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

In the film industry, one of the biggest gender gaps is with directors — very few movies are directed by women, and corporate studios are loathe to hire them. Which means we get tons of stories told from a male point of view, but far fewer from women. (Documentaries are an exception.) The Female Eye Film Festival showing this week in Toronto is trying to even the odds, by presenting new movies by women from around the world. But things might be changing. I went to a midweek promo screening when theatres are usually quiet, and was shocked to encounter a bright pink crowd. Women in pink skirts and wigs posing for selfies, skinny guys sporting neckerchiefs, kids, grownups, even grannies, were lined up for popcorn and packing the house with a degree of enthusiasm I haven’t seen since Harry Potter. Clearly, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a cultural phenomenon, and I do plan to see it, once the pink tsunami dies down.

This week, though, I’m looking at three new films, one horror and two animation. There’s a hand in Adelaide, Australia, a girl in Riga, Latvia, and four turtles in the sewers beneath Manhattan.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Dir: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears

For anyone who hasn’t heard, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo are four teenagers who live together in the sewer underground in New York City. When they were babies, a secret lab was raided spilling radioactive goo, turning four tiny turtles into mutant humanoid creatures. They were raised by a rat who also was exposed to the slime, and who trained them in martial arts. He has just one rule: never let humans see you, or they will call you a monster and hand you over to evil scientists who will milk you dry to create supersonic weapons. But the masked foursome, being teenagers, wish they could just be like normal humans, going to high school, the prom, meeting other friends… They finally get their chance when they team up with April O’Neil, an aspiring student journalist (nicknamed Puke Girl).  If the TMNTs can stop a bizarre crime spree plaguing the city — and April report that story on TV news —  maybe the people will welcome them in as heroes. Alas, it’s not as easy as it looks. There’s a gang of evil scientists who want their blood, and a mysterious group of mutant supervillains who may be just as strong they are. Can the Turtles avoid the scientists and defeat the mutants? Or will they live their lives eating pizza in the sewers of Manhattan?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a new reboot of the  beloved comic, TV and movie franchise. Gone are the skateboards, surfer slang and whitebread voices of their earlier versions; this origin story starts again from scratch, in a multiracial city moving to the tune of 90s hiphop. At least they still eat pizza.. As always, it’s meant for small children, who seemed to like it a lot at the screening I went to. I liked it too. It’s visually stunning, with a colour palette ranging from acid green to day-glo blue and fluorescent red projected against dark city alleys. The characters themselves are a combo of 3-D models and hand-drawn illustration, with squiggles and scribbles appearing everywhere. And the voices —of the Ninja Turtles — are actual teenagers instead of grown ups faking it. I went in expecting very little and was surprised and pleased by its fast pace, sophisticated art work and fine music. 

My Love Affair with Marriage

Wri/Dir: Signe Baumane (Rocks in my Pockets)

It’s the Soviet Union. Zelma is a little girl at her first day of school in Latvia. She’s tough and self-assured. When a boy starts bothering her, she clocks him. So she’s shocked when she is punished and ostracized for defending herself. “Girls don’t fight” she is told. She doesn’t wear makeup or bows un her hair, so the boy she has a crush on, studiously ignores her. Her mother instructs her to find a man, get married and put up with whatever he does. Later at university, she meets a fellow artist, Sergei, who flatters her and says he loves her. Could he be her soulmate?

Or is love just an illusion?

My Love Affair with Marriage is an animated, feminist coming-of-age story about a Latvian girl — and later as a woman and an artist trying to fit into a society that doesn’t seem ready to accept her. It handles her first period, her sex life, and her frustrating relationships and marriages. And it takes place both both during the USSR and after its collapse. (There’s even some scenes in Toronto.) It’s presented in the form of a highly-stylized animated musical, with three, bird-like women who sing songs about her progress like a veritable Greek chorus. The characters are beautifully-coloured, hand-drawn pen and ink, that vary from spare, to surreal, to scientific and even psychedelic. And that’s not all. It’s narrated through a series of medical drawings, narrated by a talking synapse. Each time Zelma falls in love or gets angry, it’s explained as her hypothalamus secreting hormones, oxytocin and dopamine. The film is told and sung in American English (Baumane is Latvian, based in Brooklyn) but it’s totally Eastern European in its humour, style and look. This is the second movie of hers I’ve seen, and I quite liked it. 

Talk to Me

Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou

There’s a phenomenon going around on TikTok in Adelaide, South Australia. On the clips, people have weirdly distorted faces for a little while before they turn back to normal. Those who have done it swear it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever experienced. So some friends decide to try it out one night. It isn’t drugs, it isn’t hypnotism, it’s something totally different. Mia (Sophie Wilde) has been deeply depressed since her mom died of a sleeping pill overdose so she’s  sleeping on her best friend Jade’s couch (Alexandra Jensen). They go to high school together. Mia helps out with Jade’s younger brother  Riley (Joe Bird). She picks him up from school and comforts him when he has one of his frequent nightmares. Riley and Jade’s single mom is working all the time. So they decide it’s time to try this new thing out, along with Jade’s boyfriend Daniel.

The party — if that’s what it is — focuses on a graffiti covered plaster hand. You light a candle, hold onto the hand and say “talk to me”. Then you say “I let you in” and that’s where the fun starts. You experience mind-blowing visions, your face distorts wildly, and some people do or say godawful things. 90 seconds later you blow out the candle and let go of the hand and it’s all over. The thing is, what you’re doing is opening the gate between the living and the dead, and allowing these ghosts/spirits/demons into your brain, for that short period of time. But when Mia, Jade, Daniel And Riley try it out, things don’t go exactly as planned. What is that hand? What does it do, exactly? And can they undo what they unwittingly started? 

Talk to Me is a terrifying thriller/horror, one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m talking pounding heart, gasping for breath, out-and-out horrifying sensations. It also includes a good dose of psychological thriller, in case you like that too. So if you don’t like scary — stay far away. There are some short-lived but shocking scenes of violence at key points in the film.  I’ve seen countless movies about seances and ouija boards going bad, but there’s something about this one that feels entirely fresh and new. If you’re looking for some great horror, see Talk To Me.

Talk to Me opens this weekend, check your local listings; My Love Affair with Marriage is the closing film at the Female Eye Film Festival at the HotDocs Cinema in Toronto; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens across the continent on August 2nd.

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