Good not good. Films reviewed: Bombshell, A Hidden Life, Cats
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Ever watch something that’s bad, but still has good parts? Or a beautifully rendered piece of art that doesn’t live up to its potential? This week, I’m looking at three new films, that I liked but didn’t like, or hated but still enjoyed. There’s one farmer in wartime Austria, three women at Fox News, and a hundred cats in London.
Dir: Jay Roach
It’s Fox News studios in New York City. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) is a top TV journalist and news anchor, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is co-host of Fox & Friends, Donald Trump’s favourite show, and newcomer Kayla Pospisal (Margot Robbie) is a committed conservative evangelical, trying to advance her career. What do these three women have in common? Theyre all smart, conservative and attractive (Carlson is a former Miss Minnesota.) And they were all hired by Roger Ailes (John Lithgow). Ailes is the highly profitable Fox News CEO, the man who singlehandedly shifted cable journalism from neutral news-source to a font of blatantly partisan right-wing talking points, leaving CNN in its dust. He’s also paranoid and hideously ugly, called Jabba the Hut behind his back.
The Fox News he runs is a place where cameras are positioned to show off female newscasters’ legs. Male employees advance because of their work. Female employees are also judged on looks, and work in a blatantly sexist office culture. And Ailes is the centre of it all, using his position power to exploit, harass and sexually assault young women. Kelly shares her concerns with her husband and Pospisal with her lesbian lover and Fox News staffer (Kate McKinnon) who says she doesn’t want to hear about it. But Carlson refuses to take this lying down. She launches a lawsuit against Ailes and Fox News. But will other journalists, like Kelly and Pospisal (a composite character based on real people) join her struggle, or stay loyal to Ailes?
Bombshell is a fast-paced news drama based on recent real-life events. It’s told in a light, punchy and easy-to-digest format, which makes the few dramatic scenes showing sexual harassment all the more powerful. Theron, Kidman and Robbie are all terrific and believable in their roles. On the ther hand, the movie barely touches on the awfulness and deceit of Fox News itself. And while it skewers Ailes it leaves the notorious Rupert Murdoch strangely untouched. Bombshell tells a great story, as seen by three strong women, around sexual harassment, but doesn’t concern itself with other political matters.
Wri/Dir: Terrence Malick
It’s WWII in Austria. Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl) is a simple farmer deeply in love with his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner). They live with his mother, her sister and their three little girls inthefoothills of a dramatic mountain range. Together with their neighbours they till the fields, harvest the grain and carry it, on the back of a donkey, to the miller. They go to church on Sunday and dress up in masks and costumes to honour the harvest. Their life is idyllic until… Franz gets drafted for army duty a second time. Enough, he says. I’m not going. No more Heil Hitler’s, no more military uniforms, no more separation from my wife and kids. Enough! Neighbours and government officials try to convince him to sign a loyalty oath, but he refuses. He is sent to prison, leaving his wife and sister-in-law to plow the fields among neighbours who aren’t friendly anymore. Only their constant letters keep them sane and I love. Will Franz sign the oath, or will he stay steadfast to his beliefs, even at risk of death?
A Hidden Life is a lush and beautiful rendering of a simple act of resistance in wartime anschluss Austria. It’s directed by Terrance Mallick, and is instantly recognizable by its swirling images, breathy voiceovers, lush music and stunning camerawork. People clutch earth in their fingers, and reap fields with scythes. Good passionate acting, featuring cameo performances by Matthias Schoenaerts, Franz Rogowski, and the late, great Bruno Ganz.
On the other hand… it’s three hours long. Three hours! Why does it take so long to tell such a simple story? Why? It’s not exactly boring or tedious since it’s done so beautifully, but similar stories have already been told (and in a more dramatic fashion, like Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 13 Minutes/Elser – Er hätte die Welt verändert). As a movie critic, I try to avoid terms like “self-indulgent”, but this movie is strictly for fans of Terrence Mallick.
