Bad Hombres. Films reviewed: Silent Night, Deadly Night, Dust Bunny, One Battle After Another
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s easy to root for heroes with clean-scrubbed cheeks and virtuous demeanours, but they make for boring movies. Much more challenging are films where the main characters are anti-heroes, fatally flawed and yet still compelling.
So this week I’m looking at three movies featuring sympathetic portrayals of bad hombres. There’s a murderous Santa Claus, a retired revolutionary, and a monster who lives under your bed.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Wri/Dir: Mike P. Nelson
It’s Christmastime and like every year Billy Chapman (Rohan Campbell: Halloween Ends) is on the road again. He’s a drifter in his early 20s, picking up work wherever he can find it. He ends up in a small town, and finds work in a store specializing in Christmas ornaments and memorabilia. He forms a crush on Pamela (Ruby Modine), the young woman who runs the store with her dad. But this place is doubly significant because Christmas is crucial to Billy’s self-identity. You see, when he was just a child, he witnessed his parents brutally murdered by a man dressed as Santa Claus. And now he has taken on that role for himself. Dressed in a Santa suit and wielding an axe, Billy kills one person per day, following his advent calendar, until Christmas.
So is Billy a psychopathic serial killer? Well, yes… but, like Santa, he punishes naughty people but lets good ones have a merry Christmas. Everyone he murders is bad… real bad. And how does he know this? A voice in his head tells him who to
kill. But things change when he finds himself falling in love with Pamela. And the feelings seem mutual; they somehow click. (She has Explosive Personality Disorder, sort of like his murder sprees only much less violent). Billy thinks it’s time to settle down, maybe give up all the killing. Can Billy ignore the nagging voice in his head? What will happen if he stops killing bad people? And how will Pamela react if she ever finds out the truth about Billy?
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a classic, slasher-horror Christmas movie about a young killer Santa. It’s ostensibly a remake of an 80s film of the same name (and its sequels) but updated to fit our times. It’s bloody, violent and sometimes disgusting but always in a funny, retro-camp style. I’m talking red & black freeze frames, and old-school soundtrack. And it’s shot in Manitoba, complete with hockey games and lumber yards. Ruby Modine is hilarious as Pamela, and Rohan Campbell manages to make his serial-killer Santa almost sympathetic.
Not your typical Christmas flick but if you’re looking for a funny, gross-out slasher, you can’t go wrong with Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Dust Bunny
Wri/Dir: Bryan Fuller
Aurora (Sophie Sloan) is a little girl who lives in a beautiful, antiquated apartment in an unnamed city. She is brave and resourceful with a wild imagination. Aurora has all the clothes, toys and games any girl could ever want. So why is she always so frightened? Because there’s something scary under her bed that won’t go away. It’s a dangerous monster that lives beneath her parquet floorboards, and she’s convinced he’ll eat you up if you ever step on the floor at night. So she gets around on a wooden hippo with wheels, using her mop as a paddle. Her parents tell her repeatedly that there’s nothing under her bed, just dust bunnies, but Aurora refuses to listen. She ends up sleeping on her outdoor fire escape to keep ahead of the monsters. One night she follows a stranger down a dark ally, where she witnesses him slaughtering a dragon. Here’s someone who can keep her safe from the monster — and he lives in her building! When her parents disappear one night she knows she needs help to stay alive. So she attempts to hire her downstairs neighbour (Mads Mikkelsen: The Promised Land, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Riders of Justice, Another Round, The Hunt) as a hitman, to kill the monster hiding beneath her bed.
Problem is he doesn’t believe in monsters; he thinks someone was sent to get him, and killed her parents by mistake. But in
the end, he agrees to help her. This news gets her boss very angry. Uptight and evil Laverne (Sigourney Weaver) wants Aurora dead, since she witnessed one of his assignments (he’s a professional hired killer). Soon others start appearing at her door including a suspicious guy with a moustache (David Dastmalchian) and a dressed-to-kill social worker (Sheila Atim). Who are all these people really? And will no-one listen to Aurora about the monster under her bed?
Dust Bunny is a whimsical horror movie seen through the eyes of a young girl, balancing crime and the supernatural. The hitman making friends with a little girl harkens back to Luc Besson’s classic The Professional (1992), starring Jean Reno and a very young Natalie Portman). But the look and style of this movie is totally different. This is not noir, it’s horror fantasy. It’s exquisitely detailed with flowers painted on walls, brightly coloured outfits and creaky, steampunk gears in an ancient elevator. Sophie Sloan is great as the spunky Aurora and a good foil for a gruff Mads Mickelson. The other adults are all comical caricatures but still fun to watch. And the special effects are amazing using animation and puppetry to convey what Aurora can see.
Though scary in parts, I think Dust Bunny is suitable both for kids and grown ups.
I like this one.
One Battle After Another
Wri/Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
It’s a couple decades ago, somewhere in the American Southwest. An underground revolutionary faction, known as “The French 75”, is carrying out their latest plan: to liberate hundreds of undocumented workers from an ICE-type detention centre. Members of the group have memorized codes and passwords, and only use their nicknames.
Like JunglePussy and Mae West. Perfidia Beverley Hills (Teyana Taylor) is one of the organizers, and her lover Bob aka Rocket Man (Leonardo DiCaprio) is their fireworks expert. Over the course of the action that night, Perfidia, in a power move, forces their chief enemy, a hardboiled military officer named Col Lockjaw (Sean Penn) to have coercive sex with her. This leaves Lockjaw infatuated, and Perfidia pregnant. After the baby is born, Perfidia is captured by Lockjaw, and rats on her allies, in exchange for witness protection. But she manages to escape to Mexico, while Bob and their newborn-baby Willa hide out in a sanctuary city in California.
17 years later, Bob has become a useless pothead whose only responsibility is keeping his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) safe. She can never leave their house without carrying a tracking device, just in case the feds discover who Bob really
is: an underground leftist revolutionary. Willa studies martial arts with her sensei (Benecio Del Toro) and has a close-knit group of friends, named Bluto, Bobo, Riri and Autumn. They’re all getting ready for their high school dance. But little does she realize: her Mom, Perfidia — who she always thought was dead — is back in town; Col Lockjaw is planning a massive attack in order to capture his potential biological daughter; and Bob — following the capture of a key member of the French 75 — is called back to duty by the revolutionary group of his youth. What will become of this estranged family, their allies and their enemies?
One Battle after Another is an amazingly complex and satirical action thriller about a tiny cadre of underground revolutionaries and their rivals the CIA, Ice and the military. Add to this an underground railroad that helps threatened migrants; The Christmas Adventurers — a white supremacist elite fraternity courting Lockjaw as a member — and a monastery full of bad-ass nuns with secret connections… and that’s only part of the complex plot of this movie.
