Richard T. Jameson on Bigger Than Life

This entry is a bit unusual. Richard T. Jameson is a personal hero of mine. He was editor of what, in my opinion, is still the best run of Film Comment (1990-2000). He now writes for outlets like MSN Movies, Parallax View, and the Queen Anne and Magnolia News, which hosts his online movie magaine, Straight Shooting. We correspond occasionally, and he submitted a write-up on Bigger Than Life which I can't post any part of here because it was done as work-for-hire. But I can link to it, and it is worth a read.

Thank you, Richard.

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Somewhere, My First Piece for Nomad Editions Wide Screen

by Tony Dayoub

It's disappointing to conclude that writer-director Sofia Coppola’s latest, Somewhere, causes me to reassess her earlier film, Lost in Translation, in addition to her own potential as an artist. It's not that Somewhere is bad, or even dull. The strong performances by its two leads, Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, along with Harris Savides’s handsome photography of a lustrous West Hollywood give one plenty to admire. But the superficiality of a tale rooted in the privileged director’s navel-gazing overwhelms the tender story of the relationship between a young actor and his daughter.

So begins my latest review. Posting here has been light this past month, but it doesn't mean I haven't been writing. My piece on Somewhere appears in a new digital weekly, Nomad Editions Wide Screen, edited by MSN's chief film critic, Glenn Kenny. I am pleased that Wide Screen allows me to share the company of such highly regarded writers as Simon Abrams, Kurt Loder, Farran Smith Nehme, Vadim Rizov, and others.

Here's the concept behind Nomad Editions (which also offers both a food and a surf weekly, with other titles on the way), as explained by founder Mark Edmiston:

Movie Review: Rabbit Hole

by Tony Dayoub

The loss of a child is one of those traumatic catalysts which, though it makes for good dramatic fodder, is horrific enough to frighten audiences away from any movies dealing with the situation. But in the right, sensitive hands, such as Robert Redford's in Ordinary People and now, John Cameron Mitchell's in Rabbit Hole, it can also trigger insightful performances which encourage a persuasive identification. Transitioning into the mainstream after directing two somewhat outrageous indie ventures (Shortbus, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Mitchell has found the right material to delve into.

Movie Review: Mother and Child

by Tony Dayoub

In contemporary cinema, Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) has created a whole cottage industry around melodramas starring ensemble casts in which seemingly disconnected plotlines ultimately converge to impart some moral lesson. So it is no surprise to see his name attached (as executive producer) to Mother and Child, a drama about motherhood, child abandonment, and adoption written and directed by Rodrigo García. While I'm no fan of Iñárritu's heavyhanded approach to what is already supposed to be a rather high-strung genre, what attracted me to see this film is director García, who I discovered for his sensitive attention to actors when he was writing, directing, and showrunning HBO's wonderful psychodrama In Treatment, a show so unlike any other, I once listed its serialized first season as one of the best films of 2008. Just as in that series, Mother and Child's strongest component is the acting by its uniformly spectacular cast.

FIRST LOOK - Movie Review: Extraordinary Measures (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

It looks like after the typical onslaught of award-worthy films make their debut in December we can expect January to be the start of another cinematic lull in the year. Movies reserved for release in this period tend to be safe bets, and Extraordinary Measures, which launches the new CBS Films division, is just as predictable as you would guess.


Based on Geeta Anand's The Cure, the medical drama is a two-hander that follows John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) as he recruits Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford) in an effort to develop a cure for the rare genetic disorder that afflicts Crowley's children, Pompe disease. There are some interesting plot details in the early part of the film, as Crowley leaves his lucrative job with Bristol-Meyers Squibb to co-found a biotech start-up with the idiosyncratic Stonehill. And Measures is at its most fascinating when it explores how Fraser's Crowley deals with the intricacies of the business compromises necessary to fund a search for the cure.

Fraser (The Mummy) is a surprise. Pretty solid dramatically, he deftly switches gears between concerned parent and pragmatic businessman. The most intriguin section of the film depicts the ins and outs of acquiring funding for Stonehill's research. Gambling that his start-up will survive just long enough to develop something of interest to a larger corporation, Crowley's desperation for a cure soon overcomes him as time starts running out for his children. And Fraser modulates his emotional responses effectively, avoiding any histrionics one would expect from an actor who has never quite displayed such a range in previous performances.

