Family-friendly pics at #TIFF24. Films reviewed: The Wild Robot, Sketch
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There’s lots happening in Toronto this weekend. At the Toronto Palestine Film Festival you can watch films and docs, go to concerts, art exhibitions, a brunch, workshops and discussions all weekend long, both online and at the Lightbox. And the Toronto Garlic Festival is on this Sunday on Spadina Road, with food, drinks, a garlic market and culture, too… including me! I’ll be giving a talk on garlic and the movies at 12:00 noon, with free admission.
But today I’m talking about two new, family-friendly movies that were featured at TIFF this year. There are monster drawings that come to life, and a robot stranded on an island that can talk to the animals.
Wild Robot
Co-Wri/Dir: Chris Sanders (Review: How to Train your Dragon)
It’s a small island in North America, sometime in the future. ROZZUM unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o) is a robot. She was built for family consumers, the product of a multinational corporation. Powered by AI, she speaks and understands multiple languages and is made to serve. Somehow her box has washed ashore on this island, but the expected suburban home is nowhere to be found. This place is uninhabited… by humans that is, but it’s teeming with wildlife. Deer and moose, bears and foxes, raccoons, porcupines, skunks, beavers, possums and all types of birds, insects and aquatic life. She sees animals ruthlessly killing and eating each other as part of their daily lives. She gazes at them all in wonder, but they regard her cautiously. She has no smell, can’t be eaten, but isn’t a predator either — what good is she?
But for the robot, it’s imperative she complete her assignment, any assignment. So she studies all the animals and learns to speak their languages. And when she rescues a newly-hatched gosling (Kit Connor) from a sly fox (Pedro Pascal), she has finally found her purpose in life: to take care of this newborn bird. You can call me 
Roz, she says, but the bird — who bonds with her the second he opens his eyes — would rather call her Mama. So Roz, the little bird, and the somewhat untrustworthy fox form a makeshift family, teaching the bird the facts of life as he grows up. But can they teach him to swim and fly before the great migration south for the winter?
The Wild Robot is an amazingly-moving animated film about nature and technology forming deep bonds of their own with humans nowhere to be seen. But the villains are all man-made. This is a thoroughly well-put-together movie, from the quirky characters, to the funny surprises, to the heart-stopping scenes of suspense. It’s a genuine tear-jerker, but with characters that are just loveable enough to care for, without making you cringe. Roz is a white enamel ball whose accordion arms can spring out and come back, and whose head has neat slots for add-on devices. Her whole body glows in different colours along the seams. I love the art direction, down to the 1950s woodsy, summer- camp font they use for the title. Based on a novel of the same time, it also borrows from classic kids’ literature like the Ugly Duckling, the Jungle Book and Doctor Doolittle, but it still feels completely original. It also features additional voices of Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, and Catherine O’Hara to name just a few.
I recommend this movie for people of all ages and most robots and animals, too.
Sketch
Wri/Dir: Seth Worley
It’s a small town somewhere in the US. Taylor Wyatt (Tony Hale) lives with his two pre-teen kids Amber (Bianca Belle) and Jack (Kue Lawrence) in a lovely home backing onto a small forest. They’ve all been down in the dumps since their mom died, so Taylor has gone out of his way to hide any pictures of her, to help the family get through this difficult period. And now he’s trying to sell the house — with the help of his sister Liz (D’Arcy Carden), a real estate agent. Maybe that will wipe the emotional slate clean. But it’s not working, as becomes clear when Taylor is called into the kids’ school to talk to the principal. Little Amber is accused of plotting to murder a classmate! And they have a drawing she made to prove it.
Luckily, the sensible guidance counsellor manages to defuse the situation right away. Amber is angry, right? So she gives her a sketch book where she can draw away all her frustrations, however she likes — the book is hers to keep and she doesn’t have to show it to anyone. Better to draw it than to do it, right?
Meanwhile, her brother Jack spends lots of time in the woods where he discovers a small pond that seems to have curative powers. It heals a cut on his hand, and fixes a family heirloom he broke. Maybe if he dumps a box of his mom’s ashes into the water, it will bring her back to life? But Amber finds out and this leads to a big fight, followed by Amber’s sketchbook falling into the pond. And that’s when all the scary monsters she drew with crayons and glitter, start coming to life.
Sketch is a delightful adventure about two kids trying to stop gigantic imaginary creatures — who have come to life — from destroying their town and killing all the people. It’s cute, it’s fun and it’s a bit scary. It’s also a touch psychological and moralistic but not enough to drag it down. Movies like this used to be fairly common, but nowadays it’s almost rare to find a movie that isn’t tied to a game, a toy, a Disney princess or a Marvel superhero. And the special-effect monsters are really cool. What other movie can you get a 30-foot- tall creature wreaking havoc in a cornfield that is clearly made of crayon scribbles? In his first feature, director Seth Worley has created a good, fun, stand-alone movie that kids will love, and parents can enjoy.
