Daniel Garber talks with Kelly McCormack about her new film Sugar Daddy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Darren is a small town girl with big city ambitions. She left her divorced mom and adoring sister behind for a music career in Toronto. She found a gaggle of artists to hang with and an apartment-mate who has a crush on her. She earns her rent at a catering job. But when, in a Dickensian plot turn, she’s caught taking home leftover sandwiches — she finds herself fired, broke, starving, and nearly homeless. What to do? She signs onto a service where she’s paid to go on public dates with much older, much richer men. This solves her money deficit… but what about her career and sense of self worth? Will Darren’s new arrangements lead to success? Or is she doomed to failure as an artist on the payroll of a “sugar daddy”?
Sugar Daddy is a coming-of-age feature about a young woman
discovering her self worth, and what her youth, body, and talent will fetch on the open market. The film is written, produced by and starring Toronto-based writer, musician, actor, and artist Kelly McCormack. Kelly has made her mark on stage and screen — you’ve probably seen her as Betty Anne on LetterKenny as well as parts on Ginny and Georgia on Netflix and the upcoming A League of their Own on Amazon.
I spoke with Kelly via Zoom in Toronto. I previously interviewed her along with Alec Toller in 2014 about her off-beat film Play: the Movie.
Sugar Daddy premiered at the Canadian Film Festival on April 1st, and opens on VOD, beginning April 6th, 2021.
Younger. Films reviewed: Cowboys, Night of the Beast, Saint Maud
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
February is the ugliest month of the year, but you can escape the misery of frigid cold and overcast skies with lots of festivals accessible from your home. The Toronto Black Film festival is on now, as is the TIFF Next Wave festival, offering free films, made by and for the quaran-teens and quartan-twenties among us. (Free digital screenings if you’re under 25). This week I’m looking at movies about children and youth. There’s a transgendered kid in Montana, two metalheads in Bogota, and a religious young nurse in Yorkshire.
Cowboys
Wri/Dir: Anna Kerrigan
It’s summertime in Flathead, Montana. Troy (Steve Zahn) is on a camping trip through the wilderness in a state park near the Canadian border. He’s with his young son Joe (Sasha Knight) who is kitted up like a true cowboy in boots, denim and a big belt buckle. They follow trails and eat beans right out of the can. And they’re riding a white horse they borrowed from Troy’s friend Robert (Gary Farmer). What they don’t know is their faces are appearing statewide on TV and in newspaper headlines. It’s an amber alert, and Troy is accused of kidnapping Joe. What’s going on?
The problem is Joe was born as Josie, and raised by his mother Sally (Jillian Bell) as a girl. Joe hates the dresses his mom makes him wear and the barbie dolls she gives him to play with. He secretly changes from dresses to jeans at school and wears his hair tied into a ponytail. Sally says she gets it, you’re a tomboy. Joe says, not a tom boy, I’m a boy. And only his father accepts it. Problem is Troy is on parole, separated from Sally, and heavily medicated to handle his erratic mood changes. He thinks he’s helping Joe escape. They’re heading for safety across the Canadian border, pursued by an armed SWAT team and Faith (Ann Dowd) a hardboiled local police detective. Who will be captured, who will survive, and can father and son stay together?
Cowboys is a nice, gentle family drama and adventure story about a trans boy struggling with his identity and how his parents treat him. It’s shot on location against breathtaking scenery in Montana. The acting is good all around (though Steve Zahn almost overdoes it in one of his trademark meltdown) and I’m not sure of young actor Sasha Knight’s gender, but he plays the part of a trans kid very believably.
Night of the Beast
Dir: Mauricio Leiva-Cock
Chuki and Francisco are best friends. Chuki is round faced with long curly hair, and lives with his deeply religious mom. He has a crush on the waitress at a local coffee shop. Francisco is more suave mature and streetwise — he has a girlfriend named Vale. His mom died, so he lives with his depressed dad. The two of them are metalhead who live in the city of Bogota, Colombia. They go to high school together, but not today. Today they’re playing hooky to attend the greatest concert ever by the greatest band in the world, Iron Maiden! And they stan that band to the umpteenth degree. They have tickets but the concert doesn’t start till tonight, so they spend the day exploring the city, its parks, record stores, and darker corners. But over the courseof their journeys they get mugged at knifepoint and lose their tickets. This leads to fights between the two fast friends, sending them off on separate paths. Will Chuki and Francisco ever 
make up? And will either of them get to see the concert?
Night of the Beast, (La Noche de la Bestia) is a short (70 min) coming- of-age story about a day in the life of two urban teenaged boys. It’s a simple story but a really interesting one, spanning family generations set against a a really cool city. It packs in tons of stories over the course of their picaresque journey, spanning railroad tracks, a planetarium, a stadium, and encounters with frat boys, police, and rock bands. And the film is punctuated by animation where black and white quivering lines, like the intricate pen-and ink doodles they write on their schoolbooks, appear at times around the people and places they see, adding rocker energy to their memorable day.
