Work. Movies reviewed: Burnt, Truth, Victoria PLUS Sherlock Holmes
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Do you live to work or work to live?
Take the world’s most famous detective Sherlock Holmes, for example. He saw his whole life as his work. But a theatrical reboot of Sherlock’s story that just opened in Toronto (starring David Arquette as the detective with Toronto’s Kyle Gatehouse as his flamboyant rival Moriarty) sees it differently. In this version, Holmes is not the expected obsessive-compulsive driven genius; rather he’s a drug addict whose giddy laughter sets the stage. This Holmes is a self-absorbed ninny and not very bright. It’s Watson’s skillful storytelling that turns him into a legend.
But getting back to work. This week I’m looking at three movies about people at work. There’s an American chef in London, an investigative journalist in New York, and a Spanish barista in Berlin. I liked all three of these movies, but each for a different reason.
Burnt
Dir: John Wells
Adam (Bradley Cooper) was once a top chef in Paris with two Michelin stars. But he squandered it all in a crash-and-burn blowout, leaving fellow chefs in a lurch: fired, bankrupt, or even in prison. He hides himself away for five years, but reappears, this time in London, trying for his third star. He’s homeless, friendless and penniless.
But somehow, he manages to convince the chefs whose lives he ruined and the manager Tony (Daniel Bruhl) who bankrolled him to give him one last chance. He injects some new blood: a stubborn single mom Helene (Sienna Miller) who’s a master saucier, and says Adam is five years behind, and a young but ambitious cook he discovers in a local sandwich shop. But can Adam 
run a flawless restaurant that’s creative enough to win three stars? Or will his fiery temper and his drug history destroy him?
Burnt is just the sort of movie I thought I’d hate: a big star playing a self-centred prima donna in a superficial story. But I ended up really liking it. Bradley Cooper is entertaining and believable as Adam, and the rest of the cast — al the people in the kitchen — is like a whole bunch of Bradley Coopers from all across Europe. Germany’s Daniel Bruhl as the manager is huge right now, Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays a jailbird chef, starred in some of Italy’s best movies, France’s Omar Sy was in Intouchables, and UK’s Sienna Miller, the female lead is also sympathetic. So if you’re in the mood for a light foodie-movie, Burnt is it.
Truth
Dir: James Vanderbilt
It’s post-9/11, at CBS News in New York City. George W Bush is in the White House and the US has invaded Iraq in a fruitless search for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) is a prize-winning journalist. She broke the infamous Abu Ghraib story about the torture of prisoners by US soldiers in Iraq. Now she produces stories for reporter and anchorman Dan Rather (Robert Redford) at 60 Minutes Wednesday, the second edition of the popular news show.
Around this time, there are numerous headlines about George Bush’s military record during the Vietnam War. He never saw combat, instead serving safely in Texas with the National 
Guard. This is well-kown. Then a reporter named Mike (Topher Grace) discovers some new evidence and a credible witness to add a new twist. He says that Bush never served in the National Guard at all, only on paper. And the anonymous witness gives him copies of letters and documents that prove the theory. And Mapes brings in numerous experts to attest to the authenticity of the handwriting of the documents. But soon after the story plays out, online pundits begin 
to question its authenticity. And some of the witnesses and experts start to retract their statements. The story morphs from the expose itself into a so-called scandal about the reporters and the documents. Will CBS news bow to conservative pressure and leave Mapes – and possibly Dan Rather — to take the blame? Or will it back its journalists?
Truth is not a fast-moving political thriller like All the Presidents Men; rather, it’s a slower drama about the demise of investigative journalism. Although a bit preachy, I liked this film a lot for its ideas and its precise telling of a little known piece of history. It records the backstage drama at CBS’s once-respected news show. And Cate Blanchett is fantastic as Mary Mapes.
