Mind Games. Films reviewed: Spiderhead, Chess Story, In the Wake
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring film festival continues through June with Toronto’s Japanese Film Festival and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival showing films for another week. Also on now is the Future of Film Showcase, Canada’s premiere festival for short films. It also has panels, coffee sessions and workshops, covering everything from casting to funding, from locations to issues like equity.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies about people forced to play games. There’s a prisoner playing chess in WWII Vienna, another prisoner forced to play mind games in a secretive American facility; and a detective playing cat-and-mouse with a murderer… ten years after an earthquake in Japan.
Spiderhead
Dir: Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick)
Jeff (Miles Teller) is an inmate in a remote, high-security prison. Located inside a brutalist cement building on a placid lake, it can only be reached by boat or pontoon prop plane. But inside it’s a virtual paradise. Doors are kept unlocked, prisoners chat on colourful sofas while eating canapés, and are free to pursue their favourite pastimes. They can even become friends with other prisoners — like Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett). No violence or distrust here; the benevolent warden Steve (Chris Hemsworth) makes sure of that.
So what’s the catch?
All prisoners are kept placid by a little gadget attached to their bodies, which — through remote control — releases chemical serums directly into their bloodstreams which controls their moods. They are also forced to attend sessions — controlled by Steve and his assistant behind a glass wall — where they test the potency of their pharmaceuticals. Sometimes it’s as simple as making them laugh at deliberately unfunny jokes. Other times they’re placed in the room with a stranger — a female prisoner in Jeff’s case — to see if drugs can make them so thirsty and the other seem so attractive (like “beer goggles” times 1000) that they can’t help having sex on the spot. But things take a sinister turn when Jeff is taken behind the glass wall and ordered to remotely inject painful drugs into other prisoners’ bodies. Can Jeff resist the psychological and chemical pressures put on him? What is Chris’s motive behind these experiments? And is there anything Jeff 
can do to stop him?
Spiderhead — the title is the name of the prison — is a sci-fi psychological thriller, about the dangers of pharmaceuticals and whether we can resist authority if it goes against our beliefs. The film is partly based on the Milgram experiment of the 1960s, where volunteers behind a glass wall were ordered to send increasingly painful electric shocks to actors pretending to be patients. In Spiderhead it’s taken to even greater extremes.
Is this movie good? It’s not too bad — I actually enjoyed it, loved the location and sets (it’s shot in Australia), the cheesy 1980s soundtrack, and the fun concepts, along with some huge movie stars… but the ending is as predictable as it is implausible. The concept is much better than the story. But if you just want be entertained for a couple hours, you could do worse.
Chess Story (Schachnovelle)
Dir: Philipp Stölzl
It’s 1939 in Vienna, and Josef Bartok (Oliver Masucci) is living the high life. He always dressed in formal black and white, and only the finest scotch and the best cigarettes ever pass through his lips. He loves telling jokes with his friends, and waltzing with his beloved wife Anna. As long as the Viennese keep dancing what could go wrong? But that night German soldiers march into Austria declaring Anschluss; it’s all one Reich now. Jacob springs into action, scanning through his ledgers and memorizing the codes before throwing them into a blazing fire. You see, his job is to keep the riches of the Austrian royalty safe from the Nazis in numbered Swiss bank accounts. Hours later he is arrested, but not killed, by the Gestapo and locked in a hotel room. If he tells them the numbers they say they’ll let him go — they just want the money. But solitary confinement can play tricks on your brain. He stays alive by studying a chess book he smuggled into the room.
Later, he is on a ship with Anna heading to America and freedom. But he can’t resist playing 
chess against Mirko, an unusual world chess champion, who is illiterate and can barely form a sentence. But as reality begins to warp, he can’t help wonder if he’s on a ship or still a captive of the nazis. And where is this chess game really taking place?
Chess Story is an historical drama based on a story by Stefan Zweig, the last thing he wrote. He died during the war, in Brazil not Austria, but clearly he was damaged before he left. Everything you see in this film is filtered through Josef’s mind, so you’re never quite sure what is real and what is imaginary. Oliver Masucci who plays him is excellent, portraying a man’s descent from carefree joker to broken soul. It feels almost like an episode of The Twilight Zone episode, but with the emphasis on the characters, not on the twist.