Saint Maud
Wri/Dir: Rose Glass
Maud (Morfydd Clark) is young a nurse who lives in a seedy seaside resort town in Northern England. She used to work in a local hospital but left after an incident. She lives in a tiny, spartan flat at the top of a twisting narrow alley. Maud lives a monastic life of penitence to address the sins from her past, guided by the voice of God inside her head. She works for a private company which sends out nurses to provide care for the terminally ill. Her latest patient is Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), who lives alone in a stately brick house.
She’s a celebrated middle-aged dancer and choreographer, whose days of glory are gone. Now she sits idly by dressed in an elegant turban, smiling like a chimney, surrounded by the paintings and posters of her youth. Amanda’s life is still saturated in her devil-may-care attitude, with past lovers, both men and women, appearing at her bedside to share laughs. Maud disapproves. She believes she was sent to save Amanda from eternal damnation before she dies. And she’ll do whatever’s necessary to set her on the right path. What is 
the root of Maud’s strange beliefs? Is she a potential killer or a saint sent from heaven? And are darker forces at play?
Saint Maud is a shocking and scary horror movie set in Yorkshire, England. There’s violence and blood, and it’s saturated in religious iconography and images. Morfydd Clark is stupendous as the monastic Maud, and the very different past personality she’s trying to escape from. Jennifer Ehle is also amazing as the cynical, world-weary dancer. As I said, this is a horror movie, but rather than slashers and screams, it’s shot like a softly glowing Rembrandt painting, viewed through Maud’s eyes. The costumes, hair, music, art direction, everything is absolutely perfect not what you expect from a boiler plate scary movie. And — no spoilers — be prepared for a shocking finish.
Saint Maud is one great horror movie.
Cowboys and Saint Maud both starts today, and Night of the Beast is part of the Next Wave film festival playing this weekend at the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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 Peter Kuplowsky about Psycho Goreman
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mimi and Luke are young siblings in a nondescript town. They’re both typical and atypical. Mimi’s the younger one, but she’s more aggressive, They spend their time playing games they invent like “crazy ball”. But after a game one day they uncover a strange glowing stone buried deep in the ground. And when Mimi removes it she unknowingly activates a hideous monster, the epitome of evil, a creature responsible for the deaths of 
millions. He can casually tear his victims apart in an orgy of blood and gore. But since Mimi holds the gem, she soon discovers he’s in her power. What will a little girl do with her newfound strength — will she use it for good or for evil? Will they save the planet or destroy it? And can she and her brother control the powerful demon they call Psycho Goreman.
Psycho Goreman is also the name of a new comedy/horror movie about kids and alien beings. Science fiction, family comedy and first love are set against a potential universe-shattering apocalypse. The film is written and directed by Steven Kostanski who brought us twisted, over-the-top genre classics like The Void and Manborg. Peter Kuplowsky, who worked on Steven’s other films and is also notable as the curator of TIFF’s Midnight Madness series, co-produced it.
I spoke to Peter Kuplowsky from home via ZOOM.
Psycho Goreman opens digitally on January 22, 2021 across North America.
Travelling for love. Films reviewed: Make Up, Identifying Features, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
They say love is true, and some people travel far and wide to keep that love alive. This week I’m looking at three new movies, directed by women in Hungary, England, and Mexico, that explore this theme. There’s a teenaged girl who moves to Cornwall to spend time with her boyfriend; an American surgeon who moves to Budapest to be reunited with her lover, and a Mexican farmer who crosses the country in search of her missing son.
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Dir: Lili Horvát
Marta (Natasa Stork) is a 39-year-old, successful surgeon from New Jersey. So what is she doing at a run-down hospital in Budapest? She moved there, spontaneously to join up with a man she met a conference. They shared a night of passion and swore to meet up again on a bridge in Budapest at a specific time and date. (Marta is originally from Hungary but immigrated to the U.S.) But when she sees her bearded lover Janos (Viktor Bodó) he says he has ever seen her before in his life. She faints on a downtown street, where a young man named Alex (Benett Vilmányi) comes to her rescue. Marta is overcome with emotions. Is she going crazy? Was it all a dream? Or is Janos gaslighting her for some unknown reason?
She gets a job at the hospital where Janos works to be close to him. Meanwhile
Alex turns out to be a young medical student who develops an infatuation with Marta. So this turns into a three way stalk fest with Marta spying on Janos and Alex following her. Where is love? IS it real or imaginary? And can Marta come to terms with her new strange life?
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is an intriguing mystery-romance-psychological drama about passion and illusion, alienation and obsession. Marta deals with sexist colleagues and petty bureaucrats, as she tries to navigate a culture she’s not quite familiar with. It’s filmed on the lovely streets of Budapest with a fair amount of unexpectedly strange sex (no spoilers). The movie is a bit confusing in its tone, with, rather than a huge dramatic turning point, it culminates in an oddly absurdist, anticlimactic finish. Preparations is a good movie, but probably not what you expect.
