Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Troy Ruptash about They Who Surround Us
It’s 1987 on a farm in Vegreville, Alberta, east of Edmonton. Roman is a happily married farmer with a young son. But their world is torn apart when his wife is killed in a terrible accident (which he blames on himself), leaving Roman and Mykola unprotected and alone. The son turns inward, not eating or speaking, while Roman lashes out. He has a total meltdown, revealing deeply hidden memories of his childhood in war-torn Ukraine. He directs his rage and frustration at everyone he once 
relied on – his sister, his neighbours and the Church. Can Roman handle on his own what God hath wrought? Or does he need to embrace “they who surround us”?
They Who Surround Us is a moving drama about one man’s struggle with death, mourning, history, family and religion. It’s set within the Ukrainian-Canadian community of east-central 
Alberta, where the prairies meet the bush, a land replete with grain elevators, onion-dome churches, and a railway line cutting right through it. This film is produced, directed, and written by the well-known Canadian actor Troy Ruptash, who also plays the lead role.
I spoke with Troy in Vegreville, Alberta from Toronto via ZOOM .
They Who Surround Us opens theatrically in Toronto and across western Canada on August 27th.
Death and Life. Films reviewed: Broken Diamonds, Old, Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Movies in Toronto are taking off. I saw a press screening in a movie theatre this week for the first time in 16 months! It felt a little bit strange and awkward but I can already feel myself adjusting to it. TIFF has announced its first batch of movies, including the world premier of the musical Dear Evan Hansen to open the festival (I’m reviewing another movie starring Ben Platt today). The ICFF is now running a series of outdoor movies including the 1911 silent classic, L’Inferno from Danté’s Divine Comedy. And actual, indoor movie theatres are also open now, even in Toronto, showing new, trashy popcorn movies.
This week, I’m looking at three “deadly” American movies – a drama, a doc and a fantasy/horror – all opening this weekend on various platforms. There’s a brother and sister brought together after a death, a dance performance inspired by a death, and tourists at a beach resort facing death.
Broken Diamonds
Dir: Peter Sattler
Scott (Ben Platt) is a young writer with a goal. He’s quitting his day job, selling all his possessions and flying off to Paris to write his first novel. At least that was his plan until his estranged father suddenly dies. Which brings him together with his sister Cindy (Lola Kirke). Cindy was once the big shot in the family, pretty, smart, an aspiring actress. She was the apple of her father’s eye while Scott was always an afterthought. But she’s been living in a mental institution on and off since high school. But, perhaps because of the turmoil of losing her dad, she acts out and gets kicked out and now she’s suddenly homeless. She moves back into the empty family home. Now it’s up to Scott to take care of his big sister… or at least until he moves to Paris.
But it’s not that simple. They have a long history to work out. And when Cindy goes off her meds, things start to spiral out of control. Can Scott act like a grown up and take responsibility for once? Can he help Cindy adjust to life outside of institutions? Is he his sister’s keeper? And will he ever get to Paris?
Broken Diamonds is a touching movie about a few weeks in the
lives of adult siblings. It deals with family issues like death and inheritance, living with mental illness, and other people facing their own hidden demons. Though largely told through Scott’s eye’s, it’s sympathetic toward Cindy’s plight. The acting is good and the tone is light. That said, I found the story overly simplistic — neither Scott not Cindy seem to have any friend, lover or relative in their lives other than each other, but they haven’t spoken in years. And did they have to portray schizophrenia as a disease where “split personalities” with different names and voices start to appear as soon as she’s off meds? It also has a painfully awful and unnecessary denouement tacked onto the credits, so if you decide to see this movie — and it’s seriously not bad, it’s watchable, it’s touching, and well-acted — run out of the theatre when the closing titles start to roll!
Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters
Dir: Tom Hurwitz, Rosalynde LeBlanc
It’s the 1980s in New York City. Bill T Jones and Arnie Zane have a dance company in which they both perform. They’re also lovers. They met in the apex of gay culture and abandon in the late 70s. But now it’s the 80s and the AIDS epidemic is decimating the gay community, including the world of dance. Many of the people they work with, including Keith Haring who does their sets, and Alvin Ailey who commissions their work, are dying. Then Arnie dies too, throwing their company into disarray. As part of the grieving process, Jones decides to create a totally different kind of dance. The dancers are multiracial, men and women, gay and straight, and people with different body types, not just the stereotypical “look” dancers usually have. It incorporates athleticism and the Aids crisis within a fusion of elements of traditional ballet and modern dance. He calls it “post-modern” dance.
This spectacular dance opens to rave reviews and packed 
audiences. And over the past 30+ years it’s been performed in hundreds of productions. And what a performance — bodies being tossed into the air; diving off one dancer’s back into another’s arms. And despite it’s modernity, it’s set to 19th century music by Mendelsohn.
The film shows footage from the original production in the late 1980s, and interviews with many of those dancers. It also follow a young group at a university, going through the process of auditioning, rehearsing and putting together a new version of the same dance. Bill T Jones is present both in the original production and visiting this new one to offer advice during their rehearsals.
Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters is a documentary that traces the genesis and meaning of the original production and how it retains its relevance and dynamism today. It’s both an historical document and an important work of art. Personally, I would rather have seen more dancing and less talking, but found it interesting nevertheless.
Old
Wri/Dir:M. Night Shyamalan
Prisca and Guy (Vicky Krieps and Gael Garcia Bernal) are a married couple with two precocious kids: daughter Maddox, age 7 and Trent who is 6. Guy is an actuary and Prisca is a museum curator. They’ve just arrived at a luxury resort, for what might be their last time together. Prisca is facing a medical condition and their marriage is on the rocks. Maybe a few days on a beautiful tropical island can solve all their problems? Soon they’re in a minibus headed for a private beach for a day of sun and fun. The resort has even packed huge picnic hampers of food for them to enjoy. And it’s a stunning beach with white sand and crystal waters, surrounded by steep cliffs, reached only through a passageway in the rocks. Joining them on this excursion are an angry doctor with his 
elderly mother, his model-like wife and their little girl; another couple — she’s a psychologist and he’s a nurse; and a famous rapper with his girlfriend.But strange things start happening. A dead body washes up on shore. And something’s wrong with the kids — they’re growing up. As in puberty! In just an hour they’ve turned into teenagers with Trent and the other former 6-year-old sneaking away to make out in a tent. They’re in love, and before you know it she’s pregnant! What is going on?
It seems that on this beach they’re all aging at the rate of 10 years an hour, which means they could all be dead of old age by the end of the day. Their cel phones don’t work, and anyone who tries to leave becomes dizzy and faint at the border of the beach. What is happening… and why? And will anyone escape?
Old — based on a graphic novel — operates on a really neat sci-fi fantasy premise. It’s not just horror, there are lots of intriguing and unexpected parts. There are some impossible missteps, most of which I can’t mention without revealing the ending. For example, a psychologist with epilepsy has a tonic clonic seizure at the hotel but doesn’t bother bringing her anti-seizure meds with her on a trip the next day? Lot’s of little errors like that. But even so, I found it a surprising and fascinating story, beginning to end. M Night Shyamalam has been churning out a series of not-so-great movies since The Sixth Sense (1999), but maybe Old means he’s getting better again.
Old and Broken Diamonds both open this weekend, either theatrically or VOD check your local listings; and you can now watch Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters at the Digitall TIFF Bell Lightbox and at Virtual Hotdocs.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Canadian Film Day! The Courier, Bloodthirsty, The Marijuana Conspiracy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Hey, did you know next Wednesday is Canadian Film Day? Yeah, I know all the theatres will be closed but you can still attend Canadian movies all across the country. Things like 11 new short films from emerging filmmakers, called Light(s) at the End of the Tunnel; online discussions, and lots of films you can watch on TV or streaming online. Go to canadianfilmday.ca for details.
This week I’m looking at three new movies, two of which are Canadian. There’s tokes in Toronto, Spooks in the Soviet Union, and lycanthropes in Alberta.
The Courier
Dir: Dominic Cooke
It’s 1960 in Moscow and the space race, the arms race and the cold war are in full swing. Oleg Pankovsky (Merab Ninidze) is a high-ranked officer in Soviet military intelligence. He has access to secret documents, and knows something big and potentially dangerous is coming. And he doesn’t like Kruschev’s inflammatory speeches. It feels like the USSR and the USA are heading toward all out nuclear war. So he decides to do something. He leaks a bundle of documents to the American embassy with a promise of more to come. But Oleg is too important for the CIA and the MI5 to risk exposing him by using one of their own agents.
So, instead, a CIA agent named Emily (Rachel Brosnahan) and her MI5 counterpart approach a mild-mannered British businessman who already conducts trade behind the Iron Curtain. Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) is just an ordinary fellow, who lives in a modest London home with his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley) and their young son. And he wants nothing to do with it. He’s untrained and uninterested. But when he learns that the fate of the world may be at stake, he agrees. All he has to do is continue what he was always 
doing — making deals and signing import and export contracts. And regular meeting with Oleg to carry secret documents back to London. Heh’s a courier. But as tensions rise moles on both sides are revealing secrets. Wynne and Oleg both face growing suspicion, and their home lives suffer (Wynne’s wife thinks he’s having an affair). And when something goes wrong both Oleg and Wynne are in grave danger. Will they be discovered? Can they safely make it to the west? Or is their fate already sealed?
The Courier is a gripping historical spy thriller set at the height of the Cold War, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s exciting and mysterious, filled with quirky realistic characters. It’s also based on an actual case. On the other hand, it regurgitates Cold War politics as if it’s still 1960. The KGB was surely a nasty agency, but so were the CIA and the MI5. They were all busy assassinating leaders, supporting coups, installing dictators and thwarting democratic elections worldwide. But in this movie it’s “Russians bad, Anglo-Americans good”.