In the Wake (Mamorarenakatta mono tachi e)
Dir: Zeze Takahisa
Det. Tomashino (Abe Hiroshi) is a policeman in northeastern Japan. He is investigating the mysterious death of two middle-aged men, both found starved death in different locations. Is there a serial killer out there, and if so, what are his motives? Turns out they both worked out of the local welfare office. He turns to a young welfare case worker Mikiko (Kiyohara Kaya) to help him put the pieces together. This is also the site of a mammoth earthquake and tsunami, ten years earlier. The detective remember it well, as he lost both his wife and his young son. Now he’s a loner who has yet to deal with his losses.
Meanwhile, Tone (Satoh Takeru) a troubled young man, just out of prison for arson, gets a job in a welding factory. And he wants to get in touch with his makeshift family former after the earthquake: a little kid, and an elderly woman named Kei (Baishô Mitsuko) who cared for the two lost orphans. But things have clearly changed. Could they have driven him… to murder?
In The Wake is a Japanese drama set immediately after an earthquake and a decade later. While it’s ostensibly a police procedural, about a detective trying to catch a killer, it’s also a 
surprisingly powerful and moving drama, that takes it much deeper than your usual mystery. It shifts back and forth between the two periods, as all the major characters were also survivors of the quake. And it delves into the terrible inadequacies of Japan’s austerity cutbacks to to their already inadequate welfare state. The movie features Abe Hiroshi, a huge star from Kore-eda’s films; Baishô Mitsuko , who was in movies by the most famous Japanese Kurosawa and Imamura; and Satoh Takeru best known for the Rurouni Kenshin series. I was expecting something simple, and lucked into a really good movie instead.
Spiderhead is now streaming on Netflix; Chess Story is now playing digitally at TJFF, The Toronto Jewish Film Festival; and In the Wake is playing at the other TJFF, the Toronto Japanese Film Festival, on one day only, June 25th, at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
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 Kenneth Feinberg about Playing God at Hot Docs 2017
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
The world reacted in horror when New York’s twin towers were knocked down. But after the dust settled the question was how to compensate its victims and their families. Enter US Attorney Ken Feinberg, who volunteered to handle that monumental task.
Following this, he went on to handle other disasters, in both the private and public sectors, including the BP
oil spill and the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school. Are the results always fair? How do the victims – and Feinberg himself — deal with the enormity they face? And is this a case of one man playing God?
Playing God is a new feature length documentary that had its world premier at Toronto’s Hot Docs International documentary festival. It was directed by filmmaker Karin Jurschick and features US attorney Kenneth Feinberg.
I interviewed Kenneth Feinberg on location at Hotdocs in April, 2017.
Critical Mass. Films reviewed: Dolittle, What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, Les Misérables
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking at three movies. There’s a man who talks to monkeys; a kid who steals a lion, and a movie critic who monkeyed with the way we look at movies.
Dolittle
Dir: Stephen Gaghan
It’s early 19th Century England, in a village called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. Young Stubbins (Harry Collett) a boy out hunting with his dad accidentally shoots a squirrel. But instead of “putting it out of its misery” as his father suggests, he tries to save it. Stubbins stumbles on a derelict hospital run by the reclusive Doctor Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr) the legendary animal doctor. The hospital is full of steampunk devices and wild animals — gorillas and polar bears, insects and parrots — wandering around just like people. And even more surprising, Doctor Dolittle can speak all their languages. Stubbins wants to convince the doctor to take him on as an apprentice so he can talk to the animals, too.
But trouble is brewing at Buckingham Palace. Someone has poisoned the Queen! And only the doctor knows the cure, a panacea found in a distant land. Dolittle and the gang set sail to find it. Can they trick the evil King Rassouli (Antonio Banderas) into giving them the map? And will they defeat a tiger, a dragon, and various palace villains, 
and manage to cure the Queen in time?
I grew up surrounded by Hugh Lofting’s books, TV cartoons, and movies, and though I wasn’t a devotee, I knew all about the stories and characters. And I don’t love Robert Downey Jr. So I was all set to be disappointed: where’s the chimp? And what happened to my favourite animal, the two-headed Pushmi-Pullyu?
But you know what? I liked it! It was cute, full of adventures, close escapes, exciting trips to exotic lands, and all the quirky animals (voiced by Octavia Spencer, Rami Malek, John Cena, and Emma Thompson). Keep in mind, this movie is for little kids, not grown ups, who may find the jokes too stupid, but the exciting scenes and the fast-moving action kept me satisfied. Not a terrific movie, but a very cute one.
