Numerical titles. Films reviewed: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, One More Shot
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
When you watch hundreds of movies a year, you start to notice certain trends, like avoid movies with numbers in their titles, especially sequels. But it doesn’t always work. Some people say The Godfather 2, Toy Story 3 or Rocky IV, are the best of their series.
So this week I’m looking at a couple more movies with numerical titles. There’s an Aussie who can travel in time using a swig of magic tequila, and an American who can bring automatons to life in a defunct pizzeria.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Dir: Emma Tammi
(Based on the game by Scott Cawthon)
It’s some time in the not-so-distant past, somewhere in Middle America. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a guy in his twenties who takes care of his 11-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Abby is lonely because no one at school believes the stories she tells. Mike is a lonely former security guard. He used to work in the ruins of former family restaurant Frank Fazbear’s Pizza. In its heyday, the place was wildly popular with children because of its giant, grinning animal-puppets who performed mechanically on a small stage. But the chain was shuttered for good 20 years ago when the animatronics went rogue and killed some kids. Then, one year ago, Mike and Abby barely escaped with their lives when the animals came back to life. Now, if Mike never sees another animatronic monster in his life, it will be too soon. But Abby holds a special affection for them; she considers them her only real friends. They talk to her, understand her problems and look out for her. And it’s hard to get away from them in this town, since everybody knows about them: there’s a festival devoted to Freddy Fazbear and a robotics contest both just around the corner. Meanwhile, Mike is flirting with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a former cop who helped save Mike and Abby in last year’s bloodbath. She also happens to be the daughter of a deranged megalomaniacal 
serial killer who built the original automatons, and who was personally responsible for the hideous crimes they committed. And it goes without saying that Vanessa hates her psychotic father.
But despite all their precautions, Abby is hellbent on returning to the the crumbling restaurant, and in the mayhem that follows , the creatures are set loose to seek vengeance on their perceived enemies in the town. Can Mike, Abby and Vanessa fight them off and save the city? Or will the robots win out in the end?
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the sequel to last years hit movie based on a video game by the same name, about an evil Chucky Cheese-style restaurant. It has some cool special effects, a few scary moments, especially involving a spooky villain known as the marionette. And I love the old 90s computers and the restaurant-gone-to-ruins motif. The main actors reprising their roles are all good. The problem with this movie is its meandering pointlessness, just a series of random episodes that have virtually no affect on what follows or precedes it. So an important character might be brutally murdered by animatronic creatures in one scene, and then 
they drop out of the movie and are never referred to again.
This happens over and over, which makes you wonder is their any coherence or point to this movie, other than chase scenes, brutal killings and jump scares? I went to a screening packed with fans dressed in cos-play cheering and shouting whenever a familiar character from the game appeared on the screen. They seemed to like it. But for the average viewer, like you or me, who’s never played the game, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is just another schlocky knock-off.
One More Shot
Dir: Nicholas Clifford
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1999, in Melbourne, Australia. Minnie (Emily Browning) is invited to a costume party to usher in the new millennium. She’s a doctor in her thirties, single and attractive. Many of her friends — and ex-lovers — will be at that party. She even has the words “party time” tattooed on her skin. But for some reason, she’s not in a partying mood. Her past relationships all went sour, and she’s been alone, and celibate, for far too long. At least her go-to sex buddy Joe (Sean Keenan) is back in town, so at the very least she’ll get some (Joe sports a matching tattoo which bonds them as sex partners forever.)
But when she arrives at the party, everything seems to go wrong. Joe has a new lover — an American bartender or “mixologist” as she calls herself (Aisha Dee) — and it looks serious. The hosts, Rodney and Pia (Ashley Zukerman, Pallavi Sharda) have a beautiful house and young kid, but they seem somehow at odds all the time; Flick and Max (Anna McGahan, Contessa Treffone), whose apartment she’s sharing want to 
kick her out; and the only stranger at the party is a douchey OB-GYN (Hamish Michael) who is also a coke-head. And at midnight, everyone anticipates a computer crash due to the Y2K. Can things possibly get worse?
Oh yes they can. Minnie keeps messing everything up, and alienating all her friends just for a chance to get laid. But then she discovers she has the solution: the ancient bottle of Tequila she’s brought to the gathering. For some reason, each gulp brings her back again to the first time she tried it, right at the door to the party. Can she right all her wrongs and erase all her mistakes before the bottle is empty? Or will she just end up as a drooling hot mess on someone else’s couch?
One More Shot is a very light social comedy about Australian millennials at play. It’s a cute, somewhat funny riff on the Groundhog Day theme. Which makes it more than a little 
repetitive. The cast is attractive and mildly clever, though I couldn’t really sympathize with any of them. But I do like time- travel comedies however they happen, and this version is pretty original. Kept me interested till the end.
While clearly no masterpiece, I enjoyed watching this one.
5 Nights at Freddy’s 2 opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. One More Shot is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Beautiful. Films reviewed:Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, Two Women, Bring Her Back
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: a historical drama, a sex comedy and a thriller/horror. There are four filmmakers facing censorship in Yugoslavia, two sexually frustrated moms in Montreal, and a pair of siblings in Australia who find themselves in a very strange foster home.
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day
Wri/Dir: Ivona Juka
It’s 1957 in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where a group of filmmakers are shooting a drama. Lovro (Dado Ćosić) its director and Nenad (Đorđe Galić) its writer are both national heroes. While still university students, they led a revolt against the Nazis and Ustashe, the Croation Fascist Party and later joined the resistance. As did Stevan (Slaven Došlo), their cinematographer. But the government doesn’t like their movie; it’s not patriotic enough. So they send in an apparatchik named Emir (Emir Hadžihafizbegović) who specializes in propaganda. Emir is there to “fix” the movie, with a new storyline, dialogue and actors. But also to catch and punish filmmakers who aren’t towing the party line. Tito’s Yugoslavia, though a “non-aligned” country, is warming up toward the post-Stalinist Soviet government. And is also conducting a crackdown on dissidents and undesirables in the arts. In particular, homosexuals. And this includes long time lovers Lovro and Nenad, Stevan and other gay men working on the film, all of whom had risked their lives as anti-fascist partisans in the past.
The filmmakers are interrogated, bribed, threatened, and even tortured when asked to name names… but production continues. Emir treats it all like just another job… until, four of the men he’s spying on save his life. Now Emir faces a dilemma: follow the rules or his own conscience. Can the lovers stay together? Will they finish their film? Or will the 
administration gather enough evidence to convict them of the serious crime of being gay and sentence them to a penal colony?
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day is a powerful drama about a group of gay men in 1950s Yugoslavia, and the harsh persecution they faced for their sexuality. It’s both tender and brutal, with touching scenes and horrific violence. Although the story is fiction, it’s based on director Ivona Juka’s own research she did for her PhD dissertation. Gay men did play an important role in the resistance, and hundreds were later imprisoned and tortured by the government.
