Super Duper Alice Cooper: the band, the man and the double life

I'd characterize myself as a casual Alice Cooper fan. I was too young to be part of the '70s frenzy which shot the band and its lead singer to stardom, and haven't been wowed by any of the records I've heard over the past 30 years. But I have a strong affection for The Alice Cooper Show, a 1977 live album that includes almost every song from the group that I feel I need to have (outside of "Clones," of course).

My appreciation of Alice Cooper hasn't increased after seeing the new Super Duper Alice Cooper documentary directed by Reginald Harkema, Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn -- who increased my appreciation for Rush with their 2010 film Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage. But knowledge is power and -- even though I interviewed Vincent Furnier (who legally changed his name to Alice Cooper during an era when his ego and lifestyle drove away his longtime bandmates) several years ago -- I now know a lot more about him than I did last week. I consider that a good thing.

The filmmakers cleverly interject the film with black and white clips of 1920's classic (and public domain) horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which parallel the on- and off-stage lives of Furnier/Cooper and how they can tragically intersect.

There's Vince, the son and grandson of preachers with a moral compass who had never even had a beer until he was out of his teens and went to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of rock stardom. And there's Alice, the mascara-wearing, doll-butchering, snakehandling, fake guillotine victim of a frontman for one of the most explosive -- and probably the most controversial -- rock bands of the early and mid-1970s.

It's when Alice takes control of Vince -- plunging him into a life of booze and then cocaine addictions that almost cost him his family and his life -- that things get ugly.

Alice Cooper went from being in a talented but struggling rock band that was run out of L.A. because people didn't know what to make of its bizarre look and sound to becoming one of the biggest rock stars of a generation, putting on the most theatrical performances ever seen in the genre to that point, topping the album sales charts in multiple countries, scoring top 10 singles with "School's Out" and "You and Me," and appearing on a variety of television shows. But the frontman's lifestyle of excess was killing him.

He kicked his alcoholism after being institutionalized, but then got hooked on coke. He eventually battled his way through that, too, and successfully separated his two personas. The film ends (aside from brief text explanations of what the main characters in the film are doing now) with a triumphant return to the stage after a five-year absence at a sold-out Joe Louis Arena in Cooper's hometown of Detroit, Mich. on Hallowe'en 1986.

Whenever Furnier hasn't been on the golf course, Cooper has been writing, recording and performing steadily ever since. It's a triumphant story with a happy ending.

Although it bears the hallmarks of those VH1 Behind The Music shows where artists discuss their highs and lows, the 86-minute Super Duper Alice Cooper was obviously made by talented and caring filmmakers who put the time and effort needed to take the movie to a higher plain. Lots of research obviously went into the film and getting clearances for the wide array of film footage, photographs and songs used in it must have been a painstaking process.

It was worth it. The early musical years, especially, are an area of Alice Cooper's career that a lot of music fans (myself included) don't know much about. The film's insights into this era were the catalyst that hooked me like an eight ball and compelled me to see how things would play out -- even if I pretty much already knew what would happen.

Watch the Super Duper Alice Cooper trailer.

Super Duper Alice Cooper will be screened in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at 9 p.m. on April 28 at the Scotiabank Theatre. The star and its directors will be on hand to answer questions afterward and the event will be simulcast into 46 Cineplex theatres across Canada. Visit www.cineplex.com/events for the other venues.

The film will be shown again during the festival at 9:50 p.m. on April 29 and at 11 a.m. on May 3 at the Bloor Hot Docs Theatre.

Documentary offers a look at the man inside the Big Bird costume

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story opens with Spinney appearing on To Tell The Truth, a popular television show from the 1970s where celebrity panelists had to guess which of three guests is actually who they claim to be. Forty years on, and despite being responsible for one of the most iconic characters on the planet, probably 99 per cent of the population still couldn't tell you who this man is.

I Am Big Bird will change that, as it tells the story of the man who has helped entertain and educate generations of children while portraying Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. Through interviews with Spinney and numerous colleagues, we learn about a man who can be both simple and complex and who's fully deserving of the time in the spotlight that this documentary gives him.

The offspring of a loving, supportive and artistic mother and a distant and sometimes abusive father developed an interest in puppets as a child and that, combined with his feminine-sounding name, made him a target for school bullies. And as Spinney's relationship with his father further deteriorated, he enlisted in the air force and spent four years there before returning to civilian life and his passion for puppetry.

Spinney's big break came at a 1969 puppet festival where he met Muppet creator Jim Henson, who invited him to join his team on the fledgling Sesame Street. He didn't fit in well at first and almost quit the show, but it wasn't long before Big Bird and Oscar started playing bigger roles, which led to a dizzying and event-filled career that Spinney shows no signs of relinquishing even at age 80.