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
Wri/Dir: Rob Garver
Pauline Kael was a single mom who grew up on a California ranch during the time when movies were still silent and B&W. Her first published review was Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight — she hated it. She ran a movie theatre in Berkeley where she wrote the reviews and descriptions of the films playing there, encouraging locals to see them. She wrote for Macall’s but was fired for not loving big-budget cinema. And she quit her job at The New Repulic because they edited out her writing. She finally found a post at The New Yorker, where she became one of the most influential 
movie critics in the world.
She’s is known both for the movies she hated (she described The Sound of Music as asexual revisionist treacle, and trashed Kubrick’s 2001!) and those she loved (Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, Scorcese’s Mean Streets, Spielberg’s Sugarland Express). Some directors’ careers were made by her patronage, while others lived in dread of her columns. She rejected 
the ennui-ridden academic view of Auteur theory, without falling for manipulative Big-budget schlock. She liked trash, mind you, but it had to be good trash.
What She Said is an immaculately researched,spot-on look at Pauline Kael’s reviews,and her influence on audience and filmmakers. It delves into her fascinating life and and undeniable influence without resorting to endless kiss-assery. This movie is a labour of love, combining vintage TV interviews with Dick Cavett and Brian Linehan, and talking heads — from Tarantino to David Lean — with readings from her work by Sarah Jessica Parker. Best of all, these voices are illustrated by a barrage of 2-3 second film clips from hundreds of movies over the past century that I haven’t seen in a documentary since Los Angeles Plays Itself (2002). (I grew up reading her reviews in The New Yorker — that and the cartoons were all read — and while I disagreed with her half the time, I always wanted to see what she had to say.)
If you love movies, I strongly recommend this doc.
Les Misérables
Co-Wri/Dir: Ladj Ly
It’s Paris in the high-rise banlieue that circle the city. It’s 35 degrees outside and the crowds are high on the country’s win on the soccer pitch, singing la Marseillaise at train stations. But trouble is brewing…. it seems a lion cub is missing from a travelling Roma circus and the four brothers that run it are threatening a rumble with the locals.
Power here is shared by the secular — led by community leader called Le Maire (Steve Tientcheu); the religious — Salah (Almamy Kanouté), an Imam who runs a kebab shop; and the criminal — a gang of thieves who work directly with the cops. Attempting to keep the peace are the feckless police who 
mainly harass kids and sex workers. The regular team — an abrasive white guy Chris (Alexis Manenti) and his calmer black partner Gwada, who grew up in the hood (Djebril Zonga) — is joined by a newbie. the wide-eyed Stephane/Pento (Damien Bonnard) is a hick, straight from the farm. But the only ones who really know what’s going on are the local kids, who know every broken fence, every fire escape and back alley — they are watching everything. Especially Issa (Issa Perica) a 
feisty 10 year old, and his pal the nerdy Buzz (Al-Hassan Ly). Issa is the one who liberated the cute lion cub, and Buzz who records everything from the rooftops with his trusty drone.
But when the cops overstep their bounds and use weapons — which is caught on camera — things start to go really wrong. Chaos reigns.
Can the trouble be defused by the cops and community leaders? Or will the kids triumph? And could this lead to a repeat of the Paris riots of 2005?
Les Misérables (this is not Victor Hugo’s novel, but the location is the 
same) is an amazing dive into the lives of Parisians in the outer suburbs, their alienation, and the tension brewing there. The acting and story are superb, and I love the way multiple strands are woven together into a seamless whole. It’s nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, and, though violent at times, it holds a real love and understanding of the characters portrayed. This is a great movie.
Dolittle opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is opening today at the Hot Docs Cinema, as is Les Misérables at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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 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.
Getting away. Level 16, Triple Frontier, The Panama Papers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s international Women’s Day, a great time to check out some movies directed by women. If you haven’t seen the great Colombian film Birds of Passage, see it now. And Objects of Desire, a retrospective of French master Claire Denis’s films is also playing now at TIFF. She’s one of my favourites.
This week I’m looking at people trying to get away with something. We’ve got orphan girls running for their lives, war vets running off with sacks of loot, and journalists rushing to publish the biggest data dump in history
Level 16
Wri/Dir: Danishka Esterhazy
Vivien and Sophia are two teenagers at an all-girls boarding school for orphans. They wear identical uniforms: skirts, shirts and ties during the day, and floor-length cotton gowns at night. Classes consist of B&W educational films from the 1950s shown on flatscreen TVs. Their teacher, the strict but 
beautiful Miss Brixil (Sara Canning), visits each unit to teach them feminine virtues like cleanliness, subservience, obedience and silence. And their most important exams are not about reading or math but applying cold cream to their cheeks and taking their vitamins.
