60s, 70s, 80s. Films reviewed: Cocaine Bear, Jesus Revolution, Metronom
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies. There are spiritual revolutionaries in California in the 1960s, teenaged dissidents in Bucharest in the 1970s, and a crazed animal in Georgia in the 1980s.
Cocaine Bear
Dir: Elizabeth Banks
It looks like a typical day in 1985 in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia. Two little kids are playing hooky, three skateboard-riding teenage delinquents are looking for some petty crime to commit, a pair of Scandinavian backpackers are on a hike, and a middle-aged forest ranger is dressed to impress a guy she wants to date. But everything changes when a prop-plane pilot drops a dozen duffel bags of uncut cocaine into the woods… and then promptly dies. Suddenly the supply chain is broken, and out-of-state traffickers looking to retrieve their supply — and the cops who want to nab them — all descend on the park at once. And here’s where the 
actual movie starts: a huge black bear sticks its nose into the duffel bag and emerges as a frantic, delirious, coke head, forever on the lookout for more snow to blow. Who will find the drugs — the cops, the gangsters, the delinquents, or the children? And who will not be eaten by the bear?
Cocaine Bear is a low-brow, high-concept comedy that’s basically 90 minutes of extreme-gore violence. I was a bit dubious at the beginning, but about half an hour in it started to get really funny. I know it’s stupid-funny, but it still made me laugh. The all-CGI bear is one of the main characters, but there’s a great assortment of humans, too, played by an all-star cast: Margo Martindale as the forest ranger, the late Ray Liotta was the gangster, Alden Ehrenreich as his diffident son, O’Shea 
Jackson Jr as his henchman, and Keri Russell as a mom searching for the two missing children. It’s hilariously directed by TV actor Elizabeth Banks. Cocaine Bear easily beats Snakes on a Plane and Sharknado as best movie based solely on its title. Supposedly inspired by true events (yeah, right) it has lots of room for ridiculous 80s haircuts, music and other gags to good effect. Stoner movies are a dime a dozen and half of the movies coming out of Hollywood are clearly made by cokeheads, but this may be the first comedy about cocaine I’ve ever seen. If you’re comfortable laughing at blood, gore and gratuitous violence, along with lots of base humour, I think you’ll love this one.
Jesus Revolution
Dir: Jon Erwin, Brent McCorkle
It’’s the late 1960s in California, where young people everywhere are tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. One of these kids is Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), who attends a military academy but would rather be drawing cartoons. He lives in a trailer with his Mom, a glamorous but alcoholic barfly. He meets a pretty girl named Kathe hanging with the hippies outside a public high school, and decides that’s where he’d rather be. But Kathe is from an upper-class family whose parents frown on Greg. Meanwhile, Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), a local pastor, wonders why no one is coming to his Calvary Chapel anymore. It’s because your a square, his 
daughter tells him. So she introduces him to a unique man she met at a psychedelic Happening. Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie) is a charismatic, touchy-feely type who talks like a hippie and looks like Jesus. He emerged from the sex-and-drug world of Haight Ashbury with a mission from God, and now wants to spread the gospel. Chuck Smith is less than impressed, but decides to give him a try.
Soon there are block-long lineups to hear what Lonnie — and Chuck — have to say. This includes Kathe and Greg, who barely survived a bad acid trip. Lonnie gives Greg a place to live and invites him to join the church. Calvary Chapel is attracting people from everywhere, 
culminating in mass baptisms in the Pacific ocean. But as their fame grows, so does the friction. The more moderate Chuck frowns on Lonnie’s in-your-face style — from faith-healing to his talk of being closer to God. Can Greg find a place in this world? Will Kathe’s family ever accept him? And is this a movement or just a flash in the pan?
Jesus Revolution is a retelling of the unexpected upsurge in grassroots Christianity among baby boomers in the 70s. The film is clearly aimed at evangelical church-goers, a subject in which I have absolutely no interest. Zero. Which is why I’m surprised how watchable this film is to a general audience. It’s not preachy — it shows, not tells. It’s well-acted with compelling characters and a surprisingly good story. No angels or miracles here, just regular — flawed but sympathetic — people. I think it’s because the Erwin Brothers (American Underdog, I Still Believe)have figured out how to make mainstream, faith-based movies that are actually good. The film is based on real people, so I was a bit surprised they never mention that Lonnie Frisbee was actually a gay man who later died of HIV AIDS. I guess it doesn’t fit the story they want to tell That said, if you’re involved in a church or a fan of spiritual films, this might be just what you’re looking for.
Metronom
Wri/Dir: Alexandru Belc
It’s 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. Ana and Sarin (Mara Bugarin, Serban Lazarovici) are a beautiful couple still in high school, and madly in love. They both come from “intellectual” families, who are given special privileges in Ceausescu’s communist regime. They go to an elite school together, and hope to pass their Baccalaureates to get into an equally good university. They meet in front of a WWII heroes monument dressed in stylish trench coats and school uniforms. So why is Ana crying? Sarin and his family are emigrating to Germany. That means they’re breaking up for good and will probably never see each other again. Ana is crushed — her world is broken. Which is why she has no interest in going to an afternoon party at a friend’s house, but changes her mind at the least minute. Her father, a law professor, is easy going, but her mother absolutely forbids it. So Ana sneaks out of the apartment and heads to the get-together. This is her last chance before he leaves to make out with Sarin and express her eternal love.
