Experiences. Films reviewed: The Painted Bird, Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N., Martin Eden
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall film festival season continues in Toronto with the EU Film Festival. This week I’m looking at two European historical dramas vs one Hollywood “experience”. There’s a working-class writer in pre-WWI Italy, a wandering kid in WWII Europe, and superheroes in a 2020 suburban shopping mall.
The Painted Bird
Wri/Dir: Václav Marhoul (Based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski
It’s WWII in Eastern Europe. Joska (Petr Kotlár) is a quiet, little boy living in a wooden house in the woods with his grandmother. He was sent there by his parents to escape the Nazis. His dark features suggest he may be Jewish or Roma. But when she dies and her house burns down he’s left all alone. So he sets out on his own. His 4-year trek takes him across fields, over frozen rivers, into tiny villages and small cities. He meets a cruel witch, a lusty bird catcher, a violent miller, a lascivious farmer’s daughter, vengeful soldiers, and a hideous churchgoer. He’s a witness – and often the victim — of gut-wrenching horror, animal killing, bestiality, pedophilia, torture, flogging, indescribable cruelty and mass murder. As he approaches maturity, can Joska survive this time of death and destruction?
The Painted Bird, based on Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski’s novel, is a stunning work of art shot in black and white. It’s like the scariest fairytale ever because it’s based on actual recollections of the war. The characters all speak a “pan-Slavic” language, not native to 
anyone but understandable to the Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Czechs in the movie, without placing blame on any one group. The film was shot in sequence over a few years, adding a sense of reality as Petr Kotlár matures. There are actors like Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands, Barry Pepper, Stellan Skarsgard, and Udo Kier in what may be his best performance ever as the cruel miller. Like I said, it’s a great movie but so shocking and disturbing it’s difficult to watch. To give you an idea, it starts with local bullies beating up Joska and setting his little white puppy on fire. That’s just the first scene of a three-hour movie. I saw it at TIFF at a private screening last year and by the time it was over, only 5 or 6 people were still watching. The Painted Bird is an engrossing, stunning film, with explicit sex and violence that is also a hard film to watch.
Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N.
What would you do if you were invited to join Ironman, Captain America, Black Panther and Hulk to join in their fight against the bad guys? Would you scream and run away? say Yessir! Sign me up! or maybe just yawn in boredom? Well if you’re in group number two, you’ll probably like the Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N. It’s definitely not a movie, its not an exhibition, it’s not a theme park, it’s not a video game, it’s what’s known as an experience. You enter the site, you’re inducted into this army, and you can view the costumes, props weapons, and gadgets – either replicas or the ones actually used in their movies, all beautifully lit up. You can also play games. In one you stand in front of a giant video screen and watch 
yourself become Ironman. Then you move your hands and arms around to kill all the silvery people running or flying in your direction. In another game you’re asked to choose a little device with your favourite hero’s logo – I grabbed one at random and unwittingly turned into Scarlett Johansen!
Toronto’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. is one of four versions touring the world. This one came direct from Bangalore. It’s Covid-resistant, equipped with mandatory masks, hand sanitizers, online booking, physical spacing, high power ventilation and two story ceilings. They’re 
operating at 1/10th capacity so no crowds. You’re handed a stylus to access what used to be touch screens. I felt safe there. Is it any good? I’m not a Marvel fanatic so seeing a genuine Captain America shield from a movie doesn’t do it for me. And I was turned off by the blatant militaristic tone of the whole thing. Should 5-
year-olds be called “recruits” and encouraged to kill people on orders from attendants dressed in uniforms? Some of the games are about matching weapons with the fighters that use them. It’s all kill, kill, kill. But…
At the same time, what can I say? I love blowing things up and shooting fire from my bare hands! It really is fun. That’s what gaming is. So if you’re a Marvel fan, and you don’t mind forking out 30 bucks, I think you might like this.
Martin Eden
Dir: Pietro Marcello (Based on the novel by Jack London)
It’s the turn of the previous century. Martin Eden (Luca Marinelli) is a sailor and self-taught poet from Naples. He’s been travelling at sea since he was eleven, and is now a confident yound man. So he’s quick to rescue a lad being attacked by a tough longshoreman at the docks. In gratitude the teen takes him home to meet his family. Martin is hesitant to set foot inside the Orsini’s fancy home. But when he sees his sister, Elena (Jessica Cressy), a beautiful, young woman with blonde hair and an elegant manner, it’s love at first sight. She is educated and an accomplished piano player. She is impressed by Martin’s bravery and good looks. Problem is, she’s from a bourgeois family while he is working class. But he’s willing to learn. He spends all his money on books in a quest to become a professional writer. Luckily, when his brother-in-law kicks him out – get a job! – he is taken in by a single mom in the outskirts of town. You can pay me rent once you’re a successful writer, she 
tells him. Problem is, his work is constantly rejected by publishers. He needs a mentor. He is taken under the wing of an accomplished but depressed writer named Russ Brisenden (Carlo Cecchi). Will he ever be published and can he and Elena ever be together?