Sketch, and The Wild Robot both premiered at TIFF with Wild Robot opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Taviss Edwards and Melissa Peters about Secrets of the Forest
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Kids grow up hearing scary fairytales about the forests — it’s where witches live in gingerbread houses, and the big bad wolf is waiting for them… but are forests really dark, gloomy and dangerous? No! They’re places for exploring, foraging and keeping our planet safe. There are plants that can keep us clean, foods that can keep us healthy, and trees that can talk to us — well, kind of. But who holds these secrets of the forest?
Secrets of the Forest is a new TV series for kids that provides a fascinating, fun and informative look at nature in our forests. Using expert guests, animation and time-lapse photography,
in addition t the live action, it wipes away the myths, and provides a scientific way to learn more. The show is hosted by 10-year-old Taviss Edwards and is directed by Melissa Peters.
Melissa has a decade’s experience in kids’ TV as a host on TVO Kids’ The Space and later as writer and director of shows like Mittens and Pants, Backyard Beats, and The Fabulous Show 
with Fay & Fluffy. Taviss is a gifted young equestrian and actress who has also appeared in A Ghost Ruined My Life.
I spoke with Taviss Edwards and Melissa Peters here in Toronto via Zoom.
Secrets of the Forest is available on TVO Kids, TVOkids.com, YouTube and various digital TV services.
Magical kids. Films reviewed: The New Boy, Butterfly Tale, Once Within a Time
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You’ve heard of Peter Pan, right? He’s most famous for not growing up and for believing in fairies. And it’s true, kids are more likely to believe in magic than grown ups. This week, I’m looking at three new movies about the innocence and magic of childhood. There’s a disabled, teenaged butterfly that wants to migrate with his flock; an indigenous boy with magical powers sent to a church-run school; and a group of kids forced to face a fairytale apocalypse.
The New Boy
Wri/Dir: Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country)
It’s the 1940s at a remote Australian Benedictine monastery. Sister Eileen (Kate Blanchett) is excited because there’s a new student arriving soon. She runs the place, ever since the head Benedictine monk died — she keeps this detail a secret from the outside world. The new boy (Aswan Reid) is indigenous, can’t speak English, and has had virtually no contact with white Australia. He has blond hair and brown skin. He sleeps on the floor, not on a bed, and finds forks and spoons a mystery. At the same time, he can conjure up glowing particles to light his way, using just his hands. And he has magical powers: he can speak to trees, and cures people bitten by poisonous snakes.
The sisters teach him out to use an outhouse (which he finds both funny and revolting), and about western ways and foods. Above all, Sister Eileen wants to convert him to Christianity — she lives him deeply, and wants to save his soul. She uses a life-sized wooden statue of Jesus writhing on the cross as the catalyst. She hopes to change him completely, and ultimately to baptize him and give him a Christian name. Will he convert? And what will happen if he does?
The New Boy is a gentle, bittersweet look at religion,
colonization, forced assimilation and residential schools (known as boarding schools in Australia), as seen through one boy’s eyes. I found it both inspiring and tragic. Kate Blanchett is wonderful as the scheming but good-hearted nun, while young actor Aswan Reid is remarkable as the unnamed new boy. (The movie opens with a violent fight between him and a soldier in the bush, just one of many surprising scenes he manages to convey without uttering a single word.) Director Warwick Thornton based it partly on his own experiences as a boy in Alice Springs, and those personal details and feelings come through.
I liked The New Boy a lot.
Butterfly Tale
Dir: Sophie Roy
Patrick (Mena Massoud) is a young monarch butterfly who recently made the transition from caterpillar. He and his best friend Marty are looking forward to joining his village on their annual migration to Mexico. He is especially excited about spending quality time with the girl he’s crushing on, Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany). But there’s a problem. Patrick emerged from his cocoon with mismatched wings, so he’s disabled and can’t fly. And Marty is still a caterpillar. They are teased and bullied by the bigger butterflies as “butter fails”.
Worse still, Patrick’s mom, a leading flier in the “flutter” (what they call their butterfly community) wants him to stay home in the winter. But Patrick and Marty are determined to get there by hook or by crook. Jennifer, a strong flier, is pulling a leaf filled with milkweed so they can all eat on the way. Patric and Marty stowaway aboard that leaf! Little did they know they’ll face tornadoes, big box stores and angry birds posing life threatening dangers on the way. Will Patrick ever learn to fly? Will Marty ever make the transition from caterpillar to butterfly? And will Jennifer get over her hangups?