The party is centred around listening to music — Led Zepplin,
Hendrix, The Doors — as played on a radio show called Metronom on Radio Free Europe. Western music is underground, subversive and illicit. They decide to write a letter to the show and pass it on to a French journalist. But two bad things happened. When they make love behind a closed door, Sarin won’t say he loves her. And the party gets raided by the secret police and all the kids are arrested and forced to write confessions. But Ana is so caught up in her relationship she barely notices the interrogation she has landed up in. Who ratted them out to the authorities? And what will happen to Ana?
Metronom is a passionate story of young love in the 1970s under the omnipresent gaze of an authoritarian government. It’s a coming of age story, about heartbreak and the loss of innocence as the real world reveals its ugly face.
If you’ve never seen a Romanian film before (such as Întregalde, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Poppy Field, The Whistlers, The Fixer, One Floor Below), this is a good place to start. They all have this feeling of tension, corruption, mistrust and unease, whether they’re set during Ceaucescu’s reign or long after his fall. This one also has hot sex, good music, stark cinematography, and terrific acting, especially Mara Bugarin as Ana. It manages to be a thriller, a romance and a coming-of-age story, all at once.
This is a good one.
Metronom is now playing a the TIFF Bell Lightbox; Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution open nationwide this weekend; 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.
Coming of age. Films reviewed: Lovely Jackson, Of an Age, Skinamarink
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s been a sad few weeks in the Toronto film scene. Ravi Srinivasan, a recent, young TIFF programmer, and Noah Cowan whom I knew way back in the 1990s, both recently died much too soon. And Harvey Lalonde, possibly the world’s most celebrated film festival volunteer, who had the inside scoop on everything happening at every festival in Toronto, and whom I’ve known and constantly talked with for at least 15 years, also sadly died well before his time.
On a more positive note, the Toronto Black Film Festival is on now through the weekend, showing a huge amount of original content, about being black in Canada from Halifax to Vancouver.
This week, I’m looking at three new indie movies: There are multiple apparitions in Edmonton; mutual attraction in Melbourne; and wrongful incarceration in Cleveland.
Lovely Jackson
Co-Wri, Dir: Matt Waldeck
t’s 1975 in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Rickey Jackson is hanging with a friend when a few blocks away a bill collector is shot down in cold blood. The killer escapes and no weapon is ever found. But based on the testimony of a 12-year-old paperboy who claims he saw Rickey (who has no criminal record) committing the crime, Jackson is tried, convicted and sentenced to death by electric chair. A few years later, on death row, only months away from his execution, a Supreme Court decision stays all capital punishment in the state. But all he has to look forward to is a life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And therein lies the Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma: when brought before a prison panel, he can either lie that he feels remorse for a crime he didn’t commit and be eligible for parole, or tell the truth that he is innocent and be sent back to prison. Although his case is eventually taken up by the Ohio Innocence Project he isn’t freed until after spending 39 years — from 18 to his mid 50s — wrongly 
imprisoned.
Lovely Jackson is a stylized, and highly personal look at incarceration, survival in prison, and his fight to win back his freedom. It’s filmed in a series of black and white vignettes as portrayed by a young actor, and co-written and narrated by Jackson himself. Prison bars collapse into fractals, while Escher-esque prisoners march in lock step in endless circles. Jackson is portrayed in a fetal position as the hands of a clock face, slowly ticking around the hours. It isn’t until he is finally released that you can begin to see him in full colour and real life settings.
Lovely Jackson is an extremely moving documentary of how our justice system has failed, and one man’s struggle to fix it.
Of an Age
Wri/Dir: Goran Stolevski
It’s Melbourne Australia, 20 years ago. Kol (Elias Anton) is 18 and bursting with energy. He’s finishing high school and embarking on a new life. And in just a few hours, he’s meeting with Ebony (Hattie Hook), his ballroom dancing partner, for their big audition. Its the culmination of years of practice and hard work. He’s already dressed in his costume and ready to dance, dance, dance. But then a call comes through from a payphone. Ebony has spent the night passed out on a beach, drunk as a skunk, and doesn’t know where she is. Its up to Kol to try get someone to pick her up and take them both to the audition in time. Fortunately Ebony’s older brother, Adam (Thom Green) comes to the rescue. They miss the dance but Kol and Adam both feel there’s something special between them. Could this be love? Perhaps, but Adam is flying off to latin America to start his PhD. Ten years later they meet again in Melbourne’s airport. What has happened to their lives and where will they go from here?
Of an Age is a bittersweet coming-of-age drama about hope, longing and 
desire. It’s also about Kol’s life as an immigrant with his widowed mother who escaped the wars in the former Yugoslavia. (Goran Stolevski also directed the intriguing Macedonian fairy tale You Won’t Be Alone) And about alienation, bullying, cruelty and coming to terms with his sexuality. I have mixed feelings about this film. I like its slice-of-life look at life in Melbourne with its diverse characters and personalities, and the sometimes emotionally-moving plot. But it feels disjointed. Its frantic opening scenes show Kol and Ebony in a never-ending state of panic shouting at each other non-stop. And the bookend scenes — set 10 years later — are too short, too pat. It’s only in the other parts — like where Kol crashes a neighbourhood party, or has to deal with his relatives — that the movie finally hits its stride. Of An Age is not a bad movie, but it’s far from perfect.
