A film by John Bolton
Music Documentary – 102 Minutes – Color – English/Canada 2016

Before the Internet, in the era of Evel Knievel, North America was fascinated with daredevils. Their outrageous stunts drew massive crowds and TV audiences. Canadian Ken Carter was a mildly successful showman who in 1976 hyped a feat so extreme it became the stuff of legend: with a rocket-powered car and a ramp, he planned to jump a one-mile span of the St. Lawrence River in Canada and land in a bed of roses in the United States. Fast forward to 2008. Vancouver musician Mark Haney decided Carter’s epic stunt deserved a musical treatment in the form of a concept album for solo double bass. The Georgia Straight called it “utterly amazing and completely fucking ridiculous.” Employing a symphony of archival footage, automotive carnage, dramatic re-enactments, original interviews and musical numbers, John Bolton captures the insanity and humanity of these very different men, culminating in an operatic ode to creative risk-taking that throws caution to the wind.

HOTDOCS 2016

DOXA 2016
 
“John Bolton brings the WTF factor to Hot Docs with the bizarre, ambitious, and ridiculously entertaining Aim For The Roses … Stunning … Comparisons to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing are both inevitable and warranted for the film’s ingeniously playful approach to documentary form, but there has never been a documentary quite like Aim For The Roses … Fueled by an electrifying musical score, and possibly the first dramatic chorus ever in a documentary … One of the wildest, craziest, and smartest docs in years.”
POV – Point Of View Magazine
 
“It’s hard to know whose ambition is most audacious / outrageous: Canadian stuntman Ken Carter’s, or composer and double bassist Mark Haney’s, or director John Bolton’s … Part documentary, part re-enactment, part music video, the film is a bizarre, wild, amazing ride.”
The Globe And Mail 
 
“A genre-defying musical docudrama that’s both fascinating and disturbing … A creative intersection of the grave and the absurd, the human and the superhuman.”
Scene Creek
 
**** – It’s like nothing you’ve seen before … Utterly entertaining and unpredictable.”
The Vancouver Observer
 
“A glorious collision of documentary cinema, automotive carnage, and song and dance numbers … Combines elements of Greek tragedy, Kubrickian lushness, and the archetypal Hero’s Journey to reveal the true cost of following one’s muse … Imbued with the very things it examines – ambition, glory, and finally, the desire for greatness”
DOXA
 
4.5/5 Stars / “A film that takes two totally disparate cultural moments and makes them equally entertaining, enthralling and thought provoking … A captivating look at the limits of creativity and those who choose to fly right past them.”
Exclaim!
 
5/5 Stars / “Part long-form music video, part archival documentary, it’s experimental and conventional at the same time: a concept movie about a concept album. It’s delightful.”
NOW