Martin Eden is a fantastic novelistic movie about a young man trying to make it as a writer. Based on the Jack London novel, it’s transplanted from America to Italy, and although it takes place before WWI, interestingly, the look of the movie — clothes and cars – is post-WWII. Sounds strange, but it works really well.
Eden is part hero, part anti-hero, an idealist who is led astray by Social Darwinist ideologies – the individual above all – that were popular at the time. Marinelli’s portrayal of Martin Eden is perfect, and the whole movie has a classic feel to it while also relevant to the here and now.
I really liked this historical drama.
Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N. opens today at Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall and runs through Jan 31; The Painted Bird is screening on Monday, November 23 at Toronto’s EU film festival; and Martin Eden is now playing at the virtual TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Crimes and punishments. Films reviewed: Tijuana Jackson: Purpose over Prison, Random Acts of Violence, A Girl Missing
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
They say movie theatres will open again in Toronto, but aside from drive-ins, so far = nada. In the mean time, there are still lots of movies to watch at home. This week I’m looking at three new ones – from the US, Canada and Japan – that deal with crimes and their punishments. There’s a man on parole trying to stick to the straight and narrow; a cartoonist driving on a dangerous highway; and a caregiver caught up in a twisted path of vengeance and betrayal.
Tijuana Jackson: Purpose over Prison
Wri/Dir: Romany Malco
Tijuana Jackson, or TJ, is an audacious and bombastic speaker who operates out of a prison cell in Florida. He has a shaved head and a goatee. TJ has great ambitions as a life coach and motivational speaker, skills honed through years of practice. But once he’s released back into the real world, his captive audience is gone. His life is still centred on cigarettes, cheap suits and mixtapes, but the world has moved on. He moves back in with his deeply religious Momma Jackson, his adult sister Sharia, and his devoted nephew Lil’ Eric Jackson (Alyoka Brunson). He tries to recreate his previous life in his new home – there’s a payphone in his bedroom, and Lil’ Eric passes him contraband messages through cracks in his window.
But he’s under the constant watch of his angry sister and Cheryl, his strict parole officer with whom he shares a history. If he doesn’t straighten up and find a job soon, it’s back behind 
bars. He tries working – unsuccessfully — as a life coach by hustling random people he meets in a city park. Fortunately he still has one prospect – the chance of appearing on a reality show. It’s run by Toastmasters where competitors take turns as motivational speakers. But can he make it to the audition on time and become a media star? Or is it just a revolving door back to prison?
Tijuana Jackson is a comedy / mocumentary that looks at life within the carceral system, both inside and out, in an exaggerated but still realistic way. Everything he says is recorded by a film school student named Rachel who follows him everywhere with her cameraman. Is it funny? Yes – not so much the simple plot as TJs persona. It’s one Malco has been polishing for years in a series of monologues on youtube called Prison Logic. This is just the movie version, but I liked it.
Random Acts of Violence
Dir: Jay Baruchel
Todd (Jesse Williams) is an indie comic book writer and artist who lives with his partner Kathy (Jordana Brewster) in Toronto. He’s famous for his gruesome series about Slasherman, a sadistic serial killer. Slasherman wears a metal welder’s mask and arranges his victims’ corpses in grotesque artistic poses. Although Slasherman has many fans, Todd plans to finish the series as soon as he can figure out a good ending. So they’re going on a road trip to the states with Kathy, his geeky publisher Ezra (Jay Baruchel) and his assistant artist Aurora (Niamh Wilson). They’re heading toward New York City for a comic con, but taking the scenic route, stopping at comic 
shops on the way.
But the America they encounter is a scary and dangerous place, full of cheap motels, gas stations run by distrustful rednecks, and black vans with tinted windows. They’re driving along the I-90, the highway where the real slasherman had a reign of terror back in 91 before disappearing. But he seems to have awakened again 
with a new series of killings… murders that exactly imitate Todd’s own comic books. And as the killer gets closer and closer, they start fearing for their own lives. Who is the killer? What is the connection? And are they somehow to blame?
