Daniel Garber talks with Eve Lindley and Luke Gilford about National Anthem
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Dylan is a dirt-poor young man who lives with his alcoholic mother and preteen brother in New Mexico. He earns a living as a day labourer doing construction work. His dream? To save enough money to buy an RV and explore the open roads. But everything changes when he is offered a few weeks’ work on an unusual ranch. All the cowboys and cowgirls who live there are LGBT and looking forward to their next queer rodeo. All of which is alien to Dylan. And that’s where he meets Sky, the woman of his dreams: could this be love? And can Dylan figure out where he fits in at this unusual ranch?
National Anthem is a beautiful coming-of-age romantic drama 
about a young man discovering himself in Southwestern US. It premiered at SXSW and played at TIFF. The film co-stars Charlie Plummer as Dylan and Eve Lindley as Sky along with a diverse, ensemble cast. It’s based on the photo book National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo, by Luke Gilford, who also directed the film. Gilford has shot fashion for Prada and music videos for Troye Sivan and Kesha, but this is his first feature film. Co-star Eve Lindley is a noted model and TV and film actress appearing in Bros, After Yang and Dispatches from Elsewhere.
I spoke with Eve and Luke from Toronto via ZOOM.
National Anthem is now playing in Toronto.
Buffalo bros. Films reviewed: Bros, Dead for a Dollar, Butcher’s Crossing
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m talking about three guy movies — two westerns and a rom-com. There’s a bounty hunter searching in Mexico for a buffalo soldier; a young adventurer in the old west who joins a team hunting buffalo; and a gay man in New York City who falls for a guy from upstate… though probably not from Buffalo.
Bros
Co-Wri/Dir: Nicholas Stoller
Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner) is a 40 year old, gay New Yorker who hosts a popular podcast. As an undergrad he was discouraged from becoming an actor because he walked “too gay”. In journalism school, he was told his voice sounded too gay to be a newscaster. But his career is finally taking off. He’s on the board of directors of a soon to open LGBTQ+ history museum. His sex life is active — he has frequent sex with men he hooks up with online, but his love life is non-existent. He has never been in a relationship, or even had a second date. Until he meets a guy at a dance club, who is way better-looking than he’s used to.
Aaron Shepard (Luke Macfarlane) is fit, handsome and very masculine — the ideal gay image. So the average-looking Bobby is very surprised that Aaron knows who he is and likes his show. They have sex, but even more surprising, they 
actually go on a date afterwards. Bobby discovers that Aaron (who is a probate lawyer) is not just a dumb, boring jock. And Aaron is attracted to Bobby’s manner, sense of humour and self-confidence. Can a small-town, straight-acting bro and a sophisticated gay guy shake free of their preconceptions and prejudices and form a relationship? Or is that just a pipe dream?
Bros — co-written by Billy Eichner — is a laugh-out-loud funny romantic comedy. It satirizes gay life, politics and sex in unexpected ways. The dialogue is hilarious (well at least the 
first two-thirds, before it gets more serious) and is full of clever cultural asides, some of which I couldn’t follow, but enough to keep me laughing non-stop. There’s even an ongoing parody of conservative Hallmark TV movies. This isn’t your usual rom-com where opposites are kept apart until they eventually fall for each other and end with their first kiss. In this one, the nudity and sex come first, while dating is the hard part. I was unimpressed by the trailer, so was very happy to find the actual movie much, much better than I expected.
I like this one.
Dead for a Dollar
Dir: Walter Hill
It’s the late 19th Century in Albuquerque, New Mexico territory. Max Borlund (Cristoph Waltz) is a gun-slinging bounty hunter whose current assignment is to rescue a rich man’s wife who was kidnapped and smuggled south of the border. Elijah the kidnapper (Brandon Scott) is a Buffalo Soldier in the US Army who deserted his post. Borlund heads south with another Buffalo soldier, Sgt Poe as his guide. (“Buffalo soldier” was an informal term given to the all-Black regiments formed in the west after the civil war.) All he has to do is rescue Mrs Kidd and arrest Elijah in order to collect the very large bounty. But there are a few obstacles in his way.
Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) a notorious card shark Borland arrested five years earlier, is about to be released from jail, and he wants to settle their differences using a gun. Tiberius, a dangerous jefe in Chihuahua, wants his cut of any money Borlund might make — and he has a posse of gunmen to 
support him. And finally there’s the kidnappee herself. Rachel Kidd (Rachel Brosnahan) tells Borlund, in no uncertain terms, that she’s with Elijah voluntarily. They fled to Mexico because they’re a mixed-race couple, and it’s her estranged husband, Mr Kidd, who is the real criminal here: he actually wants to kill her, not rescue her. But now Max is in a fix: Who can be trusted? And will justice be served?
Dead for a Dollar is a classic western done in the style of the 1960s spaghetti westerns. It’s filmed in sepia tones, giving it a weathered, almost nostalgic look. It has shootouts, posses, 
gunfights and ghost towns — the usual stuff — but with a few twists: sympathetic Black and Mexican characters, a tough-as-nails woman who is handy with a gun, and the first showdown I’ve ever seen between two players armed only with horsewhips! Director Walter Hill was huge in the ’80s (with movies like 48 Hours, The Warriors, and a lot of westerns) and he still seems to know what he’s doing.
Does it work? Occasionally the dialogue veers toward the corny, especially with Willem Dafoe, but Christoph, Brosnahan and the rest are understated just enough to keep it a believable western and not just a farce.
Butcher’s Crossing
Co-Wri/Dir: Gabe Polsky (Based on the novel by John Williams)
It’s the 1870s in Kansas.
Will (Fred Hechinger) is an idealistic son of a Boston minister, heading west in a covered wagon. He left Harvard to have some real experiences in the wild west. He arrives at Butcher’s Crossing a small frontier town, to visit JD McDonald (Paul Raci), an old family friend who his father had rescued when he was down and out. Now he has made his riches cornering the buffalo skin market in the area. But far from being grateful or kind, he rudely tells Will to go back where he came from — this was no place for a pampered city boy like him. So Will turns to a local legend instead. Miller (Nicholas Cage) is a big guy with a shaved head, a bushy black beard and an abrasive manner. But he agrees to take Will with him on the greatest buffalo hunt ever — if he agrees to finance it. Miller knows of a secret valley in Colorado, with untouched beasts just waiting to be slaughtered. Charlie 
(Xander Berkeley) a bible-thumping old souse, will serve as the cook, and Fred, (Jeremy Bobb) a man with a mercenary mind-set will be the all-important skinner, cutting the pelts off the carcasses.
The four set out into the bush, and to everyone’s surprise Miller’s legendary Colorado valley does actually exist. The men dig in and start their gruesome massacre. The herd is untouched, so has no fear of humans. But the enormity of the mass slaughter starts getting to all of them. Except, that is, the obsessive Miller who is determined to kill every last one. Can the four of them stay together without going crazy? Can they leave the valley before they’re trapped by winter snow? And what will they do with the untold wealth their pelts will bring?
Butcher’s Crossing is a moving western about the mass slaughter of buffalo. The scenery and cinematography is stunning – they were given access to shoot among actual buffalo herds. It mainly deals with the brittle relationships amongst the four men. The acting Is good, especially Fred Hechinger, reprising his role in the White Lotus TV series as an earnest rich kid trying to find the meaning of life. And Nicholas Cage is allowed to do his requisite I’m going mental! scenes, but mercifully with the sound turned off.
The story is similar to Ken Lum’s recent controversial 
Edmonton bronze sculpture which shows a buffalo hunter, sitting on a mountain of pelts, confronted by a stoic bison. What both imply (but never explicitly show) is the catastrophic effect the decimation of the buffalo populations had on countless indigenous nations. But that’s where the hidden force of this movie comes from — you can’t help but wonder: what are these men doing and why? The senseless slaughter of millions of buffalo in a very short period of time completely changed North American history. And the film leaves you feeling the heavy weight of our ancestors’ actions.
