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Gary, Author at The Panic Manual

Hot Docs Review: Kifaru (David Hambridge, 2019)

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Gary in Everything, Hot Docs, Reviews | Leave a comment

By 1971, the giant tortoise population on the Galapagos island of Pinta had been so decimated by a combination of poaching and invasive rodents (also brought on by humans), that only a single male tortoise was known to us. 40 years later when he finally died unceremoniously at the age of 101 inside a pen, Lonesome George was still the last known Pinta Island tortoise. And so, one of many millions of evolutionary experiments on our planet, though likely several … →

SXSW Review: Yola, March 13, Radio Day Stage

Posted on March 26, 2019 by Gary in Everything, Reviews, South By Southwest | Leave a comment

Yola (Carter) has a gift with her voice. It is not only the volume and clarity with which she holds your attention. No, your 8th grade English teacher can do that. It’s the deep connection she has with the audience, and the layered delivery that allows her to pack much emotion into melodies that I would in all likelihood completely disregard had they been sent across the radio. Working from her debut album, tracks like the eponymous “Walk Through Fire” … →

SXSW Film Review: Run This Town (Ricky Tollman, 2019)

Posted on March 25, 2019 by Gary in Everything, Reviews | Leave a comment

Run This Town is a re-enactment (or re-imagining) of the “fall from grace” of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. From a journalists’ perspective, it is not quite the Spotlight scoop. Smoking crack is nowhere near as emotionally hard-hitting, socially explosive, nor satanically intricate as the Catholic Church’s cover up. Plus, everyone knows the ending now. So from a filmmaker’s point of view, why was this a good subject? The film didn’t have a solid or novel reply. That lack of … →

SXSW Film Review: Greener Grass (Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe, 2019)

Posted on March 25, 2019 by Gary in Reviews, South By Southwest | Leave a comment

Greener Grass is completely brilliant at what it does. There aren’t many other ways to get this across without spoiling the film. The brainchild (brainchildren?) of directors and actresses Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe has a loose story, but Greener Grass is really an experience brewed from the organic roasted snapshots of suburbia. An absurdist satire on hyper-politeness marinated with envy that so permeates our, and in bold emphasis, white American society. To give you a scenario that stabs at … →