The film follows Spinney around the globe as Big Bird becomes one of the most recognizable characters in the world, but also delves into the personal life of the man in the yellow, feathered costume. There have been a lot of lows counteracting all of the highs he's experienced, including a painful divorce, the passing of several co-workers (including Henson in 1990 at age 53), the murder of a woman on his property and narrowly missing being on the Challenger space shuttle that exploded shortly after takeoff.

But Spinney's deep love for his second wife Debbie, his puppeteering work and the drawing he's done all of his life have kept him grounded and enabled him to press forward and create a happy separate life outside of the surreal Muppet world that has defined him to the public.

Many of us grew up with Sesame Street, and it's a treat to go behind the scenes of the program and meet many of the people responsible for getting it off the ground and pushing it forward for so long. But even if your life wasn't somehow touched by the show, you should be touched by this film.

Here's the trailer for I Am Big Bird. 

I Am Big Bird will be screened in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at: 6 p.m. on April 27 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema (which will feature Spinney speaking to the audience after the film); 11 a.m. on April 28 at Isabel Bader Theatre; 1:30 p.m. on April 30 at TIFF Bell Lightbox; 1:30 p.m. on May 1 at TIFF Bell Lightbox; and 4 p.m. on May 4 at The Revue.

Need more zombies in your life? Check out Doc of the Dead

The 1932 film White Zombie introduced the zombie to popular culture. While going through different waves of popularity since then, fittingly, the phenomenon couldn't remain dead.

Zombies have never been more popular than they are today. The Walking Dead is the most popular show on cable television and there are zombie walks, zombie runs, zombie weddings, zombie obstacle courses, zombie conventions, zombie commercials, zombie video games and more being lapped up like brains by a ravenous public. Hell, an international zombie strategy was even discussed in the Canadian House of Commons last year.

Doc of the Dead, an 82-minute documentary directed by American Alexandre Philippe, examines the rise of the zombie through interviews with the likes of the head of the Zombie Research Society, zombie authors and scholars, scientists, the Toronto zombie walk founder and even a sex therapist. Zombie film and television show actors, actresses, directors and producers -- most notably Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg and genre king George Romero -- also talk about the phenomenon. Some even share their zombie survival strategies and engage in the slow versus fast zombies debate.

There are clips of director Romero's classic films -- Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005) -- as well as discussions of them. But we also see and hear about other zombie and zombie-related movies, including I Walked With A Zombie (1943), Invisible Invaders (1959), my longtime favourite Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), Return of the Living Dead (1985), Re-Animator (1985), Dead Alive (1992), Army of Darkness (1992), 28 Days Later (2002), Resident Evil (2002), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Infected (2009), Contagion (2011) and World War Z (2013).

You don't have to have worn tattered clothes, covered yourself in goop and makeup and shuffled awkwardly down the street (which is something Romero says he can't see the pleasure in), or even visited Haiti (where turning people into zombies is part of the criminal code) to appreciate Doc of the Dead.

Zombies have seeped into pop culture so much that you can't escape them, no matter how slow they may lumber along. So while there's no need to hoard supplies or build a bunker to ward off a zombie apocalypse, there may be a desire to be mildly entertained while learning more about why the phenomenon has become so widespread. Doc of the Dead can provide that.

Watch the Doc of the Dead trailer. 

Doc of the Dead will make its international premiere and be screened in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at: 11:59 p.m. on April 26 at Bloor Hot Docs Theatre; 9:30 p.m. on April 27 at Hart House Theatre; and 9:45 p.m. on May 3 at The Royal Cinema.

The strange and sordid tale of The Iron Sheik is told in documentary

Even if you weren't a wrestling fan in the 1980s, you were almost no doubt aware of Hulk Hogan. But "Hulkamania" probably wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the pivotal role played by Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri.

Before you wear your finger nails down too much from the head scratching that will accompany your puzzlement from that name, Vaziri was -- and somehow still is -- better known as The Iron Sheik. And a new documentary illustrates that this man has a story to tell, and the creators have even provided subtitles in case you have difficulty understanding his sometimes broken English.

Vaziri was born poor in Iran in 1942 and became an amateur wrestling champion and a bodyguard to the Shah before, fearing for his life due to the complicated political and social situations in his homeland, he moved to the United States. He was the Amateur Athletic Union Greco-Roman wrestling champion in 1971 and went on to become an assistant coach for two U.S. Olympic teams later that decade.

Professional wrestling legend Vern Gagne invited Vaziri to turn pro, but he was also forced to train other wrestlers, drive trucks from city to city, referee and set up and tear down the ring in addition to grappling. It wasn't easy, but things started taking an upward turn when he adapted the Iron Sheik persona and became a hated heel -- which wasn't difficult considering the Iran hostage crisis of the era and Vaziri's constant insults of the stars and stripes.

Vaziri defeated Bob Backlund, who had held the World Wrestling Federation title for six years, to capture the championship belt. He lost it a short time later to Hogan. "Hulkamania" was born, pro wrestling became a phenomenon, and stars like Vaziri lived like rock stars.

