Tyler Measom's documentary "Takin' Care Of Business" has a gala premiere at Roy Thomson Hall on September 12 as part of TIFF.
Writes Randy's son Tal Bachman...
"Growing up, my siblings and I heard my dad talk every day about his long lost magic Gretsch guitar.
"That orange 1957 6120 was the guitar he'd saved up for as a kid. It was his best, and oldest, musical friend, and a guitar which seemed to write hit songs on its own. It also turned out to be a good luck charm.
"After all, with it, Dad had risen from smalltown obscurity to conquer the world not just once, but twice, with both the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. But since its theft from a hotel room in early 1977, everything started to go wrong - not just professionally, but personally, too. More than anything else in the world, Dad needed that magic guitar back.
"And yet, every effort to find it failed - not just for years, but for decades. Almost five decades, in fact.
"And then, one day in late 2021, I got one of the most shocking emails of my life. An amateur internet sleuth wrote me, claiming he had a lead on the whereabouts of Dad’s long lost magic guitar. It was just a clue, but it was enough to start a cascade of recovery attempts complicated by Covid travel restrictions, mystery surrounding the owner, and Dad’s recent cancer diagnosis.
"We began filming every step of this story nearly from the beginning, and pulled in a team to help us turn the story into a documentary. We are now pleased to announce that this documentary, “Takin’ Care of Business”, will be shown this year at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival.
"A big thank you to the documentary team, Dad, my wife Koko, and TIFF for making this all happen!"
For more information about screenings of Takin' Care Of Business at TIFF check the festival site right here.
Watch the CBC's The National news story about Randy's lost Gretsch below.
After piecing together footage gathered in Nova Scotia over the past 10 years with relevant bits of text. filmmaker Jem Cohen is unveiling his latest project We Have An Anchor at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West) on Tuesday and Wednesday (December 4 and 5) at 8 pm.
Being that music has played such an integral role in all of Cohen's visual features, it should come as no great surprise that We Have An Anchor has an exceptional soundtrack – in this case performed live with a stellar cast of Cohen's musician pals including Guy Picciotto (Fugazi); Jim White (Dirty Three); Efrim Menuck and Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra) and T. Griffin (The Quavers). As an added treat, supernatural vocals will be provided by Toronto's own Mary Margaret O'Hara who not coincidentally stars in Cohen's most recent feature film Museum Hours which had it's North American premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.
Advance tickets are $30 for each night available via the Images Festival online store www.imagesfestival.com or at the Lightbox box office (open daily from 10 am to 10 pm), Rotate This and Soundscapes. Any remaining tickets will be sold for $40 on the day of show. Those hoping to grab an iPhone pic for their Facebook page with Jem Cohen or a member of his celebrated cast of musicians can purchase VIP tickets for $50 which provides access to a special meet-and-greet session before the screening. Visit tiff.net for more information.
Among the most hotly anticipated premieres at TIFF 2010 is Casino Jack starring Kevin Spacey as the slick but shady political lobbyist Jack Abramoff at the heart of the Washington influence-peddling scandal during the Bush Administration.
There have been a couple of dry "true crime" documentaries about the whole sordid affair but the reason Casino Jack is stirring controversy prior to its release is that director George Hickenlooper (Mayor of Sunset Strip, Hearts of Darkness) – who's drawn to the stories of colourful personalities dwelling on society's fringes – used a series of exclusive jail house interviews with Abramoff to enhance his film. It should make for a revealing and highly entertaining glimpse into the dirty business of Capitol Hill – even if it was filmed in Hamilton, Ontario.
Casino Jack premieres at Roy Thompson Hall on Thursday (September 16) at 6:30 pm and shows again at the Visa Screening Room (Elgin) on Friday (September 17) at 2:30 pm.
Here's my interview with director George Hickenlooper...
Which aspects of the Jack Abramoff story in particular were most intriguing for you to explore in developing your concept for the film?
I was fascinated with how the politics of democracy had become the politics of greed and no one seemed to notice. The culture in Washington like the rest of the U.S. over the past 30 years had become a culture of consumerism. It's like, "what can I get for myself without having to give anything back?" Lawmakers in Washington, rather than being leaders, were now locusts feeding off the tattered remains of our Republic. This may sound like a liberal position but it's not. I was once a hardcore Regan Republican and even believed in the progressive George W. Bush who was staunchly pro-education and pro-immigration while serving as Governor of Texas.
