Huge changes. Films reviewed: Cloud, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Eddington
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking at three great new dramas about people facing huge changes in far-flung places. There’s a man in Japan pursued by unknown enemies; a girl in Zimbabwe on the eve of an election; and a sheriff in New Mexico at the dawn of a pandemic.
Cloud
Wri/Dir: Kiyoshi Kurusawa
It’s present-day Tokyo. Yoshi (Masaki Suda) is a guy in his 20s with a certificate from a vocational school. He’s socially and emotionally challenged. Yoshi lives in a cramped apartment with his girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa). He works in a factory, pressing clothes, but after three years is still struggling financially with no chance of advancement. Luckily, he has a side hustle: a reselling site where he marks-up cheap goods online and sells them for profit: French designer knock-offs, electronic devices, collectible toys; the content doesn’t matter, just the speed of turnover and how much profit he makes. At the moment, he’s doing so well he decides to quit his factory job, turn his reselling site into a full time occupation and relocate to a large house in the countryside with cheap rent. Akiko agrees to move with him, and he hires a local kid, Sano (Daiken Okudaira) as his assistant. And with the business doing so well, he figures he can relax now and let the cash pour in. But it’s never that simple.
Strange things start happening. Yoshi is knocked off his motorcycle by a wire stretched across a road. Someone tosses a chunk of metal through his glass window. And Sano does an ego-surf on Yoshi’s site and finds online chatter from dissatisfied customers threatening to kill him. (He keeps his website completely anonymous). At the same time, local police are investigating him for fraud, Akiko is reaching her breaking point, and Yoshi fires Sano for using his computer without permission, leaving him all alone in his country home. But when armed masked strangers start showing up at his door, Yoshi realizes it’s time to drop everything and get the hell out of there. Who are these angry strangers? What do they want? And how can he get away?
Cloud is both an almost surreal, cyber suspense thriller and a
cautionary crime drama. Masaki Suda’s plays Yoshi as a man without any self-awareness… who assumes no one else notices him either.
It starts as a slow-burn, but explodes, halfway through, into a violent, action/thriller, with more than one totally unexpected plot turn. Though the main character spends much of his time staring at a distressingly dull website, waiting for buyers to check in, the outside world is full of geometric sets with sharp turns, cloudy windows, green forests and dark shadows. With lush music played against abandoned warehouse walls, Cloud lets suspense carry us through to the shocking finish.
I like this suspenseful crime-thriller a lot.
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Co-Wri/Dir: Embeth Davidtz
It’s 1980 in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. The Bush War is over, and white minority rule has ended, pending its first democratic election. Bobo Fuller (Lexi Venter) is a seven-year old girl who lives with her family on a dried out cattle ranch. She wears her face dirty and blonde hair tangled. Bobo smokes cigarettes and rides her motorbike around the farm with a rifle strapped across her back. She fears two things: ticks and terrorists.
Her mom Nicola (Embeth Davidtz) makes it clear she will never leave her land. As grandma likes to say, we have breeding, not money. She’s a heavy drinker, prone to guzzling brandy and dancing with abandon during her manic episodes. Bobo’s Dad is more reasonable, but disappears for weeks at a time. Her older sister (Rob Van Vuuren) lives there too, but has no time for her bratty little sister.
So Bobo is essentially raised by Sarah (Zikhona Bali) their nanny and housekeeper. Bobo tries ordering her around like a grown up — bring me my porridge! — but Sarah sets her 
straight: she’s too young to be bossy. And it’s Sarah who tells her stories, answers her questions and explains what happens to us after we die.
The family gets together with other whites in nearby farms for parties and barbecues. But there’s tension in the air as they await results from the election. Sarah, too is worried: she might be targeted by nationalists if seen taking care taking care of a girl like Bobo. What will happen after the election? And will any changes be permanent?
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is a drama based on the memoirs of Alexandra “Bobo” Fuller. It’s full of abrasive characters and their casual racism, and pulls no punches in their portrayal. The whole film is shot through the eyes of a little girl, so with the camera kept low, we might just see people’s legs from under a table or an obscured lens when she’s squinting at the sun.
Actress Embeth Davidtz evokes her own South African background (where the movie was shot) in telling Bobo’s story. This is her first time directing, and its a fascinating adventure in creativity. And though her excellent portrayal of a difficult, bi-polar Mom — alongside Zikhona Bali’s terrific turns as Sarah — , it’s really about Lexi Venter as Bobo, who gives a natural performance in every scene, either as the centre of attention or as quiet observer.