This is Hungary’s nominee for best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Make Up
Dir: Claire Oakley
It’s winter in Cornwall, England. Ruth (Molly Windsor) is an 18 year old woman, staying at a deserted summer holiday park so she can spend time with her boyfriend. She’s been dating Tom (Joseph Quinn) for 3 years. But rather than a romantic getaway, she’s staying in a grey, gloomy collection of jerry-built cottages near the sea. Everything is covered in plastic sheeting. And her relation with Tom is fraught with tension and jealousy. When she finds a hair in her sheets, that clearly isn’t hers, she takes the bedding to the laundry to wash it clean. There she meets an older taller woman named Jade (Stephanie Martini). Jane makes hair pieces for a local hospital — it takes 30,000 knots to make a single wig, she says.
Now Ruth has someone she can hang around with, talk to, and tell her secrets, none of which she’s getting from Tom. But her obsession with her boyfriend’s possible mistress drives Ruth into an unexpected situation. Can her relationship last? Or will she find a new path among the windswept sand dunes?
Make Up is an impressionistic coming-of-age story about a young woman looking for love while trapped in an almost surreal setting. It’s full of the screeching foxes, detached sexual sounds and blurry vistas set against the banality of service jobs. Molly Windsor is really good as the bewildered Ruth. The movie itself is a straightforward drama but shot almost like an eerie ghost story. This is an excellent first feature from a young filmmaker.
Identifying Features
Dir: Fernanda Valadez
Chuya (Laura Elena Ibarra) is a farmer in Guanajuato, Mexico. She’s a single mom who’s raising her teenaged son Jesus in a small farmhouse. But when he suddenly tells her he’s heading north with his best friend to take a job in Arizona, she packs his bag and says goodbye. And that’s the last she hears from him and his friend. Are they kidnapped? Lost? Or dead? She reports it to the police to no avail. His best friend is found but nothing is found of Jesus except the bag 
Chuya had packed. And when a woman she meets tells her not to give up, she sets out on a journey to try to find her son, or else confirmation that he’s dead.
On the way she falls in with a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) who was recently deported from the US. He is looking for his mom who lives in Ocampo a region plagued with crime. 
It’s also where Chuya thinks she can find the answers to her son’s disappearance. Will she ever find out what happened to him? And can an ordinary, kind woman survive in a society filled with greed, suspicion, and murder?
Identifying Features is a deeply moving and gripping mystery/drama that looks at the lives of Mexicans, trapped within larger forces — el migra, organized crime, and a corrupt police force — over which they have no control. It takes you into fascinating places, rarely portrayed — like indigenous villages, hostels for migrants — that tell an unforgettable story with a shocking ending. Stunning cinematography, and natural acting combined with compelling drama, makes for a terrific film.
Make Up just opened on VOD across North America. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, and Identifying Features both open today at the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Wood, Bricks and Rocks. Films reviewed: Black Bear, 18 to Party, Rocks
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking at three new indie movies. We’ve got alienated teens in the 1980s standing by a wall of bricks, a homeless high school girl in London named Rocks, and a fractious ménage a trois in a cabin made of wood.
Black Bear
Wri/Dir: Lawrence Michael Levine
It’s summertime in upstate New York. Allison (Aubrey Plaza) is an actress, a director and a writer. She’s staying in a beautiful wooden house, completely off the grid as she tries to write a new screenplay. But she’s easily distracted from her work: there’s a ramp running down from the house into a wide wooden doc on a placid lake. Then there’s the attractive couple who own the house and live there: Blair (Sarah Gadon), a feminist and former dancer, pregnant with their first child; and Gabe (Christopher Abbott) her bearded husband who holds antediluvian views. But freindy banter over wine and dinner turns to bitter bickering, with Allison caught between the two. Blair is convinced that Gabe is cheating on her with Allison. Tension builds until it explodes… leading to a dangerous outcome.
But wait! It’s not over.
We now watch the same scene again, but this time Allison 
and Gabe are married and own the cabin and Blair is the visiting actress. And they’re no longer alone: they’re actually shooting a movie, which Gabe is directing, surrounded costumes, makeup, camera, script, continuity, ADs and everyone else. And Allison (the actress playing the role) thinks Gabe – the director not the character “Gabe” (played by a bearded lookalike) – is fooling around with Blair, both in the script they’re shooting and off-set. So Allison is guzzling Jack Daniels straight from the bottle, the crew is all 
stoned on cannabis, and a big black bear is lurking outside. Can they finish making the movie? Which part is real, the first act or the second act? Or is it all just a meta illusion?
Black Bear is a fascinating study of brain-twisting double-think, as well as a slapstick comedy and living room drama. But does it work? I think it does, and that’s because of the great acting by the three. Aubrey Plaza is the queen of indies, always great, and in this film playing a slinky and sly independent woman almost losing it. Abbott and Gadon are equally good, each playing two very different versions of the same role, almost like an exercise in acting school.
Black Bear is a marvelous intellectual exercise that’s also fun to watch.
