Cultural Mining

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

Searching for a new movie to see? This week I’m looking at three great American indie films. There’s a celebrity chef before he learnt how to cook; a bluegrass-loving beekeeper threatened by honey rustlers; and a former slasher star who lives in a cabin in the woods.

Tony

Co-Wri/Dir: Matt Johnson (Nirvanna: The Band The Show, The Movie, Blackberry)

It’s the mid-1970s in a beach house in Provincetown, Cape Cod when Tony (Dominic Sessa) is rudely awakened one summer morning by a bucket of water dumped on his head. He vaguely remembers getting drunk at a restaurant, hitting on a waitress, and beaten up and robbed by a tough guy from the kitchen. Now he’s broke, homeless and hungover. But the guy who dumped the water (Antonio Banderas) happens to be both the owner of the beach house that let him sleep on the porch and the chef at the restaurant that threw him out. And he needs a dishwasher. So Tony, after weighing his options, takes the job.

The kitchen, though, is an absolute pigsty, with the staff smoking cigarettes spitting on the floor or arriving at work three sails to the wind. Tyrone (Michael Jibrin) is the stoic, Stavros (Stavros Halkias) a foul-mouthed slob, and Sal (Leo Woodall) is a shady Lothario who views every woman in town as another potential notch in his bedpost. But Sal takes Tony under his wing to show him the way, and Chef starts to teach him how to cook. 

But Tony is in Cape Cod under false pretences. He followed his high school and college crush there from Vassar pretending he’s on a summer fellowship to write his first novel. (There its no scholarship). But Nancy (Emilia Jones) is older and more sophisticated than Tony, and she already has a boyfriend — the pizza guy where she’s working for the summer. And everything Tony does ends up a total disaster. Can he win Nancy over… or at least get her to notice him? Will he pick up some skills from Chef? Or will he return home none the wiser, with his tail between his legs?

Tony is a coming of age story about a teenager learning to take responsibility for his actions. It’s also a putative biopic, about the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, before he could cook. But this being a movie by Toronto director Matt Johnson, you know it’s only half-true. (Bourdain’s estate gave him free-reign). Which is a good thing, first because Johnson’s a great story teller, and second because hagiographic, kiss-ass portrayals of famous people are the worst. Tony is the exact opposite. It’s funny and sympathetic and somehow very real-seeming in its fiction. Antonio Banderas downplays his character as Chef, and Leo Woodall is great as the flawed Sal. Most of all, Dominic Sessa in the lead role perfectly captures the vulnerable kid beneath his arrogant facade. He appeared out of nowhere in the great movie The Holdovers three years ago, and here he is back again, at last.

I highly recommend this movie.

Rivals of Amziah King

Dir: Andrew Patterson

It’s the not so distant past in a small rural town in Oklahoma. Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), is a widower who loves tater tots and barbeque. He gave up their indigenous foster kids when his wife died years earlier. Now he has two passions left in his life: bluegrass music and bees. He jams in a band — fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica and himself on the mandolin —  whenever he and his friends get a chance. And he earns his living as a beekeeper, tending to his hives, and bottling the honey in plastic containers shaped like teddy bears. He’s a local legend who everyone turns to for help or advice; even the police, when they detect shenanigans in the honey industry. There’s a mysterious rustler who is stealing barrels of honey from local  beekeepers (perhaps a reference to the Great Maple Syrup Heist in Quebec?).

But everything changes when he sees a familiar face working at a diner a few towns over. It’s Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) his former foster kid, who is now a young woman.  He immediately invites her back to work with his bees, teaching her the tricks of the trade. And, as part of the terms, the painfully shy Kateri has to sing along with the bluegrass band. Could life possibly be better than this? 

Until the mysterious honey rustler steals all of Amziah’s bees, hives and honey, sparking a heart attack. It’s up to Kateri to find the hives, bring it all back home again, and punish the bad guys. She enlists a sketchy young beekeeper (Jake Horowitz) to help her with her scheme. But will it work? 

Rivals of Amziah King is a messy and rollicking look at life in the rural south. It meanders along, seemingly at random, with episodes popping up to give us a peek at the lives of Amziah and his friends: a horrible accident here,  a school house crisis there, and lots of laughter and music along the way. That’s the very messy first half: part comedy, part music. The second half is a straightforward narrative about Kateri’s adventure, through the bogs and bayous, churches and potlucks as she tries to find the thieves and get back their honey. The characters are fun (and virtually all guys, except Kateri). You can tell Matthew McConaughey is having the time of his life by the way he never stops grinning. Newcomer Angelina LookingGlass is amazing as Keteri, radiating warmth in every shot. But I found the direction sloppy and undisciplined, going off in all directions at a leisurely pace, with long interruptions in the action for yet another bluegrass session.  And — like a kid in a candy store — he plays around with camera gimmicks like freeze frames, for no particular reason, just cause he feels like it.

But, you know what? Despite all its bumps and inconsistencies, I found Amzaiah King an enjoyable experience. 

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma 

Wri/Dir: Jane Schoenbrun 

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a young, queer filmmaker driving north. She’s in a long-term relationship with a polyamorous woman, who also sleeps with a self-declared bisexual Viking named Thor. Kris is trying to locate a legendary campground where a series of hit slasher movies were shot in the 80s and 90s. The first few releases all starred Billy (Gillian Anderson) the then-young actress who played Final Girl who — like Laurie Strode in Halloween — was the only character who always survived. Billy eventually quit the series and disappeared, and still holds cult status, but the franchise itself fell from favour. It’s now scorned by critics and audiences alike for its dated and offensive conceit. (The killer, “Little Death” was a non-binary camper, bullied and drowned by their campmates, who arose from the dead to slaughter everyone using a two-ended  harpoon). Now a big Hollywood studio is in talks with Kris to possibly revive the Camp Miasma franchise, using her “woke” credentials to attract new, young audiences. And Kris is obsessed by those films.

She eventually finds the location, hidden in the woods. It’s completely deserted but feels somehow still lived in.  The log cabins, the pristine lake and the breathtaking mountains give it an etherial, otherworldly look. There’s even a movie projector set-up to play one of the very slasher films she’s investigating. And who should appear, partway through but Billy herself, straight out of Sunset Boulevard complete with a turban and heavy mascara. Turns out she bought the whole camp ground with her royalties and has lived there ever since. Kris is thrown for a loop, meeting the object of her fantasies in the flesh within the setting of the slasher movies she’s watched ever since she was a child. 

But she also feels like she’s being watched by someone else. Will Billy agree to appear in her new movie and will the audio give it the nod? Will Kris’s sexual fantasies come true? Will she experience la petite mort? And is this place haunted by a fictional killer?

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a nostalgic art-house comedy/horror tribute to classic slasher movies. It’s also highly stylized, using obviously fake settings,  and exaggerated, expressionistic acting. It’s surreal, blurring the lines between the Camp Miasma movies and real life As the title promises, there are scenes of sex and violence, both comical and extreme, with blood spouting like a geyser.

Jane Schoenbrun (or their avatar Kris) is clearly in awe of traditional technology, almost fetishizing everything from film projectors to DVD players, never exploiting it, just lovingly caressing it with the camera. I love the design, the music and the settings… even the opening credits. Einbinder and Anderson form an inseparable odd couple, and the many cameos — including Kids in the Hall’s Kevin McDonald — make it even better. 

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is both reverent and subversive. I love this movie.

Tony, Rivals of Amziah King, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma 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