However when director Tom Vaughan takes Measures ouside the realm of medical procedural for too long it gets bogged down in syrupy sentimentality. Keri Russell (Felicity) is completely wasted as wife Aileen Crowley. A scene in the film's first act showing the Crowleys trying to steal a moment for physical intimacy during their kids' nurses' shift-change window displays some promise that the day to day inconveniences of caring for a loved one full time would be explored through the character of Aileen. Instead, the script relegates Russell to being a mere sounding board for Fraser, a cipher who cries on cue whenever the chips are down, and just about the kind of heroine you'd see in any old Lifetime cable movie-of-the-week.

Ford executive produces the feature, a bit of shepherding you typically see when an actor wishes to save a notable character part for himself. But if there is anything distinctive in the stereotypically kooky character of Stonehill—a doctor who, big surprise, loves to ignore others as he focuses on his research while the rock music blasts loudly out of his office—it's exorcised by his one-note performance of crankiness. Perhaps a strange one-scene cameo by Dee Wallace (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial) which hints at a flirtation indicates that some scenes between her and Ford were cut; as does a later scene, when a silhouette of a woman lying next to the (thus far sexually inactive) doctor distracts from the midnight phone call he receives. Ford and Wallace would have made for an interesting couple and a nice way of fleshing him out.

Extraordinary Measures ultimately falls short by residing within the limited scope of the traditional medical melodrama. The film's best moments places Fraser's character in quite the crucible, as he must weigh the practical considerations of marketing a viable treatment against the brutal odds of survival which his children face. It should have jettisoned more of the emotional baggage to explore the procedural aspects of funding medical research, fresh territory for movies of this type.

Extraordinary Measures is scheduled to open on January 22, 2010.

Movie Review: The Road (2009)

by Tony Dayoub



The clocks stopped at 1:17 one morning. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October, but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calender for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. Each night is darker—beyond darkness. The world gets colder week by week as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived. All the crops are long gone. Someday all the trees in the world will have fallen. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and road gangs looking for fuel and food. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food...always food; food and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice—difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant, and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke.

- The Man in The Road

A film that haunts long after it ends, The Road marries disparate genres such as the father-son and post-apocalyptic movies with the road picture. However, it does so a little too gently. The film delineates the grotesqueries that follow the apocalypse a little too artfully, allowing what should be a visceral story to slip into a cerebral one.


Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning novel has the advantage of allowing to connect to the central character's interior life, to feel the horror of an apocalyptic aftermath. Viggo Mortensen does the best that he can to put the viewer in the Man's head space as he faces inevitable death in a world where no one is left to take over the role of parent to a young Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Time and again, the Man and the Boy face situations where they can only trust each other: running into a gang of cannibals; discovering a basement dungeon in an old house, its prisoners maimed to supply their limbs as food to the house's residents; encountering a twitchy thief (Michael K. Williams) who steals their dwindling supplies. With each succeeding event, the Man loses a bit of his humanity, intent on surviving even if it means he gives into savagery. More than any of the grisly sights this film offers, its most frightening aspect is the Man's fear that the Boy will end up alone an defenseless when he dies.

But the boy has only ever known this life. Born in the aftermath of whatever destroyed the world, he is an innocent believer in the stories of justice his father has recounted. And it is his optimism that keeps his father on the path of benevolence. Young Smit-McPhee is as fierce as Mortensen, holding his own with the veteran actor in scenes where the Boy defends humanity's virtues just as his father's cynicism starts to prevail over his innate decency.

Unfortunately, the drawback is director John Hillcoat's detached perspective on the story. Hillcoat (The Proposition) endows the film with the appropriate bleakness called for. But the wide-angle point of view taken—no doubt to preserve the metaphorical and mythical stature of the tale—always keeps the viewer at a safe distance. The result is that one is never allowed to fully identify with the Man's moral dilemma and how it impacts his approach to the survival of his son.

