Big and small. Films Reviewed: Bad Shabbos, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning PLUS Inside-Out
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Movies tend to fall into two categories: big-budget blockbusters there to provide spectacles on enormous screens, and small, low budget indie films that tell an intimate story. This week, I’m looking at one of each: An action thriller about a secret agent protecting the planet from evil AI; and a dark comedy about an extended family trying to have dinner. But before that, I’m talking a bit about some new movies opening at Toronto’s Inside Out Film Festival.
Inside Out
This year marks the 35th Anniversary of Inside Out, Toronto’s 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival showing features and shorts from Canada and around the world. The Festival runs from May 23-June 1st. Here are a few of the films there that caught my attention.
Move Ya Body: The Birth of House
…is a new doc by Elegance Bratton (The Inspection: 2022) that uses historic footage and music tracks along with interviews with the pioneers of house music to trace the development of dance music in the 1990s from a single club in Chicago called The Warehouse to nightclubs in London, Tokyo and around the world. The doc concentrates on the lives of musicians DJs, producers and entrepreneurs who were mainly black and gay who treated House as an expression of race and sexuality in a segregated Chicago.
Starwalker
Co-Wri/Dir: Corey Payette
Star, a 2-spirited, Oji-Cree falls for Levi, a guy he meets in a Vancouver park who introduces him to a drag sanctuary called House of Borealis, ruled by Mother. It’s there that Star, who grew up in foster homes, comes out of his shell as an Anishnaabe princess. A musical dramatic romance Starwalker tells its story with all-original songs belted out by powerful voices in solos, duets and choruses, both onstage and off.
Lucky, Apartment
Co-Wri/Dir Garam Kangyu
A young lesbian couple in Seoul buy a condo together but are troubled by the bad smells rising from the apartment beneath them. While one is more concerned about her career, her lover wants to preserve something from the old woman who died there. A true tearjerker, about women in the workplace, queer invisibility, families and lost lives, Lucky Apartment is a deeply moving film.
These are just three of the films now playing at Inside Out.
Bad Shabbos
Co-Wri/Dir: Daniel Robbins
It’s Friday night on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and, like every Friday night a family is getting together for dinner. David (Jon Bass) is there with his fiancé, Meg (Meghan Leathers); Abby (Milana Vayntrub) with her boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman), and Adam (Theo Taplitz) the youngest who still lives at home. They’re there to see their parents Ellen and Richard (Kyra Sedgwick, David Paymer). The candles are set, the brisket’s in the oven. But this is a special night, a look-who’s-coming-to-dinner night, because the meal is for the Jewish sabbath, but the guests, Meg’s devout Catholics parents, are driving in from Milwaukee. The future in-laws are going to meet for the first time, and David and Meg are worried about everything that could go wrong. You see, her parents don’t like arguments at the dinner table… but Abby and Ben are fighting, Adam (who’s on meds) sometimes explodes, Dad likes forcing his pop-psychology theories on everyone and there’s more than a bit of friction between Mom and Meg. Luckily, they all love their building’s doorman Jordan (Cliff Smith, Method Man in the Wu-tang Clan), who assures them he’ll drop by at an appropriate time to smooth the waters.
Meg’s parents are running late, but could arrive any moment, when… something terrible happens, leaving one of the dinner party guests dead… possibly even killed. And as each of the guests discovers what has happened, and who might be held responsible they decide to get the body out of the building before Meg’s parents arrive. But the longer it takes, the less possible it becomes.