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is an excellent memoir of a difficult period of history.
Eddington
Wri/Dir: Ari Aster
It’s April, 2020 in Eddington, a small town in New Mexico, just as the Covid lockdowns mask mandates are kicking in. Working class Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is the town Sheriff, just as his dad was before him. He lives in a ramshackle home with his catatonically depressed wife Louise (Emma Stone) and her conspiracy-theory addled mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell). He works with his two faithful officers Michael (Micheal Ward) and Lodge (Clifton Collins, Jr).
On the better side of town lives the upper-middle-class Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) — a smooth talker and a consummate politician — who is running for re-election. He is expected to open a mysterious tech conglomerate on the outskirts of town. His son, Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) is an arrogant and spoiled rich kid. He hangs out with his friend Brian (Cameron Mann), drinking beer and smoking pot. They are both after idealistic high school student Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle) who they try to impress by quoting Angela Davis. Then comes the news that George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, has been killed by police. Demonstrations follow but the small town is already divided on ideological grounds, with everything recorded on cel phones and posted online: those who wear masks with social distancing, vs those who don’t. But as tensions build, and Mayor Ted publicly humiliates Sheriff Joe, he declares he’s running for mayor, too.
Eddington is a sharp and scathing social satire about life in 
America during the pandemic. It’s half dark- comedy and half thriller/horror as it devolves from light absurdity into a hellish fantasy. It covers a huge variety of topics, including religious cults, false memory syndrome, big tech, culture wars, white supremacy, the dark state, and indigenous relations… to name just a few. I love all of Ari Aster’s movies — Heredity, Midsommer and Beau is Afraid — and Eddington, though more of a Western than strictly horror, continues his cycle. While Joaquin Phoenix’s Joe is the film’s focus, it’s actually an ensemble cast with at least 20 crucial roles.
Eddington is brilliant, hilarious and shocking… putting his magnifying glass on all of us, just a few years ago.
it’s a must-see.
Cloud, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight , and Eddington all 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.
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.
Daniel Garber talks with Toshiaki Aoyagi about Cinema Kabuki
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
When you hear the word “kabuki”, you’re probably familiar with what it looks like, perhaps the costumes and makeup, or its movement. You might think it’s complex, performative or inscrutable. But it’s actually a living and breathing performance art form, a medium still practiced and popular. But, unless you’ve been to Japan, you’ve probably never seen a performance of a kabuki play. Well, now’s your chance.
Cinema Kabuki is a series of three kabuki plays filmed for the big screen, starring some of its biggest stars. They are full of love, romance, tragedy and glory. The first is the salacious-sounding Love Letters from the Pleasure Quarters; the second show is Princess 
Sakurahime, Part I, full of death, tragedy, lust and a fair bit of supernatural LGBT content; and the third performance is Lion Dance, Kagami-jishi, a one-man, or one-animal performance.
The series is co-presented by the Japan Foundation and the Consulate General of Japan in Toronto and programmed
by their program officer Toshi Aoyagi, known for his love of the arts, from origami to performing art. This is a rare opportunity to see kabuki in a Toronto theatre.
I spoke with Toshiaki Aoyagi in person at CIUT 89.5 FM.
The films are playing at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto on Sunday, February 23rd, from 1 pm until the evening.
Daniel Garber talks with Ugana Kenichi about The Gesuidouz at #TIFF24
Photograph by Jeff Harris.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Translator: Aki Takabatake
The Gesuidouz are a punk band in Tokyo. Hanako is the band’s leader and vocalist, the only woman in the group. There’s Ryuzo on bass, Masao who wears a fright wig on guitar, and blonde mohican Santarou on drums, who doubles as the band’s cook. They write their own music and lyrics, perform live and have released a dvd album. The only problem is… they’re terrible! There’s no tune, rhythm or meaning to these songs, just a lot of incoherent noise. Almost no loyal fans and their discs are still sitting in cardboard boxes. Their manager issues an ultimatum: he’ll find them a house in the country to live in, but if they can’t write and release a hit single in time, this band is finished. What will become of The Gesuidouz?
The Gesuidouz is a Japanese punk-music comedy that reinvents the rock movie. It’s the work of indie filmmaker Ugana Kenichi. His fantasy films have screened at festivals worldwide, including Slamdance, Porto and many others.
I spoke with Uganda Kenichi in a room at the Hyatt Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival, where The Gesuidozus had its World Premiere.
