Earnest movies. Films reviewed: Champions, Blueback, Nico
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movies are just for entertainment, while others have a message. This week, I’m looking at three new movies with an earnest theme, from the US, Australia and Germany. There’s a marine biologist who wants to save a coral reef, a basketball coach who wants to bring a team of disabled people to the championships, and a geriatric nurse who wants to learn how to defend herself… after a racist attack.
Champions
Wri/Dir: Bobby Farelly
Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is a professional basketball coach who has fallen on hard times. Now he’s an assistant coach for a third tier team in Iowa. He’s an arrogant know-it-all who doesn’t know when to shut up. He hooks up with women he meets online but they rarely stay the night. Things go from bad to worse when he’s fired from his team for losing his temper during a game. And then he gets in a car accident for driving while intoxicated.
But the judge shows some sympathy, and sentences him to community service… as a basketball coach. What’s the catch? Everyone on the team has a developmental or intellectual handicap. And they’re hoping to make it to Winnipeg for the regional championships. Problem is, they have no coach and team spirit is near zero. Marcus is equally clueless as to how to coach disabled people.
But gradually they start to get better, and bring back some of their star players. And when they need a bus to take the to away games, a 
woman named Alex (Kaitlin Olson), a Shakespearean actor, volunteers to take them in her costume van. The problem is she’s also one of Marcus’s past one night stands (the danger of living in a small city). They make up and start to get along, even as the team pulls together. But can they make it to Winnipeg? Will Marcus return to his selfish ways or is he a keeper? Is Alex ready to commit? And what are his plans once his three month sentence is up?
Champions is a heartfelt comedy about a down-and-out coach trying to accomplish the impossible. On the downside, it has a fairly predictable plot and Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson are likeable, but seem to coast through their roles. What’s great about this movie is the rest of the cast. The actors playing them have real-life disabilities (they were mainly cast in Winnipeg) including one player who has won a medal at the Special Olympics. They are also funny, wacky and good at what they do. And the characters they play have personalities, sex lives, jobs and families, which you rarely see in films. They’re not there as figures of fun; they’re sympathetic characters who happen to be funny. Thank God the days of Forrest Gump, Gilbert Grape, Nell, and Sling Blade are long gone. Keep in mind, the director previously brought us such gems as Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hal. So maybe Champions is Bobby Farrelly’s apology?
Blueback
Wri/Dir: Robert Connolly
A small fishing village in Western Asutralia. Abby (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist, who spends much of her time studying samples aboard her boat. Raised by a pearl diver and an activist, Abby grew up as a part of the sea. She has felt at home underwater ever since her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) taught her how to hold her breath and swim down to the ocean floor. (Her father drowned when she was still little.) On one of these underwater journeys, she encounters an enormous blue fish, bigger than she is. Initially frightened, she soon realizes he’s gentle and intelligent, and will eat from her hand. A western grouper (or groper as they say in Australia), can live for 70 years and rarely strays from its home. Soon they become fast friends — she spends time alone with him, just the two of them, in his hidden alcove within the coral reefs. She also begins to record what she sees, painting watercolours of the fish she encounters. And she names her special friend Blueback.
But all is not well. A rich developer is trying to buy up the land and tear down all the beachfront houses, including Abby and Dora’s. He’s also behind the dredging of the ocean floor, and allowing industrial fisheries and voracious spear hunters to kill endangered species. Is 
Blueback’s life at risk? Will their idyllic home soon be razed? And what will the future hold for Dora and for Abby?
Blueback is a gentle, slow-paced drama about a mother and daughter living in harmony within an aquatic ecosystem. The story is told through a series of flashbacks of Abby as a child and as a teen, living with her single mom. (Her memories come flooding back when she returns home after her elderly mother has a stroke). Dora leads many of the protests and demos in the village, chaining herself to tractors and petitioning the government save their bay. So there are two or three actors playing Dora, Abby as well as her best friend Briggs (Pedrea Jackson, Clarence Ryan). I approached this film with trepidation — oh god, do we really need another talking fish? Luckily, the fish here don’t talk, they just swim around looking pretty (or bulbous with beady eyes in the case of Blueback.) I wasn’t deeply moved by this film, but I liked Doras political protests. And the scenery — both underwater and on land — is gorgeous.
Nico
Co-Wri/Dir: Eline Gehring
Nico (Sara Fazilat) is a Berliner who works as a home-visit nurse for the elderly. She is zaftig, with curly hair and a warm smile. She enjoys going to parties and hanging out with her best friend Rosa (Javeh Asefdjah). She laughs a lot, but don’t get on her bad side — Nico will stand up to anyone who gets in her way. Until one day she is attacked by a group of people in an underpass. They pull her hair, punch her, kick her and hurl racist taunts. She wakes up in hospital in horrible pain with a black eye and bruises and bandages all over her face and body.
Worse than that, she is scared and withdrawn, suffering from PTSD flashbacks to her trauma. To try to win back some of her confidence, Nico signs up for lessons at a karate dojo whose sensei is a former champion. Maybe learning to block a violent stranger will equip her to face any future attack. But so far she is drained of all energy. In the hope of cheering her up, Rosa takes her to the Fun Fair in the park. There they meet a carnie named Ronny (Sara Klimoska). She’s an undocumented young woman from Macedonian who speaks no German, so they use English instead. Ronnie takes them to rides and bumper cars. Nico feels a bit better, but things are still not back to 
normal. Will she ever feel good again? Is Karate the answer? And why is Ronnie being so friendly to her?
