It’s dangerous! Films reviewed: Daniela Forever, Apocalypse in the Tropics, We Were Dangerous
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Guillermo del Toro, the celebrated director who splits his time between Mexico and Canada, has curated a series of classic Canadian horror movies called From Rabid to Skinamarink: Canadian Movie Madness, playing at the TIFF Lightbox this weekend. I happen to have seen everyone of them myself, and I totally agree with del Toro’s selection. You can catch Canadian gems like the feminist werewolf drama Ginger Snaps, Vincenzo Natali’s cult-hit Cube, Kyle Edward Ball’s experimental Skinamarink, and many more.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies from abroad: a surreal fantasy from Spain, a politically documentary from Brazil, and a period drama from New Zealand.
Daniela Forever
Wri/Dir: Nacho Vigalondo
It’s present-day Madrid. Nicolas (Henry Golding: Crazy Rich Asians) is a popular DJ at the city’s hottest nightclubs. But he is thrown into a deep depression when his girlfriend, an artist named Daniela (Beatrice Grannò: The White Lotus) is killed by a negligent driver just outside his home. But things take a turn for the better when a good friend of his, Victoria (Nathalie Poza), tells him of a new, experimental drug that might be just what he needs. But it’s top secret, filled with non-disclosure clauses, and requires regular visits to the pharmaceutical labs. The scientists there tell him each pill, if taken just before bed, will produce lucid dreams, real visions where he can control the content and won’t forget about them when he wakes up. This means he can bring Daniela back to life, at least while he sleeps. But he soon discovers its limitations: he can’t dream about something he’s never seen. If he turns down an ally he’s never visited, it will be covered in unformed, writhing grey matter. Kinda creepy.
Daniela seems artificial at first, but as time progresses, she starts turning real. She even produces creative ideas and thoughts that he doesn’t remember ever experiencing in the awake world. And far from seeming etherial, his lucid dreams are now wide- screen images in living colour, while awake 
time is small and drab. He can take Daniela to new places just by thinking about them and opening a door, and change the city of Madrid into something out of one of her paintings. But he soon realizes, not everything is going the way he planned. And when things from his dream world start appearing in awake time, he has to wonder what is real? Can he be in love with someone who doesn’t exist? And can she ever really love him if she’s just a figure of his imagination?
Forever Daniela is a highly- creative science fiction romance about love, death and reality. While it sounds like a Black Mirror jump-scare thriller, it actually avoids most “bad” things except for the sadness of mourning. It also has a very surprising twist at the end (no spoilers). The film is Spanish, but most of the dialogue is in English. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) is appealing as the leading man, but runs into a bit of acting trouble when he tries to do a full-fledged meltdown. The special effects are excellent, fooling around with unusual concepts like daytime light and shadows in a nighttime environment. I quite like the writer/director Nacho Vigalondo
for the way he incorporates horror movie elements within an otherwise realistic context (like his film Colossal a few years ago.) So if you’re looking for something that’s surreal and supernatural but told in a positive, though bittersweet, way, I think you’ll like Daniela Forever.
Apocalypse in the Tropics
Wri/Dir: Petra Costa
Brasilia — a capital city designed, planned and built from the ground up — was meant to be modern, secular and democratic. But after a coup-d’etat in 1964, Brazil became something other than democratic: a military dictatorship which ruled for the next two decades. So when a new, populist right-wing leader with military ties emerged in the 2010s, many Brazilians were wary of democracy falling again. But Jair Bolsonaro was different, a politician who changed his power base when he forged ties with evangelical Christians.
Apocalypse in the Tropics traces Brazilian politics over the past decade and the rise in religion within government policies. It also gives background, from the building of the capital, through the military coup, American evangelist Billy Graham, the return to democracy, and more recent developments. It uses beautiful period footage, lush music and symbolic paintings — like Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — as a metaphoric portrayal of millenarian changes in Brazilian politics. It is narrated by the filmmaker and includes her one-on-one interviews with Bolsonaro, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the wildly popular televangelist, Silas Malafaia, who served as 
Bolsonaro’s right-hand man. We witness Malafaia’s sermons before huge crowds — shouting his opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and feminism — as well as intimate conversations aboard his private plane. The doc also shows new footage of the beloved capital Brazilia occupied and trashed by massive demonstrators, who called for a coup after Bolsonaro’s defeat.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is a follow-up to Petra Costa’s 2019 film The Edge of Democracy with similar footage, style, and topic but concentrating this time on religion’s role in government policies. I’m not sure if this is a sequel, a reshoot or a continuation, but either way, it’s as aesthetically beautiful as it is disturbing.
We Were Dangerous
Wri/Dir Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu
It’s the 1950s on a small island somewhere off the coast of New Zealand, where three girls share a cabin: Daisy, Nelly and Lou (Manaia Hall, Erana James, and Nathalie Morris). They were sent there by the authorities or their parents. Te Motu is a school for “incorrigible” girls or, as the administrators call them, “whores, queers, delinquents and sexual deviants.” Many are orphans or runaways caught stealing food, like Daisy or Nelly. Lou is the exception. She comes from a rich family but was caught making out with her (female) tutor. The school operates under the strict rule of Matron (Rima Te Wiata), who has a cruel streak a mile long. Raised by nuns, she feels the only way to cure these girls’ bad attitudes is through the bible and the lash. Naturally the girls all want to get the hell out of there, but it’s hard to escape from an isolated island in the south pacific. The purpose of the school is to turn bad girls into happy homemakers. They are given lessons in diction and manners but not reading or math. 