Dir: Tom Hooper
It’s nighttime in a fantastical, pre-gentrified London, where abandoned alley cats rule the streets. The Jellicle Cats are gathered for their annual meeting, presided over by Old Deuteronomy (Judy Dench), who will choose one cat to be reborn. Each contestant performs before the queen: There are dancers (Francesca Hayward, Steven McRae) singers (Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson), comics (Rebel Wilson, James Corden), a magician dressed in black and white (Laurie Davidson) and even an old theatre cat (Ian McKellen). But the age-old ceremony is challenged by the evil Macavity (Idris Elba) who is kidnapping each cat after their performance. Who will be chosen to ascend to the skies? Will peace and order return to the Jellicle cats? And can newbie Victoria join the gang?
Cats is a strange hybrid of theatre, and movie special effects. Each act is performed on a vast soundstage, keeping close to how it would look before a live audience. The cat people’s faces and bodies are human, but augmented, using CGI, with cat ears, moving tails and furry bodies. Some of them wear elaborate costumes, while others run around “naked”, covered in sleek fur. But they’ve all been digitally neutered, with no sign of breasts or genitals anywhere. The script is abysmally bad, almost babyish, with “jokes” like cat got your tongue? and relentless fat jokes. Fat jokes? Really?
Music ranges from torch songs to chorus lines. There are a few great scenes, like cockroaches doing elaborate Busby Berkeley formations as Rebel Wilson eats them, one by one; and impressive dance routines, along with some good songs… but I can’t figure out who the movie is trying to appeal to? Small children? Theatre buffs? Taylor Swift fans? I don’t think it knows, either.
Still… I kinda liked it, if just for the spectacle of it all. It’s bad, but it’s watchable and loaded with great singers dancers and prize-winning actors all of whom are far, far more talented than the material they’ve been given.
And I think these weird cat people will haunt my sexual nightmares for years to come.
Bombshell, A Hidden Life and Cats all open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Toronto filmmaker Erin Berry about Majic, premiering at B.I.T.S.!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s 2008. Pippa Bernwood is a skeptical Vlogger who posts her views on youtube. She’s there to counter all the crazy conspiracy theories that pop up. She wants truth backed by evidence. But her world is turned upside down when a crazy old man named Anderson approaches her with an outlandish theory… and his theory turns out to be true. Now she’s in a quandary. Go with her gut, or
believe the new story? Is it a vast conspiracy involving aliens, the government and secret societies? Or is it all smoke and mirrors, just a bit of birthday party “Majic”?
Majic is also the name of a new film about a secretive project called Majestic 12. It’s a combination mystery, sci-fi and conspiracy- theory thriller, all in one.
Majic is co-written and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Erin Berry, his third feature, and the first made by his production company, Banned for Life.
I spoke with Erin in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
Majic has its Canadian premier Sunday, 4:30 pm at the Royal Cinema at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival.
Daniel Garber talks with immigration attorney Judy Wood about the new biopic Saint Judy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the early 2000s in L.A. Judy Wood (Michelle Monaghan), an immigration lawyer and single mom, discovers a shocking case. A young woman – a school teacher who defied Taliban oppression in Afghanistan – is incarcerated in California awaiting deportation. But sending her back to her home village would be like a death sentence. Why isn’t she considered a refugee? Trouble is women are not a minority group, and her religion, language and nationality – Muslim and Pashtun – are the same as her oppressors. Which means she’s not a “persecuted minority” and doesn’t qualify for asylum. What can she do?
Saint Judy is a new biopic based on real events that tells the story of this important trial. It centres on Judy Wood, an immigration lawyer – still practising in LA – who changed the Law of Asylum.
I spoke to Judy in Los Angeles via telephone from CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto.
Saint Judy has its Canadian Premier on Thursday, June 20 in Oakville, and its Toronto VOD launch on Friday, June 21 at the Revue Cinema in a benefit for Sistering. Judy Wood will appear in panel discussionsat both screenings.
Highbrow, middlebrow, lowbrow. Films reviewed: The Hustle, Tolkien, Be My Star
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some people mistake upper-class and working-class characters with highbrow and lowbrow films. This week I’m looking at three movies with upper-class and working class-characters. There’s a middlebrow biopic about an orphan at a private school, an arthouse drama about working-class kids in Berlin, and a lowbrow comedy about a boorish con artist at an elite resort.