Bad Shabbos is dark, drawing room comedy with personality 
conflicts, mistaken identities, and lotos secrets. It’s cute and funny, with excellent comic timing, good acting and enough quirky original characters that play against stereotypes to keep it interesting. I’s very much an ensemble, with each character getting their moment in the sun and no one hogging the camera, but a few stand out: Kyra Sedgwick and David Paymer as the parents, Catherine Curtin as Meg’s mom, Theo Taplitz as the coddled and neurotic youngest son, Adam, and of course Method Man as Jordan. Bad Shabbos is a good social comedy.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Co-Wri/Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
The world is on the brink: an aggressive AI program (known as the Entity) is taking over everything. And that everything includes the controls behind all atomic bombs. The entity doesn’t care if every human disintegrates. So it’s up to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his Impossible Mission team — on direct orders from the US President — to stop it. His mission involves entering a defunct Soviet submarine where the AI programs was once kept, to locate a small but crucial piece of machinery that can stop it. His team includes Grace (Hayley Atwell) a notorious pickpocket and Paris, a cold-blooded assassin; plus most of his usual buddies, like Luther and Benji. But a mysterious supervillain villain named Gabriel (Esai Morales) is doing everything he can to stop him, so he can take control of the Entity for his own nefarious ways. And the entity itself has brainwashed millions to form an invisible army, ready to pop out of nowhere to stop Ethan’s mission. Can Ethan and his Scooby gang save the planet from nuclear destruction?
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is an action/thriller about big things like saving the world. It has atrocious dialogue and a ridiculous plot that makes absolutely no sense. The scenes with American politicians and generals are unintentionally hilarious. It’s about 3 hours long — they could easily have made it in 2. And like many contemporary movies, it doesn’t know how to deal with abstract, digital or AI 
weapons, so they replace it with something physical, a McGuffin the hero can hold in his hand. Which, again, makes no sense — you can’t stop a rogue computer program with just a special device, but, hey— it’s a movie.
So, putting all that aside, is it a good movie? Yes, it is. Not in the normal sense, but as entertainment. It’s spectacular, exciting and engrossing. I mentioned the corny dialogue, but the movie also has two very long sequences with no dialogue whatsoever. One has Ethan Hunt inside an abandoned Soviet nuclear submarine on the ocean’s floor in the arctic, that’s filled with seawater and is gradually rolling to greater depths. This scene is as eerie as it is spectacular, feeling as if you’re trapped inside a 1970s Tarkovsky movie. There’s also a scene straight out of a WWI movie, with two pilots aboard propeller planes have fistfights… in midair! Again, no dialogue but lots of exciting action. And I gotta admit, seeing it on a ginormous IMAX screen doesn’t hurt either.
So if you’re in the mood to travel from the north pole to South Africa, in every sort of strange transportation, check out Mission Imposisble.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning and Bad Shabbos both open in Toronto this weekend; check your local listings. And go to insideout.ca for information and tickets.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Same-sex couples. Films reviewed: Unicorns, Solo, Rotting in the Sun
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in October with ImagineNative — brilliant films and art by and about indigenous people in Canada and around the world from 17-22; and Planet in Focus, the International Environmental film festival, with features, docs and talks on nature, activism, and climate change, from the 12-22.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies about same-sex relationships, two of which played at #TIFF23. There’s a straight mechanic who unwittingly falls for a drag queen in a London pub; a Quebecois drag queen who falls for a French one in a Montreal bar; and a Chilean artist who meets an American influencer on a nude beach in Mexico.
Unicorns
Co-Dir: Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd
Luke (Ben Hardy) is a mechanic who lives in Essex, near London. He works at his father’s garage, and spends the rest of his time with his 5 year old son. His wife abandoned them when his kid was still a baby, but luckily his dad will babysit if he’s out on a date. For Luke dating usually means furtive sex and one-night stands with women he hooks with online. But one day, after leaving a London curry house, he stumbles into a nearby nightclub, and is riveted by the eyes of a beautiful woman performing an alluring dance on stage. Clearly, the feelings are mutual — Aysha seeks him out afterwards, for a snog and a grope at the stage door. Only afterwards does Luke realize the woman is actually a man in drag. He freaks and leaves. Aysha (Jason Patel) is disappointed — he thought Luke knew they were in a South Asian drag bar. But Luke is straight and almost sickened by what happened.