Butterfly Tale is an animated, coming-of-age road movie 
about anthropomorphic butterflies. They’re basically people, with human hair, faces, and bodies but with big butterfly wings coming out of their backs. They wear T-shirts and hoodies, and worry about adolescent insecurities. (They even have to stop the flight along the way to take a leak.) Little kids might really identify with the characters and like this movie; it has good role models for children with disabilities, and deals with environmental issues. The thing is, it’s not original or funny or risky or challenging anywhere, just a typical adolescent drama, where the people happen to be butterflies. I’m not saying it was uninteresting — it kept my attention the whole time — there just wasn’t much to it.
Once Within a Time
Wri/Dir: Godfrey Reggio
Once upon a time, a bunch of happy kids follow the beckoning voice of a goddess onto a stage. After riding a merry-go-round they start to notice strange happenings. An Adam-and-Eve-like young couple in wire masks take a piece of fruit from a sinister looking apple-man, unleashing terrible events. Smart phones generate robots, a chimp in a monkey suit and another in a VR helmet, huge industrial power-towers, a baobab tree exploding into a mushroom cloud. Ecological and geopolitical devastation is at hand! Can we survive the end of this world… or maybe start a new one?
Once Within a Time is a phantasmagorical, magic-lantern fable performed on a two dimensional stage beneath a prominent proscenium arch. It’s equal parts live-action, documentary 
footage, still images, and 3-D stop-motion animation.
I first saw Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanasqatsi as a teenager and the barrage of apocalyptic images of corporate uniformity combined with Philip Glass’s pounding music left deep marks in my psyche. This one is kinder and gentler but still effective. It’s co-directed and edited by Jon Kane with amazing vintage special affects from irises to rear projections to dual spectroscope photos. There are tinted black & white shots, shadow puppets, grotesque masks, and dancing robots 
that evoke everything from Georges Méliès to Guy Maddin to the late Peewee Herman’s Playhouse. Who knew the apocalypse could be so beautiful? It’s less than an hour in length, but provides about three times that in intensity. If you can, see it on a big screen and just let the images and music overwhelm you.
Great movie.
Butterfly Tale is now playing in Toronto; check your local listings. The New Boy is a feature at the ImagineNative film festival starting next week. And Once Within a Time is playing tomorrow (Sunday, October 15th, at 5 pm) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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 Stevie Salas and James Burns about Boil Alert premiering at #TIFF23
Canada has about one fifth of the world’s drinking water, with less than half of one percent of the world’s population. So much water. Why then are there boil alerts in some communities, where the water is consider unfit to drink? Why have these warnings continued over many years? And why are so many of these communities indigenous? So asks a 
woman named Layla Staats. Layla travels across North America searching for these answers even as she explores her own connection with water and her indigenous heritage. On the way she encounters indigenous activists like Autumn Peltier and witnesses some of the most horrendous examples of ecological violations, contaminations and desecrations in Wet’suwet’en, Grassy Narrows, and the Navajo Nation. Will these boil alerts ever cease?
Boil Alert is also the name of a new documentary directed by Stevie Salas and James Burns. Stevie is a world-famous musician, called one of the 50 best guitarists of all time, and a producer of music, film, and TV shows. He composed the score for Bill and Red’s Excellent Adventure and as a director is best known for the doc RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World.
I spoke with Stevie and James in Austin via Zoom.
Boil Alert is having its world premiere at TIFF on September 15th, 2023.
On the “Boil Alert” Red Carpet
The TIFF premiere for “Boil Alert” was a who’s who of Indigenous A-listers… click on the thumbnails below to launch a gallery.
Photographs by Jeff Harris
Earnest movies. Films reviewed: Champions, Blueback, Nico
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movies are just for entertainment, while others have a message. This week, I’m looking at three new movies with an earnest theme, from the US, Australia and Germany. There’s a marine biologist who wants to save a coral reef, a basketball coach who wants to bring a team of disabled people to the championships, and a geriatric nurse who wants to learn how to defend herself… after a racist attack.
Champions
Wri/Dir: Bobby Farelly
Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is a professional basketball coach who has fallen on hard times. Now he’s an assistant coach for a third tier team in Iowa. He’s an arrogant know-it-all who doesn’t know when to shut up. He hooks up with women he meets online but they rarely stay the night. Things go from bad to worse when he’s fired from his team for losing his temper during a game. And then he gets in a car accident for driving while intoxicated.
But the judge shows some sympathy, and sentences him to community service… as a basketball coach. What’s the catch? Everyone on the team has a developmental or intellectual handicap. And they’re hoping to make it to Winnipeg for the regional championships. Problem is, they have no coach and team spirit is near zero. Marcus is equally clueless as to how to coach disabled people.