Victoria
Dir: Sebastien Schipper
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a Spanish woman who works in a Berlin café on the early morning shift. One night (as she leaves a nightclub to get some sleep before work) she meets four guys who had just been denied entrance into the same club. They are “real Berliners” they tell her, not like those poseurs. They’re scruffy, working-class guys with not enough money and too much time on their hands. Their nicknames are Sonne, Boxer, Blinker and Fuß (Frederick Lau, Franz
Rogowski, Burak Yigit and Max Mauff). For whatever reason, Victoria finds them charming, especially Sonne, and spontaneously agrees to hang out with them as they wander the deserted streets of Berlin in an impromptu birthday party.
But the tone changes when Sonne asks Victoria for a favour. Namely, they need a replacement for Fuß for a quick job, right now, that Boxer (an ex-con) has agreed to do. Fuß is too drunk to go, so they need a fourth person. Turns out, the job is an early morning bank heist, involving money, guns and a lot of danger. Will it all work out? 
Are Victoria and Sonne falling for each other? And can a few short hours before dawn completely change a person’s life?
Victoria is a remarkable movie that unfolds on location in early morning Berlin. What’s amazing is that it’s 2½ hours long, shot in real time by a single, handheld camera. No cuts, no breaks, no editing… it’s one constant shot. This includes violence, action, love scenes, chase scenes, everything! is shot as it happens. Never seen anything like it. And it’s a good story, too. But it’s the technique – that single, unbroken shot – that sets this movie apart.
Burnt, Victoria and Truth all open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Sherlock Holmes is now playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto.
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 Cynthia Banks about Reefer Riches, her new CBC documentary on legalizing marijuana
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In Canada, medical marijuana, in all its forms, has been legal since June, 2015. But with Justin Trudeau’s surprise majority win in last week’s federal elections, a bigger change may be coming soon: recreational marijuana. Will 
Trudeau keep his campaign promise and make cannabis legal? And will this spur a new gold rush, bringing Reefer Riches to Canadian 
entrepreneurs?
Reefer Riches is also the name of a new documentary airing this weekend on Firsthand, CBC’s new documentary show. It shows what might happen in Canada by looking at Colorado and other US states that recently legalized pot. It was written, directed and 
narrated by award-winning documentary filmmaker Cynthia Banks. Cynthia spoke to me about her doc, legalization, conspiracy theories, Canada’s Federal Election, the growing pot industry, tax revenue, provincial vs. federal rules, the Allard Case, the edibles market, “dabbing”, 420, pot culture, paranoia, cannabis in gourmet food, prices, teen views of pot… and more!
Reefer Riches airs on CBC TV on Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 9PM EST (9:30 NT), and again on CBC News Network on Sunday at 3 am.
Daniel Garber talks to Elisa Paloschi about her new documentary Driving with Selvi premiering at the ReelAsian Film Festival
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for cultural mining,com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Selvi was a 14-year-old child bride in Southern India. Her husband was so abusive she contemplated suicide, but instead ran away. She made her way to
home for young women where she learned to be a driver, and after a ten-year journey, she became South India’s first female taxi driver. How did she reach that stage? And what’s it like to go driving with Selvi?
Driving with Selvi is also the name of a new Canadian documentary that tells her story. It’s directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Elisa Paloschi, known for her documentaries dealing with social issues around the world. Her film is having its premier at 
Toronto’s ReelAsian film festival. I spoke with Elisa in studio about visiting India as a tourist, how she first met Selvi, 10 years of shooting the film, making a film in a developing nation, why Indian women in smaller cities rarely drive, Selvi’s motivation, human trafficking, child brides, poverty, feminism, women as second-class citizens, dowries, divorce, motivation, how to share her story …and more! The film has its Toronto premier on November 5, 2015, at the ReelAsian Film Festival.