18 to Party
Wri/Dir: Jeff Roda
It’s September in the mid-1980s in a small town in New York. A group of 14-year-old friends are gathering outside a club where a big party is supposed to happen that night. But the doorman says no entry until the older teens are there. So they meet around the corner in a vacant lot, to catch up after summer vacation. They don’t have to worry about being out late; all the grownups in town are at a meeting about UFOs. There are two computer nerds, two former best friends, Kira and Missy (Ivy Miller, Taylor Richardson), an introverted artist, and best buddies Shel and Brad. But these friendships are built on strict hierarchies. Shel (Tanner Flood) is self-conscious kid who idolizes Brad (Oliver Gifford) a star soccer player. But a girl has a crush on Shel not Brad. Will they make out? Kira and Missy both hold festering grudges. And one friend is missing from 
the picture: Lanky (James Freedson-Jackson). Something major happened over the summer, and rumours abound. Is he in prison? Reform school? Or is everything just like it used to be? And hanging over them all is a suicide epidemic, with half a dozen kids at their school dead. There’s bullying, sexual insecurities, internalized anger and alienation. And a gun someone brought that night. Can these fragile friendships last through the evening? And will they actually get into the party?
18 to Party is a social drama that draws on movies from the 80s, sort of a combination of The Breakfast Club (but not as commercial and retrogressive) and River’s Edge (but not as creepy). It’s dressed up with the hairstyles, clothes and music from that era, but the story is all it’s own. It’s shot in a very small area, like a play, where people exit and enter and cross the stage, but the camera seldom leaves the brick-wall area. The characters work, because while some of them fit classic stereotypes, they’re all multi layered. And the film deals with prejudices and themes unique to that era. I haven’t seen any of the actors before but they play their parts very well, especially Ivy Miller as the rebel, Tanner Flood as the main character and James Freedson-Jackson as the loose cannon.
This film’s worth seeing.
Rocks
Dir: Sarah Gavron
Rocks (Bukky Bakray) is a young woman who goes to an all-girl London highschool. She’s warm, funny, clever and buoyant, with a close circle of friends. Her bestie Sumaya (Kosar Ali) helps her with her first tampon – they’re that close. She lives with her little brother Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu) and their mom, originally from Lagos, Nigeria. (Their dad died years earlier.) But one day, her mom doesn’t come home from the bakery where she works. Turns out she was fired two weeks earlier. Then Emmanuel notices the food in the fridge has gone bad – the power was cut off. And when, coming home from school, she notices some officials at their door, she realizes it’s time to get out of there.
So she heads out, exploring London while asking her school friends for sleepovers. She brings her brother everywhere, who, in turn, carries a little frog in a terrarium that he got from school. She takes care of Emmanuel he protects his friog. But as her money runs out and stress grows, she’s increasingly alienated from her friends. Will the social workers track her down? Will her mother ever come back? And what 
about Emmanuel?
Rocks – which debuted at TIFF last year – is an excellent high school drama told in that super-realistic European style. It’s a different sort of coming-of-age drama, with kids facing much harsher conditions than you usually see in movies. But it’s not depressing. While there are some heavy tear-jerk scenes, its mainly funny, surprising and upbeat. It explores underground contemporary London, like sketchy hoods, makeup artists, pompous school teachers, and a fascinating portrayal of a Somali family. And Bukky Bakray is really, really good as Rocks.
I liked this movie.
Rocks, 18 to Party, and Black Bear are all playing theatrically in select theatres today – check your local listings, or are available digitally or Video on Demand.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
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.
Not about the US election. Films reviewed: The Crossing, The Kid Detective, Major Arcana
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I’m recording this on Thursday before the US election has been settled. So with all the tension and stress, it’s a perfect time to watch some entertainment entirely unrelated to politics. This week I’m looking at three new movies about growing up. There are Norwegian children facing adult responsibilities; a grown-up kid detective fighting real crime; and a man trying to grow up and act his age.
The Crossing (Flukten over grensen)
Dir: Johanne Helgeland
It’s Christmastime in 1942. Norway is occupied by Nazi Germany with the blessings of the Quisling government. Food is rationed and times are tough but life goes on. Gerda (Anna Sofie Skarholt) is a little girl with rosy cheeks and blond hair. She’s obsessed with the Three Musketeers and wears a floppy hat, a cloak (made from an old apron) and brandishes a pie cutter: en garde, rogue! But one day she spies her older brother Otto (Bo Lindquist-Ellingsen) through a window –he’s at a Nazi meeting! Their parents are firmly opposed to the occupation… why is Otto there? Meanwhile, strange things are happening at home –the cocoa is disappearing… and their arents keep talking about sacks of potatoes. Things come to a head when the police bang on the door in the middle of the night. As they’re 
taken away their parents shout the Christmas presents are in the basement! Take them to your aunt Vigdis! What do they mean? Turns out there are two kids their age hidden behind a wall. Daniel (Samson Steine) and Sarah (Bianca Ghilardi-Hellsten) a brother and sister just like Otto and Gerda except they’re Jewish. With their parents in jail, now it’s up to Gerda and Otto to take them across the border to neutral Sweden. Can they take Daniel and Sarah to safety? Or will they be caught?
