Precarious relationships. Films reviewed: Lurker, The Roses, Splitsville
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some couples are made in heaven. Others seem like accidents waiting to happen. This week, I’m looking at three new movies about strained relationships. There’s a power couple whose marriage has lost its strength; a pair of couples whose open marriages are closing up fast; and a Stan who wants to be closer to his idol.
Lurker
Wri/Dir: Alex Russell
Matthew (Théodore Pellerin: Genesis, Solo) is a young man who lives with his mom. He likes music, fashion and art, and loves shooting videos using an obsolete camera. He works in an LA clothing store — along with an even younger guy named Jamie (Sunny Suljic: mid90s) — and devotes a lot of his spare time to updating his socials. But his life is changed forever when Oliver (Archie Madekwe) wanders — seemingly at random — into his store.
Matthew seizes the day, and subtly change the music tracks being played to ones he knew would appeal to Oliver. Why? Because Matthew has been stanning him for years — he’s a superfan. And it seems to work: he is invited to hang with Oliver’s entourage in his swank home. He’s insulted and belittled but is gradually accepted into that crowd (and he never tells them he’s a Stan for Oliver). He shoots videos and starts doing crucial work for the band. They become — almost — good friends. He’s in hog heaven. And as he rises up the ladder in his precipitous climb to peripheral stardom, he discretely stabs his rivals — that is, anyone who threatens his newfound status — in the back. He ends up accompanying the band on their trip to London… but he takes one step too far, and once again he is just a normal person. But he has one 
more trick up his sleeve. Can he work his way back into the sphere of that celebrity? And at what cost?
Lurker is a fascinatingly eerie psychological drama about the rise, fall and rise of an ordinary person within the life of a celebrity. (It’s in the style of classic movies like All About Eve or A Star is Born. But it’s not about someone trying to replace a star, but rather to be closer to the star, a part of his life.) And there’s a non-sexual homoerotic subtext to the whole film as Matthew and Oliver’s power dynamic keeps shifting. Madekwe is an English actor in movies like Midsommer and Saltburn, and Pellerin is a fantastic young Quebecois, in movies by Sophie Dupuis and Xavier Dolan, and they work well together. This is writer-director Alex Russell’s first feature ( he’s best known for TV shows like The Bear) but he clearly has something going here that works.
Lurker is a good (and kinda creepy) movie.
The Roses
Dir: Jay Roach
Ivy and Theo (Olivia Coleman, Benedict Cumberbatch) are a happily married professional couple in northern California. Theo is a prize winning architect, while Ivy is a chef. They met at a business meeting in London where they had impromptu, furtive sex in a walk-in fridge — instant kismet. They left England forever and set up camp in America, to raise their twin kids whom they both love dearly. That was ten years ago.
Theo’s careers has blossomed: he has built his magna opus; a modern nautical museum with a sailboat planted on the roof. Ivy mainly cooks at home but recently opened a sleepy crab shack on the beach. But one evening unexpected gale-force winds drastically alter both their lives. The winds blow down his masterpiece, leaving the glass and wooden building, and his reputation as an architect, in ruins. But that same night a leading food critic braved the storm and ate a meal at her restaurant… and the rave review launches her career.
Soon Theo is taking care of the twins (training them for some athletic prize) while Ivy’s food empire continues to grow. The busier Ivy gets, the more depressed and resentful Theo becomes. Their marriage in tatters, they try counselling and other measures, but nothing seems to work. Can the Roses get back together? Or is their marriage doomed to fail?
The Roses is a remake of the hit 1989 film The War of the Roses, a dark comedy about the tooth-and-nail fight over a house by a divorcing couple. This version leaves out the war, and concentrates more on the laughs. Unfortunately it’s not very funny. There’s a bunch of Saturday Night Live veterans (Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg), and famous comic actors (like Jamie Demetrioum, Zoe Chao, and Sunita Mani) who read their lines before the camera, but they’re extremely unfunny. I love Olivia Coleman (The Favourite, The Lost Daughter, Mothering Sunday, Empire of Light) and usually like Benedict 
Cumberbatch ((Doctor Strange, Spiderman, The Power of the Dog) but their usual dry, caustic wit is not evident here. And any War of these Roses is left until the final 15 minutes.