Random Acts of Violence is a psychological thriller/horror movie with a stylized look. It inserts comic book images with spooky scenes of terror and horrific violence. The slasher movie aspect is totally predictable, but the telling is done in an unsual way. So if you’re in the mood for something scary and bloody, with characters you want to watch, this is a good one.
A Girl Missing
Wri/Dir: Fukada Kōji
Ichiko (Tsutsui Mariko) is a middle-aged woman who lives in a quiet suburb north of Tokyo. She’s pretty and unassuming a nurse who goes out of her way to help others. She has worked for many years as a caregiver for the Ōishi family headed by an elderly matriarch who was once a well-known artist but is now in her last years. And she serves as a mentor for the granddaughters Saki and Motoko, selflessly spending her free time with them, helping them study for cram schools at a nearby coffee shop. The tall and gawky Motoko (Ichikawa Mikako) declares she’s planning her whole life to 
follow in Ichiko’s footsteps. Ichiko is dating a much older doctor – a single dad with a mentally disabled son – and they plan to get married and move in together soon. Everything is going fine, until… something terrible happens.
Saki, the younger Oishi sister, is kidnapped and held captive for a day. And when she’s rescued, it turns out the kidnapper is Ichiko’s own nephew, an introverted 20 year old. Now her job, her marriage, indeed her whole life is potentially in jeopardy for something she didn’t do. Will the relentless tabloids discover 
the connection? And how will this crime affect her life?
A Girl Missing is an ingenious, astounding and very disturbing psychological drama about the compelling character of Ichiko as she changes from an unassuming nurse to something quite different. It’s told, simultaneously, in two parts: as she 
experiences the fallout of the kidnapping; and a number of years later when she encounters a younger man named Kazumichi (Sôsuke Ikematsu). By “simultaneous” I mean it switches back and forth between the periods as the two stories unfold, always chronologocally, but without explicitly stating the time period you’re watching, or the connection between the two. Tsutsui Mariko’s portrayal of Ichiko is masterful as she goes through these monumental and unexpected changes.
This is a great movie.
Random Acts of Violence premiered at a drive-in theatre earlier this week; Tijuana Jackson is available on VOD, and A Girl Missing is now playing in the US and coming soon to Canada.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Kliph Nesteroff about Funny How? at Just For Laughs Film Fest and Viceland
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Comedians and their audience share an unspoken contract. Standup comics provide the funny things, the audience supplies the laughs. But the unknown variable, the big question hovering at the back of the comic’s mind is always: Funny how?
Funny How? is the name of a new documentary series that takes you behind the scenes of stand-up comedy. It’s showing at the Just For Laughs Film Festival in Montreal, and is broadcast on TV on Viceland. Funny How is hosted by Kliph Nesteroff, the celebrated author, producer and comedy historian.
I reached Kliph in Montreal by telephone from CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto.
Kliph Nesteroff’s new series Funny How? premiers at the Just for Laughs Film Festival and will be broadcast on Viceland TV.
For information about Just For Laughs go to hahaha.com.
Unexpected Gifts. Movies Reviewed – The Gift, Fantastic 4 PLUS Canadian Films coming to TIFF
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is vacation time, and everyone likes bringing back something to remind them of their trip. Then there are the souvenirs – tape worm, STDs – that are best avoided. This week I’m looking at two movies about unwanted souvenirs. One’s a psychological thriller about a couple who return to his home town to find it loaded with baggage and unwanted gifts; the other is a superhero flic about young scientists who visit a foreign dimension and return home with unexpected gifts.
But first a look at Canadian Movies premiering at TIFF.
Canadian movies get short shriff at movie theatres, so TIFF is the place to see them. Here are some of the ones that look really good. I haven’t seen any of them yet – these are just my first impressions. Did you know there were riots in Montreal in the 1960s when student activists took over? Mina Shum (who directed Double Happiness), has made a documentary called 9th Floor about an uprising at Concordia University by students from Trinidad over incidents of racism at the school. Another documentary looks at a very explosive contemporary issue: it’s called Guantanamo’s Child, and it’s about Canadian Omar Khadr and what happened him there. He was accused of war 
crimes at age 15, and has spent most of his life at the notorious prison. The movie has Omar Khadr tell his own story, so this could be really interesting.
One of Canada’s best and totally uncategorizable director Guy Maddin is bringing The Forbidden 
Room, co-directed by Evan Johnson. Apparently, it’s something about cavedwellers, sailors and submarines, but whatever it is I know it’ll be dreamlike and mind-blowingly strange.
There are also films by Quebec’s Philippe Felardeau and Toronto’s own Bruce McDonald, as well as two great directors I interviewed in the past: the offbeat, hip Kazik Radwansky offers an awkward social drama called How Heavy this Hammer; and avante-garde and pensive Igor Drljaca gives us the Waiting Room about an actor with memories of the Yugoslav civil war.