Halloween Mansions. Movies reviewed: Jem and the Holograms, Crimson Peak, The Hexecutioners
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Hallowe’en is a time of ghosts, ghouls and the walking dead. But it’s also a time for costumes, wigs and other disguises. This week I’m looking at three movies. There’s a gothic-horror melodrama about a woman trapped in a haunted mansion in England; another scary pic about two women trapped in a haunted mansion in Ontario; and a kids’ movie about four sisters who form a rock band in disguise and move to a mansion in L.A.
Jem and the Holograms
Dir: John M. Chu
When Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples) was just a little girl, her dad, an inventor in Los Angeles, died. All he left her was his final invention, a mysterious, white contraption. Now she and her sister Kimber (Stephanie Scott) live in a small town with her two half-sisters, and her aunt (Molly Ringwald). This mix-and-match family gets along swimmingly — no evil step-sisters here. 
They’re into fashion, music and social networking online. They make their own music, too, but Jerrica is too shy to show her talents to the world. But she records a private tape as “Jem” using a fake wig with pink stripes painted on her face. Kimber posts the tape online, and Jem is suddenly web-famous.
Who is this mysterious songster, viewers want to know? Within days top LA record exec Erika Raymond (Juliette Lewis) is knocking at her door, ready to sign her to her label. But not without the rest of my band Jem, insists. Jem packs up her father’s 
invention and the four of them relocate to an LA mansion under the care of Rio (Ryan Guzman), Erika’s son.
They perform at key locations to adoring crowds, even as they follow the clues her dad’s invention provides her. Will the band survive success? Can record exec Erika be trusted? Will Jem get a swelled head as the leader of the band? And is something 
happening between pretty Jem and handsome Rio?
Jem and the Holograms is a movie for teen girls, based on a Saturday morning cartoon from the 1980s. On the plus side, it gives girls a chance to dream of becoming rockstars not just princesses. And the songs are catchy. But for grown-ups like me, the story is hackneyed and predictable, with not much to offer aside from a chance to see 80s and 90s stars Juliette Lewis and Molly Ringwald have it out.
Crimson Peak
Dir: Guillermo del Toro
It’s turn of the 19th Century in boomtown Buffalo, NY. Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is a free-thinker and the heiress to a fortune. She lives with her protective father and is visited by her late mother in the form of a dark wraith warning of future perils: Beware the Crimson Peak! Lovely Edith wears angelic dresses with winglike shoulder pads, and her pale blonde hair falls in ringlets on her face. She wants to be
a professional writer and hones her skills at the local press. And she is relentlessly courted by the dependable Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam).
But then a stranger appears in town with his sister. Lucille and Thomas Sharpe (Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston) are baronets, here to raise money. Thomas has 
invented a steampunk contraption that mines clay for bricks, a sought-after commodity. Edith’s father turns him down, but Edith, is drawn into his air of mystery. And after a romantic waltz they fall hopelessly in love, marry, and head off to his mansion in the English moors.
But all is not well. Her father dies in mysterious circumstances. Thomas
seems to spend more time with his sister than with her, and they have yet to consummate their marriage. And Edith is growing steadily weaker and more tired, her face becoming pale with dark circles under her eyes. But she can still see the ghosts haunting the 
strange mansion, and she is shocked to discover the secrets the haunted mansion holds.
I liked this gothic melodrama. It follows Guillermo del Toro’s usual pattern of young women discovering ghosts hiding in draughty haunted mansions. Though this one seems a bit campier than usual. The look is amazing, especially the scarlet clay that bleeds through the white snow around the mansion. It has its cheesy parts, for sure, and Jessica Chastain, as the scheming sister, isn’t as good as the other three. But a good watch if you like period gothic horror.
The Hexecutioners
Dir: Jesse Thomas Cook
Malison (Liv Collins) is a prim and proper career woman who lives in a threadbare apartment with just her cat to keep her company. Her neighbour Mr Poole (Walter Borden) is her landlord, a bible thumper who curses her name. She works for a euthanasia corporation assisting voluntary suicides since they changed the laws a few years earlier. But her first assignment goes terribly wrong, so she is sent on her next job with an old pro. Olivia (Sarah Power) is a vamp in black stockings who smokes, drinks, cusses and carries a sixgun. Nudity and death don’t faze her.