Matron is frustrated by their outcome: She says they are “too stupid for school, to uncivilized to be maids and too barbaric to work”. Every so often, Matron is visited by men in suits from the mainland, one of whom suggests a horrifying treatment. But when Nelly find out, the three girls decide they have to do something to stop it.
We Were Dangerous is a moving, coming-of-age story about girls surviving in 1950s New Zealand. It’s bright and exuberant, full of playfulness and dancing, Haka and history, and though fictional, it tackles the very real issue of the mistreatment of indigenous girls. The acting is excellent all around, full of subtle clues and delightful details. For a first film, Stewart-Te Whiu avoids many potential stumbles and instead gives us a solid film that’s fun to watch. It played at ImagineNative this year, and is definitely worth seeing.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is playing this weekend at HotDocs and will be streaming on Netflix this coming week; Daniela Forever opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings; and We Were Dangerous is available now on VOD.
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 Neha Hallim, Roni Harel Haber and Taf Mangwiro about TIFF Next Wave 2025!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you believe the trades, the lucrative 14-24 year old movie 
market only really want to see action movies preferably based on either a plastic toy or video game, or else set somewhere in the superhero Universe. The bog studios bet big bucks on this prediction. But is it true? Aren’t there any movies without middle- aged men in tights that interest today’s youth?
Apparently there are. The Next Wave film festival, presented at the TIFF 
Lightbox, offers exactly that: a selection of innovative international features and shorts, aimed at 14-24 year olds, programmed by youth, for youth and about youth. The films and events are curated by a diverse posse of teenagers who apparently really know their stuff. Curators include cinephiles, movie geeks and future filmmakers, aged 14-18.
I spoke with programmers Neha Hallim, Roni Harel Haber, and Taf Mangwiro, in person at TIFF.
Instagram: @Nehahallim, @roni.haber @tafmangwiro
Letterboxd: @Nehahallim, @r0nii, @tafmangwiro
Next Wave runs from April 10-13, 2025.
Go to tiff.net/tiff-next-wave-2025 for details.
A coup, a cult and a cry. Films reviewed: The Penguin Lessons, AUM: the cult at the end of the world, Bob Trevino Likes It
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In these times of extreme uncertainty, many people feel there’s something missing in their lives but they’re not sure what. Some turn to new religions for spiritual fulfillment, others to pets they can love, or to chosen families to replace their inadequate biological ones.
So this week, I’m looking at three new movies, two dramas and a documentary about people trying to replace something missing. There’s an English teacher in Argentina who talks to a penguin, a caregiver in Kentucky looking for a replacement dad, and a religious cult in Japan trying to bring about the end of the world.
The Penguin Lessons
Dir: Peter Cattaneo
(Based on a true story)
It’s March, 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) is a newly-hired English teacher at a boys’ prep school for rich kids. It’s run by the strictly by-the-book Headmaster Buckle (Jonathan Pryce). No pets and no politics. Divorced, middle-aged and jaded, Michell cares little about morals. He describes himself as like Hemingway but without money and who never wrote anything. The boys in his class are spoiled and unruly; they don’t listen to a word he says. But bombs and rifles can be heard even within the walls of this elite academy. There’s a US-backed coup d’etat going on out there to install a military dictatorship! When the school closes for a week, Michell and fellow-teacher Tapio, a hapless Finn (Björn Gustafsson) head out to the Punta del Este in Uruguay to sit out the coup. But a romantic seaside stroll with a woman Michell meets turns — much to his chagrin — into a mission to save a flock of birds caught in an oil spill. They clean a penguin’s feathers, but by morning, the woman’s gone, and the penguin won’t leave him alone. He reluctantly takes him back to the school, in the hopes of donating him to a zoo. But the school kids adore him, and actually start to pay attention as long as the bird is around. But all is not well. Plainclothes police are disappearing anyone who disagrees with the government, including the beautiful but opinionated Sofia (Vivian El 
Jaber), the school’s cleaning woman.
Can a little penguin bring peace to the school and pull them all together? What will happen if Headmaster catches him with the bird? And will Michell ever stick his neck out to challenge the status quo?
The Penguin Lessons is a touching, cute, nostalgic and easily digestible story set during a dark and sinister era. Director Cattaneo brought us similar English crowd-pleasers like The Full Monty. And I’ll see anything with Steve Coogan in it. This movie is full all the cliched crowd pleasers: kids, animals, history, and a wise-cracking cynic who might have a soul. But I don’t care. That penguin is just soooo cute.
OK, I admit it, I’ve been played, I’m a sucker of a critic who fell for a bird… but so will you.
I liked this movie.
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World
Wri/Dir: Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto
It’s March, 1995 in Tokyo when something unexpected and terrifying happens. Someone lets loose poison gas at Kasumigaseki station, where three train lines converge. 5,800 people are injured and 13 of them killed. And this is a planned attack, not an accident. Who is responsible and why did they do it?