But gradually they start to get better, and bring back some of their star players. And when they need a bus to take the to away games, a 
woman named Alex (Kaitlin Olson), a Shakespearean actor, volunteers to take them in her costume van. The problem is she’s also one of Marcus’s past one night stands (the danger of living in a small city). They make up and start to get along, even as the team pulls together. But can they make it to Winnipeg? Will Marcus return to his selfish ways or is he a keeper? Is Alex ready to commit? And what are his plans once his three month sentence is up?
Champions is a heartfelt comedy about a down-and-out coach trying to accomplish the impossible. On the downside, it has a fairly predictable plot and Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson are likeable, but seem to coast through their roles. What’s great about this movie is the rest of the cast. The actors playing them have real-life disabilities (they were mainly cast in Winnipeg) including one player who has won a medal at the Special Olympics. They are also funny, wacky and good at what they do. And the characters they play have personalities, sex lives, jobs and families, which you rarely see in films. They’re not there as figures of fun; they’re sympathetic characters who happen to be funny. Thank God the days of Forrest Gump, Gilbert Grape, Nell, and Sling Blade are long gone. Keep in mind, the director previously brought us such gems as Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hal. So maybe Champions is Bobby Farrelly’s apology?
Blueback
Wri/Dir: Robert Connolly
A small fishing village in Western Asutralia. Abby (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist, who spends much of her time studying samples aboard her boat. Raised by a pearl diver and an activist, Abby grew up as a part of the sea. She has felt at home underwater ever since her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) taught her how to hold her breath and swim down to the ocean floor. (Her father drowned when she was still little.) On one of these underwater journeys, she encounters an enormous blue fish, bigger than she is. Initially frightened, she soon realizes he’s gentle and intelligent, and will eat from her hand. A western grouper (or groper as they say in Australia), can live for 70 years and rarely strays from its home. Soon they become fast friends — she spends time alone with him, just the two of them, in his hidden alcove within the coral reefs. She also begins to record what she sees, painting watercolours of the fish she encounters. And she names her special friend Blueback.
But all is not well. A rich developer is trying to buy up the land and tear down all the beachfront houses, including Abby and Dora’s. He’s also behind the dredging of the ocean floor, and allowing industrial fisheries and voracious spear hunters to kill endangered species. Is 
Blueback’s life at risk? Will their idyllic home soon be razed? And what will the future hold for Dora and for Abby?
Blueback is a gentle, slow-paced drama about a mother and daughter living in harmony within an aquatic ecosystem. The story is told through a series of flashbacks of Abby as a child and as a teen, living with her single mom. (Her memories come flooding back when she returns home after her elderly mother has a stroke). Dora leads many of the protests and demos in the village, chaining herself to tractors and petitioning the government save their bay. So there are two or three actors playing Dora, Abby as well as her best friend Briggs (Pedrea Jackson, Clarence Ryan). I approached this film with trepidation — oh god, do we really need another talking fish? Luckily, the fish here don’t talk, they just swim around looking pretty (or bulbous with beady eyes in the case of Blueback.) I wasn’t deeply moved by this film, but I liked Doras political protests. And the scenery — both underwater and on land — is gorgeous.
Nico
Co-Wri/Dir: Eline Gehring
Nico (Sara Fazilat) is a Berliner who works as a home-visit nurse for the elderly. She is zaftig, with curly hair and a warm smile. She enjoys going to parties and hanging out with her best friend Rosa (Javeh Asefdjah). She laughs a lot, but don’t get on her bad side — Nico will stand up to anyone who gets in her way. Until one day she is attacked by a group of people in an underpass. They pull her hair, punch her, kick her and hurl racist taunts. She wakes up in hospital in horrible pain with a black eye and bruises and bandages all over her face and body.
Worse than that, she is scared and withdrawn, suffering from PTSD flashbacks to her trauma. To try to win back some of her confidence, Nico signs up for lessons at a karate dojo whose sensei is a former champion. Maybe learning to block a violent stranger will equip her to face any future attack. But so far she is drained of all energy. In the hope of cheering her up, Rosa takes her to the Fun Fair in the park. There they meet a carnie named Ronny (Sara Klimoska). She’s an undocumented young woman from Macedonian who speaks no German, so they use English instead. Ronnie takes them to rides and bumper cars. Nico feels a bit better, but things are still not back to 
normal. Will she ever feel good again? Is Karate the answer? And why is Ronnie being so friendly to her?
Nico is about a woman who loses her identity and self image when attacked by a racist gang, and her attempt to win it back again. She is an assimilated German Berliner, who in just a moment has her entire essence stripped away because of her looks. Nico and Rosa are both of Iranian background but to her attackers she is just another Muslim foreigner. Her feminism, her beliefs, her droll sense of humour, her opposition to wearing a hijab — none of that matters to the people who attack her. The film delves deep into her emotions, both internal and external, as she struggles to recover. Sara Fazilat is excellent as Niko as are the raw-but-real characters surrounding her.