The film boasts excellent acting and stunning B&W cinematography by Dragan Ruljančić. It sheds light on a topic which until now has been virtually non-existent in Yugoslavian cinema. This is an excellent indie movie that deserves to be seen.
Two Women (Deux Femmes en Or)
Dir: Chloé Robichaud
It’s wintertime in Montreal. Florence and Violette (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf) are next door neighbours in a housing coop. They can be seen gazing longingly out their windows. Florence, a translator, has a 10 year old son with her common law husband David (Mani Soleymanlou). Vivi is on maternity leave taking care of their new baby daughter, while her husband Benoit (French actor Félix Moati) is on the road. He makes a good salary in pharma sales (and is having a secret affair with a younger woman he works with). But Vivi is losing sleep over a sound she keeps hearing: a Caaaw, Caaaw, Caaaw coming through her walls. Is it a crow? A crying baby? Or, the most likely reason, it’s her neighbour Florence loudly performing her orgasms through the thin apartment walls. She casually brings it up to her, but there the penny drops: Florence admits she hasn’t had sex for many years. It can’t be her; she’s on anti-depressants which totally destroyed her sex drive. But why should both their lives be so miserable?
They decide it’s time to have fun. Florence goes off her meds, 
and the two of them start hanging out in bars. They’re also viewing men differently than they used to. The exterminator, the cable guy, the housecleaner, the window washer, the linesman… why should these neglected moms pass on all these potential sexual adventures? But how would their husbands react to sudden changes in their wives’ behaviour? And what will happen to their marriages?
Two Women is a delightful, bittersweet comedy about a pair of sexually frustrated mothers in Montréal and how they deal with their non-functional marriages. It’s sexy, silly, satirical and savvy. The main characters are as likely to be seen seducing a plumber, as quoting Simone de Beauvoir or discussing the ramifications of the #Metoo movement on Facebook.
Count on Québec to thumb its nose at sexual prudishness in mainstream North America, meaning lots of casual full frontal nudity (as well as from every other conceivable angle). Now apparently this is a remake of Claude Fournier’s hit film from 1970 starring Monique Mercure. I’ve never seen the original but let me tell you, Two Women is a great one all on it’s own. Loved it.
Bring Her Back
Co-Wri/Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to me)
It’s a normal day in Australia. Andy (Billy Barratt) is Piper’s (Sora Wong) step-brother; a few years older, but they share the same Dad. Piper is visually impaired but doesn’t use a white cane — she doesn’t like people staring at her. She’s funny and self-confident, but Andy still keeps an eye out on her at school; some kids can be cruel. But their lives are torn apart that day when they discover their father dead in the shower.
They’re immediately sent to child services, who attempt to send them to separate places — Andy has a juvenile record — but they insist on remaining together; he’s basically Piper’s caregiver. In the end the social worker sends them off to stay with a kindly foster mom until she can find them a permanent home. The house is cluttered and shabby, with a drained swimming pool in the back and a padlocked toolshed. Laura (Sally Hawkins) is funny, wacky, and more than a bit eccentric. She’s overjoyed to have them there since her husband’s gone, and her daughter — who was blind like Piper — is dead. She’s quick to introduce them to her favourite dog — but he’s stuffed! Taxidermy. And then there’s her son 
Oliver, a little boy with a shaved head and a vacant look on his face. He seems innocent… until he catches their cat and starts to eat it, alive!
He’s been a bit off since their accident, Laura says. Piper really likes her, so Andy tries not to interfere. But bad things start to happen. Andy is wetting his bed at night — he hasn’t done that since he was a little kid, and Laura is whispering stuff to Piper all the time, turning her against him. He knows there’s something really wrong here, but he can’t figure out what it is. Why is there a chalk circle around the house? Why is Oliver acting so strange? And what’s in that shed? But when he discovers the truth… is it too late?
Bring Her Back is a relentlessly terrifying horror movie about a frightened teenaged boy and his innocent step-sister. It’s every kid’s nightmare — trapped in a potentially dangerous place, ignored by authorities, and gaslit by a foster mom who is supposed to be on their side. The movie starts with a cold open, a horrific, found-footage VHS snuff film, that remains unexplained for much off the film. Frustrating and terrifying, this movie keeps you on tenterhooks till the end. The Phillipou 
brothers (identical twins) weave a contemporary fairytale as scary as the Brothers Grimm. Great acting, beautifully made, but quite difficult to watch.
Bring her Back is brilliant horror like you seldom see.
Two Women (which premiered at Inside Out), Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, and Bring Her Back all open in Toronto 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.
Bullies and the bullied. Films reviewed: Memoir of a Snail, The Line
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season continues in Toronto with ReelAsian and BITS. ReelAsian, which is on right now, brings features docs and shorts from East and South Asia, and from the Diaspora in North America. Many of the films are premieres! BITS — Blood in the Snow — is an all-Canadian festival of horror, genre and underground films that shatter taboos and conventions — including the second season of David J Fernandes’ TV series Creepy Bits. The festival runs from November 18th-23rd.
But this week, I’m looking at two new indie movies, from Australia and the US. There’s a frat boy in Oklahoma caught between the horns of a dilemma; and a bullied girl in Canberra who wants to curl up in her shell.
Memoir of a Snail
Wri/Dir: Adam Elliot
Grace and Gilbert are twins who live with their dad in a high-rise tenement in a big Australian city. Their mom died in childbirth, so they’ve only ever known their father, a former Parisian street busker known for his pyrotechnics. Gilbert embraces his love of fire and gunpowder. Grace models herself after her mother, a specialist in snails; she always wears antennae over her knit cap, and thinks of herself as a mollusk. And since she still shows the scars of a cleft palette, she is constantly bullied at school and called rabbit face. Gilbert is always there to defend her, and the two are best friends. Until their father dies, leaving them both as orphans. The twins are separated and adopted on opposite ends of the country.
Grace ends up in the nation’s capital, Canberra. She’s adopted by a dull, beige couple with no kids. They also happen got be nudists and swingers. Grace’s only friend is an elderly woman named Pinky she meets at the library where Grace spends all her time. Pinky is both warm and eccentric and shares her lusty history with Grace who participates vicariously.
Gilbert finds himself on the other side of the continent in an isolated apple farm, outside Perth. He is put to work at a Dickensian conveyor belt controlled by his dictatorial, bible-thumper of a stepmother named Ruth, and her troglodyte sons. 
The two survive only by sending one another letters. Gilbert wants desperately to leave, while Grace becomes a recluse holed up in her home surrounded by the kitty snail-like objects she hoards. Can they survive in their dystopian prisons? And will they ever see one another again?
Memoir of a Snail is a dark animated comedy about coming of age of a shy and introverted young woman. It’s entirely made of stop- motion figures and locations. The stories take place within a wonderful, wabi-sabi world of the crumbling and dingy detritus that Grace compulsively collects. And you can’t call this a kids’ movie, as it deals with all sorts of squirmy adult concepts including bodies and sexuality. And it’s not disneyfied happy stuff either; it’s hilarious and quirky, Roald Dahl meets Tim Burton.The voices are provided by fave Aussie actors Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the twins, Jacki Weaver as Pinky, with Eric Bana and Nick Cave in other roles.