But something insidious happened to our great country where our leaders adopted a corrosive way of looking at the world through a monetary prism to the point where our whole way of life had become commodified in every sense of the word, from politics to popular culture. We lost our way as a nation. The U.S. had lost its sense of humanity and its soul. I believe Abramoff was one of these lost souls, an idealist who believed in the power of the individual as steward of civilization but his views were warped by the money, power and hubris of capitalism run amok.
What exactly was your goal in making a film about the Abramoff scandal?
As with any of my film projects, the goal is to make an entertaining movie, something that has laughs yet at the same time, says something about who we are as people and where we're going. As a filmmaker, I'm not a great believer in having a mission beyond entertainment. I think movies become heavy handed or ostentatious if you step beyond those initial intentions.
Having Kevin Spacey play the lead role is an inspired bit of casting. Did it take some coaxing to get him on board?
We were lucky with Kevin. We sent him the script and two weeks later he invited me to lunch in London and he signed on immediately. He loved the role and the challenge of humanizing someone who had been vilified and demonized by the media like no other Washington political figure since Richard Nixon. I think we were both attracted to the idea of creating an empathetic anti-hero which is rare in contemporary cinema. It was delicious to venture into that shade of character.
What did he bring to the film?
Kevin is one of the great actors in the history of the American cinema. I would place him up there with Brando, Newman, Tracy and Fonda. He brought life to Abramoff's character like I could never have imagined. I think we both benefited from visiting Jack in prison. When Kevin sat with him, I could see Kevin soaking up everything about Abramoff like a sponge.
Over the course of your series of jail house interviews with Abramoff, did you find him eager to set the record straight about certain events? What did you discover that had a direct impact on the film? My guess is that Abramoff was willing to meet with us because he felt there was an opportunity to be heard and he was. Many of his stories from those jailhouse interviews wound up being played out on the screen. What I got most out of meeting Abramoff was a sense that he was thrown under the bus by his own party. I think that President Bush and the Republican-held Congress and Senate were eager to see Jack go away because it would create the illusion that "the problem" had been dealt with. In reality, the problem is worse than ever.
How did your perception of Abramoff change after spending time with him?
I was surprised by how very charming and funny he is – I mean stand-up comedian funny. He has the kind of sense of humour that could get him his own TV show or a guest spot on Saturday Night Live. Of course, I shouldn't be too shocked by his charm. It makes sense why he was such an outrageously successful lobbyist. There's a certain warmth and delight you feel when you meet Jack. I suspect much of this is calculated but I have to admit that I really enjoyed his company. Ultimately what I gleaned from those interviews with Jack gave our picture a heart and soul in addition to a strong point of view. Not to undercut Norman Snider's magnificent contribution as a screenwriter but there's no substitute for having access to the real deal.
Abramoff, who has had some dealings with Hollywood, apparently fancies himself a bit of a film buff. What sort of discussions about cinema did you get into?
The first film discussion we had concerned my script about his life and why he felt I shouldn't make it into a movie. Jack went into lobbying mode and tried hard to convince me that his story was not that interesting. He went on about how it would just bore audiences and how no one wants to see movies about politics. He tried to convince me to do an action film instead. I assured him that there was plenty of action in his story which brought a laugh out of him.
Did he have any specific advice to offer about making Casino Jack?
His advice came in the form of the wonderfully colourful stories he told, most notably how he didn't want to plead the fifth during the McCain-led Senate hearing. He said he fantasized about telling all the senators present who were about to hang him out to dry that they were all hypocrites for taking money from him when they were seeking re-election. During that moment where he sat silently behind the microphone he momentarily had this fantasy of becoming irate like Al Pacino's character in the film And Justice For All. So I literally incorporated that dream into the film and Spacey masterfully brought it to life.
How important was it for you that the script remain true to the historical record with regard to the extent of Abramoff's contact with President George W. Bush and his inner circle? Did you feel free to include previously undisclosed incidents gleaned from the interviews, knowing Abramoff's tales may have been embellished?