The Gift
Dir: Joel Edgerton
Simon and Robyn (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) are a young married couple with no kids who just moved to California. He’s in security software sales, she does interior design. . He got transferred to his company’s HQ, that happens to be in his home town. They move into a glass-encased home, visible from four sides. It’s a fresh start — especially for Robyn, who is getting over a miscarriage. Simon is a sympathetic husband but more than a bit condescending.
They run into a guy named Gordo (director Joel Edgerton) who 
remembers Simon from his High School days. Back then, Simon was in the In Crowd — quarterback, cheerleaders. Like the Simon Says game — everything Simon wanted Simon got. But the socially awkward Gordo was a bit of an outcast. And something happened, way back, that greatly affected Gordo’s life. But he’s willing to let bygones be bygones — let’s be friends.
Robyn feels lonely and isolated in her new home — no friends, family or work: nothing to do. So she’s cheered up when Gordo starts stopping by their house — always during the day — to drop off elaborately wrapped gifts. How wonderful — you must come from dinner! But Simon is disturbed by the whole thing and tries to nip it in the bud. What does Gordo the Weirdo want with his wife?
The tension begins to escalate with strange, almost bizarre incidents happening almost daily. Is
there a stalker at large? Robyn feels vulnerable, under attack… But who is really to blame? She decides to investigate on her own, and uncovers some unexpected things. Who should she side with – Gordo or Simon?
The gift is an excellent psychological thriller. Its point of view shifts among the three characters. The acting is great. Bateman is a self-centred alpha dog with a smarmy undertone, Hall as the vulnerable but not helpless woman, with Edgerton as the wildcard — persecuted victim or scheming psychopath? This is a good, taut thriller.
Fantastic Four
Dir: Josh Trank
Reed is a chubby kid with coke bottle glasses from small town NY. He’s a science nerd known for his late night garage explosions. He’s working on a machine — a teleporter that can move things between places, times and dimensions. Kids laugh and teachers scoff at his ballpoint pen scribbles. Only Ben, a poor kid who lives in a junkyard, believes in him. He lends him a hand finding the needed missing metal parts. A few 
years later, they build a prototype but are kicked out of a science fair for breaking glass. They are discovered by a scientist, and his daughter Sue Storm. They recognize his genius and whisk him off to a top secret lab in Manhattan run by the secretive Baxter Foundation. Ben says goodbye and goes back to his junkyard.
Now it’s Reed’s chance to build it on a grand scale. Together with pretty egghead sue. They are joined by her brother Johnny, a hot-tempered street racer, and Victor Von Doom, a cynical and pessimistic genius whose attempts at his own teleporter were unsuccessful. And behind the scenes, watching very closely, are arms dealers, the military, the government and oil companies all of whom see teleportation as the potential solution to all their problems. Before they can get their paws on 
the invention, they decide to try it themselves. Reed invites Junkyard Ben, one of the original inventors, to join in their maiden voyage. But something goes wrong on the spiky, barren planet they visit. Victor is held back by a greenish energy, and the other three — plus Sue in the home base– are all weirdly affected by this strange energy source. Reed becomes stretchy guy, Ben a gigantic rock covered Thing, Johnnie a flamer, and Sue can disappear in an invisible bubble. Then they all wake up in a military prison What will happen to this strange
group? Can they handle their new powers And what about Victor?
I have mixed feelings about this movie. I love the smalltown, working class feel to it. It’s like Spielberg’s E.T or J.J. Abrams’ Super 8. The young cast — Reed (Miles Teller) Sue Storm (Kate Mara) Johnnie Storm (Michael B Jordan) Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) Victor (Toby Kebell) – are all great. It makes sense to eliminate Reed’s greying temples and youth-ify all the characters. And if you view it as a story of their origins –a comic book standard – it makes sense. But the problem is it leaves out the most interesting part; the period where they adjust to the changes and figure out how to use and what to do with their new superpowers. They literally spend two seconds on that and then it’s”one year later…”! What a waste.
Still, it’s a virtual masterpiece… when compared with past attempts at movie versions of the Fantastic Four.
The Gift and Fantastic Four both open today in Toronto, check your local listings; and for more information about Canadian movies coming to TIFF go to tiff.net. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Eric San (Kid Koala) about Nufonia Must Fall premiering at Luminato in June.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 fm.
When you’re shaped like a tin can with headphones I see possible troubles. And if you’re in love with a girl who doesn’t have time for silly love songs,
what’s a cartoon robot to do? The answers lie in a new performance that combines comics, projected film images, puppets and music — both live and recorded.