The Roses isn’t terrible, but it’s not very good, either.
Splitsville
Dir: Michael Angelo Covino
Carey and Paul (Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino) have been best friends since they were kids. Carey’s scruffy, messy but always sympathetic; he works as a teacher in a private school. Paul is a hotshot real estate dealer, putting together huge ventures in Manhattan. They both “married up”, ordinary guys with beautiful women. Carey’s partner Ashley (Adria Arjona) is a counsellor, and a firecracker in bed. They’ve only been together a short time. Julie (Dakota Johnson) is a professional potter who looks like a model. She and Paul have been married for awhile, and have a rambunctious son to show for it. Carey and Ashley are on their way to visit Paul and Julie in their lakeside villa for a summer vacation, when a chain of events changes their lives. Ashley performs a sexual act on Carey as he’s driving the car, but it’s witnessed by another car driving past, leading to a major accident, death, and Ashley wanting a divorce. (Hence the title Splitsville.) Carey arrives at Paul and Julie’s a complete mess. They comfort Carey and tel him they have an open marriage. And when Paul drives back to the city, Carey sleeps with Julie since it doesn’t matter anyway. But it does matter, which leads to a major dustup between the best friends. And puts Paul and Julie’s marriage into question. Can either couple get back together? Can Carey and Paul’s friendship be repaired? And who will end up with whom?
Splitsville is a cute sex-comedy about relationships. Apparently Covino and Marvin, the actors and co-writers, are friends in real life, which comes through both in their patter and their physical interactions; you get the feeling they’ve been having no-holds-barred punch-outs and wrestling matches since they were toddlers. Some of the scenes are totally original — like when Carey is trying to hold onto a 
bunch of goldfish in plastic bags while on a roller coaster ride. And there are novel situations, too: Carey decides to continue to live with Ashley after they split up, and he takes pains to make friends with each guy she sleeps with, so all the guys end up sticking around in their tiny apartment. There are lots of amusing scenes that make you chuckle, but it rarely makes you laugh. And way too many dick jokes (including a lot of visual ones).
Splitsville may not be the best date movie, but it’s not bad, ether.
Splitsville, Lurker and The Roses all 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.
Daniel Garber talks with Peter Mettler about While the Green Grass Grows: A Cinematic Diary in Seven Parts
Part 1
Part 2
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Media pundits say outlets like Tiktok and Instagram have distilled ideas into their purest and shortest form: a thirty second clip best viewed on a smartphone. This, they say, is our future. But not everything is shrinking. Some films are growing, lengthening and expanding. Would you believe I just saw a seven-and-a-half hour movie… and loved it?
It’s a film diary whose seven chapters are shown in two parts. This philosophical travelogue and life-record follows its 
filmmaker over half a decade in Canada, New Mexico, Cuba and Switzerland. It deals with images of animals and caves, rivers and waterfalls, alongside a personal examination of life and death, and the past and the future.
The film’s called While the Green Grass Grows and is written, directed and photographed by award-winning Swiss-Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler. Peter’s retrospectives — featuring Gambling Gods and LSD, and Picture of Light — have been shown at the Lincoln Center, the Jeu de Paume, and Cinémathèque Suisse, while his cinematography can be seen in movies like Robert Lepage’s Tectonic Plates and Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured Landscapes. With a distinct cinematic style that lies somewhere between experimental film and documentary, Peter explores both the physical world and the ideas we carry within our minds.
While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven Parts will have its world premiere at #TIFF50.
I spoke with Peter Mettler in Toronto, via ZOOM.
Hot and cool. Films reviewed: Ne Zha 2, Honey Don’t! PLUS Canadian films at #TIFF50
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m talking about two more hot summer movies, one from China and one from the US. There’s a red-hot demon who wants to live forever, and a cool, hard-boiled detective who faces death on a daily basis.
But first a look at Canadian movies premiering at TIFF’s 50th anniversary.
TIFF Canada
This year, TIFF has programmed dozens of Canadian movies — far two many to mention, but here’s a brief survey of some films worth notice.