While Vaziri continued to fight on his own, he increased his villain status by teaming up with "Russian" Nikolai Volkoff under the tutelage of manager "Classy" Freddie Blassie. Waving Iranian and Soviet flags, and Volkoff singing the Soviet national anthem before bouts, raised the heat against them and death threats from overzealous fans weren't unheard of.

Things came crashing down in 1987 when Vaziri and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan were pulled over by New Jersey police, who discovered that they were drinking and high on cocaine, and marijuana and coke was found in the car. But the drugs didn't seem to be the primary concern of WWF president Vince McMahon. He was more upset that the public now knew that these two in-ring enemies were actually friends. The curtain had been removed from the heavily scripted world of pro wrestling.

Vaziri was dropped from the WWF and while he later made a brief comeback with the organization (as Colonel Mustafa) and continued to wrestle wherever he could, his days of Iron Sheik action figures and stardom had passed. The same couldn't be said for his drug and drinking habits.

Vaziri used his "medication" to ease the pain from his many ring injuries and the murder of his oldest daughter, but it also put a huge drain on his finances and relationships with his wife, two remaining daughters and many others.

It's around this point that Toronto twins Page and Jian Magen enter the picture. Their father and Vaziri had been friends in Iran and the boys were big Iron Sheik fans. When they found out how troubled their hero was, they travelled to his home in Atlanta, Ga. to try and help him. It was hard to break through to the stubborn wrestler but, even if they couldn't completely free him from his demons, the two entertainment promoters were able to launch another career for him.

Vaziri became a social media favourite with a variety of YouTube videos and outrageous tweets that have attracted 419,000 Twitter followers. He's become a popular guest on Howard Stern's radio show, makes a variety of personal appearances and even made headlines by appearing at Toronto City Hall to mock Mayor Rob Ford last year.

The next step in re-establishing Vaziri's place in the public's mind is The Sheik, which deserves credit for showing the man's dark side and doesn't just act as a promotional tool even though it was produced by the Magen brothers. A crowd-sourcing campaign raised more than $40,000 for the film, which includes interviews with wrestlers Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Mick Foley, The Road Warriors, Bret Hart, Koko B. Ware, "King Kong" Bundy, The Nasty Boys, Sunny, Bob Orton, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Hogan and Duggan, as well as managers Brother Love and Jimmy Hart and WWF announcer Jim Ross. Actors Jack Black, Mos Def, Seth Green and Ron Jeremy also make appearances.

While familiarity with pro wrestling from the '80s will give you a good background on The Iron Sheik, I don't think it's necessary to enjoy this film about the up and down life of a man who can, in turns, be hated, appreciated and pitied.

Here's the trailer for The Sheik. 

The Sheik will make its world premiere in Toronto and be screened as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at: 9:15 p.m. on April 26 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema; 4:30 p.m. on April 27 at TIFF Bell Lightbox; and 6:30 p.m. on May 3 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.

Love Me goes behind the scenes of international matchmaking services

Love Me opens by asking several men what love is, and it turns out that they think the way to find it is through the mail-order bride business.

This documentary, directed by American Jonathon Narducci, profiles five American men and one Australian from a variety of places and backgrounds who use the international online matchmaking services A Foreign Affair and Elena's Models to find wives from the Ukraine, where there are just 87 men for every 100 women. The major similarity among them is that they've become frustrated and claim they can't find compatible women in their countries. And most of them seem to prefer younger women.

A Foreign Affair has offices around the world and invites men to sign up on its website and then pay to send messages to women in other parts of the world. It also offers "romance tours" to male clients, where they're often outnumbered 10 to one by women at organized social events.

Love Me follows the trials and tribulations, the successes and failures, of these men and the women they fall in love with from a distance and then in person. These guys have spent thousands of dollars to find the woman of their dreams, and it sometimes seems like they're living more in a dream world than the real one.

There are two success stories, where Ukrainian women Vitalina and Inna form a bond with their American suitors and move to the United States and marry them -- hopefully to live happily ever after.

Another man finds the Ukrainians unfriendly and insincere and vows not to use these matchmaking services again. He later says that the experience helped give him a greater appreciation of local women and he ends up involved with one of them.

We're also introduced to A Foreign Affair founder John Adams and former mail-order bride and now Elena's Models owner Elena Petrova. They both seem like decent enough people who believe they're providing valuable and legitimate services that can bring happiness to men and women around the world. But I can't help but feeling that there's an underlying sleaziness to them and their business practices.

The most interesting stories, to me at least, are the relationships that don't go as planned. They show the desperation of the men and portray the women as either manipulative opportunists or confused damsels who maybe aren't sure what they want.

Michael travels from Australia to Kiev to meet Svitlana and her two daughters. He thinks he knows her well from their correspondence and, after seemingly enjoying their time together, he proposes and she accepts. A wedding in Bali is planned, but before that he receives an ominous email from the Ukraine that claims his bride to be is scamming him. The wedding goes ahead anyway, but the marriage isn't consummated and she cuts off communication with him after they return to their respective countries.