It’s called Nufonia Must Fall, based on the graphic novel of the same name. It was created 
by Canadian DJ, musician and cartoonist Kid Koala. It’s having its world premier at Toronto’s Luminato festival in June. I spoke to Kid Koala, a.k.a. Erik San, by telephone in Banff Alberta, about Nufonia (its music, design, genesis, inspiration, and technique), nostalgia, K.K. Barrett, found art, Mellotrons, robots, vinyl, “live movies”, imperfection, high tech vs low-tech… and more.
Exotica. Movies Reviewed: Hotel Lux, The Rabbi’s Cat, To the Wonder
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.
Images and Toronto Jewish Film Festival continue on through this weekend, with Hot Docs just around the corner. This week I’m looking at movies about people travelling to exotic lands. There’s a German screwball comedy about an actor who escapes the Nazis only to find himself in the heart of Stalin’s Moscow; a French animated film about a group of travellers from Algiers looking for a lost city; and an American romance about a woman from Paris looking for love in America.
Hotel Lux
Dir: Leander Haussmann
It’s Berlin in the 1930s. The comedy team Zeisig and Meyer (Michael Herbig and Jurgen Vogel) work at a successful cabaret, playing Stalin and Hitler. But their livelihood is threatened when the Nazi’s come to power, and political satire is no longer tolerated. An undercover Dutch communist, Frida, suddenly appears, and Zeisig, a notorious lothario, is smitten. Meyer goes into hiding, but Zeisig sees no reason to run. But eventually he must. He flees Berlin with fake papers and the name of a Moscow landmark: the Hotel Lux. Outside, it’s a stately building with a spinning red star on the roof. Inside it’s a rat-infested heap. And what he doesn’t realize is it’s also the epicenter of Stalinism, a hotel filled with the hardcore German communists in exile.
Every conversation is bugged. People are constantly dragged out of their rooms by a diminutive NKVD agent and accused of the worst possible crime: Trotskyism! And, due to a series of strange coincidences and mistaken identities, Zeisig, the Stalin impersonator, finds himself in meetings with Stalin himself. And his old friends, Meyer and Frida, both end up in Hotel Lux, too.
How will Zeisig get out if this mess? Will he have an influence on Stalin’s decisions? Will his true identity be discovered? And will Frida ever like him?
Like an Austrian comedy set in the same era, My Best Enemy, this movie doesn’t have any grave meanings or deep philisophyt to impart. Rather, it’s a fantasy set against a backdrop of the troubled thirties. Hotel Lux is just a cute, old-fashioned screwball comedy, with its history and politics filtered through the eyes of post-reunification Germany.
The Rabbi’s Cat
Dir: Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar (based on his graphic novels)
It’s 1920s in Algiers, part of the North African colony annexed by France. (It’s inhabited by Arabic-speaking Muslims and Jews, and their French speaking rulers.) Rabbi Safr lives with his beautiful but fiery daughter Zlabiya. But there normal life is interrupted by some strange things. His cat suddenly begins to speak, and wants to have religious debates. The dead body of a blond Russian man appears in a wooden crate of prayer books sent from Europe. And a cousin, who travels with a huge lion comes for a visit. The Rabbi Safr, accompanied by a Muslim sheikh, also named Safr, a Chagal-like artist, and an aristocratic white Russian, set off on a road journey in a Citroen. They are on a quest through northeast Africa to find an ancient hidden city, an African Jerusalem, the legendary land of giant Black- African Jews.
On their journey, they encounter nomads, Belgian colonists (in the form of a pink-skinned Tintin in a pith helmet), and pick up new members to join their group.
Joann Safr is a great, contemporary French cartoonist who creates fantastical imaginary worlds. This is the first animated version of his work I’ve seen, and it stays true to his comics. This is a great movie: funny, fantastical, and colourful, and featuring French-Algerian actors like Mohamed Fellag.
To the Wonder
Dir: Terrence Malick
Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a single mother, meets Neil (Ben Affleck), an American tourist who is visiting France. They fall in love in scenic spots. Their love affair is extended when he invites her (and her daughter) to follow him back to America. Ah, America. Calm, rich, honest, she thinks as she pirouettes around her new Oklahoma backyard. Her whispered thoughts are an ongoing narration to her new life there. Ah… l’amour, l’amour, she whispers, turning another pirouette. Je t’aime. Her life is an avalanche of tenderness. Neil doesn’t speak, he just nods or grunts and goes out to check an oil pump.