Nico is a realistic film with lots of emotional oomph.
I like this one.
Champions and Blueback open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Nico has its Canadian premier on March 14th, 6:30pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Goethe Films: I Have A Crush On You series.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Frankie Fenton and IIda Ruishalme about Atomic Hope at #Hotdocs22
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Climate change is at a crisis point: enormous forest fires are breaking out around the world, catastrophic weather events are becoming the norm, polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, and sea levels are constantly rising. So any changes that slow down carbon emissions are welcomed by everyone, right? Not necessarily. Nuclear power plants are closing, and climate 
activists are cheering.
Is anyone supporting the “nuclear option” or is it considered too… radioactive?
A new documentary called Atomic Hope – Inside the Pro-Nuclear Movement just had its world premier at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival. It follows members of the widely unpopular pro-nuclear movement as they challenge current beliefs and promote nuclear energy as a viable option to fossil fuels. The film is made by award-winning Irish Director/producer Frankie Fenton, and features nuclear advocates like Iida Ruishalme, a Zurich-based, Finnish biomedical researcher, science communicator, and fiction writer.
Atomic Hope had its world premiere at #Hotdocs22.
I spoke with Frankie and IIda on location at the Hotdocs Networking Lounge at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Lost causes. Films reviewed: Tammy’s Always Dying, Planet of the Humans, She’s Allergic to Cats
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I had a strange dream last night. I was in an old-school movie palace (in real life, all movie theatres are still closed) fumbling around in the dark, trying to find a seat while maintaining social distance. I finally found an empty seat way up in the second or third balcony but there was a huge pillar blocking the screen. So I had to twist around until I was almost lying prone until could catch a glimpse of the movie, far below…
But you don’t have to go such lengths to see unusual films – they’re on your device or TV at home. So this week I’m looking at three new indie movies, now playing. There’s an ex-environmentalist tilting at windmills; a depressed mom in Hamilton jumping off bridges; and a neurotic filmmaker in Hollywood obsessed with bananas.
Tammy’s Always Dying
Dir: Amy Jo Johnson
Kathy (Anastasia Phillips) is a working-class woman in Hamilton, Ontario. She has a steady boyfriend, a career, a nice car and a mother who loves her. OK, that’s an exaggeration. She actually has a ramshackle existence teetering on the brink. She drives a wreck, works in a
dive bar for Doug (Clark Johnson) an older gay black guy who’s her only friend. Her so-called boyfriend Sean (Aaron Ashmore: 22 Chaser) is married with two young kids who meets her periodically for quickies in his tool shed.
And then there’s her mom. Tammy (Felicity Huffman) is a total mess: a penniless alcoholic, she’s depressed and suicidal. Her only pleasure is watching confessional talk shows on daytime TV. Each month she can be found, like clockwork, on a pedestrian bridge, ready to throw herself onto the railway 
tracks far below. But Katherine always arrives just in time to save her mom’s life.
Until… Tammy finds herself facing a physical problem that almost trumps her financial and mental difficulties. Turns out she’s dying of cancer, stage 4 cancer, with less than a year to live. Can Katherine convince her to take chemo to extend her 
life? Or will she abandon her mom, buy a Toyota and move to Toronto?
Tammy’s Always Dying is a bittersweet drama about mental illness, poverty and fanmily relations. Its shot against the bleak industrial steel mills of Hamilton. It has some humour and light parts, as it satirizes daytime TV. The acting is good all-around (though Felicity Huffman’s excruciating attempt at a Canadian accent sounds more like a Wisconsin dairy farmer). While it didn’t blow me away, it does have some very touching scenes. If you’re looking for a good, realistic tear-jerker, this is one to see.
Planet of the Humans
Wri/Dir: Jeff Gibbs
Our planet is heading toward environmental destruction. Can we stop climate change by switching to greener renewable energy? So asks a new controversial documentary. The filmmaker follows eco-skeptic Ozzie Zehner around the US, and what they find is not good. Rather than replacing carbon fuels, these new energy sources just switch one carbon-based energy for another. Environmental movements, they say, are just ways for major corporations to greenwash their image… and make big bucks from government subsidies. And green energy is not so green after all. All of which are very real concerns.
The problem with this movie is it is full of silly comparisons, half-truths and a near total lack of credible statistics. Instead, it discredits genuine improvements without offering any 
alternatives. For example, they show up with a camera at a protest against fracking and ask random people not about the troubles with fracking but rather – what are your feelings about biomass? Huh? And when the people they talk to don’t give them the answer they’re looking for, they suggest maybe environmentalists are hiding something.