They live under a panopticon with surveillance cameras recording every move and thedisembodied voice of a Doctor (Peter Outerbridge) who tells them 
what to do. They’ve never been outside this drab institution, since the air and sunlight out there are “hazardous”. Besides, it’s important to stay pretty and clean so a nice family will adopt them some day. And now that they’re at Level 16, that someday is coming soon.
Headstrong Vivien (Katie Douglas) is excited to hear she might be leaving this place; she’s been counting the days. But all her hopes and dreams are shattered when the nearsighted Sophia (Celina Martin) tells her a secret: 
don’t swallow the vitamins! When Vivien takes her advice she is shocked by what she finds out. The “vitamins” are actually sedatives and what happens to their limp bodies at night is not nice at all. What is this place? Why are they there? What is it like outside its walls? And can they ever escape?
Level 16 is a scary and weird speculative fiction look at a distopian future as seen through the eyes of teenaged girls. It’s full of strange anomalies: why do the guards speak Russian? Where did all these fake-happy educational film clips come from? Does this movie take place in the past… or in the future? It feels like a cross between Never Let Me Go and The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a low budget film shot on a single location (and one that is bland, industrial and and claustrophobic to look at), but it had enough shocking twists to keep me fascinated until the end.
Triple Frontier
Dir: JC Chandor
Santiago (Oscar Isaac) is a paramilitary cop working in an unnamed Latin American country. His police team raids low level drug traffickers… but they are also on the take. Any witness who tries squeal on Lorea’s — the fugitive drug kingpin — whereabouts is immediately executed to keep him quiet. But Santiago (an American) has his own informant in Lorea’s HQ. He discovers for himself where the big man is hiding. Rumour has it there are millions in cash just sitting in the jungle, waiting to be taken. So he flies back to the States to 
meet with his former special-ops army buddies. They loved their time in the military, but it hasn’t treated them well as veterans.
Miller (Charlie Hunnam) is a low-level army recruiter with a bad goatee who delivers the same speech over and over. Davis (Ben Affleck) tries to support a teenaged daughter from a failed marriage with the pittance he earns flogging condos. Morales (Pedro Pascal) is a helicopter pilot whose license was taken away for 
drug offenses. And Ben (Garrett Hedlund), Miller’s brother, is an MMA cage fighter — not a great long-term career plan.
Santiago says, let’s get what the government never gave us but that we deserve: millions in cold hard cash. And don’t worry, it’s a flawless plan. Sure enough, the heist works great. In fact, it works too well. They are faced not with millions of dollars but hundreds of millions, far too heavy for them to carry. Their momentary greed makes their exit plan impossible. Can they lug their bags of loot through the jungle, over a mountain pass and down to a the ocean (through the multinational 
“triple frontier” of the title)? Or will mother nature – and the vengeful locals who inhabit it – kill them first?
Triple Frontier has strikingly beautiful scenery, famous-name actors and a well known director and scriptwriter. So how come it sucks?
Well, it’s a boring and sexless buddy action flick with inane, bro dialogue: I got your back… I love you man… we deserve this. Do you really care if they get away with the money they stole? More than that, it reeks of exceptionalism. It’s co-written by Mark Boal, who brought us the vile Zero Dark Thirty, a movie which said we Americans are always the good guys, torture is useful and all Muslims are potential terrorists. For this movie just substitute drug traffickers for terrorists, and South Americans for Muslims. Almost every person they encounter is corrupt, dangerous, and out to kill us. It’s up to our heroic soldiers to stop these caravans of latino drug traffickers from invading our border.
OK, I admit there is a good chase scene near the beginning, but the rest of it is a total waste of two hours and five minutes.
Ugh.
The Panama Papers
Wri/Dir: Alex Winter
It’s 2016 in Munich, Germany. Bastian Obermayer, an investigative journalist at the Süddeutcher Zeitung receives a mysterious message. A whistleblower calling himself John Doe says he has some information to send him. But because of its importance and sheer volume he has to be sure his identity is kept secret and the information gets released, What is this information, where did it come from, and why is it so important? The data leak is from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama law firm known for its secrecy. Their clients include both organized crime and upstanding world leaders all hiding their money so they don’t pay taxes. The amount of money lost in taxes worldwide is stupendous: it’s the reason 
social services have been cut and why the wealth distribution gap between the ultra rich and everybody else is the highest it’s been in a century.