They arrive at a spooky, three-storey mansion lit by candles and 
heated by a blazing fire. It’s surrounded by a foreboding hedge maze filled with hideous statues. They have to spend three nights there, until their assignment is complete. The house has a single servant, Edgar (Wil Burd), a creepy and skinny man with a shock of long black hair. His hobby is strangling pregnant possoms. And their client is an old man with a terribly deformed face. He wants to die, but in a very specific way. Mal begins to suffer night terrors – a common symptom of this job – and has a recurrent nightmare. She keeps seeing a strange, suicidal ritual repeated by a death cult wearing hideous masks. Then she begins to see them even when she’s awake! Are these hauntings related to the house — or are the two women to blame for their appearance?
The Hexecutioners is a good example of a slow-build horror. It’s more spooky than scary for most of the film. Its not perfect: some scenes felt repetitive, and I wasn’t crazy about the music-video-style montages that pop up here and there. But the small cast is uniformly excellent, and it’s great to see a home- grown horror movie that harkens back to early Cronenberg.
Crimson Peak is playing now, The Hexecutioners premiered at Toronto After Dark, a festival of horror, action, fantasy and sci-fi movies, that continues through tonight; and Jem and the Holograms open today. Check your local listings. Also opening is Room, a fantastic movie about a mom and her little boy who live together in a hidden room. I reviewed Room during TIFF, and it’s a must-see. Don’t miss it.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Names. Films reviewed: Beeba Boys, Meet the Patels, The Last Saint
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is on right now, with over a hundred works by indigenous artists and filmmakers. Where else could you enjoy tea ‘n’ bannock while checking out virtual reality and video games by First Nations artists? Go to imaginenative.org for info, or, better yet, drop by the TIFF Bell Lightbox to see it in person. Experience indigenous culture and be sure to remember the names of these artists filmmakers.
Names are important, so this week I’m looking at some movies about names and families. There’s a documentary about a man named Patel, a crime drama about a gangster called Jeet, and a coming-of age drama about a Polynesian-Kiwi named Minka.
Beeba Boys
Dir: Deepa Mehta
Jeet (Randeep Hooda) is a charismatic criminal from Vancouver. He lives with his gossipy Mamaji and woebegone Papaji but makes a living trafficking drugs and guns. His underlings dress in garishly-coloured suits, as he carries out his business in a flashy nightclub. And he spends his spare time with Katya (Sarah Allen) 
an old-skool gangster’s moll he keeps locked away in a luxury condo.
The movie starts with a bang, involving a dead groom and a parking lot shooting. But his rise in power is challenged by a more powerful Sikh gang headed by a man named Grewal. Jeet is sent to a local jail where he meets a petty gangster named Nep (Ali Momen) just in from Toronto. And he wants to join Jeet’s crew. But 
he has a secret: he’s dating Grewal’s pretty daughter even as he makes his name with the Beeba Boys. Which kingpin will triumph – the upstart Jeet or the powerful Grewal? And where does Nep’s loyalty really lie?
Beeba Boys is a stylized gangster pic typical in every way except for its players – all Desi Canadians – and its locale, Vancouver. Except for a few scenes, it lacks humour (despite a character who insists on telling bad jokes). And the women are all hanger-onners, surprising for a film from a female director. This is a guy’s gangster movie. But the action is good, with plenty of gratuitous violence. It holds your attention, and there are even a few truly surprising plot twist. And the acting is mainly good, including a surprising appearance by Paul Gross as a bad guy. If you’re in the mood for an all-Canadian Sikh gangster pic, this one’s for you.
