Mishmashed genres. Films reviewed: Sisu, Polite Society, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring Film Festival Season continues in Toronto, with Hot Docs on now — offering 200 great documentaries from around the world, with free daytime tickets for students and seniors! — and ReelAbilities Film Festival starts on May 11th, showing great films by, for and about the deaf and disability communities — and it’s fully accessible!
But this week I’m talking about three new movies — from Finland, the UK and the US — opening this weekend. There’s a WWII action-thriller that feels like a spaghetti western; an Indo-English action-comedy with a dash of Kung Fu, and a coming-of-age drama about puberty in the 1970s.
Sisu
Wri/Dir: Jalmari Helander
It’s 1944 in Lapland, Finland, and a grizzled old prospector (Jorma Tommila) is panning for gold. He knows there’s a war going on, but he just wants to be alone with his dog, his horse and his pickaxe. But then he hits a golden lode! Not just a few tiny nuggets, but huge glowing rocks. Now it’s time to pack up his bags and head off toward Helsinki to cash them in. What he doesn’t know, though, is that the Nazis are carrying out a scorched-earth policy, burning and killing everyone in Lapland. And a troop of SS soldiers, tanks and all, are heading his way. How can a feeble old prospector resist the Third Reich?
But this is no ordinary codger. When Finland was allied to the Nazis he singlehandedly fought hundreds of Soviet soldiers – his back is riddled with bullet holes and scars, but he is virtually indestructible. He is a living legend and the Russians know to steer clear of him. And now Finland has switched sides, from the Axis to the Allies. But the SS Obersturmführer (Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie: Max Manus) and his henchman Wolf (Jack Doolan) don’t have a clue who they’re dealing with. And when they spot his gold, they make it the mission of their squad to kill the old man and grab the booty. But which side will triumph in the end?
Sisu (the title is an untranslatable Finnish word that means something like a knuckle- breaking determination, and bravery, never to give in despite the odds) is an extremely violent action-thriller, told in a light, almost humorous way, about one man’s fight to the bitter end. It traces their battle on land, through minefields, underwater and high in the sky. The music and camerawork look like a 1960s spaghetti western, and the film has an almost cartoonish or fairytale feel. I’ve seen Tommila in a number of super-weird Finnish movies (Big Game, Rare Exports) directed by Helander, always about a not-so-nice hero in Lapland, with his actual son Onni Tommila always playing a role (this time he’s a German soldier). A unique genre, but one you should explore. If you’re into suspense and action with lots of violence, blood and gore, you’ll love Sisu.
Polite Society
Wri/Dir: Nida Manzoor
Ria and Lena are two sisters who live in London. When they’re not wrestling or trying to gouge each other’s eyes out, they are fantasizing about their future careers: Ria (Priya Kansara) as a stuntwoman, and Lena (Ritu Arya) as an artist. Ria relentlessly practices her killer kung-fu kick (to no avail) while Lena cultivates her brooding goth persona.
This doesn’t sit well with their Pakistani parents, who want their daughters to find respectable professions. That’s why they pay for Ria’s posh private school — so she’ll become a doctor.
But things turn bad when Lena drops out of art school and falls into a deep depression. Things get worse when she agrees to attend a party at a huge mansion, thrown by Salim (Akshay Khan) the most eligible bachelor in town, and the son of a millionairess (Nimra Bucha). But when he proposes to Ria, Lena knows something is not right. Why did this rich guy want to marry an art school drop out? What are his real motives? With the help of her best friends Clara and Alba she decides to delve into Salim’s past and expose his wrongdoings to stop the impending wedding. But is she barking up the wrong tree? And is it all just her childish imagination?
Polite Society is an English action-comedy, and though set within the South Asian community, aside from one song it’s a far cry from Bollywood. The humour is British and the fights are strictly Hong Kong. Throw in a bit of science fiction and some high school dynamics, and you’ll find an unexpectedly enjoyable mishmash of genres, in the style of Everything, Everwhere, All at Once… but entirely different. I liked this one a lot.
Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret
Wri/Dir: Kelly Fremon Craig (Based on the book by Judy Blume)
It’s the 1970s in Manhattan. Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) is an 11-year-old girl who lives in an apartment with her parents. She loves school, her friends, her Grandma Sylvia (Kathy Bates) who lives nearby, and the city that’s all around her. So when her parents tell her they’re leaving The City and moving to suburban New Jersey, Margaret is devastated. And despite their assurances — it’s just across the river, Dad (Benny Safdie: Uncut Gems) got a promotion and Mom (Rachel McAdams: Morning Glory, A Most Wanted Man, Everything Will Be Fine, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) won’t have to work anymore — to Margaret it’s another universe. That’s why she starts talking directly to God, since she has no one else to tell her secrets to. She was brought up with no religion — her dad’s Jewish and her mom’s Christian — but she still needs the God thing.
She soon makes friends her age, when their neighbour marches through their front door. Nancy (Elle Graham) quickly informs her she’s richer, prettier and more popular than Margaret but she can join her clique anyway as long as she follows the rules: They must wear a bra, tell the group when they have a period, and share the name of the boy they’re crushing on. Problem is Margaret has no breasts, no period and Moose, the guy she likes, isn’t the right one. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret is a retelling of the classic, pre-teen novel, and it’s fantastic. It’s funny and realistic, dealing with the problems and insecurities girls had to deal with before the internet. (And none of these worries have gone away). It’s set in the 1970s, complete with the classrooms, clothes and music of the period, but also the attitudes and zeitgeist. It deals with everything from spin the bottle to bullying. And if you have a heart I’m sure you’ll shed a tear at least once. Generations grew up on Judy Blume’s books, and the movie is faithful to the original but totally accessible to kids today (and their parents.) This is a great girls’ movie about the perils of puberty.
Polite Society, Sisu and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret all open across Canada 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.
Exposing secrets. Films reviewed: John Wick: Chapter 4, The Five Devils, Ithaka
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies — an action film, a mysterious drama, and a documentary— from the US, France and Australia. There’s an assassin battling a secret organization, a little girl sticking her nose into hidden places, and a journalist jailed for bringing secret war crimes into the light.
John Wick: Chapter 4
Dir: Chad Stahelski
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a Belorussian assassin, under the control of a powerful, international cabal known as The High Table. He’s infamous for his relentless killing skills; he can wipe out an entire squadron with a just a pair of nunchucks. Wick wants out, but to do that he needs to be free. So he embarks on a complex series of tasks to complete before the Table frees him. In the meantime, The Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), the head honcho, wants him dead… so he gets Wick’s former best friend and partner to kill him.
Caine (Donnie Yen) is an expert martial arts fighter and shooter who happens to be blind. So Wick turns to another old friend, Shimazu (Sanada Hiroyuki) a hotelier in Osaka. Even though he could lose everything, he still agrees to hide Wick from the Marquis’ agents. Meanwhile, the marquis has put a multimillion dollar mark on Wick’s head, a reward that its steadily rising, letting loose an army of killers out for a quick buck, including a man with a dog known as the tracker
(Shamier Anderson). Can Wick survive this army of killers? Or will this be his final showdown?
John Wick: Chapter 4 is nearly three hours of non-stop violence. The characters and storyline is strictly cookie-cutter, but the settings — in New York, Osaka, Paris, Berlin and Jordan — is vast and opulent. Every chamber has cathedral ceilings and gaudy rococo elegance. And the fight choreography is spectacularly orchestrated. The cast — including Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane and the late Lance Reddick — are fun to watch. No one will call this a great movie, but if you enjoy endless fight scenes with hundreds of extras whether among the writhing bodies of a Berlin nightclub or in a traffic jam around the Arc de Triomphe, John Wick 4 will satisfy.