Decades early, a child named Chizuo is born into a post-WWII family with visual disabilities. Years later he opens a yoga school to attract paying customers. Somewhere along the way, it changes first into a religious sect, and later into a bonafide cult with tens of thousands of members. The group is called Aum Shinrikyo, and they set up headquarters on the banks of the sacred Mt Fuji. Their guru, now known as Shoko Asahara, with long hair and beard and flowing pink robes, convinces his worshippers that he is a god with supernatural powers. 
Popular music and anime videos extolling Asahara attract lots of favourable media attention, and detached young Japanese join in droves to experience miracles like levitation. These followers drink his bathwater or take tiny transfusions of his blood, even as he drains their bank accounts dry. Others have wires attached to their brains. Only bland food is permitted, no sex, no free-thinking. The cult expands internationally, migrating to Moscow once the Soviet Union falls, converting countless Russians to their cause. And while they’re there, they get ahold of military-grade artillery, chemical and biological weapons which they ship back to Japan. And eventually this leads to the horrific Sarin gas killings, in Tokyo and Matsumoto.
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World is an extensive, shocking and at terrifying documentary about this bizarre and dangerous cult. It covers the story throughout Asahara’s life and beyond, using period footage and new talking-head interviews. It goes right to the source — its victims, innocent people wrongly blamed for Aum’s crimes, journalists who follow the story, and advocates who — long before the sarin attacks — were trying to free friends and relatives from their clutches. Perhaps most chilling of all are the interviews with Joyu the high-ranked Aum Shinrikyo member who was allegedly behind some of its most heinous chemicals weapons.
I found this documentary extremely engrossing and well researched, narrated in the form of an oral history by those most affected by these atrocities. I couldn’t stop watching this one. I wonder why there have been loads of movies about the Manson Family, but relatively few on Aum Shinrikyo. This one helps fill that gap.
Bob Trevino Likes It
Wri/Dir: Tracie Laymon
(Based on a true story)
It’s present-day northern Kentucky. Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira) is young woman who works as a caregiver for Dapne (Laureen “Lolo” Spencer) a woman with a degenerative condition. Lily has no friends, and
her boyfriend dumped her using texts. Robert Trevino, her dad (French Stewart) is a flippantly cruel and self-centred man-boy responsible for most of Lily’s neuroses. He blames her for ruining his life (her mom died as an addict when she was a child). But things hit rock-bottom when her dad cuts off all communication with her. In a desperate search on Facebook to see what he’s up to, she ends up “liking” a different Bob Trevino. This Bob (John Leguizamo) is everything her own father is not. He’s kind, honest and giving, someone who pays attention to her texts. Bob works as a contractor out of his trailer. He has few hobbies — he likes gazing at the shooting stars, while his wife Jeanie (Rachel Bay Jones) is into making scrap books. When childless Bob and parentless Lily finally meet face to face, they feel a familial warmth they can’t quite explain. Jeanie thinks Lily’s a grifter or an aspiring catfish, trying to get his money. While insecure Lily is afraid of messing things up. Can two people, who live in different states ever have a real friendship? And is this new friendship superficial or deep?
Bob Trevino Likes It is a very cute, very sweet tear-jerker of a movie about friendship, kinship and chosen families. Much of the story is told through text messages and Facebook posts. 
Barbie Ferreira plays Lily as a non-stop faucet. She weeps in the opening, she cries in the middle and bawls at the end. And as the viewer, I cried along with her. John Leguizamo — once known for his over-the-top comedy — is at his most restrained in this one. But despite all the tears, it’s told in a light, humorous way.
This is a really nice indie movie.
Bob Trevino Likes It is now playing across Canada, with The Penguin Lessons opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Aum is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Dangerous places. Films reviewed: Flight Risk, Presence, Nickel Boys
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is finally opening theatrically this weekend; I loved it at TIFF, it’s one of the best movies of the year and Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance as Pansy is unparalleled — don’t miss Hard Truths.
But this week I’m looking at three more movies set in dangerous places. There’s a witness in a prop plane in Alaska, a family in a haunted house, and two teens in a reform school that’s rotten to the core.
Flight Risk
Dir: Mel Gibson (Review: Hacksaw Ridge)
Winston (Topher Grace) is a bookkeeper on the lam. He used to work for the mob, but when they found out he was pocketing too much of their earnings he decided to run. Now he’s hidden away in a remote corner of Alaska where he’s sure they’ll never find him. They didn’t find him, but a pair of US Marshalls did. The cops are led by the hardboiled Madolyn (Michelle Dockery). She’s eager to be on active duty, after years stuck at her desk. She promises Winston full immunity if he agrees to testify. Now she just has to safely bring him to the lower 48. But first to an international airport in Anchorage. It’ll be a short ride over some mountains, and they’ll be on their way. Sure enough, there’s an old prop plane waiting on the tarmac the next morning. The pilot, Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) is a bit of a character, who directs his non-stop patter toward Madolyn. She sits beside him in the cockpit, with Winston — a potential flight risk — safely chained down in the back. Everything’s going perfectly until they realize the plane isn’t heading in the right direction. And the face on Daryl’s pilot license? Well, it isn’t Daryl. Who is in danger, who is dangerous, and who can safely fly the plane to Anchorage?