Nico is about a woman who loses her identity and self image when attacked by a racist gang, and her attempt to win it back again. She is an assimilated German Berliner, who in just a moment has her entire essence stripped away because of her looks. Nico and Rosa are both of Iranian background but to her attackers she is just another Muslim foreigner. Her feminism, her beliefs, her droll sense of humour, her opposition to wearing a hijab — none of that matters to the people who attack her. The film delves deep into her emotions, both internal and external, as she struggles to recover. Sara Fazilat is excellent as Niko as are the raw-but-real characters surrounding her.
Nico is a realistic film with lots of emotional oomph.
I like this one.
Champions and Blueback open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Nico has its Canadian premier on March 14th, 6:30pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Goethe Films: I Have A Crush On You series.
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 Chandler Levack about I Like Movies
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s 2002 in Burlington Ontario, a suburb of Hamilton.
Lawrence is an eccentric, self-centred 16-year-old boy who lives in a small bungalow with his widowed mom. He spends most of his time with his best friend Matt, the two of them watching SNL at weekend sleepovers. They’re making an end-of-the-year film together at school. Lawrence lives and breathes movies, consuming stacks from his local video store. His long-term ambition? To become an auteur. But first he’ll have to study cinema at NYU (“Canadian universities are too… Canadian”).
To pay for it, he needs big bucks. But when he gets a job at a video chain store, everything changes. He hits it off with the store manager, the older woman who hired him. But no more 
time for sleepovers, or making his film. His relationship with his doting mom is in a shambles, and he begins to doubt he’ll get into any University. Is just liking movies… enough?
I Like Movies is a coming-of-age comedy that premiered at TIFF. It explores the life of an aspiring filmmaker in a lifeless Canadian suburb. It’s written and directed by prize-wining filmmaker, writer and movie critic Chandler Levack.
I spoke with Chandler in Toronto via ZOOM.
I Like Movies opens on March 10, 2023.
60s, 70s, 80s. Films reviewed: Cocaine Bear, Jesus Revolution, Metronom
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies. There are spiritual revolutionaries in California in the 1960s, teenaged dissidents in Bucharest in the 1970s, and a crazed animal in Georgia in the 1980s.
Cocaine Bear
Dir: Elizabeth Banks
It looks like a typical day in 1985 in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia. Two little kids are playing hooky, three skateboard-riding teenage delinquents are looking for some petty crime to commit, a pair of Scandinavian backpackers are on a hike, and a middle-aged forest ranger is dressed to impress a guy she wants to date. But everything changes when a prop-plane pilot drops a dozen duffel bags of uncut cocaine into the woods… and then promptly dies. Suddenly the supply chain is broken, and out-of-state traffickers looking to retrieve their supply — and the cops who want to nab them — all descend on the park at once. And here’s where the 
actual movie starts: a huge black bear sticks its nose into the duffel bag and emerges as a frantic, delirious, coke head, forever on the lookout for more snow to blow. Who will find the drugs — the cops, the gangsters, the delinquents, or the children? And who will not be eaten by the bear?
Cocaine Bear is a low-brow, high-concept comedy that’s basically 90 minutes of extreme-gore violence. I was a bit dubious at the beginning, but about half an hour in it started to get really funny. I know it’s stupid-funny, but it still made me laugh. The all-CGI bear is one of the main characters, but there’s a great assortment of humans, too, played by an all-star cast: Margo Martindale as the forest ranger, the late Ray Liotta was the gangster, Alden Ehrenreich as his diffident son, O’Shea 
Jackson Jr as his henchman, and Keri Russell as a mom searching for the two missing children. It’s hilariously directed by TV actor Elizabeth Banks. Cocaine Bear easily beats Snakes on a Plane and Sharknado as best movie based solely on its title. Supposedly inspired by true events (yeah, right) it has lots of room for ridiculous 80s haircuts, music and other gags to good effect. Stoner movies are a dime a dozen and half of the movies coming out of Hollywood are clearly made by cokeheads, but this may be the first comedy about cocaine I’ve ever seen. If you’re comfortable laughing at blood, gore and gratuitous violence, along with lots of base humour, I think you’ll love this one.
Jesus Revolution
Dir: Jon Erwin, Brent McCorkle
It’’s the late 1960s in California, where young people everywhere are tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. One of these kids is Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), who attends a military academy but would rather be drawing cartoons. He lives in a trailer with his Mom, a glamorous but alcoholic barfly. He meets a pretty girl named Kathe hanging with the hippies outside a public high school, and decides that’s where he’d rather be. But Kathe is from an upper-class family whose parents frown on Greg. Meanwhile, Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), a local pastor, wonders why no one is coming to his Calvary Chapel anymore. It’s because your a square, his 
daughter tells him. So she introduces him to a unique man she met at a psychedelic Happening. Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie) is a charismatic, touchy-feely type who talks like a hippie and looks like Jesus. He emerged from the sex-and-drug world of Haight Ashbury with a mission from God, and now wants to spread the gospel. Chuck Smith is less than impressed, but decides to give him a try.
Soon there are block-long lineups to hear what Lonnie — and Chuck — have to say. This includes Kathe and Greg, who barely survived a bad acid trip. Lonnie gives Greg a place to live and invites him to join the church. Calvary Chapel is attracting people from everywhere, 
culminating in mass baptisms in the Pacific ocean. But as their fame grows, so does the friction. The more moderate Chuck frowns on Lonnie’s in-your-face style — from faith-healing to his talk of being closer to God. Can Greg find a place in this world? Will Kathe’s family ever accept him? And is this a movement or just a flash in the pan?