The Five Devils (Les cinq diables)
Co-Wri/Dir: Léa Mysius
Vicki (Sally Dramé) is a bright young girl who lives in a small village in the French alps. Joanne, her mom (Adèle Exarchopoulos) teaches aqua fitness, while Jimmy, her dad (Moustapha Mbengue) is a fireman. But Vicki has no friends, and is constantly bullied at school, perhaps because she’s mixed-race in a mainly white town (her mom is white, her dad’s from Senegal.) Vicki has a unique skill no one else knows about: she can identify anything or anyone purely by its scent. If she picks up a leaf she instantly knows what kind of animal bit it, and its size, age, even its feelings. And she can recognize people at twenty paces, blindfolded, just by their smell. Vicki starts finding things, and like an alchemist, puts them into jars, carefully labelling each one.
But when a surprise visit by her aunt Julia, her father’s sister (Swala Emati), things start to change. There’s something in Julia’s past that has turned the whole village against her. When Vicki discovers how to harness her power of smell to travel, temporarily, back in time, she finds that she may have played a role in Julia’s younger life. But can she influence what already happened?
The Five Devils is a very cool French mystery/drama with a hint of the supernatural and a sapphic twist. The alps may be majestic but they hide a sinister past, and a stultifyingly provincial and xenophobic culture. This is conveyed in the large, tacky murals and oddly dated architecture that pops up everywhere. The three female leads Exarchopoulos, Dramé and Emati are amazing (with full points on the Bechdel test). Mysius is an accomplished scriptwriter who has worked with such luminaries as Claire Denis and Jacques Audiard. You can tell. And an unexpected twist at the very end will have you leaving the theatre with an extra jolt.
I like this movie.
Ithaka
Wri/Dir: Ben Lawrence
Twenty years ago this month, US- and British-led forces invades Iraq under the pretence of finding Weapons of Mass Destruction supposedly threatening the west. Nothing is ever found and over 200,000 civilians are killed, 4 million displaced, and the entire middle east thrown into disarray, leading to the rise of fundamentalists like ISIS, unrest and civil war from which, 20 years later, it has yet to recover. In 2010, army specialistChelsea Manning anonymously releases a huge trove of secret military files to Wikileaks, a website founded specifically to expose things like war crimes and corruption, without endangering news sources and reporters who cover them.
It’s founded by Australian journalist and hactivist Julian Assange. That’s when Wikileaks catches the world’s attention by exposing, on video, the US military gunning down innocent civilians in Iraq in cold blood, including Reuters journalists. None of the perpetrators of these — and countless other war crimes — ever served time, but Manning is arrested and jailed, while Assange is forced to seek refuge in the Ecuador Embassy in London. He is afraid that travelling to Sweden for questioning will lead to him being extradited to the US. His fears are correct, and he is later jailed in Belmarsh, a maximum security prison in London, awaiting deportation to the US on charges of espionage. He remains there today.
Ithaka is a personal and intimate documentary about Assange in jail in London during the trial, and the events that led up to it. Using original interviews and contemporary news reports, it fills in the blanks you may have missed. It also reveals the CIA’s involvement, including plots to murder him. The doc follows two people: John Shipton, Assange’s dad, and Stella Moris, his wife and the mother of their two sons. Shipton is an Australian house builder and peace activist. Moris is the Johannesburg-born daughter of Swedish and Spanish parents who were active in the anti-Apartheid movement. She also serves as his lawyer. Assange is off camera, but his cel phone voice is often present.
For a man like Assange, who has done more to expose government and corporate corruption than almost any other journalist today, to be charged with espionage and threatened with life in prison is a travesty of justice. His suffering and deterioration in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. If you want to learn more about him, or to show your support, Ithaka is a good place to start.
John Wick Chapter 4 and The Five Devils open in Toronto this weekend; check you local listings. Ithaka is now playing at the Hot Docs cinema.