The Crossing is an adventure story about friendship and family in a wartime setting. It’s a kids-against-grown-ups situation – most of the good adults have been arrested, while the bad ones – Nazi and local collaborators – seem to be everywhere. They are real life villains, almost witches and monsters in the children’s eyes. There are good people too, but it’s hard to know who to trust. Gerda is excited by their journey, Otto is reluctant to join them, while for proud Daniel and innocent Sarah it’s a matter of life and death. Though made for children, the movie is full of action, close calls and near escapes. It’s also a tear jerker, with some every emotional scenes. Though fictional and clean-scrubbed, it’s an exciting look back at adventures in occupied Norway.
The Kid Detective
Wri/Dir: Evan Morgan
When Abe Applebaum was little (Adam Brodie) he was the smartest kid in town. He solved mysteries at school, figuring out who broke into a locker or cheated on a test. He worked out of his treehouse. His fame grew – the pop shop owner promised him free icecream for life, and the town chipped in to get him a real detective’s office. But people grow up and things change. A 10 year old caught snooping for clues in a little girl’s closet is adorable; for a man in his thirties it’s not cute at all. His reputation tanked when he failed to solve the mystery of a missing girl. Now, Abe is an alcoholic detective, eating alone in neon-lit diners, and addicted to anti-depressants. But things take a turn when he is approached by an innocent student named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse). They soon uncover clues – a photo of a naked woman in a tiger mask and some origami roses – that harken back to the disappearance 20 years earlier. 
Is he just a wash out? Or will the former kid detective solve this new, terrible mystery and regain his self worth?
The Kid Detective is a totally watchable and cute comedy drama. It starts as a high concept movie – what happens to heroes from kids’ books (like Encyclopedia Brown) – when they grow up? It’s full of kid-ified versions of cinema noir clichés, seen through a mist of bittersweet adult nostalgia and small town life. It starts out a bit slow and silly, but picks up quite nicely. I saw this at TIFF immediately after a shockingly violent horror movie, and it left me with just the right combination of watchable entertainment and warm feelings (with an unexpected and shocking twist). I thought I’d hate it, but I actually liked this movie.
Major Arcana
Wri/Dir: Josh Melrod
Dink (Ujon Tokarski), who is far from dinky, is a tall and rangy alcoholic drifter travelling across America looking for work as a carpenter. He’s a fit man in his thirties, with long hair, a scraggly blond beard; sort of a homeless Jesus. Four years ago, he left his depressed town in rural Vermont under a dark cloud, vowing never to come back. But like the prodigal son, here he is again. His father died leaving him a broken-down shack, some cash and 50 acres of forest. And he’s off drugs and alcohol now, living clean and sober. So he decides to turn his life around.
He pitches a tent and thinks about his future. In the morning he begins, spontaneously, to build a wooden home from scratch with his bare hands. He fells trees with an axe and chainsaw, cuts beams and clears a field dragging lumber across the forest floor. He survives on aerosol cheese and uncooked hotdogs. But his past still haunts him: his shrewish, gambling mom (Lane Bradbury) and his former lover, Sierra (Tara Summers). She’s voluptuous but tough, slapping his face for past transgressions on one night, but showing up at his tent on another. And Dink is still helplessly in love with her. Will he
complete his task? Will Sierra leave her boyfriend? And can he show his face in a town that hates him?
Major Arcana — the title refers to a tarot card reading that Sierra does for Dink – is about major changes, life lessons and destiny. It’s a bumpy love story, and a drama about a man trying to redeem himself. While there are some revelations and conflicts this is mainly a meditative look at a man building a cabin in the woods. It sounds kinda dull, but it’s actually a really soothing, healing and life-affirming film. There are hints at spirituality, but it’s not sanctimonious or heavy handed. There’s enough nudity, sex, pain and misery — this is no Sunday school – to keep you watching. The measured pace and natural beauty makes this movie an incredibly relaxing and pleasant experience.
Not my normal choice of film, but I quite liked it.
The Crossing is one of many movies that played digitally at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Fall edition; The Kid Detective opens theatrically today across Canada; and Major Arcana is available for viewing on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Life changes. Films reviewed: Dating Amber, No Hard Feelings, Keyboard Fantasies: the Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story at #InsideOut30
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall festival season continues with Toronto’s Inside Out LGBT festival playing now both digitally and at drive-ins through the weekend. So this week I’m looking at three movies playing at Inside Out. There’s love amongst refugees in present-day Germany, an odd-ball relationship in Ireland in the 90s, and a Canadian musician whose fantasies finally come true in his seventies.
Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn Copeland Story
Dir: Posey Dixon
Beverly is a musician who grows up in a comfortable middle class home in post-war Philadelphia. Her father is a classical pianist and her mother sings spirituals at church. They send her to McGill in the early 1960s, where she is one of the first black students in her discipline, and where she comes out as a lesbian, virtually unheard of at the time, when homosexuality was still illegal in Canada. Later, she moves to Toronto where the Yorkville scene is nurturing folk musicians like Joni Mitchell. She cuts an eponymous record album with famous players on backup, in a unique style, combining jazz with blues and classical music. Unfortunately it disappears without a trace. She finds work as a musician and on TV – she is a regular on Mr 
Dressup! – but eventually moves into an isolated house in Muskoka with her lover.