Svitlana admits to the camera that she has similar relationships with other men while she decides the best options for herself and her daughters. Michael doesn't give up, however, and returns to Ukraine to find out what's gone wrong. Svitlana says she doesn't love him and that the wedding was a mistake. He asks for his ring back and she walks out the door and out of his life.

Wisconsin farmer Travis falls for a woman just after meeting her in Ukraine, but he has to return to the U.S. and plans to keep the relationship going from a distance. He heads back to Ukraine three months later to ask her to marry him and, while something doesn't seem right, he thinks it will turn out okay. But when men show up to her apartment demanding $4,000 they claim she owes, he gives them the $200 he has with him and heads to the airport without proposing. The romance ends, but her online demands for money don't.

Bobby spent almost $10,000 on sending messages to a beautiful Ukrainian woman and flies there to see her. He's stood up at first and believes he may have been scammed, but meets her a day later. With a translator provided by A Foreign Affair, they talk, but he has doubts that it's the same person he's been communicating with online. But that doesn't stop him from asking her if she wants to move to the U.S. and marry him at that first meeting. Bobby believes that she's agreed and returns home thinking he's engaged.

But responses to the overweight and reclusive Bobby's messages are vague and he gives up hope. She's removed from the A Foreign Affair site because it's unclear if she was legitimate, but he was still out all of that money and went into state of depression and stopped his attempts at online dating before admitting to trying A Foreign Affair one more time. We're shown photos of a beautiful brunette and left with the feeling that he'll be heartbroken again.

Watch the trailer for Love Me. 

Love Me will make its international premiere and be screened in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at: 9:30 p.m. on April 25 at Scotiabank Theatre; 1 p.m. on April 26 at Scotiabank Theatre; and 7 p.m. on May 2 at Fox Theatre.

Unsettling Tales From The Organ Trade

Selling body organs is illegal in most countries, but thousands of people around the world buy and sell the most sought-after organ -- the kidney -- on the black market each year.

Tales From The Organ Trade, directed by Ric Esther Bienstock and narrated by Canadian film director David Cronenberg, had its North American premiere last week at Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. It features people who buy, sell and perform the operations that transfer kidneys from donor to recipient and presents multiple views that shows the moral dilemma involved in this underground practice. After all, 182 people around the globe die from kidney failure in the 82 minutes this documentary plays out -- many of them while on long waiting lists to obtain a legally donated kidney.

Forty-four-year-old Filipino kidney seller Joboy in Manilla lives in a crawl space with no electricity underneath someone else's shack and says the $2,500 he can make for his kidney -- more than he can earn in a year from working as an unskilled labourer -- will go towards fixing his house for his wife and two sons. Eddieboy, a rival potential donor who says he earns $2.50 per week, is coached by organ broker Diane (who's already sold one of her own kidneys) on what to say when he's questioned by authorities on why he's donating a kidney. He's ultimately chosen by a doctor and recipient since he's half of Joboy's age.

A small town five hours outside of Manilla is a hotbed for black market kidney donors, so much so that they've even formed support a group. Some of them say they weren't paid all they were promised for their kidneys because brokers got some of the money, but all claim to have sold them willingly.

One donor shows signs of kidney disease and his remaining kidney is failing rapidly, however, just like the one he donated to a person he'll never meet probably is. It apparently isn't uncommon for people who've received black market kidneys to receive infections from them.

On the other side of the world, we meet two people in Toronto and one in Denver who desperately need new kidneys to enable them to live a normal life.

Mary Jo Vradis has been living on dialysis via a machine in her bedroom which she needs to use for eight hours every second day while she's been waiting for a kidney transplant for six years. Her mother's been on dialysis for 18 years and it's taken a major physical toll on her, and her brother started dialysis three years ago. There's an increased mortality rate for people on dialysis, so it's heartening when the film's epilogue informs us that Mary Jo eventually received a kidney from a cadaver after waiting for nine years.

Walter Rassbach needs a transplant in the next year or two or will likely die within eight years. He's been on a transplant list for two years and, since his daughter doesn't want to donate her kidney, he seriously considers going the black market route even though he admits that it's unfair to take advantage of people's poverty in this way. But a woman he's never met agrees to donate a kidney to him for free just because she wants to help someone live a better life. Such altruistic donors, we're told, are said to be one in a million.

Raul Fain mortgaged his house and went to Kosovo, where he paid $100,000 for a black market kidney transplant that has given him a new lease on life. He has no qualms about it and, when the filmmakers track down his donor, she says she has no regrets either.

Dr. Yusuf Sonmez, who has performed more than 2,000 black market kidney transplants, was driven out of Turkey and went to Kosovo for his operations. He faces numerous charges, but has returned to Turkey (which won't extradite him to Kosovo) and stopped his surgeries.