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 Ry Levey about Out in the Ring
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Picture this: scantily clad men and woman grope each other in same-sex displays. Over-the-top performers dressed in outrageous costumes , wigs and makeup, posture before shrieking crowds. What are we talking about here: gay and lesbian porn? Or maybe Rupaul’s Drag Race? No! This is the world of pro-wrestling, known for both it’s outright campy behaviour and its homo-erotic displays, along with a deep-seated record of discrimination against LGBT wrestlers. That was the past, and things have changed. But what is it like now to be “out in the ring”?
Out in the Ring is a new documentary, over four years in the making that traces the history of LGBT people in and around the world of pro-wrestling. It talks with athletes, present and past, famous and infamous. It also meticulously traces their history, giving both an
insiders’ visceral view and an outsiders’ critical stance. And it delves deep into the sometimes shady business of pro-wrestling. It’s the work of producer/ director Ry Levey — a labour of love.
I spoke with Ry Levey in Toronto via ZOOM.
Out in the Ring is having its world premier at the Inside Out film festival on June 3rd, at 4:45 pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Gangsters and gangstas. Films reviewed: Yakuza Princess, Mogul Mowgli
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF starts in less than a week, but it’s a bit different this year. The press is under a total embargo, even for capsule reviews. But I can tell you about some of the changes. Unlike last year which was totally digital, this year they’re showing movies both on the big screen and digitally (at home). They also claim there will be no tickets, no badges, and no line-ups. No line ups? Unless they’ve mastered the art of teleportation, I’m not sure how they’ll get people into theatres without queues… but we shall see.
This week I’m looking at two new movies — an action thriller and a musical drama. There’s a young woman in Brazil pursued by Japanese gangsters; and a Pakistani-British rapper in London chased by visions in his head.
Co-Wri/Dir:Vicente Amorim
(based on the graphic novel by Danilo Beyruth)
Liberdade is the Japanese-Brazilian section of Sao Paolo, one of the largest communities of ethnic Japanese in the world, outside of Japan. Akemi (Masumi) is there to improve her Portuguese. She has a part-time job selling LED lighting at a booth in the market working for a strict boss. In her free time, she practices Kendo, a martial art using bamboo swords. She’s devoted to her sensei, who stresses the importance of these lessons. And she loves singing at the local karaoke bar.
But due to an unexpected turn of events, she meets a strange man with no name (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). He has total amnesia — he doesn’t know who he is ,where he’s from and why he’s there. His face is covered with scars; he recently evaded a police-watch at his hospital bed where the cops wanted to question him about a certain sword, found beside his nearly-lifeless body. He also wants to know about the sword — he recognizes its importance — the only thing he can remember. Akemi has to fight off three aggressive young punks who cat-call her as she performs her song. They stalk her home and threaten and break into her apartment. She fights them off using her latent skills in self-defence, but it’s three-to-one, until the sword-wielding scarface steps in to help. Then a third player enters the picture and joins in the fight. Takeshi (Ihara Tsuyoshi) is a highly ranked member of a powerful Yakuza clan. (The Yakuza refers to organized crime groups and their devoted members who are both powerful but also outcasts within Japanese society.) He’s in Brazil on a mission: to track down Akemi, the only surviving member of a faction wiped out in a power struggle 20 years earlier when she was just a little girl. She knows nothing about any of this. Which of these two men is her ally… and which one is her killer? Takeshi, the ruthless Yakuza or the scar-faced swordsman with amnesia? And where did his strangely alluring Katana sword come from?
Yakuza Princess, as the title suggests, is an action/thriller about an ordinary young woman who discovers she’s the heiress to a faction of gangsters whose rivals are trying to kill. This is a Brazilian movie, and the script is in three languages English Japanese and Portuguese. It’s also pretty kitschy in its fetishistic version of Japanese culture, filled silent ritual bows and singing swords. But movies like this are allowed to be kitschy — they’re all about the fights: sword fights, fist-fights, jiu jitsu matches, gun battles and chase scenes. All of which are nicely choreographed. Ihara Tsuyoshi is a former stuntman, Masumi is a singer-actress, and Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been playing dangerous pretty-boys in TV series and movies for many years. In this one though, his face is so covered in scars and blood he’s barely recognizable (probably so stuntmen can play him in the fight scenes.) Yakuza Princess may be super-cheesy and bloody with a convoluted plot, but it’s a fun action thriller. With an ending that suggests many more sequels yet to come.