Flight Risk is a compact, action-thriller set aboard an old prop plane flying over the Alaskan mountains. It’s fast-moving, 
funny and a bit violent. The characters are all cartoonish: Mark Wahlberg has his head shaved with a deranged smile like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. Michelle Dockery, an English actress makes a good tough-as-nails cop. And Topher Grace completes the triumvirate playing Winston as an awkward petty criminal trying to overcome his fears. It feels like those Covid-era movies, with its small cast and single location. But in this case, it’s the constant fights and the changing balance of power in a tiny enclosed space — aboard a fast-moving plane — that give this film its oomph.
Flight Risk is no masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.
Presence
Dir: Steven Soderbergh (The Laundromat, Side Effects, And Everything is Going Fine)
A typical family is moving into their new home. It’s beautiful, quite old, with lots of wood and windows. Chloe and Tyler (Callina Liang, Eddy Maday) each have their own room, but that doesn’t stop them from bugging each other. Tyler is a self-centred high school jock who wants to join the in crowd, and will do anything to get there. To booster his chances, he brings a popular, but suspect, guy Ryan (West Mulholland) into the house. Ryan has his eyes on Tyler’s younger sister Chloe, who is going through the trials and tribulations of adolescence and self doubt. Their Mom and Dad (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan) are also adjusting. She’s the main breadwinner in this family, and is facing a crisis at work. Has she been cooking the books? Dad — an educator — is more laid back, but still senses trouble, especially when it’s interfering with their relationship. But none of them seem aware of a bigger problem that affects them all: The place is haunted! There’s a ghostly presence in this house, that has been there a long time, and is not going anywhere. It floats through the place, unseen and unheard, observing everything but doing nothing. Until it starts letting itself be known. Is this presence a ghost or a poltergeist? Is it good or evil? And what will it do to this family?
Presence is a typical family drama but seen through the eyes of a ghost. The camera (meaning the presence) never leaves the house, and if someone steps outside we can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s not a real horror movie; while there is a 
hint of the supernatural, and a fair bit of suspense, it doesn’t overpower the drama.
And yet… I quite liked this movie. Steven Soderbergh is hit and miss. Some of his films are cheap-looking and predictable, filled with clichéd characters and cookie-cutter stories. Others are innovative and surprising. This one totally works
If you’re looking for a typical horror movie, this ain’t it, but if you want something new and different, you should check out Presence.
Nickel Boys
Co-Wri/Dir: RaMell Ross (Hale County This Morning, This Evening)
(Based on the novel by Colson Whitehead)
It’s the early 1960s in segregated Tallahassee, Fla. Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is an earnest and polite young student who lives with his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). He loves reading and studying and is interested in Black American history and the civil rights movement happening all around him. When his history teacher, Mr Hill — an actual Freedom Rider! — gets him a scholarship at a prestigious Black technical school, everything is falling into place. Until, Elwood, while hitchhiking to his new school is arrested for riding while black! The driver of the car he’s in — a total stranger — is charged with some crime, and Elwood is his accessory. He ends up sentenced to serve time at a notorious reform school called Nickel Academy.
Nickel is a cesspool of corruption and cruelty, a school in name only. The kids are rented out as prison labour, like picking oranges off a tree. When he defends a little kid being beaten up at the school, Elwood is the one punished, not the bullies. And the punishment is severe: beaten until he bleeds or locked into a “sweat box”. Worse than that are the kids who suddenly “disappear”, never to be seen again. Luckily one kid stands up for him and becomes his best friend. Turner (Brandon Wilson) is as cynical as Elwood is idealistic. Elwood’s Nana has hired a lawyer to overturn his sentence — that’s what keeps him going. Turner — from Texas — has 
never had it easy, so he has no hope, just the will to survive. For a black kid in the Jim Crow south, the law doesn’t mean much. He tells Elwood that to get out of this place alive you have to know the rules. There are no laws, or right and wrong; last till you’re 18 and you’ll be free.
But as time passes, and Elwood’s future looks increasingly bleak, he starts to keep copious records of the violence crimes and corruption at Nickel Academy. Can he get the information to the authorities? Will it do any good? And which of the Nickel boys will survive?
Nickel Boys is an excellent historical drama about two young black men trapped in a horrific reform school. While historical in its details, it’s experimental and unconventional in its form. Most scened are shot from Elwood’s or Turner’s POV, with the focus often the ground, the sky, someone else’s hands or feet or the inside of his own head. It’s disconcerting at the beginning but you get used to it. The narrative is not completely linear either, with time jumping forward 20 and 
40 years, to show what happens to Elwood in the future. It’s full of compelling memorable images, like kids picking oranges using high wooden stilts. The two main actors are newcomers but very good in their portrayals. But over everything hangs the awful truth of the terrible crimes at these sorts of places (like the Residential Schools in Canada).
Nickel Boys is both moving and upsetting to watch.
Nickel Boys is now playing, with Flight Risk and Presence both opening in Toronto 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.
Daniel Garber talks with Amnon Carmi and Ben Ducoff about Yaniv
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s an average day at an inner city high school in New York City… and the kids are excited about the auditions for the annual school musical. But everything comes to screeching halt when the tight-ass principal cuts their budget down to zero. Bernstein, the director, is mortified, and his students are crushed. Until his grandpa comes up with a possible solution: gambling… but of a particular type. Apparently, there’s an underground card game at a secret location in Rego Park, where Chassids run a gambling den devoted to a game called yaniv… the 
same game Bernstein has played with his grandpa for years. And with the help of fellow teacher, card counter (and compulsive gambler) Jonah, maybe, just maybe, they can earn enough money to put on the play. But to make it work, Jonah will have to dress up like an actual Chassid, complete with fringes and prayer curls. Can they pull off the deception, and win enough money? Or is their downfall spelled Y-A-N-I-V?