Memoir of a Snail is a wonderfully depressing comedy with a satisfying end.
I like this one a lot.
The Line
Co-Wri/Dir: Ethan Berger
It’s 2014 at a university in the deep south. Tom (Alex Wolff) is a student there, paid for by his single mom’s savings (she’s a nurse). But his grade point average is low, and his interests are focused mainly on snorting coke and getting laid. He shares a room with his best friend Mitch (Bo Mitchell) who calls Tom “Sunshine”. He is constantly hugging and touching Tom. Mitch is rich, but he’s a total wreck —irresponsible, slovenly, self-pitying and undependable. They met the year before while being pledged at a powerful frat house and have had each others’ backs since then. He’s even met Mitch’s father (John Malkovich) who promises to set him up with a good job after graduation — one of the benefits of “Greek” life. They live inside the frathouse now.
As sophomores, they are full members of KNA, and Tom is being groomed as their next president. But things start to deteriorate as this years pledges start their initiation. The problem is Mitch has a hate on for a new pledge named Gettys O’Brien (Austin Abrams). O’Brien is totally chill and publicly mocks the ridiculous hierarchy, and homo-erotic rituals. He also disrespects Mitch’s insecurities about his own looks and body. So Mitch despises the popular freshman and goes out of his way to make his life miserable… but to no avail.
Tom, meanwhile, is ambitious. He wants to improve his grades and he’s crushing on a smart woman in his class. Annabelle (Halle Bailey) is extremely self-confident, hates frats, and dares to publicly denounces the university’s biases. But Tom persists, even while knowing his all-white ultraconservative frat will never accept him 
dating a black, feminist who doesn’t shave her armpits. And the university itself is coming down hard on the Greeks, following reports of dangerous practices going on there. They lay down the law: a total ban on hazing and off-campus retreats. Of course Mitch ignores all this and immediately plans the ultimate hazing retreat adventure, where he can get revenge on O’Brien. The frat’s president makes Tom goes to keep it all safe. This puts Tom between a rock and a hard place. Can he calm the waters? Or are they heading toward a genuine Hell Week?
The Line is a very dark and unsettling drama that gives an inside look at the secretive world of fraternities. It’s also about friendship and obligation, hierarchy and the chilling power of money over basic morality. The title refers to a hazing ritual where pledges are hooded and tied together in a dangerous setting. I saw this movie because Alex Wolff is in it, and he only seems to be in worthwhile movies. In an interesting performance, he puts on a deliberately-acquired, heavy southern drawl — interspersed with extended mumbling — a style of talking apparently de rigueur at frats. Bo Mitchell is also very good. The plot is told without easy solutions and obvious heroes and villains; it’s more subtle than that, but this is not a feel good movie. And while a good film, it’s quite disturbing with unexpected violence and is not for the faint of heart.
Memoirs of a Snail and The Line 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.
From Venus to Limbo. Films reviewed: The Strangers: Chapter 1, Limbo
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Festival season continues with Inside Out, the 2SLGBTQ+ film festival which opens this Friday, and runs through June 1st. The opening night show is the comedy My Old Ass, starring Aubrey Plaza, and the closing night show is a must-see for Toronto music-lovers; it’s called We Forgot to Break Up, and features tunes by iconic artists like Peaches, Gentleman Reg, The Hidden Cameras and Torquil Campbell of Stars.
But this week, I’m looking at two new movies — a mystery and a horror — about what can happen when you end up in a small town. There’s a police detective caught in Limbo an outpost in the Australian outback, and a young couple looking for a way out of Venus, a small town in Oregon.
The Strangers: Chapter 1
Dir: Renny Harlin
Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are a young couple driving from New York City to Oregon in a fancy new SUV. Maya is a young architect aiming for a position at a Portland firm, and Ryan is willing to relocate if she gets the job — they’ve been together for 5 years and things are looking good. Until they turn off the highway for a bite to eat, and find themselves in an isolated town called Venus, Oregon. GPS doesn’t work here and wifi and telephone signals are intermittent at best. And the people all seem like extras from the movie Deliverance. And when they come out from the local diner their car — mysteriously — isn’t working anymore. Says the mechanic: We gotta wait for parts before we can fix it. So they are forced to spend the night at an Air BnB, a small cabin in the woods isolated even from the town. It’s a creepy place, filled with scary, old things like… record players! And a piano! And a chicken coop out front! They’re disturbed by a loud rapping on the door by a young woman in a hoody, her face obscured. But when the girl leaves, 
everything seems kinda normal again. So, like the sensible couple they are, he drives back in town, leaving her alone in the cabin to smoke a joint. That’s when things get really scary.
A man in a mask keeps sneaking up on her and spying on her but he disappears as soon as she turns around. Not eventually she discovers it’s not her imagination. There are three sadistic killers chasing her and Ryan all over the place, holding a giant axe. They’re all wearing masks: a burlap sack with a face drawn on it, a baby doll mask, and one that looks like a 1920s flapper. Can Maya and Ryan somehow escape these scary people, and get away from this awful little town? Or will they just die?
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie. Cabin in the Woods movies are sub-genre I like. And the acting is not bad — Madelaine Petsch is Blossom from the TV series Riverdale. You can sympathize with the two main characters. And it even a bit scary. But there’s something wrong with this movie. It’s non-stop deja vue. It’s like a collage of scenes blatantly stolen from countless other horror movies. I’ve seen all these masks before. I’ve 
seen the guy with the axe. The wooden house, the chickens — it’s like they didn’t even try to think up something new. I’m tempted to blame this on AI, but I think it’s just lazy writers. And it doesn’t even make sense. Do the killers wait around for hapless strangers to arrive at random so they can put on their stupid masks and terrify them. And if so… Why? The title should tell you something — it’s “Chapter 1” in a potentially endless series. So don’t expect it to explain anything — maybe that comes in chapter 19 or 20.
I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie, because it’s by Finnish director Renny Harlin who was a big name in the 90s for his classic action thrillers like Die Hard 2, and The Long Kiss Goodnight. But The Strangers is so deeply stupid it tarnishes his reputation.
Limbo
Dir: Ivan Sen
Travis (Simon Baker) is a police detective in South Australia. He has buzzed hair and beard, aviator-style glasses and tattoos all over his body. He’s also a junkie — he carries his paraphernalia wherever he goes. This time, he’s been sent to the outback to investigate a cold case about a girl named Charlotte who disappeared two decades earlier. The police never caught the actual criminal, nor find the missing girl… maybe because she’s aboriginal. So Travis pokes around for clues. Unsurprisingly, the locals are not impressed. Charley (Rob Collins) Charlottes brother, had been blamed for her disappearance.