Meet the Patels
Dir: Geeta Patel, Ravi Patel
Ravi Patel is 29 and single. He’s not a doctor, but he’s played one on TV (He’s an actor working in LA). His childhood sweetheart recently dumped him for his fear of commitment. And he foresees a rootless future if he doesn’t do something soon. So he agrees to give in to his parent’s advice and find an Indian woman to marry. Soon he’s plunged into a visit to 
Gujarat and a lesson in his heritage.
The Patel’s are more than just a common last name and a lot of motel owners. It’s a gujarati-speaking caste, not a family, per se. And it has an amazing networks of connections in North America with a registry of singles spanning the globe. Their “bio-data” includes their shade of skin (“wheat-coloured” women — whatever that means — are, apparently, considered more desireable), their education, family 
background and ancestry.
Followed by his sister Geeta behind the camera, Ravi begins an amazing series of blind dates, speed dates, and online match-ups. But will he ever find love among the Patels?
Meet the Patels has some cool animated sequences, and it told me a lot I didn’t know about a hidden world in North America. But it gets bogged down by endless family discussions and Ravi’s confessions that felt too much like a reality TV show. It’s not the comedy it’s advertised as, but more of an intimate portrait of an insecure, single man.
The Last Saint
Dir: Rene Naufahu
Minka (Beulah Koale) is a young Polynesian guy who lives with his mum Lia in Aukland, N.Z. He enjoys spinning disks and hanging with his only friend, a nihilistic girl named Xi (Like the Warrior Princess, she says).
Lia (Joy Vaele) is a recovering addict, given to terrifying bouts of insane violence involving sharp knives. Minka pleads with social services to help take care of her but they turn him down. So he’s forced to look elsewhere for money. In walks a shady-looking man in black (Calvin 
Tuteao) who offers him a job at his nightclub. It’s a seedy joint but he does his work. He refuses his boss’s offers of drugs, alcohol or prostitutes, and shuns all violence.
His boss is impressed and reveals his connection to Minka and his mum: he’s his missing father! Still, he sends him out on a dangerous mission to make a delivery in the middle of the night. Minka encounters a musclebound, tattooed Polynesian dealer named Pinball (Joseph Naufahu). In the midst of 
‘roid rage Pinball demands to know Minka’s “real name” and threatens to kill him.
Later, he encounters a gang of intimidating, torturing Tongans and other unexpected strangers. Can he survive the night? And will his family ties save him or drag him deeper into a life of crime.
The Last Saint is an excellent coming-of-age look at a good guy driven to crime. The acting is great, with nearly every portrayal compelling, especially Koale.
Beeba Boys and Meet the Patels both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. The Last Saint screens tonight as part of ImagineNative.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Politics. Movies reviewed: He Named Me Malala, This Changes Everything, 99 Homes
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A movie can be political as much for what it includes as for what it leaves out. Take Zero Dark Thirty, which said that torture is what helped catch Osama bin Laden. What it left out (according to Vice media) was that their source of these “facts” was the CIA. This week I’m looking at three movies with overt political themes. Two are documentaries: one about how a girl’s education affected her life; another about how climate change affects economics and politics; and a drama about how real estate speculation affects the “99 percent”.
He Named Me Malala
Dir: Davis Guggenheim
Malala Yousefzai grew up in the Swat valley of Pakistan, in an idyllic but isolated village near the Afghan border. This is also when a local Taliban begins preaching on the radio. At first they are welcomed — Mullah Fazlullah speaks their language. But the Taliban begins to restrict, and eventually to ban all girls from schools. Malala is a devout Muslim but opposes anything that might hold back women’s rights. She is unequivocal on this: men and women must have equal rights and opportunities.
A precocious student and the daughter of a teacher, she decides to do someone thing about it. 
First, at age 11, she shares her experiences with the world anonymously via a BBC blog. Then she comes out publicly as the face of all the girls their being denied an education. But the Taliban is not just a radio show. Their rhetoric escalates to bombing schools and physical attacking girls who disobey. And one night Malala and two friends are shot by a would-be assassin.