Yaniv is also the name of a new film directed by Amnon Carmi and co-written by and starring Ben Ducoff. It’s a fish-out-of-water, 
madcap, high school comedy thriller — with a hint of romance — all set on the fringes of New York’s insular Chassidic community. Amnon Carmi is a filmmaker, animator and artist. Ben Ducoff is a dramatist, producer and performer. And they both teach at H.E.R.O. High School in the South Bronx.
I spoke to Amnon and Ben in New York City via ZOOM.
The film is having its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, on June 6, at 7:30 pm at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema.
Rising. Films reviewed: Backspot, The Goldman Case, Handling the Undead
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Film Festival Season continues with Inside Out closing, TJFF opening, and soon followed by three more: the Toronto Japanese Film Fest offers you the chance to watch the best of contemporary Japanese cinema, including samurai, anime, dramas and arthouse films, running June 6-20 at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre; The Future of Film Showcase celebrating rising young Canadian talent with three world premieres, including the directorial debut for actor Aaron Poole, at the lovely Paradise Theatre from June 20-23; and the ICFF Lavazza Inclucity festival set for June 27th and continuing through most of July, featuring films from Italy and around the world, accompanied by delicious food and projected, outdoors, on a giant screen in the Distillery District.
But this week I’m looking at three new features. There’s an ambitious young cheerleader trying to rise to the top; a convicted criminal trying to elevate his innocence; and dead bodies rising from their graves.
Backspot
Co-Wri/Dir: D.W. Waterson
Riley (Devery Jacobs) is a high school student obsessed with cheerleading. Along with her best friend — and girlfriend — Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo) they hope to get a place on with the Thunderhawks squad, the highly competitive award-winning varsity team at their school. They do handsprings, half turns and everything else they need, to qualify, acrobatically. But despite how hard they try, it seems unlikely. Until that team has an accident leaving three empty spots open to new members. And no one is more surprised than Riley and Amanda when they both win places. (Riley is the back spot — part of the base of the human formations they build on the floor.) The third member, for the centre spot, is Tracy (Shannyn Sossamon) known for her slim build, perfect face and hair. As not-so-perfect cheerleaders point out, it’s as much about your looks as it is about your talent.
The Thunderhawks is headed by two alpha leaders: the cold-as-ice head coach Eileen (Evan Rachel Wood) of the “winning is 
everything” school of thought; and assistant coach Devon (Thomas Antony Olajide) just as much of a perfectionist, but with a hidden secret life. Before joining the Thunderhawks, Riley and Amanda were inseparable, cuddling at the movies while pigging out on popcorn and liquorice (Amanda is a part-timer at a movie theatre). But as Riley becomes more and more tense, her hear of failure turning into panic attacks, they wonder whether their relationship can stand this much pressure. Can Riley balance her sports life with her love life and family? Can she survive all the potential accidents that come with the sport? Or will it drive her off the cliff?
Backspot is a good sports movie about friendships, relationships and competition. It’s a local film, set in Toronto, and stars indigenous actress Devery Jacobs (known for Reservation Dogs) of the Kahnawa:ke Mohawk nation, in a very strong performance. And they all seem to do their own stunts and acrobatics, which is very impressive. I like both the sports parts and the home parts of the film. The one small thing I wish for, though, is more camera time spent on the actual performance and less on the endless rehearsals and training. The grand finale has less oomph than its lead up. Still, it’s an exciting and moving portrait of women’s sports.
The Goldman Case
Dir: Cédric Kahn
It’s the 1970s in a Paris courtroom. Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) is on trial for the murder of two women in the armed robbery of a pharmacy. He was convicted of this crime earlier, but has always pled innocent to that crime, and is now at a retrial of his case. He wrote a celebrated autobiography in prison, outlining his story, and many supporters are there in the courtroom, calling for his freedom. Born in German-occupied France to two Jewish Polish-born Communist members of the French resistance, he later became a radical leftist himself. He travelled to Cuba and Venezuela to join the revolutionaries there, but rejected the protests of 1968 as a performance. In Paris he supported himself through small-scale holdups and robberies. He admits to those crimes but not to violence or murder, insists he would never kill someone, especially not a woman, and would never rat out another person to the authorities, even if their testimony could set him free.
At the trial, Goldman is a loose cannon, interrupting his own lawyers, calling the court system a farce, and accusing he police force as being a racist organization. His lawyer (Arthur Harari) is increasingly frustrated, saying Goldman is committing suicide with his impromptu testimony. But will he be found guilty or innocent of the crimes of murder?
The Goldman Case is a powerful, dramatic retelling of an actual 
famous trial. No flashbacks, no memories, no reenactments of the crime, merely a series of witnesses, testimonies and cross-examinations. Just the facts. The acting is superb, with Arieh Worthalter winning this year’s Cesar for best actor for his amazing characterization of Goldman. In North America, we’re inundated by such trials — both real and imaginary — in the news, on TV shows, and in courtroom dramas. But French trials — which portray a very different legal system — are becoming increasingly popular, in films such as Anatomy of a Fall and Saint Omer. There’s a different kind of emotion and drama there. Courtroom dramas can be tedious, but this one kept my attention. I wanted to see this movie because its director Cedric Kahn tells stories like this of non-conformist anti-heroes who reject mainstream society while holding onto certain core beliefs. This one fills that pattern exactly. The Goldman Case is an intriguing drama about real events.