Keep that in mind, but it doesn’t detract from the gripping story, and excellent acting. I liked this one.
Bloodthirsty
Dir: Amelia Moses
Grey (Lauren Beatty) is a singer-songwriter in Edmonton, Alberta. She’s a vegan and an animal lover who treats everyone, even the four-legged, with love and respect. She lives with her long-time girlfriend Charlie, an artist (Katharine King So). Her first album was a smash hit, but now she’s facing two problems: First she has writer’s block and sophomore blues — she’s afraid her second album will suck. She’s also on prescription meds to battle a strange phenomenon: frequent, realistic nightmares about gorging on raw flesh, dripping with blood, and similar hallucinations when she’s awake.
So, when a famous but reclusive record producer named Vaughn Daniels (Greg Bryk) invites her to his home to record her next album, she jumps at the chance. Charlie is less enthusiastic. Why does he live in a house in the woods. And isn’t he a convicted murderer? (Actually he was charged but never convicted.) So they drive up north. He takes Grey under his wing, so she can let her mind free. It’s not writer’s block it’s your inhibitions that are holding you back, he tells her. He takes off
her meds, plies her with hard liquor and tries to get her to eat raw meat. And Grey notices she’s changing — she’s creating good, dark music, but her head is filled with violent ideas. Why did Vaughn choose her? What is he after? And why do dead animals and humans — ostensibly killed by wolves — keep turning up near his home?
Bloodthirsty, as the title suggests, is a dark and brooding, horror movie about werewolves and music. It’s spooky but not all that scary. It’s a low-budget movie with a very small cast and low-rent special effects. And it could have used a bit more humour… and a scarier-looking house. (Vaughn’s lair just looks strange.)
What’s great about this movie is the way it combines the creative process of composing and writing lyrics with supernatural bloodlust! That is totally original, and and Lauren Beatty as Grey does it really well (with a beautiful voice, too).
The Marijuana Conspiracy
Wri/Dir: Craig Pryce
It’s 1972 in downtown Toronto. Trudeaumania has swept across Canada but here in True Blue Ontario, the Tories are worried. Rumour has it that Trudeau — Pierre, not Justin — might legalize marijuana. So they commission a study of the dangers of the demon weed. 20 young women, age 18-25 are paid subjects at the Addiction Research Foundation, (later merged with CAMH). They’re given rooms to live in, food and recreation for three months. What’s the catch? They’re not allowed to leave the premises and have to smoke cannabis every day. The doctors observe the results but don’t interfere. And to measure the long term effects the patients weave macrame wall hangings out of hemp and beads, and they’ll be paid upon completion of the study for each one they successfully finish (that measures motivation.) What they’re measuring is whether smoking grass 
impedes work production. (There’s also a control group in the study identical in every way except they don’t smoke.)
The movie focuses on a few of the subjects. One is homeless, another is upper middle class, a third is hippy who wants to move to a commune in Vancouver, and one whose father is serving time for drug possession. There’s also intrigue, sex, humour music, and friendship. And it touches on sexuality, race, psychiatry, politics and many other issues. Here’s the biggest twist: This is not a documentary! It’s base on the actual study but this is character-driven drama about the the young volunteers, and the doctors, nurses, and grad students they interact with.
This is such an unusual movie, it really grabbed me, both for the characters and drama and surprises, but also the weirdness of it all — and because it actually happened right here in Toronto.
The Courier is released today on PVOD; The Marijuana Conspiracy opens across North America on Tuesday, April 20th, and you can pre-order Bloodthirsty beginning next Friday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Family Crises. Films reviewed: Our Friend, Phobic, Falling
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It may be cold, but February is offering some film festivals to enjoy in your own warm homes. TBFF Toronto Black Film Festival is coming mid-month, showing unique and dynamic black voices in Canada. JFF Plus is showing Japanese features shorts and anime, all free beginning in a week. And Hot Docs is running its annual Podcast Festival right now. But this week I’m looking at three new movies that explore family troubles. There’s a police detective chasing a serial killer; a journalist taking care of his dying wife; and an airline pilot dealing with his father’s dementia.
Our Friend
Dir: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
(Based on an article in Esquire by Matthew Teague)
It’s the early 2000s. Matt (Casey Affleck) is a print journalist at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He’s married to Nicole (Dakota Johnson) a stage actress starring in musicals. They have two young kids. Matt’s career is taking off, and while he’s a foreign correspondent covering wars in Pakistan and the middle east, Nicole has stayed home to care of the kids. But both their lives are disrupted by shocking news: she has cancer. They soon find the two of them can’t handle the triple threat of job, kids and cancer, never mind their own relationship. So they call for help from a good friend. Dane (Jason Segal) is an actor and a comic who has known them with for ages. His relationship is shaky and so is his job status. So he agrees to bunk at their home and help ease the burden. He soon becomes a part of the family, a second mom and dad to the kids, and a comfort to Matt and Nicole dealing with the pains of illness and the threat of death.