First, let me say that my film is not a documentary and neither is it a traditional biopic. If you come to the film looking for either, you will be disappointed.
The narrative is told from Jack's point of view and as such, doesn't try to objectively present the facts. Once I had direct access to Jack, I approached the making of Casino Jack much like I did Hearts Of Darkness. Even though Eleanor Coppola did not make that film, it was still her story and I wanted to tell if from her point of view. So I used her diary notes in addition to contemporary interviews with her to make it feel like a subjective sojourn into the events surrounding the making of Apocalypse Now.
Similarly with Casino Jack, I incorporated stories Jack told me, whether true or not, because I made the decision early on that the film would be from his perspective. So when it came to the Bush White House, even though President Bush's administration was denying ever knowing Abramoff, Jack was telling me that he was over at the Oval Office having lunch with President Bush and Karl Rove all the time. Furthermore, Jack told me his two sons would often hang out with the President to the point where Bush had a running gag with Jack's youngest son. Jack's boy would ask the President why he didn't have a business card of his own which flustered Bush. So the next time they'd see Bush, they'd ask him again about his business card to which the President would respond with a card that was handwritten.
What was it about Hamilton, Ontario of all places that made it a suitable location as a surrogate Washington, D.C. for the shoot?
To be honest, it was the half million dollars worth of financial incentive that made Hamilton such an attractive location. We had a tight budget and we were looking for money wherever we could get it. So it wasn't so much that we chose Hamilton as Hamilton chose us. McMaster University had a lot of nice architecture and served well for the bible study group in addition to the closing sequence in prison which was actually the McMaster science lab. It all seemed to work, thanks in no small part to the magic of CGI and the good folks at Invisible, an outstanding Toronto-based computer graphics company.
Did you gain a new appreciation for Tim Horton's while on location in the Steel City? What I discovered about Hamilton is that there's only one goddamn Starbucks which made my getting a hot latte every day quite a challenge. Considering that Hamilton is Tim Horton's home base, somehow I don't think it's a coincidence that there's only one Starbucks in the city. Do you?
[Note: There are actually two Starbucks locations in Hamilton but the other one is way out on Upper James on the Mountain]
What affect, if any, did Alex Gibney's documentary Casino Jack and The United States Of Money have on your project?
None at all. I've only seen part of Gibney's doc. I just didn't find it that compelling. It lacked an interview with Abramoff so in a way, the film had no heart and soul. It seemed like a lot of facts made to look slick and stylized what I like to call Pottery Barn Cinema. I was a much bigger fan of Bill Moyer's Capitol Crimes PBS documentary about Abramoff.
There's some confusion about the title "Casino Jack." Who came up with it first and who has the legal rights to use it?
Abramoff's commonly known nickname in Washington was "Casino Jack." The fact that Gibney is trying to claim proprietorship of the name seems silly to me, particularly since we announced Casino Jack as being the title of our film first. When Alex started whining about both films using Casino Jack, I just found it amusing. He was jumping up and down and he even sent us a legal letter. It just seemed a bit presumptuous of him to claim that he owned "Casino Jack." Anyway, his film is a doc and mine is a narrative so it's apples and oranges, right?
What's so good about The Toronto International Film Festival?
There's no doubt in my mind that TIFF is now the most important and most relevant film festival in the world. It's not only the launch pad for the Academy Awards but even more significantly, it introduces the most important films of the English-speaking cinema. Many of the other major festivals, particularly Sundance and Cannes have lost a bit of their currency. TIFF remains consistent and I think it's because Canadians have impeccable taste. I know, I've lived here.
What do you enjoy most about Toronto?
I'm actually toying with the idea of taking up residence in Toronto. I've shot numerous times in Toronto, I've lived here for over a year now. I find the culture more livable, literate and more interesting than what's happening in most of the U.S. Sure I love New York and Los Angeles as much as anyone but Toronto has a European sensibility about it which better suits my tastes. Maybe the Dutch blood in me runs strong, I don't know, but I just love Toronto. And the film people are incredible. Gary Howsam is one of the finest producers I've ever worked with.
Since you've probably already started work on your follow-up film, what can we expect next?