First some documentaries:
In Modern Whore director Nicole Bazuin and subject Andrea Werhun (she was featured in Paying for It: Interview last year) challenge misconceptions about sex work and sex workers. Ni-naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising by Shane Belcourt (Red Rover: review) with Tanya Talaga is about an indigenous youth-led, 90 day armed occupation in Kenora, Ontario, back in 1974. And Min-Sook Lee’s (Migrant Dreams: interview) deeply personal film There Are No Words looks at her own mother’s suicide when she was still a child.
How about some dramas? First, two Canadian films set nowhere in particular:
There’s Honey Bunch, by Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli, a psychological thriller about a couple in an isolated rehab centre; and Clement Virgo’s (Brother: Review; The Book of Negroes: Interview) Steal Away, the story of two princesses… of a sort.
From Atlantic Canada comes Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) Bretten Hannam’s (Wildwood: Interview) eerie thriller about two Mi’kmaw brothers confronting their past; And Andy Hines’ Little Lorraine, a crime thriller about drug-smugglers in a Cape Breton mining town.
Two Quebec movies look really promising. Philippe Felardeau’s (Monsieur Lazhar: Review) Lovely Day is a comedy drama about the events leading up to a wedding; and Mathieu Denis’ (Corbo: review) The Cost of Heaven, a shocking true-crime family drama that took actually place in Montreal in 2012.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what two young Toronto directors are up to next. Chandler Levack’s (I like Movies: Interview) Mile End Kicks is a romantic comedy about a music critic who moves to Montreal to get her life in order. While Matt Johnson’s (Blackberry: Review) Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is a comedy apparently about a failed cover band in Toronto want to play at the Rivoli.
Blood Lines is Gail Maurice’s (Rosie: Interview) singular, same-sex Metis love story from the Prairies. And Tasha Hubbard’s (Nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up: Interview) Meadowlarks is a real-life drama about four indigenous siblings separated by the Sixties Scoop getting back together again in Banff, Alberta for the first time in 50 years.
And, finally, from the North comes Oscar-winner Zacharias Kunuk’s (Maliglutit: review) The Wrong Husband, an Inuit historical drama / folktale set 4,000 year in the past.
That’s just a sample of some of the Canadian films premiering at TIFF.
Ne Zha 2
Wri/Dir: Jiaozi
It’s hundreds of years ago in China, when demons and gods still roam the earth. Two supernatural beings, the fiery and impetuous Ne Zha and the calm and focused Ao Bing, once rivals, now find themselves in the same situation.They are both bodyless, floating around like ghosts. If they don’t get their bodies back soon, they will cease to exist. Once they’re reborn, if they pass three tests, they can drink the potion of immortality. Fortunately, a magical cure involving a giant lotus blossom drenched with semen-like fluid, can bring them back to life. Unfortunately, it works for Ne Zha but not for Ao Bing. And Ne Zha needs Ao Bing’s steady hand to pass the trials. So they come to a compromise: Ao Bing’s spirit will share Ne Zha’s body and they’ll try to work together. But can they pass the tests, resist the four dragons, cooperate with the old man of the south in his floating jade castle, stay out of the cauldron of fire, and fight off the thousands of evil demons who may try to eat them?
Ne Zha 2 is an animated kids’ movie straight out of China, about a rambunctious little red devil with pointy teeth, a wide mouth and fierce eyes. It’s a sequel, and is immensely popular in East Asia, even more so than the original. Ne Zha 2 has only played in IMAX in China but has already cleared 2 billion 
dollars. There’s tons of Chinese cultural and folklore and historical stuff you probably won’t understand, but I think kids will get it. Lots of jokes little kids will laugh at, about farts, piss, and vomit. There are dozens of characters voiced in English by stars like Michelle Yeoh. The animation is usually great, but there are scenes where the background doesn’t match the characters, which is off-putting. And it’s 2 1/2 hours long, which is a big chunk of your time. So if you curious about what the most popular animated film ever looks like, now’s your chance.
Honey Don’t!