Handling the Undead
Co-Wri/Dir: Thea Hvistendahl
It’s present-day Oslo, Norway. Three families are going through a period of mourning, having lost people near and dear to their hearts. A single mom (Renate Reinsve) and father Mahler have been catatonic since the death of her little boy. She works in an industrial kitchen, while he is retired, but they can barely speak to one another. An elderly woman (Bente Børsum) is bereft when her longtime romantic lover and partner dies. She misses dancing and talking and listening to music together. And when Eva dies in an unexpected accident, her close-knit family — her husband, David (Anders Danielsen Lie: The Worst Person in the World, Oslo, August 31st ) a standup comic, their rebellious teenage daughter Flora, and their young son Kian — is left shocked and rudderless. They walk through their day on autopilot, celebrating the boy’s birthday but with little happiness.
But something strange is in the air after a city-wide power outage. Grandpa — who slept on his grandson’s grave — hears a knocking underground. He digs up the coffin, and carries him home with him. David is in hospital when his wife — who died in the accident — seems to stir again. And when Tora reclaims her lover’s living body from her casket laying in state at the funeral home, she feels like it’s a gift of the gods Somehow, the dead are waking up again. But are they still the same people the living remember?
Handling the Undead is a very slow and low-key horror movie about how ordinary people react to a seeming miracle, despite all indications to the countrary. It’s beautiful shot indoors and out among natural beauty and scenic islands on the water. And it has a compelling soundtrack. It’s based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist who also wrote Let the Right One In, and like that one, despite elements of the supernatural, much of the story is devoted 
to ordinary mundane lives. So part of the movie is devoted to the rebellious daughter and her boyfriend, just hanging out in their shack smoking drugs and having sex — nothing to do with the undead. There are also repeated scenes of ritual cleansing of the dead bodies, both loving and grotesque. The living interact with the undead, with one, the single mom, going so far as to carry her son to a cabin on an isolated island, to avoid trouble with the police. But there’s a dark enveloping metaphoric cloud of misery and sorrow hanging over city that seems totally empty and deserted. If you’re looking for a screaming, bloody, slasher film, you’re looking in the wrong place. But if you like pondering, pensive, Nordic art-house horror… this is a good one for you.
The Goldman case is playing at the Toronto Jewish film festival, and Handling the Dead and Backspot both open theatrically 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.
Life, death. Films reviewed: Lisa Frankenstein, Perfect Days
Audio: Coming soon!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This weekend is Lunar New Year, a time to push out the old year and bring in the new one, and to think about long-gone ancestors. This week, I’m looking at two new movies both opening this weekend about life and death. There’s an older man who lives his life to the fullest, and a young woman who exults in death and misery.
Lisa Frankenstein
Dir: Zelda Williams
It’s the 1980s. Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is a unhappy teenager in Wisconsin. She is socially awkward with frizzy hair who loves reading sad poems and listening to The Cure. She works part-time mending garments at a dry cleaner. She moved there with her hapless father who recently remarried after her mom died. Her new stepmother (Carla Gugino), a Nurse Ratchet manqué, treats her like trash. But her stepsister, Taffy, a popular and chirpy cheerleader, (Liza Soberano) goes out of her way to cheer Lisa up. She lets her use her makeup and wear her clothes, to no avail. Lisa prefers to hangout in cemeteries mooning over long-dead young men. The one living guy she’s crushing on is Micheal (Henry Eikenberry), the editor of the school paper. But he already has a girlfriend, a goth rocker who is bigger and meaner than Lisa.
After an awkward incident at a pool party, she gets sloshed on Absinthe and ends up in Bachelor’s Grove, her secret 
graveyard hangout. And, unknowingly, in a pique of drunken wishful thinking, she conjures back to life a young man buried there more than a century earlier. And soon she hears a knocking at her door. It’s a moaning monster (Cole Sprouse) covered in dirt with worms crawling out of his ears, and missing a number of body parts. She screams and runs away, but, gradually she figures out who he is and what he means to her. And after washing him, dressing him up, and putting him in the tanning bed, she decides he isn’t half bad. Lisa changes too, gaining new self-confidence. And she puts her seamstress skills to work by sewing new organs he gives her onto his body. The thing is, these body parts come from people he murders. Will Lisa become a Bonny to his Clyde? And can a human find love with a reanimated corpse?
Lisa Frankenstein is a mildly humorous, high school horror rom-com about a self-styled Dr Frankenstein and the dead man she resurrects. It’s done in a brightly-coloured campy aesthetic, with lots of goth-punk tunes playing in the background. The problem is, it’s not as funny as it thinks it is. It has a slapdash feel to it, and comes across as clunky and misguided. And it seems to side with the conventional, popular kids, portraying the oddballs and introverts as the psycho-killer bad guys. It borrows liberally from horror-comedies like Edward Scissorhands and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but without any pathos for the main characters. There are some good parts: a gross-funny sex scene, and some lovely paper silhouettes that tell the monster’s back story. But most of the movie is as painfully awkward and misbegotten as the monster himself.
