Pot o’ Gold. Films reviewed: French Girl, One Life, Love Lies Bleeding
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tomorrow is St Paddy’s day so this week I’m looking at three new movies, from Canada, England and the US, about people looking for their own pot o’ gold. There’s a New Yorker in Quebec looking for love, an Englishman in wartime Prague searching for orphans to rescue, and a young woman in New Mexico looking to flee to Vegas with her bodybuilder girlfriend.
French Girl
Wri/Dir: James A. Woods, Nicolas Wright
Sophie and Gordon are an unmarried couple in New York in their late 30s. Gordon Kinski (Zach Braff) is an eighth grade English teacher in a public school in Brooklyn. He loves donning 16th century tunics to teach Shakespeare to 14 year olds. Sophie Tremblay (Evelyne Brochu) is a wizard in the kitchen — professional kitchens that is. She’s the chef at a popular restaurant. They’re getting ready for a long-planned vacation in upstate New York, far away from their jobs. But their plans are changed when a strange woman appears. Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens) is a celebrity chef with cooking shows and restaurants all around the world. She wants Sophie to audition for executive chef at her newest branch. The restaurant is in the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, Sophie’s home town. For Gordon, who has rarely left NY City, Quebec is terra incognito. But he agrees to come with her, thinking it’s the perfect time to propose marriage. He also will offer moral support and meet her family. And what a family it is.
The Tremblays live on their sheep farm near Quebec City. There’s an angry Dad, a doting mom, a gossipy older sister, and Junior
(Antoine Olivier Pilon) an intimidating cage boxer who collects samurai swords. And then there’s their elderly grandma who has a tendency to pop up beside their bed when they’re having sex. Gordon, who speaks no French, feels very out of place, but still tries desperately to fit in. What he doesn’t know, but the 
family does, is that Ruby, Sophie’s potential future boss, is also her former lover. Will Sophie get the job? Will her family accept Gordon? And is the rich and glamorous Ruby competing with him for Sophie’s hand?
French Girl is a funny and cute romcom about a culture clash between an eccentric family and a fish out of water. It’s also bilingual — the Tremblays speak French while Gordon and Ruby speak English. While French Girl follows many of the cliches and conventions of a romantic comedy, it still seems sweet, fresh and delightful.
I liked it despite myself.
One Life
Dir: James Hawes
It’s the late 1980s in a small city in England. Nicky Winton (Anthony Hopkins) is a retired stockbroker who lives with his wife Greta (Lena Olin). They’re expecting a visit soon from their expecting daughter, so she tells him to throw out all his junk to make way for baby. He has tons of files and papers from the 1930s he hasn’t looked at in years. Plus a treasured leather briefcase with a photo album in it. Everything in the album happened in 1938. That was when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia to annex the “Sudetenland”, sending thousands of refugees — including Jews, intellectuals, leftists, Socialists, and Communists — to Prague to stay out of Nazi hands.
A much younger Nicky (Johnny Flynn) visits Prague and is overwhelmed by all the refugees, including countless children, many orphans, living in the streets. He wonders, how many children could he transport by train to England before Germany invades Prague? There were similar programs for kids in Austria and Germany, but not Czechoslovakia. His German-born mom (Helena Bonham-Carter) says she’ll do whatever she can to help. And a team in Prague is recording names of kids 
who can be saved. Can Nicky convince the British government to issue visas, raise the needed funds, and find foster parents to take care of them? Will he get them out before the Nazis march in? Or is it a fools game?
One Life is an historical drama — based on a true story — about an unsung hero and what he accomplished in 1938. The story jumps back and forth between the 30s and the 80s, half about the daring mission of a young man, and half about the old Nicky telling his story. I wanted to see this film for two reasons: because of the story — who doesn’t want to see children rescued from the Nazis? — and because it’s directed by James Hawes, who brought us that excellent TV spy thriller series Slow Horses. Sadly, One Life couldn’t possibly be less thrilling. While there are a few touching moments near the end, most of this film is as slow as molasses. Hopkins sleepwalks through his part while the audience nods off.
Sad to say, One Life is a snooze fest.
Love Lies Bleeding
Co-Wri/Dir: Rose Glass
It’s 30 years ago in a small town in New Mexico. Lou (Kristen Stewart) works at her estranged father’s hardcore gym, a rusty warehouse filled with muscleheads spouting No Pain No Gain slogans. Most of her time is spent unclogging toilets with her bare hands or fending off the amorous advances of a crackhead named Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov). It’s a hell-hole. Until a breath of fresh air blows in through the door. Jackie (Katy O’Brian) is a competitive bodybuilder in pink and purple lycra with big hair and bigger muscles. She’s an Okie just passing though town on her way to a competition in Vegas. But when she decks two lugs who threaten Lou, it’s love at first punch. Soon they’re making passionate love in Lou’s lonely apartment. Soon enough, she’s supplying Jackie with steroids to reach body perfection before they head off to Vegas.