Dir: Ethan Coen
It’s a hot summer’s day in Bakersfield, California; so hot you could fry an egg on the trunk of a car. But you wouldn’t want to do it on this one: it’s upside down in the desert, the wheels still spinning, a woman dead inside. An accident? Or murder? Honey O’Donohue, PI (Margaret Qualley) is there to investigate. And so is a police detective named Marty (Charlie Day) who practically drools whenever Honey is around. To his eyes, she’s a tall glass of water — and he wants a sip! — but he’s barking up the wrong tree: Honey only sleeps with women… and usually one night stands. And she’s not just a pretty face, she’s sharp, with a dry wit, a hard drinker who can deck any gunman without breaking a nail. She’s at the crime scene because the dead woman is her client — she hired Honey because she felt she was in danger. Turns out she was right, and dead bodies are piling up for unknown reasons. And all roads lead to a deeply corrupt and lascivious preacher named Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) who clearly has the devil in him. He has wanton sex with parishioners and a 
side hustle selling drugs for the French Mob. So Honey enlists a rough-looking gumshoe named MG (Aubrey Plaza) to help her catch the bad guys, and find her missing niece. They end up in bed together, repeatedly. Is this love? Or just lust? And will Honey ever find out who’s behind the crime wave?
Honey Don’t! is a very light and fun detective story, loaded with sex and violence, that spoofs old fashioned film noir movies. It quotes generously from Russ Myers’ films like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!, and other cult classics. It’s the work of Ethan Coen — one of the two Coen Brothers — and his partner Tricia Cooke. This is number two of a planned trilogy of Lesbian B-Movies (Cooke is bisexual). Admittedly, I walked out of this movie scratching my head — it’s highly entertaining, but very superficial and doesn’t neatly tie up all the loose ends. But you know what? After a day thinking about it, I kinda like the way it doesn’t completely finish… it feels like the pilot episode of a TV detective series. Margaret Qualley is terrific, and Aubrey Plaza looks and acts totally different from any of her recent roles. So if you’re yearning for 90 minutes of forgettable sex, violence and over-the-top characters, I think you’ll like Honey, Don’t.
I did.
Honey Don’t and Ne Zha 2 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.
Secrets. Films reviewed: Sweet Angel Baby, Nobody 2, PLUS TIFF50!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
As summer starts to wind down, I’m looking at two new movies that take you to places you’ve never been. There’s a drama about a young woman’s sexual secrets in a tiny Newfoundland outport and an action/comedy about a middle-aged man trying to keep his profession a secret while on vacation at a run-down amusement park.
But first I’m looking at more movies coming to TIFF in September.
TIFF Directors
TIFF is less than a month away, and I haven’t seen anything yet, but here are a few more movies — by international directors — that caught my eye.
Laura Poitras, has made two crucial docs so far: Citizen 5 about whistleblower Edward Snowden and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed about artist Nan Goldin’s fight with the Sackler family. Her newest doc, Cover Up, looks at the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib stories.
Guillermo del Toro — who splits his time between Toronto and Mexico City — is a specialist in gothic horror, (Devils Backbone, Cronos, Pinocchio, Nightmare Alley, The Shape of Water, Crimson Peak ) so it’s no surprise he’s doing his own version of Frankenstein. This should be great.
You may not have heard of Christian Petzold, but he’s one of the most creative and distinctive German directors around. (Barbara,, Phoenix, Transit, Undine,, Afire) He makes mannered, artificial-looking movies, that still deeply affect the viewer. His newest pic, Miroirs No. 3 is about a woman who moves in with a witness to the accident that killed her boyfriend. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes who won an Oscar for his harrowing Son of Saul, and whom I interviewed on this show in 2018, is back with a new film called Orphan. It’s about a young man in 1950s Budapest who is raised idolizing his late heroic father, until he meets a brutish, horrible man who claims to be his real dad.
Raoul Peck is the Haitian filmmaker known for his powerful, political documentaries, like I Am Not your Negro about James Baldwin. His latest is Orwell: 2+2=5 a biography of that writer and how his book 1984 is still relevant.
I first encountered Annemarie Jacir’s film When I Saw You back in 2012, but it stuck with me. Palestine 36 — having its world premiere at TIFF — is about fighting the British in 1936, and it stars Hiam Abbas and Jeremy Irons.
Steven Soderbergh churns out several new movies each year — some great, some terrible. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on his newest one about art fraud, The Christophers — starring Ian McKellen and James Corden — cause it looks kinda good.
Director Claire Denis who grew as a white French woman in colonial West Africa has made so many great movies (White Material, Beau Travaille) that I’ll watch anything she produces. Her latest The Fence is in English, and stars Matt Dillon, Mia McKenna-Bruce (who I interviewed on this show last year) and Ivorian actor Isaach De Bankolé.