Skinamarink
Wri/Dir: Kyle Edward Ball
It’s late one night in a suburban home in Edmonton, Alberta, and four-year-old Kevin can’t sleep. So he starts wandering around. But things look weird. In the washroom, the toilet appears then disappears. And the doors and windows in the hall aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Mommy, my chatterphone is talking, and my Lego pieces are moving by themselves. Put them back! Turn the lights back on. Uh-oh, the floor is on the ceiling. Toys are on the wall, it’s very bad. Daddy, I don’t like what the TV is saying. Make it stop. Kaylee — will you play with me. Kaylee? What’s wrong with your mouth. Kaylee has no eyes. Mommy? Why won’t you look at me? Daddy? Where are you? Help me. Why is everything so weird. I don’t like it at all. Daddy, there’s a stranger in our house…
Skinamarink is an avant-garde, experimental horror movie about all the nightmares a little kid fears coming true one night. He can’t navigate the familiar routes around his home. All the things that bring him comfort — playing with his toys, watching cartoons — aren’t working right. His Mom and Dad — the ultimate refuge he can always turn to when things go wrong — aren’t helping him this time. They’re only half there. It’s the ultimate child’s horror, filled with confusion and abandonment.
The title comes from the Canadian kids’ song made famous by 
Sharon, Lois and Bram. The film is shot in dim light with grainy, staticky video images. Most of the dialogue is barely audible. The special effects are like what a 6-year-old with no editing skills might attempt: show something, pause, move it off camera and start filming again — hey, look: it disappeared! It’s filled with creepy old TV cartoon music and sinister but indistinct voices that twist familiar toys into scary monsters, with satanic and zombie-like faces appearing for just a split second. Although Skinamarink borrows certain horror cliches, it is not a normal mainstream movie. If you approach it as an arthouse or experimental film, you might like it. But if you’re expecting a regular horror 
movie, you’ll be disappointed and bored. Skinamarink makes Blair Witch Project look conventional. It’s extremely slow moving, and made on a tiny budget, but has generated an avid cult audience. What can I say? I liked this spooky, scary and weird look at childhood trauma.
Of an Age opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Lovely Jackson was the opening night film at Toronto Black Film Festival, which continues through the weekend; and Skinamarink is now streaming on Shudder.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Gems at #TIFF22. Films reviewed: The Hummingbird, Will-o’-the-Wisp, Unruly
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is finished and after viewing 45+ movies I feel pretty good about it. You’ll be hearing a lot more about TIFF movies like The Fablemans, The Whale, The Glass Onion, Women Talking, The Wonder and The Banshees of Inisherin by the end of the year, but there are also a lot of movies, gems and sleepers, that get left by the wayside, without all the studios promoting them. So this week I’m talking about some of the other movies I saw there — from Italy, Denmark and Portugal — that deserve to be noticed. There’s a rebellious girl trapped on a remote island; a little prince seeking the facts of life in a firehouse; and a man called hummingbird whose fate is guided by a series of unusual events.
The Hummingbird
Dir: Francesca Archibugi
Marco Carerra is a man who places great importance on seemingly random occurrences. Take a fatal plane ride, for example. When he’s a student in Florence in the early 1980s he starts winning big at poker. But when he boards a plane heading for Yugoslavia with his gaming partner, Duccio, that man begins to freak, shouting hysterically at other passengers that they all are “dead” and the seats on the plane are ruined and decrepit. Marco is eventually forced to pull Duccio off the plane, thus missing the flight and their big card game. But it crashes, killing everyone on board. And Marco, with his deep belief in the significance of ordinary events, ends up marrying the flight attendant who also missed that flight. It’s just fate.
Another important date happened at their summer home on the beautiful Tyrhennian shoreline. The Carrera’s summer home is right next door to the Lattes’ house. And Marco has a huge crush on the beautiful Luisa, their daughter. But the night he thought he would lose his virginity to Luisa (for whom he would hold a torch forever) was also the night when his quarrelling parents went out for the evening, his brooding brother Giancarlo got so drunk he passed out, and their 
sorely neglected sister Adele committed suicide, turning all their worlds upside down.
The Hummingbird — Marco’s nickname as an unusually small child until a sudden growth spurt in his teens after his father enrols him in hormone treatment — is a wonderful, novelistic movie that traces the intricately woven story of Marco’s life, his love, his family, his wife, his daughter and eventually his 
granddaughter. But not in any obvious order. The story jumps back and forth between his childhood, his adolescence, and his middle and old age, keeping you guessing as to why he did what he did. When I say novelistic, I mean literally, with multiple characters coming in and out of his life making shocking revelations along the way, and calling into question his fundamental beliefs. It’s based on the novel Il colibrì by Sandro Veronesi which won the Strega Prize, Italy’s greatest fiction award, and it does feel like a classic story. What’s really surprising is it was published in 2020, during the pandemic, and the film must have been made since then. The movie stars Pierfrancesco Favino as the adult Marco, Berenice Bejo as Luisa Lattes, Nanni Moretti as Marco’s friend, a psychiatrist (no spoilers here), and Kasia Smutniak as his tempestuous wife.
Keep an eye out for this sleeper and be sure watch it when it comes out.