He tells Travis to fuck off. Emma (Natasha Wanganeen) the waitress in the town diner, wants to help — and likes having Travis around. And the three kids she takes care of also want to find out what happened to Aunt Charlotte. And then there’s Joseph (Nicholas Hope), a sketchy old guy who lives in a cave, and who used to run dodgy party nights for teenagers with a friend. He denies any involvement but seems to know a lot. Meanwhile, Travis is stuck there till they fix his car — he’s forced to drive around in an ancient jalopy. Can he get the locals to talk? Will he ever discover what happened to Charlotte and why? And as he uncovers deep dark secrets, will the people there end up better or worse?
Limbo is a detective drama about an old mystery. It’s a slow burn — very slow in fact — more like a revelatory drama than a mystery. It deals with dark secrets and the pervasive class divisions and racism toward the indigenous people there. It takes place in the lunar landscape of an area once exploited for opal mines, with deep tunnels drilled into the ground and hills made of the rubble they dug up. The hotel he stays in has walls drilled into the earth. Everything is dirt, sand, rock and sun. The people all seem to live in caves or mobile homes.
This indigenous Australian director, Ivan Sen, is also the writer, producer, cinematographer, editor and the composer of the soundtrack, so it has a completeness about it, the work of a single mind. It has amazing panoramic views, all done in black and white. The production design and aesthetics of the film — sets, costumes, cars — is very cool as well. And great acting. If you want to watch a moody, noir-ish drama under a bright summer sun, I think you’ll like Limbo.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 opens theatrically this weekend; check your local listings. Limbo is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Guy stuff. Films reviewed: The Fall Guy, The Ride Ahead, Pelikan Blue
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I have some movies about guy stuff — two documentaries and an action movie. There’s a guy in Sydney not afraid to get his hands dirty, a guy in New Hampshire who wants to know the real dirt, and three guys in Budapest playing dirty with some train tickets.
The Fall Guy
Dir: David Leitch
Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the stunt double for a heartthrob Hollywood action star named Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Tom claims to do all his own stunts but those in the know know it’s Colt falling off buildings, crashing cars, and catching fire. Colt loves the excitement and thrill of doing the undoable — and he’s really good at it, too. Especially at his current film, because he works beside a camera operator named Jody (Emma Blunt). They’re spending time together, on and off duty, trading quips on set or making out behind the klieg lights. It’s his dream job. Until a terrible accident breaks his back, and he disappears from the scene entirely. And from Jody, too. Until, 18 months later, he gets a call from a producer. Gail (Hannah Waddingham), a big shaker and mover, wants him on Tom’s latest flick, a sci-fi action rom-com. He doesn’t want to, until she drops the other shoe: Jody is directing this movie and she specifically asked for him.
So off he flies to Sydney, Australia, to join a shoot in progress. It’s a shlock-fest about a space 
cowboy fighting aliens using weapons that look like heavy-metal guitars. Turns out Jody had no idea he’s coming and is still offended he dumped her for no good reason. Then Gail, the producer, asks for Colt’s help. Tom has disappeared with a gang of undesirables and she’s worried he’s in trouble. Can’t Colt find and rescue him? If not they’ll have to cancel the movie… and Jody’s career (this is her first time as a director). Tom agrees, but soon discovers he’s the target of a slew of gunmen, trying to get back a missing video. Can Colt rescue Tom, survive the bullets, catch the baddies and make it back to set in time to woo the love of his life?
The Fall Guy is a combination rom-com and action movie set within the confine of the film industry. So it’s full of references to mediocre movies. I thought the witty banter wasn’t particularly clever, and the plot twists propelling the story pretty threadbare. There are lots of unnecessary 
jokes written into the script with a nudge and a wink. Like when Jody asks Colt if she should use a split screen in the film she’s directing… immediately after which The Fall Guy movie starts using a split screen, too. That’s just weak. And yet I walked out of this film feeling totally entertained. Why?
First of all the acting is great, all the main characters well-played, especially Gosling’s Colt Seavers. More than that, though, the action is really good. The chase scenes are elaborate, the fight scenes are like watching ballet, and even the gratuitous explosions — and there are quite a few of them — are just fun to watch. And of course, in a movie about stuntmen, the stunts are all done just right. So if you’re looking for a couple of hours of forgettable entertainment, this one’s for you.
The Ride Ahead
Dir: Dan Habib, Samuel Habib
Samuel Habib is a young man who lives with his parents in Concord New Hampshire. He has tattoos, likes music and sports. He went to public school and is getting ready for college, but realizes he hasn’t yet done a lot of things many high school kids have already done: things like going on a date or having sex. Yes, the media is filled with sexual images and porn but rarely relevant to people like him. Samuel is disabled. The thing is, movies and TV shows portray people like him in one of three ways: get help, get cured or die. He wants some advice that’s relevant to him, preferably NOT from his parents (awkward…) And he can’t stand being talked down to or underestimated by people who only see his disability. So he decides to go to the source and talk with some well-known disabled people, including many of his heroes. He does it — and makes a film out of it.
He meets with musician Keith Jones, co-founder of Krip-Hop, for some basic rules about having sex. Says Jones: “always remember: put a bag on it!”Judy Heumann, the late, great leader of the Disability Rights Movement, says “using a wheelchair means spending a lot of time staring at people’s butts!”
Andrew Peterson who lives with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder tells how he became a long-distance runner and a sports coach. And Maysoon Zayid, a Palestinian-American
Dan and Samuel Habib, The Ride Ahead at HotDocs, Photo by Jeff Harris
stand-up comic, provides both constant humour and some really tough talk. The film takes Sam (and his father, co-director Dan Habib) across the country, in boats, planes and automobiles, each of which pose separate accessibility issues, especially airplanes; Samuel uses an electric wheelchair to get around and they don’t go well with those tight spaces on planes. He also turns to his own big brother for all-around moral support and inspiration. But will Sam ever move beyond his parents’ house?
The Ride Ahead is a touching, funny and informative documentary told from the subject’s point of view. It helps correct a lot of misconceptions about disabilities, and introduces a lot of other things you probably never considered. The film is made in the form of a dialogue between Samuel, his dad and the people he encounters, often with the camera positioned either facing him or facing out. At times, Samuel’s both the subject and the filmmaker. He can speak, but in the film mainly uses an electronically generated voice whose texts he writes in advance.
I liked this documentary a lot, partly the way it makes people with disabilities the subject not the object. It covers diverse intellectual territory, from disability rights to ableism and disability justice. It also deals frankly with real aspects of everyday life. And the cast and crew, both behind and in front of the camera, from editor to soundtrack, are largely disabled themselves.
The Ride Ahead is a good movie to watch.
