Film Friday: Darger’s Children, McKellar’s Childstar

By Sarah Lazarovic

Have you ever noticed that no journalist can get through a single article about Don McKellar without using the word nebbish at least once? Robert Fulford had a great column a few weeks ago on descriptive adjectives and the impoverished nouns they flank, and we were duly inspired to never use the pairs ‘checkered career’ or ‘bitter end’ or ‘stunning development’ again. And now we’ll add nebbish to any descriptions of Mr. McKellar or the characters he plays. And while we’re at it, we’ll swear off ‘shlubby Giametti,’ though the shoe most certainly fits, and it has a nice rhythm to it.

But back to the nebbish and his feature film, Childstar, which opens tonight. McKellar plays an indie filmmaker paying the rent by chauffering a childstar round town, and in the process learning that he’s more than just a pint-size revenue generator. McKellar will be at tonight’s 9:45pm Carlton screening to chat up the film and all you nebbishy patrons.
Continuing in a childish vein, Jessica Yu’s doc about the ‘outsider artist*’ Henry Darger begins a run at Egoyan and Amarshi’s Queen West cinema hothouse, Camera. Poor, lonely Darger lived a hermetic life, while secretly slogging away at an unseen until his death illustrated novel that spanned some fifteen thousand pages and pictures. Kind of Marcel Dzama-ey but more earnest, and epic. In the Realm of the Unreal is also narrated by creepy Dakota Fanning, which brings us back, full circle, to childstars.
*Full disclosure: this was TOist’s second use of the term outsider art in as many film friday posts. We do solemnly promise not to use it again.