Well, I've got a project with Pierce Brosnan, a wonderfully rich romantic drama called How To Make Love Like An Englishman that I'm really excited about. Then I've got another project with Dean Zanuck which we're hoping to start shooting in Italy next year and there's also a script I'm developing that's set in Spain so I'm definitely feeling that European vibe stronger than ever.
Until recently, culturally sussed Vancouver couple Terry Miles and Kelly Haigh were probably best known as the brains and beauty behind the unjustly overlooked dream pop threat Ashley Park. That is, before Haigh's knack for blurring the line between cute and creepy in her nightmarish portraits of big-eyed children and their cuddly blood-splattered animal pals was noted by her music scene contemporaries Carolyn Mark, Geoff Berner and Skip Heller who turned her paintings into album sleeve art.
Meanwhile, Miles' lifelong interest in cinema was becoming much more than a recreational pursuit. Making movies might seem like an an odd change in career path for anyone unaware that Ashley Park was the incidental byproduct of Miles' scheme to make a short film documentary with friends about childhood dreams and pastimes. In no time flat, the accomplished indie films that our budding auteur was busily shooting from his own deviously twisted scripts, namely 2008's When Life Was Good and 2009's The Red Rooster, were raising Miles' movie biz profile on the festival circuit and beyond.
His latest achievement as writer, director, cinematographer and producer is the decidedly dark tragicomedy A Night For Dying Tigers – thinkReturn Of the Secaucus Seven meets The Celebration – which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival [at AMC 3 on Friday (Sept 10) at 8:45 pm: at AMC 2 on Saturday (Sept 11) at 11:45 am; at AMC 6 on Friday (Sept 17) at 3:30 pm] and looks to be the darkhorse domestic delight in this year's Contemporary World Cinema slate. There's nothing like a little TIFF buzz to make a struggling filmmaker sigh with relief that he's no longer a scuffling musician.
"I’d always loved music, literature, and film," explains Miles, "but I figured if it didn’t look like one of my bands would ever become as popular as Pavement or Yo La Tengo, I would eventually stop touring and write a novel. Ashley Park was on tour in the UK when we hit Cambridge and Oxford and seeing those old institutions made me question everything.
"The lure of 'letters' along with my increasing distaste for dingy basement dives – particularly the smell of those bars during soundcheck in addition to the late night tear down and load up – led me to University. I knew I would always love music, but I needed a change. I didn’t want to be in my 40s still loading gear into a van at three in the morning. Concurrent to this, I was making music videos and writing screenplays. I entered the worlds of university and filmmaking at the same time."
Considering that the Ashley Park's final bow, Nobody Broke Your Heart (Darling Music), was released in 2006, Miles has made the difficult leap from "former musician" to "promising director" in remarkably quick and surefooted fashion. That he managed to secure Jennifer Beals as the female lead opposite Gil Bellows (whose brake-out role in Shawshank Redemption helped many forget he was also Billy Thomas on Ally McBeal) for his small budget psycho-drama says a lot about his growing reputation as a gifted storyteller.
"I wanted to write a film for grownups, and I think that's something actors would appreciate. I read A LOT of screenplays, and, quite frankly, most of them are terrible – I mean really and truly awful. After more than a decade of constant writing, I’ve developed an ability to write a good script. Of course, a solid script does not a movie make. It’s just the invitation to the party, not the party itself. I can print up a great looking invitation, but turning that into a decent film involves a great deal of hard work, timing, and luck.
"To me, the film seemed like a good fit for Jennifer. Knowing her work in The Anniversary Party, Roger Dodger and The Last Days of Disco, I had a feeling she would respond to this material. So our casting director sent the script to Jennifer's manager. She read it, loved it, and forwarded it to Jennifer. She loved it and that was that. I’ve always believed if I can get the right actor to read a script, they’ll do it. Getting past the agents and managers is usually the hard bit."
Just having completed the final sound mix for A Night For Dying Tigers, the Moosjaw-born Miles sounds genuinely thrilled to be returning to Toronto for TIFF and drinking in all that comes with it.
"It’s mecca for Canadian film. TIFF is recognized internationally as a leader in presenting quality films. Also, it’s a lot of fun, and the programmers are really great folks to hang out with and talk film."