Our Friend is a dramatization of Matthew Teague’s personal memoir of a 
decade living with his wife’s cancer with the help of their friend. It’s told in flashbacks explicitly dated by the number of years before or after Nicole Teague’s diagnosis. As such, it holds very few surprises. Even when she’s healthy we all know that in a year a two she’s going to get sick and eventually die. Almost preordained. So there’s a melancholy inevitability to the story, as we’re walked through anger, denial, and stages of diagnosis, chemo, remission, metastasis, psychosis, palliative care and finally death. This is a sentimental and sad movie told in a clean, palatable way. It’s all about family relationships and friendships. Surprisingly though it’s not a tearjerker so it didn’t give me the deep emotional purge I was expecting. Apparently, the magazine article it was based on was amazingly popular, and the acting is good enough, but this movie didn’t move me.
Phobic
Wri/Dir: Bryce Clark
Riley Sanders (Jacque Gray) is a police detective in Utah. She has blonde hair a svelte body and a stern expression on her face. She’s rejoining the force after recovering from a violent incident. Her new partner is Paul (Devin Liljenquist) has a lantern jaw and soap opera looks. Is there a spark between them? They’ve never met but their fathers worked together in the past; they’re both second-generation cops. Their first case? A serial killer with a strange M.O. The victims are all found chained to a chair in a locked room. One is in a place painted red. Another with snakes writhing around his feet. What do they have in common? They were scared to death.
Turns out the victims are all patients of the same psychiatrist, a certain Dr Holden (Tiffani DiGregorio) who uses new techniques to cure “phobics” of their darkest fears. First she diagnoses them using Rorschach inkblot tests, then, through therapy and the use of a strobe light, unlocks her patients’ inner strength to conquer their irrational phobias. But she’s highly protective of her files and won’t let the detectives see them. Meanwhile, Riley has a phobia of her own, a fear of the dark. What is Dr Holden’s role in these grisly deaths? What is her connection to Riley? Are Riley and Paul a thing? And can they catch the elusive killer before the killer kills them?
Phobic is ostensibly a psychological thriller about a serial killer that preys on the victims’ worst fears. An interesting concept. The problem is, it’s not thrilling. It’s about as scary as an old episode of CSI. It’s too slow, clumsily directed, and badly edited. Even the props seem to be done on the cheap. The story looks promising at first but goes totally off-kilter toward the end. Sorry to say, this movie is a mess.
Falling
Wri/Dir: Viggo Mortensen
It’s the early 1960s. Willis (Sverrir Gudnason) is young man from Boonville, NY, who lives on a farm with his wife Gwen (Martha Gross). He likes hunting, horses and fishing, but not much else. On the day his son Johnny is born he says he’s sorry he brought the little stinker into this world. Fifty years later, John (Viggo Mortensen) is an airline pilot happily married to his husband Eric (Terry Chen) with their inquisitive daughter. He lives in sunny California, not far from his younger sister Sarah (Laura Linney). Willis is old now (Lance Henricksen), and Gwen is long gone, so his adult children are trying to find him a place near them to live out his final years. The problem is he’s still the same rude, angry and violent sonofabitch they remember from their childhood. If not worse. He’s a smoker and a drinker. He’s xenophobioc, paranoid, racist, misogynistic and homophobic. He’s rude and lecherous, ogling women and swearing at men. He
says all women are whores, and calls his adult son, an airforce vet, a fairy. On top of that, he’s losing it — prone to wandering away, forgetting where he is or why he’s there. How long can John keep calm and put up with his father? And will Willis ever make peace with the world… and himself?
Falling is a drama about a father and son, set in the past and the present. It jumps back and forth through memories shared by John and Willis, as their stories, and how they ended up how they are, are gradually revealed. This is a great movie, directed and written by actor Viggo Mortensen who plays John, but it’s really about Willis. It’s a fascinating and realistic character study about this hateable, but totally watchable, man and his cringeworthy but funny behaviour and motives. It’s a character study but not a caricature. Gudnason is great as the young Willis, but Henricksen as the old Willis fighting dementia is stupendous. It’s beautifully shot among nature at a wintry, snow covered farm, and beneath the hot pacific sun. Falling is harshly funny, cruel, constantly surprising and quite touching. This is an excellent movie.
Our Friend and Phobic are now playing, and Falling opens next Friday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Lost causes. Films reviewed: Tammy’s Always Dying, Planet of the Humans, She’s Allergic to Cats
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I had a strange dream last night. I was in an old-school movie palace (in real life, all movie theatres are still closed) fumbling around in the dark, trying to find a seat while maintaining social distance. I finally found an empty seat way up in the second or third balcony but there was a huge pillar blocking the screen. So I had to twist around until I was almost lying prone until could catch a glimpse of the movie, far below…
But you don’t have to go such lengths to see unusual films – they’re on your device or TV at home. So this week I’m looking at three new indie movies, now playing. There’s an ex-environmentalist tilting at windmills; a depressed mom in Hamilton jumping off bridges; and a neurotic filmmaker in Hollywood obsessed with bananas.