Places. Films reviewed: The Burning Season, We Grown Now, Evil Does Not Exist
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you’re looking for a fun night out, check out a beautifully renovated movie palace known as The Paradise Theatre in Toronto. It’s now running Flurry of Filth, the aptly titled John Waters retrospective, including camp classics like Female Trouble, Hairspray, Polyester and Cry Baby, featuring Divine, Mink Stole, Tab Hunter and many more, on now through May 18th.
But this week, I’m looking at three new indie movies, from Canada, the US and Japan. There’s a jack-of-all-trades in a mountain village near Tokyo, a hotelier on a lake in Northern Ontario, and two kids in a housing project in Chicago.
The Burning Season
Dir: Sean Garrity (Interviews: 2013, 2016, 2022)
It’s summer at a resort on Luna Lake in northern Ontario. JB (Jonas Chernick) is preparing to marry his longtime girlfriend Poppy (Tanisha Thammavongsa). Guests at the lavish outdoor wedding include Alena (Sara Canning) and her husband Tom (Joe Pingue), a couple who make it a point to visit the resort each summer. This is where JB grew up — his family owned the place — and he knows every inch of the woods. But it turns into a wedding from hell when the groom-zilla starts snorting coke, improvising his vows, breaking dishes, and getting in a fistfight with Tom. What’s the cause of all this anger, confusion and mayhem? It seems JB and Alena have been having a secret affair at the park since they both were teenagers. This summertime relationship continued even after they both met their life partners. And it all stems back to a fire at the cottages the first time they met. What’s the attraction? What rules do they play by? And will they ever own up to their secret past?
The Burning Season is a bittersweet chronicle of a longtime furtive 
romance set in Algonquin Park. The very first scene shows the teenaged couple taking vows of secrecy in front of a big fire, but from there it jumps forward to the faulty marriage many years later. The rest of the movie fills in the blanks, summer by summer, going back in time in reverse chronological order. Winnipeg director Sean Garrity has a history of making identifiably Canadian movies — including location, story, actors and music — but often with a dark, twisted theme. This one is co-written by Garrity’s long-time collaborator Jonas Chernick (The Last Mark, James vs his Future Self, A Swingers Weekend) and carries on this tradition. What does that mean? It means you get a twisted plot, good acting, beautiful scenery, and a fair amount of sex.
What more do you need?
We Grown Now
Wri/Dir: Minhal Baig
It’s 1992 in Cabrini-Green, a vast, mainly black public housing project in Chicago’s north side. Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) are best friends in elementary school. They study and hang together, often staying at Malik’s home with his mother Dolores (Jurnee Smollett) and his Grandma. Eric’s Dad works at a pizza place and his much older sister helps out at home. They don’t have much money but life is still good. Until everything changes when a classmate is killed by a stray bullet.
Mayor Daley declares war, and suddenly the kids all have to carry IDs, and their homes are broken into, without warrants, by swarms of police. Cabrini-Green is suddenly made a symbol of crime, and its days are numbered. Should Delores look for somewhere else to live? Even outside of Chicago? And what will happen to friends like Eric and Malik?
We Grown Now is a coming-of-age drama about two kids living in a long gone housing project (it was torn down a few years after the film takes place.) It’s well-acted and brings back to life an important place and its historical significance. The problem is it didn’t grab me. It’s missing something: the joys of childhood and friendship don’t seem real. The whole movie is drab and dreary, not fun. Where are the 
games they play, the comic books they read, the TV shows, the video games, the music they listen to? What are their favourite sports teams? Not in this movie. When they play hooky it’s to go to an art museum but back home do they start drawing and painting their own art? No. Aside from jumping on mattresses on the street these kids don’t ever seem to have fun, or do anything exceptional except being poor. The filmmaker says she talked to people who used to live there, but it translates into an earnest but lifeless movie set in aspic.
Evil Does Not Exist
Co-Wri/Dir: Hamaguchi Ryusuke
Takumi (Omika Hitoshi) is a jack-of-all-trades living in a tiny mountain village outside Tokyo. He chops wood, forages for wild vegetables, and carries water from a stream. (The villagers prize the delicious, clean taste of their well water.) And he devotes himself to his young daughter Hana (Nishikawa Ryo). Hana loves exploring the woods nearby, picking up things she finds along the way, like feathers. Everyone knows everyone in this village — the school kids, the retired folks, the local noodle shop owner — and Takumi is the de facto spokesman. So he takes the lead when rumours of a huge change strikes the town.