Jesus Revolution is a retelling of the unexpected upsurge in grassroots Christianity among baby boomers in the 70s. The film is clearly aimed at evangelical church-goers, a subject in which I have absolutely no interest. Zero. Which is why I’m surprised how watchable this film is to a general audience. It’s not preachy — it shows, not tells. It’s well-acted with compelling characters and a surprisingly good story. No angels or miracles here, just regular — flawed but sympathetic — people. I think it’s because the Erwin Brothers (American Underdog, I Still Believe)have figured out how to make mainstream, faith-based movies that are actually good. The film is based on real people, so I was a bit surprised they never mention that Lonnie Frisbee was actually a gay man who later died of HIV AIDS. I guess it doesn’t fit the story they want to tell That said, if you’re involved in a church or a fan of spiritual films, this might be just what you’re looking for.
Metronom
Wri/Dir: Alexandru Belc
It’s 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. Ana and Sarin (Mara Bugarin, Serban Lazarovici) are a beautiful couple still in high school, and madly in love. They both come from “intellectual” families, who are given special privileges in Ceausescu’s communist regime. They go to an elite school together, and hope to pass their Baccalaureates to get into an equally good university. They meet in front of a WWII heroes monument dressed in stylish trench coats and school uniforms. So why is Ana crying? Sarin and his family are emigrating to Germany. That means they’re breaking up for good and will probably never see each other again. Ana is crushed — her world is broken. Which is why she has no interest in going to an afternoon party at a friend’s house, but changes her mind at the least minute. Her father, a law professor, is easy going, but her mother absolutely forbids it. So Ana sneaks out of the apartment and heads to the get-together. This is her last chance before he leaves to make out with Sarin and express her eternal love.
The party is centred around listening to music — Led Zepplin,
Hendrix, The Doors — as played on a radio show called Metronom on Radio Free Europe. Western music is underground, subversive and illicit. They decide to write a letter to the show and pass it on to a French journalist. But two bad things happened. When they make love behind a closed door, Sarin won’t say he loves her. And the party gets raided by the secret police and all the kids are arrested and forced to write confessions. But Ana is so caught up in her relationship she barely notices the interrogation she has landed up in. Who ratted them out to the authorities? And what will happen to Ana?
Metronom is a passionate story of young love in the 1970s under the omnipresent gaze of an authoritarian government. It’s a coming of age story, about heartbreak and the loss of innocence as the real world reveals its ugly face.
If you’ve never seen a Romanian film before (such as Întregalde, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Poppy Field, The Whistlers, The Fixer, One Floor Below), this is a good place to start. They all have this feeling of tension, corruption, mistrust and unease, whether they’re set during Ceaucescu’s reign or long after his fall. This one also has hot sex, good music, stark cinematography, and terrific acting, especially Mara Bugarin as Ana. It manages to be a thriller, a romance and a coming-of-age story, all at once.
This is a good one.
Metronom is now playing a the TIFF Bell Lightbox; Cocaine Bear and Jesus Revolution open nationwide this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Films reviewed: Body Parts, Drinkwater, Happy FKN Sunshine
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Have you ever seen an actual performance of Kabuki? There’s a new monthly series opening in Cineplex theatres across Canada, including one playing tonight called Fortress of Skulls. If you’re in Milton right now, check out the Milton Film Festival, featuring Go On and Bleed, a short film by CIUT’s own Christian Hamilton. And if you’re in Toronto, you can catch Canada’s Top Ten at TIFF, featuring fantastic movies like Bones of Crows and Brother, as well as fun flicks like Rosie and Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future.
This week, I’m looking at three new, indie movies, one from LA and two from Canada. There are actors in Hollywood, runners in BC, and rockers in Northern Ontario.
Body Parts
Dir: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
Is nudity in movies a good thing or a bad thing? How does it affect the actors and the viewers? And is it shown from a male or a female perspective? These are some of the questions talked about in a new documentary that takes a look at nudity and sex in Hollywood and it’s films. And it does so in a new and unusual way. Talking heads from the industry and academics, narrate the story, but it’s illustrated with a barrage of well-known movie clips, manipulated, pixilated and animated to both emphasize and obscure women’s bodies. By “barrage”, I mean a phenomenal number of images often just a second long, where what you see is what the interviewees are talking about. It deals with contemporary issues, like the #metoo movement, but makes it clear that Harvey Weinstein isn’t unusual or unique, just its epitome. Women reveal how as young actresses they were coerced into filming topless scenes never mentioned in the script. 
Bikini auditions were commonplace, completely unrelated to a part they’re trying out for, basically just for the titillation of male movie execs. It also traces the entire history of Hollywood, dating back to the libertine, pre-Code 1920s and 30s where female scriptwriters flourished, and subversive sex was common. Later a prudish America hid sexual transgressions off-camera.
Stars and filmmakers interviewed in this movie include Jane Fonda, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, and Rosanna Arquette among many others. But this is not a confessional reality-show-type exposee. It also includes on-set recreations of what the people describe; and fascinating types you never hear from, like the intimacy coordinators, sex choreographers, and body doubles — the nameless ones whose bodies replace A-list stars in nude 
scenes. It also celebrates a taboo even bigger than nudity in Hollywood: a positive portrayal of sex and nudity involving people with disabilities, trans bodies and actors who aren’t proportioned like Barbie dolls.
If you’re a movie lover, a film student, a young actor or anyone in the industry, Body Parts is a must-see, a crucial, insiders’ look at the rapid changes involving sex, nudity, consent and the male gaze. It’s a feminist reimagining of what movies are, and what they should be. This film might deserve a place alongside Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself in the pantheon of great documentaries about Hollywood.
Drinkwater
Dir: Stephen S. Campanelli (Indian Horse)
It’s present day in Penticton, BC. Mike Drinkwater (Daniel Doheny) is a high school student who lives with his selfish, layabout father. Mike is into Rubik’s cubes, Bruce Lee, and drives a Gremlin. He’s smart and creative but his head is in the clouds. He’s infatuated with Dani, the most popular girl in his school. Hank Drinkwater (Eric McCormack) used to work at the mill but is on paid medical leave due to an accident. He wears a fake neck brace so he won’t have to go back to
work. Mike wants to go to U Vic but Hank would rather spend his money on toys and model trains than cough up for his son’s education.