Tammy’s Always Dying
Dir: Amy Jo Johnson
Kathy (Anastasia Phillips) is a working-class woman in Hamilton, Ontario. She has a steady boyfriend, a career, a nice car and a mother who loves her. OK, that’s an exaggeration. She actually has a ramshackle existence teetering on the brink. She drives a wreck, works in a
dive bar for Doug (Clark Johnson) an older gay black guy who’s her only friend. Her so-called boyfriend Sean (Aaron Ashmore: 22 Chaser) is married with two young kids who meets her periodically for quickies in his tool shed.
And then there’s her mom. Tammy (Felicity Huffman) is a total mess: a penniless alcoholic, she’s depressed and suicidal. Her only pleasure is watching confessional talk shows on daytime TV. Each month she can be found, like clockwork, on a pedestrian bridge, ready to throw herself onto the railway 
tracks far below. But Katherine always arrives just in time to save her mom’s life.
Until… Tammy finds herself facing a physical problem that almost trumps her financial and mental difficulties. Turns out she’s dying of cancer, stage 4 cancer, with less than a year to live. Can Katherine convince her to take chemo to extend her 
life? Or will she abandon her mom, buy a Toyota and move to Toronto?
Tammy’s Always Dying is a bittersweet drama about mental illness, poverty and fanmily relations. Its shot against the bleak industrial steel mills of Hamilton. It has some humour and light parts, as it satirizes daytime TV. The acting is good all-around (though Felicity Huffman’s excruciating attempt at a Canadian accent sounds more like a Wisconsin dairy farmer). While it didn’t blow me away, it does have some very touching scenes. If you’re looking for a good, realistic tear-jerker, this is one to see.
Planet of the Humans
Wri/Dir: Jeff Gibbs
Our planet is heading toward environmental destruction. Can we stop climate change by switching to greener renewable energy? So asks a new controversial documentary. The filmmaker follows eco-skeptic Ozzie Zehner around the US, and what they find is not good. Rather than replacing carbon fuels, these new energy sources just switch one carbon-based energy for another. Environmental movements, they say, are just ways for major corporations to greenwash their image… and make big bucks from government subsidies. And green energy is not so green after all. All of which are very real concerns.
The problem with this movie is it is full of silly comparisons, half-truths and a near total lack of credible statistics. Instead, it discredits genuine improvements without offering any 
alternatives. For example, they show up with a camera at a protest against fracking and ask random people not about the troubles with fracking but rather – what are your feelings about biomass? Huh? And when the people they talk to don’t give them the answer they’re looking for, they suggest maybe environmentalists are hiding something.
Their argument against solar energy and wind turbines? The panels are manufactured, solar energy doesn’t work in the dark, and their equipment eventually wears out. But instead of 
supporting their arguments with stats – such as does a given energy source uses more energy than it produces? – they go for cheap gotcha scenes, where a rock concert that claims to be powered by solar energy is caught using a generator when it starts to rain. It’s like a child’s version of a documentary… and one that offers no alternatives except despair.
Yes, we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Yes, corporations are co-opting some environmental movements to profit off government subsidies. And yes, green energy equipment has to be manufactured. But burining coal is not the same as hydropower or windmills. Broken solar panels littering a desert is not the same environmentally as mining oil sands. To write off an entire movement as fraudulent based on factoids and interviews with random strangers – and without any research to back it up – is not the way to expose malfeasance. And spreading misinformation doesn’t help much either.
I’d give this one a miss.
She’s Allergic to Cats
Wri/Dir: Michael Reich
Dorky Mike Pinkney (Mike Pinkney) is a single guy who lives in a small house in Hollywood. He came there with big plans: to shoot a remake of Carrie with cats playing all the roles. He shares his idea with his best friend Sebastien (Flula Borg) who isn’t impressed. He says Michael is a giant, sad dirty man-baby. In the meantime he works at a day job, grooming dogs (badly). There he meets the beautiful and glamorous Cora (Sonja Kinski). She’s Mickey Rourke’s daughter’s personal assistant, and she brings in the star’s dogs to be groomed. Is this love at first sight? Not exactly, but at least they might go 
on a date some evening.
But Mike doesn’t tell her about his real problems. His home is filthy and infested by rats, which his landlord – a musician named Honey (Honey Davis) – won’t do anything about. And he ocassionally slips into psychedelic fantasies, full of sinister cats, buckets of blood, and a wooden bowl of rotten bananas, spinning, spinning, spinning around in his brain. Sometimes 
people he’s talking to seem to be possessed by Satan.
Will Mike make his video art? Will he and Cora fall in love? Will he win his battle with the rats? And what about the missing pug?
Needless to say, this is not an ordinary movie, more of an impressionistic, experimental indie collage of images, 
characters and music. It’s a comedy, a mystery, and a fantasy. It’s shot on grainy video, with frequent cuts to fuzzy, 80s-style video art. And full of odd references to movies, from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble to Congo. It’s pretty funny and pretty strange without being over the top. If you like unusual movies – She’s Allergic to Cats feels like a cross between Peter Strickland and John Waters – you might enjoy this one.