Pelikan Blue
Wri/Dir: László Csáki
It’s the late 1980s in Budapest, Hungary and the iron curtain may be rattling but it’s not yet opened. Still, the government is introducing new measures. It’s now legal to keep foreign currency and travel abroad. Everyone, especially young people, are dying to see what it’s like in Western Europe. But train tickets are prohibitively expensive, and no one has any money. When three guys — Rozi, Petya, and Akos — buy a forged ticket on the black market, they are dismayed and disgusted by its poor quality: smudged ink, misspelled words… They’d be caught immediately. They can do better than that using just advanced planning and simple high school chemistry. So they decide to take the bull by the horns, and make themselves some fake tickets. This involves spying on the sellers, stealing some covers, and getting a phony rubber stamp made (not an easy task in communist Hungary). But they also have to buy a cheap ticket, bleach out the ink and carefully enscribe the forgery through a page of Pelican Blue carbon paper.
After much trial and error, they manage to ride a train to Scandinavia for pocket change. But 
when they get back, rumours leak, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Should they expand their business or get out of it before the police find out?
Pelikan Blue is a beautiful, animated feature-length documentary that follows the story over three decades, using old voice recordings and new interviews. This is basically a heist movie, but one involving minimal stakes — just forged tickets across Europe. But what really struck me was the stunning art. It involves the garish lavenders and electric blues of 1980s colours, distinct characters, and simple but instantly recognizable images: a payphone, an answering machines, the brutalist rooftops of Budapest. Backgrounds are brushed with tempera paints, and the faces have squashed noses, and eyes that are tiny green dots. I cannot describe the joy I felt looking at this animation, it’s unique, it’s amazing, it’s handmade, it’s just so cool. There’s also a chill soundtrack of 1990s Hungarian music percolating through the whole film. There are lots of funny parts, and some psychedelic dream sequences, too…I just can’t get enough of Pelikan Blue.
The Fall Guy opens this weekend; check your local listings. The Ride Ahead, Pelikan Blue are two of the many movies playing at Hot Docs through Sunday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Movies with two directors. Films reviewed: Abigail, Unsung Hero, Sasquatch Sunset
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Not everyone likes every type of movie. Some want to be excited or scared, others want to be gently reassured, and still others expect to be intellectually stimulated. So this week I’m looking at three new movies — a horror, a family drama, and a strange arthouse flick — basically, something for everyone. There’s a group of kidnappers lured by a huge ransom, a family of Australian musicians with big ambitions, and a near-family of near-humans with very big feet.
Abigail
Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett (Review: Ready or Not)
Abigail (Alisha Weir) is a poor little rich girl who loves ballet dancing. Though still very young, she is diligently rehearsing the lead role in Swan Lake, complete with tutu and toe shoes. Until she is injected with sedative, dragged from her mansion, and wakes up chained to a bed in a creepy castle far away. Who is responsible? A gang of professional criminals, none of whom have ever met before, but promised 7 million in cash each, if they can babysit Abigail until the whopping ransom arrives the next day.
The gang consists of Frank (Dan Stevens) a canny former cop, Dean (the late Angus Cloud) their ginger-bearded pothead driver; Peter (Kevin Durand) a musclehead enforcer, Sammy (Kathryn Newton) an expert hacker who favours expensive jewelry; Rickles (William Catlett) a sniper and former marine, and Joey (Melissa Barrera), their de-facto organizer. She’s the only one talking with the little girl… who is very frightened 
and distraught. To calm her down, Joey promises nothing bad will happen to her, pinky swear.
But things take a turn when one of the gang is discovered in the kitchen, headless. Even worse, they find out Abigail’s dad is one of the richest — and most dangerous — men in the world, known for cruelly torturing and killing anyone who crosses his path. And then there’s little Abigail herself: she’s not actually a girl — she’s a centuries-old vampire who feeds on human blood… who happens to like ballet. Can the gang escape this house of horrors? Or will they be killed, one by one?
Abigail is a violent and gory vampire horror/thriller. It’s a reboot of the classic story: “if you can stay in a haunted house overnight I’ll give you a million bucks”. It also plays on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion, or Tim Story’s The Blackening, where characters 
locked in an old house are killed, one by one. That said, the characters — and plot turns — in Abigail are different enough to keep you interested. Yes, there are cliches — a house full of suits of armour and widows that close and lock themselves — but it also adds shocking new twists to the old vampire myths — like, what happens to vampires when they die? (No spoilers).
If you like mystery and horror, with lots of blood guts and gore, tempered a fair amount of ballet dancing, I think you’ll enjoy Abigail.
Unsung Hero
Wri/Dir: Richard L. Ramsey, Joel Smallbone
It’s 1991. David Smallbone (Joel Smallbone) is a successful music promoter in Sydney, Australia. He lives with his pregnant wife Helen (Daisy Betts) and six kids in an enormous mansion, and manages tours by big musical stars. But when a bad business deal leaves him completely broke, they all decide to fly halfway around the globe to Memphis, Tennessee. But the promised job awaiting him… wasn’t there, and the pre-arranged rental house was completely empty. Luckily Mum is a quick thinker, and turns their suitcases into beds — who needs furniture, anyway? The kids love playing cricket in the empty rooms. But she still has eight mouths to feed — David, Helen, Becca, Daniel, Luke, Joel, Josh and Ben — three times a day, and no money to do it. But the heavens are shining bright on the Smallbones and they soon find work gardening and house cleaning, including with some of his former musical clients. The kids are pitching in, too, when they’re not being home-schooled. They have a money jar to pay for food and rent, and a wall chart with things they want and want to pray for; the Smallbones are a devout Christian family. It’s at a Church 
service that everyone notices what a beautiful and angelic voice Becca, the oldest daughter has (Kirrilee Berger). This provides David with the motivation he needs to get a music contract signed for Becca, thus saving their family from wrack and ruin. But can David and Becca do it? Or will the family fly back to Australia with their collective tails between their legs?
Unsung Hero is a biopic of the real-life Smallbone family, before the kids became famous, as seen through their mother Helen’s eyes. It shows how they pulled themselves back up after a major setback. It’s a faith-based movie, where praying and church play central roles throughout the film. The father David (circa 1991), is played by his actual son (in 2024). And the music they produce — from the beautiful singing of Kirrilee Berger, to the band For King + Country that Joel and Luke later founded — is good. Not to my taste, but it’s actually good. The problem comes from producing a biopic where the subjects have a central role in its content. I grew up in a family of seven and we kids fought verbally and physically all the time. In this movie, though, they are so kind and whitewashed they make the Brady Bunch kids seem like gangstas. Maybe that’s true in this family, but it rings false to me. Way too Hallmark-y. There are also a number of basic faux pas. Like having a flashback within a flashback in the opening scenes — that’s just clumsy editing.
If you want to watch an inspiring and positive 90s- era story about a musical family’s Christian life, you might like Unsung Hero. Otherwise, I don’t think you’ll get much out of it.
Sasquatch Sunset
Dir: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner
Somewhere in the redwood forests in Northern California, a pack of four unclassified animals are wandering around searching for food. They are covered in brown and grey hair, walk on two legs, and have opposing thumbs. Are they human, or are they animals? They are Sasquatches, popularly known as the Bigfoot. And they are a lot like us. They eat, sleep and have sex. Urinate, defecate, and puke when they eat something poisonous. They give birth and die. They play, communicate, make music and look at the stars in the sky. And they come in at least two genders and a number of sizes.