But all is not well in rural New Mexico. Lou’s brother in law, JJ (Dave Franco) is a mega-douche who works for her Dad, Lou Sr’s (Ed Harris). Lou Sr is a crime boss who runs the town from his gaudy mansion. When JJ’s not cheating on his wife (Lou’s sister), he’s beating her up. And he has hired Jackie to work at Lou Sr’s gun club, after she agreed to have sex with him. (She doesn’t yet know that Lou is related to all of them). But when the truth comes out, and Lou’s sister ends up in ER, Jackie is 
jacked. She slips into a manic ‘roid rage looking for revenge, while pulling Lou into a spiral of violence, death and retribution. Will Jackie make it to Vegas? Will someone pay for the murders? And where will the dead bodies go?
Love Lies Bleeding is a brilliantly dark film noir, about small-town crime in the southwest. It’s filled with distorted psychedelic fantasies within a tragic world. It’s also a love story filled with lots of hot lesbian sex. The production design is amazing. Most of the characters sport 80s mullets and the whole movie pulses with a driven soundtrack and neon colours. This is only Rose Glass’s second feature (after Saint Maud) but she once again incorporates real settings within a surreal plot. This one includes a behind-the-scenes look at professional bodybuilding, complete with spray-on suntans and their strangely contorted muscle-popping poses. But beware — the 
movie is filled with shocking, graphic violence. Dave Franco is great as a sleaze ball, a grizzled Ed Harris is suitably sinister as a crime boss with foot long greasy blond hair spouting beneath a completely bald tonsure. Anna Baryshnikov (the dancer’s daughter!) is perfect as a hippy girl long past her prime. And Kristen Stewart and newcomer Katy O’Brian absolutely sizzle together.
If you’re looking for a crime-thriller that’s gripping, shocking and aesthetically stunning, don’t miss Love Lies Bleeding.
One Life, French Girl, and Love Lies Bleeding all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Michael Del Monte and Janae Marie Kroczaleski about Transformer
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
Janae Marie is a Michigan pharmacist, originally from Ypsilanti, divorced with three sons.
Matt was a high school football player, a former marine who rose to fame as a competitive 
bodybuilder and power lifter. What brings the two together?
Jenae used to be Matt.
She’s a transwoman facing the unusually difficult transition from titanic 250 pound man into her current status. This transformation is documented in a new 
feature film called Transformer.
The documentary is directed by Toronto native, award-winning filmmaker Michael Del Monte.
It follows Janae both at home with family and 
friends, and inside the hypermasculine world of competitive weightlifting. It shows her life both as Matt and as Janae while she makes the difficult decisions and myriad changes faced by all trans people, as well as those unique to her world. Transformer is an eye-opening, surprising, touching and always respectful movie.
I spoke to Janae Marie Kroczaleski and Michael Del Monte on location during Hot Docs.
Del Monte’s Transformer won the won Hot Docs Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award and the Rogers Audience Choice Award for Best Canadian Doc. It starts its theatrical run today.
Bro Movies. Films reviewed: Bigger, First Man, Free Solo
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s Fall Film Festival season in Toronto now, meaning more movies than you can shake a stick at. Toronto After Dark will thrill and chill you with horror, cult and fantasy pics. 
Cinefranco brings brand new French language comedies, dramas and policiers from Quebec and Europe. And Rendezvous with Madness plays fascinating films 
accompanied by panel discussions on addiction and mental health.
But this week I’m talking about bro films, two biopics and a doc about men with lofty goals. One wants to climb a sheer cliff, another wants to build the perfect body, and a third one who just wants to fly to the moon.
Bigger
Dir: George Gallo
Joe Weider (Tyler Hoechlin) is a poor jewish kid in depression-era Montreal. On the streets tough kids beat him up and steal his paper route money, and at home his cruel mom beats him for not keeping clean. At least his little brother Ben (Aneurin Barnard) looks up to him. Joe finds inspiration in unusual places: a 
strongman at the circus and photos of weight lifters he see at newsstands. He begins to obsessively draw pictures of perfect male bodies, copying from textbooks at the McGill library. He wants to promote beautiful physiques, bodies that are muscular, symmetrical and healthy. But fitness for health and looks is still a new concept. In those days people guzzled booze, smoked like chimneys, and thought exercise was a dangerous thing best left to 
olympic athletes.
