Anna Stratton Movies
- 2008
A man struggling to come to terms with a disability takes an unusual journey in this documentary from filmmaker Scott Smith. Ryan Knighton is an author, humorist, magazine editor and poet who was born and raised in Canada, where he lives and teaches today. At the age of eighteen, Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease affecting the eyes, and learned that slowly but surely he would lose his vision as poor night vision and a loss or peripheral sight gradually gave way to a complete failure of his eyes. While Knighton's condition hasn't slowed his progress as a writer or in academia, time forced him to acknowledge that he could only count on his sight for so long. With the passage of time taking on a new significance for him, Knighton decided to make a pilgrimage to Halberstadt, a town in East Germany, where a handful of artists and musicians have been taking part in a musical experiment. Avant-garde composer John Cage wrote a short piece in 1982 called "As Slow As Possible", which he declared was to be played (of course) as slow as possible. The artists in Halberstadt decided to stage a performance of the piece on pipe organ that would last 639 years (the estimated life span of the instrument), and Knighton hopes to witness something unusual before the last of his sight slips away -- one note shifting to another on the Cage organ. As Slow As Possible was an official selection at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 2007
- PG13
- Add Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning to QueueAdd Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning to top of Queue
An emotionally scarred fifty-something female, a high-profile but haunted British novelist, and a heroic dissident-cum-Soviet psychiatric hospital veteran who all formed an unbreakable bond while help prisoner in a World War II concentration camp reunite for the first time in forty years on the peaceful grounds of a renovated pastoral farm in Jefferson Lewis's adaptation of internationally acclaimed author Matt Cohen's popular novel. Paolo Barzman directs the Canadian production. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susan Sarandon, Christopher Plummer, (more)
In Deepa Mehta's poignant and heartbreaking romance, Emilia Fox plays Fay, a generally content, thirtysomething Torontoite suffering in a relationship of quiet desperation with her boyfriend; Bruce Greenwood is Tom Avery, a loser in the ways of romance with three broken-hearted marriages behind him, who hosts a late-night call-in radio program. The two meet and grow deeply smitten with one another, but must ultimately learn to accept one another unconditionally. Life seems just about perfect, until an unforeseen calamity challenges everything Fay has come to rely on as stable and solid. Mehta adapted the novel of the same title by Canadian author Carol Shields. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Greenwood, Emilia Fox, (more)
- 2002
Canadian director Tim Southam directs this story of a young, rich idealist who tries to establish a commune in his hometown with tragic results. Michael Skid (Jonathan Scarfe) returns to his boyhood home in 1973 after a life-changing tour of the Indian subcontinent. Setting up his residence in an old rented farmstead, Michael begins to recruit people into forming a commune -- which is met with equal amounts of acceptance and hostility. Joining him on the farm are Michael's summer love interest, Madonna Brassaurd (Joanne Kelly), and her brother, Silver (Christopher Jacot), both of whom are attracted to the rich young man's charming personality as well as his access to a wealthy lifestyle that was previously inaccessible to them because of their impoverished upbringing. After some embarrassing experiences with some other members of the community, Michael takes in ex-convict Everette Hatch (Peter Outerbridge), who secretly plots to take advantage of Michael in order to get even with Michael's father, a judge who presided over Hatch's last trial. As Hatch sets his plan into action, Michael, Madonna, and Silver unwittingly aid the criminal well past the point of no return, with grave consequences resulting for the entire town. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Outerbridge, Jonathan Scarfe, (more)
Love, jealousy, revenge and forbidden homosexual passion color this alternately campy and dramatic adaptation of a play by Michel Marc Bouchard. Operating at different levels, the story begins in 1952 inside a Quebec prison chapel where hard-core convict Simon Doucet offers confession to Bishop Bilodeau who has come especially to see him. But no sooner does the Bishop enter the confessional than he is locked in by other inmates and forced to watch them enact gay love scenes from the play The Death of San Sebastian. The story moves backwards to 1912 when Bilodeau and Simon were lusty young boys. Their affair falls apart when Simon takes up with Vallier. This angers Bilodeau who does something terrible in retaliation. Meanwhile, back in the present, Simon attempts to force Bilodeau into owning up to his actions. In keeping with the film's gay themes, all roles, male and female, are portrayed by men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brent Carver, Marcel Sabourin, (more)
The surreal and the supernatural join forces in this extremely unusual "AIDS musical." The story features the ghost of the French-Canadian airline steward (played by Normand Fauteux) who, according to And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts' book about the AIDS epidemic, was the origin of one of the largest outbreaks of HIV. Known as "Patient Zero" by the Centers for Disease Control, the handsome and promiscuous steward was basically the "Typhoid Mary" of the AIDS phenomenon. In the story, Patient Zero comes back from limbo as a ghost to see his friends suffering from the syndrome: some dying, the rest protesting at ACT-UP rallies. He realizes that his memory has been vilified as the extremely promiscuous source of all this suffering. However, it is only when he becomes aware of an exhibit being prepared at the Toronto Natural History Museum, one which singles him out yet again as the villain, that he becomes aware that the exhibit's curator is an unusual being in his own right. In fact, the show is being put together the famous nineteenth-century explorer of the upper Nile, Sir Richard Burton (John Robinson), inexplicably still living, working at the museum, and filled with misguided homophobia. Though no one else can see Zero, Burton can, and eventually the two become lovers and the ancient explorer comes to view "Patient Zero" as "the heroic slut who inspired safe sex." Musical numbers include a high-camp underwater ballet production of {&Tell Me The Story of My Life." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Robinson, Dianne Heatherington, (more)