The Panama Papers tells this story through the eyes of the journalists involved in its release. It feels like a chapter of All the Presidents Men, but on a much bigger scale. The papers were shared – in secret! – with over 300 investigative journalists worldwide. And the outcome and blowback that 
followed changed the world. The Prime Minister of Iceland, top figures in FIFA, Argentina, Pakistan and Spain were forced to resign. Others in Russia, the US and Syria were also implicated in the multinational scandal. And top journalists like Malta’s Daphne Gaizia, were murdered because of their role in exposing these crimes.
The Panama Papers is a great documentary that churns politics, investigative journalism and conspiracies into a potent brew.
The Panama Papers is now playing at Hotdocs Cinema, you can catch Triple Frontier’s stunning cinematography on the big screen before it moves to Netflix, and Level 16 opens next Friday; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Other people’s danger. Films reviewed: Blaze, Ben is Back, The Quake
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
With all the trouble in the world, some people like to safely observe other people’s problems, as a kind of catharsis. This week I’m looking at three new movies about people putting themselves in danger. There’s an opiate addict at Christmas, a quake spotter in Oslo, and an alcoholic musician in a bar.
Blaze
Dir: Ethan Hawke
It’s the 70s in the deep south. Blaze Foley (Ben Dickey) is a hefty, bearded Texan from San Antone, living in an artsy, hippy commune. That’s where he meets a beautiful woman with kinky hair named Sybil Rosen (Alia Shawkat). He’s a musician and a raconteur, she’s a writer and aspiring actress. The two decide to
shack up together in a treehouse for some sweet, summer lovin. When they’re not in bed they’re singing songs to each other. But Sybil – or Tsibele, as her parents call her – sees something more. Blaze, she says, 
you gotta go to Austin to make it big. And Blaze says I don’t wanna be a star, I want to be a legend.
But he agrees to tour blues bars while she works as a waitress. Problem is, when he’s lonely he drinks – he’s a boozehound – and 
when he drinks he gets angry, and when he gets angry he gets into fights – not a good career move for a budding musician.
Can their relationship survive? And will people ever get to hear his music?
Blaze is a meandering biopic about a musician you’ve probably never heard of. It jumps back and forth over a twenty year period tracing his highs and lows… mainly the lows. (Like the time when a trio of Texas Oilmen — played by Steve Zahn, Richard Linklater and Sam Rockwell — who think 
they’ve discovered the next big thing and put up the money to record an album.) And there are lots of concerts in small bars. Blaze’s story is narrated by Towne Van Zandt (Charlie Sexton) recalling his life and his music. Blaze was dead by age 40, but now, 30 years 
later, he’s finally getting listened to.
It sounds super depressing… but it’s not. It’s actually a very gentle, pleasant movie, mainly because the music – folk, blues, country – never stops for the whole two hours. Lots of plucking of guitars and Ben Dickey’s sweet voice. And Alia’s, too.
OK, it is a bit too long and the plot isn’t that interesting (though the stories Blaze tells are), but if you go to this movie to feel it, not to think about it… well, you just might like it.
Ben is Back
Wri/Dir: Peter Hedges
Holly (Julia Roberts) is happily married to her second husband (Courtney B Vance) and fond of her three kids who live at home. She’s preparing for Christmas: trimming the tree and wrapping the presents. But then a surprise visitor shows up. It’s Ben (Lucas Hedges), the eldest from her first marriage, the return of the Prodigal Son. She over him dearly, but he also makes her nervous. He’s an addict,
and he’s supposed to be at rehab. But she welcomes 
him for dinner, after carefully hiding all the prescription drugs, money and valuable jewelry. She loves him, but everyone knows addicts lie, cheat and steal… the boy can’t help it.
But maybe this time is different. He’s been clean for 80 days now, and he promises he won’t do anything to hurt his family. He seems back to normal. But when Ben is back, all his history, his baggage, all his friends and 
enemies are there with him, metaphorically. And some literally: when they go to sister Ivy’s Christmas pageant, they come back to a burglarized home… and Ben’s pet has been dog-napped.