I did.
Tammy’s Always Dying opens today across Canada on all VOD platforms; Planet of the Humans is streaming on Youtube; and She’s Allergic to Cats is available on demand from Giant Pictures.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Therapy vs self-medicating. Films reviewed: Canadian Strain, Transfert, Freud
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s a tough time for movie critics.
All the cinemas are closed, spring film festivals cancelled, and many new movies originally scheduled for release are postponed. Indefinitely. Meanwhile, like many of you, I’m in isolation, cooped up at home. This will be my first attempt at home recording – please bear with me for the poor sound quality. But when faced with a crisis, you look for alternative ways of dealing with your problems. Some people self-medicate while others turn to therapy. So this week I’m looking at three new movies (all online), two about psychiatry, and one about marijuana. There’s a psychoanalyst in fin-de-siècle Vienna; a psychotherapist in modern Sicily; and an out-of-work cannabis dealer in contemporary Toronto.
Canadian Strain
Dir: Geordie Sabbagh
Anne (Jess Salgueiro) is a Toronto entrepreneur, who runs a successful business out of her own home. She has long curly hair and a determined look. Anne is kind, reliable and always there for her longtime clients. She likes her work and is good at it. Her social life revolves around her job. And when she needs advice, she turns to her father (Colin Mochrie). She also has an agreement with her mustached boyfriend: they keep there jobs separate. Why? Because she’s a pot dealer and he’s a cop. But when Canada suddenly legalizes cannabis, everything changes.
Suddenly Anne’s longtime clients, people she considers family, all defect to the public option. She’s forced to rethink her entire life. Should she work for The Man? Or try something new?
Canadian Strain is a gentle comedy set in Toronto just a short 
while ago, when the province shifted to legal cannabis. It’s more interesting than hilarious. It’s also totally Toronto. It combines bland government bureaucrats, flakes, hippies, grandmas, aggressive men on the prowl, and organized criminals. It’s told through Anne’s point of view, but there are many fascinating side characters, both and good bad, mainly played by women. Definitely a niche movie, but I enjoyed Canadian Strain.
Transfert
Wri/Dir: Massimiliano Russo
Stefano (Alberto Mica) is a young psychiatrist in Catania, Sicily. Kind, good-looking and empathetic, he has been fascinated by psychiatry since he was a child. Educated in Bologna, he is back in Sicily looking for new clients to establish his practice. He works out of his home, a modernist flat that he shares with his wife.
Among his first patients are two sisters who live together. Chiara (Clio Scira Saccà) is pretty and vivacious but accident-prone. She’s had three car crashes in the past month… are these accidents intentional? Letizia (Paola Roccuzzo) is mousy and withdrawn but intellectually curious. The two are fiercely competitive and constantly bickering. Stefano treats them equally and separately. He gets along well with all his patients.
But when new client enters the scene – a man who shares his 
name – things start to go wrong. This other Stefano (played by the film’s director) though devious and cruel, quickly wins the therapist’s trust. Using sophisticated equipment, bad Stefano spies on his fellow patients. He uses this information to plant the seeds of suspicion in the doctor’s mind, which could lead to terrible consequences. Can a psychiatrist be gaslit by one of his patient? Or will he discover the truth?
Transfert is an indie, psychological thriller about an innocent, young psychotherapist trapped in a patient’s schemes. This is a low budget film so much of it takes place indoors, with some drone views of the city from above. But it still manages to thrill and surprise. There are visual references to Truffaut, among others. It’s shot in beautiful Catania, a baroque city beside Mt Etna, a volcano ready to erupt (like many of the characters). I like the way Transfert tells the story through a sympathetic therapist’s eyes – something you rarely see. And while I thought the twisted ending was implausible, it still managed to surprise me. I liked this one, too.
Freud
Co-Wri/Dir: Marvin Kren
It’s the 1880s. Fin-de-siècle Vienna is a cauldron of new ideas in art, music, architecture and politics – think Mahler, and Berg, Klimt and Loos and many others, all in one city, the hub of the vast Austro-Hungarian empire.
Inspector Kiss (Georg Friedrich) is there, a former soldier with a shaved head and curled mustache. He’s a cop who solves crimes. So is Fleur (Ella Rumpf) a beautiful and dark, sultry young woman part of the Hungarian nobility. She serves as a medium for the countess at séances where she falls into a trance leading to strange voices and ending with a pseudo-epileptic seizure, complete with foaming at the mouth. And then there’s Sigmund Freud (Robert Finster), famous as the father of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. But here he’s an unknown young 
neurologist and a recent grad from medical school. He’s trying to establish himself. He has yet to write his first book and lives in an apartment where he is threatened with eviction for not paying rent. He’s just starting to explore the unconscious, but he’s still at the stage of parlour tricks, where he uses his pocketwatch to hypnotize patients. He’s also addicted to cocaine.