Luckily there is a way out. If he wins the annual cross-country race, the prize will cover his tuition. And Wallace (Louriza Tronco) the orphan-girl next door who lives with her grandparents, agrees to help Mike train for the race. She has a secret crush on him, just as Mike loves Dani. But Dani’s dating Luke (Jordan Burtchett) the homecoming king, a rich kid whose dad owns the paper mill, where Mike’s dad works. 
Luke is Mike’s main rival in the race, just as their fathers competed years back in the same contest — a grudge spanning generations. Who will win the race? Who will Dani choose to date? Will Hank ever start caring about life? And will Mike ever realize that Wallace is the one he should crush on, not Dani?
Drinkwater is a coming-of- age comedy about growing up in a BC lumber town. The story is conventional, but told in a stylized way, incorporating 70s and 80s looks with a retro rock soundtrack. It also celebrates local culture and lore. The director is best-known for his camerawork, and the film is full of breathtaking aerial views of scenic lakes and forests. Very few surprises, but it’s still cute and easy to watch.
Happy FKN Sunshine
Dir: Derek Diorio
It’s the 2000s in a pulp and paper mill city in Northern Ontario. Will (Matt Close) is a high school student and aspiring musician. He has styling hair and slacker clothes. He plays the guitar, loves music and wants to form a rock band — it night be his ticket out of this place. So he tries to recruit a motley crew to join the band. Vince (Connor Rueter) an arrogant bully can be the lead singer; River (Maxime Lauzon) the blasé friend of his sister on drums; and Artie, a long-haired, heavy metal enthusiast on bass. Artie, who lives with his brain-dead father, invents fantasies of his secret jam sessions with famous rockers… which drives Vince insane. 
Times are tough, and there’s a strike at the mill where all their parents’ work. Will’s abusive, hard-ass father refuses to spring for an electric guitar. Fortunately, Will’s tiny-but-tough sister Ronnie (Mattea Brotherton) is the local pot dealer, so she steps up to buy him the instrument. And Artie’s Newfoundland uncle Eddie, a former musician (famous stage actor/pianist Ted Dykstra), promises to introduce them to some big names in Toronto, if they ever making some good music. Can the band become famous before it breaks up? And can Will ever make it out of this place?
Happy FKN Sunshine (the title is also the name of their band, and reflects the constant foul language all the characters use) is a realistic, bittersweet coming-of-age story about a group of mismatched friends who form a band. It’s shot on location in North Bay and in the Canadian Shield forests around it. The acting is generally quite good, turning stereotypes into well-rounded characters. And it deals with the harsh realities of living in a declining economy. The pace is a bit slow, with too much time spent making music, but the multiple side plots will keep you interested.
I like this movie.
Look for Drinkwater and Happy FKN Sunshine both available on VOD; Body Parts opens next week in select theatres and on VOD; 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.
January movies. Films reviewed: Plane, Adult Adoption
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at two new movies opening this weekend: an action/thriller and a dramedy. There’s an airline pilot trying to escape from a tropical island; and an adult orphan trying to find new parents.
Plane
Dir: Jean-François Richet
Brodie (Gerard Butler) is an airline pilot based in Singapore. With two decades of experience you’d think he’d be helming jumbo jets by now, but ever since his wife died, his uncontrollable anger has relegated him to shorter flights for a cut-rate airline. Today he’s heading to Honolulu to visit his daughter, working with a rookie co-pilot, Dele (Boson An) and his usual crew, headed by Bonnie (Daniella Pineda).
There are supposed to be only 14 passengers on board but two surprise guests show up at the last moment: an armed policeman and a man in handcuffs. Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter) is being extradited to Toronto to stand trial for an unknown crime. He looks very strong… is he dangerous? But Brodie has bigger fish to fry– they’re heading into an electrical storm because the cheap-ass airline won’t buy enough jetfuel 
to keep them above the clouds.
Then comes the turbulence. Wires blow and all communication is lost. He’s forced to make an emergency landing on the only visible island in the vast Pacific Ocean, without a runway or ground crew to help him out. The good news is Brodie manages to land safely. The bad news is the cop guarding the alleged criminal was killed in the turbulence. The worse news is they landed in Mindanao on an island held by Moro rebels, a place where the Philippine government dare not go. And even worse the local warlords plan to hold them for ransom and kill them, one by one. Can Brodie get them out of this mess? And who can he turn to for help?
Plane is a credible, international action thriller , filled with disaster scenes, fist fights, and last-minute escapes. Butler plays his usual grizzled action hero in the mold of Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies — he takes the hits but keeps on fighting. Blood seems to be dripping down his unshaven face at every possible opportunity. Pure cheese. And who ever heard of an airline pilot with stubble? Butler is teamed with the other 
big star in this movie Mike Colter, who you may have seen as Luke Cage. Two action heroes vs the bad guys.
Despite the cheese, Plane is fast-moving and generally fun to watch. It’s made by a credible French director who proved his chops with some real crime flics, like Mesrine, Public Enemy No. 1. This one shares its rough-hewn quality. And, with its international cast and setting, it manages to avoid the one of the worst Hollywood afflictions; I’m talking about obligatory “patriotism”. You’ll find no flag-waving here.
Yes, Plane is a B-movie, nothing deep, but still enjoyable to watch.