Bros and Butcher’s Crossing both had their world premieres at TIFF this year. Dead For a Dollar and Bros both open across North America 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
Career change. Films reviewed: Nightride, Jockey
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Professions don’t necessarily last forever. Some people retire early or change jobs. This week, I’m looking at two new movies — a realistic drama and a thriller — about men leaving their longtime professions. There’s a jockey in Phoenix pondering his final ride, and a drug dealer in Belfast trying to complete his last deal
Nightride
Dir: Stephen Fingleton
Budge (Moe Dunford) is a small-time drug-runner in Belfast, Northern Ireland, who wants to change his life. He has a Ukrainian girlfriend and a teenaged daughter, both of whom he loves dearly. He plans to get out of the drug trade entirely but needs a bit of cash — 60 thousand quid, to be exact — to start a new business. He and a friend are signing the lease in the morning to open a new body shop. He got his share from a loan shark, and the borrowed balance has to be returned by midnight. Before that, he just has to pick up 50 kilos in a white van, and drop them off with the buyer. He’s done it dozens of times, and nothing ever went wrong before, so he’s not really worried.
Famous last words…
Something does go wrong — he’s being tailed by someone, probably a cop. He has to pass the pickup to an underling so he won’t get caught with the evidence. But the loan shark’s thug is on his back, the buyer is getting cold feet, and his teenaged daughter is seeks real-time advice about her date. And then the worst possible outcome — the van with the 
drugs goes missing. The cops are circling, and loaded guns enter the picture. Are his future plans ruined? Will he live or will he die? And has he unwittingly pulled his daughter, best friend and the love of his life into a dangerous world he’s always kept separate?
Nightride is not-bad thriller, with a bunch of twists and turns that keep you interested. It’s a single-shot movie, with no cuts and and recorded by a single camera. And I like Moe Dunford as the main character. Good thing, because he’s basically the only one in the movie! Why? you may ask. Because the whole thing was shot during a Covid lockdown, so all we see — aside from a few crucial scenes — is him driving his car around while talking on his phone to various invisible voices. I know, we have to pull together in these troubled times, blah, blah, blah, but this doesn’t make for a good movie. I’ve seen a number of these lockdown films: Jake Gyllenhaal as a 911 cop in the bad The Guilty; Naomi Watts as a jogger-mom in the awful Lakewood; and KJ Apa as a bike courier in the atrociously laughable Songbird. So in that company, Nightride is fantastic by comparison. But in the wider world of action thrillers, a movie about a guy driving a car while on the phone… just doesn’t do it.
Jockey
Dir: Clint Bentley
Jackson (Clifton Collins Jr) is an ordinary man in Phoenix, Arizona. He likes fishing, playing poker and waking up early in the morning. What’s special about him is his skill as a jockey — he has ridden many prize-winning racehorses to victory. He may be a bit long in the tooth now, but he’s still legendary at the race tracks. He works alongside Ruth (Molly Parker) a horse trainer. She raises the animals and handles relations with the owners, — Jackson has little time for those dilletantes. And the two of them are like white on rice. They never keep secrets.
Their relationship changes when Ruth becomes an owner herself. She’s raising a filly that’s perfect for Jackson to ride, and could be a real prize-winner. He feels the same way, and would love to take her all the way to the top.
But he is keeping one secret: his spine is severely damaged from 
years of accidents at the racetracks. The only doctor he’s seen about it is a veterinarian. And a twitch he first noticed on one side starting with his fingers is getting worse. And there’s a second problem. A young jockey named Gabriel (Moises Arias) seems to be following him around. What does the kid want? Is he trying to take over? He confronts him, and Gabriel blurts that Jackson is his father the result of a fling he had with his mom 20 years ago. Is he telling the truth? Will Jackson retire after riding his last great horse? Can he pass his secrets to his new-found son? Or will his back injury cut everything short?
Jockey is a beautifully-made film about a legendary jockey in his declining years. The storyline is fictional, and the three main characters are played by actors, but it’s shot semi-documentary-
style in the midst of a real world we rarely see. And it’s a rough life. Actual jockeys share their battle scars and injuries with their chums, and the dangers they face each day. Cameras are placed right under the horses as they speed away at the start of a race. And most scenes are shot right at dawn, capturing the vast glowing Arizona skies. Clifton Collins Jr gives a subtly perfect performance as Jackson; if I didn’t know he was an actor I’d have thought they found a jockey and made a film about him.