Ironically, The Road's strongest moments are the ones that deviate in the book, flashbacks where the viewer learns what became of the Man's wife (Charlize Theron). In one memorable scene, a pregnant Theron conveys the horror of their post-apocalyptic existence when she begins to go into labor. She realizes this is no world to bring her son into, and one can actually see the moment in which her character's last spark of hope is completely extinguished. Theron's defeated Wife is a presence that hangs over the film long after her last scene, a constant reminder of the humanity and optimism that the Man has lost.

If the reader senses conflicted feelings from this writer, he or she is correct. The Road touched the father in this writer, spurring thoughts of its inherent metaphorical message. This father has thought of how his sons' lives might change every time he gets on a flight and frets about the chances it might not land safely. But The Road never transcends its "what if?" quality, never gets the viewer involved enough to feel the true terror of living in a dying world, and how it would fuel any parent's apprehension about abandoning their children to a dark fate.

Movie Review: Everybody's Fine (2009)

by Tony Dayoub



Robert De Niro is back. One could be forgiven for thinking his new film, Everybody's Fine, would be your standard issue Oscar-bait weeper from those Academy marketing mavens over at Miramax. And in many ways, the film is just that. But director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) surrounds Mr. De Niro with an interesting cast of younger actors: Drew Barrymore (Whip It), Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), and Sam Rockwell (Moon). The three (who usually headline their own movies) bring their A-game to what must have been a tempting proposition—the chance to work with a legend like De Niro. Except recently, De Niro has been trading on his reputation to star in some pretty ugly dreck in order to finance his business ventures, stuff like the career-killing Righteous Kill, in which he starred alongside another fading legend in even worse shape, Al Pacino. The good news is that Jones elicits a superb and subtle performance from De Niro (around which the whole film revolves), the likes of which we haven't seen since at least 1995 when he starred in Heat.


The story is a bit predictable, with De Niro's Frank Goode embarking on a journey to visit each of his four grown children after they all cancel their visit to see him for their first reunion since his wife died. Unable to find his son David in New York, he continues on to visit his three other children who live all over the country. Meanwhile, the siblings are all conspiring to keep him out of the loop concerning David, who reportedly suffered an overdose somewhere in Mexico. As they try to figure out what is going on with their youngest brother, they each obfuscate the issue by prodding Frank to go back home. Each of them lies about their personal life for fear that they won't measure up to the demanding Frank's expectations, high expectations which may have driven David to his careless lifestyle.

While their is plenty of opportunity for moments both lighthearted and sad as De Niro plays the cranky set-in-his-ways Frank, this is the first time in a while he stays a good distance away from the now all too predictable mugging that has marred his comedic work in movies like Meet the Parents. Instead, the actor plays Frank amazingly straight as a widower whose loneliness inspires him to reconnect with the children he never suspected had grown so far apart from him to begin with. While none of the young actors resemble each other in appearance or temperament (a typical problem in films of this variety), De Niro makes sure they all resemble him, complementing their performances so that he somehow manages to endow Frank with a distinct behavioral quality from each of his children. His Frank is driven like Beckinsale's Amy; befuddled and humble like Rockwell's Robert; and acerbically humorous like Barrymore's Rosie. He even manages to create an impression of David despite the character's absence, informing it with Frank's own ambitions which he projected onto his son.

Sometimes there are whimsical touches that enliven Everybody's Fine, like the way Jones has child actors stand in for each sibling whenever Frank first lays eyes on them. Other times those touches go a bit too far, as in a third-act dream sequence—where all of the inner turmoil is worked out between Frank and his kids—that is just a touch too on the nose in its frustratingly expository execution. But Jones never descends into maudlin sentimentality, always keeping the film moving briskly past its more melodramatic moments.

He has De Niro to thank for that also. Or maybe De Niro should be thanking Jones, since his performance is Oscar worthy. By directing the actor to internalize much of Frank's misgivings about his relationship with his kids, Jones encourages De Niro to modulate his later more overt emotional expressions like the actor one had always expected in earlier films. A disturbing encounter with a vagrant midway through Everybody's Fine and the inevitable physical toll it has on Frank even later in the movie are sequences which both triumph because De Niro has managed to withhold vital emotions from the viewer prior to the scenes, making their eventual release all the more touching and resonant. If for nothing else, De Niro's poignant performance is enough to recommend the movie.