These are just a few of the movies premiering at TIFF50.
Screenshot
Sweet Angel Baby
Wri/Dir: Melanie Oates
It’s a cold Sunday morning in a tiny outport in Newfoundland. It’s a picturesque town, with brightly coloured wooden houses scattered on hills overlooking crashing waves at the foot of cliffs down below. But this day the town’s priest has some bad news. The Vatican is selling the church and the land it stands on to pay court-ordered restitution for the child abuse crimes of a previous generation. But the chapel has been there for centuries, built by the villagers’ own great, great grandparents. And though it’s the centre of their lives, they can’t think of any way to stop it from being sold. Until one voice asks: Why don’t we raise money ourselves to buy it on behalf of the town. That suggestion comes from the much-loved Eliza (Michaela Kurimsky). She has pale skin and long auburn hair, is savvy, kind and pretty. And still single. The men all hit on her — even Shawn (Peter Mooney) her high school crush who is married with children. What they don’t know is she has a secret lover named Toni (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) an out-lesbian who 
works as a waitress at the local diner and raises chickens for eggs on the side. They keep their relationship casual and hush-hush.
But Eliza has another secret even Toni doesn’t know about. She has an anonymous website — with many followers, worldwide — where she posts her artistic photos. They are all of herself — posed on the cliffs, in the woods, lying on lichen covered rocks. But these aren’t your usual selfies. In all these carefully composed pictures, she’s naked or scantily clad (with her face obscured, naturally.) But when someone in the village, somehow figures out she’s the woman in the photos, everything changes. Once one person knows, everyone knows, and her bucolic world collapses all around her.
Sweet Angel Baby is a moving drama about secrets, sex, frustration and cruelty in a small town in Newfoundland. It’s a lovely and touching story, filled with highly erotic — and occasionally absurd — images. Michaela Kurimsky is fantastic as Eliza a woman yearning to burst out of a culture that’s repressing her but still holds so many good parts of her life. I love the cinematography and art direction from the little red houses to a dead moose.
Sweet Angel Baby shows us a a new and different Newfoundland.
Nobody 2
Dir: Timo Tjahjanto
Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) is an average middle-aged, middle-class suburban guy, with a wife and two kids. He’s nobody, really. He goes to work each day, and comes home after everyone’s asleep. So what does he do all day? Fights and kills bad guys, sometimes 5 at a time. He’s good at it and likes his job. He works for a secretive syndicate that sends him out on death-defying assignments each day — he’s a professional killer, a hitman extraordinaire. But lately he feels like he’s missing out on life. He wasn’t there for his son Brady’s big game, or his daughter Sammy’s fleeting innocent years. And he barely sees his wife Becca at all (Connie Nielsen). So he decides to take his family to Plummerville, the same cheesy rundown amusement park his dad (Christopher Lloyd) took him and his brother to (RZA) when they were both kids. So they pile into the car and head out on the road for some good clean fun.
Problem is, trouble has a way of finding Hutch, wherever he goes. It starts with just a minor fight in a pinball ally involving the local highschool’s bully and his son. Hutch tries to stay calm, and not get involved, but it turns out the bully’s dad owns Plummerville, and the town itself is ridden with 
corruption and organized crime; they use the theme park to launder money and smuggle guns and drugs. The local Sheriff (Colin Hanks) is a bad hombre, and on top of the heap is a sadistic gangster kingpin (or queenpin?) named Lendina (played by the much-missed Sharon Stone). She’s as bloodthirsty as she is cruel, and takes notice when an unknown tourist starts interfering with her profit-making. Can Hutch fight off all the villains and protect his family while keeping them all totally clueless as to the nature of his work?
Nobody 2 is an action comedy about an ineffectual dad who is secretly a killing machine. It’s a sequel to the original movie a few years back. Think: National Lampoon’s Vacation starring John Wick. The violence is great, running from choreographed fight scenes (using fists, knives, guns, and improvised weapons) to bigger stuff like booby traps, gattling 
guns and hand grenades… all set against an aging, seedy amusement park (filmed near Winnipeg!). I know, we shouldn’t laugh at people being killed, but the humour — and the violence — seldom stops.