Dir: Bassam Tariq
Z (Riz Ahmed) is a rising South-Asian English rapper. He just finished a sold-out American tour and he’s flying high, hanging with his American girlfriend Bina and his British manager. And now he’s slated to go on a world tour, as the opening act for a superstar. This is the big break he’s been waiting for. So he decides to spend a week in London’s East End with his family who he hasn’t seen for two years. But nothing has changed. The new dishwasher is still sitting there in a box. His bedroom is full of the cassette tapes he rapped to as a teenager. His dad (Alyy Khan) is a failed entrepreneur full of get-rich -quick schemes that never get off the ground. And his mom (Sudha Bhuchar) has her own quirks. When the chilli peppers she chars over a burner gives off no aroma — she says it’s a bad sign. Turns out she’s right. Z is suddenly afflicted by an unidentified ailment.
Within a day or two his muscles cease to function. He can’t walk, can barely even stand up. But his world tour is leaving in a couple days! IN the hospital a doctor had worse news. It’s an autoimmune disorder of unknown origin. Luckly there’s a new tincture they can try on him — it just might work. But among many possible side effect is the loss of fertility. And even worse, his manager wants to replace him own the world tour with an awful rapper wannabe. Suddenly the famous performer is emasculated and immobile, deserted by his friends and depending on his eccentric parents’ superstitions to get through the day. Under the influence of the experimental meds he slips into a twilight zone of dreams, visions and hallucinations. Will he live or will he die? Will his former powers be restored? Can his career and reputation be rescued? And will his self-confidence ever return?
Mogul Mowgli is a brilliant showcase for the great young British actor Riz Ahmed. It’s hilarious surprising, and filled with sharp self-criticism. It chronicles the fall of a famous rapper — Riz Ahmed wrote his own versus — and the loss of face that entails. It also reveals the inner-workings of the London Pakistani community — at home, in the mosque and in the wider world. And how the children of immigrants navigate their split identities. Everything Z sees and hears makes its way into the versus he’s constantly composing in his head. It’s told in an almost surreal manner, through the inner workings of a possibly dying man’s mind. Z is haunted by a groom whose face is covered with garlands of flowers, while his hospital gown morphs into a sequinned suit.
I really liked this movie.
Mogul Mowgli and Yakuza Princess are both opening theatrically and/or digitally across Canada 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
Movies about Sex and Disabilities. Films reviewed: Hyde Park on the Hudson, Rust and Bone PLUS Morgan, Beeswax.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
In movies, disabilities were traditionally there to provide tragedy and pathos. People have an accident and end up in a wheelchair or a bed… my life is over, I will never work again, so sad. Or else they were a signal of great personal triumph. Look ma, I survived! Occasionally, you’d have the villain in horror movie, bitter, evil, deformed, taking out his pain on other people. Witches with canes, super-villains in wheelchairs…
Then came the movie-of-the-week disabled person as the frail victim, the pitied, while their counterpart character is the strong, powerful, and privileged one. They either die or “get better”.
We haven’t even reached the point where disabled people become the equivalent of the token black neighbour or gay best friend. (exceptions: Drake on Degrassi).
That’s why it’s neat to have two new movies with normal, fascinating, multidimensional, central characters who have, but aren’t defined by, their disability. The disability is part of the plot but not the central reason for the character. And, most important, people with disabilities are shown to be sexual.
This week I’m looking at two new movies, both romantic dramas, one light, one powerful — where one of the two main characters – the one with more education, wealth and power – has a disability.