These three people are thrown together after a terrible attack on a young woman. Inspector Kiss runs to Freud’s apartment (he’s 
a physician) with the victim, saying “save her!”. And Fleur has a vision of who the killer might be, but it’s buried somewhere deep inside her mind. She can’t remember what happens during her trances. It’s up to Freud to hypnotize Fleur to discover the truth. But will that reveal the real killer?
Freud is a new TV show, a detective mystery/thriller, with a cop, a psychiatrist, and a psychic trying to catch a serial killer in late 19th century Vienna. But that’s just the frame. It’s also a sexual romance, and an historical drama. Throw in decadent royalty, avaricious artistocracy, angry nationalists, rising right-wing 
politics, mysticism, misogynyand anti-semitism, duels, and opera… and you’ve got a rich and engrossing drama that’s not your average mystery. And if I’m not mistaken, this is the world’s first sexy Freud, two words I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence. I’m binging this series and am only half through but, so far, it seems well-worth watching.
Transfert and Canadian Strain are both available online; and you can watch Freud on Netflix.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Albert Shin about Disappearance at Clifton HiIll
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Abby is a young woman returning to her hometown of Niagara Falls. She’s figuring out what to do with the rundown motel she inherited with her sister. Should she make a go of it? Or sell it to a rich local patriarch. But as she goes through old photos and films, she starts to remember hidden memories from the distant past. And with the help of eccentric locals she finds herself digging deeper and deeper, the more dirt she uncovers. Dirt that involves some of the most powerful figures in the city. Most troubling of all is an image from her childhood, still stuck in her brain. A boy with one bleeding eye who disappeared right in front of her. Was he kidnapped? Was he killed? Or was it just a false 
memory. What really happened happened in Clifton Hill?
Disapearance at Clifton Hill is also the name of a new movie opening February 28th across Canada. It’s been nominated for multiple Canadian Screen Awards, and is a fantastic film. It’s co-written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Albert Shin. I last interviewed Albert six years ago alongside his collaborator and colleague Igor Drljaca about In Her Place.
I spoke to Albert by telephone at CIUT 89.5 FM.
Disappearance at Clifton HIll opens across Canada on February 28th.
Daniel Garber talks with producer Robert Lantos about The Song of Names
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo of Robert Lantos by Jeff Harris.
Martin is an aspiring youg musician, the only son of a concert impresario in prewar London. Then Dovidl, a Jewish-Polish boy his age – who is also a violin prodigy – is left in the care of his family. As war rages across Europe, the two boys grow up together, first as rivals, best friends and almost like brothers. Then, on the evening of his solo debut in a sold out concert, Dovidl just disappears. Where has he gone, Is he living or dead, will Martin ever see him again, and what is this “Song of Names” that may be the reason behind his 
disappearance?
The Song of Names is the title of a new film that looks at identity, family, friendship, memory, and mourning. It’s directed by Francois Girard, stars Tim Roth and Clive Owen, and its producer is Robert Lantos.
Robert Lantos is one of Canada’s most famous producers – he founded and ran Alliance Communications and later Serendipity Point Films. His production credits are a veritable history of Canadian cinema: Atom Egoyan’s Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter; David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises; Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, Istvan Szabo’s Sunshine; an adaptation of Mordechai Richler’s Barney’s Version, among many many others.
I spoke with Robert Lantos in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Song of Names opens in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver on Christmas Day.
Daniel Garber talks with Toronto filmmaker Erin Berry about Majic, premiering at B.I.T.S.!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s 2008. Pippa Bernwood is a skeptical Vlogger who posts her views on youtube. She’s there to counter all the crazy conspiracy
theories that pop up. She wants truth backed by evidence. But her world is turned upside down when a crazy old man named Anderson approaches her with an outlandish theory… and his theory turns out to be true. Now she’s in a quandary. Go with her gut, or 
believe the new story? Is it a vast conspiracy involving aliens, the government and secret societies? Or is it all smoke and mirrors, just a bit of birthday party “Majic”?
Majic is also the name of a new film about a secretive project called Majestic 12. It’s a combination mystery, sci-fi and 
conspiracy- theory thriller, all in one.
Majic is co-written and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Erin Berry, his third feature, and the first made by his production company, Banned for Life.
I spoke with Erin in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
Majic has its Canadian premier Sunday, 4:30 pm at the Royal Cinema at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival.
Quirky films at TIFF 19. Entwined, Parasite, 37 Seconds, Love Me Tender
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF – the Toronto International Film Festival – started last night with over 300 movies to see. There’s more glamour and celebrity than you can shake a stick out down on King St. West. But this week I’m going to talk about some of the unusual, odd or quirky movies you might otherwise miss. There’s a woman in the woods in Greece, a poor family in a Korean mansion, a disabled manga artist in Japan, and a house-bound woman in Switzerland.