Adult Adoption
Dir: Karen Knox
Rosie (Ellie Moon) is a 25 year old woman who works in a bank office in Toronto’s financial district. She’s efficient, hardworking and diligent and never takes a day off. Her boss is like a mother to her and her coworkers are her family. In her spare time she tries to have sex with a guy she meets on an online dating site (Donald McClean, Jr). But her comfortable life is shaken when a new boss — a guy about her age — takes over. Her surrogate mother is gone and she doesn’t know what to do. Things get worse when Helen (Leah Doz), her workmate and closest friend, keeps telling her not to worry, just ask her real parents for advice. The thing is, Rosie doesn’t have any parents. She’s been an orphan since she was three and was never adopted. Now that she’s aged out of the foster program, she has no one left to turn to for help, or love or support. No one to ask about her day or just brush her hair. What’s an adult orphan supposed to do?
Rosie decides to take a different approach using an online site 
for adult kids seeking new parents. She meets two possibilities at the site, a middle aged man and a woman named Jane (Rebecca Northan) who has estranged relations with her daughter. While things seem to be going well, but will she ever find a new family that works? And by doing so, can she emerge as a normal person?
Adult Adoption is comedy drama about a neurotic woman trying to create the family she never had, and the indifferent or exploitative people she encounters along the way. It concentrates on the quirky main character Rosie as envisioned by Elie Moon who not only plays her but who also wrote the 
screenplay. She’s really great. She wears little-girl clothes with pink polkadots and knitted strawberries. And alternates between an independent, sexually-active woman with grown-up desires, and that of a clinging, naive child. While Adult Adoption deals with serious topics like loneliness and depression, it manages to stay funny enough never to become depressing itself.
I liked this one.
Plane and Adult Adoption 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
Adapted from plays. Films reviewed: The Whale, Matilda
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With holiday season upon us, it’s a time when students and their parents have a chance to take some time off. And if you can’t afford a ticket, there are lots of Christmas movies playing for free at the Hot Docs Cinema at Bloor and Bathurst. So in honour of Christmas break, this week I’m looking at two new movies adapted from plays, with an educational theme. There’s a college professor who is ashamed to show his face to his students, and a little schoolgirl who dares to talk back to her headmistress.
The Whale
Dir: Darren Aronofsky
Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is a college teacher who conducts his classes on his computer. And he never shows his face. He says it’s because he’s technologically inept but the real reason is he weighs 600 pounds and doesn’t want to show himself on camera. He works out of his home, and gets everything delivered to his door. And he’s visited daily by a nurse named Liz (Hong Chau) who takes care of him, drops off food and keeps him company each day. They’re friends but also share a common history. She constantly warns him that his extreme weight pushes his blood pressure to dangerous levels — he may be dead in a matter of weeks — but Charlie refuses to make any changes to his diet or habits; it’s almost as if he wants to die.
But his usual life is interrupted by some unexpected visitors. First a stranger, a young Christian missionary named Thomas (Ty Simpkins). Thomas walks through the door uninvited just as Charlie, who is masturbating to gay porn in his living room, has a blood pressure incident. Barely able to speak, he hands 
Thomas a piece of paper and tells him to read it aloud: it’s an essay on Moby Dick which is the only thing that can calm his racing heart, and possibly save his life. Later, another visitor comes by, a rude and foulmouthed teenaged girl named Ellie (Sadie Sink). She is his daughter, who he hasn’t seen since he walked out of his marriage a decade earlier. She wants to know why he left her and why he never visits. Can Charlie reconcile with his daughter? How does he know Liz? Why is the missionary there? Why is one bedroom of his home kept permanently locked? And why is he so depressed that he’s committing slow suicide by overeating?
The Whale is an extremely moving drama about a day in the life of an isolated gay man who punishes himself for something from his past. It deals with his extreme physical disabilities; in his 50s Charlie is less mobile than an old man, but his brain is as sharp as ever. Adapted from his own play by Samuel D. Hunter, it’s told theatrically in a series of acts all within his 
home, almost as if it were on a stage, with the players entering and exiting in turn. Each character has a history and a secret, eventually revealed, which adds great dramatic tension to the story. And the acting is superb, most of all Brendan Fraser.
At the same time, the Whale Was clearly made to win prizes. I’ve seen enough movies to know when an actor uses prostheses (Charlie is portrayed wearing a “fat suit”) and plays someone with a disability — whether a mental or physical illness or handicap — you know it’s Oscar bait. The thing is, Fraser is clearly a good actor and has a natural heft to his body, so I don’t think he needed all this extra elaborate makeup and costume. What is disturbing is the degree if Charlie’s self-loathing: he practically begs other people to call him hideous, grotesque and ugly. The thing is, it’s all in his mind. He’s actually a kind and pleasant guy, not the monster he’s trying to be. Don’t confuse the character’s psychology with the point of the film. And aside from a truly gross binging scene, The Whale is really a beautiful and tender film.
Matilda
Dir: Matthew Warchus
Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir) is a little girl who has never been to school. Her parents consider her a burden, so she lives in a tiny room in the attic, and educates herself at the local mobile library, where the kindly Mrs Phelps (Sindhi Vee) gives her a pile of books to read each day along with sage advice. But everything changes when a truant officer shows up at her door ordering her parents to send her to school. She starts her classes the next day at Crunchem Hall, a scary gothic structure behind a foreboding metal gate. It’s ruled by the cruel Headmistress Agatha Trunchbull (an unrecognizable Emma Thompson), who treats it as somewhere between a boot camp and prison, not a place for fun and games or learning. Her strict rules are enforced by older students who serve as her henchmen. And woe to any student who is caught, or even accused of, disobeying. They might have their ears stretched, or their pigtails pulled by Miss Trunchbull herself. Or worst of all, they could be sent to The Chokey, a miserable, one-person jail, a dark, wooden shack festooned with chains and locks. No, not the Chokey! Luckily, there is hope. Her teacher Miss Honey 
(Lashana Lynch) is as kind as the Headmistress is cruel. She quickly recognizes Matilda’s genius, and takes her under her wing. But the headmistresses is out to get her: she vows to break Matilda’s spirit and put her in her place. Will Matilda defy the Headmistress? And can she she outsmart her? Or will she end up in the Chokey?