I found Lisa Frankenstein disappointing.
Perfect Days
Co-Wri/Dir: Wim Wenders
It’s present-day Tokyo. Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) is a single man in his sixties. He lives a simple life.in a spotless, but threadbare, apartment in a rundown part of town. He likes reading novels, listening to music in his little white minivan he drives and eating lunch outdoors on a park bench. He is thoroughly dedicated to his profession, performing each task with scrupulous care and attention. He’s never late and never breaks the rules, checking off each task as he completes it. What’s surprising, though, is the nature of his job. He cleans the toilets in public parks. And he does so with a smile on his face and a kind word to passersby.
But his daily routine is disrupted by a young assistant, Takashi (Emoto Tokio). Takashi is filled with troubles — he’s undependable, always broke, and perpetual problems with his girlfriend. He needs special attention and special favours. And he’s trying Hirayama’s patience. And when an unexpected visitor shows up at his door in a very expensive car delivering unexpected news, he has to rethink his life. How did Hirayama end up where he is today? What is he running away from? And who will take his place when he retires?
Perfect Days is a wonderful study of a few days in the life of a 
kind, generous and warmhearted man. It’s a joy to watch. Dialogue is sparse to non-existent evoking Jaques Tati and Charlie Chaplin in its perfect simplicity. But it’s not silent. Music plays a big role, mainly singers from the 60s and 70s — Patti Smith, Velvet Underground, Van Morrison — on the cassette tapes he listens to as he drives around. The movie is filled with details, and tiny, continuous storylines, like the anonymous notes he finds in a crack in a wall in a ladies room. Even the toilets themselves are amazing! Things like opaque, tinted glass that magically becomes transparent when you leave the booth, and rest stops disguised as rustic log cabins. And thankfully, no potty mouth or toilet humour anywhere. Though directed by German filmmaker Wim Wenders, this is a quintessentially Japanese movie; it’s even their Oscar nominee this year.
Perfect Days is a perfect film.
Lisa Frankenstein and Perfect Days 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.
Daniel Garber talks with Mia McKenna-Bruce about How to Have Sex
Mia McKenna-Bruce Photography: David Reiss, Hair: Ben Talbot, Make-Up: Sara Hill, Styling: Tilly Wheating
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tara and her two best friends, Em and Skye, have finished school, written their A Levels and want to celebrate. So, like tens of thousands of others, off they go to a mediterranean resort with more sex, drugs, alcohol and loud music than you can shake a stick at. But the elephant in the room is Tara — she’s a “big fat virgin”, and her mates want to make sure she returns home cured of that ailment. But when the time comes, Tara doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, who she’s doing it with, and whether she has any say in the matter. And when it doesn’t go as planned, she doesn’t know what to do, or who to turn to. Turns out she still doesn’t know how to have sex.
How to Have Sex is a stunning bittersweet, coming-of-age 
drama about friendship, cultural expectations and consent. It’s writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s first feature and stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. The film won the prestigious Un Certain Regard Best Film prize at Cannes, and is nominated for best British film at the BAFTA awards. Mia won Best Lead Performance at the British Independent Film Awards and was named Screen International’s ‘Star of Tomorrow’. She has also appeared in many TV shows and films since 2009, including The Witcher, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Vampire Academy.
How to Have Sex opens in Canada 0n February 9th.
I spoke with Mia in London via Zoom.
Mia won the 2024 BAFTA Rising Star Award on February 18, 2024.
Daniel Garber talks with Molly McGlynn about Fitting In
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Lindy is a 16-year-old girl living with her single mom who recently moved back to the small city and home her mother grew up in. She’s beautiful, smart and personable, and fits right in at her new school. Soon she has a best friend, a place on the track team, and a potential boyfriend she really likes. But everything falls apart when she discovers she has a rare medical condition called MRKH: she was born without a uterus and a smaller vagina. Which makes it impossible to 
have conventional intercourse with her boyfriend. She’s facing a crisis but is terrified of telling anyone about it. Can her doctor’s gruelling regimen allow her to return to “normalcy”? And will she ever fit in with heteronormative standards?
Fitting In is a funny, endearing and delightful new dramedy, a coming-of-age story about a teenaged girl learning to accept her body. It’s directed by award-winning filmmaker and writer Molly McGlynn, known for movies like Mary Goes Round, and TV shows including Working Moms and Grown-ish.
I spoke with Molly McGlynn in person at #TIFF23.
Fitting In opens in Canada on February 2nd.
MassachuTIFF! Films reviewed: Dumb Money, The Holdovers, American Fiction
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF23 is over but it has ushered in Toronto’s Fall Film Festival Season. Toronto Palestine Film Fest offers film screenings, live concert performances and museum installations, starting on Sept 27th. And you can catch eight short dance films, called “8-Count” at the Hot Docs cinema on the 27th and at York U on the 28th. But this week, I’m talking about three more great movies that played at TIFF, all from the USA, all set in Massachusetts. There’s a prep school student named Tully, a novelist with the nom de plume Studd, and an online investor known as Roaring Kitty.