Dir: Chris Addison
Josephine (Anne Hathaway) is a British aristocrat who lives in a cliffside mansion in Beaumont-sur-mer, a casino resort on the French riviera. Fluent in many languages, the high-stakes gambler and seductress knows all the shakers and movers on the Côte d’Azur. But her life of luxury is disrupted by a hefty and boorish Aussie named Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) who is passing through town. Penny
is a small-time con artist whose M.O. involves catfishing men online using stock photos, then tricking them out of more money when they meet face to face. Penny is arrested mid-scam, tossed into prison and kicked out of town. What she doesn’t know is
she’s been played– the policewoman who arrested her worked actually for another con artist, none other than Josephine! When she discovers the truth, Penny and Josephine agree on a competition: whoever succeeds in scamming a random man out of half a million dollars can
stay in the resort, and the other one must leave. Their victim is an innocent, Mark Zuckerberg look-alike (Alex Sharp). Which of them will win over the tech millionaire?
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because The Hustle is a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but with Anne Hathaway in Michael Caine’s role and Rebel Wilson replacing Steve Martin. Recasting successful comedies with women in formerly male roles is popular these days, but doesn’t always work. But in this case it sure does. The Hustle is better, funnier and more subversive than Scoundrels. Hathaway is clever as the multilingual aristocrat, but it’s Rebel Wilson who steals every scene with her physical humour, facial contortions and bawdy language. She is brilliant. Maybe the concept of con artists on the Riviera is a bit dated, but it still had me laughing loudly during most of the movie.
I rarely endorse comedies, but I found this one hilarious.
Dir: Dome Karukoski
It’s the early 20th century in Birmingham, England. Young J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult: The Favourite, Warm Bodies) is an orphan who finds himself in impecunious circumstances. Luckily, a wealthy Catholic priest, Father Francis (Colm Meaney) takes him under his wing and sponsors him to study at a prestigious school called King Edward’s. He was home schooled by his mother before she died, leaving his head filled with stories of
mythical dragons and elves. He may be the poor kid, but he immediately impresses everybody with his knowledge of Latin, Old English and mythical languages he creates just for himself.
After initial misgivings, he falls in with three other boys: Christopher, Geoffrey and Robert. Together they form the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, a four-man group that hangs out in tea shops discussing art, music and poetry as well as concepts of bravery, fellowship and loyalty. He meets a beautiful
young woman named Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), also an orphan, who lives in his boarding house. His friendship with the boys grows, even as his love for the piano-playing Edith deepens.
He is eventually accepted to Oxford on a scholarship, but is separated from Edith and some of his friends. And his world is torn apart by WWI, when they are all sent off to the trenches, where he witnesses carnage and total destruction. Who will live and who will die? And will he ever see Edith again?
Tolkien is about the boyhood and youth of JRR Tolkien, long before he wrote the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The movie flashes back and forth between memories of his growing up, and the film’s “present day” when he is stuck in the trenches of The Battle of the Somme in WWI. And it gives a a few hints at his future as a writer of the famous fantasy books. He imagines fire breathing dragons on the
battle front, with the scenery like Mordor. The four friends are like Frodo, Sam and the gang in The Fellowship of the Ring. It also touches on Wagner’s Ring Cycle’s influence on Tolkien’s Ring trilogy. So it’s kind of interesting to watch if you’re into his books. And I liked the period costumes, scenery and good acting.
But the movie never seems to go anywhere. It falls into the category of biopics about revered subjects where you can’t show passion, adventure or sex, at the risk of tarnishing his pristine image. (Ironically, Tolkien’s heirs still refused to endorse the film.) No sparks in this hagiography, just a few kisses and some unrequited, longing glances.