It’s inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, but is set in the present, not the 1970s. Its dialogue is detailed and rich but always tongue in cheek, especially the outlandish names of characters and organizations. It’s also an out-and-out action thriller, with chases and close escapes, gun fights and explosions. Sean Penn acts like someone who has been chopped up and sewn back together, Teyana Taylor is perfection as the double/triple or quadruple agent; this is the first time I’ve ever seen Chase Infiniti, but she’s a powerhouse, and Leo Dicaprio — I’m no fan, but he’s so good in this movie, constantly beaten down but always surviving, like a Die Hard character but on the left. One of his best roles ever.
The film is beautifully shot in valleys and deserts, in a cinematographic style I’ve never seen before, like a camera mounted to the front of cars as they go up and down a hilly highway. Amazing! Soundtrack, costumes, art direction and the huge cast — many unforgettable roles I haven’t even mentioned yet — all so good.
One Battle After Another is an unforgettable movie. I recommend this one.
Dust Bunny and Silent Night Deadly Night both open in Toronto this weekend; And One Battle after another is still playing in some repertory cinemas; 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.
Short & sweet. Films reviewed: Bride Hard, Pins and Needles, His Father’s Son
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Toronto Arab Film Festival — which is on now through June 29th — has shorts and features from 40 countries, including Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon, that show the diversity of the Arab world.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies that are short and sweet: all under 2 hours and two under 90 minutes! There’s family trouble at a dinner table in Toronto, robbery at a wedding party in Georgia, and murder at an isolated cabin in the woods.
Bride Hard
Dir: Simon West (review: The Mechanic, 2011)
Sam and Betsy (Rebel Wilson: Cats, The Hustle, Anna Camp) were best friends as kids but lost touch as adults. So he is overjoyed to be chosen as Betsy’s Maid of Honour at her upcoming wedding. She’s marrying into “old money”; Ryan’s family has a southern plantation where they have brewed whiskey for centuries. But the bachelorette’s destination party in Paris is ruined when Sam cuts out in the middle of a lap dance from a team of male strippers so she could take care of some work duties. You see, what Sam can’t tell them is she’s a secret agent, and the only one who can save the world from weapons of mass destruction. The other guests, including the jealous Virginia (Anna Chlumsky), and the dry Lydia (Da’Vine Joy Randolph: The Holdovers, Shadow Force) don’t buy it, 
and convince Betsy to dump Sam and make Virginia her new Maid of Honour.
The wedding is opulent, on a lush green island with Irish moss dripping from willow trees owned by the groom’s family. Feeling unwanted, Sam turns to the best man for comfort, the handsome but cynical Chris (Justin Hartley). In her red dress and high heels she says she feels like a dancing girl emoji. But just as the wedding is about to begin, a gang of heavily-armed organized criminals storm the ceremony, led by their evil kingpin (Steven Dorff). They are there to grab the fortune from the family’s vault, and then kill all the guests. Can Sam take on a couple dozen trained killers… and free her best friend and her family?
Bride Hard (geddit? Like Die Hard?) is an action comedy with a slightly novel premise: a powerful female hero fighting crime at a wedding alongside her wise-cracking girlfriends. Sort of like Bridesmaids but with guns and bombs and chase scenes.I think they traded action for a less-funny script — a lot of the jokes were real duds. Luckily, the mainly female cast is very funny despite the lame lines they’re forced to say. Rebel Wilson can make you laugh with just a pose or side glance. And watching all the characters doing their thing is hilarious.
Bride Hard is silly but fun to watch.
Pins and Needles
Wri/Dir: James Villeneuve
Max (Chelsea Clark) is in a bad mood. She’s on a field trip collecting insect specimens as a grad student in biology, but a fellow student she likes has made her furious. So she’s heading back to the city, along with classmate Keith and his sketchy friend Harold, a part-time drug dealer. It’s a long haul. But after a run in with a cop, they’ve been taking the long route, in unknown territory, to avoid potential trouble. But trouble finds them. First their phones stop working. Then they pop two tires, leaving them stranded.
Keith and Harold stay with the car while Max heads toward a nearby house to ask for help. There’s no-one there… but when she looks back she sees something awful. She sees a couple who appear to be offering a hand to her friends. But as soon as Keith and Harold turn their backs, they are brutally murdered! Max is shocked… and terrified. She runs into the tall grass behind the home to avoid being caught. She figures she can run away and find help. Problem is Max suffers from Type 1 Diabetes… meaning she always keeps her insulin kit close at hand. But it’s in the car, that’s now in that couple’s garage. Though she can never fight off two deranged psycho-killers, she does have one advantage: they don’t know she’s there. Can she fight them off long enough to grab her kit and run away? Or will this fight be more complicated — and deadly — than she ever imagined?
Pins and Needles is a short, taut cat-and-mouse thriller about an ongoing battle between a desperate woman and two ruthless killers. Clark is good as Max who shifts between 
wimpy escapee to teethbaring fighter. And Kate Corbett and Ryan McDonald are totally hateable as super villains who are not only sadistic killers who laugh as they murder people, but equally detestable as businesspeople. They both do that deranged killer face really well. While the movie is a rehash of the oft used “cabin in the woods” theme, this one is in a glass and wood mansion, not a creaky cottage. Perhaps Max is checking her insulin levels a few times too many, but other than that, Pins and Needles is a good horror/ thriller that keeps the tension on high till the final credits roll.
His Father’s Son
Wri/Dir: Meelad Moaphi
Amir (Alireza Shojaei) is a cook in an upscale French restaurant in Toronto. He has a degree in Engineering, but finds that kind of work boring. His dream? To open up his own place as the executive chef. In the meantime he works long, gruelling hours in the kitchen. His younger brother Mahyar (Parham Rownaghi) has no creative drive — his dreams centre around symbols of wealth: a beautiful woman, a Ferrari to drive or a Rolex watch on his wrist. He’s a crypto bro, who still lives in their parents’ home. Amir regularly eats family dinners with Mahyar, his Mom (Mitra Lohrasb), and his Dad (Gus Tayari) The rest of his free time he spends with his lover a married woman with whom he’s having a secret affair. But his life — and that of his family — comes in the form of an unexpected death. His and his brother’s childhood doctor — who they haven’t seen in decades — has left his entire substantial fortune to Mahyar. There is a new degree of tension in the family, between Amir and his father, and between his parents. Only Mahyar seems blissfully unaware. What is going on, and why won’t his parents talk about it? And can a trip to Niagara Falls provide the answers to Amir’s questions?