A Tokyo-based company apparently plans to open a “glamping” resort just outside the village. “Glamping” means glamorous camping, a luxury, outdoor encampment for city folk. And they set up an information meeting in the town hall. But there’s no one from the company — just a pair of friendly actors from a talent agency (Kosaka Ryuji, Shibutani Ayaka). After their glitzy presentation comes the Q&A, and the locals are not pleased. This glamping venture would 
ruin their idyllic, back-to-nature lifestyle and contaminate their water with a leaking septic tank upstream. Can the two sides find common ground?
Evil Does Not Exist is a stunning clash of cultures and the unexpected spinoff a seemingly-inoffensive idea can generate. It’s also a great character study, both of the stubborn NIMBY townsfolk and the affable talents who realize they’re actually the pawns of corporate treachery. It’s beautifully shot at a leisurely pace with amazing cinematography, and a jarring soundtrack that features lush romantic music that will stops suddenly, without warning. The film is written and directed by Hamaguchi Ryusuke, who brought us Drive My Car a couple years ago, which garnered four Oscar nominations. Evil Does Not Exist has a totally different theme but shares the same dark undercurrent.
This is a very good movie.
We Grown Now and Evil Does Not Exist open this weekend at the TIFF Lightbox; The Burning Season also opens 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.
Family movies worth watching. Films reviewed: The Boy and the Heron, The Three Musketeers: d’Artagnan
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With the holidays upon us and lots of families getting together, it’s hard to find movies that interest kids without boring adults. But this week, I’m looking at two new movies — from Japan and France — that families can actually enjoy together, and without any product placement whatsoever. There’s a boy in 1940s Japan searching for his mother, and a young swordsman in 1620s France looking for adventure.
The Boy and the Heron
Wri/Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
It’s 1943 in Japan, during WWII. Mahito is a teenaged schoolboy who recently moved away from Tokyo with his dad after his mother died, into a huge country house where his aunt Natsuko (his mom’s younger sister) lives. He is troubled by the fact his father has married Natsuko — who looks very much like his mother — and treats her almost as if they’re the same person . The house sits near a placid pond by a crumbling stone tower. Aside from his aunt, there is a bevy of old biddies who work on the estate. Mahito feels lost and abandoned and is bullied at school. One day on the way home he hits himself in the head with a rock, to make it look like he was attacked at school. Now bedridden, he 
recovers in his new home, disturbed only by an enormous heron who taps at the glass of his window. But things take a strange turn when he is lured on a journey to the old tower by the heron, who it turns out… can talk! The Heron says if Mahito is looking for his mother, the he knows where to look. Chased by Kiriko, one of the elderly maids, he decides to enter the tower to see what’s what.
From there, he finds himself in a new universe, completely unlike anything he’s seen before. It’s a place where people and ghosts, the living and the dead, coexist. There are talking animals, including giant, fascistic parakeets marching under the sway of a military dictator. He joins forces with a brave and strong sailor, a young woman who looks somehow familiar to him. And tiny, floating bubble-creatures known as warawara, who 
can cross to the real world from this other world. Can Mahito survive the dangers that await him? Can he rescue his mother and take her back home? Or will he be trapped there forever?
The Boy and the Heron is a brilliant animated story about a boy who visits a strange otherworld. It’s surreal and psychedelic. It deals with concepts like birth and death, reincarnation, souls, spirits, ghosts and gods, all situated within an authoritarian wartime Japan. It’s the work of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ghibli Studios, and is partially based on his own childhood. A master animated filmmaker, Miyazaki supposedly retired about a decade ago, but apparently never stopped drawing, and this is the result: an amazing burst of creativity and imagination. The Boy and The Heron is a beautiful — and sometimes heartbreaking — movie.
I recommend this one.