Entwined
Dir: Minos Nokolakakis
Panos (Prometheus Aleifer) is a young doctor starting a practice in a remote Greek village. But on a drive through the forest, his car hits a beautiful young woman, all dressed in white. Though injured, she flees into the woods. He follows enchanted music until he finds her cabin. It’s an old place built around an ever burning hearth, with music coming from an ancient windup Victrola. But to his horror, he finds her under the spell of a violent, old man who keeps her as his bride. He defeats the ogre, drives him to a hospital and comes back for the woman, Danae 
(Anastasia Rafaella Konidi).
He intends to bring her to the city for counselling and medical care (she has a strange skin disease). But Danae refuses to leave – she owes it to the trees, earth and sky to keep the hearth burning. Instead she gives him strange potions that make him sleep for days, or possible months. And whenever he tries to leave the forest the trees seem to lead him back to the cabin. Who is this strange woman? What does she want? How old is she? What is she hiding behind her locked door? And is he her lover…orher victim?
Entwined is a contemporary take on classic fairytales, with a bit of mythology thrown in. Though somewhat predictable, it’s pretty to watch, well-acted and… well, I like fairytales.
Parasite
Wri/Dir: Bong Joon-ho
Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) lives with his family in a desolate basement apartment in Seoul. They’re destitute but clever; Ki-woo earns money writing exams for rich but stupid college applicants. So when Min offers him his parttime job tutoring a highschool girl, he smells bucks. Big Bucks. She lives in a beautiful home built by a famous architect, along with her bratty little brother, vapid mother and absentee Dad, a CEO. Through some skillful manoeuvring Ki-woo manages to find jobs for his sister, father and mother in the same house, as, respectively, art therapist, chauffeur and housekeeper without ever letting on they are all related. Only the youngest notices they “all have the same smell”. They’re the sort of 
people who take the subway, explains the father. They all have a disgusting smell that never comes off…
Now that they all have well-paid employment they can turn their lives around, and leave their apartment. Until… something awful happens which sends their lives spinning in a new direction. [No Spoilers: this movie depends on its surprises].
Parasite starts as a knock off of last year’s Shoplifters, about a poor family making do. But once they’re in the rich house, the plot spirals outward in ever-more shocking, funny, and impossible directions, until it becomes a bizarre fantasy.
Brilliant.
Parasite won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
37 Seconds
Wri/Dir: Hikari
Yuma (Kayama Mei) is a woman in her twenties who lives with her single mom (Misuzu Kanno). She was born with Cerebral Palsy, and depends on her mother for basic functions, including bathing, dressing herself and getting around in her electric wheelchair. Though she can’t walk, she’s a gifted manga artist who works for an instagram star named Sayaka. Sayaka passes Mayu’s work as her own, and pretends she doesn’t know her at book signings. But when Maya tries to publish work under her own name, she gets snubbed.The only publisher who will consider her work is a comic book porn 
publisher. But when they meet, Maya is told the sex scenes just aren’t real enough. Come back after you get some sexual experience. Now Mayu has a goal, which opens a new world to her, and uncovers some secrets from her past. But can she get what she wants under the ever-watchful eye of her over-protective mother? And can an inexperienced and naïve disabled woman find independence and happiness?
37 Seconds (the title refers to the amount of time she was deprived of oxygen in childbirth) is a wonderful and warm, feel-good movie. It’s a bittersweet coming-of-age story about a disabled woman in a big city, as she encounters aspects of adult life – including sex work, porn and sex toys – she knows nothing about. No spoilers, but the story also takes her on an unexpected journey, unrelated to the other plot line.
First-time actor Kayama Mei is both touching and adorable as Yuma, and breaks new boundaries as a disabled actress. 37 Seconds is an unexpected treat.
Love Me Tender
Wri/Dir: Klaudia Reynicke
Somewhere in Italian-speaking Switzerland. Seconda (Barbara Giordano) is an adult woman who lives with her parents in an apartment overlooking a courtyard. She likes to dance in a green leotard and stare at passersby outside her window. Life is uneventful until two things happen: her mother suddenly dies and her father disappears leaving just a post-it note on the fridge. At first she feels free to do what she wants and eat what she wants. She throws her meds out the window. But she finds she also has adult responsibilities: feeding the cat and the fish, — at which she fails miserably – keeping the house in order and, most important, feeding herself.
And she encounters a rude debt collector who leaves threatening voicemail messages, and a hapless young man Santo (Antonio Bannò) who collects deposit bottles. But when she runs out of food, she realizes she has to go shopping. 
Problem is, she’s never been outside her home – she has acute agoraphobia. But rather than starve to death, she dresses in protective blue armour – a zippered jumpsuit – and ventures into the outside world for the first time.
Love me Tender is a fantastical comedy abut an unusual woman living with mental illness. Klaudia Reynicke’s style feels a bit like Yorgos Lanthimos’ early films, with the simplistic tone and the childlike behaviour of adult characters… but she does it in a manner all her own. And Barbara Giordano is just so good, imaginative and full-body-expressive as Seconda… she totally owns the role.
Entwined, Parasite, 37 Seconds and Love Me Tender are all playing at TIFF. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
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