His Father’s Son is a family drama set within Toronto’s large Iranian-Canadian community. It feels at first like another look at the immigrant experience in North America, and the clash between traditional parents and their sons who want to break
free. But wait! This is not how it turns out at all. It gradually gets more complex, emotionally powerful and surprising. And these changes are not sudden or in your face, they’re subtle, unspoken, in the spaces between what you see, the elliptical passage of time.
The acting — with dialogue in Farsi and English — is terrific all around, but especially Gus Tayari, Mitra Lohrasb, and Alireza Shojaei in the lead role. This is Moaphi’s first film, and though quite short (under 90 minutes) it shows an unexpected maturity, the kind you’d see in films by Asghar Farhadi or Kore-eda Hirokazu.
His Father’s Son is a well-made drama.
Bride Hard and His Father’s Son both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Needles and Pins opens theatrically next week in the US, and on VOD in Canada.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Sensory extremes. Films reviewed: Black Bag, Novocaine
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
March break is coming to a close, so I have two genre movies — an action comedy and a spy thriller — you might want to watch this weekend. There’s a London spy who suspects everyone, and a San Diego bank manager who feels nothing.
But before that I’m going to tell you about some other movies you might not know about.
Unusual movies to catch in Toronto
If you’re into the indie music scene, there’s a special screening tonight at the TIFF Lightbox. We Forgot to Break Up is a movie about the rise and fall of a small-town gender queer band that goes from performing in a barn in rural Ontario to attempting to make it big in downtown Toronto. Its headed by rising young actor/musician Lane Webber, the songs are by Torquil Campbell, and the soundtrack includes Peaches, Gentleman Reg, and The Hidden Cameras. I saw this one at Inside Out last year, and I quite liked it.
Also playing at the Lightbox is the new Goethe Institute’s series Extra.Ordinary showing three great new German flics. I haven’t seen any of these yet (two will be Toronto premieres) but GoetheFilms programming is always top-notch. Similarly, the Japan Foundation is screening Still Walking, a classic by fave director Kore-eda Hirokazu, next week.
And finally, I bet you’ve never heard of Terrible Fest, have 
you? Well it’s a Super 8, B-Movie short film festival at Eyesore Cinema on March 25 and 30th, including titles like these: Wallet Monster, Dirty Show with Video Hoser, Air Fryer Slaughter, and of course that future cult-classic Girls Just Want to Have Kill. You can get a pass to all the films for just 12 bucks.
So, if you feel like going to a movie, but don’t want something too conventional, there are still alternatives to see.
Black Bag
Dir: Steven Soderbergh
George (Michael Fassbender) is a high ranked bureaucrat at Mi6, London’s international spy agency. He’s trying to find the identity of a suspected double agent. But instead of one name, the asset gives him a list with five names on it, and only one is the traitor. So he invites them all to a dinner party. Interestingly, four of the 5 are couples: Freddie and Clarissa (Tom Burke, Marisa Abela) and James and Zoe (Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris). And the fifth? It’s his own wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) whom he loves dearly, but if she’s the double agent, it’s his duty to catch her in the act.
Apparently, one of them possesses information about a top secret weapon and is peddling it to the Russians. This weapon is so terrible it could kill tens of thousands and plunge us into WWIII. And to George’s dismay, Kate is on a secret mission on the Continent, exchanging information for cash. Can George uncover the truth? Is Katherine the villain? And if so, will he turn her in?
Black Bag is a classic British spy-thriller, with everything 
going for it. It’s done in the style of a Le Carre novel. Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett and Naomie Harris provide star appeal. And the director/writer team of Steven Soderbergh with David Koepp are a winning combination (they released another movie Presence, just a few weeks ago, which I liked). So why does Black Bag suck so bad? The script is terrible, with an array of dull, unsympathetic characters, and a cookie-cutter plot. The witty repartee you expect from a British spy movie is totally missing. But I manly blame this one on Soderbergh himself, its director, editor and cinematographer. He’s like a film student with his first video camera, fooling around just for fun as he figures out how it works. The opening scene follows George around from behind until it finally reveals his face. Why? No reason, it doesn’t surprise 
you or advance the story, it’s just there. In other scenes we get to watch all the characters looking up from below their chins. Overly-bright candles at a dinner table obscure the characters’ faces. (What do audiences want to see? Candles or faces?) The music seems off-kilter with the mood. It’s all just so sloppy, distracting and off-putting, making the whole movie feel like a rush-job.
Admittedly, the story does get interesting in the last 15-20 minute, but it’s way too late to redeem this dud.
What a shame, Black Bag could have been so good.
Novocaine
Dir: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) is a mild-mannered assistant manager at a San Diego savings bank who lives a highly- sheltered life. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t go on dates, he doesn’t even go out at night. All sharp corners in his office are blunted by tennis balls. He won’t even chew sharp foods — anything that hasn’t been through a blender will never get past his lips. Why? He’s afraid he’ll hurt himself and not know it. You see, he suffers from a rare medical condition called CIPA; he can’t feel pain. When he was a school kid, bullies beat him up just for the novelty of it; they called him Novocaine.
When Nate’s not at work, he spends most of his time playing video games with online friends, including his best buddy Roscoe (Jacob Batalon) a guy he’s never actually met. But everything changes one day when Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a woman he has a major crush on at work, 
shows genuine interest in him. They actually go on a date, and it’s like a door to a whole new world opens up for him. He tries solid food (Is this what pie is? I love pie!) and has sex for the first time. He decides Sherry is is his life partner, the love of his life, the reason for his existence… and he will never let her go. That’s why he’s so upset when a gang of murderous thieves (dressed in Santa suits) storm into the bank, kill the manager, clear out the safe and drive off with Sherry as their hostage. The cops seem uninterested in catching the criminals — they even suspect Nate. He decides to throw caution to the wind, and hunt down those criminals himself, using his medical condition as sort of a super power. They can’t stop him because he feels no pain. Can he defeat the bad guys through willpower alone? And will he get to Sherry in time?
Novocaine is a brand-new take on gory action/ comedy, with a twisted plot, funny characters and surprisingly good acting. Jack Quaid is the ultimate Hollywood nepo-baby, the offspring of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. Awful, right? No — in Novocaine, he’s amazing, both endearing and self-effacing. Amber Midthunder (who is currently starring in two different movies) is very appealing, and together they have obvious chemistry.
Novocaine has all the requisite action sequences — fight scenes, shoot outs and chases — but it manages to combine them in new ways. I can’t stand “gorno” or torture porn; it’s upsetting to watch people suffering from excessive, constant pain. And there’s tons of it in this movie: Nate gets shot by arrows, scalded with boiling oil, tortured with knives and scissors, muscles bruised and bones broken. But because he is totally oblivious to pain, he turns squirms into laughter. Obviously the violence is explicit and plentiful, so if you can’t stand it, stay away. But there are so many clever, disarming twists that the violence never overpowers the laughs.