© 2023 CHAPTER 2/PATHE FILMS/M6 FILMS
LES TROIS MOUSQUETAIRES : D’ARTAGNAN
réal. : Martin Bourboulon. int. : François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Vicky Krieps, Lhyna Khoudri, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Marc Barbé, Patrick Mille, Julien Frison (de la Comédie-Française), Raph Amoussou.
pays : France. durée : 2 h 02. dist. : Pathé
Sortie en salle le 5 avril 2023
The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan
Dir: Martin Bourboulon
It’s the 1620s in France. Charles d’Artagnan (François Civil) is a brash young man from Gascony travelling on horseback to Paris. He wants to join the famed musketeers, an elite force serving under Louis XIII (Louis Garrel). On the way he witnesses a crime involving a stage coach, a sealed letter, and a mysterious woman in a black-hooded cape. When he comes to the rescue of a besieged woman in the coach, she shoots him! He is buried alive, but that doesn’t stop him. He makes his way to the palace, looking worse for the wear, and manages to sneak in to present his credentials. However, though a fine fighter, he can be both clumsy and arrogant and somehow offends three separate men, each of whom challenges him to a duel. He shows up at the assigned hour, prepared to die. Turns out the three men all know each other: Athos (Vincent Cassel) Porthos (Pio Marmaï) and Aramis (Romain Duris) all widely known for their sword skills and lusty habits. But before the duels can begin they are accosted by a small army of soldiers, working for Cardinal Richelieu. All for one they say, and d’Artagnan joins them in the fight, soon proving his 
mettle. The three men are of course, the Three Musketeers.
Now, having been invited to join the cadets, but not the elite musketeer corps, d’Artagnan moves into an apartment near Constance (Lyna Khoudri) — a personal confident of the queen— whom he fell in love with at first sight. But trouble is brewing. The King’s brother (along with Cardinal Richelieu) is plotting to send the country to war with the Protestants — meaning, England. The Queen (Vicky Krieps) is romantically involved with the Duke of Buckingham. Athos is accused of murder but says he has no recollection of the night’s events (he was drunk, as usual). And the Queen — who rashly gave a diamond necklace to Buckingham as a keepsake — is ordered by the king to wear it at an upcoming ball. And of course there’s the mysterious Milady (Eva Green) who seems to be involved in all the intrigue swirling around the palace. Can they rescue the necklace, stop Athos’s execution, uncover a secret plot and prevent an upcoming war? And will d’Artagnan ever be accepted by the Three Musketeers?
The Three Musketeers is, of course, the latest version of the classic swashbuckler based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a Hollywood perennial; they release countless versions of this film, usually once a decade, stretching back to silent movies, featuring stars like Douglas Fairbanks and Adolph Menjou, Gene Kelly and Lana Turner, Raquel Welch and 
Oliver Reed, Charlie Sheen and Keifer Sutherland. And these are just the Hollywood ones; there also have been many French versions, like this one, plus Mexican, Japanese, Italian… you name it. The story has action, intrigue, adventures, romance and comedy. So how does this one stand up?
I found it very enjoyable, sticking close to the original book, but with enough new or unfamiliar parts to keep you guessing. Less “bodice-ripping,” more fighting. In this version, the musketeers actually use their muskets — so there are gun fights, not just sword fights. Porthos is polysexual — he’ll sleep with anyone that movies. And this d’Artagnan is dirtier, poorer and scruffier than usual, but the actor (François Civil) does have electric appeal. There are horseback chase scenes, masked balls, overheard plot turns and daring escapes — I love this stuff. It’s shot among lush forests, cliff-side beaches, in crowded marketplaces or dark palace corridors. Warning: this is part one of two films, and leaves you with a bit of a cliff-hanger.
Personally, I think Richard Lester’s 1973 version is the best, but this one definitely holds its own.
The Boy and the Heron and The Three Musketeers, Part 1: D’Artagnan are both playing now at select theatres 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.
Daniel Garber talks with Kore-eda Hirokazu about Monster at #TIFF23
Edited version (8m 27s)
Unedited version (17m 51s) 日本語付き
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photograph by Jeff Harris
Minato is a school kid in a small town whose mother works in a dry cleaner. But when he comes home one day bleeding, in pain and deeply troubled wants to know who hurt him. When she finds his teacher, Mr Hori is to blame, she tries to get him punished but faces indifference or polite, meaningless words from the teachers and principal. But as the story unfolds, we discover his teacher may not be the monster she suspected.
Monster is also an intriguing new feature film by Kore-eda Hirokazu that looks at children, makeshift families, and positions of power, and examines who suffers from bullying and violent crimes, who is blamed for them, and who actually does them and gets away with it. He also ponders bigger concepts like disasters, reincarnation and life after death.
It features an intricate story, great acting, and a lovely soundtrack by the late Sakamoto Ryuichi. Kore-eda is an award-winning director, writer and producer, whom I’ve previously talks with about Like Father, Like Son, Our Little Sister, After the Storm, and The Third Murder.
I spoke with Kore-eda in person, on-site at #TIFF23.