In the 1980s she discovers computer-generated electronic music and self-produces a cassette of beautiful passionate songs. It sells maybe a few dozen copies. But in the 2000s, two big things happen: First Beverly realizes he’s trans, and begins transitioning female-to-male; and in the 2010s his album Keyboard Fantasies from the mid-80s is rediscovered in a tiny record shop in Japan. The owner requests more copies – all of which sell out in a day or two. The record is remastered and re-released and goes viral, and Beverly in his mid-seventies, is sudden’y a star with a devoited following. He embarks on a European tour backed up by a band of millennial hipsters and adoring young fans.
Keyboard Fantasies is a fascinating documentary about Beverley Glenn Copeland’s life, music and career. It’s filled with unusual psychedelic imagery, and upside-down and negative-coloured camera work reflecting the sudden reversals of Beverly’s own gender and career. His music is captivating, his voice sublime, and his life story like none other. This tale of rebirth in old age is a beautiful history not to be missed.
No Hard Feelings (Futur Drei)
Dir: Faraz Shariat
Parvis (Benny Radjaipour) is a young, gay German with dyed blond hair who lives in his family home in Hannover. He’s into sex, dancing and Sailor Moon. His Iranian parents sought asylum there 40 years earlier, to give their kids a better life, but he feels unmotivated, cut-off and trapped in limbo between two worlds. Raised within German pop-culture he knows nothing about Iranian dance or music. At home he speaks Farsi with a German accent, but the men he meets in gay bars constantly ask “where are you from?” (He’s from there!) But his life changes when, after being caught shoplifting, he is sentenced to community 
service as a translator at a refugee centre.
There he meets an adult sister and brother, a pair that seem almost joined at the hip, who eventually become his friends. They live together almost like lovers. Banafshe (Banafshe Hourmazdi) is outgoing and savvy, fluent in German, but facing deportation back to Iran. Her brother Amon (Eidin Jalali) is a nice guy but a bit stand-offish. He tells the flamboyant Parvis not to be seen with him at the refugee centre; his friends told him gayness is contagious. But the situation changes when the brother and sister spend the night at Parvis’s home. Parvis and Amon become lovers but are forced to keep it on the down low, constantly searching for secret places they 
can meet undetected. Will their love last? Can Amon and Bana gain refugee status in Germany or will she be deported? And can Parvis find his identity both within his family and in the larger German gay community?
No Hard Feelings is a touching and realistic drama about cultural and sexual alienation set within the vast and lethargic bureaucracy of the country’s immigration machine. It’s a distinctly German story, but one told mainly in Farsi and from that point of view. Good acting with some beautiful cinematography as well as occasional experimental, stylized footage. This is a great story about a subculture rarely represented on film. And it won the Inside Out prize for Best First Feature.
Dating Amber
Wri/Dir: David Freyne
It’s Ireland in 1995. Homosexuality was decriminalized just two years earlier, divorce is still against the law, and sex education is taught by nuns. Eddie (Fionn O’Shea: Handsome Devil) is a student at a rural high school outside of Dublin near an army base. He’s wants to become a cadet to please his dad but he’s not the right type; he’s frail, naïve and skittish. And he has a crush on his (male) math teacher. Amber (Lola Petticrew) is a plain-talking girl with blue streaks in her hair, who walks like she’s wearing army boots. She lives in a trailer with her mom since her father died. She’s saving up enough money to move to London after graduation to open an anarchist bookstore. She likes punk rock, but hates penises – they make her “vom” she says. Like Eddie, she’s bullied on a daily basis. Why? Because they’re both gay (though 
Eddie won’t admit it). So Amber comes up with a plan. Let’s pretend to be a couple until we graduate, so they’ll leave us alone. Will it work? Will it last? And what will it lead to?
Dating Amber is a terrific coming-of-age comedy about an unusual relationship in rural Ireland. It draws on a wry nostalgia for the 90s – fashion, hairstyles, pop music and attitudes — to construct some very real, funny characters. It’s romantic, hilarious, and deeply touching. This is a great movie.
Dating Amber, No Hard Feelings, and Keyboard Fantasies: the Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story are all playing at the Inside Out Festival which continues through the weekend. Go to insideout.ca for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
More coming of age movies. Films reviewed: Kajillionaire, Summerland, Nadia, Butterfly
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is over but Toronto’s fall film festival Season has just begun, but with a difference this year. Many of the festivals, here and abroad, that were cancelled in the spring are now popping up in the fall. Look out for Inside Out, The Cannes film fest, SXSW, Toronto’s Japanese film fest, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Planet in Focus, Rendezvous with Madness, ReelAsian, ImagineNative, Toronto Palestine Film Fest – which is on right now – and many more.
This week, though, I’m looking at three new indie coming-of-age movies. There’s an Olympic athlete who swims the butterfly; a gay virgin playing catfish with a guy he meets online; and a young woman born under the net of a family of grifters.