Bill Murray as FDR in a wheelchair
Hyde Park on the Hudson
Dir: Andrew Michel
It’s the 1930s, the Great Depression, and Daisy (Laura Linney) has fallen into hard times. So she likes it when she gets summoned to visit a distant relative Franklin (Bill Murray) who is doing much better. He’s a stamp collector — he’s staying at his mother’s estate in the Hudson Valley in Western NY. Oh yeah… and he’s the President. FDR to be exact. Well they get along famously and one day he takes her for a drive into the hills, leaving his Secret Service agents behind. And what happens at the top of the hill? (Cover your ears, kiddies…) She gives him a handjob.
And so begins their long-term relationship. He builds a secret house for their trysts – he’s married to Eleanor Roosevelt – and they form a warm and loving special relationship. But the movie also focuses on another special relationship: One crucial weekend, when King George and Queen Elizabeth – in sort of a prequel to The King’s Speech – are visiting the states to get them to get on board in the soon-to-come war against Hitler.
The Queen (the current Queen’s mother) is portrayed as a shrewish manipulator with the young, stammering George as a weakling, prey to her machinations. What are hot dogs and why are they asking us to eat? Why did they put political cartoons of George III on the wall? They’re insulting us!
Then there’s Roosevelt — he had polio as a kid. At the time, in official photos, his disability was always hidden, never spoken of, never photographed. But as this a backstage view of his life, he’s constantly being lifted from room to room or moving about in a specially-designed wheelchair. The same is true of their relationship:
I liked it. It feels like a PBS Masterpiece Theatre episode, complete with stately homes and royalty, but with stupendous acting and subtle writing. This is actually a good, touching movie, an historical drama based on newly discovered material about a person – Daisy – who is largely unknown. Some historical details seem questionable – were his servants really white not black? – and some are surprising – The Canadian PM William Lyon Mackenzie King was the one who brought George and Elizabeth to meet FDR that weekend, yet he was nowhere to be seen. (As usual, Canada is erased from the picture.)
The acting is great, both Bill Murray and Laura Linney are fantastic. The casting didn’t worry too much about looking like the real thing – Eleanor Roosevelt as a very beautiful woman? She was known for her inner beauty more than her movie-star good looks – it was more about conveying their personalities. While the characters’ feelings are kept largely opaque, it still conveys the story.
Rust and Bone
Dir: Jacques Audiard
Ali is a ne’er-do-well single dad and fighter from Belgium. He has to take his cute kid Sam to the south of France to stay with his sister when his wife, a junkie, ends up in jail. He’s a terrible father, self-centred and irresponsible, a negative role-model. His sister, and her husband, a trucker are responsible and take on the child-rearing responsibilities.
But Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is Sam’s dad, so he takes care of him as much as he can, which isn‘t much.
He’s irresponsible but also totally spontaneous. He sees a woman he likes, sleeps with her, moves on, no strings. If they’re free – they text they’re “OP” (operational) and they meet.
He has no job experience but is good fighter, so he lands a job as a bouncer at a nightclub. There he meets Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) an older woman, very beautiful, who works as an orca trainer (!) at Marineland. She’s not there for a pick-up; she just wants to be the object of desire by others.
Ali helps her when a fight breaks out and treats her with respect… even though he always says the wrong thing (he’s a Flemish speaker.)
Then Stephanie has a serious accident at work with the orcas, and her life changes. She’s caught in a funk of self-pity and hatred. Ali, meanwhile is moving up to sketchy work as a security guard and open air Mixed martial arts fights where he gets a cut of the bets in the fight.
So depressed Steph calls him up – maybe this odd couple can get together and help each other survive? Will he bring her back to life? Will she teach him to behave in a civilized way? Will he take responsibility as a father? Will they ever have an actual relationship?
I don’t want to give away any more of the story – and it’s a terrific story! – but suffice it to say, it’s a deeply moving romance, a drama, a family story, a boxing movie, and lots more. The director, Audiard – he made A Prophet, another great movie — is fantastic, all the supporting actors (especially Corrinne Maseiro as Ali’s sister and Armand Verdure as Sam, his son) are amazing. But the two main leads Schoenaerts and Cotillard – are powerfully perfect in their roles.
