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Slipping into theaters a few weeks before Morgan Neville's much-loved portrait of Mister Rogers, Tony Shaff's 44 Pages centers on another idealistic staple of American childhood, Highlights for Children. Made on the occasion of the magazine's 70th birthday, the doc observes the start-to-finish production of the anniversary issue while tracking the publication's roots back to the married couple who started it in June 1946. Overflowing with wholesome vibes yet not sappy, the film provokes warm feelings, even if its subject doesn't really demand feature-length treatment.

Spending most of its time inside the old-fashioned Pennsylvania manor that houses the entire editorial...

Highlights magazine is a juvenile right of passage. Everyone flipped through it when they were kids, whether at home or in a doctor’s office, pondering whether they were more of a Goofus or a Gallant. Now, Highlights has inspired a documentary, 44 Pages: Creating Highlights Magazine, which just premiered at SXSW. The film, which was directed by Tony Shaff and produced by Rebecca Green and Laura Smith, follows the creation of the 70th anniversary edition of Highlights, with all its hidden picture puzzles and little life lessons. A.V. Club readers can check out an exclusive clip from the film above, featuring Highlights shout-outs from shows like Parks And Recreation, Arrested Development, and Black-ish. It’s a good reminder that, as the most popular children’s magazine in the world, Highlights helped shape a good portion of us modern day pop-culture nerds, whether we’re all that aware of ...

Currently streaming on Netflix is director Tony Shaff's fascinating documentary Hotline. The film premiered last year at Canada's Hot Docs festival and focuses on a slew of American telephone hotlines for suicide prevention, psychic readings (starring Miss Cleo!), phone sex, and more. Its tagline states that "It's ok to talk to strangers" and while that's probably not the best advice to give the children in your life, within the context of the doc it's entirely appropriate. The idea of learning more about the hotline industry and the people on both ends of the phone is intriguing in its own right, but Hotline really found its footing with me through its exploration of telephone technology as a means of fostering meaningful, often times cathartic, human interaction amongst two anonymous parties. The doc puts an emphasis on the unique value of being able to verbalize our deepest fears, concerns, insecurities, etc.

With the rise of the internet, texting and social media and a sense of impersonality has overwhelmed communication. Even most cellphone users are more keen on texting than answering calls, which most often hit voicemail rather than being answered by a person. Tony Shaff’s documentary “Hotline” looks at this shift in communication through the still prevalent and important tool of help hotlines, where a personal, intimate touch is everything. The film screened at Doc NYC recently and is now available on iTunes and VOD, Shaff and his composer Jess Stroup (“Camp X-Ray”) got together for The Playlist to talk about the doc and their approach to music as such. Their conversation is below. The Inspiration Tony Shaff: After years of production on “Hotline,” being immersed in the relationships that people have with talking with strangers on the telephone, I knew that the score would be so important because...