OK, just so you know, I was describing a typical scene. But the whole movie is like that. It’s like a two-hour-long movie trailer, an endless montage of a bumpy, depressing relationship in an Oklahoma suburb. With a non-stop voiceover of the most painful poetry, the most awful French doggerel ever inflicted on my ears in one dose. I kind of liked Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life from two years ago (he supposedly spent a decade making it) but this one is worthless. I’m not even mentioning the various sub plots — Marina’s depression, a priest who talks to poor people, marital infidelity — because they barely add anything to this meandering, dull story. Avoid this movie at all costs, unless you are looking for two hours of pointless, superficial Hallmark images and loads of false solemnity.
To the Wonder opens today, check your local listings; and The Rabbi’s Cat and Hotel Lux are both playing this weekend: go to TJFF.ca for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com .
Daniel Garber talks with Darcy Michael about his new movie Lloyd the Conquerer
Hi, This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There’s a malevolent presence in South Calgary that threatens the peace, order and good government
of the people playing there. No, I’m not talking about Harper, this is a new Canadian comedy movie about LARPers.
Comedian, actor and Vancouver-based all-around celeb
Lloyd The Conquerer illustrations by Evan Williams
Darcy Michael tells me
about this film, the life of a stand-up comic, and his own personal ups and downs.
He’s performing in Toronto at Yuk Yuk’s this weekend, at Massey Hall on New Year’s Eve; Lloyd the Conquerer opens today.
Daniel Garber talks to Jason Kieffer about his new comic ZANTA: THE LIVING LEGEND
Hi, this is Daniel Garber for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Unless you arrived in Toronto very recently, you’ve probably encountered the once ubiquitous character who walks shirtless down Yonge street, flexing his muscles and wearing a Santa Claus hat. He’s a reality show 
waiting to happen.
I’m talking, of course about Zanta, Toronto’s legendary street performer, all-around shock-disturber and general maniac. But, for some reason, Zanta was “banned” from downtown Toronto, and thrown into jail just for performing his act.
Toronto cartoonist and illustrator Jason Kieffer (above, left) probes this fascinating story in a new comic book ZANTA: THE LIVING LEGEND. In his first radio interview, he talks about Zanta’s history, the illegal arrests he suffered, and Kieffer’s own views on comics, art, civil rights, and the unusual characters that make a city great.
July 26, 2012 Heroes vs Superheroes. Movies Reviewed: The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
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, genre and mainstream movies, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference..
People like to watch superheroes and supervillains, whether its on the big screen or on the news screen – media gobble up anything in the news that seems horrific, and when it can be tied to movies or TV – like the recent shooting disaster in Colorado, it’s media gold. But what about a real hero? Those are harder to find. Do we give as much attention to heroes as villains, and what about real heroes vs comic book superheroes?
This week I’m talking about two action movies about superheroes trying to save Manhattan from being blown up, and a documentary about a real guy, an artist, who’s trying to stop China from imploding.
The Avengers
Dir: Joss Whedon
OK, NASA is building a machine called the tesseract that is powered by this bluish glowing cube about yea big. But a skinny goth with a glowing, golden sceptre — the Norse god Loki — puts the scientists under mind-control and zooms off somewhere to open a hole in the universe that would let an army of slimy metallic evil creatures from outer space take over the world.
So a group of people with special powers are brought together by a secret US government agency — SHIELD — to fight supervillain Loki. There’s Thor, the God of Thunder with a heavy hammer, Bruce Banner, the scientist who might turn into the Hulk at any moment, Ironman, a rich dude who’s also an inventor; Captain America, an earnest military guy from the 1940s who wears an ice-ballet stars and stripes leotard and carries a super-strong shield; and the black widow Natasha, a former Soviet spy who now fights bad guys everywhere. They all get loaded onto this mammoth airborne battleship the size of a small city. And, for some reason, Loki’s locked up into a glass cage on board.
Since they’re superheroes, they get into a bunch of fights: Thor vs Ironman, Hulk vs 
Thor, etc etc… until they finally get it together to fight the real baddies. But of course Loki and his hypnotized minions are going to stop them. Will the good guys beat the bad guys? Or will the earth crumble, taken over by Loki’s alien allies? Uh… guess.
This is a pretty goofy movie but it’s directed by Joss Whedon so you know it’s going to be watchable with lots of collapsing buildings falling apart just behind someone running full speed toward the camera. Cool. And the space aliens — who look like massive flying trilobite armadillos with sharp teeth – get in some amazing urban disaster scenes, smashing through glass office towers. The big stars – Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlet Johansen, Samuel Jackson, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki — all seem to be having a good time.