They commune with nature, and vice versa; snakes, skunks, deer and porcupines happily coexist, and even play with them. Sasquatch are mainly vegetarian though they do eat fish. They also make mistakes, especially the biggest of the four, the alpha Sasquatch. He has a tendency to stick his “stick” where it doesn’t belong. And the other three react loudly and 
emphatically when he does something he shouldn’t do. But when they encounter signs of humans — felled trees, camping equipment, a paved road — they are shaken to their core. Will they ever spot one of us?
Sasquatch Sunset is a very weird, arthouse film about the journey of Sasquatches in their natural habitat and the encroaching presence of humans. It feels partly like a nature documentary or an anthropological newsreel, but it’s also very funny at times. Sad too. And it has actual characters. They don’t have names but let’s call them the big, mean one, the relaxed one with breasts, the pensive intellectual and the adolescent (Nathan Zellner, Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac-Denek). There is also dialogue — grunts and whoops, the banging of sticks and lots of jumping around and screeching. At first, I couldn’t tell them apart or even what their sex is — they‘re all really hairy! — but it gradually becomes quite apparent. And by the end I think you’ll feel for them and understand them, too.
Sasquatch Sunset is a very strange movie, but I liked it.
Abigail and Sasquatch Sunset, open this weekend in Toronto, while Unsung Hero starts next Friday; 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.
Trouble at home. Films reviewed: Civil War, Sting, Housekeeping for Beginners
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking a three interesting movies: from the US, North Macedonia, and Australia. There’s a carful of journalists heading to an apocalyptic Washington, a makeshift family in Skopje, and a carnivorous spider that fell from outer space.
Civil War
Wri/Dir: Alex Garland
It’s the near future in the United States, but these states are not united. The country is in the midst of a violent civil war, with a Texas- and California-based militia battling the federal government in an East vs West conflict. WF (Western Forces) vs the USA. The rebels are slowly advancing southward toward Washington DC.
Lee (Kirsten Dunst) a veteran war photographer is in New York, chasing a terror bombing alongside Joel a journalist (Wagner Moura). Lee has covered many wars at the frontline, but never one like this, on her home turf. Still, she and Joel want to cross the battlefront to get to DC and interview the president (Nick Offerman) ahead of the advancing rebel troops.
Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a grizzled newspaperman from way back, wants to hitch a ride as far as the Charlottesville front line. And greenhorn Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), straight out of school, says she idolizes Lee and her work. She caries a camera around her neck. Couldn’t she come too? Lee doesn’t mind mentoring young photographers, but not while she’s dodging bullets. In the end, all four of them begin their perilous in a 4WD.
It’s an apocalyptic journey, along broken highways filled with abandoned cars. Burnt out towns have snipers standing guard on roofs. Gas stations only take cash, preferably Canadian. Fear, hatred and the stench of rotting bodies floats in the air. Soldiers in camo, their hair dyed fluorescent colours casually brandish assault weapons. Accused collaborators hang from 
rafters. Will their press passes be enough to save them from friendly fire? And who will enter the Whitehouse?
Civil War is a Heart of Darkness plunge into an apocalyptic America where the enemy is ourselves. It’s thrilling, chilling, and quite disturbing. The theme is politics and war (and journalism), but you never quite find out what the two sides are fighting about, what they stand for, who’s right or who’s wrong. Rather, it’s about the hellish nature of war, and how conflict can destroy a country. Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) made 28 Days Later, where an infection that leads to fast-moving zombies destroying the world. This has a similar feel but with a very different type of monster. And it will have you on the edge of your seat all the way through.
Sting
Wri/Dir: Kiah Roache-Turner
It’s a cold winter night in a big, American city, where a record-breaking ice storm has trapped everyone in their homes. Charlotte (Alyla Browne), an intense, blonde Wednesday Addams, lives in a tenement with her mom, her cartoonist stepdad Ethan (Ryan Corr), and her infant brother. Ice storms are boring, but luckilly, Charlotte knows the building through and through. She easily crawls through vents to spy on other tenants: her sweet but demented Grandma (Noni Hazlehurst), her cruel great aunt Gunter (Robyn Nevin), the slumlord who owns the building; Maria, a sangria-guzzling alky with a yapping chihuahua, and Erik, a reclusive scientist. To keep herself occupied, Charlotte keeps a tiny spider she found in a glass jar. She names her Sting. But this is no ordinary spider. Sting can communicate with Charlotte, perfectly imitating her whistles. And Charlotte doesn’t know Sting is an intelligent alien that fell to earth inside a meteor.
As Sting voraciously consumes the bugs she feeds her, the spider rapidly grows in size and strength. Charlotte moves her into an aquarium, but even that won’t contain her. Like Charlotte, it can run through the vents, snatching, mummifying or scarfing up small animals on the spot. But when Charlotte notices people are disappearing, she realizes something is not right. She teams up with Ethan and a professional exterminator named Frank (Jermaine Fowler) to get Sting under control… but are they too late?
Sting is a ridiculously silly horror film about a man-eating alien insect who spins slimy webs and cocoons out of slimy mucous. Lots of fake blood and gore. At the same time, it always keeps a humorous tone, even in the scary and gross-out scenes. One interesting fact: Charlotte names her spider Sting after reading The Hobbit, but JRR Tolkien fans will notice Sting was actually the dagger Bilbo Baggins used to kill… a giant, man-eating spider! Another interesting fact: although it’s set in a snowy city like New York, Sting is an Australian movie, with an almost completely Aussie cast (including the delightful Noni Hazlehurst.)
Suffice it to say, Sting is an unabashedly B-movie that’s also a fun night out.
Housekeeping for Beginners
Wri/Dir: Goran Stolevski
It’s present-day Northern Macedonia. Dita is an older woman who works at a social welfare office in Skopje. She’s descended from a prominent family in Tito’s Yugoslavia and shares a big house with a middle-aged man named Toni (Vladimir Tintor). Suada (Alina Serban) — a client from work — lives there too; she fled her abusive husband. Suada brought her two kids with her: tough, teenaged Vanessa (Mia Mustafi) and 6-year-old Mia (Dzada Selim). Today, there’s a new face in the house: 19 year old Ali (Samson Selim). He’s a sweet-talker who dyes his hair blond and is fond of green fingernail polish. He also knows everyone and everything happening in his neighbourhood. This means now there are two moms, one and a half dads, and a bunch of kids. The unusual thing is Dita and Suada are lovers, and Ali is Toni’s latest hookup. But that’s not all. Dita and Toni are ethnic Macedonians, while Ali, Suada and the kids all come from Shutka, a Muslim Romani neighbourhood. Dita’s house serves as an underground Mecca for outcastes, whether LGBT, Romani or both.