Will o’the Wisp
Dir: João Pedro Rodrigues
It’s present-day Portugal. Prince Alfredo (Mauro Costa) is a pale young prince with curly blond hair. heir to the crown. He lives in a palace full of statues and paintings recalling his family’s colonial history. (Though the country gave up its monarchy in 1910, his mother still considers Republican and Castilian the two worst insults in their language.) But with Alfredo coming of age his father, the king, decides to tell him what’s what. He takes him for a walk through the royal forest to admire the tall pine trees there. But his father’s description of tumescent tree trunks throbbing with sap so excites the lad, that he is forced to rethink his future. He doesn’t want to be king anymore, now he wants to be a fireman — specifically one who will protect those trees, about which he has an erotic attachment.
At the fire station, Afonso (André Cabral) a handsome black student is tasked with introducing the prince to the firehouse and the forest. He introduces him to the other fireman, they practice exercises, search and rescues, recussitation, fireman carries, and sliding down poles, but for Alfredo, everything has a sexual subtext. Soon the subtext turns to out-and-out sex, with the two young fireman rolling 
around on the forest floor while shouting pornographic and racist epithets in the throws of ecstasy. But can the the little prince find happiness in the arms of a fireman? Or are his regal responsibilities too heavy a burden to bear?
Will o’the Wisp is one of the strangest, least classifiable films you’ve ever seen. It’s an historical romantic science fiction comedy, and an arthouse-modern dance- 
musical satire. It’s only 67 minutes long, but in that short time you’ll see The-Sound-of-Music kids in school uniforms singing weird songs as they pop their heads out from behind trees; homoerotic exercise montages, and elaborate dance routines on the firehouse floor. I can’t say I understood all the cultural references that had the Portuguese viewers in the audience howling with laughter, but I could experience the beauty, ridiculousness and shock running throughout the picture.
Unruly
Co-Wri/Dir: Malou Reymann
It’s the 1930s in a working-class Copenhagen neighbourhood. Maren (Emilie Kroyer Koppel) is a free-thinking teenaged girl who knows what she likes and what she hates. She likes getting drunk, dancing to jazz and hooking up with guys. And she hates authority figures — including her mom — telling her what to do. But when her family cuts her off and she becomes a ward of the state, she doesn’t realize her past actions will have grave consequences. She refuses to cooperate with a doctor (Anders Heinrichsen) trying to diagnose her “ailment”. He declares her unruly and out of control, and sends her off to a remote island known for its hospital for mentally handicapped women. Sprogø island is festooned with pretty flowers and picturesque homes where the patients are taught to be submissive, cooperative, quiet girls, under the watchful eye of Nurse Nielsen (Lene Maria Christensen). They are schooled in sewing, cooking and cleaning on the all-female island (though Marin is able to secretly meet with a young repairman). It’s a hospital, not a prison, she is told, but there’s no way to escape. And if you disobey, or even spread bad attitudes, you are strapped to a table and kept in solitary confinement.
Her roommate, Sørine (Jessica Dinnage) acts as the rat, reporting on any woman 
who disobeys the rules. But as Maren gets to know her better she soon discovers the real reason for Sørine’s behaviour: she just wants to be reunited with the child they took away from her. Will Maren learn to accept her fate? Will she find a way to escape the island? Or is she stuck there forever?
Unruly is a deeply moving drama based on an actual hospital that operated in Denmark until the 1960s. Its many crimes included involuntary sterilization, mis-diagnoses, torture and authoritarian rule. Instead of having a series of stock characters, with easy to categorize heroes and villains, all the women develop over the course of the film, giving it an unexpected profundity. This film is a lovely and tragic look at a terribly flawed institution and the people it affected.
Will-o’-the-Wisp, The Hummingbird, and Unruly all premiered at TIFF.
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 Buffy Sainte-Marie about Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On at #TIFF22
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Buffy Sainte Marie was born to Cree parents on a reserve in the Qu’Apelle valley Saskatchewan but was adopted and raised by a family with Mi’kmaq roots in Massachusetts. She grew up musically-inclined and sang folk songs in Yorkville and Greenwich Village coffee houses. Her dynamic guitar style and distinctive vibrato set her apart.
The songs she wrote and performed climbed the charts and were covered by hundreds of other musicians, from Elvis to 
Donavan, Joni Mitchell to Barbra Streisand. Her song Universal Soldier became an anthem of the anti-war movement while Now That the Buffalo’s Gone did the same for the American Indian Movement. She starred in movies and on TV, became a regular on Sesame Street, won countless awards, and was the first — and for many years only — indigenous person to win an Oscar.
Her story is told in a new documentary by Madison Thomas called Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On. Narrated by Taj Mahal, Robbie Robertson, Joni Mitchell and others, and Buffy Ste Marie herself, it combines period footage and personal photos, dramatizations, and lots of music and concerts, both vintage and new.
I spoke to Buffy Sainte-Marie on site at TIFF22.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On had its world premiere at TIFF and is opening at the Hot Docs Cinema later this month.
Humans and other animals. Films reviewed: We Are As Gods, Beast
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m talking about two new movies, about humans and other animals. There’s a man who wishes he’d never met a lion face to face, and another man who wishes woolly mammoths walked the earth again.
We Are As Gods
Wri/ Dir: David Alvarado, Jason Sussberg
Stewart Brand is a man who was at the centre of many of the 20th century’s biggest changes, including psychedelic drugs, environmentalism, personal computers, hacking, and The Whole Earth Catalog. Born in a small city in the midwest he liked playing with wild animals as a child, making friends with squirrels, ‘possums and ducks. He studied biology at Stanford, but by the early 60s wound up in San Francisco, around the time of Ken Kesey’s experimentation with psychedelic drugs. He joined the Merry Pranksters, dropping acid, dancing around and generally having a wild hippie good time.