Nobody 2 is 90 minutes of violent fun.
Sweet Angel Baby and Nobody 2 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.
Daniel Garber talks with Anastasia Trofimova about Russians at War
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s 2023 near the Ukraine/Russian border, and things are bleak. Cities are filled with empty bombed out apartments, and in nearly deserted villages only the old, poor and infirm remain. Countless soldiers have been killed there, with new recruits taking their place, as they prepare to fight and kill the enemy, even as 
medics drive around looking for the wounded and the dead. Capturing all this is a woman with a camera, named Anastasia, asking probing questions of the soldiers she’s with. Are they justified in what they are doing? Do they want to be there? And all this is taking place… on the Russian side!
Russians at War is the name of a new documentary that goes across the border to film Russian soldiers in their war against 
Ukraine. It captures the cynicism, pessimism and fear of a never-ending war machine. It’s produced, directed and photographed by award-winning Russian- Canadian documentarian Anastasia Trofimova known for her TV work in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe and as a fixer and translator for the CBC, New York Times, Magnum Photos, and the Washington Post . This is her first feature.
I spoke with Anastasia about her controversial film from Toronto, via ZOOM.
Her documentary will be released online (russiansatwar.com) on August 12, 2025.
Not tourists. Films reviewed: Souleymane’s Story, The Legacy of Cloudy Falls
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is when people scour the earth for vacation spots, where they can soak up the glamour and romance of famous locales without ever actually living there. This week I’m looking at two new movies about the people who live in popular tourist destinations. There are asylum-seekers in Paris, and psychic-debunkers in Niagara Falls.
Souleymane’s Story
Co-Wri/Dir: Boris Lojkine
Souleymane Sangaré (Abou Sangaré) is a young man on a bike. His friends call him Souleye de Paris. He earns his keep delivering meals to paid customers across the city using his smartphone to record the deliveries and pass on his next assignment. Other young men from West Africa look up to him as a role model, and beg him to help them become couriers too. But Souleymane’s life is more complicated than it seems.
Originally from Guinee, he arrived in France as a refugee seeking asylum. His beloved girlfriend back home (they speak by phone) is talking about marrying someone else, and his mother seems particularly out of touch when he speaks with her. He is homeless, and sleeps in a dormitory far from the Gare du Nord. But he never gets a full night’s sleep because he is forced to wake up in the middle of the night to electronically reserve his next night’s bed. He catches a bus ride to and from the shelter, and if he’s late he’s forced to sleep in the rough. 
Even his delivery job is done on the sly, using someone else’s name who takes a large cut of each transaction (he’s undocumented and can’t work legally.) And everything he does is done for one goal: his asylum interview scheduled in just a few days. He’s studying hard to pass that ordeal. And to do that correctly, he needs to hire a coach to fill in the forms and train him on exactly what to say.
So when an accident messed up a single delivery, his carefully constructed life suddenly becomes precarious. Can Souleymane keep his job, pay his asylum coach, and pass the government interview? Or will he be sent back to the country he fled?
Souleymane’s Story is a powerful, fast-moving, slice-of-life drama about a refugee in Paris. Souleymane is in constant motion, on a bike, climbing staircases, on trying to catch the 
metro or a bus. Most of the movie is in the form of a flashback as he waits for his immigration interview. And as it slowly builds to that event, everything leading p to it is exposed, climaxing in a heart wrenching, tear jerking finish. The dialogue shifts between French and a number of other West African languages, showing the polyglot nature of life in the big city.
I don’t recognize the director or any of the actors, but it has a realistic feel.
Good movie.
The Legacy of Cloudy Falls
Wri/Dir: Nick Butler
It’s summertime in the city of Niagara Falls. A group of long-term tenants at a seedy apartment building live in close proximity. Terry (Andrew Moodie) is a single, middle-aged gay, Black man who runs an unsuccessful souvenir shop. He spends his lonely days surrounded by fridge magnets and snow globes that nobody seems to want. But he has one goal: to locate the son of a man he once knew. Terry fantasizes about his next door neighbour, Edwin, a compulsive, body-conscious young man who lifts weights and decorates himself with home-made tattoos. Edwin (Josh Dohy) just appeared there one day, 
claiming he is the nephew of the hotel’s owner but Terry has never seen them together.