Morgan
Dir: Michael D. Akers
Also worth mentioning is the low-budget drama Morgan (Dir: Michael D. Akers) that was screened at this year’s Inside-Out LGBT Film Festival in Toronto. In this film, Morgan (Leo Minaya), a competitive bike racer is disabled in an accident on a steep hill in Central Park, which is on the very path of the tournament he wants to win. After a struggle, and with the help of a caring boyfriend Dean (Jack Kesy) who he first meets on a basketball court, he decides to tackle the race once again, this time using a bike adjusted to fit his disability. This movie sensitively shows how partners can learn to treat a disability as a normal, erotic part of their sex lives.
Beeswax
Dir: Andrew Bujalski
And the realistic film Beeswax, from two years ago, also doesn’t shy away from sex involving a person with a disability. A nice, comfortable film, Beeswax is about the secrets and tensions shared by two sisters (played by real-life twins Tilly Hatcher, Maggie Hatcher), one of whom uses a wheelchair.
Hyde Park on the Hudson opens today, and Rust and Bone opens next Friday, Dec 21st. I don’t reveal my top ten movies of the year until the end of the month, but I guarantee Rust and Bone will be in that list. Also now playing is the very cute Korean romance A Werewolf Boy, which played at TIFF this year, about a boy raised by wolves, the girl who dog-trained him to behave like a person, and the romance that grew between them.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com .
June 1, 2012. Bad Dads. Movies Reviewed: A Beginner’s Guide to Endings, Lovely Molly PLUS In the Family
Hundreds of thousands of students are on the streets of Montreal protesting the old-guard government’s plan to double university tuition and for enacting new laws that let the police arrest almost anyone they want. Does this mean we’re having another 1960’s style youth revolt against the patriarchy? Are Dads bad?
As always, life reflects art and art reflects life. Later on this morning I’m talking with director and star Patrick Wang and young actor Sebastian Blane about their moving new pro-dad film, In the Family, about a father’s fight to hold on to his son when the biological father (his same-sex spouse), dies. But, before that, I’m talking about some bad dads and what happens to their kids. One’s a Canadian comedy about three brothers who learn their late father was the cause of their own imminent deaths; and the other’s an American horror movie about a young woman who thinks her dead bad dad has come back to get her.
Dir: Jonathon Sobel
Duke (Harvey Keitel) is an inveterate gambler in Niagara Falls Ontario, who throws himself into the Niagara River, leaving his three sons in a bit of a tangle. He’s the movie’s narrator and as he attempts to end it all he says only a Hail Mary pass or a genuine miracle could save his three oldest sons. It turns out, he had farmed them out to Big Pharma testing program when they were younger, but never told them about the side effects. This means they’re all as good as gone. So how do they handle their new mortality?
Nuts is the oldest (The Daily Show’s Jason Jones, wearing a Viva Zapata moustache). He has to fight an impossible heavyweight boxing match with an undefeated champ if he wants to save chowderhead bro number four from being punched to a pulp. Cal (Scott Caan), #2, the womanizer, decides to stop picking up girls and instead marry his highschool crush Miranda (the statuesque Tricia Helfer). Unfortunately all her three husbands had died unexplained violent deaths. Straight laced #3, Cob (Paulo Costanzo), vows to quit his job and do all the fun things on his bucket list, instead. But this lands him in a precarious position too.
Can they and will they ever get out of their messes?
A Beginner’s Guide to Endings is a cute, screwball-type idea, and not too bad a movie. It is writer-director Sobel’s first film, and the jokes are hit or miss. He has a bad tendency of killing good lines: Whenever there’s a funny joke, he tells it, then explains it, then has the characters laugh at it, and then brings it up again later in the movie. Doesn’t work. But the comic actors are fun to watch, especially Jason Jones, Tricia Helfer and J.K. Simmons, and it’s good to see Niagara Falls on the big screen again. Not bad for a first try…
Dir: Eduardo Sánchez
When Molly (Gretchen Lodge) moves into her old family home with her new husband, Tim the trucker, everyone tells her it’s a bad idea. The karma’s not right, there. The Feng Shui is way off. Never mind that her father is dead. You see, Molly keeps hearing noises, beckoning her to come out and play. Scary voices. Haunting voices. Voices that might make er do bad things. Molly… lovely Molly… It’s all very strange for her. Tim goes away for a few days on some cross country trucking trip when he should have been at home helping her fight her demons. He keeps coming home to see her sitting naked staring at a closet door that reminds her of something bad from her childhood.