Prosecutors are still after him, however, just like they are with Israel's Zaki Shapira, who does his first on-camera interview in this film. The respected surgeon has done more than 3,600 kidney transplants, about 850 of which are considered illegal, and like Sonmez was jailed in Turkey for a few months before being released. He's now retired and claims that performing black market transplants is more moral than standing by and letting people, who could go on to relatively normal lives with donated kidneys, die.

As a person who's been living with one (thankfully healthy, so far) kidney all my life and may eventually need dialysis or a transplant, Tales From The Organ Trade made me think about what I'd do if faced with a similar situation. And at this point, I can't give a definitive answer.

But even if you don't have a vested interest, this film will open your eyes to a subject that's quite likely to have a bearing on someone you know. So even if it's for purely empathetic reasons only, Tales From The Organ Trade is worth seeing.

Good Ol' Freda reveals a nice part of The Beatles legend

Serious Beatles fans know who Brian Epstein was. But unless you were a member of the Fab Four's fan club, or have read extensively about the band, you probably couldn't identify Freda Kelly -- even though she was a member of the group's inner circle for 11 years and long outlasted its first manager.

Kelly quit school at age 16 and joined a typing pool. A short time later she was taken to Liverpool, England's Cavern to see The Beatles, where she became an instant fan and went on to see them there almost 200 times. It wasn't long before she was asked to become the head of the band's fan club, making her the envy of young women worldwide.

But she was content to remain in the background, avoid the spotlight and stay loyal to the the four band members and its manager, Epstein. She didn't succumb to bribe offers from newspapers looking for inside scoops back in the day, didn't cash in by writing a tell-all book after the break-up, and didn't fatten her bank account by selling all of her valuable Beatles memorabilia. She gave most of it to fans in 1974 and now keeps just a few boxes of items near and dear to her in her attic.

Kelly also turned down film offers in the past, but finally took up an offer from director Ryan White. He had an inside track since his uncle was a friend of Kelly's as a member of Beatles contemporaries The Merseybeats, and she wanted to leave something for her grandson to know about the exciting life she led in the 1960s.

The resulting documentary, Good Ol' Freda, had its international premiere last week at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. The film's title comes from George Harrison giving Kelly a shout-out in The Beatles' 1963 Christmas message, and it features interviews with Billy Kinsley from The Merseybeats, members of The Fourmost, Beatles press officer Tony Barrow and Paul McCartney's stepmother Angie, among others.

But it's Kelly's warmth, modesty and honesty that make her the true star of the show -- outshining even Ringo Starr's appearance where he sings her praises during the closing credits.

Kelly isn't one to kiss and tell, as she says. But while she says she never dated any of The Beatles, there's a hint that something might have gone on with at least one of them since she said she had a crush on each one of them at various times. She says that McCartney was the nicest, Lennon was a "man of many moods," Harrison didn't come across as "the quiet Beatle" with her and that original drummer Pete Best was shy and handsome.

But after Starr replaced Best behind the kit, Kelly would visit his mother Elsie once a week and they became good friends. In fact, it was Elsie who persuaded Epstein to give Kelly a raise. Harrison's father taught Kelly how to ballroom dance and she became the link with The Beatles' family members in Liverpool when the band was touring. She says she felt like she was a member of all the families.

But all good things must come to an end and, even though The Beatles had split up a couple of years earlier, she kept her position as the band's secretary at Apple Records until 1972 -- by which time she was married with a son and had a daughter on the way and wasn't having the fun she used to -- when she heeded Harrison's advice and wound The Beatles fan club down. But, ever devoted, she answered fan club letters on her own time for the next three years.

As proof that Kelly never profited much from the Beatles' phenomenal success, she still works as a secretary in a law office -- and remains a dedicated Beatles fan.

Even though several books and films have been made about The Beatles, Good Ol' Freda manages to offer some fresh insights into the band and, perhaps more importantly, introduces viewers to a sweet woman who just might end up with a fan club of her own.

The Last Black Sea Pirates

Swashbuckling ain't what it used to be.

The men who star as the titular characters in The Last Black Sea Pirates will never be confused with Johnny Depp. But if your taste in heartthrobs runs towards slovenly drifters, drunkards and ex-convicts, the 72 minutes you'll spend with this bumbling band of treasure hunters will fly right by.

Leader Captain Jack The Whale, who has lived with several dogs and cats in a decrepit trailer on a secluded Black Sea beach in Bulgaria for 25 years, is quite content to keep his men supplied with booze and smokes as long as they do the grunt work of digging to try and find large stashes of gold allegedly buried in Karadere by rogue 19th century Ottoman naval commander Vulchan. After all, Captain Jack is a leader -- not a labourer.

They've searched for years, but have much more success at catching fish than discovering gold. But what they're best at is being drunk and hapless, and their relationships go through highs and lows as their frustration increases -- especially after it's announced that the area they've been searching is going to be developed into a tourist resort. The pirates vow to fight the development by violent means, though construction is delayed so they can keep using their dynamite to blast for gold while their dubious plans to sabotage villas and cabanas are put on hold.