Kajillionaire
Wri/Dir: Miranda July
Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) is a young woman born into a family of scammers. With her mom and dad (Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins) they plan low-level cons and split the proceeds three ways. Most of it goes to pay for food and rent: they live in an office located directly beneath a bubble factory that extrudes pink foam into their home twice a day. They’re always working; no time wasted on frivolities like holidays, presents or birthday dinners. No phoney-baloney words like “dear” or “hon”. Even her name is a scam: they called her Old Dolio after an elderly homeless guy who won a lottery, in the hope that he would leave her all his money when he died. (He didn’t.)
So Old Dolio grows up emotionally stunted and starved for 
affection. Now she’s in her early twenties living a loveless and strangely sheltered existence. She’s nervous and introverted. But everything changes when Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) – a voluptuous young woman her parents meet on a plane – says she wants to join their gang and pull off a big con. She’s Dolio’s exact opposite: self-confident, sexy and talkative. Someone she can spend time with. But is she a friend? A rival? A mark? Or something else entirely?
Kajillionaire is a weird and wonderful dark comedy, laden with odd, quirky characters. Evan Rachel Wood is fantastically deadpan as the awkward, stilted Dolio. It’s told in a series of linked tableaus about a strange family of socially inept, but inoffensive, criminals. It’s also a coming-of-age drama about a 26-year-old woman experiencing life away from her domineering parents for the first first time. Great film.
Summerland
Dir: Lankyboy
Bray (Chris Ball) is a naïve gay virgin in love. He met a guy named Shawn on an online, Christian dating site, and now they’re going to meet in person. The planned meeting is at a music festival called Summerland in a southwestern desert. Bray wants to go there with his best friend Oliver (Rory J Saper) – a young guy from London in America on a student visa. They share a house together. Oliver’s dating a beautiful young woman named Stacy (Maddie Phillips) who lives in a mansion but wants to leave it and move in with Oliver. She can’t stand her stepfather. There are three problems: Oliver’s visa has expired so he has to move back to England (but Stacy doesn’t know). Bray has been texting Shawn using Stacy’s selfies. Shawn thinks he’s been communicating with a girl, not a gay guy named Bray. And the car they plan to use has broken down. So Tracy decides to join their road trip to Summerland using her stepdad’s RV.
They set off on a journey down the west coast, passing through Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Stacy wants to listen to audio books on an ancient Sony Walkman to 
improve her mind. But Oliver has other plans. He has a briefcase full of strange, new psychedelic drugs for them to sample on their way. Oliver and Stacy are constantly having noisy sex in the RV, while Bray is holding out for his one true love. Will they make it to Summerland? Will Oliver tell Stacy he’s moving back to England? Will Bray ever meet Shawn? And if he does will he admit he’s the one who’s been catfishing him – pretending he’s a woman online – all this time?
Summerland is a simple, endearing road comedy. It’s full of interesting characters they meet on the way, like Oliver’s honey-badger drug dealer, an existential new age philosopher, and a gay black wizard named Khephra who enters Bray’s brain.
Summerland is a funny movie, easy to watch.
Nadia, Butterfly
Wri/Dir: Pascale Plante (Fake Tattoos)
It’s the 2020 Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan. Nadia (Katerine Savard) is an Olympic swimmer from Québec. She’s been training since the age of ten and now, in her early twenties, is one of the fastest butterfly swimmers in the world. She lives a highly regimented life: home schooling, intense training, and a restricted diet. She’s massaged, prodded, tested and poked all day long – her body is a communal effort. But this will be her last competition – she’s retiring from competitive swimming to go back to school. And she leaves on a high note, winning a bronze medal in medley with the other three on her team: bilingual Karen (back stroke), newby Jess (breast), and her best friend Marie Pierre (Ariane Mainville) on freestyle. The two have been training together for a decade; Marie — she’s in her early thirties — is like a big sister to Nadia. And now that their races – and drug tests – are finished, she vows to take Nadia on a blow-out weekend 
inside the Olympic Village and out and about on the streets of Tokyo. Nadia’s been around the world, but only seen its swimming pools. It’s her first chance to explore on her own, to buy junk food from vending machines, get drunk… and maybe have sex. She meets a Lebanese fencer at a dance party and takes MDMA for the first time. But will she really leave competitive sports in her prime?
Nadia, Butterfly is a coming-of-age drama about a young athlete on the verge of leaving the only life she’s ever known. It covers a three-day period as she struggles over her decision. The film is immersed in the world of competitive sports, both the public side – its anthems, mascots and medals – and its hidden life. The film is saturated with the four colours of flags and 
uniforms: red, aqua, black and white. It’s a realistic, behind-the-scenes look at the Olympics, from the athletes’ perspectives. While I’m not really an Olympic fan (the movie was shot in Tokyo last summer) it still kept me constantly interested, if not deeply moved. But it’s the great performances of Savard and Mainville (as Nadia and Marie-Pierre) that really make the movie work.