This was during the Space Race, when the US and USSR were competing at the exploration of outer space. But what Stewart wanted was a photograph of the earth from up there. He publicly and loudly demanded such a photo, and eventually someone took it. It became the cover of a technologically friendly, do-it-yourself guidebook called the Whole Earth Catalog, which embraced environmentalism and conservationism through DIY tools and simple technology. Filled with geodesic domes and quonset huts, it showed how to co-exist in a natural setting. A huge bestseller, it inspired many within the baby 
boomers’ burgeoning youth culture.
He was also around in the earliest stages of Apple computers, inspiring both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Fast forward to the present: Stewart Brand is back in the spotlight, attempting to change the world by “de-extincting” long-lost plants and animals. He points out how entire species that used to dominate North America — from the American chestnut tree to the passenger pigeon — which were wiped out over the course of a few decades about 100 years ago. But their DNA remains, and, he says, with some genetic tweaking, they could be restored. Why is this so important? Because our system is made up of complex, intertwining and interdependent species and when even one disappears it causes a major natural reorganization.
But that’s not all. Building on the work of Pleistocene Park in Siberia (the subject of another doc), he promotes the reintroduction of large animals (like wooly mammoths) into our biosphere. Maybe new flocks of pre-historic elephants, camels, wild horses and buffalo now missing from these areas will help stop global warming by allowing the permafrost to survive.
We Are As Gods is a documentary about Brand, his life and his ideas. The title comes from an epigraph from the Whole Earth Catalogue. Yes, some his ideas sounds ridiculous at first listen, but the film makes a believable argument for a real-life Jurassic Park (Pleistocene actually) — despite the dangers it could pose. He’s also a really interesting character, both smart and ridiculous — he admits to mistakes such as inhaling a tank of laughing gas (nitrous oxide) each week for a couple of years. The movie includes period footage, TV videos, still photos and new interviews with friends, his ex-wife, family members and various scientists. Lots of interesting stuff, packed into one documentary.
Beast
Dir: Baltasar Kormákur
It’s summertime in South Africa. Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) a well-off physician from New York, arrives in a remote game park with his two daughters, Mer and Norah. Mer (Iyana Halley) is angry at her father, but but is swept away by the beauty and grandeur of the African bush. Her little sister Norah (Leah Jeffries), is more innocent and naive. This visit is a homecoming of sorts. Their late mom (she died of cancer in New York) came from a nearby Tsonga village where she met their dad. They were introduced by Uncle Martin (Sharlto Copley), as the kids call him. He’s a game ranger who helps stop poachers from killing the animals, and he’s their host. He shows them giraffes and wildebeests and introduces them to a pride of lions one of whom he raised — they all run to him like playful pups. Lions are social animals, he explains. The lionesses hunt for food, while the lions protect the pride if threatened. Otherwise they don’t attack people.
Which is why all of them — including Martin — are shocked and frightened when, later, another lion violently attacks their jeep. It seems poachers had killed his entire pride except him, 
leaving only the rogue beast looking for vengeance — and they’re not his first target. But can a middle-aged doctor and his two teenaged girls fight off a lion three times their size? Or are they all doomed?
Beast is a dramatic thriller set amidst the spectacular beauty of South Africa. After a mundane start, it quickly turns into a heart-thumper, as one impossible situation follows another as the four of them try to escape this monster. Idris Elba portrays Nate as a neglectful dad but a caring doctor, devoted to saving patients not killing animals. But he also has to connect with his daughters who don’t completely trust him. (He was never around when their mother — his wife — was dying).
I assume the animals were all CGI, but they’re believable enough that you can’t tell. The music spans the continent with tunes from Nigeria to South Africa. I have to admit I saw the trailer and the movie looked pretty bad — a rich American going to Africa to shoot lions? But that’s not what it’s about at all. Though not deeply moving, it’s actually a fun movie with a compact story and all-around good acting. It’s directed by the under-appreciated 
Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur; I’ve seen a few of his movies (like Contraband, 2 Guns, The Deep), and he’s always really good at manipulating sympathetic characters through enormous disasters. He’s not afraid of moving the viewer deep into swampy water, up trees, on top of small mountains or through disorienting tunnels, so you feel you’re a part of it all. So if you’re looking for some well-made thrills, check out Beast.
You can catch Beast this weekend across Canada, check your local listings; and We Are As Gods opens today in select US theatres, and on VOD in September.
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 filmmaker Mark James about Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the 1960s in Kingston, Jamaica.
Randy’s is a legendary record store, a place where fans of music — and the musicians themselves — could listen to the latest hits. And upstairs, on the second floor, there’s a studio, a place where new tunes are being recorded, and their music — ska, reggae and dub — is being released worldwide. All the greats — people like Sly and Robby, Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Scratch Perry, Bob Marley and the Wailers — all spend time there, with some songs climbing to the top of the charts. The studio is run by husband-and-wife Vince and Pat Chin. But when the mood in Kingston changes from peace and calm to violence and gun wars, the studio is forced to 
close, the Chins move to New York, and the building is battered by storms and robbed by looters… but what happened to all those recordings?
Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes is a new documentary that looks at that recording studio, the people who made it work, and the music itself, boxes and boxes of rare, reel-to-reel tapes that somehow survived until now… when the tapes are being faithfully restored, archived and rereleased. The film includes interviews with many musicians, and the Chins, illustrated with hundreds of period 
photos and video clips, along with non-stop music taken from those legendary recordings. This feature documentary is the work of award-winning director and cinematographer, Mark James. A student of fine arts at London’s Goldsmiths College, and film production at the Royal College of Art, he has made docs about Damien Hirst, and Bryan Ferry, as well as horror films like Vampire Diary.
I spoke to Mark in Montreal, via ZOOM.
Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes is having a special Toronto screening on August 15th at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, as part of a national tour.
Filming the Impossible. Movies reviewed: Fire of Love, Come Back Anytime, Nope
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You know how I’m always talking about big-screen movies, how they show you things that you don’t get on a TV, device or phone? Well, movies don’t just walk to your cinemas, they take a hell of a lot of work to get there. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to get them on the screen.
So this week I’m looking at three beautiful movies, two of which are about filming the impossible. There’s a ramen chef who reveals his secret recipes; brother-and-sister ranchers who try to take pictures of a UFO; and husband-and-wife scientists who try to film volcanos, up close, as they erupt.
Fire of Love
Dir: Sara Dosa
It’s the early 1960s in France. Katia and Maurice Krafft meet at a scientific conference, and never part. Katia is a petite geochemist with a pixie haircut, while Maurice is a geologist, twice her size, with a face like John C Reilly. The two are so fascinated by volcanoes. That they call themselves Volcanologists. They go to anti-war protests and eventually marry, honeymooning on Santorini island in Greece (an active volcano, naturally). They form a team of two, investigating and recording on film, 
volcanoes around the world. Dressed in metallic space suits, they measure everything from the arcs that volcanic bombs (large chunks of molten lava) take as they are expelled into the air, to the degree if acid in water pools nearby. And most of all, the volcanoes themselves. Each volcano has a unique personality and should be approached in a different way. But they make one distinction. Red volcanoes are safe if you take precautions. They’re caused by tectonic plates pulling apart, exposing the magma beneath. Molten lava spills out and flows in a clear path, and can be filmed from a relatively close distance. Grey volcanoes, though, are caused by tectonic plates crashing into each other, expel ash into the sky. When they explode, they can be more powerful than an atom bomb, leading to landslides and widespread death and destruction. The power of the earth, 
the Kraffts say, dwarfs anything mankind can attempt. But they photograph and film it all, providing much of the images of volcanoes the world sees. The Kraffts died in 1991 while following their passion at the eruption of Mt Unzen, a grey volcano in Japan. Their bodies were never found.
Fire of Love is a stunningly beautiful documentary about Katia and Maurice in their search for active volcanoes around the earth. It is illustrated by their own extensive footage, including surprising and breathtaking images from Iceland to Zaire to Krakatau, Indonesia. They went where no one else dared. Wistfully narrated by Miranda July, the film also looks at their long-lasting love affair, devoted to each other and volcanoes. Beautifully illustrated by animated drawings it delves into their private thoughts including Maurice’s fantasy of rowing a canoe down a river of molten lava as it spills into the open sea. You’re probably familiar with the volcanoes in movies and TV shows, but this doc takes you right into the middle of them, like nothing you’ve seen before. Spectacular.
Come Back Anytime (また いらっしゃい)
Dir: John Daschbach
Over the past decade, ramen has become popular worldwide with dozens of restaurants opening everywhere. It’s considered a classic Japanese dish, but in Japan it’s thought of as Chinese food. Ramen first gained popularity in Yokohama’s Chinatown. It consists of noodles in a hearty broth made of pork or chicken bones — typically flavoured with salt, miso, or soy sauce — and topped with roast pork and vegetables.
After WWII, it became wildly popular in Japan, with ramen stalls opening on every street corner. This documentary follows Ueda, the chef, along with his wife, of a particular ramen shop. It shows us, season by season, one year of its existence, including a behind the scenes look at what goes into that bowl of ramen you’re probably craving right now. (My mouth started watering about five minutes into the film.) 
Come Back Anytime is a very low-key, realistic look at a ramen shop — not one that’s famous or prize-winning, not a chain or a corporation, not one that uses fancy or unique flavours like dried sardines — just an ordinary ramen place. But its devoted clientele — some of whom have been going there for 30 years — would argue that this place is something special. It consists of scenes in the restaurant, up at his farm where he grows vegetables, and interview with customers, family and friends. While nothing remarkable, this gentle, ordinary doc leaves you with a nice warm feeling inside, like after eating a hot bowl of ramen.
Nope
Wri/Dir: Jordan Peele
OJ Haywood and his sister Emerald (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer) are unsuccessful horse wranglers who live in a huge wooden house on a dry-gulch ranch somewhere in southern California. Em is outgoing, selfish and spontaneous; she loves listening to LPs full blast. OJ is a monosyllabic cowboy, prone to pondering, and is more comfortable with horses than with people. While he’s on the farm taming mustangs, she’s out there trying to get rich and famous in LA.Their dad built up a big business in Hollywood, providing horses for westerns, but they’ve fallen on hard times, especially since Pops died in a 
freak accident. Now they’re forced to sell their horses, one by one, to Ricky (Steven Yuen) who runs a tacky cowboy theme-park nearby. Ricky is a former child-actor whose hit sitcom was cancelled, years earlier, when his co-star (a chimpanzee) ran amok on set.