Brigit (Grace Glowicki) sees herself as a debunker of the lies and scams perpetrated by fortune tellers and mind-readers. (She’s also having an affair with a croupier at the casino, but that’s another story.) She has a website devoted to her whistle-blowing, which no one seems to read. Still, she’s ready to catch her Moby Dick, a man named Walter Pryce, due to arrive in town soon. Pryce is a tele-psychic whose YouTube videos are watched by millions, and who Brigit vows to take down.
Finally there’s Riley (Amanda Martínez) a cynical, compulsive liar, who pretends she’s the director of a talent agency. She keeps her boss semi-conscious through the use of sleeping powders generously sprinkled into her drinks. But she feels strangely drawn to Calvin (Richard Zeppieri) a shy man who appears at the office one day, with dreams of becoming a professional actor. These are just a few of the plot streams happening simultaneously in and around the apartments as recounted in a nasal voice by Rita (Susan Berger) a senior with bottle-red hair who sees everything going on at the Cloudy Falls.
The Legacy of Cloudy Falls is a comedy/drama about a group of quirky and tragically lonely characters as they interact with one another. (I kept hearing the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby in the back of my mind.) Vendettas, scams and conspiracy theories ebb and flow like the misty waterfall nearby. Amid walls 
painted with UFOs, no one seems to do what they’re supposed to be doing but somehow, still continue to get along. This film is retro kitsch mixed with Wes Anderson-style odd-balls. There’s something about Niagara Falls that brings all these strange people to one place — especially in movies. (I’m thinking Albert Shin’s Disappearance at Clifton Hill from 2019, for example).
This is director Nick Butler’s first feature after a series of shorts and many years oworking in casting for various TV series — which may explain the episodic nature of this film — stories that are linked and coexist but have their own separate narratives.
So if you’re in the mood for something whack but oddly compelling, check out this one.
The Legacy of Cloudy Falls opens on August 25 in Toronto, with Souleymane’s Story playing this weekend at the TIFF Lightbox; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Saturday Morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website www.culturalmining.com.
More popcorn movies. Films reviewed: Together, The Naked Gun PLUS #TIFF25 films to look out for
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There’s something new at Hot Docs Cinema that has nothing to do with documentaries. It’s called Pillow Fright!, which the programmers Emily Gagne and Danita Steinberg describe as “a sleepover-themed, creep-tastic series for fellow friendly freaks – the girls, gays, and theys who crave a good scare in a safe, inclusive space.” It starts next Friday with a screening of the original Final Destination. That’s Pillow Fright! at the Hot Docs Cinema.
So this week, I’m looking at two more summertime popcorn movies — one about a couple with a strange attraction, the other about a cop with a strange distraction — but first here’s a look at some of the movies coming to TIFF this Fall.
TIFF Movies
Tiff is more than a month away, but they’re already releasing many of the titles. Now, I haven’t seen any of them yet but here are some movies made by international directors whose past movies I really liked. (I’ll be looking at Canadian Directors soon).
Gus Van Sant — who made Good Will Hunting and Mala Noche — has a new film about a hostage taking called Dead Man’s Wire.
I loved Moroccan director Maryam Touzani’s Blue Caftan in 22. 
Calle Malaga is about an elderly Spanish woman in Tangiers.
Agnieszka Holland (In Darkness, The Burning Bush, Mr. Jones. Green Border)— the celebrated Polish director who studied film in Prague — has a biopic about Kafka titled Franz.
Jafar Panahi (No Bears) is that subtle and funny Iranian 
director whose film at TIFF will be It Was Just an Accident, about a small mishap that causes a chain reaction.
English director Ben Wheatley (A Field in England, In The Earth) makes weird and baffling movies, so, of course his movie at TIFF — called Normal — is sure to be anything but.
Mamoru Hosoda, whose Japanese anime (like Wolf Children and Mirai) are always fantastical and moving, is back with Scarlet about a princess who transcends time and space.
I’ve been watching director Joachim Trier’s 
(Oslo August 31st, Thelma, The Worst Person in The World) detailed, angsty Oslo dramas for a decade and half so I’m really looking forward to Sentimental Value, about family, memories, and the power of art.