She falls into a coma, her family flees to England and the Taliban says if she ever comes back 
they’ll kill her. But she survives and becomes an international activist.
This movie shows three things. It illustrates her history in a series of lovely animated sequences using colourful paintings. It follows her travels as an activist in Kenya and among Syrian refugees. In Nigeria she appeals to Boko Haram to release the 100 schoolgirls they kidnapped. And in the US she explains to Obama that drones attacks are inspiring, not stopping, would-be terrorists. Finally, the movie shows the life of an ordinary girl who does her homework, fights with her brothers and ogles pics of star cricketeers online. It lets us know that she’s not a victim, nor a saint, but a committed activist who deserves to be listened to.
This Changes Everything
Dir: Avi Lewis
Wri: Naomi Klein, based on her book
Climate change is a huge problem, maybe our biggest. But Naomi Klein says polar bears just don’t do it for her. And turning off light bulbs is not the answer. So what can we do? To address this, the film takes it to the people, the ones immediately affected by environmental disasters. It follows their plight and how they fight back. A first nations
activist living right beside the oil patch in Northern Alberta, protests the effects of tailings on their water supply. Farmers in Montana suffer from an oil leak. Then there’s the mining industry moving into northern Greece… right at the moment the country faces economic austerity. The economy desperately 
needs investment, they’re told, stop worrying about little things like the environment! It’s the “shock doctrine” at work, using a crisis as an excuse for economic exploitation. And in India where tens of thousands could lose their livelihood if they build a coal plant.
The movie is beautiful shot, with vast Burtynsky-like vistas of massive oil fields. It’s not just about people you already agree with – it includes many of the fiercest opponents to environmentalism. And it’s narrated by Naomi Klein herself, who pulls it all together. This highly watchable film is a good guide on how to think globally while acting locally.
99 Homes
Dir: Ramin Bahrani
Dennis (Andrew Garfield) is a single dad who lives with his Mom Lynn (Laura Dern) and his son Conner (Noah Lomax). Times are tough, but Dennis works, Conner goes to school, and they live in Lynn’s house where two generations were born and brought up. They miss some mortgage payments, but it doesn’t seem that important. Then comes the big shock. Seemingly out of nowhere there’s a knock on the door – a real estate broker flanked by police. His homes is being repossessed, and 
he and his family are given a couple of minutes to grab their valuables and vacate the premises. They kick him out and padlock the front door shut.
Dennis is desperate, so he takes on odd jobs. He needs to earn enough money to get his family home back. His new boss Rick (Michael Shannon) flips homes for a living and offers him a cash income doing minor repairs. The catch? This is the guy who stole his house! But if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Rick is an odd character, a mini Donald Trump. He doesn’t have time for losers – he’s a winner, 
and he got there by stomping on the little people the way. You can’t be sentimental or nostalgic if you want to succeed. And he’s determined to make it to the top of the heap.
Rick lives in a spacious (repossessed) mansion complete with swimming pool, swank car and beautiful girlfriend. But he has high hopes for Dennis, and soon enough Dennis is kicking families out of their homes. He wants to get hold of a big block of land – the 99 homes of the title – so he can become a big player in the game. Dennis finds himself turning into his own enemy… even while his family is still camping out in a cheap motel room. Which direction will he choose: wealth or happiness?
This is a movie about a very real problem: homelessness and the US housing bubble, which turned family homes into a negotiable commodity. The title – 99 Homes – is meant to evoke how regular people, the 99%, fare under the rule of the super-rich. I like one of Bahrani’s earlier movies (Chop Shop) for its improvisational, documentary feel but another one (At Any Price) didn’t work. 99 Homes has its realistic elements, but it also has big name stars (all excellent) and a strict plot and script. It may harken back to the age of silent movies with its old-fashioned heroes and villains twisting their mustaches, (you must pay the rent – but I can’t pay the rent!) but it’s still worth watching.