Matilda is a fantastic kids’ musical, full of catchy songs and dances and a plethora of quirky characters within the huge ensemble cast, in the manner of Oliver! or Annie, but funnier. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, it’s full of Dickensian references but without Victorian morality to weigh it down: Matilda is a naughty girl who gets back at her tormenters with tricks of her own (She turns her father’s hair green and puts crazy glue on his hat brim.) Though it’s a timeless story, the art direction suggest a campy retro 1980s setting. Weir is a good 
Matilda, and Emma Thompson plays Miss Trunchbull to the hilt as an olympic hammer thrower, an intimidating fascist dictator, bedecked in khaki from head to toe. And Lashana Lynch is very sweet as Miss Honey. There’s also a story within the story, a fairytale about an acrobat and an escapologist; Matilda tells a chapter of that story to the librarian each day, like a modern-day Scheherazade. It’s very English, but with a nicely multi-racial cast. My only criticism is they occasionally get carried away with CGI effects, but not enough to spoil the film.
Kids will adore Matilda: the Musical, and I think grown-ups will too.
The Whale opens next weekend; check your local listings. Matilda is now playing theatrically in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and will start streaming on Netflix on Christmas Day.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Unexpected adversaries. Films reviewed: White Noise, Violent Night, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s December now with snow on the ground, time for movies to get your blood boiling. This week I’m looking at three new movies about unexpected adversaries: there’s an artist vs a philanthropist, Scrooge vs Santa… and Elvis vs Hitler?
White Noise
Wri/Dir: Noah Baumbach,
It’s the 80s in a small rustbelt college town. Jack (Adam Driver) is a professor in the new field of Hitler studies. Along with his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) they raise their children, from babies to teens, in a modern, blended family. The kids Denise, Heinrich, Steffie and Wilder, are inquisitive and precocious, and come from various marriages. At work, Jack lectures to worshipful students, and has intellectual discussions with his colleagues. His closest is Murray (Don Cheadle), a prof who specializes in cinematic car crashes, wants to raise Elvis studies to the level of Hitler studies.
But there is trouble at home. Babette is obsessed with death and dying, and suffers from memory loss and unexplained absences. Denise suspects she’s on prescription drugs — she found a hidden bottle of Dylar, an unheard of medicine. Meanwhile Jack is terrorized by nightmares and at times actually thinks he’s going to die. All these troubles are pushed aside when a real disaster happens: a truck crashes into a train carrying dangerous chemicals. The result? A toxic cloud floating above the area with unknown effects. The town is 
evacuated, the family forced to flee by station wagon to Camp Daffodil a weirdly-named military base. Rumours abound at the camp, and no one knows for sure what is happening. Can life return to normal? Will the toxic cloud blow away? Is Babette an addict? Will Jack’s academic secrets be revealed? And where does Dylar come from?
White Noise is a satirical look at dread, suspicion and alienation within an academic setting. It also looks at pop culture, art and the omnipresent consumer economy. I read Don Delillo’s novel 
when it first came out and I was captivated by the way it captured the dark mood at the time. Noah Baumbach takes a different path, treating the film as a comical period piece where people dress in funny 80s clothes and use obsolete technology. It looks for laughs in scenes like Jack getting tangled up in a kitchen phone cord. I have mixed feelings about this movie. Some parts just seem like running gags about those wacky 80s, turning serious scenes into absurdist jokes. Other parts are brilliant — like the pas-de-deux between Jack and Murray in a joint Hitler-Elvis lecture. Or an actual dance sequence down the aisles of a supermarket in the closing credits. And a cameo by the great Barbara Sukowa as a German nun in a hospital, should not be missed. While I couldn’t get emotionally into the characters or plot — Driver and Gerwig are both good actors but never seem real in this movie — and I felt detached from the film, I did find it interesting and visually pleasing.
Violent Night
Dir: Tommy Wirkola
It’s Christmas Eve, and the Lightstone family are gathered on their vast, private estate. Gertrude (Beverley D’Angelo) their autocratic matriarch, puts on an elaborate dinner each year with servants dressed as Nutcracker Suite characters. Her adult two adult children Cam and Alva, their spouses, and the grandkids Gertrude and Bertrude, (known as Trudy and Bert)outdo one another sucking up to her, to get their share of the family’s wealth. Everyone, that is, except little Trudy (Leah Brady), who doesn’t want any money or presents from Santa. She just wants her estranged parents back together again.
This year, though, something goes terribly wrong: the costumed caterers turn out to be highly-trained paramilitary criminals, there to murder everyone and steal millions from the safe. They’re headed by a bitter man, nicknamed Scrooge (John Leguizamo) who hates Christmas. Little Trudy escapes from the family, hides in the attic, and calls to Santa Claus by walkie-talkie for help. And, to everyone’s shock, a drunken, bearded man in Christmas gear (David Harbour) comes to their rescue. He’s the real thing, but only Trudy believes in him. Can Santa and Trudy fight off dozens of ruthless killers? Can her parents overcome their differences? And can a worn-out, depressed and alcoholic Santa hang on for one more year… or is this the end of Christmas for everyone?