This is a great picture that deserves to be seen on a big screen.
Nightride is now available on VOD, and Jockey opens theatrically in Toronto this weekend at the TIFF Bell 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
Off the Beaten Track. Movies Reviewed: Serena, Gemma Bovery, Corner Gas: the Movie
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.
Urban life getting you down? Here are three movies set in small towns. A gothic drama in the Smoky Mountains of Carolina; a comedy in a Saskatchewan town where there’s not a whole lot going on; and a comic drama in Normandy… with a literary twist.
Serena
Dir: Susanne Bier
George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) is a lumber baron in the roaring 20s. He’s also a big-game hunter, searching for the elusive panther. He dreams of clear-cutting the smoky mountains of North Carolina, and, with the profits, expanding into the rain forests of Brazil. But he’s a good guy — you can tell because he chops his own wood and saves his workers’ lives. There would be no 
problems at all, if it weren’t for those meddling government types. They want to make it into a national park, just because of its breathtaking scenic beauty, and the rare flora and fauna living in those foggy, tree-covered mountains.
But everything changes when he spots a blonde woman at a horse show. Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) is a strong and independent woman from out west and born to the wood. Beautiful, glamorous and tough as nails, she’s as comfortable in an evening gown as she is on horseback. She can 
kill a rattler with an axe from across a field and is handy with a rifle. He proposes on the spot and makes her a full partner in his business… to the chagrin of his male colleagues. But Wall Street crashes and tough times follow. Things start to fray at the edges. There’s Galloway (Rhys Ifans) a sketchy ex-con with “the sight”: Serena once appeared in a vision so he’ll protect her to the death. And there’s talk George might have an illegitimate son in the village. And his partners are losing faith in the business. Can Serena and George find happiness in a lumber camp? Or will it drag them into a spiral of jealousy, revenge and madness?
Susanne Bier is a well-known Danish director, and Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence scored in two big hits: Silver Lining Playbook and American Hustle. Is this three for the win? Not a chance. It’s a clunky potboiler with a confusing and messy story, and extremely uneven acting. Lawrence plays it to the hilt as a deranged, screeching devil-woman, while Cooper sticks to the single-emotion style of acting. Whether it’s shock, lust, anger, or bewilderment, he just stares off into space with his mouth slightly open. Serena is not awful, it kept me watching and interested, but it’s just not very good.
Gemma Bovery
Dir: Anne Fontaine
Martin (Fabrice Luchini) is an intellectual from Paris. He moves to small-town Normandy, near Rouen, to take over his dad’s bakery. He likes kneading dough and pondering great literature. His wife is a world-weary realist, and his teenaged son prefers Call of Duty to French culture. But dad’s thoughts are still filled with the 19th century novels of Flaubert. So imagine his surprise when a young English couple that moves into the dilapidated house next door, shares the names of the characters in Madame Bovery! Down-to-earth Charles repairs furniture, while his bored wife Gemma (Gemma Atherton) decorates homes with trompe d’oeil to make them appear older. And just like Madame Bovery, she craves a more exciting 
life.
Martin, though, knows the book well and feels he can predict every thought they will have and every word they will say. Soon enough, he sees her making eyes at the town rake, handsome Hervé (Niels Schneider: J’ai tué ma mère, Les amours imaginaires) a local squire living in a nearby castle. Don’t go with him, it can only lead to ruin! Martin thinks. In his mind he sees them in period costume, dancing in the ballroom. In reality, the quaint town, including the aristocracy, is crumbling all around him. Martin tries to manipulate the local characters – using secret methods – to save them from their novelistic fates. But will it work?
The entire film is narrated, at times directly to the camera, by Martin himself. He takes us through the story, mainly to the various dinner parties, where people speak fractured English and French. He is especially incensed by a nouveau riche couple, an English/French marriage who see French culture as merely wine and Camembert.
Gemma Bovery is two movies in one. There’s Flaubert’s novel reenacted in Martin’s head, and there’s a satirical look at contemporary France. Because of the meta- aspects of the film, you don’t feel as deeply invested in the characters’ lives; you’re always a step away from what’s happening. But it more than makes up for that with its cleverness. And because it’s an Anne Fontaine movie, it carries that sensual, erotic tone she’s so good at. And the actors, especially the beautiful Gemma Atherton, are a joy to watch. I like this movie.
