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

Depression can lead to strange decisions. This week I’m looking at two new movies, a supernatural action thriller, and an unusual romantic comedy. There’s a lover who can’t live after his girlfriend dies; and a cantor who can’t sing after his wife dies.

The Crow

Dir: Rupert Sanders

It’s an unnamed big city somewhere in the world. Shelly (FKA twigs) is a piano prodigy, who, with help from her ambitious mom and some shady investors headed by the mysterious Mr Roeg (Danny Huston), has risen to the top. She is living the highlife in a swank apartment and hanging with beautiful people at exclusive nightclubs.

Eric (Bill Skarsgård: John Wick Chapter 4) is a ne’er-do-well who grew up on a rundown farm with neglectful parents. Now, he finds himself in the big city, his face and body covered in meaningful tattoos. He lives a precarious life with hoody friends, with a secret space to hide out in — a warehouse filled with plastic covered mannequins. His interests range from goth music to the pen and ink drawings he scratches on scraps of paper.

So how did they both end up locked in a juvie rehab centre? For Eric it’s a foregone conclusion, but Shelly is there for drug possession. But her life is in danger after discovering she has footage on her cel phone of a heinous crime,  committed by the dark and powerful Mr Roeg. When Eric and Shelly meet in the rehab/prison it’s love at first sight. They escape and run away, to the big city where they make passionate love in haut couture fashions while spilling bottles of champagne over each others’ bodies. But Mr Roeg’s bad guys soon catch up, murdering them both. That’s when Eric has to decide: should he pass back into the world of the living to seek revenge and Shelly from hell? Or will he let himself die and pass on to heaven? 

The Crow is a supernatural action/thriller about young lovers caught between life and death. It has attractive stars, opulent sets, cool fashions and a good music playlist. Along with some extended fight scenes. The thing is, the movie doesn’t really make sense, it’s hard to sympathize with the hollow main characters, and it’s full of unexplained plot turns and dead ends. It feels like an unresolved two-hour music video. It  begins in a city like Chicago, but where everyone has English accents.  There are cobblestone streets and European opera houses. The movie is called the Crow, but aside from some black birds flying in the background, they don’t have much to do with it. Eric stains his face with black mascara to match the iconic Crow movie poster, but we never find out why. 

I didn’t hate this movie, but it is a big pointless mess.

Between the Temples

Co-Wri/Dir: Nathan Silver

Ben (Jason Schwartzman: Asteroid City, My Entire Highschool Sinking into the Sea, The Overnight, Saving Mr Banks, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) is a middle aged guy in upstate New York. He’s been sad and withdrawn since his wife died. Now he  lives with his two moms, Judith and Meira Gottlieb (Dolly De Leon, Caroline Aaron). They’re taking care of him in this time of need. They’re also constantly setting him up with new girlfriends to replace his dearly departed… in which he has no interest. He’s a cantor who works at the local synagogue but lost his ability to sing when his wife died. And what good is a cantor who can’t chant? Which drives him into a deeper depression in an ongoing cycle. He reaches rock-bottom one day when he lies down on a highway hoping the next truck will end it all. Instead the sympathetic driver helps him up and drops him off at a roadside bar.  There, the teetotalling  Ben gets totally sloshed on Mudslides (a white Russian with Irish cream). This leads to a drunken fistfight with a random stranger and a shiner on his face. But that’s where he meets a new friend, a sympathetic older woman, who looks somehow familiar. And then he remembers: it’s Mrs O’Connor (Carol Kane) his music teacher when he was a small child. And she’s a widow, too.

Gradually they spend more time together, sharing their stories. Mrs O’Connor (now reverting to her original name, Carla Kessler) explains she was a red-diaper baby, the child of American communists. As a teenager she liked listening to her friends singing at their bar mitzvahs but she didn’t understand and totally rejected any religious meaning. But now, 60 years later, she wants to have a Bat Mitzvah herself. Couldn’t Ben, a real cantor, teach her how to do it? He agrees, and they enter an intimate professional relationship focussed on singing. As it turns out she’s the only one who can make him laugh. But can this lead to something more serious? And can a 40 year old man hit it off with a 70 year old woman?

Between the Temples is a cute and clever romantic comedy. It’s all about the humour in uncomfortable situations and family misunderstandings, both his and hers. I have to mention the classic Harold and Maude, but aside from the intergenerational theme and the nice hippy-ish soundtrack, this one is original and stands on its own. Carole Kane is marvellous as Carla — she’s a comic genius who with her curly blonde hair and enormous eyes has kept her waifish, childlike look in her 70s. Jason Schwartzman is great for his dry delivery. And Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Silence) is excellent as Ben’s Filipina Jewish mother.

With an amazing cast, this small, subtle comedy is warm and effective. 

The Crow and Between the Temples both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.