Wri/Dir: Valeska Grisebach
Nicole (Nicole Gläser) is 14-year-old girl who lives in Berlin with her two sisters, Monique and Janine. She’s at a turning point in her life. It’s the age when you try out a job (she chooses to intern at a bakery because she likes the way it smells). She’s also becoming sexually aware. First she dates any guy who asks her, but later becomes more discerning. She approaches Schöps (Christopher Schöps) a soccer-playing teen to give it a go. He’s interning as a plumber and gets his own apartment. They have cigarettes, alcohol and privacy to share, but they don’t quite know what to do. Is this love, and are they a real couple? Or just a couple of kids?
Be My Star is a very sweet and beautiful coming-of-age story made 20 years ago. It’s acted by kids using their real names, in a verité style and setting, but it’s clearly a drama not a documentary. It’s also an excellent example of the Berlin School of filmmaking. This tender and intimate examination of first love (and first break up) is realistic and moving. Its showing as part of Past Forward: German Directors Before Cannes, a series of seminal works by German directors who later became famous.
I really liked this one.
Tolkien and The Hustle both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Goethe Films is showing Be My Star one time only at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on May 14th at 6:30.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Jia Zhang-ke about his new film Ash is Purest White
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo of Jia Zhang-ke (left) by Jeff Harris.
Qiao is the girlfriend of a smalltime hood in a dingy mining city in northern China. She is confident, pretty and fiercely loyal. But after a violent showdown on a downtown street, she ends up taking the fall for him. She serves five years in prison. When she is released she discovers her one-time lover has abandoned her.
Will her journey across China — to find her ex-lover and reestablish her reputation — bring her what she wants?
Ash is Purest White is a new Chinese feature that played at Cannes and TIFF. It’s a passionate melodrama that chronicles China’s changes as it modernizes, as seen by a gangster and his moll. It is written and directed by one of China’s best and most famous filmmakers, Jia Zhang-ke.
I spoke to Jia Zhang-ke in New York City via telephone from CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto.
Ash is Purest White opens today in Toronto.
Daniel Garber talks with documentary filmmaker Ilan Ziv about An Eye for an Eye
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mark Stroman was a regular guy: Texas loud and Texas proud. He hated big government, taxes, foreigners, and political correctness. He liked love, liberty, security, family and patriotism. He was also a white supremacist, an admirer of Aryan nations and a proud flyer of the Confederate Battle Flag. Then 9-11 happened and something snapped.
Stroman went out in his car to systematically murder people he called “A-rabs” — mainly the South Asians he encountered at convenience stores and gas stations. He was later arrested, tried and sentenced to death, in exchange for the lives he took. But is justice as simple as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?
An Eye for an Eye is a new documentary that looks at Stroman’s transformation in prison, and the unexpected support he received from his enemies, his victims and their families. It’s about vengeance and racism but also compassion and forgiveness. The doc is directed by award-winning filmmaker Ilan Ziv and it opens today in Toronto.
I spoke with Ilan in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
Work. Movies reviewed: Burnt, Truth, Victoria PLUS Sherlock Holmes
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Do you live to work or work to live?
Take the world’s most famous detective Sherlock Holmes, for example. He saw his whole life as his work. But a theatrical reboot of Sherlock’s story that just opened in Toronto (starring David Arquette as the detective with Toronto’s Kyle Gatehouse as his flamboyant rival Moriarty) sees it differently. In this version, Holmes is not the expected obsessive-compulsive driven genius; rather he’s a drug addict whose giddy laughter sets the stage. This Holmes is a self-absorbed ninny and not very bright. It’s Watson’s skillful storytelling that turns him into a legend.
But getting back to work. This week I’m looking at three movies about people at work. There’s an American chef in London, an investigative journalist in New York, and a Spanish barista in Berlin. I liked all three of these movies, but each for a different reason.
Burnt
Dir: John Wells
Adam (Bradley Cooper) was once a top chef in Paris with two Michelin stars. But he squandered it all in a crash-and-burn blowout, leaving fellow chefs in a lurch: fired, bankrupt, or even in prison. He hides himself away for five years, but reappears, this time in London, trying for his third star. He’s homeless, friendless and penniless.
