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

Christmas is coming in just a few days, so this week I’m looking at three new movies — two musical biopics and a gothic horror — all opening on the 25th. There’s a  young man named Bobby who hails from Minnesota, another named Robbie who looks like a gorilla, and a third named Tom who is headed for Transylvania. 

A Complete Unknown

Co-Wri/Dir:James Mangold (Indiana Jones…)

It’s 1961 in Greenwich Village. Bobby Dylan (Timothée Chalamet: Dune, The French Dispatch, Call Me by Your Name, ) is a 19 year old boy from Minnesota, who arrives penniless with just a guitar on his back. The Village is the centre of the folk revival sweeping across America, alongside the civil rights and anti-war movements. Bobby is looking for his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), and tracks him down at a Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. Guthrie is suffering from a debilitating case of Hunnington’s disease. He communicates using grunts and gestures, but clearly likes Bobby’s songs. Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) — the folk giant and political activist — is there too, visiting Woody. He takes Bob under his wing and later introduces him at an open mic show at the Gaslight Cafe. There he meets the beautiful and talented Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), a wildly popular folksinger and activist in her own right.

Bob’s still broke and prone to couch surfing, but soon settles into a casual relationship with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning: Somewhere, Super 8, Ginger and Rosa, Neon Demon, Twentieth Century Women, The Beguiled,  The Roads Not Taken, Mary Shelley). Is it love? And despite his unconventional voice, he quickly attracts fans — including stars like Johnny Cash — and his recording career takes off. Joan Baez adapts some of his songs with great success, and the two of them go on tour together — where they become intimate on and off stage. But Bob feels constrained by the folk community and wants to forge new musical pathways. What will happen when Bob Dylan goes electric?

A Complete Unknown: The Ballad of a True Original is a biopic about Bob Dylan. It spans a relatively short period of his life and music from his arrival in New York until the Newport Folk Festival of 1965. Chalamet is excellent as the young Bob Dylan, portraying him both as kind and self centred, ambitious and indifferent… usually sitting around in his underwear strumming a guitar. Norton is surprisingly believable as Pete Seeger. Elle Fanning, as Dylan’s neglected lover, seems less real, more of a cinematic concoction to add a romantic undertone to the story. Indeed, much of the plot and characters are invented out of whole cloth— with Dylan’s approval.

What’s really good though is the music. 75% of the movie is just singing and playing instruments, performed by the actors themselves. Maybe it’s me, but those songs, those joyful songs… they made me sing along and literally brought tears to my eyes. Live concerts, jams, hootenannies, jamborees, recording gigs… this movie includes everything. Whatever its false notes or historical inaccuracies, the music makes it. 

I enjoyed this movie so much.

Better Man

Co-Wri/Dir: Michael Gracey

It’s the 1980s in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Robbie Williams (Jonno Davies) is a boy who lives with his dad, mum and grandmother (Steve Pemberton, Kate Mulvany, and Alison Steadman). He goes to Catholic school where he’s the class clown. He loves singing, acting and telling jokes. He’s not particularly talented but he is charming and cheeky, always ready with a smile, a wink, and a  wiggle. He longs for approval from his neglectful father, but rarely gets it. So he vows to become famous some day to prove his worth. Unfortunately he’s the only one who thinks he can make it. Still, somehow he passes the auditions and is invited to join a new boy band called Take That.

Robbie doesn’t mind performing semi-clad at gay bars; their popularity is growing, and their catchy tunes are being listened to. And when they finally make it big, he is dazzled by the adoration of countless fans. He falls for the allure of alcohol, drugs and willing sex partners.  But why isn’t he making much money? It’s because he doesn’t write the songs, he just performs them.His drug use is getting out of hand. When he quits the band for a solo career, thing look rough. Will his own talent ever be recognized? Will his father ever be proud of him? And can he overcome the self doubt that plagues his career?

Better Man is a music biopic about the rise, fall and rise again of the pop singer and performer. The music and plot of this film are both pretty basic. What’s interesting is how he is portrayed. Through the use of CGI, Robbie Williams  looks like a human but with the features and fur of a chimpanzee. No one ever mentions it, he doesn’t eat bananas or climb trees, but throughout the movie, he looks like an ape. It represents the self-doubt and insecurity that drives him.

Director Michael Gracey had his start as an animator who learned special effects from the ground up, which leaves him with a vast supply of techniques to dazzle audiences. He has no fear of green screens and embraces CGI whole heartedly. Most of the movie feels like a non-stop, never-ending music video, expertly made. I’m not a fan of boy-band pop, but the sparkling presentation makes Better Man fun to watch.

Nosferatu 

Co-Wri/Dir: Robert Eggers (Lighthouse Eggers interview, The Northman, The VVitch Reviews)

It’s the 1830s in a small port city in Northern Germany. Thomas and Ellen Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp) are a young couple, passionately in love. To support their family and any future kids, Tom has a new position at a financial firm, run by the eccentric Mr Knock. Tom is a Bob Cratchit, always trying to please his boss. His first assignment: to visit a fabulously wealthy noble, have him sign a contract, and accompany him back to the city. It seems like a simple task. But Ellen is dead-set against it. Count Orlov cannot be trusted — he will kill you, Tom, she says. How does she know? The nightmares she’s had since adolescence predict it.

But, despite her warnings, Tom heads off to Transylvania. Count Orlov’s (Bill Skarsgård) castle is intimidating, set amongst the stark Carpathian mountain, and none of the local villagers dare to go with him, even draped in ropes of garlic. Tom braves it on his own, but finds the Count mysterious and oppressive. The castle is filled of vicious wolves and with rats. Tom wakes up each morning feeling drained, with teeth marks on his torso.

Meanwhile, back in Germany, Ellen is tormented with nightmares, driving her toward insanity, despite help from her friends Friedrich and Anna (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin). Tom disappears and, when the Count arrives in the German town, unaccompanied, people start dropping dead from the plague. Can Tom and Ellen free themselves of Count Orlov’s treachery? And what are this vampire’s real motives? 

Nosferatu is a remake of Murnau’s 1922 silent film, which in turn was an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But far from being just another vampire movie, this one is totally original. It’s sexualized, scary, funny and grotesque. I saw it in IMAX in all its gothic glory. 

Murnau’s Nosferatu was a masterpiece of German expressionism, both modern and iconoclastic; Ironically, this one, made a century later, is deeply rooted in the distant past. Robert Eggers loves this old stuff, and pays meticulous attention to every word of the script and every frame of the film. It’s full of unnecessary but delightful scenes, like Roma singers and Magyar slap dancers, and rat infested canals. Eggers went to Transylvania just to capture that castle on film. He gives us a new Dracula, no Bela Lugosi accent or widow’s peak. This Nosferatu is a burly, imposing man, draped in fur robes, with a grand Hungarian moustache. His skin and muscles are rotting away, putrid with decay. He is driven not by an insatiable thirst for human blood but by lust: he covets a woman. 

If you’re into new explorations in horror, I think you’ll love Nosferatu.

Better Man, A Complete Unknown, and Nosferatu all open on Christmas Day 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.