I found Novocaine totally entertaining.
Black Bag and Novocaine both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
The thrill of uncertainty. Films reviewed: Harbin, Babygirl, The Brutalist
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
First let me wish you all a Happy New Year! With a new year comes renewal, hope… and potential dread. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies where people face potentially dreadful situations, partly of their own making. There’s an abused architect, a compromised CEO, and a sympathetic assassin.
Harbin
Co-Wri/Dir: Min-ho Woo
It’s 1909 in Korea. After defeating a European empire in the Russo-Japanese war, Japan is flush with imperial ambition. They want more colonies on the mainland and are looking hungrily at Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, and China. But some independence-minded Koreans are regrouping to fight Japan. Their leader, Ahn Jung-geun (Hyun Bin), managed to defeat a Japanese battalion in a bloody battle. But when, following international laws, Anh released the disarmed POWs, their leader Mori (Park Hoon) shot a cannon at their base killing everyone except Anh. Now the survivors are meeting in Vladivostok to decide what to do next. This includes Kim (Jo Woo-jin) his closest ally, and Woo, (Park Jeong-min) his biggest rival. And some of them think Anh is a Japanese mole. To atone for his mistakes and to do something big, he vows to assassinate Ito
Hirobumi (Lilly Franky: Shoplifters, Like Father, Like Son) one of the top statesmen of Imperial Japan who is calling for the annexation of Korea.
To do this killing Anh must make his way to Harbin, a rail hub city right on the border of Russia and northeast China where Ito plans to give a public speech. But If he travels by train he will be caught. He must turn to a former comrade turned bandit, Ms Gong (Jeon Yeo-been) to try to secure explosives. But there is a traitor in their midsts, telling the Japanese all their plans. Can they make it to Harbin undetected, find the rat, fool their enemies, and carry out the assassination? Or are they fated to be erased from their country’s history?
Harbin is a vivid and gripping retelling of a famous historical event. It’s a classic cloak & dagger, full of action, thrills, drama, and deception. It’s done in the traditional style, with the name of each character appearing on the screen to help 
you keep track of which moustachioed fighter is which. But easier said than done, when everyone pulls down the brims of their fedoras to cover their faces. The locations are amazing: Anh crawling across the frozen waters of the Tumen River, horse caravans on the sands of Mongolia, ancient Russian train stations… very impressive! The sets and costumes are great too, with a drunken warlord festooned in animal furs or the ceiling lamps aboard a Russian train, swinging from side to side. If you have any interest in action-thrillers, spy stories or even NE Asian history, Harbin is the film for you.
Babygirl
Co-Wri/Dir: Halina Reijn
Romy (Nicole Kidman) is the CEO of a large, successful corporation that makes automated parcel-sorting equipment — similar to what Amazon has in their warehouses. She lives with her husband Jason a play director (Antonio Banderas) and their two teenage daughters, Isabel and Nora. Her life is almost perfect, but is missing a certain…. je ne said quoi. She is not sexually satisfied. One day she is startled by a vicious dog running rampant outside her office tower. She witnesses a random young man calm the dog down and return it to its owner. Later, inside her office, she is introduced to her latest intern; it’s the same guy she saw outside. Samuel (Harris Dickinson) has an unusually forthright manner, almost rude and overbearing for someone so young. He makes her feel unhinged and yet… intrigued. Who is this twerp, and why is he like that? She finds him overconfident and almost ridiculous. And yet… eventually, to her great surprise, they kiss and sparks fly.
Soon she is secretly meeting him in seedy hotel rooms for furtive sex. But he wants more — total domination over her in an S&M relationship. Romy loves her husband and kids has never done anything like this before. Even though he takes the dominant role, in real life she holds all the cards: she’s older, richer and his boss. She has more to lose, though, and it’s that threat that excites her. And she can’t got enough of him. What will happen if word gets out? Has she bit off more than she can chew?
Babygirl is an erotic drama about an older woman’s fling with
a much younger man for the thrill of it all. It’s both highly sexualized and yet uncomfortable to watch in parts. It’s entirely told from Nicole Kidman’s (Before I go to Sleep, Genius, The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Boy Erased, The Upside, Destroyer, The Goldfinch, Bombshell, The Northman) Romy’s point of view; we share her agony, her ecstasy, her cringing embarrassment (he treats her like a domesticated pet). As Samuel, Dickinson is opaque, functioning mainly as her erotic foil. He’s usually an excellent actor (Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper, The Iron Claw) but in this movie he takes second all the way. Some people love this movie, others despise it. I’m somewhere in between. The plot is just a slight twist to the hoary old cliche of the powerful executive submitting to a dominatrix. I don’t need to watch a grown woman lick milk from a saucer. But other parts are quite exciting and altogether it’s worth it for Nicole Kidman’s performance.
The Brutalist
Co-Wri/Dir: Brady Corbet
It’s post-WWII. László Tóth (Adrian Brody: Splice, Predators, The French Dispatch, Asteroid City) is a holocaust survivor from Hungary who arrives in America as a displaced person. His wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia are nowhere to be seen. His cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) gives him a place to stay in his furniture store and puts him to work designing and building chairs. Things look up when the son of an oligarch offers him a job redesigning his father’s home library. Laszlo takes to it like a fish out of water, building a modernistic room with synchronized wooden panels and shelves beneath an open skylight. But when the industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) sees it, he goes ballistic and fires him without pay. Soon after his cousin falsely accuses him of sleeping with his wife Laszlo finds himself unemployed, homeless and addicted to drugs. He gets work doing manual labour at a ship yard with Gordon (Isaach De Bankolé) a man he 
befriended earlier until the industrialist who fired him seeks him out ago. Turns out Laszlo was a Bauhaus architect before the war, and the library was featured in modern architecture. Lee immediately rehires him, this time to build a monumental memorial on a hilltop in honour of his mother. But conflicts still trouble the two men’s relationship. Will Laszlo ever complete his masterpiece? Or will Lee crush him with his oppressive and egoistical nature?
