjoy a world that still has some fish in it.
Racing Extinction plays Hot Docs’ popular monthly series on Wednesday at 6:30 and 9:15 p.m. and Thursday at 6:45 p.m. (Advance tickets are already scarce but rush ones will be available at the door.)
Mission to Lars
A British documentary that aims to be both heartwarming and hardrocking, Mission to Lars depicts an eventful quest by Tom Spicer, a young man with a rare form of autism and a fierce devotion to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. In 2009, Tom’s brother and sister took him on a road trip across the U.S. in the hopes of uniting Tom with his idol backstage at a Metallica concert. Drum solos and pyrotechnical explosions add some panache to this touching story about the challenges of learning disabilities and the value of family bonds, which opens Friday for a Toronto run at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas.
Eatable Films
Moviegoers need not go hungry at a new film festival this week. Eatable Films combines food-themed movies with culinary accompaniments by prominent Toronto chefs. Grant Van Gameren of Bar Isabel and Bar Raval works his mojo at the Canadian premiere of Sherry and the Mystery of Palo Cortado, which plays the Royal on Sunday at 3 and 6:30 p.m. The $50 tickets get you a sherry cocktail and pintxos with the screening; the $200 package comes with a special five-course meal at Bar Isabel as well. Then chef Brandon Olsen presents his spin on “the perfect bite” for the Royal’s presentation of the Dutch doc Sergio Herman, F---ing Perfect on Monday at 7 p.m. Then on Tuesday at 7 p.m., Eatable Films moves its feast to the Great Hall, where the Japanese sex-and-noodles favourite Tampopo is paired with an izakaya-inspired dinner by Leemo Han of Oddseoul and Hanmoto.
On at the Lightbox
Already on screen at the Lightbox in the new doc Listen to Me Marlon, Marlon Brando can also be seen in several classic (and one not-so-classic) movies that inaugurate TIFF Cinematheque’s fall slate this week. A Streetcar Named Desire (Saturday at 1 p.m.), On the Waterfront (Sunday at 1 p.m.) and Last Tango in Paris (Oct. 8 at 9 p.m.) all get rare big-screen showings, as does Island of Dr. Moreau ( Tuesday at 8:45 p.m.), the mesmerizingly terrible 1996 flop starring Marlon and his mumu.
In the latest of TIFF’s slate of 40th anniversary events, the Lightbox also begins a season-long series of free screenings of favourite TIFF films as selected by patrons like you. François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows plays Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
In brief:
A Q&A with screenwriter Elan Mastai follows a showing of The F
Word at Innis Town Hall’s Free Friday Films series on Friday at 7 p.m.
The American indie comedy Addicted to Fresno and the Australian thriller Partisan both open for runs at the Carlton on Friday.
Director John Paizs introduces a free screening of his 1985 cult fave Crime Wave in the season opener for TIFF’s Canadian Open Vault at the Lightbox on Sunday at 3:45 p.m.
Newly remastered and expanded, The Iron Giant plays select Cineplex theatres on Sunday at 12:55 p.m.
The Goethe-Institut continues its retrospective on Wim Wenders with two more fine docs by the director of Pina: Tokyo-Ga and Notebook on Cities and Clothes play the Lightbox on Tuesday. jandersonesque@gmail.com