Their argument against solar energy and wind turbines? The panels are manufactured, solar energy doesn’t work in the dark, and their equipment eventually wears out. But instead of 
supporting their arguments with stats – such as does a given energy source uses more energy than it produces? – they go for cheap gotcha scenes, where a rock concert that claims to be powered by solar energy is caught using a generator when it starts to rain. It’s like a child’s version of a documentary… and one that offers no alternatives except despair.
Yes, we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Yes, corporations are co-opting some environmental movements to profit off government subsidies. And yes, green energy equipment has to be manufactured. But burining coal is not the same as hydropower or windmills. Broken solar panels littering a desert is not the same environmentally as mining oil sands. To write off an entire movement as fraudulent based on factoids and interviews with random strangers – and without any research to back it up – is not the way to expose malfeasance. And spreading misinformation doesn’t help much either.
I’d give this one a miss.
She’s Allergic to Cats
Wri/Dir: Michael Reich
Dorky Mike Pinkney (Mike Pinkney) is a single guy who lives in a small house in Hollywood. He came there with big plans: to shoot a remake of Carrie with cats playing all the roles. He shares his idea with his best friend Sebastien (Flula Borg) who isn’t impressed. He says Michael is a giant, sad dirty man-baby. In the meantime he works at a day job, grooming dogs (badly). There he meets the beautiful and glamorous Cora (Sonja Kinski). She’s Mickey Rourke’s daughter’s personal assistant, and she brings in the star’s dogs to be groomed. Is this love at first sight? Not exactly, but at least they might go 
on a date some evening.
But Mike doesn’t tell her about his real problems. His home is filthy and infested by rats, which his landlord – a musician named Honey (Honey Davis) – won’t do anything about. And he ocassionally slips into psychedelic fantasies, full of sinister cats, buckets of blood, and a wooden bowl of rotten bananas, spinning, spinning, spinning around in his brain. Sometimes 
people he’s talking to seem to be possessed by Satan.
Will Mike make his video art? Will he and Cora fall in love? Will he win his battle with the rats? And what about the missing pug?
Needless to say, this is not an ordinary movie, more of an impressionistic, experimental indie collage of images, 
characters and music. It’s a comedy, a mystery, and a fantasy. It’s shot on grainy video, with frequent cuts to fuzzy, 80s-style video art. And full of odd references to movies, from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble to Congo. It’s pretty funny and pretty strange without being over the top. If you like unusual movies – She’s Allergic to Cats feels like a cross between Peter Strickland and John Waters – you might enjoy this one.
I did.
Tammy’s Always Dying opens today across Canada on all VOD platforms; Planet of the Humans is streaming on Youtube; and She’s Allergic to Cats is available on demand from Giant Pictures.
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 Ann Shin about her new documentary The Superfood Chain
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
What do walnuts, goji berries and garlic have in common? How about quinoa, teff, virgin coconut oil and wild salmon? They’re all “superfoods” full of vitamins and minerals, and great traits like 
anti-oxidents Omega-3, high protein, gluten-free, or high fibre. As soon as a newly-marketed food is dubbed a superfood, it flies off the shelves of our grocery stores. But what happens to the people who grow these superfoods and who consider them a 
staple when the demand for a superfood skyrockets? What happens – good ot bad – to the people at the other end of the superfood foodchain?
The Superfood Chain is the title of a fascinating new 
documentary that follows four families whose local food has become an international commodity: teff growers in Ethiopia, coconut processors in the Philippines, quinoa farmers in Bolivia and salmon fishers in Haida Gwai. The film is directed and narrated by noted Toronto filmmaker Ann Shin, whose powerful documentaries like Escape from North Korea and My Enemy, My Brother use personal stories to tackle major issues.
I spoke with Ann Shin in Toronto by telephone at CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Superfood Chain premiers on TVO Docs on Monday, Oct 8 at 10 pm and is also playing at the upcoming Planet in Focus Film Festival.
Women, famous and infamous. Films reviewed: Lizzie, Anthropocene, Colette
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking at three movies about famous — and infamous — women. There’s a psychological thriller about an axe murderer; a biopic about a French novelist, and a documentary… about Mother Earth.
Lizzie
Dir: Craig William Macneill
It’s 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie Borden (Chloë Sevigny) lives with her sister Emma, her stepmother Abby, and her rich and successful father (Jamey Sheridan). He’s a successful financier resented by the neighbouring farmers. Lizzie is a pale woman with curly red hair and an uptight manner. She whiles away her hours reading poetry and cooing with the pigeons she 
keeps in a wooden dovecote.
