Daniel Garber talks to Bruce LaBruce about Skin Flicks, the film retrospective now playing at TIFF
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
Should homosexuality connote homogeneity?
Toronto filmmaker, artist and personality BRUCE LaBRUCE would give a resounding NO. From homocore zine pioneer, to Super-8 punk filmmaker, to reluctant pornographer, his influence has spread to the art scene, fashion, pop culture and of course movies. His work uniquely combines a rough-hewn DIY quality with a punk aesthetic; controversial politics with avant-garde art; and explicit gay sex.
Skin Flicks: The films of Bruce LaBruce is playing now through July 5th at the TIFF Bell Light Box as part of the BENT LENS series. I spoke with BLaB, in studio, about cinematic critique, art, zines, skinheads, blood, sex, aesthetics, romance, gerontophilia, Nazis, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, … and more.
It Takes a Thief. Movies Reviewed: Mona Lisa is Missing, The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne, The Rover
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Pickpockets, muggers, robbers and burglars… are people, too. Or so say these movies. This week, I’m looking at films with sympathetic portraits of thieves. There’s a car thief in Australia, a jewel thief from the US, and an art thief from Italy.
Mona Lisa is Missing
Dir: Joe Medeiros
Vincenzo Perruggia is a name that lives on in infamy as the man who stole the Mona Lisa in 1912. This documentary looks at the theft with a new eye.
Peruggia is an Italian migrant in France in the early 20th century. He works as a house painter – a very dangerous job, because of the constant exposure to lead paint. Some people say it made him addle-brained. Later, he takes a job as a security guard at the Louvre in Paris. But Parisians look down on Italian labourers, calling him “macaroni” and treating him like a fool.
But he shows them. He single-handedly walks out of the museum carrying Leonardo Da Vinci’s La Giaconda – now known as the Mona Lisa – under one arm. He keeps it hidden for two years, evading the most famous detective in Paris. He is only caught when he tries to repatriate it back to Italy.
Is he an idiot? Or a genius? An Italian patriot or just in it for the money?
This documentary has a light, humorous tone, but is meticulously researched. The filmmaker goes back to the original sources – letters, police files, period photos – and even tracks down his 80-year-old daughter, Celestina. What I found most interesting is that the Mona Lisa’s current fame is, in a large part, due to the publicity generated when it was stolen. Before Peruggia, it was just one painting among many. Now, it’s The Mona Lisa.
The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne
Dir: Kirk Marcolina, Matthew Pond
Doris Payne was born to an African-American father and a Cherokee mother in a poor, coal-mining town in West Virginia. She’s a beautiful child – too beautiful. Her dad tries to beat the prettiness right out of her. So she vows to get out of there, erase her past and create a new one.
She establishes herself as a gentle, elegant, upper-class woman. And how does she support herself? As an international jewel thief, jet-setting to London, Paris and Monte Carlo. She’s a lover, not a fighter. No one is harmed, no weapons, no hold-ups. She steals from famous stores, never individuals. She’s actually a con-artist, and when things go right, the jewellers don’t even know something is missing until after she’s long gone.
Her techniques are fascinating. She’s like a magician, moving the jewelry around, palming but never pocketing her prey. As long as the jewel is in her hand she can always dispose of it. She tells stories about her past adventures, like a clever escape involving a nun, a pair of scissors and a needle and thread. She’s a master of disguises.Using merely a scarf or a wig she can turn herself from a haughty aristocrat into a humble nurse in seconds.
If her life sounds like a Hollywood caper, that’s because it is – or will be. They’re developing a film about her (starring Halle Berry). The screenwriter tells part of her story. But this is a documentary about — and starring — the real Doris Payne. And her current life is far from glamorous.
She’s still stealing jewels, at age 80! The movie follows her – and her defense lawyer — during a trial about her latest alleged theft (she denies everything, of course.)
Will Doris ever come clean? Has she really given up that life? And what can she do without the thrill of the Steal? This is a fascinating documentary, about a strong-willed and unrepentant black woman, and her rise and fall as the world’s best jewelry thief.
A grizzled, angry man (Guy Pearce) sits in his dusty car by the side of the road. It’s the Australian outback – mining country: vast deserts punctuated by ramshackle aluminum huts. (Not a kangaroo in sight, just menacing birds of prey.) He goes into a roadside shop to wash up. At the same time, a jeep is powering down the highway, with three men inside having it out. They’re fighting. One of them, Henry, wants to turn back to save his brother. They left him dying on the road after a shootout. The others say no. And in the scuffle, the jeep plows through a pile of roadside junk. It’s stuck. So they steal a nearby car – the one left by grizzled, angry man – and off they go.
Out comes the first guy — he wants his car back. He climbs into the stalled jeep and gets it moving again. And so begins a violent, 90-minute road movie/chase scene/shoot out. On the way, he passes your typical outback attractions: gambling dens, gun runners, an all-male brothel, a crucified man… Wait. What?!
That’s where you realize: this isn’t normal Australia. It’s some futuristic, post-apocalyptic, Mad Max Australia. Only US dollars taken here. Chinese is the language of commerce. And if you kill someone there is no police, no army there to arrest you. It’s like the old west, but without any White Hats.
On the way he meets Rey (an uglified Robert Pattinson) the brother left dying on the road. Grizzled guy would just as soon shoot him as save him, but he needs information. So he brings him to a doctor and nurses him back to life. The two of them form an unwitting pair of road buddies – the angry and bitter older man, and the younger, idealistic slow-talker. (Rey’s a hapless oakie looking for a new father figure.) Will they find the three men – and the missing car?