This Changes Everything, He Named Me Malala, and 99 Homes all open today in Toronto; check your local listings. Also opening is Labyrinth of Lies, a German historical drama set in the 1960s about a courageous lawyer who dares to prosecute Nazi war criminals; and Guy Maddin’s wonderful The Forbidden Room.
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 Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson about their new film The Forbidden Room at #TIFF15
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A man in a smoking jacket extolls the joys of a good bath. Three sailors trapped in a submarine look for help, even as an angelic lumberjack finds his way on board in search of the orgies of the clan of the cave bear. Outside, somewhere a volcano is erupting, a butler is murdering and a 
ghost is returning in a never ending confusion of interlinked stories as complex of chinese boxes. But will our heroes ever reach the mystery of the Forbidden Room?
The Forbidden Room is also the name of a new 
film the showed at the Toronto International Film Festival. Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin is known for his tales of twisted nostalgia, his eerie retakes of Canadian history, and comical melodramas done in new interpretations of 
archaic styles. He’s one of the few directors that can make an art film that is totally enjoyable and funny. His amazing movies include Tales from the Gimli Hospital, and My Winnipeg. Co-
directed by Evan Johnson this film adds new artistic and editing techniques to bring it to mind-blowing levels of beauteous artistic mayhem, unfathomability and WTF-ness.
I spoke to director Guy Maddin and co-director Evan Johnson at #TIFF15. We talked about: seances to lost cinema, Paris, the Centre Pompidou, the Phi Centre, Quebec, NFB, Louis Negin’s scrotum, Pierre & Gilles, Carl Dreyer, Roy Dupuis, instructional films, John Ashbury’s writing, exploitation movies, editing techniques, Guy Maddin’s mojo, analog vs digital film, Havana, women in skeleton unitards …and more!
The Forbidden Room opens today in Toronto.
Photos of Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson by Jeff Harris.
Daniel Garber talks with Zhang Yimou about his new film Coming Home at #TIFF14
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s China’s cultural revolution. A jailed intellectual escapes from prison to see his wife, but they are prevented from meeting by a political bargain set up by someone he should trust. And in the scuffle his wife suffers a brain injury. Years later, after the cultural revolution, he returns home… only to find his wife doesn’t 
recognize him, and his daughter, a ballet student, has been kicked out of their home. So a family has been split in three as a result of his coming home.
COMING HOME is also the name of a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. It stars 
Gong Li as the mother. It was directed by Chinese master filmmaker Zhang Yimou, known, over the past three decades, for movies like Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers, and Hero. As a Chinese director he is rare indeed as one who is commercially successful, critically acclaimed and acceptable to the government. I spoke to him at TIFF in September, 2014. Coming Home opens today in Toronto.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
Big Ticket TIFF. Movies reviewed: Sicario, The Martian
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall festival season is gearing up right now. Toronto’s Russian Film Festival is featuring actor Alexey Serebryakov, who starred in last year’s stunning Leviathan. Now’s your chance to see him on the big screen and in person. ImagineNATIVE, the international 
indigenous film and media arts festival is showing award-winning, Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk’s newest movie Angirattut (Coming Home). 
EstDocs – the Estonian film festival — has amazing animation, documentaries and short films from that tiny Baltic nation. Next comes Planet in Focus looking at environmental films. And 
Toronto After Dark brings horror, action and science fiction 
movies to get you ready for Halloween. This week I’m looking at films that played at TIFF that are opening today across the country. Ones about a female cop pushed into the war in drugs; the other’s about a male astronaut who wants to be pulled out of his life on Mars.
