[With Beauty Day hitting select Canadian cities today, here is our review of Jay Cheel's entertaining and beautiful Doc on living life and honest art.]
Beauty Day opens with a most decidedly not-beauty moment for Ralph Zavadil (otherwise known as Cap’n Video). As his camera rolls and documents yet another of his solo “stunts” for his cable access show, the jovial Cap’n (looking like David Lee Roth after a week-long bender) launches himself off a high rung on the ladder he’s propped up against his fence. The plan is to plunge right into the middle of his tarp covered pool to demonstrate a new way of opening it for the season. As the 14 year-old videotape footage shows, things go horribly wrong – the ladder yields from Ralph’s push off, he drops short of the pool and lands square on his neck on the concrete breaking 2 of his cervical vertebrae. “Unfortunately, I didn’t think it through all the way” says current day Zavadil – not with any bitterness, sadness or regret in his voice, but with the self-deprecating tone of someone telling a really good story to his buddies. Of course, when you’re wearing what appear to be reindeer antlers with multicoloured headlamps on them, you need to make sure you aren’t taking yourself too seriously.
So why has director Jay Cheel decided to focus his feature length debut on the star of a decade old cable access show from St. Catharines, Ontario who sounds like a bad impersonator mixing French and Newfoundland accents? You can certainly see the initial appeal – Cap’n Video was a staple of the TV diets of teenagers in St. Catharines in the early 90s (a “Jackass” show before “Jackass” existed) and that failed stunt gave him world wide attention (a “Real TV” segment, Japanese TV, talk shows, etc.). However, there’s got to be more than just that, right? You bet there is. As with many of the best documentaries, the people themselves become just as fascinating as the central storyline. By the end of the film, I had not only become somewhat attached to Ralph and his friends and family, but quite disappointed that I couldn’t spend more time with them. They are interesting, funny and show a great spirit towards how they live their lives.
(4/5)
(4.5/5)
I’m neither familiar with the history or enough of Dumas’ work to know if any of the material in Nebbou’s film is historically accurate and a dramatized account of events or whether the entire thing is fictitious but the story starts with Dumas and Maquet heading to the coast for a refresher while preparing a new novel. The smart innkeeper has a suite named after the famous author who frequents the establishment and sets him up in the grand room but Dumas, feeling shut-in and requiring fresh air, switches rooms with Maquet. A simple enough switch but you already know where this is going don’t you? Enter Charlotte, a beautiful young woman who has come in search of the author in hopes that she can convince him to help her free her father, a man accused of treason.
Michael (Michael Fuith) comes to Berlin to seek out his ex-girlfriend Gabi. When he arrives at her apartment he sees a large man who appears to be doing some repairs. When he goes to introduce himself he is attacked. After surviving the attack he ends up being locked in Gabi’s apartment. Over the next 50 or so minutes Michael and the other members of the apartment fight for their survival. Everything is now in place for the standard zombie movie but I will strongly say that 
