Award season. Films reviewed: The Secret Agent, Eternity, Hamnet
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
One of the nice things about Toronto is the huge variety of people, music sports and culture. Imagine what mash ups they can generate! I just saw a show called Opera Mania, which combined actual singers from Opera Revue and genuine tag-team pro wrestlers! We were literally in ringside seats, arms-length from fighters body-slamming to the romance of Carmen’s Toreador and opera singers bouncing off the ropes while warbling flawless arias! All on a real-live wrestling ring. Never in my life…
This week, I’m looking at three new movies that played at TIFF this year and are finally being released theatrically. There’s an action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, an historical drama in Elizabethan England, and a rom-com set somewhere this side of heaven.
The Secret Agent
Wri/Dir: Kleber Mendonça Filho
It’s the 1970s in Brazil. Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a bearded, bushy-haired prof heading north from Sao Paolo — where he’s lived for many years — to Recife. He’s trying to keep a step ahead of the authoritarian government’s agents and to make sure his son is being safely taken care of. What he doesn’t realize is a pair of ruthless hitmen have been hired to rub him out. He shows up at Dona Sebastiana’s home, which she has transformed into a safe haven. It’s a place where political activists (like Marcelo), dissidents, leftists, refugees from Portuguese speaking Angola, gay men, and other persecuted individuals can find a safe place to hide. Because of the importance of secrecy, they only use code names. And everyone is a bit wary of strangers. Marcelo changes both his name and his look, from hippy to clean cut, with an official-looking moustache, and lands a job at the highly corrupt local police force. They take a liking to him and place him in plain view at the station. He uses his job to look for his late mother’s missing papers, to clear up a long-held mystery. He also gets to see his son, who is staying with his late wife’s dad who runs a movie theatre. Can Marcelo 
secure his son’s safety, discover his family history, and keep his identity a secret from the two men who want him dead?
The Secret Agent a taut action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, before the fall of the military dictatorship. Always exciting and fast-moving with a complex plot, it’s full of disguises, bugging, lurid newspaper headlines, chase scenes and shootouts. Lots of blood. The plot is revealed both through flashbacks and flash forwards — strange scenes where unexplained present-day researchers are looking through old files to find out what really happened in this case. Wagner Moura is a total movie star, who switches identity more times than you realize over the course of the film. Now, I can’t help comparing this to last year’s stunning Brazilian drama I’m Still Here, also set during the dictatorship, but they are very different movies. This one is mainly there for the entertainment, sort of an I’m Still Here-lite.
But this is not a complaint — I loved this movie.
Eternity
Co-Wri/Dir: David Freyne (Review: Dating Amber)
Larry and Joan (Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen) are a happily married elderly couple, heading to a grandchild’s birthday party. Sure, they argue all the time, but that’s because they know each other so well. And they have to deal with Joan’s cancer.. But when Larry chokes to death on a pretzel at the party, he suddenly finds himself in a strange new world. It’s like Grand Central Station, with trains departing every few minutes. Is he in Heaven? No, it’s a way-station called The Junction, where you choose where to spend eternity. And to help with that decision, there’s a huge convention space with hundreds of booths, each catering to specific tastes. Maybe you like museums, or the great outdoors, or lying on a beach. Or maybe you want to spend eternity as a tourist in 1960s Paris, where everyone speaks English but with a heavy French accent. There’s something for everyone, and you have a week to decide. But Larry wants to wait for Joan, so they can choose a place together. Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is his AC (afterlife coordinator) who is supposed to help him on his way, but doesn’t approve of him sticking around. Luckily he finds a sympathetic ear in Luke, a handsome young bartender (Callum Turner) to whom he pours out all his troubles.
He finally consents to leave the Junction, when… he sees Joan just arriving! She’s young and beautiful, in her early 20s (Larry is in the body of his 35-year-old self; when you die you revert to your favourite age.) Now that all his troubles are solved, he’s ready to leave with Joan. But not so fast! Joan was married before she met Larry and her husband died in the Korean War. And it just happens that her late first husband is none other than Luke, the Bartender. He’s been waiting for 
Joan in the junction for 60 years. Will Joan choose to spend eternity with Larry, her long time partner? Or with her first true love?
Eternity is a fantasy/ romantic comedy with an unusual view of the afterlife. It’s a “high concept” movie with a simple question: should you choose a lifelong partner, or a passionate lover? And there are some fun parts: I liked the cheesy convention centre, the commuter train motif, and the Archives they visit (no spoiler). But they don’t do much with it; it devolves into a very basic rom-com, barely exploring the potentially fun aspects of the story. A former teen idol, Miles Teller plays his role as a grumpy old man trapped in a younger man’s body, but he does it in a most unappealing way. Callum Turner as Luke is also uninspiring, and while Elizabeth Olson is better as their object of interest, there’s still not much to go on. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early provide much-needed comic relief as the ACs, but you can’t rescue a ship that already sank.
I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with any of them.