And the bits of sardonic humour thrown in here and there, helps it a lot. Not great fun, but at least good fun once all the fighting starts.
The Dark Knight Rises
Dir: Christopher Nolan
As in The Avengers, a super-villain, this one called Bain, — a big guy with a mask over his mouth — descends on Manhattan, aka Gotham City, because he wants to take over, seize Wayne Enterprises’ secret energy-generating device (with WMD potential), and then kill everybody. Why? Doesn’t really matter. Because he’s a bad guy, I guess.
But billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is in retirement, his company running dry, and the forlorn orphans he used to help are left abandoned. Meanwhile, in a French Revolution-style takeover, they storm the Bastille letting the world’s worst criminals out of jail, a Robespierre-type judge sentences everyone to death or exile, and the NYPD are all locked up in a collapsed underground tunnel. Who will save everyone? It takes the combined efforts of a tough, young cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a slinky cat burglar (Anne Hathaway) to finally get Batman out of his funk to fight the bad guy. But Bain locks him up in a pit in central Asia with no way out. Oh no!
I dunno about this one. Two hours and forty minutes later we get to see the ending, find out who will triumph and what is the villain’s secret. To be honest, this is a pretty stupid movie. The effects are good enough, but never seem to be justified – they’re evoked seemingly at random. Great actors — like Tom Hardy as Bain and Christian Bale as Batman – spend the movie masked, with distorted voices. Why bother? They could have meat puppets doing the same thing. What a waste. Joseph Gordon-
Levitt and Anne Hathaway are a bit better, as their characters actually get to develop, but in general, this movie was a humourless drudge. Good enough to watch, but not worth dying for (this is not meant to downplay the terrible shooting at the premier in Colorado).
Incidentally, the scariest part for me was when someone walked past my aisle seat, with a loud, sudden pattapattapatta clacking sound. Everyone jumped and stared and a security guard came running into the theatre to investigate, but it turned out to be just some guy spilling reese’s pieces all over the steps.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Dir: Alison Klayman
But what about a real hero?
Ai Weiwei (艾未未) is a Chinese artist and photographer who studied in NY in the 80s and 90s
and is now an international art celeb. He helped design the Beijing Olympic stadium and his photography – he’s famous for giving the finger to all the world’s great buildings — and installations are widely known. And he has impeccable credentials: his dad was Ai Qing (艾青), the poet who was jailed by the Nationalists, and who joined the Communist Party and participated in Mao Zedong’s famous Talks on Art and Culture at Yen’an. That’s major historical creds in postwar China.
But Ai Weiwei doesn’t like everything going on in China these days. So when a poorly designed school building collapses in Sichuan, killing hundreds of kids, his art turns political – after painstaking research he creates a memorial listing all the names of the dead. But this is taken as a possible insult to the the authorities. He is arrested and beaten up by a violent cop known only by his badge number. So begins his odyssey, fighting the powers that be, and trying to get justice using his art, his writing, the media, lawsuits, fighting in court, and filming everything, everywhere he goes.
He is one of the signers of Liu Xiaobo’s Charter 08, and generally makes a name for himself, not just as an installation and photographic artist, but as a leading dissident — a sort of a Chinese Michael Moore, but one with deep artistic and cultural capabilities.
This documentary (that opened this year’s Hotdocs) is very important as an historical record. While it may be a case of the filmmaker being in the right place at the right time – It’s mainly shot with a handheld camera allowed to trace and document his life: in the galleries, his encounters with the police, his family life, including time with his son (from an unseen mother, not his wife).
He comes across as a bit unlikeable – not a smiling panda, but an irascible, sometimes obnoxious stubborn man. But one who sticks to his principles (freedom of speech, freedom of expression, an independent judiciary, etc). AI Weiwei has had his studio destroyed by the government, he’s been thrown in a secret prison — allegedly for tax reasons – and fined millions of dollars, but he hasn’t stopped fighting. Really interesting and worth seeing if you’re interested in China, politics, or art.
The Avengers and Dark Knight Rises are playing now, check your local listings; and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry opens today in Toronto.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM, and on my website culturalmining.com.
April 6, 2012. The Dispassionate Eye. Movies Reviewed: Images Festival, Strawberry Tree, The Pettifogger PLUS Bully v. Fightville
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, genre and mainstream movies, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
…I’m back again with some movie reviews. As I’ve said, springtime is film festival time. You can catch the Toronto Film Society’s “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” weekend at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto starting on May 11th, for a chance to see B&W film noir and other classics from the 1940’s, like Suspicion, The Big Sleep, The Glass Key and Double Indemnity.