Corner Gas: The Movie
Dir: Brent Butt
If you’ve ever watched Canadian TV, you’re probably familiar with Dog River, Saskatchewan. It’s an uneventful prairie town known mainly for its gas station, its coffee sho
p, and its wise-cracking locals. There’s dry Brent at the gas station (Brent Butt), his dad and mum — cranky Oscar and rational Emma (Eric Peterson, Janet Wright), pretty Lacey at the coffee shop (Gabrielle Miller), and the local police. 
Then there’s the incorrigible Hank (Fred Ewanuick) and the trickster Wanda (the very hilarious Nancy Robertson).
Nothing ever happens there, right? Wrong! To turn a sitcom into a feature film, you need an epic plot. In this film the town goes bankrupt, the people run amok, and Tim Horton’s starts sniffing at the real estate. Their only hope? A Toronto contest looking for the quaintest town in Canada. Can they pull it all together in time? Not bloody likely… it’s a
comedy, folks.
Believe it or not, I only saw the TV show once. It felt too slow paced, so I couldn’t get into it. Clearly, I’m not one of its fans (who are legion). But the movie? It was surprisingly funny. There are corny parts and some gags fall flat of course, but on the whole the humour is clever, inventive, ironic… even subversive. And it does all this without any potty laughs, frat boy nudges, boobies, four-letter words, dumb blondes, racial and ethnic stereotypes or fat jokes. Not a small accomplishment.
So if you’re looking for Canadian humour, here it is, and then some.
Gemma Bovery and Serena both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Corner Gas: the Movie is playing now through the weekend. Also in Toronto, look out for the MUFF society — specializing in girl-tastic pics for women — kicks off their monthly series with Spice World (yes, I do mean that Spice Girl movie) only at the Royal. And First to Fall – a documentary about two students in Canada who volunteered to fight with the rebels in Libya — is finally screening in Toronto, tonight at the Jayu Human Rights Film Festival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I interviewed the directors last summer.
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.
A Beginner’s Guide to Endings
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…
Lovely Molly
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.
December 23, 2011 Christmas Flicks. Movies Reviewed: The Adventures of Tintin, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse
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.
It’s holiday time once again, and there are lots of good movies out there to see. I’m just going to tell you about three of them, all period movies – one set in the 1910’s, one in the fifties, or thereabouts, and one In the 70’s — all with mainly British casts, and two out of three, directed by the same guy – Steven Spielberg.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Dir: Tomas Alfredson
It’s the 1970’s, in the middle of the Cold War between the Soviet Bloc and the West, when a British agent is shot in Budapest in a failed mission. Why? Because, says a young agent, there’s a mole somewhere in the highest ranks of The Circus (as the agents refer to MI6 headquarters). The wife of an enemy general told him. So they let the disgraced spy, George Smiley — John Le Carre’s most famous character — to come back in to find the leak.
This is an amazingly complex spy movie, with three or four plots going on simultaneously, along with various flashbacks gradually filling in the missing details. (I gave only the most bare-bones details, so as not to spoil the film.) Some of the scenes are fantastic
– like an insiders’ view of the spy division’s office Christmas party, where the agents sing out songs from the various nations they are spying on as they guzzle vodka-stoked punch. It’s also a visually stupendous movie, with period costumes, and lighting that somehow makes all the sombre faces look like chiseled (or grizzled!) stone statues.
The acting is all-around amazing, with Gary Oldman as Smiley, and especially the less well-known actors like Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, and Tom Hardy. Warning – this is not a high-concept film like a 007 action movie. It’s not so easy film to absorb: you have to think about it as you watch. But it’s very satisfying to see.