Nadia, Butterfly is now playing in Toronto; check your local listings. Kajillionaire and Summerland open today.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Crises. Films reviewed: Band Ladies, Cane Fire, Castle in the Ground
(Audio: no music)
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
I’m recording from my home, once again, looking for ways to entertain you all while movie theatres are out of the picture. So this week I’m looking at three new films, a documentary, a web series, and a dark Canadian drama. There’s a filmmaker discovering Hawai’i’s past; a group of women dealing with a collective midlife crisis; and a mother and son facing the opioid crisis.
Band Ladies
Dir: Molly Flood
Five bored, middle-aged women meet at a local bar to discuss Victorian romances for their regular book club. There’s Marnie (Kate Fenton), a stay-at- home mom with a lackluster life; Chloe (Lisa Michelle Cornelius) a careerist lawyer troubled by her Big Pharma employer; Cindy (Vicki Kim) an aspiring musician / bartender; Penny (Dana Puddicombe) a rich celeb who could pass as a Dragons Den panelist; and Stephanie (Kirstin Rasmussen) a drunk dead-ender recenty dumped by her longtime girlfriend.
But when their inhibitions are loosened by a few bottles of plonk, Chloe storms the stage to tell her secret truth: her bosses peddle opiods to children! Someone captures her rant on their phone and posts it online, and boom! the clip goes viral. But what can they do with their 15 minutes of fame? Why, form a band, of course. What kind? Punk. But can five 
middle-aged women shake up their lives and transform themselves overnight into an 80s style punk band? Or is this just a pipe dream?
Band Ladies is a fast-moving, cute and clever web series. It zooms through the five characters’ lives in six quick, 10-minute episodes, a crash course on the dos and don’ts of starting a band. The actors write their own characters’ lyrics and perform the songs on their first “tour” – as the opening act at a Parry Sound bar. It’s sharp, witty and empathetic – and the whole series is over in an hour.
I like this web series.
Cane Fire
Dir: Anthony Banua-Simon
Beautiful Kaua’i: a tropical paradise where happy Hawaiians harvest sugar cane and pineapples on plantations; where luxury hotels preserve ancient ceremonies by lighting torches each night; and the setting of hundreds of Hollywood features 
shot there. But is that the whole truth? The locals tell a very different story.
This new feature documentary pulls the veil off the island’s past and retells its story through its own people’s eyes. When the US toppled its government and colonized the islands Kaua’i was taken over by five families who controlled most of the land. Hawaiians – and workers imported from places like China, Japan and the Philippines – were kept down by the sugar and 
pineapple plantation owners. Unions were busted, and organizers fired, demoted or sent away. Luxury hotels were built on sacred burial grounds and their culture co-opted or invented by settlers to attract tourists. Stars like Elvis and John Wayne were featured in movies shot there while locals were background decorations. And now locals are further marginalized by the ultra-rich people like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – buying huge tracts of 
land for their own personal use.
Cane Fire is partly a personal travelogue – the filmmaker goes to Kaua’i to find out about his great grandfather – partly a look at Hollywood’s sanitized depiction of the place; and partly a chance for the people’s own stories to be told. This includes local activists reclaiming the ruins of the once famous Koko Palms hotel built on sacred lands. The title Cane Fire comes from a movie of the same name about local unrest on the island. That movie is now lost, but the documentary fills in the blanks normally missing in depictions of Hawai’i.
Cane Fire is an excellent film.
Castle in the Ground
Wri/Dir: Joey Klein
It’s a cold, dark day in Sudbury, Ontario. Henry (Alex Wolff) is a good son, taking time off from school to take care of his dying mom (Neve Campbell). He feeds her crushed prescription pills each day to help ease her pain. But noise from across the hall – she lives in a rundown tenement – keeps bothering her. So Henry bangs on the door to investigate. There he meets Ana (Imogen Poots) – a sketchy woman with hollow eyes – and some of her unsavoury friends. She’s a cunning addict on the methadone wagon, jonesing for her next fix. And her dealer (a kid she calls Polo Boy (Keir Gilchrist) for his designer tracksuits) says she stole his bag of pills, and the scary guys are asking for it back. Ever the gallant one, Henry steps in to protect her, but soon is drawn 
into her hellish universe of guns, crime and opioids. Can he emerge unscathed with only a hammer as a weapon? And what about those close to him?
Castle in the Ground has a lot of things I avoid in movies – I find movies all about people slowly dying or struggling with addiction, more depressing than interesting. Luckily, this movie, while dealing with these very real phenomena, manages to avoid the moralistic tone that usually smothers stories like this. Instead it jacks up the thriller aspects – drug 
dealers wearing creepy baby masks, car chases, and narrow escapes from dimly-lit drug parties – couched in a constant, surreal haze. Yes, it’s bleak, but the bleakness is mollified by aburdist humour, fascinating details, and stunning night photography, lit with the glare of headlights and the acid glow of neon. And when actors like Imogen Poots and Alex Wolff put their all into a movie like this, it’s worth paying attention.
Band Ladies is streaming now on Highball.tv; Castle in the Ground opens today on VOD; and Cane Fire is having its world premier at this year’s Hot Docs.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
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