The Brutalist is a moving drama about the American Dream and the class struggle between two men. (The title refers to the Brutalist style of architecture Laszlo favours). It’s a full-fledged four hour epic, compete with an overture, intermission and various story lines within the plot. I’m only giving you a taste of it here, a three-minute review of a four hour movie. It is visually and audibly stunning, both in design and execution, from the score to the crisp camera work, even the surprising credit roll. The acting is superb — I’m referring to Brody, Pierce, Jones and the rest of the large cast. This is a mature film made by a young director and former child actor. I’ve only seen one other movie by him, Vox Luxe, which, while visually interesting, didn’t have much to it. The Brutalist takes a quantum leap beyond that, filling in all the parts left out of his previous work. The movie is exciting, full of both hope and crushing devastation. It’s so well done that I left the theatre assuming it was a biopic, only later realizing it’s entirely fictional.
The Brutalist is a stupendous movie that must be seen to be appreciated.
The Brutalist and Babygirl are now playing in Toronto, with Harbin opening this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
World premieres at #TIFF24. Films reviewed: Relay, We Live In Time, Hard Truths
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is on its final weekend, but there are still many movies left to watch, including free screenings on Sunday of all the the Peoples Choice winners. So this week, I’m only talking about movies that had their World Premieres at TIFF. There’s an overly angry woman, a secret agent for hire, and a love affair that turns serious.
Relay
Dir: David Mackenzie (Review: Starred Up)
Ash (Riz Ahmed) runs an unusual business in New York City. It’s for whistle blowers who are afraid for their lives and their family’s and want to make peace with their previous employer and return the incriminating evidence. The genius of Ash’s work is that neither side — the whistle blower and the corporation — know who he is… and both sides pay him. A win-win situation, at least for him. He relays information using an intermediary phone service connected to an ASL keyboard for the deaf that can’t be traced. And he always keeps one copy of the evidence just in case the employer ever reneges on the deal.
His latest client is a biologist named Sarah (Lily James), a would be whistle-blower who has proof of malfeasance by a big agro conglomerate she worked for. But now she wants out, because she’s afraid a gang of thugs working for the company (Sam Worthington, and three others) are going to kill her. Problem is Ash — who never lets his guard down — is smitten by the beautiful and sympathetic Sarah, who he goes out of his way to protect. Can Ash keep her safe from unknown forces? And is there something deeper going on between them?
Relay is an ingenious action film that doubles as a corporate spy flick. It’s full of complex schemes involving the postoffice, telephone services and communication devices. As well as lethal fights. Riz Ahmed is one of those actors who is so good that you can just go and see anything he’s in. Luckily, Relay is a super-taut thriller, with constant suspense, near-misses and clever chase scenes. Beware: you’ll be his with an enormous twist near the end (no spoilers) that will totally blindside you. I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s plausible ir not, but either way, this is a great thriller.
We Live In Time
Dir: John Crowley (Reviews: The Goldfinch, Brooklyn)
Almut (Florence Pugh) is a chef in London whose restaurant is taking off. She had a long-term relationship with a woman, but eventually separated. Tobias (Andrew Garfield) works for Weetabix — yes the breakfast cereal — and has been living with his dad since his first wife divorced him. The two meet with a bang. Literally. She runs him over with her car. But this is no hit and run. She sticks around until he gets out of hospital, and invites him for dinner at her restaurant. Sparks fly and their relationship begins. But certain obstacles lie in their path. Is there any point to marriage? Should they have kids? And what happens when she is diagnosed with cancer?
We Live In Time is a surprisingly good romance. Most romances veer either toward slapstick comedy or treacly cornball. This one does neither. The time in th entitle is reflected in it’s narrative, which hope back and forth between different stages of their lives. And it’s full of evocative details, like when Almut — the chef — teaches Tobias the best way to crack an egg (on a flat surface, she says) While it’s clearly Oscar bait (what with the cancer and baby details artfully placed), it’s also a fully enjoyable and moving film to watch. Irish director John Crowley knows what he’s doing; he brought us movies the classic Brooklyn. Frances Pugh does Almut as tough but lovable while Andrew plays it goofy and sweet.
This is good one.
Hard Truths
Co-Wri/Dir: Mike Leigh (Reviews: Peterloo, Mr Turner)
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a middle-aged woman who lives with her family in a quiet London suburb. Her husband Curtley (David Webber), a plumbing contractor, is away most of the day, while their son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) in his twenties locks himself in his room with his ear phones on playing video games. Perhaps because Pansy is so hard to deal with. When Moses goes for a walk, she yells at him to stay away from police or he’ll be arrested for walking while black. And when Courtley is home she subjects him to a non-stop abusive barrage of complaints and insults about his work, the neighbours, a baby down the street, animals, germs and being disrespected.
Meanwhile, Pansy’s sister Chantal (Michele Austin) lives with her two successful daughters. Chantal is kind and amiable, listening to problems and gossip as she does her clients’ hair. And she — like everyone else — wonders why her sister Pansy is so angry bitter and paranoid all the time. And can she get her to visit the cemetery on Mother’s Day?
The topics — kinship, loss, mental illness — seem ordinary but the movie is anything but. Hard Truths is a searing comedy-drama about two black families in London. By comedy-drama I mean you will be laughing uproariously through the first half and then crying through the second. It’s just fantastic. The character development, the dialogue, and the acting are dead on. Marianne Jean-Baptist is so funny and so real and so moving, she’s a phenomenon to behold. If she doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this, I will be shocked. She co-starred with Brenda Blethyn in another Mike Leigh movie, Secrets and Lies, thirty years ago, and this one is even better.
I would call Hard Truths a perfect movie.
Relay, We Live in Time, Hard Truths, all had their world premieres at TIFF .
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Archnemeses! Films reviewed: Kill, Despicable Me 4, Escape
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Classic novels and movies needed a hero or a heroine to save the day. But in really good stories there’s also a nemesis, an enemy to fight and defeat. This week I’m looking at three new movies, from Korea, India and France — two action thrillers and an animated comedy — about arch-nemeses. There’s a former villain in witness protection, a commando on a train heading in a southern direction and a communist sergeant preparing his own defection!
Kill
Co-Wri/Dir: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Amrit (Lakshya) is a commando in a special unit of the Indian army. Along with his best buddy Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) they lead their troops in tactical operations using martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. But he’s in a bit of a jam. The love of his life, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is pledged to another man in an arranged marriage. To elope seems too risky; her father is an oligarch with immense power and wealth. Even so, they arrange for a secret meeting aboard the express train her family are riding south from Amritsar to Delhi. And, right there, with the two of them squeezed into a cramped toilet Amrit proposes marriage, complete with ring. But what neither of them realize is the train has been targeted by a brutal gang of bandits for an attack on the sleeper cars. The dacoits kill the guards, and steal watches, jewelry and cash from everyone there. And they sexually threaten the women. They’re led by a capricious Fani (Raghav Juyal) the nefarious son of the clan’s patriarch. But when Amrit and Viresh see what’s happening, they decide it’s time to fight back… but can just two commandos take on an entire family of bandits?