Everybody's Fine opens in theaters tomorrow.

DVD Review: A Christmas Tale (2008)

by Tony Dayoub



When I reviewed Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) almost one year ago, I ended my post with this observation:

A memorable image comes midway in Un conte de Noël when [a central character] opens a present from a neighbor, a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm. As she admires it, there is a cut to the charm spinning in the center of the film frame as the surrounding space dissolves into a snowy exterior of the family home. This central image somehow captures the ineffable feelings that arise when viewing this exquisite film, of a family that may not actually like each other much, but manage to hold deep love for each other nonetheless.

This ethereal image of the twirling bauble still lingers. It is the essential image of the film, distilling the warmth and fragility of the almost archetypal family story of the Vuillards.



But director Arnaud Desplechin elevates the familiar genre of the Christmas family reunion beyond its cliche saccharine elements, complicating the tale by introducing long-held resentments, rivalries, and recriminations between the siblings and their parents. The two characters who are often at the crux of most of these complications are the cancer-stricken Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her least favorite son, Henri (Mathieu Amalric). So it is with no small tragicomic irony that it is only Henri's bone marrow that is deemed compatible with Junon's need. And it is a credit to Desplechin's profundity in fashioning this small fable that these two characters who dislike each other so immensely still love each other greatly, and in fact, identify with each other to the exclusion of the rest of their family. Thus does the gyrating trinket in the image come to literally depict the otherwise unknowable heart of gold buried deep within the spiteful characters.



It is because of Desplechin's ease at pictorially depicting such lush, passionate emotions in counterpoint to the quiet expressions of love and regret at the center of the family's interactions that this film made my top ten list for last year's films (and is seriously vying for top ten of the decade).



Criterion has wisely timed this week's release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray to the holiday season, when the movie's magic can most effectively touch the viewer. And what an astounding trio of supplements it includes: an essay by esteemed critic Phillip Lopate; a 35-minute documentary featuring interviews with Amalric, Deneuve, and Desplechin—all eloquently expressing their fascination with each other and the film (in English, surprisingly); and L'aimée, Desplechin's 2007 documentary about his paternal grandmother, her death when his father was only two, and how it impacted the development of his family. It is this last one hour doc that proves to be most insightful, illustrating how Desplechin's interactions with his own family in Roubaix, France may have served as the inspiration for A Christmas Tale—also set in Roubaix—released one year later.

Movie Review: Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

by Tony Dayoub



The growing realization that childhood is finite fuels the sad Where the Wild Things Are. This means that I'm not ready for even my oldest son to see this beautifully rendered adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic book. But Spike Jonze's film strikes me as less of an evocation of Sendak's tale than it does as a personal story for the often elusive director. It's as if one could see his therapist suggesting he draw on his own childhood issues to inform his next film, and this is what was spit out. That's not to say I wouldn't recommend the film. Actually, I believe it is a movie with rewards both large and small. But be forewarned. Those seeking the joyous celebration of innocence and thoughtless playful abandon will find the film lacking in this regard.

DVD Review: Monsoon Wedding (2001)

by Tony Dayoub



This week, Criterion releases Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, an intimate look at the group dynamics of a family that gathers from all around the world in Delhi for a traditional Punjabi wedding. This edition, available on both DVD and Blu-ray, is a significant improvement on previous releases of the film. Though the screener received was only a DVD, even in this version its picture is sharper, cleaner, and more saturated with brilliant color than any previous version. One could go on rhapsodizing about how the film looks, but it is becoming a bit predictable when it comes to Criterion reviews (and that's a good thing). Here's the real reason why this is the definitive version to own.