Weider challenges all that with self-published magazines, promoting new exercises, diets and weight training, illustrated with glamour shots of barely-dressed muscle men. It’s a smash hit, he gets a US contract and Joe and Ben’s empire expands to bodybuilder contests, weights, and a wide range of magazines. And when business takes him to Hollywood, he spots a bleached blonde pin up model working out at Jack LaLanne’s gym. Betty (Julianne Hough) is everything he desires: beautiful, fit and 
smart (he is separated from his first wife). Is this true love? Later he discovers Austrian bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger – the personification of his childhood drawings – and brings him to America.
Bigger is a fun, if idealized, look at the life and career of Canadian fitness mogul Joe Weider. It’s a bit corny, with Montreal-born Joe talking in an unplaceable, choppy accent. And it steers clear of his lawsuits and scandals. But Hoechlin and Hough are enjoyable as Joe and Betty, and there’s even a super villain, a racist, anti-semitic homophobe named Hauk (wonderfully played by Kevin Durand) who is his business rival and real-life enemy. Not a great movie, but an enjoyable one.
First Man
Dir: Damien Chazelle
It’s the 1960s in America, the space race is on, and the Soviets are winning. Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) is a test pilot exploring the skies. He can land any plane, even one about to explode. He’s married to Janet (Claire Foy), a pixie-ish woman with a fierce temper. They have a young daughter they both love. But when the girl dies of an incurable illness, and Neil loses his 
job despite his skills they know things have to change. So Neil makes a big decision: NASA needs astronauts, and he’s going to be one. They move down to Houston and settle in to suburban life.
First Man follows the career and home life of the renowned astronaut, from Gemini missions, to Apollo’s first landing. Armstrong is portrayed as a strong silent type, a no-nonsense guy who drives off alone to handle anger and depression. It also deals 
with astronauts and their uncertain lives (lots of them died). And director Chazelle makes you feel like you’re there with them in the planes and rockets. He even inserts showtunes into his astronaut movie. (Wait — showtunes?) So why didn’t I Iike it? First Man is too heavy, too long, too ponderous. It’s one of those overly stern and patriotic American movies about national heroes. And where’s the suspense? We already know he was the first man on the moon. What’s the point? Ok, there are a few powerful scenes, but First Man consists mainly of rattling cockpits, brooding astronauts and suburban housewives yelling about their husbands.
Ryan Gosling is wasted in this boring example of Oscar Bait.
Free Solo
Dir: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
It’s 2016 and Alex Honnold has one obsession: to scale a sheer cliff in Yosemite. Mountain climbers have done it before in teams rapelling with ropes, pitons and caribiners. But Alex wants to do it “free solo”, that is, by himself 
and without safety ropes. One slip, one miscalculated reach, will send him plunging to his death. But he really wants to climb El Cap, and if it’s not free solo, what’s the point?
Alex is a boyish, wiry vegetarian who cares little for material things. He’s a loner who lives out of a trailer. He’s also in perfect shape, lithe, bendy and incredibly strong. He has to be to hold onto a crack in a rock with just a few fingers while stretching his body 
sideways to the next outcropping. He intensely studies the cliff, practicing each stage in separate small climbs using ropes. And he is accompanied by the filmmakers, who are accomplished climbers themselves. Alex proves to be a bit camera shy, hesitant to “let go” before the cameras. Is it performance anxiety? And will Alex make it to the top of El Capitan… or plunge to his death?
Free Solo is an amazing and spectacular look at one climber 
attempting the nearly impossible. I have no deep-seated passion for rock climbing – I even have a fear of falling – but this movie kept me riveted the whole time. Scenes that show Alex’s quirky nature and the people around him — including other climbers, his family and his girlfriend – help give him a more rounded portrayal. But it’s the climb itself, and the truly amazing photography, that really keeps your attention.
Bigger, First Man, and Free Solo and 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.
Secretive Groups. Movies Reviewed: Pussy Riot, Kill Team, Pain & Gain PLUS Hot Docs!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Hot Docs – Toronto’s legendary Film Festival that shows over 200 documentaries in one week – is on now. It brings cutting edge documentaries from around the world, the filmmakers, and subjects, It’s centered on the Hot Docs cinema on Bloor St, but runs movies and events all around the downtown. And if you’re a student or a senior, you can get free rush tickets for any daytime screening.