But everything changes when Suada is diagnosed with a fatal illness. She wants to make sure her kids are taken care of after she dies, and to give them a chance at success. The Roma are severely discriminated against, at school, work and even in accessing social services. If Rita and Toni adopt Mia, a bright and creative little girl, perhaps she can escape this endemic racism. But can a group of misfits live like a normal heterosexual family? Or is their experiment doomed for failure?
Housekeeping for Beginners is a sweet and realistic drama about the daily life of an unusual family and the tribulations they face. It’s also a real eye-opener! I never knew there are Muslim Romani communities, nevermind gay subcultures, within Northern Macedonia. It gives a glimpse into the street life of Shutka, and the complex social structures within that 
neighbourhood. The acting is great, the characters they play are bold and fascinating. Apparently Samson Selim who plays Ali is the real-life father of Dzada Selim, the girl who plays Mia. It’s directed by Macedonian-Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski, who spins amazing stories. This is the third movie I’ve seen by him (Reviews: Of an Age, You Won’t Be Alone) and even though his genres vary widely, he has a distinct style of storytelling, a bittersweet intimacy, which I’m liking more and more with each new film.
This is a good movie.
Sting, Civil War and Housekeeping for Beginners 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.
Magical kids. Films reviewed: The New Boy, Butterfly Tale, Once Within a Time
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You’ve heard of Peter Pan, right? He’s most famous for not growing up and for believing in fairies. And it’s true, kids are more likely to believe in magic than grown ups. This week, I’m looking at three new movies about the innocence and magic of childhood. There’s a disabled, teenaged butterfly that wants to migrate with his flock; an indigenous boy with magical powers sent to a church-run school; and a group of kids forced to face a fairytale apocalypse.
The New Boy
Wri/Dir: Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country)
It’s the 1940s at a remote Australian Benedictine monastery. Sister Eileen (Kate Blanchett) is excited because there’s a new student arriving soon. She runs the place, ever since the head Benedictine monk died — she keeps this detail a secret from the outside world. The new boy (Aswan Reid) is indigenous, can’t speak English, and has had virtually no contact with white Australia. He has blond hair and brown skin. He sleeps on the floor, not on a bed, and finds forks and spoons a mystery. At the same time, he can conjure up glowing particles to light his way, using just his hands. And he has magical powers: he can speak to trees, and cures people bitten by poisonous snakes.
The sisters teach him out to use an outhouse (which he finds both funny and revolting), and about western ways and foods. Above all, Sister Eileen wants to convert him to Christianity — she lives him deeply, and wants to save his soul. She uses a life-sized wooden statue of Jesus writhing on the cross as the catalyst. She hopes to change him completely, and ultimately to baptize him and give him a Christian name. Will he convert? And what will happen if he does?
The New Boy is a gentle, bittersweet look at religion,
colonization, forced assimilation and residential schools (known as boarding schools in Australia), as seen through one boy’s eyes. I found it both inspiring and tragic. Kate Blanchett is wonderful as the scheming but good-hearted nun, while young actor Aswan Reid is remarkable as the unnamed new boy. (The movie opens with a violent fight between him and a soldier in the bush, just one of many surprising scenes he manages to convey without uttering a single word.) Director Warwick Thornton based it partly on his own experiences as a boy in Alice Springs, and those personal details and feelings come through.
I liked The New Boy a lot.
Butterfly Tale
Dir: Sophie Roy
Patrick (Mena Massoud) is a young monarch butterfly who recently made the transition from caterpillar. He and his best friend Marty are looking forward to joining his village on their annual migration to Mexico. He is especially excited about spending quality time with the girl he’s crushing on, Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany). But there’s a problem. Patrick emerged from his cocoon with mismatched wings, so he’s disabled and can’t fly. And Marty is still a caterpillar. They are teased and bullied by the bigger butterflies as “butter fails”.
Worse still, Patrick’s mom, a leading flier in the “flutter” (what they call their butterfly community) wants him to stay home in the winter. But Patrick and Marty are determined to get there by hook or by crook. Jennifer, a strong flier, is pulling a leaf filled with milkweed so they can all eat on the way. Patric and Marty stowaway aboard that leaf! Little did they know they’ll face tornadoes, big box stores and angry birds posing life threatening dangers on the way. Will Patrick ever learn to fly? Will Marty ever make the transition from caterpillar to butterfly? And will Jennifer get over her hangups?
Butterfly Tale is an animated, coming-of-age road movie 
about anthropomorphic butterflies. They’re basically people, with human hair, faces, and bodies but with big butterfly wings coming out of their backs. They wear T-shirts and hoodies, and worry about adolescent insecurities. (They even have to stop the flight along the way to take a leak.) Little kids might really identify with the characters and like this movie; it has good role models for children with disabilities, and deals with environmental issues. The thing is, it’s not original or funny or risky or challenging anywhere, just a typical adolescent drama, where the people happen to be butterflies. I’m not saying it was uninteresting — it kept my attention the whole time — there just wasn’t much to it.
Once Within a Time
Wri/Dir: Godfrey Reggio
Once upon a time, a bunch of happy kids follow the beckoning voice of a goddess onto a stage. After riding a merry-go-round they start to notice strange happenings. An Adam-and-Eve-like young couple in wire masks take a piece of fruit from a sinister looking apple-man, unleashing terrible events. Smart phones generate robots, a chimp in a monkey suit and another in a VR helmet, huge industrial power-towers, a baobab tree exploding into a mushroom cloud. Ecological and geopolitical devastation is at hand! Can we survive the end of this world… or maybe start a new one?
Once Within a Time is a phantasmagorical, magic-lantern fable performed on a two dimensional stage beneath a prominent proscenium arch. It’s equal parts live-action, documentary 
footage, still images, and 3-D stop-motion animation.
I first saw Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanasqatsi as a teenager and the barrage of apocalyptic images of corporate uniformity combined with Philip Glass’s pounding music left deep marks in my psyche. This one is kinder and gentler but still effective. It’s co-directed and edited by Jon Kane with amazing vintage special affects from irises to rear projections to dual spectroscope photos. There are tinted black & white shots, shadow puppets, grotesque masks, and dancing robots 
that evoke everything from Georges Méliès to Guy Maddin to the late Peewee Herman’s Playhouse. Who knew the apocalypse could be so beautiful? It’s less than an hour in length, but provides about three times that in intensity. If you can, see it on a big screen and just let the images and music overwhelm you.
Great movie.
Butterfly Tale is now playing in Toronto; check your local listings. The New Boy is a feature at the ImagineNative film festival starting next week. And Once Within a Time is playing tomorrow (Sunday, October 15th, at 5 pm) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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 Kitty Green about The Royal Hotel at #TIFF23
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photograph by Jeff Harris
Hanna and Liv are two American friends in Sydney, Australia, living it up on their work/study visas. But when their money runs out they realize its time to get a job. They land one at a pub in a remote mining town called The Royal Hotel. But Royal it ain’t. It’s a ramshackle enterprise, run by an alcoholic who never pays his workers, and is patronized by rude and rowdy miners, almost all male. There’s no wifi and nothing to do. And as the tension grows, Hanna and Liv wonder if the men around them are just boisterous… or potentially dangerous. And how long can they survive in this dingy pit of misogyny, dirt and snakes?