Movie Review: Rachel Getting Married - Demme's Film Not Quite a Return to Form

I'm of two minds when it comes to Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. On the one hand, seeing 'Sister Carol' East (Something Wild, Married to the Mob) as part of the wedding guests/performers seems to signal that this film is a return to form for Demme, who hasn't fashioned one of his signature quirky movies since 1988. On the other hand, mashing up his quirky music-lover sensibilities with the dour family drama at the heart of Rachel doesn't make for the best fit. Maybe he's still drunk on all the Oscar accolades from the terrific Silence of the Lambs (1991) because every movie since then has had a a little of the bloat of self-importance about it. You can't fault the performances, which are right on the money. Not only is Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) repellent as the twelve-stepper Kym, she is obnoxious in her self examination, par for the course as the younger sister in the family. The titular Rachel is given wonderful life by Rosemarie DeWitt (Mad Men), who is able to hold her own quite well with the scene-stealing Hathaway never far from screen. Particular praise goes to Bill Irwin (Sesame Street) and Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment) as the two women's divorced parents. In fact, the whole cast is probably one of the best ensembles in a film in 2008. So why does the movie feel so phony? Perhaps it is all the unnecessary accoutrements that Demme uses to dress the film up. Since the prospective groom is a musician, Demme thinks he has free rein to bring in every oddball bohemian cliche in to enliven the wedding, and it just doesn't ring true. I don't believe Rachel and her fiance would get married wearing saris in a Hindu (?) ceremony. Or their cake would be in the form of Ganesha. All of the set dressing, in fact, serves to dissipate the power of the story of Kym's recovering addict. So this film may be a bit of a transitional one for Demme - still a little self-important with a touch of the quirk we're familiar with - before he comes full circle. I hope so, because it is nice to see Sister Carol sing again in a Demme flick.

Movie Review: Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) - An Exquisite Depiction of Family Dysfunction

Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale), the French language film by Arnaud Desplechin, is one of the most elegantly beautiful films I've seen in a long time. A portrait of the extremely dysfunctional Vuillard clan, a family at a crossroads of sorts, the movie is bolstered by the performances of Catherine Deneuve, her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, and the fascinating Mathieu Amalric. Everything, from the music to the imagery to the performances, contribute to a sense of warmth and reality so rarely found in this usually American genre, the family reunion film, that the movie is simply one of the most satisfying cinematic experiences I've had in the last couple of years. The Vuillards are a family that revel in their animosity towards each other, turning it into a gamesmanship of sorts between them. Eldest daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) is trying to extricate herself from the relentless negativity, but in doing so she takes the game to a new level. After dealing with the habitual irresponsibility of middle brother Henri (Amalric), she bails him out of a business deal that went bad, with the condition that he is never to be present, or even talked about, in front of her for as long as they live. This extreme measure may be a way of coping with her son Paul (Emile Berling) and his schizophrenic breakdown. Add the stress of the discovery by Junon (Deneuve), the family matriarch, that she suffers from a rare form of cancer and needs a bone marrow transfusion. The upcoming family reunion this Christmas is one that most of them are not looking forward to. Desplechin adopts a variety of techniques to communicate a great amount of backstory in what seems like a breezy 2 and 1/2 hours. At the outset of the film he uses shadow puppets to describe how the childhood death of brother Joseph may have been the inciting incident in the family's complex history of mutual loathing. This short prologue casts a mythic quality on what is a essentially a family of traditional archetypes, a fact Henri makes note of early in the film when he says (and I paraphrase) that if his life is a myth he does not know what part he is supposed to play. The director also often has his characters break the fourth wall, and discuss their inner thoughts, or read personal letters directly to the camera. Another curious device, that may not be as successful, is one in which the viewer enters a scene being shot as if through a peephole, with the lens aperture slowly opening onto the scene proper, a form of eavesdropping that literally reminds us that though we are privy to the Vuillards' secrets, this is just cinema. All of the technical aspects of the film seem to be on point. Grégoire Hetzel's music is lush and comforting, enveloping us in the familial warmth that this family deceptively seems to lack. The imagery also plays counterpoint to the events of the film. Eric Gautier's golden-toned cinematography, and the use of what looks like actual childhood photos of the actors, create a nostalgic sense of history and the indomitable spirit that this family has developed in dealing with their fair share of tragedies. The performances are uniformly excellent. Deneuve gives what could easily be her valedictory performance in film, despite still being too young to leave the screen. It is because she imbues Junon with an unspoken regret for the way she's alienated herself from her family. Still, Junon would rather let the cancer take her than deal with the family issues head-on. Mastroianni is charming as Sylvia, wife of Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), the youngest brother. A mother of two, the fading beauty wonders what course her life would have taken had she chosen to marry cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto), a painter, instead. Amalric's ugly Henri is a man at odds with himself, both seeking to reconnect with his loved ones, while constantly stirring things up when their dust-ups have settled. For instance, he turns out to be one of only two family members (the other is a youngster) whose bone marrow is compatible with Junon. He is happy to oblige, but still can't bring himself to call his mother by anything but her first name. The detestable little Henri is a physical embodiment of the family and their animus. A memorable image comes midway in Un conte de Noël when Elizabeth opens a present from a neighbor, a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm. As she admires it, there is a cut to the charm spinning in the center of the film frame as the surrounding space dissolves into a snowy exterior of the family home. This central image somehow captures the ineffable feelings that arise when viewing this exquisite film, of a family that may not actually like each other much, but manage to hold deep love for each other nonetheless.