Violent Night is a comedy/action movie about a good little girl 
and a hard-ass Santa fighting cruel killers using horrific violence of their own. It’s a combination of two Christmas classics: Home Alone and Die Hard, but with the gore-level pumped up a few notches. Trudy’s booby traps turn out to be deadly, while Santa channels his past life as a Viking to wreak havoc with a hammer named Skullcrusher. Does this movie work? Totally! David Barbour (from Stranger Things) is great as a nasty Santa who pukes and pisses off his sleigh. He takes a licking but keeps on kicking. Newcomer Leah Brady as Trudy is cute — maybe too cute — but good enough. And most of the rest of the characters are sufficiently unlikeable to keep the story going. So if you’re looking for a fun and twisted action movie in time for Christmas, Violent Night fits the bill.
All the Beauty and The Bloodshed
Dir: Laura Poitras
Nan Goldin is an artist known for her photographic portraits of the demimonde, with louche images of drugs, sex, and self-destruction. She rose to fame in the 1980s with her ever-changing performances of “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, which combined music and a slide show of her pictures. But far from being a dispassionate observer of the lives of strangers or, worse, an ogler of outcastes, Goldin explicitly documented the lives of her closest friends and herself, including drag queens, junkies, artists and musicians, in various stages of undress. This was also the era of AIDS, which decimated the NY City art scene. Goldin recorded this, too. It was also the start of Act Up and other movements demanding attention from the government and Big Pharma.
Flash forward to the 2000s, when pharmaceutical 
corporations, through doctors, were strongly pushing prescriptions of opiates as non-addictive relief from the worst levels of pain. In fact they’re highly addictive, and one addict was Goldin herself. Though she kicked the habit, many were still dying from overdoses of opioids. And she noticed something strange. A major sponsor of the galleries and museums that displayed her work were sponsored by noted philanthropists The Sackler Family. And the Sacklers made their fortune through Purdue Corporation, peddling drugs like Oxycontin. We’re talking the Louvre, the Met, Tate Modern, and the Guggenheim, among others. So she started a protest group called P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) which stages protests in the Sackler wings of museums world-wide.
All the Beauty and The Bloodshed is a fantastic documentary that records Goldin’s life and art, and her battle with the Sacklers. It’s engrossing and revealing, a work of art in its own right. The film includes contemporary footage as well as snapshots and films from Nan Goldin’s own personal history. She’s the cinematographer while the director is Laura Poitras, responsible for the world-changing doc Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a rare case of a political documentary that is also respectful of art. It’s visually and audibly stunning and though almost two hours long, it’s totally engrossing; one of the best documentaries of the year.
White Noise is screening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto; All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, is playing there and at Hot Docs cinema; while Violent Night opens this weekend across North America; 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 writer-director Jake Horowitz about Cup of Cheer on CBC Gem
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mary is a rising star at a big city, clickbait website. So what’s she doing in a small town in December? She’s chasing a story about the true meaning of Christmas… if it still exists. The village is like a simulacrum of a long gone era, where people dress in red and green and people still say “gosh” and “golly”. A young man dressed like an elf, and a kindly old woman are there to help anyone who asks. And after Mary’s run-in with Chris, the cocoa-shop owner, it looks like true love. But not everything is as it seems. Dirty words start creeping into the town’s vocabulary, and that kindly old lady… is actually a white supremacist! Worst of all, Chris’s cocoa shop faces eviction on Christmas Eve unless he can come up with the rent. Can Mary save the day? Or will a cup of cheer turn to weak tea?
Cup of Cheer is a Christmas comedy that uses social satire to 
poke fun at our notions of the holidays and small town life. It takes cliches and twists them around till they’re almost unrecognizable, and uses sketch-comedy humour to keep it rolling. Cup of Cheer is the work of Toronto-based, award-winning TV and film writer/director Jake Horowitz. Jake’s work has premiered at festivals worldwide, his features have reached #1 at the Canadian box office and are available on Prime, Crave, and Super Channel.
I spoke with Jake in Toronto via Zoom.
Cup of Cheer is now streaming in Canada on CBC Gem.
Hollywood movies. Films reviewed: Glass Onion, The Fabelmans
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s Thanksgiving weekend south of the border, so movies are being released midweek. This week I’m looking at two new, big-ticket Hollywood movies, you might want to watch this weekend. There’s a mystery/comedy set on a private Greek island, and a coming-of-age drama set in postwar America.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Wri/Dir: Rian Johnson
Miles Bron (Edward Norton) is a conceited, ultra-rich tycoon who made his fortune in the tech sector. Now he amuses himself by throwing elaborate parties on his private Greek Island, where his select guests try to solve a mystery during their stay. But this year, there’s a surprise visitor — the famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). He’s there on the invitation of one of the party guests — Bron’s former business partner — who was secretly murdered, with her identical sister (Janelle Monáe) a meek introvert, impersonating the flamboyant victim. (She invites Benoit as her guest to find her sister’s killer.)
Benoit Blanc, of course, is the famous gay private investigator known for his dapper suits, southern drawl, and legendary detective skills. Other guests include a flaky fashion designer (Kate Hudson), an insufferable online celebrity (Dave Bautista), a devious politician (Kathryn Hahn), and a shady scientist 
(Leslie Odom, Jr.), among others. But the week-long game is spoiled when Benoit guesses the answer almost immediately, to the host’s displeasure. But, soon after, the real mystery begins, when one of the guests is murdered in plain sight without anyone knowing whodunnit. It becomes a race against time, as other guests start to disappear, one by one. Can Benoit identify the killer, uncover their motive, prevent any more murders, and solve the bigger mystery of why these particular people were invited to this party?