What do conspiracies look like? They can be a group of well-meaning protesters, a gang of thieves, or a secret cabal of soldier killers. This week I’m looking at three films about secretive groups whose actions run up against the law and morality. One’s about Russian feminist punks who run into trouble with Putin and the Russian Orthodox church; another’s about a whistleblower in the US military who gets charged with murder; and a third is about some ambitious bodybuilders who want their slice of the pie – and will do whatever is necessary to get it.
Kill Team
Dir: Dan Krauss
When the photos of Abu Ghraib hit the papers, people were shocked at the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. But a series of incidents in Afghanistan , even more shocking than Abu Ghraib are the subject of a new expose. Here’s what happened.
Winfield, a young skinny marine, the smallest in his unit, notices a strange shift in his unit when a new commanding officer, Gibbs, arrives. Gibbs has a reputation for violence during his term in Iraq. And now he was demanding his soldiers take down Afghan civilians – boys and yound men — in their area. Gibbs forms an elite squad, a “Kill Team”, who are 
sent out on “drop weapon” missions. This means they would surprise someone, kill him, and then drop a weapon they had brought for that purpose beside the dead body to justify the killing. And then pose for smiling souvenir photos.
So Winfield becomes a whistleblower, sending out word of these heinous murders to his family, asking them to report it. But, through a series of events that the film reveals, the whistleblower ends up being arrested and charged with murder for the very events he was trying to prevent. The movie tells the story of the various marines involved in this particular unit, as the trials and court-martials are prepared. This disturbing documentary also suggests that these practices were not restricted to that one unit but are common practice among soldiers in Afghanistan. They were just the only ones caught. While mainly talking heads – the various soldiers telling their stories – and with a few too many scenes involving negotiatins with lawyers – it is a serious, important film. The Kill Team puts the integrity of the entire Afghan mission into question.
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
Dir: Maxim Pozdorovkin, Mike Lerner
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk band. They perform their protest pieces wearing neon-coloured balaclavas to cover their faces, playing guitar and singing about government corruption, human rights and freedom of expression. But something happened when they choose to sing about Putin’s ties to the Russian Orthodox church’s patriarchy on the actual altar of a famous cathedral. Within seconds police swarm the stage and arrest three of them for trespassing and defaming religion.
And so begins a lengthy trial followed around the world. The movie interviews the three prisoners – Nadia, Maria and Ekatarina – their families, co-performers and friends. Performance art, public satire and the avant garde, while familiar in the west (where it’s met with yawns or raised eyebrows) are new and genuinely revolutionary in Russia. Somehow, the filmmakers got their cameras and microphones into the trial itself, with perfect views of the three women boxed into a glass cage, as if they were Hannibal Lecters on trial for mass murder. It’s a rare glimpse into the Russian justice system, where playing a simple protest tune still holds the threat of a term in a Siberian prison camp.
Pussy Riot is a must-see at Hotdocs.
Pain & Gain
Dir: Michael Bay
Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is a musclehead personal trainer. He’s given to mindless slogans to inspire him. He’s all about the American dream, being a doer not a don’t-er, and yo, bitches, his body is his temple, his muscles a shrine to physical power (“no homo!”). It’s Miami in the 90’s. This is America — a buff, pimpin’ nation! Or so say the men with fake orange tans at Sun Gym.
But Danny just isn’t making enough money – and he wants to have it all. So he gathers a team of ex-cons to kidnap his client Pepe, an obnoxious, middle-aged Jewish guy from Colombia. After some trouble and some violent episodes, their scheme pays off – they’re rich! They have everything now: a mansion, a sportscar, a yacht, cocaine, a Romanian girlfriend, penile implants… But a persistent P.I. (Peter Weller) is on their trail. Will he catch them in the act?
Pain & Gain is a mildly interesting comedy /action movie. It’s just not that funny, or that 
interesting, and without much action. The main characters are all caricatures – Dwayne Johnson (“the Rock”) is OK as a sub-normal, born-again body-builder; Tony Shalhoub is great as the world’s most annoying kidnappee; and Mark Wahlberg does his wannabe criminal mastermind very well. But the characters seem to be there just so the audience can laugh at how stupid they all are. (It’s also a weirdly structured movie. The plot repeatedly screeches to a halt to give each character a freeze-frame and an extended voiceover explaining their backstory, out loud. Why?) Pain & Gain is intentionally kitschy, mildly offensive and aims for the lowest common denominator… but it still entertains.
Pain and Gain opens today, check your listings; and Hot Docs is on now: for showtimes of movies like Pussy Riot (screening today) and Kill Team, go to hotdocs.ca.
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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