But this documentary (which the writer and director admit has some scripted scenes) doesn't just focus on the quest for riches. Hard-drinking pirate Ilko is in love with fellow lush Zone, who dreams of being his bride and using their share of the elusive loot to finance a grand wedding. This tragi-comic couple's ups and downs somewhat mirror the fractious friendships among Captain Jack's motley crew members and provide a neat parallel.

I don't want to give away too much, and I learned more than what's in the movie since the director and writer talked to the audience after its North American premiere at the Scotiabank Theatre on Wednesday night. So, while Captain Jack The Whale may lack the charm of Captain Jack Sparrow, his oddly endearing men make The Last Black Sea Pirates a film worth seeking out.

The Last Black Sea Pirates will have its final showing of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at 9 p.m. on May 4 at TIFF Bell Lightbox 1.

Rent A Family Inc. isn't what you might expect

Ryuichi runs a rather unusual company called I Want To Cheer You Up Ltd., but this Japanese man seems like he could use a lot more cheering up than his clients.

Ryuichi stands in to impersonate husbands, brothers and friends for Tokyo citizens who believe they need his services -- or those of the more than 20 people he employs to fill similar roles. His job is unique enough that he's asked to appear on a television show similar to (for those of you old enough to remember) What's My Line?, where he describes his profession while his face is blurred so his cover isn't ruined.

We soon learn, however, that Ryuichi's occupation is even a mystery to his wife and two sons. The wife says she never asks about his work, but finds different uniforms when she does laundry -- a byproduct of him having to take other jobs to make ends meet since I Want To Cheer You Up isn't as lucrative as he'd like and he finds himself in financial trouble.

When Ryuichi isn't away from home, the 44-year-old mostly sleeps on a mattress on the floor in his son's former bedroom -- since the boy now sleeps in a bed with his mother. And when Ryuichi is awake, he blocks out his family to focus on his website to try and build his business. His wife admits there's tension between them because they don't have meaningful conversations.

While Ryuichi claims that his focus is on making other people happy, it's at the expense of his family's happiness. For a man who earns part of his (meagre) living from impersonating husbands, he's doing a poor job of playing a real one.

Ryuichi dotes on his dog while complaining that his wife takes good care of their home, but not of him, and that she has a negative attitude. She concedes that she doesn't know if she'll stay with him after their sons leave for college in seven years.

One moment, Ryuichi shows us travel brochures and talks of his dream of taking his wife and kids on a Hawaiian vacation. The next moment, he confesses that he thinks of killing himself every day.

Ryuichi comes clean near the end of the movie and tells his wife about I Want To Cheer You Up and the financial distress they're facing. She thinks it's strange, which he expected, but says she doesn't care what he does. She just doesn't want to be part of it.

Getting this weight off his shoulders seems to lighten Ryuichi up emotionally and it appears that he's adopted a more positive outlook -- though things remain far from idyllic at home.

I went into Rent A Family Inc. expecting a quirky, relatively lighthearted documentary about an occupation and ways of life unique to Japanese culture (companies like I Want To Cheer You Up are apparently becoming more common). What I came away from was actually a pretty depressing film about a lonely man and a far from happy home.

I would have preferred the movie I anticipated.

Rent A Family Inc. will have its final showing of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at 1 p.m. on May 5 at Scotiabank Theatre.

Romeo Dallaire fights to end use of child soldiers in new documentary

Romeo Dallaire

Canadian general Romeo Dallaire witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 people in 100 days when he was the United Nations force commander in Rwanda in 1994. Something like that stays with you, and he's now embarked on a global mission to eradicate the use of child soldiers -- who played such a big role in that genocide.

Dallaire's return to the war-torn region of Africa is chronicled in a book and new documentary that was shot last spring and is making its Canadian premiere this week: Fight Like Soldiers Die Like Children.

There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers fighting in 30 conflicts around the world, and Dallaire says: "If we can make them cry as a child again, I would think that they'd want to get rid of the weapon and not want to play real life soldier anymore."

Children who are kidnapped and used as soldiers, slaves and bush wives are all too common in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan. And while the Joseph Kony-led Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is the most notable exploiter, there are many other militias using similarly despicable tactics since child soldiers are relatively easy to corral and they offer an upper hand to those who use them.

Dallaire visited several camps and talked to UN representatives, rebel commanders and, most importantly, former child soldiers and bush wives who were taken against their will but lucky enough to eventually escape. Shocking, however, is the estimated 25-per cent recidivism rate since many of these kids often have no better alternative awaiting them in their home villages since they're often mistrusted and viewed as bandits.

Fight Like Soldiers Die Like Children shows what's being done to try and stop kids from being used as tools of war, and features some poignant stories from people who've been on the front lines in one way or another. It also illustrates how some community groups are arming themselves and being trained to defend against rebel attacks, and we're introduced to a father and the two children he rescued from the LRA after they were kidnapped.