And starting this Wednesday is the unique and amazing Images Media Arts Festival. Images is North America’s biggest festival of art-driven film and videos, including live performances, gallery installations, and, of course, movies. 
It’s their 25th anniversary, so you can see new and innovative work, as well as work shown their first year, way back in the 80’s. The Festival opens with John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, and closes with a live performance by Yo La Tenga.
The Strawberry Tree
Dir: Simone Rapisarda Casanova
This film is filled with mundane but lovely composed views of life in a small, Cuban fishing village. Scenes range from repairing fishing nets, and fish teeming underwater, and the slaughter of a goat in real time, to a woman peeling plantains, or a man performing card tricks at a kids’ party.
The director’s camera is an unmoving, dispassionate observer set up on the floor, usually at a distance from the people he’s filming. But the posture of an artist’s indifference is challenged and exposed by the constant patter of the film’s subjects: sexual banter, casual insults, joking stories and comments often involving the artist by name. They talk about his jewelry, make fun of his accent, his attitude, his looks, his wealth, and the way they think his life must like in Canada. And they talk about the film itself and how it distorts – positively or negatively — the way it makes them look.
The calm beauty of the film is balanced with the knowledge (from the very first frame) that everything we see was later wiped away by a hurricane that flattened the village after the film was made.
This is a gorgeous and often funny impression of small town life in Cuba.
To get in the mood for the festival, on Wednesday, the day before Images begins, there’s an amazing free screening of:
The Pettifogger
Dir: Lewis Klahr
This is kind of an art-film, kind of a mood-narrative, about an early sixties gambler. It’s filled with noir-ish newspaper comics, film stills, and found objects like buttons, poker chips, and plastic sword-shaped toothpicks. Everything leads back to hardboiled tough guys — men who wear hats — and their femmes fatales. Using cut-out style animation, Klahr manipulates the collage images across the screen in jerky jumps.
So suspicious comic-strip detectives can be seen peeking through the glassine windows of manila envelopes. Two jacks from a poker deck do an angry, sullen standoff before skulking off screen again. And everywhere are the bright, coloured icons of that Man’s World: cigarettes, mickeys of scotch, license plates, greenbacks, with hearts and spades, all floating around on the screen. The “bars” of the one armed bandits detach themselves and become coloured bars blocking or censoring the stories he tells… and in the background, sounds of traffic, thunderstorms and ever-suspicious dialogue from radio potboilers.
Check out The Strawberry Tree and Pettifogger at Images, all starting next week.
Last week, I left this studio and saw, a stone’s throw away at Queen’s Park, a protest against bullying. That’s nice, I thought, They’re against teenaged bullying. Until I got closer — it was a pro-bullying demonstration! A what? That’s like a protest against puppies! Apparently, fundamentalist, right wing religious groups object to the new anti-bullying law because it involves teaching about sexuality in public high schools, and calls for allowing “gay-straight alliance” support groups to be started in government-funded schools — in order to help many of the kids who are being driven to suicide by this very bullying. It seems there are people who want to keep bullying just as it is now…
Which brings me two documentaries opening this weekend, Bully (dir: Lee Hirsch), which is getting a lot of attention, and Fightville (dir: Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker), both of which I saw at last year’s HotDocs.
Bully is about bullying, Fightville is about Mixed Martial Arts.
So which is the better documentary?
It’s hard to admit, but Fightville is just a much better doc. Although it’s much more commercial in its style, its characters are 
more interesting, it’s camera work more pleasing, the storyline (two young fighters trying to become pros vs. five high school students who get bullied) more engaging and dynamic. The problem is Bully, which follows five bullied kids around for a year, has the feeling of a fundraiser, a charity infomercial (the sort of thing you find yourself watching on cable TV at 5 am on a Sunday morning.) It’s bland and it’s slow and it’s a little bit boring. It doesn’t really offer many solutions. And I was left with 
the impression that the filmmaker intentionally tried to make one poor kid, Alex, (who has a slightly “unusual”-looking face from certain angles), look odder than he really was. Which in my mind is “movie bullying”.
Does this mean bullying (as an issue) is less important than a bloody, competitive sport? Of course not! It’s just that Fightville is a better film than Bully. I often talk about movies with “good taste” versus movies that “taste good”. But it looks like I’ve been neglecting a third category. Bully is “good for you”. Like brussels sprouts.
Opening this weekend are Lovers in a Dangerous Time, a low budget, pretty, romantic Canadian drama; Pettifogger and the Strawberry Tree (go to Imagesfestival.com) and the docs Fightville and Bully.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM, and on my web site CulturalMining.com.
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