The Royal Hotel is a new Australian film about two women surviving in the Australian outback. It’s the work of award-winning Australian filmmaker Kitty Green, know for her feminist take on a range of issues from protests to workplace harassment in film like The Assistant. The Royal Hotel had its Canadian Premiere at TIFF. I last spoke with Kitty a decade ago at CIUT about her documentary Ukraine is not a Brothel .
I interviewed Kitty on site and in person at #TIFF23.
The Royal Hotel opens in Canada this weekend.
Only in the Movies. Films reviewed: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, My Love Affair with Marriage, Talk to Me
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In the film industry, one of the biggest gender gaps is with directors — very few movies are directed by women, and corporate studios are loathe to hire them. Which means we get tons of stories told from a male point of view, but far fewer from women. (Documentaries are an exception.) The Female Eye Film Festival showing this week in Toronto is trying to even the odds, by presenting new movies by women from around the world. But things might be changing. I went to a midweek promo screening when theatres are usually quiet, and was shocked to encounter a bright pink crowd. Women in pink skirts and wigs posing for selfies, skinny guys sporting neckerchiefs, kids, grownups, even grannies, were lined up for popcorn and packing the house with a degree of enthusiasm I haven’t seen since Harry Potter. Clearly, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a cultural phenomenon, and I do plan to see it, once the pink tsunami dies down.
This week, though, I’m looking at three new films, one horror and two animation. There’s a hand in Adelaide, Australia, a girl in Riga, Latvia, and four turtles in the sewers beneath Manhattan.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Dir: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo are four teenagers who live together in the sewer underground in New York City. When they were babies, a secret lab was raided spilling radioactive goo, turning four tiny turtles into mutant humanoid creatures. They were raised by a rat who also was exposed to the slime, and who trained them in martial arts. He has just one rule: never let humans see you, or they will call you a monster and hand you over to evil scientists who will milk you dry to create supersonic weapons. But the masked foursome, being teenagers, wish they could just be like normal humans, going to high school, the prom, meeting other friends… They finally get their chance when they team up with April O’Neil, an aspiring student journalist (nicknamed Puke Girl). If the TMNTs can stop a bizarre crime spree plaguing the city — and 
April report that story on TV news — maybe the people will welcome them in as heroes. Alas, it’s not as easy as it looks. There’s a gang of evil scientists who want their blood, and a mysterious group of mutant supervillains who may be just as strong they are. Can the Turtles avoid the scientists and defeat the mutants? Or will they live their lives eating pizza in the sewers of Manhattan?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a new reboot of the beloved comic, TV and movie franchise. Gone are the skateboards, surfer slang and whitebread voices of their earlier versions; this origin story starts again from scratch, in a multiracial city moving to the tune of 90s hiphop. At least they still eat pizza.. As always, it’s meant for 
small children, who seemed to like it a lot at the screening I went to. I liked it too. It’s visually stunning, with a colour palette ranging from acid green to day-glo blue and fluorescent red projected against dark city alleys. The characters themselves are a combo of 3-D models and hand-drawn illustration, with squiggles and scribbles appearing everywhere. And the voices —of the Ninja Turtles — are actual teenagers instead of grown ups faking it. I went in expecting very little and was surprised and pleased by its fast pace, sophisticated art work and fine music.
My Love Affair with Marriage
Wri/Dir: Signe Baumane (Rocks in my Pockets)
It’s the Soviet Union. Zelma is a little girl at her first day of school in Latvia. She’s tough and self-assured. When a boy starts bothering her, she clocks him. So she’s shocked when she is punished and ostracized for defending herself. “Girls don’t fight” she is told. She doesn’t wear makeup or bows un her hair, so the boy she has a crush on, studiously ignores her. Her mother instructs her to find a man, get married and put up with whatever he does. Later at university, she meets a fellow artist, Sergei, who flatters her and says he loves her. Could he be her soulmate?
Or is love just an illusion?
My Love Affair with Marriage is an animated, feminist coming-of-age story about a Latvian girl — and later as a woman and an artist trying to fit into a society that doesn’t seem ready to accept her. It handles her first period, her sex life, and her frustrating relationships and marriages. And it takes place both both during the USSR and after its collapse. (There’s even some scenes in Toronto.) It’s presented in the form of a highly-stylized animated musical, with three, bird-like women who 
sing songs about her progress like a veritable Greek chorus. The characters are beautifully-coloured, hand-drawn pen and ink, that vary from spare, to surreal, to scientific and even psychedelic. And that’s not all. It’s narrated through a series of medical drawings, narrated by a talking synapse. Each time Zelma falls in love or gets angry, it’s explained as her hypothalamus secreting hormones, oxytocin and dopamine. The film is told and sung in American English (Baumane is Latvian, based in Brooklyn) but it’s totally Eastern European in its humour, style and look. This is the second movie of hers I’ve seen, and I quite liked it.
Talk to Me
Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou
There’s a phenomenon going around on TikTok in Adelaide, South Australia. On the clips, people have weirdly distorted faces for a little while before they turn back to normal. Those who have done it swear it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever experienced. So some friends decide to try it out one night. It isn’t drugs, it isn’t hypnotism, it’s something totally different. Mia (Sophie Wilde) has been deeply depressed since her mom died of a sleeping pill overdose so she’s sleeping on her best friend Jade’s couch (Alexandra Jensen). They go to high school together. Mia helps out with Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). She picks him up from school and comforts him when he has one of his frequent nightmares. Riley and Jade’s single mom is working all the time. So they decide it’s time to try this new thing out, along with Jade’s boyfriend Daniel.
The party — if that’s what it is — focuses on a graffiti covered plaster hand. You light a candle, hold onto the hand and say “talk to me”. Then you say “I let you in” and that’s where the fun starts. You experience mind-blowing visions, your face distorts wildly, and some people do or say godawful things. 90 seconds later you blow out the candle and let go of the hand and it’s all over. The thing is, what you’re doing is opening the gate between the living and the dead, and allowing these ghosts/spirits/demons into your brain, for that short period of time. But when Mia, Jade, Daniel And Riley try it out, things don’t go exactly as planned. What is that hand? What does it do, 
exactly? And can they undo what they unwittingly started?
Talk to Me is a terrifying thriller/horror, one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m talking pounding heart, gasping for breath, out-and-out horrifying sensations. It also includes a good dose of psychological thriller, in case you like that too. So if you don’t like scary — stay far away. There are some short-lived but shocking scenes of violence at key points in the film. I’ve seen countless movies about seances and ouija boards going bad, but there’s something about this one that feels entirely fresh and new. If you’re looking for some great horror, see Talk To Me.
Talk to Me opens this weekend, check your local listings; My Love Affair with Marriage is the closing film at the Female Eye Film Festival at the HotDocs Cinema in Toronto; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens across the continent on August 2nd.
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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