Still, there is something there. Luke agrees to act as a paid driver (and unpaid bodyguard) for Aysha and her fellow drag queens. They need transportation to get them safely to private “gaysian” (gay+asian) parties on the down low, in places like Manchester. 
The tips she gets at these parties pays her rent. Gradually, they get to know one another better. When Aysha really hits it off with his son, Luke starts thinking maybe she is just the woman he’s looking for. Problem is, he’s not trans, he’s a man named Afik. Aysha is just his drag name. Will the attraction still be there if Aysha goes away? And can a straight white man and a gay South Asian drag queen form a couple?
Unicorns is a poignant, romantic drama about two people from two sides of a deep divide. And while there is some shocking violence and unexpected plot turns, the filmmakers keep it real and subtle. This is co-director James Krishna Floyd’s (of mixed heritage) first feature, and does an excellent job of it. Ben Hardy is a well-known heart throb and soap star in the UK, while Jason Patel is a newcomer — this is his first role. Luckily, the two have amazing chemistry and are compelling to watch.
This is a good first movie.
Solo
Wri/Dir: Sophie Dupuis
Simon (Theodore Pellerin) is the youngest drag artist at a Montreal bar. He’s naive, trusting and sexually inexperienced. He performs elaborate acts dressed in outfits his older sister helps design. And he always looks forward to visiting his Dad, stepmother and sister for Sunday brunch. His mother is an internationally famous opera star, who left the family for greener pastures when he was a teen. But everything changes when Olivier (Félix Maritaud) a charismatic older guy in his late twenties shows up at the drag bar direct from Paris. Simon is blown away by his sex-centred drag performances, and wants to learn from him. Soon they are an item, in and out of bed, and onstage. Simon will do 
anything Olivier wants: moving in together, staying away from his family, even how Simon should perform his own acts.
But the concessions all seem to be one-way. Olivier sleeps with other men, insults Simon’s judgement, and plays mental tricks on him. Around this time, Simon hears some shocking news: his mother is coming to Montreal, back from a triumphant tour off Europe. He hasn’t seen her in years, so this will be the crucial reunion Simon has been longing for and waiting for for so long. How will their meeting go? What role will Olivier play? And will she come to watch his Solo drag performance?
Solo is a moving and tender portrayal — set within Montreal’s drag community — of a young man forced to face his demons and figure out who are his friends and who are his enemies. I know very little about the drag scene (I’ve never seen Rupaul’s Drag Race, for example) but it doesn’t require outside knowledge to understand what the movie’s trying to say. Theodore Pellerin is amazing as Simon, and — though much less sympathetic — so is Félix Maritaud. And for a movie about drag it’s surprisingly devoid of camp. If you’re looking for a tear-jerker with lots of musical performances, you’ll enjoy Solo.
Rotting in the Sun
Dir: Sebastian Silva
Sebastian Silva (Sebastian Silva) is a jaded Chilean artist and filmmaker who lives in an apartment in Mexico. He enjoys reading books about suicide and depression. When he’s not dodging work deadlines or dealing with construction noise in his minimalist apartment, he’s likely walking his dog Chima, doing pop art paintings of giant cartoony penises, or snorting bumps of pentobarbital. His beleaguered housekeeper Señora Vero (Catalina Saavedra, in a great performance) takes it all in, but never comments.
On the recommendation of a colleague he takes some time off to relax at a gay nude beach in Zicatela, but is non-plussed by all the body parts on display. When he almost drowns there, he meets Jordan Firstman (Jordan Firstman) an instagram influencer. Jordan thinks it’s Kismet — he saw one of Sebastian’s films just the night before, and here they both are washing up on shore. They must collaborate on a production. Sebastian is less 
enthusiastic, but Jordan insists. But when he arrives at Sebastian’s door in the city, he is nowhere to be seen. Is he ghosting him? Or has something really bad happened to Sebastian? And will Jordan ever solve this mystery?