Kill is a non-stop, violent action movie, the first of its kind out of
India. It’s nothing like Bollywood, no songs, dances, or extended flirting. This is heavy-duty fighting all the way through. This is Lakshya’s first starring role — he’s good-looking and intense, a natural leading man. He plays Amrit as a regular Punjabi drawn almost to madness when he sees his lover threatened. Then he goes berserk. He wears a blood-stained shirt for most of the film, and beware: there’s a lot of blood to be spilt. Much of the action takes place in the aisles of an express train, between cars, on the roof, and out the exit doors. Weapons range from sabres, to rifles, a metal fire extinguisher and the fighters’ bare fists. The fighting is superbly choreographed, really well done. And the sound effects are chilling — the sound of skull hitting metal the slash. Off a knife, the thud if fists hitting flesh…I’ve never seen an Indian movie like this, and I quite enjoyed it. If you can get into intensely violent, non-stop action movies — on the scale of the great Indonesian flic The Raid — then I think you’ll really like Kill.
Despicable Me 4
Dir: Chris Renaud, Patrick Delage
Gru (Steve Carell) is a former supervillain who is now on the straight and narrow. He lives with his beloved wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), their three adopted daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, and their newborn baby son. But he has to dive back into the world of villainy when he is sent on a secret assignment: to return to the criminal boarding school of his childhood, the Lycée Pas Bon. Once there he must capture and jail his lifelong rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). Now Gru has his Minions — diminutive bright yellow creatures who obey his orders but are always up to no good — but Maxime has minions of his own: cockroaches! He’s built up a veritable army of the insects, and when he escapes from prison, he vows revenge against Gru and all those around him. To safeguard his family, Gru enters a witness protection program where they are all given new names and identities and a suburban home to live, and told to “blend in”.
The problem is their next door neighbours, the Prescotts, have a 
Despicable Me 4 is an animated kids’ comedy about a former villain facing off against a current villain. It’s the latest in an immensely successful French movie franchise (Reviews: Despicable Me, Minions: The Rise of Gru) about a likeable villain and his makeshift family. It combines simple animation with funny lines and goofy characters, Once again, I viewed it in an audience packed with kids who seem to love it. Personally, it seems to be getting a bit tired, like they’re running out of new ideas. The one genuinely funny aspect are the Minions, all voiced by Pierre Coffin. When they’re around, you’ll be laughing with their silly and imaginative slapstick humour. Despicable Me 4 isn’t great, but it did keep me entertained. And the kids will love it.
Escape
Dir: Lee Jong-pil
It’s present day at the DMZ in North Korea. The Demilitarized Zone — it separates the north from the south — is full of landmines, with sentinels in towers watching closely for any movement on either side. Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) is a Sergeant in the Korean Peoples Army nearing the end of his ten-year term there, and dreads returning to work in a coal mine. There is no family to go home to. He has firmly embraced the national ideology of Juche, or self-reliance. But in Kyu-nam’s case, self-reliance has taken on new meaning. Each night, he sneaks out of his bunker, climbs through a window, and crawls his way across the minefields toward the border, recording all the safe spots along the way. He plans to defect to the South before the next rainfall causes the landmines to shift. But he runs into trouble when a pudgy private named Dong-hyuk (Hong Sa-bin), who idolizes the Sergeant sees his trial runs. Dong-hyuk longs to be reunited with his mother and sister in South Korea. So he tries to escape on his own, using Kyunam’s map… but he mucks things up, putting them both in danger of a firing squad.
But who appears at the desertion trial, but Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan), a Major with connections. He has connections with Kyu-nam going way back, and declares him a national hero, and sets him up in a cushy job as an aide-de-camp for a drunk general. But Kyu-nam is committed to his plans. Can he reach the border before Hyun-sang can catch him? Or are they doomed to a violent end?
Escape is a fast-moving action thriller, full of complex schemes 
and near escapes… along with plenty of unexpected surprises. Koo Kyo-hwan plays the major as a slightly effeminate, upper-class nepo-baby who would rather be a concert pianist than an officer. This villain reveals hints of a secret gay past, adding to his mystery. Lee Je-hoon plays a macho, self-reliant soldier who just wants to choose his own future and have enough food to eat (based on what he heard about the South from the propaganda broadcasts he picked up on his transistor radio). The entire film takes place in the North. It portrays a country filled with poverty, malnutrition and class divisions— based on Party membership — where the ordinary people just scrape by, while the effete elites gorge on fine meats and liquors. I have no idea how accurate it is, but I liked the details, from the socialist realist murals, the giant slogans, and the maroon coloured dress-uniforms the officers wear.
And, of course, its gripping plot that will keep you glued to the screen.
Kill, and Despicable Me 4, both open this weekend in Toronto, and you can catch Escape at the TIFF Lightbox; 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 Charles Uwagbai about Kipkemboi
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Kipkemboi is a young man who lives with his family in a small town in Kenya. His parents may be farmers but he has been a gifted mathematician since he was a child. He can tell you how many birds are flying in a flock in the sky, scored 100% on his SATs and has been accepted into MIT. But an unexpected family tragedy has kept him close to home. Instead, he has invented a new financial algorithm that allows him — with unbelievable accuracy — to predict stock market gains and losses worldwide. All operated out of a simple mud hut. But when word gets out, police, military, and foreign interests descend on his village to take everything away. He’s accused of being a criminal or even a terrorist. Can Kipkemboi outrun and outsmart the powers that be?
Kipkemboi is the name of a highly entertaining, dramatic film 
filled with humour, thrills and romance. Kipkemboi is the first Canada-Kenya co-production ever made and word is spreading. It’s directed by Charles Uwagbai and stars Thamela Mpumlwana in the title role. Charles is a Canadian-based director known for The Ghost and the Tout, Esohe and Charlie Charlie, and whose work has been seen on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Canal Plus.
I spoke with Charles Uwagbai in Toronto via ZOOM>
Kipkemboi recently had its gala premiere in Toronto, will be streaming on CBC Gem in 2025, and is currently showing in theatres at film festivals worldwide.
Daniel Garber speaks with Jamie Kastner about Nobody Wants to Talk About Jacob Applebaum
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo of Jamie Kastner by Jeff Harris.
Jacob Appelbaum is a computer programmer, hacker, and journalist. He was a core member of TOR, and a major player in the world of information privacy. Through his access to NSA files released by whistleblower Edward Snowden he helped break stories like the US government spying on Angela Merkel. He was good looking, charismatic a crucial spokesman for Wikileaks, a 
highly sought-after writer and pubic speaker and has worked with major cultural stars like Ai Weiwei and Laura Poitras. But in 2016, in the wake of sexual abuse accusations, everything came to a halt. Since then, a cloak of silence has descended on everything about him. Is the US government surveilling him? Is he a victim of Cointelpro? Will he end up like Julian Assange, locked away for years without a trial? And how come nobody wants to talk about Jacob Appelbaum anymore?