Who dunnit? It’s up to him to visit all the ghosts of his past – people he stole from, families of overdose victims, druggies, dealers and gangsters – until he finds the one with his dog. But Holly won’t let him do it alone. She’ll stick by his side until he’s safe again. Will they find the dog? Or die in trying?
Ben is Back is one of a creepily popular genre: addiction 
movies. And like many of them it’s not about the addicts, it’s about the harm they bring to their parents or lovers. (The recent Beautiful Boy is a good example – 
it should have been called Dithering Dad.) While Ben is Back’s story kept me interested, the movie as a whole was both moralistic and grueling to watch… why are moviegoers forced to sit through yet another reenactment of a 12-step meeting? Ugh. That’s not entertaininment. And as if that’s not enough, you also have to sit through an interminable Christmas show.
Equal doses of saccharine and grime… No thanks.
The Quake
Dir: John Andreas Andersen
It’s present-day Norway. Gaunt, bearded Kristian (Krisoffer Joner) lives in the picturesque, fjord-filled town of Geiranger. Three years ago a deadly tsunami swept through there but Kristian saved many people including his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) his son Sondre (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) and his darling 
daughter Julia (Edith Haagenrud-Sande). He’s a national hero… and a broken man, far away from his family who moved to Oslo. Why? Because Kristian hears tremors everywhere – he’s in a constant state of panic, just 
waiting for the next earthquake. Perfect for an emergency but unfit to be a normal husband and father.
But his panic starts to escalate when a series of clues – unexplained seismic data, a 
collapsing tunnel, rats running away – tell him the next earthquake is coming to Oslo. He has to get there fast and warn his family.. and everyone else. Has Kristian gone bananas? Or is he right? The Quake is a disaster movie so of course he’s right. Once the tremors start the real action begins, mainly in a glass and steel highrise in 
downtown Oslo. Somehow Dad, Mom, Little Julia and Marit (Kathrine T Johansen) a woman helping Kristian find the truth, all end up there, at the very top of a skyscraper, when the earthquake hits. Who will survive?
The Quake is a terrific disaster flic, mainly because the characters are interesting enough to care about. And the special effects are amazing. You believe they’re hanging onto wires in elevator 
shafts or sliding toward the edge as the skyscraper starts lean. The director of this movie is actually a cinematographer so its very visual: aerial views, long tunnels, fjords, and collapsing new buildings. I had to watch it on a computer screen, but you should try to see it in a theatre with a big screen, and loud rumbles.
Blaze, Ben is Back, and the Quake all open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
“What is Democracy?” Daniel Garber talks with Astra Taylor about her new documentary
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris
Is democracy justice or is it freedom? And if it’s freedom, is it freedom to think and say what you want, or is it freedom from hunger, poverty, and homelessness? Or is it just choosing which political party to vote for once every four years?
Should democracy just exist inside a nation, or should
it extend across borders? Is majority rule fair and equal?
What is democracy, anyway?
A new documentary poses just that question to intellectuals and the 
hoi polloi in America and across the Atlantic. It talks to barbers and doctors, students and politicians, in legislatures and at Trump rallies, to try to determine what democracy actually is.
It’s called What Is Democracy and is written and directed by noted documentary filmmaker Astra Taylor, whose works include Examined Life and Zizek!
What is Democracy had its world premier at #TIFF18.
I spoke with Astra Taylor at NFB’s Toronto headquarters during TIFF. Her film is opening soon.
Daniel Garber talks to filmmaker Kevan Funk about Hello Destroyer
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tyson Burr is a minor league hockey player in Prince George, BC. He’s a rookie at his first job but is already getting a reputation as a destroyer, an enforcer who keeps the other teams’ players at bay. Violence on the ice is strongly encouraged. But when an overzealous fight sends a player to hospital, Tyson falls from hero to zero overnight. He is forced to move back home,
work at manual labour and try to pull what’s left of his life back together in the rise, fall and rise again of a hockey destroyer.
Hello Destroyer is a first feature which premiered at TIFF16 and was chosen as one of Canada’s Top
Ten Films of 2017. It’s a thoughtful and impressionistic examination of violence and self-worth in a distinctly Canadian setting. The film is written and directed by prize-winner Kevan Funk, and opens today in Toronto.
I spoke with Kevan Funk, in studio, about hockey, violence, masculinity, Canadian machismo, Todd Bertuzzi, hockey movies… and more!
