Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

In weather like this, don’t you want to be watching a movie in an air-conditioned theatre? I sure do. This week I’m looking at three new “B” movies, as in the letter B. There’s a biker gang in the 1960s; a serial killer on the loose on Blackwater Lane in an English town; and a boy trying to survive in the woods in WWII.

The Boy in the Woods

Wri/Dir: Rebecca Snow (Pandora’s box: Interview)

It’s 1943 in Nazi-occupied Poland. The city of Buczacz is home to Poles, Jews and Ukrainians who lived together in relative peace, until the German invasion. But by 1943 the Jews were in captivity, soon to be executed or deported. 12-year-old Max (Jett Klyne) wants to stay with his mother and younger sister, but when they are loaded onto trucks, she insists Max escape. His aunt has arranged for him to stay on a farm until the war is over.  Joska (Richard Armitage) helps him out by burning his clothes, dressing him in peasant garb and hat, and giving him a new name and history: if you want to survive, he says, you must totally change your identity. But following a near-death experience when the police come knocking at his door looking for hidden Jews, Joska decides it’s too dangerous to keep him there any longer.  He finds him a cave in the forest to hide in, and gives him lifesaving advice: where he can find running water, which mushrooms or berries are safe to eat, and how to snare a rabbit and light a fire. 

Max has no possessions except the knife Joska gave him and a white feather he finds. After many close calls, he meets an even younger boy, Yanek (David Kohlsmith), who has lost his family. Now Max has someone else to look out for. Together they try to fight the elements and escape their many potential enemies. But how long can two children survive alone in the woods?

The Boy in the Woods is a moving dramatization based on the memoirs of Canadian artist and writer Maxwell Smart. It’s similar to Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird. I found it quite touching in parts; it’s a holocaust movie but with a different look — none of the expected ghettos or concentrations camps. It’s also a Canadian film, so, to me, the woods themselves — the trees and plants and streams —  feel nice and familiar, not scary and alienating, despite the harrowing episodes he experiences there. I also don’t understand why everyone speaks English but put on heavy, generic European accents. But these are quibbles. In general I thought it works well as a gripping personal history about a 12-year-old kid trying to survive in wartime.

Blackwater Lane

Dir: Jeff Celentano 

Cass (Minka Kelly) is a strikingly beautiful young woman who teaches theatre arts at a posh English private school. She likes G&Ts and tarot cards. She lives in an isolated but beautiful manor house — surrounded by a lush forest, a verdant pond and tall hedges — with her husband Matthew  (Dermot Mulroney), a business executive. When there are problems with her home life, she can always turn to her best friend and confidant, Rachel (Maggie Grace). They’ve known each other since they were kids. And she enjoys flirting with the seductive John (Alan Calton), a fellow teacher at her school. But her peaceful life is disrupted when she sees a woman in a car on Blackwater Lane in a thunderstorm. Turns out the woman is dead, and her murderer — possibly a serial killer — is still on the loose. That’s when strange things start happening to her. Edward, (Judah Cousin) a student who seems to have a crush on her, keeps showing up unexpectedly. A sketchy builder knocks on her door saying she asked him to repair the alarm system — which she has no memory of. She starts hearing strange creaks and knocks all around the house, and strange shadows appear just out of sight calling her name. An inquisitive police detective (Natalie Simpson) comes around when she calls, but sees nothing. And her husband keeps reminding Cass of her frequent memory loss, and wild imagination, as he calls it. But when dead birds, a fox and a blood soaked knife keep appearing and disappearing, she realized something is going wrong. Is she encountering ghosts in the old haunted house? Is the serial killer out to get her?  Is he someone she knowns? And is she being gaslit by a stranger, or losing her mind?

Blackwater Lane is a psychological thriller, about a woman who can’t convince anyone else that her life is threatened. It’s loaded with classic suspense and mystery — almost gothic in story, but not in style. It’s based on a bestselling novel by B.A. Paris. Thing is, it has a movie-of-the-week feeling to it, good but not great, loaded with many clichés. The acting varies from OK to mediocre, and there are way too many scenes that end with slow fades. And the ending is a messy attempt to try to tie up all the loose ends. Even so, I always find it fun to watch this kind of psychological thriller late at night. 

Bikeriders

Wri/Dir: Jeff Nichols

Kathy (Jodie Comer) is a working-class woman in the mid 1960s.She lives in the midwest near Chicago. One day she wanders into a tough local bar and is smitten by a young guy playing pool. Benny (Austin Butler) is the sort of bad boy she knows to stay away from. But when a tough, fatherly figure, Johnny (Tom Hardy) tells her she should feel safe, they’re just a bunch of guys in a motorcycle club, she lets her guard down a bit. Benny takes her for a ride on his hog, heads out on the highway… and they fall in love. Eventually Benny moves in with her and they start a normal happy life. Thing is, Benny is not the kind of guy who likes to be tied down — he’s a free spirit, never happier than when he’s on the road with his buds. He’s also a firecracker, and neither the threat of  violence or jail will calm him down. Johnny, the leader of the Vandals, doesn’t look for trouble. But if anyone challenges his leadership, he’s always ready for a fight — fists or knives, your choice. But as the years go by, Kathy tells Benny he has to choose — keep riding with Johnny and the boys, or stay with her and their baby.  But with teenagers who don’t know the rules trying to join the gang, its hierarchy starts to crumble. Which way will Benny turn?

The Bikeriders is an historical drama about the rise and file of the Vandals motorcycle club. Though it concentrates on those three characters — all very well acted — it’s really an ensemble piece with a dozen other characters: Zipco (Michael Shannon), Wahoo (Beau Knapp), Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus), Corky (Karl Glusman), The Kid (Toby Wallace) — each with their on quirks and personalities. It’s based on a famous collection of pics of motorcycle gangs in the 60s and 70s taken by photographer Danny Lyons. Naturally, the cinematography is of top quality, as are the clothes, hair, tats, and music. What it doesn’t have is much of a plot, just a series of linked vignettes. Instead, for reasons unknown, they bring the photographer (Mike Faist) into the story, thus alienating the viewers by keeping us at arms length from the characters. The thing is, Jeff Nichols is not just good, he’s a great director. And he redeems himself in the last third, where there are some really powerful scenes. With great acting and a huge talented cast — though far from perfect, the Bikeriders is a good movie to watch.

The Bikeriders and The Boy in the Woods both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Blackwater Lane also opens, both theatrically and VOD.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.