Nobody Wants to Talk About Jacob Appelbaum is a new documentary that looks at this man’s life before and after 2016. It’s clever, surprising and revealing. The film follows him from East 
Berlin to Tel Aviv to Portugal to interview him and those who know him. It’s the latest work by award-winning Toronto documentarian Jamie Kastner. I’ve previously talked with Jamie about The Secret Disco Revolution (2012), The Skyjacker’s Tale (2016), There are no Fakes (2019) and Charlotte’s Castle (2023).
I spoke with Jamie Kastner in Toronto via ZOOM.
Nobody Wants to Talk About Jacob Applebaum is screening at the TIFF Lightbox on June 23, and premieres on CBC Gem on June 26th.
Surprising fantasy lives. Films reviewed: Sometimes I Think about Dying, Argylle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
February is Black History Month, which is the best time to celebrate black cinema from a historical perspective. The Toronto Black Film Festival is running from Feb 14-19th, showing new features, docs and shorts. This year they’re celebrating actress Pam Grier, with her 70s film Foxy Brown, and in a tribute to the late, great Charles Officer, they’re showing Akilla’s Escape, a thriller set in Toronto. And Sway, Emmanuel Kabongo’s new thriller is having its Canadian premiere at this same festival. Mubi, the streaming site for avant-garde, indie and festival films, is programming black cinema this month in their Cut to Black series. You should check out Samuel D. Pollard’s excellent documentary MLK/FBI about J Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping and execrable treatment of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and his family.
This week, I’m looking at something completely different: two new movies about lonely women with surprising fantasy lives. There’s an office worker who dreams of dying, and a reclusive novelist who dreams of adventure.
Sometimes I Think about Dying
Dir: Rachel Lambert
Fran (Daisy Ridley) — best known as Rey in the Star Wars movies) is a young woman in a small coastal town in the pacific northwest. She works at a dull office job, in charge of supplies and flow charts. Fran likes beige sweaters and cottage cheese. She spends all day staring out the window at ships docking in the harbour, loading and unloading containers by crane. Basically, she’s depressed, bored and lonely; she lives alone and never goes out. The only unusual thing about her — something that she’ll never confess to anyone else — is the strange fantasies that bounce around her head. She pictures herself lying in a grassy forest… dead. She enjoys the calm and peacefulness of being a corpse. She isn’t suicidal, she isn’t a zombie, she just likes the concept.
Until one day, a stranger arrives at the office, taking the place of Fran’s recently retired coworker. Robert (Dave Merheje) comes directly from Montreal. He’s bald and bearded with a dry sense of humour. His big secret is he has never worked in an office job before, and is completely baffled by the culture. They bond through texting, and he eventually asks her out on a date. And suddenly Fran’s life changes for the better. Her fantasies shift from grassy knolls to funeral pyres! They go to an actual party and meet new friends. But will she ever open 
up to him? Can she reveal her secret? And will she ever smile?
Sometimes I Think about Dying is a tender social satire about the boredom of daily life and the bubbling cauldron of emotions lurking just beneath the surface. It feels like an Aki Kaurismaki movie transplanted to small-town USA. Daisy Ridley — the British actor best known as fighter-pilot Rey in the Star Wars franchise — is subtly funny as Fran. And Canadian actor and stand-up comic Dave Merheje is good as her “normal guy” foil Robert. It’s a simple movie, but with enough twisted humour to keep you interested.
It’s cute.
Argylle
Dir: Matthew Vaughn
Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a frumpy middle-aged woman who lives with her cat Alfie in a log cabin between a picturesque mountain and a lake. She earns her living writing action novels about a dashing spy named Argylle, who roams the planet on daring missions. Elly, on the other hand, is a homebody who is deathly afraid of flying and will only leave her home to attend a book launch in a nearby city. Her books are bestsellers, with her devoted fans eagerly awaiting #5 in the series. But her mom (Catherine O’Hara) — who proffers advice on all her books before they’re published — says the ending just doesn’t do it.
So she sets off on a train ride to hash through the manuscript with her mother. But everything changes on that train ride, when a stranger — a bearded long-haired man in dirty clothes — aggressively takes the seat across from her and refuses to move. He’s a fan of her books, he says. Turns out the entire train knows exactly who she is… and for some reason, they think her books are the key to the secret world of espionage, and for that reason, want her dead!
This strange man (Sam Rockwell) turns out to be a spy 
himself, fighting for the good guys. He manages to fight off dozens of would be assassins and brings Elly to safety. She grabs her cat and they fly off to Europe. But this is just the first step in a whirlwind journey of international intrigue, where the CIA — the good guys?! — are fighting the bad guys (a sinister cabal known as The Division) for worldwide domination. Why does everyone think her fiction is prophetic? Can frumpy Elly solve these mysteries? And will she ever know the truth?
Argylle is a highly stylized roller-coaster ride of light comedy and high-speed action. The bright colours and extreme violence and mass murder — but with no blood — is fueled by a non-stop infectious disco soundtrack. The movie begins with scenes from her novels where Argylle (a plastic-looking Henry Cavill) and his teammates have unbelievable ridiculous shoot outs and chase scenes in exotic locales. But it soon resets to “real life” where things are slightly more believable. The thing is, it all starts to merge, to the point where “reality’ is even more extreme than “fiction”. In Elly’s mind, her fictional spy Argylle periodically takes the place of her less appealing cohort.
The story makes marginal sense, with so many U-turns and double crosses your head will spin. But that’s not what the movie is about. It’s there for sheer entertainment — a ride on planes, trains and ice skates — as the film chugs along its merry way. Visually, it’s one giant green screen, with endless CGI and special effects, to the point where it’s almost a cartoon. Is that Henry Cavill’s face and hair or a computer generated plastic figurine? Is that Bryce Howard’s breasts or a CGI simulacrum? Who knows? Who cares!
This is all about spectacle, with some truly spectacular scenes of mass murder muted by bright billows of pink and lavender smoke. There’s gun porn, with the camera caressing thousands of assault weapons lined up in a shiny-white tribute to machine guns. And major star power, including Dua Lipa, John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, and Samuel L Jackson.
Is Argylle a good movie?
No!! It’s ridiculous, high-budget schlock… but it’s also eye-candy perfection.
Argylle starts this weekend, and Sometimes I think about Dying opens next week; 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.