But trouble is brewing in this family. Father is outwardly kind but with evil intent. Cryptic notes show up at their home, promising blood and damnation. And then Lizzie has a tonic-clonic seizure at the opera house. Her father calls epilepsy “showing off”, but agrees to hire Bridget (Kristen 
Stewart) an irish maid as her caregiver. Meanwhile, feeling left out in a house of four women, he invites his brother John to stay with them. John is untrustworthy and might be embezzling money. And as the relationship between Lizzie and Bridget turns sexual, they try to rebuff the aggressive creepiness from the men in
the house. What will happen to this disfunctional family?
Well, it’s not a spoiler that the parents are going to die, as anyone who has heard of Lizzie Borden knows that her mother and father were brutally murdered. This is also made clear in the first scene of the film. But you don’t know who actually did it till a shocking scene near the end. Lizzie is a slow moving, slow-build psychological drama. Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart are both good in their roles, but a thriller it’s not. It’s just too slow.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Dir: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky
Picture a mountain of garbage in Kenya as far as the eye can see. A marble quarry in Italy, carved out of a shear cliff. An open pit mine in Germany. A heavily polluted city in Siberia. Or the rising water gradually flooding the streets and piazzas of Venice. These are not what you normally think of as natural phenomena. Rather they’re part of a new 
phenomenon, a period some geologists are calling the Anthropocene Epoch, when nature is shaped by humans.
Anthropocene throws a lot of new terms at you, words like anthroturbation – the scarring of the earth’s surface—and concepts like the stages of extinction, as more and more 
animals exist only in captivity. Visually it’s a treat, but there are so many scientific concepts bombarding the viewer that the message sometimes gets buried in the content. And some of the visual metaphors are too obscure to understand. Why is a bonfire first portrayed as a scary inferno 
(suggesting forest fires caused by climate change), when it’s later revealed to be a “good thing” — saving elephants by burning their tusks? And what do a million churchgoers in Nigeria have to do with climate change or pit mining?
Still, this stunning documentary combines the photography of Burtynsky – known for his vast and brutal industrial landscapes — with the filmmaking of de Pencier and Baichwall. It’s like the worlds biggest coffeee table book projected onto a big screen. It’s gorgeous.
Anthropocene is definitely worth seeing, perhaps more as a work of art than as a documentary.
Colette
Dir: Wash Westmoreland
It’s the 1890s in Bordeaux, France. Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightly) is a headstrong young woman with long black braids who lives with her parents in a country home. She’s smart, pretty and creative. She’s also a country girl without a dowry. Enter Willy (Dominic West) a much older Parisian man,
visiting her parents. Sparks fly, and soon they rendezvous in the barn for a roll in the hay. Literally. Willy sweeps her off her feet and presents his new wife to the consignienti of Paris; they are unimpressed. He’s a celebrity there, known as much for his flamboyant persona as for his writing (He’s actually a talentless hack who 
employs a stable of ghost writers.) He encourages her to write too, and then publishes her semi-autobiographical stories about “Claudine” a country school girl.
It’s a smash hit, with Claudine lookalikes popping up all across Paris. And Gabrielle is famous now too… but for her looks, not her writing, since it was published under Willy’s name.
And they are still plagued with financial troubles. Where is all the money going? Mainly to pay for Willy’s mistresses, Willy’s prostitutes, Willy’s gambling debts. Willy can’t keep his willy out of trouble. 
But my dear, he tells Gabrielle, it’s just what men do.
Gabrielle is pissed that he’s wasting her money and playing with her emotions. So she embarks on her own adventures, a series of affairs: a sex triangle involving a rich woman from Louisiana, known for her auburn hair and come-hither glances. Later she falls for Missy (Denise Gough) an aristocrat who dresses only in men’s clothing and military 
garb. Is this true love? And will she ever find fame for her writing?
Colette is a fun, historical biopic about the writer who became known as Colette. It’s filled with campy scenes of fin-de-siècle Paris – from shirtless men carrying women on a palanquin, to secret lovers hiding behind velvet curtains. This film is more of a romp than a serious take. But it’s enjoyable nonetheless. And director Westmoreland takes pains to include queer politics in his look at early lesbian feminism, providing a multiracial cast and a proto-trans character (in the current, 21st century sense).
Lizzie, Anthropocene and Collette all open today in Toronto; check your local listings. And opening Thursday is Bad Banks — a gripping German TV drama about high finance in Frankfurt — showing on the big screen at the TIFF Bell Light Box. Don’t miss it!
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
TIFF18! Films reviewed: Consequences, Woman at War, Tito and the Birds
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
Tiff is here, now.
It began last night, and is filled with big-budget, glitzy premiers and movie stars from all over the world. You can go down to King st — between Spadina and University — starting today, to take it all in. And even if you don’t have tickets, with more than two hundred movies opening there, I promise, you can still get in.
But the Hollywood stuff is getting way too much coverage, so this week I’m talking about three, lesser-known movies playing at TIFF that I really like. There’s an eco-activist in Iceland, a bird talker in Brazil and a Slovenian in the slammer.