Rotting in the Sun is a contemporary indie film in the style of a highly-sexualized comedy. It’s equal parts mystery, screwball comedy, and scathing social satire, with a fair amount of 
nonchalant, explicit sex. Silva reimagines Mexico as an uber-gay paradise, where the local park fountain has a statue of Michelangelo’s David, the beaches are packed with nude men, and every room in his apartment reveals an orgy behind closed doors. This constant decadence is contrasted with the panicky and naive Señora Vero desperately trying to hide Sebastian’s whereabouts. Silva and Firstman play exaggerated versions of themselves, to hilarious effect.
You know the expression “a bag of dicks”? This movie is a dump truck of dicks. But if you don’t mind looking at lots and lots and lots of penises, you’ll get a kick out of this shockingly subversive comedy.
Unicorns had its world premiere at TIFF; Solo had its Toronto premiere there and opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Rotting in the Sun — along with a selection of other films by Sebastian Silva — is now streaming on Mubi.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Gail Maurice about Rosie at #TIFF22
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s the 1980s in a working-class neighbourhood of Montréal. Fred is an artist whose day job is working at a sex boutique. Adopted as a child, she ran away from home at 16 and never 
looked back. Now she’s best friends with Flo and Mo, two gay streetwalkers who make up her current family. But she’s thrown for a loop when a social worker shows up at her door with a six-year-old girl, who says Fred is her closest living relative. What??
She tries to explain she’s close to eviction, living hand-to-mouth, she’s a Francophone while Rosie only speaks English, and knows absolutely nothing about raising a child. But who can resist a cutie-pie like Rosie?
ROSIE is a new, feel-good comedy/drama about life on the edge in 1980s Montreal. It deals with chosen families, 
marginalized groups, homelessness, and indigenous and queer people in urban settings. (Both Rosie and Fred were adopted as indigenous kids into white families)
The film is directed by actor and filmmaker Gail Maurice. It may be her first feature, but you’ve probably seen her unforgettable roles on TV shows like Trickster, and in movies like Night Raiders.
I spoke to Gail in Toronto via ZOOM.
ROSIE is having its World Premiere at #TIFF22 on Sept. 9th.
O Canada! Films reviewed: Jump Darling, Underplayed, Death of a Ladies’ Man
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There are tons of great movies finally opening up this week, including Night of the Kings which I reviewed last fall, one of my favourite movies of the year, at the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This week I’m looking at three new Canadian movies ready to be seen There are female DJs who want to be noticed, a Toronto drag queen who who wants to see his grandmother, and a Montreal poet who wonders why he keeps seeing his dead father.
Jump, Darling
Wri/Dir: Phil Connell
Russell (Thomas Duplessie) is an aspiring actor whose career is going nowhere. His only role? As Fishy Falters, a drag queen gig he landed at a Toronto gay bar called Peckers. And even that falls apart when he trips on his way to the stage in a symphony of disaster. His husband, a successful Bay Street lawyer who bankrolls his acting career, rubs salt in the wound: take some acting courses or go to. auditions, but no more drag, it embarrasses me.
Russell takes this as an ultimatum, packs up a suitcase and heads out the door. He lands up at his grandmother’s place in Prince Edward County to borrow her car os he can drive off to unknown parts.. She greets him at the door with a scream and a knife. Margaret (Cloris Leachman) lives alone. She was once a figure skater (I was hired by the Ice Capades! she says) and a formidable bridge player, but since her husband died she’s been frail, forgetful and depressed. Russel’s mom (Linda Kash) wants to send her off to an old-age home, but Margaret would rather die. So Russel agrees to stick around and
help take care of her. Meanwhile he starts frequenting a tiny bar in town, where he thinks his drag act could catch on. Will he pull Margaret out of the dumps? And will hr return to Toronto, triumphant?