Monster opens in Toronto on December 1, 2023 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Halloweeniness! Films reviewed: Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Killer, Suzume
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto Fall Film Festival Season continues with Rendezvous with Madness, showing and discussing films about addiction and mental health, on now through November 5th. And on the horizon are Cinefranco, showing great French- language movies from Canada, Europe and Africa starting Nov 3rd; and ReelAsian Film Fest, celebrating its 27th incarnation, featuring pan-Asian cinema, events and media artists beginning on Nov 8th.
But this week I’m talking about three new genre movies — an action- thriller, a horror and an animated fantasy — just in time for Halloween. There’s a hitman tying up loose ends, a night watchman guarding animatronic beasts, and a Japanese schoolgirl closing doors.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Co-Wri/Dir: Emma Tammi
(Based on the game by Scott Cawthon)
Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a night watchman at a crumbling, former kids’ pizza emporium. He’s working there because, since their parents died, he needs to take care of his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Abby is withdrawn and introverted; she spends most of her days drawing pictures. Mike is especially protective of her, since their brother Garret was abducted by a stranger years earlier and never found. Now he’s worried social services will take her away and give custody to their sinister aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). And without a steady job, he’s a lost cause.
The thing is, Freddy’s is a weird and creepy place, filled with rusty old animatronic figurines — Freddy, Foxie, Bonnie, Chica, and Cupcake — life-sized robotic creatures that once welcomed kids to the restaurant… until children started disappearing in the 1980s, and the place was closed down. Luckily, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) a friendly local cop, is always dropping by to make sure Mike is OK. (Is there a possible romance brewing?) But once ghosts of the abducted kids start appearing in his dreams — and he wakes up with real-life wounds — Mike starts to question the entire job. And when Abby gets involved 
and is playing with the animatronic creatures, things start to look ominous. Can Mike protect Abby from her new “friends”? Will Aunt Jane take her away? And will he ever discover what happened to their brother Garret?
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a light kids’ horror movie about a haunted restaurant, a sort of a Chuck E Cheese from hell. It’s based on a computer game from the early 2000s, which dictates a lot of the characters, plot and even the images. Which gives an ultra-simplistic feel to the movie. The movie mainly takes place inside the dusty pizza emporium, filled with retro video screens and pinball machines; and the scenes with the animatronic characters are uniquely creepy and cool. But in general, the film is predictable, repetitive and not terribly original. But I’ve never actually played the game. The audience where I saw it was screaming and yelling at every line, revelation or scene-change, so, clearly, if you’re already a fan, you’ll love it. Personally, I enjoyed watching it, but found it instantly forgettable.
The Killer
Dir: David Fincher
A self-described ordinary man (Michael Fassbender) who likes egg McMuffins and 70s sitcoms is camping out in a Paris office building, across from a hotel. He enjoys listening to The Smiths whenever he needs to relax. He normally lives in a palatial estate in the Dominican Republic. So what is he doing in Paris and why is he sleeping on a table? He’s a hitman assigned to assassinate a stranger through hotel window. Don’t take it the wrong way; he’s not a bad guy, it’s just his job. But when the assignment goes wrong, everything falls apart. Now he thinks killers are tracking him, and his girlfriend is attacked and almost killed inside his home. Who can he trust? So he sets out to discover who exactly has turned on him, and once he figures that out, he plans to systematically kill them all. But will he succeed in his revenge plot?
The Killer is an action/thriller based on a graphic novel and told from the viewpoint of a sympathetic murderer. There are chase scenes and stake-outs, fistfights and shoot-outs, everything you’d expect in a thriller. It’s chock-full of violence and death, but the twist is it’s narrated in a light and breezy voice-over by the killer himself. 
Fassbender is a great actor, here at his wiriest, and surrounded by a top-notch cast: including Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell and Arliss Howard. And it’s directed by David Fincher who brought us Fight Club and The Usual Suspects. And it has recurring gags, like the killer using fake names taken from 70s sitcoms (Archie Bunker and Richie Cunningham) to hide his identity. So why isn’t it very good? The problem is the story is more pointless than it is funny or exciting or interesting. It’s lots of action, not so many thrills. The plot itself is plodding, going from numbered chapter to chapter about the next person he’s going to encounter and possibly kill. It just leaves you feeling hollow — killers killing killers. Sure, The Killer is totally watchable as an action movie, it just doesn’t live up to its potential. Instead it elevates mundaneness into mock profundity.