Dumb Money
Dir: Craig Gillespie
Keith Gill (Paul Dano) is a investment analyst in Brockton, Massachusetts who posts his financial details daily online on a sub/Reddit. He works out of his basement. One day he notices a stock he likes is undervalued, so he buys 50,000 shares and posts the recerd on YouTube. It’s GameStop, a shopping mall chain that buys and sells video games and equipment. And when it goes viral, and everyone starts buying them, the prices climb. The chain doesn’t go bankrupt and ordinary people — the dumb money of the movie title — start making good money on sites like Robinhood. That’s good for everyone, right? No — not for short sellers. Those are the wall street tycoons who make their fortunes by betting on the future price of a stock being lower than the current price. But this one is soaring exponentially,
resulting in a short squeeze where the short sellers have to buy back shares at a much higher rate than they bet on. Can Keith — and all his followers — keep GameStop shares afloat? Or will Wall Street triumph once again?
Dumb Money is a simple but very fun movie — based on a true story that happened just two years ago — about ordinary investors trying to beat Wall Street at their own game. It follows Gill, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) his bro Kevin (Pete Davidson), and the many small investors across the country: a nurse, some college students, even a mall employee of GameStop (played by actors including America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos). They’re pitted against the Wall Street short sellers (Vincent d’Onofrio, Seth Rogan). Most of the characters never actually meet one another, but somehow it all holds together. It’s a lot like The Big Short, but the heroes and heroines are regular people not just a bunch of rich guys playing the system. There’s a warm and rustic feel to this movie — a nostalgia for last year! — with nice characters you want to get to know. Nothing spectacular but Dumb Money is highly entertaining and a hell of a lot of fun.
For some reason, I really like this one.
American Fiction
Co-Wri/Dir: Cord Jefferson
Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) known as “Monk” to his family and friends is an upper-middle writer and academic. He’s spending time with his family in Massachusetts after being unceremoniously put on leave from his college for displaying the “N word” in class — white students said it made them feel “uncomfortable”. Coming from a family of doctors (he’s a PhD), Monk has very high standards when it comes to literature. He sneers at pulp fiction. Unfortunately his novels aren’t selling. What is selling is We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, written by an equally upper-middle-class, college-educated writer, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae). Monk holds fast to his ideals: he’s a writer who is black, not a black writer. But his agent (Jon Ortiz) wonders why Monk can’t write more “black”. In a fit of pique, Monk churns 
out the trashiest novel he can imagine, full of dreadful stereotypes and contrived black slang, gangstas, single parent families and crack dealers. But to his surprise and disgust, there’s an instant bidding war for the book, finally offering him 3/4 of million dollars. (He wrote it under the pen name Stagg R. Lee, posing as a fugitive from the law.) He wants to come clean and call off the deal, but he does need the money to pay for a nursing home for her mom (Leslie Uggams). But as his mythical fame starts to grow, and Hollywood comes knocking at his door, he winders how long the truth comes out?
American Fiction is a scathing comedy about academia, literature, movies and white American attitudes toward Blacks. It’s also an interesting family drama — with his clever divorced sister Lisa, his incorrigible divorced brother Cliff (Sterling K Brown) and the family maid Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor). It’s also a potential romance, when he meets Coraline (Erika Alexander) a neighbour to the family’s beach house. This is director Cord Jefferson’s first feature, but he makes a mature, clever movie. He takes what could have been a simple farce, and turns it into something bigger than that. Jeffrey Wright is perfect as Monk, never hamming or mugging, just honing his character to a sharp and pithy — but flawed — person.
Great movie.
The Holdovers
Dir: Alexander Payne
It’s December, 1969 at Barton Academy, an elite prep school in New England. Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti) the hard-ass classics teacher, is put in charge of the kids who have nowhere to go over the winter holidays. Although its Christmas, he assigns the kids homework. These boys are troglodytes and its up to Hunham to whip them into shape, or at least try to. He’s the kind of guy who drops quotes in Latin and ancient greek to no one else’s amusement. He has a glass eye and smells like old fish. Cooking and cleaning is done by Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). She works at Barton so her son can study there and go to University. But, unlike the rich kids he couldn’t afford to pay for college. So he got drafted and died in Vietnam. Mary is still at the school, because where else is she going to go? Then there’s the students — Jason, an heir to a aviation fortune but his hair is too long for his dad’s wishes; the class pot dealer, Kountse, and Alex and Ye-Joon two little kids, too far from home — their parents are in Salt Lake City and Seoul. But after an 
unexpected event, only one student is left with Mary and Mr Hunham.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) is the smartest kid in class, gangly and arrogant, but also a trouble maker. His divorced parents are rich but neglectful, so he’s been kicked out of a long list of prestigious boarding schools. If it happens again he’ll be sent to military school, a fate worse than death. Can the three of them, Angus, Mr Hunham and Mary, form a truce and act like a makeshift family? Or will they drive each other crazy first?
The Holdovers is a remarkably good coming-of-age comedy/drama with a compelling story and fantastic acting. It tugs at your heart without ever resorting to sentimentality. Paul Giamatti is always good, in this case as an unusual anti-hero, while the other two, Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, are totally new faces (never seen them in a movie before) but they’re both so good. They are three-dimensional and real, arrogant and vulnerable, and totally believable. I went into this movie with zero expectations, and was shocked by how good it is. I’m purposely not giving away the plot — no spoilers — but I can’t see anyone not liking this movie.
All three of these movies played at #TIFF23. with American Fiction winning the People’s Choice Award, and The Holdovers the runner up. Dumb Money opens this weekend across Canada; 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.
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