The Adventures of Tintin
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Based on comics by Herge
Tintin is a young journalist who travels around the world with his dog Snowy. When his model ship is stolen, he discovers a secret message left behind, and vows to track down the other clues. But he’s being chased by a mean man with a sweet-sounding name — Sakharine. Tintin is shanghaied, and on board the cargo ship he meets Captain Haddock, a drunk who also has a connection to the missing model ship, the Unicorn. Together, they 
set out on an orientalist journey to a North African sheikhdom – travelling by plane, boat and on foot — to find the secret message, solve the mystery, and catch the evil villain. Part of the puzzle is written down, but part is lost somewhere in Haddock’s hazy memory – the only way to find the treasure of the villainous pirate Red Rackham is for Captan Haddock to remember the story. Billions of blue bilious blistering Barnacles!
Tintin and Snowy are Herge’s beloved characters who travelled around the world, speaking the same language as everyone he met, and always doing the right thing. I loved reading those comics. Never mind that Herge continued to publish during the Nazi occupation, affably drawing his villains evil Jews; never mind that he used 
racist caricatures in depictions of the Congo (where, ironically, it was Belgium’s King Leopold who had slaughtered millions as he plundered their wealth). These things are all Herge’s faults, not Tintin’s. He is always true, brave, clever, kind hearted, and adventurous.
I always loved the clear detailed lines, the amazing adventures, and the exotic locales of Herge’s comics. But some of it’s lost on the big screen. The 3-D movie version is shot in my least favourite type of animation: Motion Capture. This is the type where actors move around with little cameras hanging all over them, to give a 
combination of live action but animated characters and background. But it’s uglier and less elegant than the original, simpler versions. This one gives Tintin a sort of a globe head with fuzzy hair (could you imagine someone doing a motion capture movie, of, say Charlie Brown and giving him a bulbous head and one giant curled hair?) And the clips of ocean waves and fire look totally out if place – they don’t match the rest of the images. Some scenes are perfect – like Haddock drinking blobs of floating alcohol on board a prop plane. But the sword fights are way too long; the opera singer, Bianca Castafiore, is given a beautiful voice (instead of a terrible one). And worst of all, they hijacked a Tintin story and almost turned it into a Haddock story. Great Snakes! Tintin and a sidekick? You can’t do that…
The voices – Andy Bell and Andrew Sirkis as Tintin and Cap’t Haddock – are great, no problems there. Anyway, it’s a fun adventurous drama… but it left me hollow — not with the great thrill I felt reading the comics gave me.
War Horse
Dir: by Steven Spielberg
Albie, a poor farmer’s kid in the rolling hills of Devon, trains and raises his beautiful colt Joey. They grow up together, but when his father is close to losing the farm on the eve of WWI, he sells the horse to an officer to use in the war. Albie is heartbroken, but ties his dad’s regimental flag from the Boer War to Joey’s bridle to remember him.
This is where the focus shifts from the kid, to the horse himself! Horses played a vital part in WWI, and Joey the horse finds itself drifting across battle lines in France, between the British and the Germans. He’s taken in by German soldiers who also recognize his strength and beauty. Later he’s found by a young French girl who wants to hide him from the soldiers. And he makes friends with a
bigger, black horse. But it’s a war, and Joey is sent back to the front lines, back to the trenches, facing death as a dray horse. Will he make it through the war? And will he ever get back to Albert and his peaceful farm in Devon?
When I heard about this movie, I put a giant X across it, and said BLLLLEEEEAAAAAAGGGHHH! I am not watching a movie about a horse! NO WAY! That’s a definite. But you know what? I went, I saw it, and… oh my God! It turned out to be an amazingly touching movie: Sentimental but not smarmy, unorthodox, exciting, unusual, and a total tear-jerker – at least three genuine sob-scenes. OK, it’s partly formulaic – everyone likes kids and animals – but it’s so much more than that. It avoids anthropomorphizing the animals – they are horses not people. Spielberg also shows war as a cruel and bad place, with the Germans and the British equally suffering.
Acting was great, the cinematography looks like an old Hollywood western, and even the somewhat cloying music rarely spoiled the feel.
I thought they couldn’t make great G-rated movies anymore, just Chipmunk Squeakquels… but they can. This is a wonderful, beautiful, tear-wrenching, and exciting movie.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy is now playing, The Adventures of Tintin just opened, and War Horse on Christmas Day. Check you local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for CIUT 89.5 FM, and on my web site, Cultural Mining . com.
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