A Night For Dying Tigers trailer
Of course, while Miles is hanging out in Toronto, Haigh isn't sitting at home in Vancouver with her sidekick Frances (The Singing Dog) dreaming of pancakes. Well, not all day at least. She's already planning the follow-up to her stunning new Country Western Star (Darling Music) album – a thriller-chiller of a solo debut.
From her sweetly sung backing vocals and unobtrusive keyboard parts that coloured Ashley Park's recordings, it's doubtful anyone might've suspected Haigh might be harbouring a cosmic country musical marvel she could knock out on her own Emitt Rhodes-style but that's precisely what she did with Country Western Star. Not unlike the way her partner Miles maintains control of his movie projects, Haigh composed and arranged the songs, played all the instruments, recorded and mixed the whole shebang at home and then painted the suitably disturbing cover art for the lovely gatefold CD package she designed. It would be a remarkable feat for an accomplished veteran to pull off but this kinda grand slam home run for Haigh's first at bat is truly exceptional.
"When Terry had lost his passion for making music and decided to make films instead," says Haigh, "I still wanted to record. I'd been thinking about doing an album for the past few years, but didn't know it was something I could just do on my own.
"I have these animal spirit guide cards, and one day I pulled the antelope. The antelope's message was 'Do it now. Don't wait any longer. Take courage and leap! Your sense of timing is perfect. The time is now, the power is in you!" I thought, 'Holy shit, antelope – you're right!' Twenty minutes later I went out and bought myself a new Mac laptop with garageband software and got right to work."
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Haigh's recording is the song writing process. Not unlike the "sky songs" which Bukka White described as coming to him from above, Haigh says many of the twangy tunes that tell the story of Country Western Star simply turned up fully-formed in her dreams.
"Country music is the happiest music for me," she explains. "It takes me back to being a kid, laying on a vast sea of cream shag carpet on a Sunday morning, listening to the voices of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner in the morning while mom was making pancakes.
"I've always loved those country & western star ladies like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. They were never embarrassed by heartache, or too ashamed of their own personal trials to share them in song. I would dream of being just like them, singing at the Grand Ole Opry. Of course, the days of fancy gowns and big hair have passed, and I'm far too shy, so I decided to live the dream of being a country western star at night, in my sleep.
"Suddenly, one by one, these songs started coming to me. I would lay in bed, half asleep, hearing them over and over, almost like they already existed some place. They lived in my head, playing on the magical jukebox in my mind each night until I decided to write them down and record them."
There were a couple of songs written while Haigh was at least partially conscious, including the intriguing Eight Point Suicide. That was the tune, according to Haigh, which got the recording project underway in earnest.
"It was written in waking hours on a drive to Tofino on New Year's Eve during a blizzard. I was sure we'd go off the side of a cliff and die. The experience made me think about a girl wandering into the night to intentionally jump off a cliff. Then I imagined a lone stag, having a similar idea, only coming out into the middle of the road to end it all.
"When we finally made it to the cabin in one piece, I sat down and wrote down all the words and chords. It was the first song I ever wrote in my life. At the time, I didn't know I'd ever record it."
Now that the album is finished and available for sale through her site (see links below), Haigh is focusing on her next recording project for which she has half the material ready to go. Apparently she has no burning desire to turn her Country Western Star dreams into performing reality. Although true to her macabre sense of humour, Haigh confesses that she wouldn't be against a bit of posthumous cult worship.
"I have this silly secret dream where long after I'm dead, someone discovers my album and wonders why no one has ever heard of my music before. Then a cool label reissues it and Country Western Star becomes wildly popular and even gets pressed on vinyl!"
That's right, hoser heroes Terry and Deaner are back to give'r again in Michael Dowse's FUBAR II – the follow up to the cult classic 2002 Canuck mockumentary FUBAR – which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Midnight Madness program. It's scheduled for two TIFF screenings with the opening night launch at Ryerson on Thursday (September 9) at 12 midnight and a second showing at the Varsity 8 on Saturday (September 11) at 12 noon. If you can't score tickets for either, don't sweat it, FUBAR II will be in first-run theatres on October 1.