Benny Safdie who, with his brother Josh, brought us outrageous films like Good Time and Uncut Gems, is going solo this round with The Smashing Machine, a biopic about a UFC fighter, played by The Rock.
Did you see The Brutalist last year? Co-writer Mona
Fastvold’s newest pic is The Testament of Ann Lee, a historical drama about the Shaker movement.
Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out Mystery (Glass Onion, Knives Out), which is sure to be highly entertaining.
These are just some of the movies slated for TIFF this year.
Together
Wri/Dir: Michael Shanks
Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) are a couple in New York City, about to make a big change in their lives. They’re moving out of their cramped apartment into a spacious house in a remote village. She’s a lot more into it than he is. Tim is a professional musician in a band about to go on tour again, and it’s hard to rehearse or perform when you’re out in the woods. Their house is old and creepy, and Tim is spooked by a rats’ nest he finds in a light fixture. Millie, on the other hand, has an actual job as schoolteacher. It advances her career, and she likes it here, despite the eccentric staff at the school, including Jamie (Damon Herriman) who lives down the road.
One day, something unexpected happens. They’re going for a hike down a trail in the woods, and they fall into a pit, dug straight into the ground. No one comes to their rescue — they’ve heard about another young couple who disappeared — so they end up sleeping there overnight, drinking water from an underground source. And in the morning they’re both covered in some sticky fungus — they literally have to pull their legs apart from each other like ripping off a bandaid.
No biggie, right? But when Millie drives off to work, Tim gets tossed around inside his shower. Is this ghosts or spirits playing with them? When they ask for advice from Jamie He;’s says don’t worry it’s nothing. But as time passes, Tim
finds it virtually impossible to stay away from Millie. As he gets more and more clingy, their boundaries are ever more challenged. Is he stalking her or going nuts? Or is something bigger calling the shots?
Together is a romantic, body-horror thriller about a couple’s relationship — both attraction and repulsion — whose boundaries are challenged after a walk in the woods. No spoilers here, but the story is highly original and probably like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Dave Franco and Alison Brie have noticeable chemistry with impeccable timing in their interactions. It wasn’t till after seeing the movie that I realized Franco and Brie are a married couple in real life. That explains it. But they’re really good at it, including simulated sex scenes in unexpected locales. There is sex, nudity, violence and truly grotesque special effects, so if you don’t like being shocked and titillated, stay away.
Cause Together is probably the most exciting relationship movie you’re ever going to see.
The Naked Gun
Co-Wri/Dir: Akiva Schaffer
The LA Police Squad is a special unit formed to stop crime and catch criminals. Their most famous detective is Lt Frank Drebin Jr (Liam Neeson). Like his father before him, he’s known for his single-minded, relentless pursuits and gruff, hardboiled nature. He can thwart a bank robbery and take down a dozen thieves with his bare hands. Unfortunately, those robbers are complaining about Drebin’s brutality, so
the police chief (CCH Pounder) has re-assigned Frank to another case; an apparent suicide. It’s open and shut until Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) an elegant femme fatale, shows up at his office. It’s not suicide, she says… it’s murder. And the victim was my brother! That morning’s bank heist was masterminded by the evil industrialist Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who made his fortune selling self-driving, electric cars. He ordered the bank robbery to secure a device invented by the dead man. With it, Cane thinks he can wipe out the earths population and then rule the planet. It’s up to Drebin and Beth to solve the mystery and catch the criminals. But will it be too late?
The Naked Gun is a stupid-funny comedy, a reboot and 
update of the TV show and movie series from the 1980s and 90s. (With Liam Neeson taking over Leslie Nielsen’s role). The story is juvenile and simplistic, populated with exaggerated, comic-book caricatures. At the same time, it’s very funny. Most of the humour doesn’t come from witty dialogue, it’s mainly visual gags, with a new punchline appearing on the screen every three or four seconds. (The jokes continue non-stop, even during the closing credits: look for hidden puns among the names). The humour is bawdy and salacious, with more visual double entendres than you can shake a stick at. Pamela Anderson does a great film noir pastiche, even scat-singing at an LA nightclub. And Liam Neeson — after a career playing gruff action heroes fighting terrorists — is finally allowed to parody himself.
The movie is hilarious.
The Naked Gun and Together 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.
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