Consequences
Wri/Dir Darko Stante
Andrej (Mate Zemlijk) is a teenager who has it made. He lives with his parents in a nice suburban home. He’s handsome, fit, with a beautiful girlfriend and a pet rat named FIFA. Fortified with bourbon he can pick up any girl in the room. But the sex he has is bad, his life is empty, and he takes out his frustrations on everyone around him.
This lands him in a reform school with strict rules. It’s run by adult men, but is 
actually governed by a gang of bullies, headed by Žele (Timon Sturbej) and his sidekick Niko. Žele is a tough skinhead who extorts money from the other boys by claiming they owe him. Niko is a deranged practical joker who eggs Žele on while brandishing a blowtorch. Andrej initially stands up for his pothead roommate Luka, but soon he is 
invited into the gang and becomes their main enforcer. He accompanies them on their weekend outings in Ljubljana.
And as he is pulled away from the rules of his home and the reform centre he feels increasingly isolated, spending the night in a kindergarten playhouse he remembers from his childhood. Meanwhile the crime level continues to rise, as Žele grooms Andrej for shakedowns, car theft, drug trade and smuggling. But Andrej’s not in it for the money. He likes the bully – likes, as in sexually – and thinks he sees a mutual attraction. Will Zele be his rival, his 
friend… or his lover?
Consequences is a dark, coming of age drama set in present-day Slovenia. It probes alienated youth, crime, drugs, sexual fluidity, and relationships. This film uses unknown actors to great effect and the interplay between Zemlijk and Sturbej is compelling. Darko Stante’s Consequences is part of TIFF’s Discovery series and it’s having to world premier tonight. Catch it if you can.
Woman at War
Dir: Benedikt Erlingsson
Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) is a single, middle-aged Icelandic woman with a secret. It’s not that she’s a well-liked choir head. Or that she has an identical twin named Asa. Or even that she’s been approved to adopt a Ukrainian orphan girl. Her big secret is she’s the eco activist the government has been searching for. She’s the one who takes down hydro cables, shutting down the foreign-owned smelting plants endangering Iceland’s once pristine environment.
Using a simple bow and arrow, along with some metal wire, she manages to bring down a high tension wire. Her secret is known only to one person in the 
government – her friend and government mole Baldvin (Jörundur Ragnarsson) who is sickened by their environmental policies. The government repeatedly arrests a latino hiker in a Che Guevara T-shirt, while Halla escapes unknown.
Halla is one with nature. She knows every nook and cranny, every mound and cliff, and manages to avoid drones, helicopters and security experts. But when they close down all the roads just to catch her she seeks refuge with a 
sympathetic farmer, possibly a distant cousin. But with the government closing in, can she continue her one-woman fight for the environment? Or will it ruin her long awaited chance to adopt a child?
Woman at War is a brilliant satirical comedy drama about Iceland, its clans, government corruption, the environment, and its women. Geirharðsdóttir is marvellous as the twin sisters, totally believable as an underground superhero who can communicate with the environment by covering her face in lichen.
Another great movie at TIFF.
Tito and The Birds
Dir: Gabriel Bitar, André Catoto, Gustavo Steinberg
Tito is a schoolboy in a big Brazilian city like São Paulo. His dad is an inventor, specializing in steampunk contraptions filled with misshapen, pipes, dials and gewgaws sticking out at weird angles. He thinks his machine will let people talk with birds. But when it explodes, and Tito ends up in hospital, dad leaves his family for good. A few years later Tito takes up his dad’s role and enters his own invention into the school science fair. His main rival is a rich kid named Teo. But Tito’s machine, like his dad’s, blows up, sending the audience running.
Meanwhile a strange disease has gone viral infecting more and more people in 
the city. It feeds on fear – fear of crime, fear of disease, fear of poor people – even though there is nothing to fear but fear itself. This fear is encouraged by a real estate developer, trying to move people out of the cities into gated communities under glass domes. Scary men in Hazmat suits have taken over spraying everyone with chemicals, but it doesn’t seem to work. So Tito and his best friends – the brave Sarah and the silent Buiu – join forces to defy fear and thus defeat this terrible disease. They are sure the city’s pigeons hold the secret. And they invite rich rival Teo – the son of the real estate mogul – to 
help them too. Can they save the city with birds and science? Or will fear overcome logic?
Tito and the Birds is an animated film from Brazil that looks at poverty and class difference as seen through the eyes of children. It’s a kids’ movie, for sure, but I loved it, especially the colours splashed across the big screen. Vibrant swathes of glowing green, hot pink, warm yellow, and black are everywhere, giving it an unforgettable look.
Consequences, Tito and the Birds, and Woman at War are all premiering at TIFF. Go to tiff.net for details.
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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