Suzume
Wri/Dir: Shinkai Makoto
Suzume is a teenage girl in Kyushu, Japan. She has lived with her aunt since her single mom died when she was four, but she’s still troubled by nightmares. One day, on her way to school, a handsome young man asks her for directions to an abandoned part of town. Intrigued, she follows him and discovers a strange, freestanding door and a small statue of a cat. After she walks through the door, everything seems the same… and yet somehow different. She can now see things other people can’t — like a huge red plume rising into the sky. The cat, Daijin, comes to life and starts talking. The stranger, named Souta, explains what’s going on. He’s a closer, one of only a few people who can close those doors using a special key. The red plume is actually a giant worm — it’s what causes the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan. And it will be a disaster unless he closes these doors wherever they start to open. But when the cat turns Souta into a little, three-legged chair, things start to get more complicated. Can Suzume do Souta’s work? Can she turn him back into a human? Can they stop Daijin the cat from causing any more problems? And what will Suzume’s aunt do if she just takes off?
Suzume is a beautiful fantasy-adventure about a girl trying to save the 
world. It’s a picaresque story that spans Japan’s islands, historic sites and the very diverse people at work — from a hostess bar to a bath house — she meets on her journey. It’s fascinating, exciting, and full of surprises. Beautiful images and a nostalgic soundtrack — full of Japanese pop songs from the 70s and 80s — make it a pleasure to watch. It’s especially meaningful in Japan because it takes place in 2023, exactly 100 years after the Great Kanto Earthquake flattened Tokyo. Add to this a semi-romantic story full of world-altering decisions (no spoilers) and you’ll get why it’s so good. The director Shinkai Makoto who brought us the smash hit Your Name again deftly handles tricky stuff like time and space and alternate realities and unrequited love.
If you like Japanese anime, Suzume is a must-see.
Five Nights at Freddy’s and Suzume both open this weekend in Toronto — check your local listings — with The Killer showing exclusively at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Summer tentpoles. Films reviewed: The Deepest Breath, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A tentpole is a movie that, despite its extremely high budget, is expected to help a studio stay afloat so they can make lots of mid- or low-budget movies — the films I try to cover. But since a lot of these tentpoles are popping up this summer and inundating us with ads and publicity, I can’t completely ignore them. So this week, I’m looking at two of them — an action movie and an action/adventure — plus a sports doc.
The Deepest Breath
Wri/Dir: Laura McGann
Alessia Zecchini is an Italian woman whose dream — since she was a little girl — has always been to free dive. Freediving refers to an extreme sport usually done in natural settings. While there are many variations, it generally involves swimming straight down underwater as deep as you can go, and then turning around and swimming back up to the surface. The type Alessia competes in involves a weighted rope that she follows when swimming down and up. The deeper you go, the better your chance of winning a competition or breaking a world record. But countless people go deep-sea diving — what sets this type apart? Free diving is done without scuba gear; competitors hold their breath the entire time they’e underwater. (We’re talking two, three or four minutes or longer!) It’s considered an extreme sport because if you swim too deep you might black out and drown. So there are safety divers who accompany you, to mitigate the danger — they propel your body to the surface if you pass out. One such safety diver is Stephen Keenan, an Irishman known for his skills and dedication. The two become close in their repeated dives. But can they remain safe in such a dangerous sport?
The Deepest Breath is a sports documentary about Stephen, Allessia and other free divers both in and out of competition, as well as talking-head interviews with their friends and relatives. I was attracted to this documentary because I love underwater 
photography — the deep blues, the colourful fish, the coral reefs, whales and orca people might see as they explore the depths. And the photography is quite beautiful. But I hadn’t realized that most of the movie would just be people competing as they swim down and then up again. Free climbing — rock climbing without ropes or nets — is a highly skilled and very hazardous sport. (A great doc called Free Solo came out a few years ago). Free diving is not the equivalent. It’s just about who can hold their breath the longest as they swim up and down a rope, like a human yo-yo.
There are historical precedents, like women in Japan known as ama (海女) who used to swim topless in deep and rocky waters searching for pearls in oyster beds. But they did it as an occupation, not as a hobby. For the life of me, why do people risk their lives at something so pointless? I also found the movie manipulative: misleading audiences about implied relationships which may or may not have been real, while dropping false hints about the death of certain characters (no spoilers).