Dallaire admits that it will take years to achieve his goal, if it's ever to be attained, but one of the best sequences in the film is when two teens who fought each other in the bush for opposing sides become friends once they get out of it and are taken by helicopter to an ex-combatants' camp in DRC before they're reunited with their families.

Scenes like this leave some room for optimism, as did a conversation I had last year with a lovely young woman named Grace Acan who was kidnapped by the LRA and spent eight years in virtual enslavement as the bush wife a despotic commander before escaping. She's now getting a university education and using her horrifying experiences to try and promote the rights of children.

Dallaire has a fairly high profile through his past experiences and a previous Emmy Award-winning documentary he made with Fight Like Soldiers Die Like Children director Patrick Reed: Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire.

The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative is a global partnership committed to ending the use and recruitment of child soldiers worldwide by researching practical solutions, advocating for policy change and conducting comprehensive, prevention-oriented training. It works with military, police and peacekeeping forces and equips first responders and humanitarian agencies with the necessary tools and training to demobilize child soldiers and protect children at risk of recruitment. It aims to end this crime against humanity community-by-community and country-by-country once and for all.

Hopefully this film can mobilize more support for the initiative and others working toward similar goals.

Fight Like Soldiers Die Like Children will be screened in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at 2 p.m. on April 29 at Hart House and at 5:30 p.m. on May 5 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. It will play more widely in major cities across Canada starting on various dates next month.

You can watch a trailer of the film here.

Terrorism victims get their turn to talk in Wrong Time Wrong Place

While North America's attention has been focused on the Boston Marathon bombings and the subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers who are allegedly responsible for them over the past two weeks, a Dutch documentary titled Wrong Time Wrong Place examines victims of the much more deadly domestic terrorism attacks launched by Anders Breivik in Norway on July 22, 2011.

Breivik, a far right extremist, killed 77 people when he set off a bomb in the centre of Oslo and then went on a shooting spree on the island of Utoya. The 80-minute Wrong Time Wrong Place features interviews with survivors and loved ones of those who weren't so lucky to escape his wrath, and all of their tales are poignant.

Harald, who had recently lost a son to a base-jumping accident, describes what he went through during and after the bomb blast that rocked his office building. It left him almost blind, but he says he would have been beside Breivik's car bomb when it exploded and would have been killed if he'd gone to his office five minutes earlier.

A young, pregnant Ugandan woman named Ritah who now lives at a Dutch refugee camp describes her excitement about visiting a Labour Party youth camp at Utoya and the fun she had there before escaping death by hiding from Breivik in a bathroom stall. She still dreams of the faces of girls killed on the island and questions why she survived while others didn't. She named her son Michael after an angel who she believes helped save her.

The parents of a young woman named Tamta from the country of Georgia blame themselves for letting her go to Norway, and her mother talks of a prophecy which foretold her daughter's death. They talk of how she always refused to take swimming lessons, and believe she might have survived like some others who dove into the water to get away if she only knew how to swim. She was Breivik's final victim before his arrest and was shot twice from behind by the water's edge.

Tamta's friend Natia invited her to Utoya with her, and they saw it as a chance to go abroad and take on a challenge. She questions why she survived and Tamta didn't as she revisits the massacre scene and concludes that it was "by pure chance."

A young Norwegian man named Hakon was waiting for the ferry to Utoya when he saw a van pull up and a man in a police uniform with guns (which turned out to be Breivik in disguise) get out to board the ferry. He admits that he joked about checking his police ID, and says he was only on the island for a few minutes before the shooting began. He invited Ritah and another young woman named Hajon to hide with him in the toilet stall.

Finally, a Norwegian man named Halvor went base-jumping on that fateful day instead of going to work, avoiding the misfortune of his two colleagues who were killed in the bombing.

Ritah speaks accented English, while the other interview subjects communicate in their native tongues, so you have to pay close attention to the subtitles to appreciate the sad and moving tales they tell. While so much attention is deservedly focused on the perpetrators of horrific acts, it's also enlightening to hear from those who were impacted by them and how their lives will be affected until they draw their last breath.

If circumstances and coincidences were just slightly different for most of these people, that last breath would have already been taken.

The soundtrack to Mexico's drug wars

I had a great time travelling throughout southern Mexico for two weeks late last year, but you wouldn't catch me dead in the United States border city of Juarez. And that's because too many people are already turning up dead there.
 
Police in this city of 1.5 million people across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas processed an already high 320 murders in 2007. Then the Mexican government launched a drug war against the cartels and those numbers increased to 1,623 homicides in 2008, 2,754 in 2009 and 3,622 in 2010, compared to just five in El Paso.

The violence involved in these killings -- including torture, disfigurement and beheadings -- makes the law-abiding people of Juarez fearful and the economic health of the already poor city has declined significantly. Narco Cultura looks at the harsh realities of Juarez through the eyes of a crime scene investigator named Richi.

