SXSW Movie Review: Dear Zachary
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking documentary edited and directed by Kurt Kuenne explores, in often excruciating detail, the death of his best friend, Andrew Bagby, a twenty-eight year old doctor completing his residency in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. On the morning of November 5, 2001, Bagby’s bullet-riddled body was found in a public park. Suspicion almost immediately turned to Bagby’s ex-girlfriend, Dr. Shirley Turner, a Canadian woman who studied with Bagby at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She moved to the United States to be closer to Bagby. As Turner’s arrest seemed imminent, she fled back to St. John’s, a small city in Newfoundland, Canada.
Kuenne initially set out to document his friend’s life through interviews with friends, family members, medical students from Memorial University, and Bagby’s fellow residents at the hospital in Latrobe. As the Bagby case focused on Turner, Kuenne began to follow it with greater interest. Turner’s extradition back to the United States, however, proved more difficult than expected. Delay followed delay. Turner was released on bail (twice). When Turner announced that she was pregnant with Andrew’s child, his parents, Kate and David, decided to leave their lives in California behind and move to Newfoundland.
Once Turner and Bagby’s child, Zachary, was born, David and Kate petitioned the Canadian legal system for custody or visitation rights. Again, they encountered obstacles, both with the legal system and, unsurprisingly, with Turner, who stonewalled the Bagbys whenever and wherever she could. The Bagbys had little recourse except to acquiesce in Turner retaining parental rights and wait for the torturously labyrinthine legal system to send Turner back to the United States so could stand trial for the first-degree murder of their son.
What initially started out as Kuenne’s personal project to gather as much documentary information about his friend grew until it encompassed Turner’s extradition hearings, the Bagbys struggles to obtain custody of Zachary, and ultimately, an indictment of the Canadian legal system. Almost as importantly (or more importantly, depending on your perspective), Dear Zachary grew into a character study or portrait of the Bagbys, a couple near retirement age who lost so much, but still managed to find meaning in their struggles. After the resolution of their son’s case, the Bagbys became advocates for reform. They hoped and continue to hope that their advocacy will help reform bail laws and strengthen child protection laws.
If Dear Zachary has any missteps, they’re minor ones that are easy to overlook. The decision to show crime scene photos of Andrew’s body late in the film (as opposed to early on) comes as a complete shock, but there they serve as both a stark reminder of Turner’s crime and to renew the sense of outrage associated with her crime. Some of Kuenne’s editing decisions also seem ill advised, but again, they’re minor when compared to the rest of the documentary’s strengths. In addition to editing and directing Dear Zachary, Kuenne also served as his own cinematographer and composed the score. Kuenne ultimately succeeds in crafting a deeply personal documentary about Andrew Bagby, the great impact Bagby made on his friends, family, and acquaintances and indicts a legal system that protected an accused murderer at the expense of the survivors.
Find Out When Juno is Coming To A Theater Near You
Want to see the best film of the year? Jason Reitman’s Juno was released in New York City and Los Angeles last week, and will be expanding across the country in the next few weeks. Fox Searchlight has released a listing, and you can now find out where and when you can see Juno on the big screen,.
December 5th (Wed.)
Los Angeles
New York
December 14th (Fri.)
Boston
Chicago
San Francisco
Washington D.C.
Dallas/Ft. Worth
Philadelphia
San Diego
Seattle
Denver
Minneapolis
Phoenix
Portland
Toronto
December 21st (Fri.)
Atlanta
Detroit
Houston
Miami/Ft. Lauderdale
Baltimore
Indianapolis
Kansas City
Sacramento
St. Louis
Austin
Charlotte
Milwaukee
Boca Raton/W. Palm Beach
Hartford/New Haven
Halifax
Montreal
Vancouver
December 25th (Tues.)
Buffalo
Cleveland
Columbus
Fresno
Las Vegas
Orlando
Tampa/St. Petersburg
Louisville
New Orleans
Oklahoma City
Omaha
Providence
Richmond
Rochester
Salt Lake/Boise
San Antonio
Tulsa
Albany
Albuquerque
Cincinnati
Colorado Springs
Madison
Nashville
Raleigh Durham/Chapel Hill
Pittsburgh
Sarasota
Tucson
Ann Arbor
Asheville
Charlottesville
Ft. Myers
Northampton
Portland, ME
Santa Fe
Calgary
Edmonton
Hamilton
Kitchener
London
Ottowa
St. John
Winnipeg
January 4th (Fri.)
Champagn/Decatur/Springfield
El Paso
Harrisburg, PA
Memphis
Norfolk/Newport N.