Sicario
Dir: Denis Villeneuve
Kate (Emily Blunt) is an FBI agent investigating a kidnapping near the Mexican border. She shoots the bad guys, but uncovers a grisly scene: countless murder- victims’ bodies packed into the walls of a drug-smuggler’s house in the desert. Shocking and revolting. So she agrees to join Matt (Josh Brolin) and his special team of agents (not part of the FBI) in order to bring down the Mexican kingpin responsible for all these deaths.
They fly her out to El Paso Texas where she meets the rest of the team, including a mysterious man named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). Soon she’s being ferried across the border into Juarez, playing a small part in a big confusing raid. She used to save kidnap victims, now she’s helping kidnap people (albeit accused
criminals)? What’s going on?
She tries to piece it all together. What’s her role in this exactly? Is this above board or is she being pulled into a nasty scheme run by crooked cops? Why are they doing this and who’s really in charge. She stays with the group, but finds herself involved in or witnessing a world of robbery, murder, drug smuggling, and undocumented migrants. Is she stopping it or part of it?
What’s going on is a total shift in the movie’s point of view. It’s not about Kate at all, it’s actually about Alejandro, his role and his goals. Huh? What? Wait a minute…
Sicario is a beautifully shot, suspense drama set in the world of organized crime around Juarez. It’s also a total mess. It starts like a horror/ police investigation, but turns into something completely different. It’s hard to follow, hard to understand, and really boring in parts. There are exciting chase scenes, but there are also driving scenes: long sequences just about people driving along highways. (Zzzzz….). Characters are introduced with long build-ups… and then prove to be unimportant. Even Kate, the ostensible star of the movie, seems peripheral to most of the plot. And Mexicans seem to be there just to die. Denis Villeneuve is usually an excellent director (Incendie, Polytechnique) and the movie does make sense in the end (no spoilers), but even so, at two hours, Sicario is just not very interesting.
The Martian
Dir: Ridley Scott
Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is an astronaut collecting soil samples on Mars, the windy and dusty red planet. He’s a botanist, part of a NASA team. When a storm hits the planet, the crew all rush for shelter in the space ship. But Mark gets struck down by a satellite dish and presumed dead. The rest of the team, headed by Mellissa (Jessica Chastain), fly off on their long trip back to earth. But wait… he’s not dead, just hurt. He patches himself up and takes stock of his situation, recording it all on a video log. Limited oxygen, water, and food, and no way to communicate with earth, and no way to get off the planet, with the next space ship coming four years down the road. And only 70s disco music to keep him company. So he makes do with what he has: rusty soil, a shovel, some potatoes and his own excrement. Can he grow enough to feed himself?
Meanwhile back on earth, a woman at NASA spots movement on Mars. How can that be? It’s him – he’s alive! The various players spring into action. Teddy (Jeff Daniels) the stuffed-shirt head of NASA, is more concerned about budgets and public image than saving Mark’s life. Vince (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wants things to work, Mitch (Sean Bean) wants to save him, and Annie (Kristen Wiig)
wants the news to be released in the best possible way. And a whole bunch of others trying to build things, and calculate the math. Now Mark can communicate with earth… but how will he ever make it back?
I liked the Martian. It’s about pluck, ingenuity, improvisation and perseverance, with lots of science, math and IT geekiness thrown in along the way. One goofy guy (Matt Damon is totally likeable in this role) with thousands of people rooting for him. It’s not 
really a science fiction movie, though. No space battles, no aliens, no Klingons. It’s also far from the pristine, antiseptic world of space travel – instead Mars is plastic tarps, dirt, duct tape and shovels. This is a movie for guys who like tinkering in their toolsheds. Making do with what you’ve got. Remember, this is a Ridley Scott movie – the guy who made Blade Runner and Alien.
And while this one is much more mainstream, with absolutely no sex – the only kiss is through a glass space helmet — it’s still got dirt, blood, 4-letter words.
The Martian and Sicario both open today in Toronto. Also opening is Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home; and a weird and wonderful documentary about mould – yes, mould, slime mould to be exact – called the Creeping Garden.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
culturalmining.com 
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