But somehow, he manages to convince the chefs whose lives he ruined and the manager Tony (Daniel Bruhl) who bankrolled him to give him one last chance. He injects some new blood: a stubborn single mom Helene (Sienna Miller) who’s a master saucier, and says Adam is five years behind, and a young but ambitious cook he discovers in a local sandwich shop. But can Adam run a flawless restaurant that’s creative enough to win three stars? Or will his fiery temper and his drug history destroy him?
Burnt is just the sort of movie I thought I’d hate: a big star playing a self-centred prima donna in a superficial story. But I ended up really liking it. Bradley Cooper is entertaining and believable as Adam, and the rest of the cast — al the people in the kitchen — is like a whole bunch of Bradley Coopers from all across Europe. Germany’s Daniel Bruhl as the manager is huge right now, Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays a jailbird chef, starred in some of Italy’s best movies, France’s Omar Sy was in Intouchables, and UK’s Sienna Miller, the female lead is also sympathetic. So if you’re in the mood for a light foodie-movie, Burnt is it.
Truth
Dir: James Vanderbilt
It’s post-9/11, at CBS News in New York City. George W Bush is in the White House and the US has invaded Iraq in a fruitless search for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) is a prize-winning journalist. She broke the infamous Abu Ghraib story about the torture of prisoners by US soldiers in Iraq. Now she produces stories for reporter and anchorman Dan Rather (Robert Redford) at 60 Minutes Wednesday, the second edition of the popular news show.
Around this time, there are numerous headlines about George Bush’s military record during the Vietnam War. He never saw combat, instead serving safely in Texas with the National Guard. This is well-kown. Then a reporter named Mike (Topher Grace) discovers some new evidence and a credible witness to add a new twist. He says that Bush never served in the National Guard at all, only on paper. And the anonymous witness gives him copies of letters and documents that prove the theory. And Mapes brings in numerous experts to attest to the authenticity of the handwriting of the documents. But soon after the story plays out, online pundits begin
to question its authenticity. And some of the witnesses and experts start to retract their statements. The story morphs from the expose itself into a so-called scandal about the reporters and the documents. Will CBS news bow to conservative pressure and leave Mapes – and possibly Dan Rather — to take the blame? Or will it back its journalists?
Truth is not a fast-moving political thriller like All the Presidents Men; rather, it’s a slower drama about the demise of investigative journalism. Although a bit preachy, I liked this film a lot for its ideas and its precise telling of a little known piece of history. It records the backstage drama at CBS’s once-respected news show. And Cate Blanchett is fantastic as Mary Mapes.
Victoria
Dir: Sebastien Schipper
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a Spanish woman who works in a Berlin café on the early morning shift. One night (as she leaves a nightclub to get some sleep before work) she meets four guys who had just been denied entrance into the same club. They are “real Berliners” they tell her, not like those poseurs. They’re scruffy, working-class guys with not enough money and too much time on their hands. Their nicknames are Sonne, Boxer, Blinker and Fuß (Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit and Max Mauff). For whatever reason, Victoria finds them charming, especially Sonne, and spontaneously agrees to hang out with them as they wander the deserted streets of Berlin in an impromptu birthday party.
But the tone changes when Sonne asks Victoria for a favour. Namely, they need a replacement for Fuß for a quick job, right now, that Boxer (an ex-con) has agreed to do. Fuß is too drunk to go, so they need a fourth person. Turns out, the job is an early morning bank heist, involving money, guns and a lot of danger. Will it all work out? Are Victoria and Sonne falling for each other? And can a few short hours before dawn completely change a person’s life?
Victoria is a remarkable movie that unfolds on location in early morning Berlin. What’s amazing is that it’s 2½ hours long, shot in real time by a single, handheld camera. No cuts, no breaks, no editing… it’s one constant shot. This includes violence, action, love scenes, chase scenes, everything! is shot as it happens. Never seen anything like it. And it’s a good story, too. But it’s the technique – that single, unbroken shot – that sets this movie apart.
Burnt, Victoria and Truth all open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Sherlock Holmes is now playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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