So Molly decide to investigate on her own. She finds old photo albums with pictures of her Charles Manson-like father. And then there are all these satanic-looking horse head designs in the garage. What’s up with that? And she keeps hearing knocks and bangs and footsteps – it must be her father coming to get her! But no one else sees him (although everyone notices the smell of noxious rotten flesh in the house). Creepy Pastor Bob’s no help, neither is big sister who looks like a crackhead, and Tim’s never around. And there seems to be a stalker with a video camera ,too.
So what’s the deal? Is Molly crazy? Is she on drugs? Or is she just reliving some psycho-sexual trauma from her childhood? On the other hand, maybe it is a ghost doing all this. Or a possession. Or maybe Satan the horse-demon himself? Molly says “I saw something but it doesn’t make sense and no one believes me…!” I believe you Molly – I saw something too, and no, it doesn’t make sense.
Lovely Molly is trying, I guess, to reclaim some of the Blair Witch thunder that started the whole genre of found footage films. (Sanchez directed that movie). This one isn’t “found footage” but, like Chernobyl Diaries, includes some of its elements: Molly tries to document the bad guys with her handheld video camera so she can prove they’re really there.
The problem is, it’s a total failure of a horror movie. It tries to be everything and ends up just a confusing mess. It’s got good gore, thrills and chills and some shocking moments and a few unexpected plot twists, but these odds and ends don’t make for a coherent movie.
A Beginner’s Guide to Endings, Lovely Molly, and In the Family all open today in Toronto – check your local listings. The CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival opens on Tuesday, The Toronto Japanese Film Festival starts Thursday, NXNE begins on the 13th, and it was just announced today that Toronto’s first annual Italian Contemporary Film Festival, featuring films by Nanni Moretti, Ivan Cotroneo, and the Canadian Premier of Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love, will be launched on June 26th. Check out icff.ca for more information.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM, with podcasts and complete reviews available on my web site CulturalMining. com.
March 30, 2012. Battles Royal. Movies Reviewed: The Hunger Games, The Raid: Redemption, Gerhard Richter — Painting
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies, for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, genre and mainstream movies, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
I’m back again, to review three movies. With the recent re-release of the Japanese horror/thriller Battle Royale (Dir: Fukasaku Kinji, 1990) I thought it was appropriate to look at great battles and fights to the death. One’s about a girl who must fight 23 other teenagers on national television; one’s about a cop who has to kill literally hundreds of bad guys in an apartment complex; and one’s about a master artist who has to fight a constant battle with his adversaries: the paintings he creates.
Hunger Games
Dir: Gary Ross
It’s sometime in the future in America, with the country split into 12 districts, divided by what they produce. They are all poor, while the people in the capital are rich, living their lives obsessed with grotesque, Louis XVI clothing and wigs. Catniss (Jenifer Lawrence) is extremely poor since her father died in a mining disaster, so she hunts for food (illegally) with her best friend Gale and a bow and arrow. Without the squirrels she catches she, her mother and her sister Prim would starve to death.
This country is called Panem and it operates on the bread and circuses principle (keep the people fed on bread — panem — and entertained). So while the people are just eking by, the President forces two “tributes” — a teenaged boy and girl from each district — to fight to the death each year in a televised reality show. Sort of like the Olympics, except no one wants to be chosen by the random “reaping”. They are dressed, trained, and sent away to a forest with cameras hidden in every knothole and behind each shrub.




leave a comment