This is a chilling, eerie and extremely violent movie. It feel like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. Pearce is excellent as the nameless, hollow-hearted drifter. Pattinson (the Twilight heartthrob) is unrecognizable as Rey — and I mean that in a good sense. Even though the story makes you want to curl up and die — is that all there is? — it’s still worth seeing.
The Rover and The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne both open today in Toronto – check your local listings. The Mona Lisa is Missing played at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival. Go to icff.ca for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Ingrid Veninger about her new film The Animal Project
Hi, This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movie actors say they’re just meat puppets, mouthing lines and showing off their faces and bodies before a camera. It’s just tits, ass, face and voice. But what if their faces, bodies and voices are completely covered by giant masks and furry animal costumes? Is that even acting?
Well, a new movie about acting students asks just that question. It’s a comedy/ drama called The Animal Project and it opens today in Toronto. It’s directed by Toronto filmmaker Ingrid Veninger known for her experimental but totally accessible films — movies like Modra and I am a good person/I am a bad person — made on shoestring budgets. These are movies that straddle the line between fiction and documentary.
I spoke with Ingrid Veninger at the Spoke Club about The Animal Project, actors, dreams, the importance of costumes, line-trading, colour-blind casting, meta-stories, amateurs vs professionals, spontaneity, impromptu scenes… and what she would do with an unlimited budget.
Likes. Movies reviewed: Chef, Being Ginger PLUS Luminato
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Do you like to “like” things? Then you might like Toronto’s Luminato festival of music, dance, theatre and film starts this weekend. There’s a free event on Sunday at the Air Canada Centre where you can join a music mob. You bring whatever musical instrument you like to play and join in with what might be the biggest performance of Ravel’s Bolero ever.
But what if you like something smaller, more personal? This week I’m looking at two low-key American movies about ordinary, single guys. One’s a divorced dad who just wants to cook what he likes; the other’s a university student who wants to meet a girl who likes guys like him.
Chris Casper (Jon Favreau) is a famous chef who lives in LA. He’s not one of those namby-pamby chefs – no way! His umami bites back, his artisanal gochujang packs a wallop. You can tell Carl’s a tough guy from the knuckle tattoos that say el jefe. He must have spent time in foodie prison. So don’t mess with this guy — he’s got a temper.
But one day, a local critic (Oliver Platt) – and his former booster — revisits the restaurant. He says the food there is tired, unadventurous and mediocre. What?! Unadventurous? I’ll show you adventure! Carl is furious. He learns about a newfangled social network known as “twitter”, and shoots him a nasty reply. But he doesn’t realize that everybody can read his tweets. It goes viral and events spiral. He challenges the critic to come back and try his new menu. But the conservative restaurant owner (Dustin Hoffman) insists he stick to the traditional dishes. Carl says no, so it’s goodbye Carl.
Meanwhile, on the home front, his kid feels neglected by his divorced father. The weekly visits to theme parks don’t amount to quality time. There’s no communication, no heart-to-hearts. Carl puts all his effort into cooking, but nothing into just hanging with his boy (Emjay Anthony). His beautiful, nice, smart, and rich ex-wife (why, exactly, did they get divorced?) has a plan. Inez (Sofia Vergara) invites Carl to come down to Miami with them. Once there, he gets an old food truck and fixes it up. Now he can devote himself to cooking while spending lost time with his son. So, with the help of his sidekick sous-chef Martin (John Leguizamo), the three of them embark on a cross-country tour, learning local recipes and making friends as they drive. But what will happen when they’re back in LA?
This is not a bad movie, especially if you like beautiful scenery and lots of scenes of people cooking and eating delicious recipes. Still, the social networking subplot (what is this strange new thing called the “internet” and how does it work?) feels embarrassingly old and dated. Chef is not a comedy either, since it’s basically lacking in laughs. And it’s not a love story – no romance or sex in this movie. What it is is a very light family drama about a middle-aged foodie getting to know his son. And you know what? I think that’s good enough.
Being Ginger
Dir: Scott P. Harris
Are redheads discriminated against? Are they the object of derision because of the colour of their hair? So asks a new documentary. Scott is an American college student in Edinburgh. And he wants to meet a pretty girl. The problem is, he can’t seem to find a girl to date. Why? He thinks it’s because he’s a ginger, a guy with red hair. And women, especially in the UK, he says, don’t like gingers. (Scott was bullied as a kid, and it left him feeling insecure.)
So he thinks by interviewing women with a camera, maybe he’ll find one who likes redheads. (Incidentally, he doesn’t want a redhead either: “Gingers don’t date gingers”: it feels creepy and incestuous to him – too close to home.)
But the people he meets aren’t very sympathetic: (Audio clip) Whoa! That’s harsh.
Finally he hears about a huge ginger convention – a veritable redhead festival in the Netherlands. It’s an eye-opener for Scott. In a sea of orange, he finally finds a place where he belongs. Is this like the black power movement? Scott wonders. Uh… no. But the festival might help him overcome his doubts and maybe meet a ginger-lovin’ woman.
Being Ginger is a cute, small, and very personal documentary (with beautiful animated sequences) about one guy’s struggle to accept his redness.
Chef and Being Ginger both open today in Toronto – check your local listings. And there’s a ginger appreciation screening with a Q&A at the Bloor Cinema on June 10th, free for all you redheads.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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