But something else is happening on the ranch. Power turns off spontaneously, metallic objects seem to fly around, and what might be a UFO keeps appearing in the distance. Em thinks they can get rich if they can just capture on film a clear, “Oprah-quality” shot of the UFO. Problem is their security cameras fizzle out whenever the flying saucer appears. So they make a trip to a big box store to buy some better quality equipment. And that’s when they meet Angel (Brandon Perea) a cashier there who is totally into both electronic surveillance and UFOs. He volunteers to help them . But have they bit off more than they can chew?
Nope is a weirdly excellent western / mystery / horror movie with a good amount of humour. It bombards you with shocking, seemingly unrelated events, but eventually they all make sense. While Peele’s previous movies, Get Out and Us, were small, drawing room horror, this one is grand and expansive, with sweeping skies and rolling hills, horseback chases and terrifying attacks from above. Daniel Kaluuya is great as the almost mute cowboy, Keke Palmer hilarious as Em, with Steven Yuen as a slimy actor-turned-entrepreneur and Brandon Perea as an enthusiastic third wheel rounding off a great cast. It has wonderful cinematography and art direction: your eyes are flooded with bright oranges, greens and reds. There’s a bit of social commentary — how blacks were erased from Hollywood westerns, as well as just the general ersatz creepiness of American pop culture; and there are also the meta aspects — after all, this is a movie about making a movie — but Nope is mainly just entertainment. And that’s what it did. I saw it on an enormous IMAX screen and enjoyed every minute of it.
Come Back Anytime is now playing at the Toronto Hot Docs cinema; you can see Fire of Love at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; and Nope opens on IMAX this weekend worldwide; 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
Ambitions. Films reviewed: Minions: The Rise of Gru, Ennio, Mr Malcolm’s List
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Summer is definitely here, and this long holiday weekend is the perfect time to take in some new movies. This week I’m talking about three of them: — a rom-com, a cartoon and a documentary — about people with ambitions. There’s a spinster in Victorian England who wants revenge on the man who has scorned her; a spaghetti western composer in 1960s Italy who wants to be taken seriously; and a little boy in San Francisco in the ’70s who wants to become a super villain.
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Dir: Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson, Jonathan del Val
It’s the late 1970s, and Gru is a little kid in elementary school. While his classmates say they want to be a fireman or a ballet dancer when they grow up, Gru wants to be a super villain. And he has a basement filled with strange mechanical devices to prove it. They were built with the help of his minions. The minions are bright-yellow, lozenge-shaped creatures with googly eyes. Dressed in matching denim overalls, they speak their own incomprehensible dialect, a mishmash of all the world’s languages. Gru idolizes a gang of six supervillains, who are now one villain short of a pack (since they did away with their leader) and are looking for a replacement. But when he shows up for an interview at their secret hideaway they dismiss him as just a kid. To prove them wrong, he steals their prize possession, a Chinese jade-green amulet. He gives it to a minion to keep it safe, who soon loses it in exchange for a pet rock. (The minions aren’t always the brightest bulb in the chandelier.) Gru is kidnapped by the villains’ former leader, and threatened 
with torture and death. Can the minions find the amulet, bring it to San Francisco, and save their best friend, Gru?
Minions: The Rise of Gru is a funny, easy-to-watch kids’ movie, where the villains are the good guys, even though they’re evil. It’s a prequel to the surprise hit from 2010, Despicable Me. The voice actors are mainly American or British, but the animated film is actually from France. The catchy soundtrack, groovy 1970s characters, the San Francisco setting, the fast-moving plot and the very colourful graphics make it a fun watch. It stars the voices of Steve Carell as Gru, Pierre Coffin as all of the minions, and Alan Arkin, Taraji P. Henson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jill Lawless, Danny Trejo, Dolph Lundgrin as the six villains. I enjoyed Minions, but the five-and-under set that filled the theatre absolutely loved it.
Ennio
Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore
Ennio Morricone is born in Rome in 1928 to a professional trumpet player. He enters a music conservatory at the age of 12 and studies under Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. (He spends most of his life yearning to be taken seriously by Petrassi and the rest of the traditional music establishment.) At an early age, he’s already composing and arranging pieces which include both melodic themes and counterpoint, an oft repeated characteristic of his music. He writes the tunes for a number of pop songs, and eventually gets a job working for RCA. From there he goes on to compose the soundtracks — always anonymously — for the new film genre known as Spaghetti Westerns. But when he recognizes a director’s name from his elementary school, he becomes a close friend and life-long collaborator with Sergio Leone. He quickly rises to fame writing the distinctive musical scores of films like A fistful of Dollars and The Good the Bad and the Ugly, using harmonicas, whistling, electric guitars, and sound effects in place of the more common symphony orchestras. (Today those films remain his most 
recognizable works.) He also forms an experimental group that makes improvisational music out of non-musical sounds, influenced by avant-garde composer John Cage.
Morricone goes on to compose the scores of over 500 films, working with Italian masters like Pasolini, Wertmüller and Bertolucci, the giallo horror/thriller director Dario Argento, and Giuseppe Tornatore director of Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso (who also directed this doc).