Jump, Darling is a bittersweet family drama about a young gay man trying to express himself in the inly way he knows, and an elderly woman dealing with old age and loss. (The title Jump Darling refers to her husband’s suicide) This is a first time feature both for the director and Thomas Duplessie as Russell, and they pull it off quite nicely. The characters are three-dimensional not cookie-cutter. Of course it helps having the late, great Cloris Leachman in her final role, and Linda Kash who ties the two sides firmly together. This is a good movie.
Underplayed
Dir: Stacey Lee
The music business is vast and diverse, but not equitable. Did you know that of Billboard’s top 100 DJs, only 7 are women? Same holds true in the electronic music sector, even fewer studio producers are women. And only a tiny fraction of these are women of colour. Why are there so few and why don’t we ever hear about them? This documentary looks at the industry and its history, and follows a handful of female DJs, electronic musicians and producers as they play their music in clubs, concerts and festivals over the course one summer.
Many trailblazers in electronica — from Wendy Carlos to Daphne Oram — were women, but names like Moog dominate the collective memory. And in the electronic DJ world, at raves and festivals, women find it nearly impossible to get their proverbial feet in the door. 
The filmmakers talk to stars like Tokimonsta, musician Alison Wonderland, Toronto-based superstar Rezz, and newcomers like Tygapaw out of Brooklyn. The documentary shows both their professional lives — at concerts and in studios — and also gives them a soapbox to talk about the troubles they face on the road and in the workplace. Underplayed is an informative look at under-representation and equity in the electronic music world, with some cool digital graphics and great beats playing in the background.
Death of a Ladies’ Man
Wri/Dir: Matthew Bissonnette
Samuel O’Shea (Gabriel Byrne) is a Canadian poetry prof at McGill and a notorious philanderer. He sees his ex-wife Geneviève (Suzanne Clément) at Thanksgiving and Christmas along with his adult children. Josée (Karelle Tremblay) is a foul-mouthed artist who hangs out with a junkie, and his son Layton (Antoine Olivier Pilon) is a brawler for a minor league hockey team who is also gay. He meets them each once a week for lunch. But his life is falling apart. He drinks heavily and his creative output — he’s a writer — is zero. And when he catches his second wife in bed with another man, he is deeply offended — How dare she… he’s the adulterer, not her! But that’s not all.
His father (Brian Gleeson) is frequently visiting him at home. Problem is, he died in Ireland decades 
ago when Samuel was just a boy. Other hallucinations come and go: a female bodybuilder with a tiger’s head, and the grim reaper himself. Is he going crazy? Turns out Samuel has an inoperable tumour pressing on his brain. So he decides to turn his life around. He packs up and heads to Ireland, to write his novel. There he meets Charlotte (Jessica Paré) a Quebecoise former model who works in a corner. Is third time the charm? Will he beat his tumour? Will he ever stop boozing? And will he reconcile with the ones he loves?
Death of a Ladies Man, is a densely-packed, mood-heavy saga about an Irish-Canadian man in his sixties dealing with his life. 
Although it’s set in present day Montreal and Ireland, the movie has a very nostalgic feel, and it’s brimming with Canadiana.. The title comes from a Leonard Cohen song, whose music appears throughout the film. Samuel feels like equal parts Duddy Kravitz and Ginger Coffey, a Montreal everyman… all grown up. His son is named Layton (Irving Layton was Leonard Cohen’s poetry mentor.) When he leaves Canada the soundtrack instantly switches to Un Canadien Errant. He hallucinates figure-skating hockey players and fur trappers… Could he possibly be any more Canadian?
The movie — a Canadian-Irish co-production — runs into trouble with all the “meta” elements: it’s hard to tell whether you’re watching the character’s hallucinations, the plot of the book he’s writing, or the writer-director’s own fantasies. Everything centres on Samuel, and though Gabriel Byrne (who is great) is surrounded by some of Quebec’s best actors, they’re all only background figures.
Does it work? I think it does — it’s delightful to watch, wonderfully photographed and redolent with great Canadian music — just don’t mistake art for reality.
Underplayed and Jump, Darling are now playing, and Death of a Ladies’ Man opens today.
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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