Autobiographies? Films reviewed: North of Normal, A Compassionate Spy, Shortcomings
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is here in Toronto, a great time for some outdoor screenings. TOPS — Toronto Outdoor Picture Show — is showing films for free, after dark at Christie Pits, Corktown Common, Bell Manor, Old Fort York and the Evergreen Brickworks, with no tickets or advance registration required — just show up and sit on the grass.
This week I’m looking at three new movies — a memoir, a doc and dramedy. There’s a hippy in a tipi in Yukon, a spy in Los Alamos, and a frustrated filmmaker in Oakland.
North of Normal
Dir: Carly Stone
Cea Sunrise Person (Amanda Fix) is a teenage girl experiencing city life for the first time. She’s both naive and worldly. Her mother Michelle (Sarah Gadon) gave birth to her when she was only 15, and acts more like a sister than a mom. Since she was a child, she’s been raised, hippy style, in Yukon, by her grandparents, including Michelle’s dad Papa Dick (Robert Carlyle).
They shoot animals, go fishing and gather foraged foods. She grew up living in a tipi, where any visitor to their mobile encampments likely slept with one or more of the adults. She’s familiar with the concepts of free sex, a barter economy, and the use of soft drugs, as well as living off the grid, avoiding any government interference — Papa Dick hasn’t paid taxes in decades. So life down south (in an unnamed Canadian city) is totally alien to her. Though bright and friendly, she doesn’t understand school rules or social norms, and gets into fights with the locals. But she gradually adjusts — well, kind of — to a new life. But she really doesn’t get along with her mom’s new boyfriend, Sam (James D’Arcy) who happens to be a 
married man. Why does Michelle always fall for the bad boys? But one thing keeps her steady: Cea holds onto a childhood wish to move to Paris; she carries an Eiffel Tower snow globe wherever she goes. So when she is approached on the beach by a legit modelling scout, she wonders if this will be the fulfillment of her dreams.
North of Normal is a touching, coming-of-age film based on Cea Sunrise Person’s memoir about her unusual life (she ended up as a professional fashion model and entrepreneur.) She’s beautifully portrayed by Amanda Fix as a teenager and by River Price-Maenpaa as a little girl. And it’s shot amongst the forests and lakes of Canada’s north. The plot is eliptical, bouncing back and forward in time as her suppressed memories are gradually revealed, while leaving out large parts of her life. Even so, I liked this story.
A Compassionate Spy
Dir: Steve James
It’s the 1940s and WWII is raging, and there are rumours the Third Reich is developing an atomic bomb. So the US government initiates the secretive Manhattan Project in Las Alamos, supervised by the Army. It’s a collection of scientists brought together to create the ultimate weapon before Germany does. Most of the names are already famous: Oppenheimer, Teller, Niels Bohr, von Neuman. But the youngest one of all is Ted Hall. Only 18 years old, the child prodigy has already graduated from Harvard. He’s an ardent leftist, and wants to defeat fascism in Europe. As a drafted soldier, he has to wear a uniform and sleep in a barracks on the site, but otherwise he works each day beside other scientists. Aside from his age, he is different from the rest of them in another way. He is passing intel to the Soviet Union. Hall is disturbed by the idea of an impending nuclear holocaust, and doesn’t trust the US government to show restraint, if they’re the only holder of such a dangerous tool. So totally independently — with the help of is best friend, Savvy Sax — he seeks out the Soviets to tell them what’s going on. Is he arrested? Put in the electric chair like Ethel and Julius Rosenberg? No, he (and his wife Joan) keep their secret for half a century.
A Compassionate Spy is a fascinating documentary packed with info that sheds light on what Hall did and why, and what became of his 
life afterwards. Hall worked on cancer cures at the Sloane Kettering institute, and later became a professor at Cambridge University. Most surprising is that while he opposed the bomb, his own brother created and built ICBMs — Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles which may have brought the two sides closer to destruction.) The doc is made up of a confessional video Hall made before he died, new interviews with his wife Joan and their kids, as well as with Savvy Sax’s family. It also recreates dramatic scenes from the period, along with contemporary newsreels, diaries, letters and photos. Joan Hall is this really fascinating and feisty character who tells most of the story. Equally important, the film presents a lot of crucial information that is glossed over in the recent hit biopic Oppenheimer. Like the fact that many scientists (including Hall) petitioned FDR and Truman not to drop the bomb on Japan; the letter was stifled by Leslie Groves, and never sent. I never knew the US threatened to use the bomb on the USSR in 1946 after the Russian army occupied Iran. And lots more eye-openers. A Compassionate Spy is an excellent documentary by the Oscar-winning director of Hoop Dreams.
Shortcomings
Dir: Randall Park
Ben (Justin H. Min) is an aspiring filmmaker in Oakland, California. After dropping out of cinema studies at Berkeley, he’s now he’s the manager of an art house theatre, so he still has a peripheral connection. He loves all women but treats any man as a potential competitor. His best friend is Alice (Sherry Cola), a queer Korean American. They hang together ogling girls in local cafes — for Ben, that’s mainly women with blonde hair. He acts as her beard, posing as her fiancé when she has to visit her conservative family.
He lives with Miko (Ally Maki) who also wants to make films; she’s involved with the local Asian American Film Festival. She’s the love of his life. But despite the fact that he, his girlfriend and his best friend are all Asian American he is quick to point he feels no racial identity or kinship, and loathes identity politics. His abrasive and defeatist attitude leads to frequent arguments with Miko. But everything changes when she suddenly moves to NY City for a film internship, leaving Ben unexpectedly unmoored. Does their temporary separation offer him a chance to explore his sexual fantasies (that is, sleeping with a white woman)? Or will he try to win Miko back again?
Shortcomings is a hilariously deadpan look at the life and thoughts of an Asian-American man. Its observations are simultaneously scathing social satire and self-deprecating humour. It’s based on the graphic novels of Adrian Tomine whom I’ve read for decades now, so I was worried the comics wouldn’t translate well into film. 
Luckily, Tomine wrote the screenplay, and it’s told, like his comics, in a series of connected vignettes. The characters are brilliant — Justin H Min is sympathetically annoying as Ben, the guy who never misses a chance to mess things up. Sherry Cola is equally brilliant, as are the many priceless side characters — Autumn, a performance artist who photographs her own toilet use, Sasha, a frustrated bisexual, Leon, an annoying fashion designer who Ben calls a rice king, and Gene, a smug popcorn maker.
From the opening parody of Crazy Rich Asians to the closing scene, this perfect comedy has no shortcomings to speak of.
North of Normal is now playing; Shortcomings opens this weekend across Canada, check your local listings; and A Compassionate Spy is on now at the Rogers Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
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