Fast cars and fast food. Films reviewed: xXx: Return of Xander Cage, The Founder
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Things are happening so fast south of the border you have to read Twitter to keep up. One day Chelsea Manning is heading for freedom. Another day Donald Trump is heading for the White House. So this week I’m looking at two movies about things that are fast. There’s a biopic about fast food, and an action movie about fast cars, fast planes and fast motorcycles.
xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Dir: DJ Caruso
Americas bigwigs are meeting in a highrise and they are very worried. A top secret device known as Pandora’s Box has fallen into enemy hands. It looks like a VHS tape, but it has the power to turn satelites into Weapons of Mass Destruction, plunging to earth on their targets in a blaze of fire. But their meeting is broken up by a surprise attack by ghost agents: powerful paramilitary figures that are totally off the grid. So the head bigwig (Toni Collette) hires the legendary Xander 
Cage (Vin Diesel) – the Triple X agent — to track down the bad guys and bring Pandora’s Box back home.
The problem is, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys? Xander is offered a team of Sgt Nick Furys, but rejects them. Instead he gathers a team of misfits. There’s Adele, a green-haired Aussie sniper, and a car crash 
maniac, amond others. Xander Cage himself is an expert in extreme sports involving skis, skateboards and parkour. He’s also popular with the ladies. He regularly sleeps wth six models simultaneously. Why or how the movie doesn’t explain. The opposing team includes martial arts greats (Donny Yen and Tony Jaa — from Hong Kong and Thailand respectively) and the beautiful Serena (Indian model Deepika Padukone). The big showdown is supposed to take place at an open-air rave in a remote island (supposedly in the in the Philippines but without any Filipinos). But should they be 
fighting one another? Or going against the source of the trouble – the military/industrial bigwigs who started it all?
Triple X, Return of Xander Cage is an action movie, but not a thriller. It has an international cast, and a weird obsession with the 1990s, complete with 90s 
rave culture, clothing, tattoos, even a guest appearance by Ice Cube.
There are a few funny lines, but most of the dialogue is painfully bad, filled with fake profundity. Lines like: Patriotism is dead; now there are only rebels and tyrants. (What does that mean?) Great chase scenes, including motorcycles on skis racing through a tubular wave on a beach; OK fights, though they skimped on the martial arts; plus lots of explosions, shootouts, car crashes and falling from great heights. Lots of violence but surprisingly less blood than I see shaving in the morning. (And I have a beard.) Which makes the violence seem comic book or comical. Watch this silly movie if you’re into extreme sport/action movies and just want to kill some time. It’s not a great movie by any measure, but it’s an enjoyable distraction.
The Founder
Dir: John Lee Hancock
It’s mid-twentieth century in middle America. Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is an unsuccessful travelling salesman. His mind is full of get-rich-quick schemes, but they always seem to fail. Still, he relentlessly plies the highways with samples of merchandise and the endless sales patter he carefully rehearses in motel rooms. Right 
now it’s steel milkshake machines that he sells to drive-in burger joints popping up nationwide. They are places where leather jacketed toughs and girls in bobby sox gather to smoke cigarettes and listen to the juke box. Terrible service, cold food, long waits.
But when he takes a telephone order from San Bernardino, California, his ears perk up. A restaurant there wants six of them. Six milkshake machines? Surely there must be some mistake. He drives out to investigate. And there he finds McDonalds. They sell burgers, fries, milkshakes. The lines are long but speedy, the food is delicious, and the service is perfect. No carhops, juke boxes or cigarettes here.
So he meets up with the owners, Mac and Dick McDonald (John Carrol Lynch and Nick Offerman). It’s their baby, they say. They planned the menu, the logo, the golden arches. They designed the logistics, they built 
the ketchup and mustard squirters, they arranged the grills for maximum efficiency. And they’re making money hand over fist. Ray Crok sees his future – and limitless wealth — in franchising these restaurants across the country. The problem is, the McDonalds don’t want to expand. They want to keep it local and under their supervision. But Ray convinces them he’ll stay true to their wishes and 
bring them lots of money. But who will ultimately be in charge: the McDonald brothers or the McDonalds corporation?
The Founder is a fascinating look at the history of that well-known brand. It looks at Kroc’s home life, affairs and business deals. I’m not a fan of Mchael Keaton, but he is fantastic in this movie; his portrayal as the ambitious (but unlikeable) Ray Crok is skilfully nuanced and complex. You sympathize with him, since he’s the main character in the movie, but you recoil from how he treats the honest and forthright McDonald brothers. This biopic is not a softball version, it’s a hard-hitting look at the dark side of a successful businessman.