While that in itself would make a compelling documentary, director Shaul Schwarz also profiles Los Angeles singer Edgar Quintero and his band, BuKnas de Culiacan. Quintero sings narco corridos -- songs that glorify the gangsters and their drug-dealing, mass-killing ways -- which have become very popular in the U.S. and several Spanish-speaking countries as well as Mexico.

Much of the music, based on Mexico's accordion-driven norteno mixed with other popular genres, is often catchy and danceable. But the lyrics, often about real people and events, are repulsive. Here's a typical example from BuKnas de Culiacan, which performs with a group member carrying a bazooka, while audience members happily sing along:

"With an AK-47 and a bazooka on my shoulder/Cross my path and I'll chop your head off/We're bloodthirsty, crazy, and we like to kill/We are the best at kidnapping/Our gang always travels in a caravan/With bulletproof vests, ready to execute/I'm number one, code name 'M1'/I'm backed up by El Chapo/My name is Manuel Torres Felix sending greetings from Culiacan."

The top-selling narco singer, El Komander, makes $45,000 per show playing in large venues and is sought for steady bookings across Mexico and the U.S. Mexican action movies based on narco corridos, with singers as their stars, are available in major American chain stores. These guys are, to borrow a cliche, "living like rock stars."

This film deserves kudos for effectively juxtaposing the adulation received by narco singers against the lack of recognition given to investigators who risk their lives daily while trying to solve and stop drug murders. 

But where the movie suffers somewhat is in ignoring how narco singers and musicians have also become victims as well as chroniclers in the wars between the vicious cartels. Dozens have been executed. If you're singing the praises of one gang, that makes you the enemy of another. And these grudges are deadly.

That topic could make an interesting documentary on its own. But Narco Cultura opens eyes in depicting ways of life that, thankfully, are virtually unknown in Canada.

The Manor opens Hot Docs Festival

The Manor seems like a bit of an odd choice to open the 20th edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

Sure, it's Canadian and a world premiere, but I would have expected the curators to come up with something with a bigger impact to commemorate this milestone year. The Manor touches on several societal issues, but it leaves little lasting impression at the end of its 78 minutes.

The film is based around the dysfunctional Cohen family and its business, a Guelph, Ont. strip joint and low-budget, 32-room hotel that in better days was the home of early 20th century beer barons of the Sleeman family. Thirty-something director Shawney Cohen says (though far from boastfully) at the beginning of the film that his father bought him a lap dance for his 13th birthday and he's been on the fence about the place ever since he was a kid -- even though he's worked as a manager there for years.

The father, Roger, is a cigar-smoking, 400-pound Israeli immigrant who realizes his weight his negatively affecting his health. But instead of dieting or trying to exercise, he opts for stomach reduction surgery (shown briefly in graphic detail) which eventually gets him down to a far from svelte 300 pounds.

But it's hard to lose weight when your wife is constantly pushing large trays of food your way, even though Brenda weighs a mere 85 pounds and finally admits that she has an eating disorder toward the end of the film after her frail body can't withstand a fall and she breaks a hip.

Shawney's younger brother Sammy started working at The Manor right out of high school. He seems to enjoy the lifestyle and invites a stripper to move in with him in his parents' basement -- breaking two of his father's rules: you're not supposed to date staff or non-Jews. Sammy breaks up with her, even though she seems to be the most well-adjusted person on the screen, before the film is over.

Two other non-family members also play supporting roles, and they have their own problems.

Bobby is Roger's assistant and has been in and out of prison all his life. He admits to his boss that he's selling drugs and then he's jailed for assaulting his ex-wife. We learn at the end that the charges were dropped and he was released after a year, but he no longer works at The Manor.

Then there's Susan, the hotel manager who also lives there, who's rushed to hospital after what we're told is either a suicide attempt or drug overdose. Roger clears all of her stuff from her room the next day, but she's allowed to move back in a few weeks later after she recovers.

Roger is very anti-drug and converts the hotel to a halfway house for addicts and homeless people called Sue's Inn Support Centre. Meanwhile, he's shown insulting an overweight peeler that he's watching on a security camera at the club.

Business isn't as good as it used to be, which further stresses Roger and -- although the family seems to live comfortably in a large rural home with a gated driveway and backyard pond -- he refuses to pay for Brenda's counselling once she finally admits she needs help.

Brenda attends one session, but doesn't return for more, citing a lack of funds. Roger admits that he's grown apart from his wife because of The Manor, and Sammy says he resents his old man for treating her "like a piece of shit."

While The Manor is still going, Roger shows Shawney his plans to redevelop it into a condominium complex as the movie nears completion.

The film was shot over two years and, while real life seldom ties plot lines together neatly, The Manor leaves the viewer hanging in too many places without a resolution to any of them. That's the documentary's downfall. It leaves you wanting to know more, but not enough to warrant a sequel.

I wish the Cohens, Bobby and Susan well. They need all the support they can get.