If you are a fan of (or a competitor in) free diving or other extreme sports, you’ll love this movie. Otherwise… maybe not.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1
Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a spy who carries out top secret assignments as part of the IMF — the Impossible Mission Team, known only to Kittridge, his boss (Henry Czerny) who works for the US government, and other members of the team. His mission? To rescue a special key from another agent, Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and bring it back. But this is no ordinary key. When interlocked with a second, one, this key can activate a lethal weapon so powerful it makes atomic bombs look like BB guns. The key was stolen from the Russians by an unknown entity, possibly an example of artificial intelligence gone rogue. Hunt liberates the key, but his plans are interrupted by a new player on the scene. Grace (Hayley Atwell) is a beautiful and glamorous thief, who can pick any pocket and open any lock. She’s working for Gabriel (Esai Morales), a mysterious and ruthless villain who represents The Entity — that unknown person, group or computer program seeking to rule the world. And her nimble fingers soon take possession of the key. It’s up to Hunt and his team to follow her through scenic spots in Europe and get back the key, before the Entity blows us all up. But who can he trust?
Mission: Impossible — Day of Reckoning is a light, fun movie with non-stop action. I find Mission: Impossible movies annoying for their ponderous plots and Tom Cruise-centric focus. This time, it’s funnier than usual, and also has many interesting characters: Ilsa, 
Grace, but also a deranged assassin named Paris (Pom Klementieff) and a diffident criminal broker known only as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). That’s right, this is an action movie with four fascinating female central characters! That’s rare. The stunts and special effects are really impressive, as is the scenery in Rome, Venice, and across the continent.
On the other hand, the dialogue in this movie is atrocious. I mean abysmally bad, in some scenes. A sequence set in the Pentagon may live on in history as some of the worst lines ever written. (Could it have been written by AI? No, it’s even worse than that.) It’s also Part One of a two-part series, so you’ll have to watch another one next year to tie up the loose ends.
But if you’re looking for pure summer entertainment, check this one out.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Dir: James Mangold
It’s 1944 in Nazi Germany. Indiana Jones (a de-aged Harrison Ford) is an archaeologist known for his bravery and derring-do. With his side-kick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), they’re hoping to find a priceless relic amongst countless crates of stolen loot. They are captured and tortured by their cruel adversaries, but manage to escape, along with part of an ancient Greek device invented by Archimedes— the Dial of Destiny. Flash forward 25 years to Manhattan in the late 1960s. Indie is now an over-the-hill college professor, whose get up and go has got up and went. His treasure-hunting days are over, his wife (Karen Allen) has left him and his students don’t care what he says. But everything changes when Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter, shows up unannounced. She grabs the dial and runs off with it to Morocco. She’s not the only one interested in this dial — government agents want it, too, and so does Dr Voller (Mads 
Mikkelsen) a former Nazi turned NASA rocket scientist who Indie and Basil encountered back in 1944. Indie reverts to his old personality, and complete with hat and whip, he flies off to Morocco. And after some jostling and negotiations, he joins Helena and her loyal street-urchin pal Teddy (Ethann Isidore) on a transcontinental journey to locate the other half of the dial. But who will get there first?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the latest, and possibly the last of the movie franchise. Considering Harrison Ford is 81 now, I think he carries it off pretty well. Does the movie work? Totally. It’s a family-oriented action/ adventure film. Maybe I like it for the 
nostalgia factor, which is the basis of the whole series — Spielberg and Lucas made Raiders of the Lost Arc in the 80s in an attempt to recapture the movies they grew up with. But it has enough twists and turns, secrets and surprises, to keep you interested, start to finish. Mads Mikkelsen plays a perfect villain, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is great, too. I actually really liked this one — it redeems the whole series.
One thing I don’t normally do is compare two movies, but I was struck by how similar this movie is to the latest Mission: Impossible. They both have chase scenes driving tiny cars pursued by gun-crazed drivers — a yellow Fiat 500 in Rome in Mission: Impossible, vs a Morrocan tuk-tuk in Indiana Jones. They both have half of a device with incredible power — a key and a dial — and are searching for the other half. They both have fight scenes on the roof of a fast-moving train passing in and out of tunnels. And 
there’s a clever pick-pocket — Grace in Mission, Teddy in Indie — who befuddles both the hero and the villains. And each of these tentpoles cost about $350 million each to make: That’s more than the budget of every feature made in Canada that year put together. Which is better? I liked them both, but I’d say Dial of Destiny is the better one.
Indiana Jones and thee Dial of Destiny is playing now, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and The Deepest Breath both open 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.
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