The Glass Onion is a brilliant sequel to Ryan Johnson’s Knives Out from a few years ago, with Daniel Craig repeating the role of Benoit Blanc. It’s hard to review a mystery without giving away the plot, but I’ll do my best. This movie is very cleverly done: like any good Agatha Christie-style mystery, all the different characters — both potential killer or killers and victims — are introduced at the beginning, with no surprises
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022). (L-R) Jessica Henwick as Peg, Kate Hudson as Birdie, and Janelle Monáe as Andi. Cr. John Wilson/Netflix © 2022.
parachuting onto the Island. It’s also good because each character has their own quirks, back stories, secrets and motives, all of which are gradually revealed. It’s even more fun because many of them are satirically modelled after certain celebrities. On top of that, there are a number of intricate clues hidden within clockwork-type devices featured in the film.
I’ve been watching Rian Johnson’s work since his first film, Brick, came out almost 20 years ago, as he gradually honed his skills. I loved Knives Out, but was worried that a sequel might 
be a let down. But have no fear, Glass Onion is as good as or better than Knives Out. It’s hard to find movies these days that are there just for the viewers’ pleasure without ever pandering, dumbing down a plot, trying to sell you stuff or stealing ideas. Glass Onion avoids all that, concentrating instead on giving you a really fun night out.
The Fabelmans
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner.
It’s Christmastime in the 1950s. Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) is a little boy who lives with his parents and sisters in New Jersey. Mitzi his mom (Michelle Williams) is a former concert pianist forced to adjust to suburban family life. But she manages to keep her sense of creativity front and centre. She refuses to do dishes, insisting instead on paper plates and plastic forks. She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t hide from tornados, she chases them… and reads music scores in bed. She has a blonde pixie haircut and loves diaphanous white gowns.
Burt (Paul Dano) his dad, is an engineer and part-time inventor who works for RCA and repairs old TV sets as a side job. He thinks science is superior, while art and movies are just for fun… but he worships the ground Mitzi walks on. And always close at hand is Burt’s best friend and workmate Bennie (Seth Rogan) who the kids all call Uncle.
The story begins with the parents taking Sammy to his first movie, Cecil B DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Sammy is frightened but also mesmerized by a trainwreck in the movie where circus cars are derailed and wild animals run free. 
Sammy wants to film it. He manages to duplicate it on 8 mm film, repeatedly using his model train set seen from all the angles used in the movie. Sammy’s love of film is ignited — now he’s making silent monster movies at home starring his sisters. Later the family moves to Colorado, where Burt has a new position developing computers for General Electric.
And Uncle Bennie moves with them.
Teenage Sammy is now a boy scout, and, with his new friends, starts shooting and editing elaborate westerns and war movies to everyone’s delight. But in editing family films he discovers a hidden secret that threatens to pull them apart.
Years later, they move to northern California where Burt now works for IBM. But Mitzi feels depressed and alienated and Sammy is bullied at school by guys who, he says, look like giant Sequoia trees. Can he still find solace making films? Will Mitzi adjust to a strange new environment? Or is the family heading for disaster?
The Fabelmans (meaning storytellers) is Steven Spielberg’s first fictionalized, semi-autobiographical look at how his childhood and adolescence led to his career as a filmmaker. I usually dislike movies about movies — they tend to be overly nostalgic and sentimental, and mainly there as Oscar-bait, to get people in the industry to vote for them. But this one is surprisingly good. And while there are many scenes of people staring at movie screens, there’s way more to it. It’s a 
bittersweet coming of age story, it’s a family story, and it’s a rare mother-son story: Sammy and Mitzi are both obsessive artists driven by their craft, but facing constant roadblocks put up by the conventional world. The film also incorporates the southwest, circuses, evangelism, folk singing, secular Judaism, family camping trips, and baby boom youth culture.
Michelle Williams is excellent as Mitzi, a complex character with many regrets. Canadian newcomer Gabriel LaBelle as Sammy is also great. And Judd Hirsch totally steals the scene as crazy Uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch), a lion tamer who wants Sammy to understand that following your artistic dreams is like sticking your head into a lion’s mouth: it takes guts, drive and determination… and might hurt a lot.
The Fabelmans is a very enjoyable movie.
Glass Oinion is on at the TIFF Bell Lightbox for one week only, while The Fabelmans is playing across North America; 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 Winnie Jong, Connie Wang and Ryan Allen about Tokens
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Acting is a tough profession in Toronto, what with agents, auditions, and landing roles. But it’s even harder when all the parts out there are white… and you’re not. You end up taking stereotypical roles like “Gang Member” if you’re Black, “Taxi Driver” if you’re South Asian, or “Angry Dim Sum Customer” if you’re Chinese. Sometimes it seem like they only call you is when they have to fill a quota. But things seem to be changing, with big-budget Hollywood action movies and rom coms featuring Black
and Asian casts. Is this a sea change? Or will most actors remain just tokens?
Tokens is a satirical web series about actors of colour and what they have to go through just to get a role. Now in its second season, it brings in new controversial 
topics like white fragility, diversity quotas, and BLM protests, but dealt with in a humorous, tongue in cheek manner. With a large cast and just 8 minutes per episode, this fast-moving series keeps you guessing between laughs. The series was created by Writer/Director Winnie Jong, and stars Connie Wang as Sammie, a woman trying to make it big, and Ryan Allen as DeMar, her friend, competitor and erstwhile romantic interest. 
Winnie is an award-winning filmmaker and alumna of the Women In the Director’s Chair, and is known for TV shows like Coroner. Connie has had multiple screen nominations including the Canadian Screen Award for Best Lead Performance, and TV roles in shows like the The Boys. And Ryan is a star of stage and screen, with a leading part on Broadway in The Book of Mormon, and on TV in Titans, Star Trek and Between.
I spoke with Winnie, Connie and Ryan in Toronto via ZOOM.
Tokens Season 2 will be launched on iTunes on Nov 29th, 2022.
culturalmining.com 
leave a comment