The Founder and xXx Return of Xander Cage both open today in Toronto; check your local listings. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Multiple stories. Films reviewed: The Debt, Wiener-Dog
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Although every movie is different, most tell a single story. But there are exceptions. This week I’m looking at two new movies that tell a whole bunch of stories, stories that are somehow tied. There’s a dark comedy with a dog-related plot, and a drama related to a plot of land.
The Debt
Dir: Barney Elliot
This movie is made up of three or four linked stories all set in Peru.
Oliver (Stephen Dorff) is a successful financier who works for a multinational bank. He specializes in vulture funds with debt bonds from distressed economies. His current goal? To corner the market in Peruvian real estate debt. He works with his idealistic Peruvian friend Ricardo (Alberto Ammann) to snap up debt at deep discount. But will Ricardo agree to business that might hurt his country?
Maria (Elsa Olivero) is a nurse at a Lima hospital. She’s trying to arrange an 
operation for her mother who suffers from painful rheumatoid arthritis. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get surgery scheduled for her mom. Will she have to resort to illegal methods?
Meanwhile in a remote mountainous area, a slick real estate developer named Caravedo (Carlos Bardem) is promising the sky to gullible farmers. Health clinics, electricity, telephones… They are quick to sell, except one die-hard farmer named Florentino (Amiel Cayo). He is angry and will never give in.
And on Florentino’s farm, his son, Diego (Marco Antonio Ramírez) is fascinated by the helicopters he sees. They carry wealthy investors from far away. But they also wreak havoc with his llamas, whom he depends on..
The Debt is a complex story, that brings the diverse plot together by the end. It’s done in the style of movies like Paul Haggis’s Crash – lots of interrelated characters who interact in unexpected ways. It deals with big issues – multinational economies, farmers driven from their land – but in a rather ponderous way. Lots of guilt, responsibility, betrayal, selfishness – things like that. Not my favourite type of movie, but it held my interest and I liked all the Peruvian actors.
Wiener-Dog
Wri/Dir: Todd Solondz
This movie also has four stories, but told in a linea way, and only peripherally connected. They are all set present day New York City and the suburbs and towns around it.
Remy (Keaton Nigel Cooke) is a young boy recovering from chemotherapy. He’s a survivor. His rich but uptight parents (Tracy Letts and Julie 
Delpy) They buy him a short haired dachshund at a puppy mill. But they don’t realize it will open a whole lot of hard-to answer questions. Like do dogs have feelings? What happens if they get sick? Why should she get spayed. — what if she wants to have kids? His mother is forced to concoct more and more outlandish stories to answer the boy’s questions.
In the second story the depressed and friendless Dawn 
Wiener (Greta Gerwig) meets her old teenage crush, the bully Brandon (Kieren Culkin). Brandon is passing through town and sees the girl he used to call Wiener Dog with her very own Wiener dog. On a whim, she agrees to join him on a mysterious road trip to Ohio. What’s in Ohio? She asks. Crystal meth. On the way they meet a band of mariachi hitchhikers and Brandon’s Down syndrome brother.
The third story is about Schmertz (Danny Devito) an over-the-hill scriptwriter with only a wiener dog to keep him company. He is forced to teach self-centred rich kids at a Manhattan film school. His students all write plotless scripts based on their gender-studies relevance not their stories. Where’s the What If? He always asks them. “You gotta have a what if.” But if he doesn’t come up with a what if for his life, he risks being fired.
In the final story, we see an angry depressed grandmother 
(Ellen Burstyne), cared for by another old woman. They never speak, except the occasional requests: Yvette — Kaopectate! Her new pet — wiener-dog of course – she names Cancer. It just seems appropriate. But she has to to come to terms with her own past and precarious future when a visiting granddaughter drops by.
I love Todd Solondz’s movies, even the ones that don’t quite work. They’re all fascinating, funny and deeply depressing. He
creates complex, reflexive stories often with repeated plotlines. The Wiener Family has also appeared in his first movie Welcome to the Dollhouse as well as Palindoromes, so if you follow his movies, it’s gratifying to see what happens to those characters. I love his painfully sad comedies, including this one. The acting is fantastic, especially Ellen Burstyn.
Wiener-dog is great.
The Debt and Wiener-dog both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
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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