Spokane
Baton Rouge
Birmingham
Corpus Christi
Dayton
Grand Rapids
Honolulu
Knoxville
Lexington
Reno
Syracuse
Anchorage
Des Moines
Gainesville
Ithaca
Jacksonville
Lansing
Tallahassee
Note: The list of markets on January 4th is expected to grow. Please check back to your favorite movie ticket website for the latest.
Box Office: Potter adds $28.8M on Saturday, Transformers tops $200M
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX continued its box office roll on Saturday grabbing an estimated $28.82M, putting the fifth installment of the Potter franchise past the $100M mark on just its 4th day of release. It will be tough for HP5 to reach $80M for its traditional Fri-Sun 3-day, but my revised 3-day projection is still a magical $76M, giving it a 5-day opening of $137.9M. That’s easily the biggest opening 5 days in the Potter series.
TRANSFORMERS delivered an estimated $14.95M on Saturday, as the Autobots and Decepticons charged past the $200M mark. The Michael Bay-by-way-of-Hasbro action pic is clearly attracting more families, and I’m revising my 3-day from $34M to a better-than-expected $35.5M. RATATOUILLE cooked up another $7.2M and should get to $18M for the 3-day. LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD saw a nice Saturday surge for an estimated $4.62M. Old man John McClane will climb past the $100M mark sometime on Sunday. Finally LICENSE TO WED (Warner Bros) maintains a spot in the top 5 with $2.87M, which will likely translate to a $7M weekend.
Also of note among more limited releases -
The gruesome After Dark release CAPTIVITY is an unmitigated disaster with just $489,000 at just over 1,000 locations and an expected 3-day of $1.3M. It’s still unbeliveable that an Oscar nominated director like Roland Joffe (THE KILLING FIELDS, THE MISSION) was at the helm of this sadistic venture.
YOU KILL ME starring Ben Kingsley and Tea Leoni has met with a lukewarm response to its expansion to 245 locations. The black comedy yielded just $890 per screen on Saturday and an estimated 3-day take of $539,000.
RESCUE DAWN, from director Werner Herzog and produced by NBA All-Star Elton Brand, expanded to 38 locations, and it is showing real box office potency. The Vietnam-era POW film generated $5,300 per location on Saturday, and its 3-day PTA will likely top $12,500.
The top PTA on the arthouse circuit this weekend is Patrice Leconte’s MY BEST FRIEND starring Daniel Auteuil. At just 3 locations, it delivered over $9,000 per on Saturday, and this French film has a shot at a $20,000 PTA for the weekend.
Sundance Winner JOSHUA and Warner Independent’s INTRODUCING THE DWIGHTS were far less successful adding screens. Also, Steve Buscemi’s INTERVIEW opened to lukewarm numbers at 6 locations and the long-shelved SHORTCUT TO HAPPINESS, directed by Alec Baldwin, should have stayed on the Yari Film Group shelves. This dog opened on 22 screens, none in major cities, and it will likely finish with only $25,000-$30,000 in total ticket sales.
I’ve gone online with my Saturday Estimates for the top 38 grossing films followed by my Revised 3-Day Estimates using an approximate Sunday drop. All that and more at FantasyMoguls.
Box Office: Harry Potter adds $26.5M on Friday, $142.6M Estimated 5-day Total
HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (Warner Bros) continued its strong run at the box office on Friday grabbing an estimated $26.5M, bringing its 3-day cume to just shy of $90M. That should put HP5 right at $80M for the traditional Fri thru Sun 3-day weekend, and it will give ORDER OF THE PHOENIX the biggest 5-day opening in the history of the franchise with an estimated $142.6M.
The second weekend of Michael Bay’s mega-hit TRANSFORMERS (Dreamworks/Paramount) is starting off with a solid $10.5M estimate for Friday. Early Saturday, Optimus Prime will fly past $200M domestic, and my studio sources are pointing to a $34M weekend, down just 52% from it’s opening 3-day. Remy and company has added another $5.5M Friday as Pixar’s RATATOUILLE tops the $130M mark. I’m expecting a weekend take of $17.2M for the critically-acclaimed animated film distributed by Disney, down only 41%. LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (Fox) looks to be just under $3M to start the weekend, and, by Monday, the latest John McClane action pic will have banked a $9.65M 3-day and climbed past the $100M threshold. The Warner Bros misfire LICENSE TO WED added just $2.2M on Friday, and it will struggle to only $6.9M on its 2nd weekend.
For Friday and 3-Day Estimates for the top 14 films, you can visit FantasyMoguls.