Movie Review: Breakfast with Scot - Gay-Themed Family Drama Beneftits from an Honest and Dynamic Approach

Now playing in Atlanta, Breakfast with Scot is an astute and appealing family drama that realistically depicts some of the challenges that face a gay male couple rearing a 12-year-old boy. Directed by Laurie Lynd (Queer as Folk), the film has been playing the festival circuit for awhile, and is notable for being the first gay-themed film to have the approval of the NHL, and more specifically, the Toronto Maple Leafs, whose name and logo are used in the film. It stars Tom Cavanagh (Ed) and Ben Shenkman (Angels in America) as Eric and Sam. Eric, a former hockey player for the Maple Leafs, is now a sportscaster who keeps his homosexuality in the closet. Sam, an attorney, is much more open about his sexuality. When an ex-girlfriend of Sam's flighty brother, Billy (Colin Cunningham), dies of a drug overdose, she leaves her son Scot (Noah Bernett) in his charge. But with Billy down in Brazil pursuing another in a long succession of get-rich-quick schemes, Sam and Eric decide to take the boy in until Billy returns. Scot turns out to be flamboyantly effeminate in his behavior. For Sam, who is comfortable with his sexuality, this is not as big of a problem as it is for Eric. Eric fears that even being seen with Scot will call attention to his homosexuality. Ostensibly, he thinks this may interfere with his ability to get into the locker room for interviews. But in reality, it is striking a nerve, as he has never fully dealt with his own identity as a gay man in what is considered to be a "macho" career. And then there's Scot. How can Eric be a role model to Scot, who is still learning to find his way through the onset of puberty, if he hasn't defined who he is to himself and the people around him? In the pivotal role of Eric, Cavanagh is excellent, walking the fine line between demanding surrogate dad, and sensitive role model to Scot. He can be infuriating when he disassociates himself from the boy for acting out in ways that highlight his own insecurities. When Eric runs into his boss at an ice rink while on an outing with Scot, the boss sees the boy twirling on his skates, and asks who that is -to the viewer, obviously impressed with the youngster's abilities. Eric acts as if he doesn't know the boy, mistakenly honing in on what he senses as his boss' disapproval. Eric can be sympathetic also, like when he admits to Sam that he just doesn't want Scot to go through the same kind of alienation he went through growing up. Director Lynd also balances some of the heartwarming feel he gives the movie with some stark realism. There are scenes, such as one where Scot makes pancakes for breakfast - shaped like a T - for the T missing from his name, that are so cute they border on cloying. But Lynd also shows the reality behind Scot's situation in a scene where he makes it perfectly clear to the viewer, his eavesdropping surrogate dads, and a young friend, that he is completely aware of how his mom died. Breakfast with Scot is a family drama that is both dynamic and honest, benefiting greatly from the depiction of a healthy gay couple, and the reality of the challenges they face raising a kid. Breakfast with Scot is in limited release. Still provided courtesy of Regent Releasing.