Just Eat It (November 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Food Bank)

Finally, a food-stunt-marathon movie that Morgan Spurlock (SUPERSIZE ME) didn’t think of. And perhaps he should have.

In a headline-grabbing stunt that would be funny if it weren't so sobering, Canadian filmmaking couple Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin determine to live for six months off discards (with perhaps occasional handouts from family and friends). The impetus for this commitment to dumpster-diving and creative mooching comes from hearing that 40 percent of all food in North America goes to waste

The couple's docu-diary shows the progress of this unappetizing experiment, and guess what? (SPOILER ALERT) Far from starving, the couple take home more food than they can possibly consume. Even gourmet and “organic” premium-specialty food, thrown out behind markets by the truckload. Grant gains an unflattering amount of weight.

Stay (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I guess most of the attention to STAY will be focused on the leading actress, Taylor Schilling. This pretty lady is a hot property for the moment thanks to the success of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Which I have never been paid to watch so cannot speak to its virtues.

But I can say that, with the rate of our celebrated actors meeting untimely ends lately (Paul Walker, James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Williams, Richard Kiel, the werewolf guy from Harry Potter), my advice to Ms. Taylor Schilling might roughly be RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! SHOWBIZ KILLS! Get out while you can! Who could say how much longer Lauren Bacall might have lived and what she might have achieved, had not Hollywood drained and degraded her?

Besides, for my part, the cool thing in STAY is seeing steely longtime Canadian actor Michael Ironside, late of villainy in countless cable-TV thrillers and sci-fi potboilers (not to mention being the bad guy in FREE WILLY and a doomed good guy in STARSHIP TROOPERS) finally getting to play a fairly normal-bloke supporting role.

The Art of the Steal (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Canadian filmmakers poured lots of Hollywood-level money and international talent into this enjoyable, if over-plotted and farfetched 2013 caper movie. THE ART OF THE STEAL is at least as good/bad/kitschy as whatever's in the theaters right now, in our collective hangovers from late-summer junk season.

Writer-director Jonathan Sobol's flick has the fate to share a title with a recent documentary about a contested art collection, though it's no lie that art masterworks unethically obtained (and, in a pulp-fiction way, art appreciation) is the fulcrum of Sobol's plot.

The Future Is Now! (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.


Lately I haven't seen very many movies that give me that classic run-out-on-the-street-grab-perfect-strangers-try-to-tell-them-there's-this-movie-they've-gotta-see feeling. Partially because, yes, that's the sort of behavior that gets you shot these days in America. What other behavior gets you shot in America? Going to movies of course. So why should I even double the risk?

But THE FUTURE IS NOW! did captivate me in that way, though I do wonder if anyone else will feel the same. The few reviews I've read of the Canadian production were disdainful, and my own father couldn't get very enthusiastic about it. So there you are, to each his own. Still, for jaded cineastes who thought they'd seen everything, you've rarely seen anything like THE FUTURE IS NOW!

An interview with Eric Desatnik, executive producer of The Whale

[THE WHALE opens in Cleveland on Friday November 4th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre and Chagrin Cinemas.]

By Charles Cassady, Jr.

First know that former Beachwoodite (Beachwoodan?) Eric Desatnik, though he now has his name in the Internet Movie Database - which is just as good as the footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre - does not aspire to be a big-league movie mogul, unleashing one comic-book superhero after another on us. The Yale graduate is, in fact, the public voice of Wild Aid, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that seeks to halt exploitation of animals and endangered species.

Yet Desatnik has a movie credit that most LucasFilm wannabes in film school would envy: Executive Producer on the acclaimed new nature documentary THE WHALE. "We've released theatrically in New York City, LA, Seattle, and DC - and we are opening in Cleveland on November 4, at the Capitol and Chagrin Cinemas," he said. "We were named a Critics Pick by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It's truly a special film. And, oh yeah, I'm also a native of Cleveland, so this opening is very important to me."