Ennio died in 2020, and this film is as much a loving tribute to the composer as it is a documentary. While it reveals Morricone’s personality quirks, there are no scandals or salacious secrets of his private life. It’s told using film clips, period footage, audio tracks and many talking heads commenting about him, including fellow composers, John Williams and Hans Zimmer, stars and directors he worked with like Quentin Tarantino Terrance Mallick and Clint Eastwood. (Eastwood says something like Morricone’s music provided the emotions that he never could) Then there are also a bunch of celebs — Bruce Springsteen, Pat Metheny, Wong Kar-Wai — who probably never worked with him, but just felt like praising him or commenting on how he influenced them. Ennio is an informative and fascinating doc, and I liked it a lot, but… couldn’t Tornatore have told this story in 90 minutes, instead of the two and a half hours he took?
Mr Malcolm’s List
Dir: Emma Holly Jones
It’s England in the early 19th century. Julia and Selina were best friends at boarding school, but haven’t seen each other in years. Which is why Selina the pure and virtuous daughter of a country vicar (Freida Pinto) is surprised to receive an invitation to visit Julia an upper-class city woman (Zawe Ashton), after all these years. But she does have a reason: she was slighted by a man who took her to the opera once and never called back. The man is Jeremy Malcolm (Sope Dirisu), who is also the most eligible bachelor in town, not least because he inherited a lot of money. And Julia can’t bear being slighted in public (made even worse when it was depicted in a widely circulated cartoon pamphlet). First Julia turns to her cousin Cassy (Oliver Jackson Cohen) who happens to be Malcolm’s best friend and wingman, who knows all of his secrets. Somehow he leaks the biggest secret of all: that Mr Malcolm keeps a list of 10 characteristics a woman must have for him to consider marrying her — things like talent, poise, intelligence, a knowledge of politics, literature and the arts and one who easily forgives small offences.
Enter Selina. Would she go along with Julia’s scheme — to date Mr Malcolm, knowing what was on that list, and afterwards to dump him — so Julia can get her sweet revenge? Selina is 
hesitant but agrees at least to meet him. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s love at first sight. This is further complicated by another man, a dashing military officer (Theo James), who likes Celina a lot, and happens to be in town on the same day. Which one will she choose? And if it’s Mr Malcolm, what will become of Julia’s nefarious revenge plot?
Mr Malcolm’s List is a classic, Jane Austen-style light romantic comedy, complete with a masquerade ball, a hidden scheme, whacky relatives, and star-crossed lovers. There are also some modern twists. The most obvious is the colour-blind casting, with Black, Indian, White and East Asian actors playing the various roles, without ever bringing up questions of race or ethnicity. Like the musical Hamilton, the film The Personal History of David Copperfield, and, most recently, the Netflix series Bridgerton, this film shows that race on the screen doesn’t need to have any special significance — it just is. Family bloodlines and facial resemblances are not part of the plot. I think it 
works great in this movie, and I hope to see more of it. The mansions are all stately, the costumes — though a bit odd-looking — are all pretty. And the actors and the characters they play are quite delicious. They’re clearly having a good time doing this. You can revel in their ludicrous scheming without ever taking it too seriously. Even the credits — accompanied by quaint hand-coloured drawings — are delightful. Rom-coms are not my cuppa tea, but if I have to watch one, I like it when they‘re like this.
Ennio is one of many films playing at the ICFF; Mr Maxwell’s List, as well as Minions: the Rise of Gru both open this weekend: 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 Kevin Hegge about TRAMPS!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
It’s the late 1970s in a Covent Garden, London nightclub with an exclusive policy. To get in you have to look amazing in some way. An older man in blue jeans gets turned away at the door. The man is Mick Jagger, the place is Bowie Night at the Blitz Club 
and the doorman and organizer is Steve Strange. And so a new movement, born out of the ashes of punk, is dubbed the New Romantics by the mainstream press. But who were these tramps, really?
Tramps! Is a new documentary that looks in depth at East London in the early 1980s, along with the art, fashion, film, 
music, hats, makeup, hair, magazines, sexualities, aesthetics and lifestyles that grew out of it. It’s a stunningly beautiful kaleidoscope of colour, a collection of period photos and footage combined with new interviews with the main players. And it talks about the celebrities who emerged from it, like Boy George, Leigh Bowery, Derek Jarman, Phillip Sallon, Judy Blame, and many others.
Tramps is the work of award-winning Toronto filmmaker Kevin Hegge, whom I last interviewed on this show back in 2012 about his documentary She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column.
I spoke with Kevin Hegge in Toronto, via Zoom.
Tramps! is premiering in Toronto at the Inside Out film festival on May 31st, 7 pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Daniel Garber talks with Ry Levey about Out in the Ring
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Picture this: scantily clad men and woman grope each other in same-sex displays. Over-the-top performers dressed in outrageous costumes , wigs and makeup, posture before shrieking crowds. What are we talking about here: gay and 
lesbian porn? Or maybe Rupaul’s Drag Race? No! This is the world of pro-wrestling, known for both it’s outright campy behaviour and its homo-erotic displays, along with a deep-seated record of discrimination against LGBT wrestlers. That was the past, and things have changed. But what is it like now to be “out in the ring”?
Out in the Ring is a new documentary, over four years in the making that traces the history of LGBT people in and around the world of pro-wrestling. It talks with athletes, present and past, famous and infamous. It also meticulously traces their history, giving both an 
insiders’ visceral view and an outsiders’ critical stance. And it delves deep into the sometimes shady business of pro-wrestling. It’s the work of producer/ director Ry Levey — a labour of love.
I spoke with Ry Levey in Toronto via ZOOM.
Out in the Ring is having its world premier at the Inside Out film festival on June 3rd, at 4:45 pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
culturalmining.com 
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