Hamnet
Co-Wri/Dir: Chloe Zhao
(Reviews: Songs My Brother Taught Me, Nomadland)
It’s England in the late 16th century. Will (Paul Mescal) is a part-time tutor expected to follow in his family business as a glover. But his Dad is nasty and cruel, so he wants to get as far away from him as he can. One day he meets a young woman named Agnes (Jessie Buckley), like no one he’s ever met before. She’s a witch and a healer who knows how to make poultices and tinctures, and carries a trained falcon on her arm. She knows all the secrets of the forest, including the sacred caves and ancient trees, passed on to her for generations. She is suspicious of Will’s worth, but eventually he proves his love, they marry and have children. Although he spends much of his time in the city, when he’s home he loves playing with the twins, especially his son Hamnet whom he teaches how to defend himself with a wooden sword. So Will and Agnes are crushed when Hamnet succumbs to the plague while Will is away writing. 
How will they deal with the death of their young son?
Hamnet is a lovely, rich and extremely moving film about William Shakespeare, his wife and the death of their son. It’s based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It starts as a slow-moving historical romance, with lots and lots of details about daily life in Elizabethan England. You almost think — what’s the point of this movie? But then it turns into an amazing, emotional story, culminating in a no-holds- barred performance of Hamlet, which Will wrote about their son. (Noah Jupe, the actor who plays Hamlet in the play-in-the-movie is the real life brother of Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet). Paul Mescal is appropriately restrained as Will, but Jesse Buckley holds nothing back, she puts her heart and soul into this role. If you’re not gushing tears by the end of this movie, I don’t know what to say.
Hamnet is a must-see.
Secret Agent, Eternity, and Hamnet are all playing right now 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.
By Women. Films reviewed: Angela’s Shadow, Samia, Oh, Hi!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by big, blockbuster movies, try something smaller. Cinecycle is having a free, open screening of super-8 films this Sunday. Bring your own or watch other people’s — just no videos, please. Also on now at the TIFF Lightbox is Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, a surprisingly intimate documentary about the Oscar winning deaf actress — a really great doc.
Speaking of films directed by women, this week I’m looking at three more movies wth female directors. There’s a girl in Somalia running in circles, a woman north of Ottawa pulled in two directions, and a couple in New York… whose relationship is tied up in knots.
Angela’s Shadow
Co-Wri/Dir: Jules Koostachin
It’s the 1930s in Ottawa. Angela (Sera-Lys McArthur) is a happy middle-class housewife who lives with her husband Henry (Matthew Kevin Anderson) an aspiring journalist. She’s pregnant with their first child. But everything changes when an urgent letter arrives from her childhood nanny Mary (Renae Morriseau). She writes that she must see Angela on her reserve (Mary is Cree) before the baby is born. While Angela is hesitant, Henry is gung-ho. He loves a good adventure, and hopes to get some good shots and news scoops in Canada’s North. But once they get there, Angela is separated from Henry — she to meet the elders and he to try his hand at “native style” hunting.
Angela is taken to a sacred area where she discovers the 
secrets of her past: she was born to a Cree mother and an Irish father, and when both parents died, she was sent to live with her father’s sister in Ottawa. Turns out, Mary is actually her aunt, too, on her mother’s side. This was kept a secret to keep Angela safe from the Residential Schools. And they tell her the meaning of a little girl she keeps imagining.
Henry, meanwhile, is taken on a hunting trip by two young men: Isaiah and Malachi, Angela’s cousins (Asivak and Mahiigan Koostachin). Henry is eager to learn about there way of life, but understands everything from his Christian upbringing. So when he starts to see visions after a sweat lodge, something snaps. And while Angela welcomes her visions and feels an attachment to the land, Henry feels a deep 
fear and repulsion, and an urgent need to take his wife out of there. Can they reconcile their differences? Or will their visions prove hazardous to their health?
Angela’s Shadow is an historical drama about a clash of cultures between Anglo and Cree, Christianity and spirituality, and education in residential schools vs the passing on of outlawed culture, language and rituals. Visually, it’s quite lavish, with period costumes, sets, and lush camerawork, a la Murdoch Mysteries. It’s also meticulous in its portrayals of indigenous culture. I found the acting a bit over the top in the beginning, but it redeems itself once it turns into a psychological thriller.
Yes, Angela’s Shadow is a bit melodramatic, but, hey, I like melodramas. This is an engrossing indigenous story about Canada’s chequered history.
Samia
Co-Dir: Yasemin Samdereli, Deka Mohamed
Samia (Riyan Roble) loves to run. Though only a little girl, she places among the top 10 runners in her town’s annual race. She lives in a walled compound with her strict mother, her fun-loving dad, her conservative brother Said, and her singing sister Hodan. She’s also good friends with Ali (Zakaria Mohammed) who is almost like a brother to her; his family shares their compound. But he’s a terrible runner so he appoints himself Samia’s coach.Like Rocky, they train outdoors, racing around corners and down back allies. Their goal? To make her the fastest girl in town! And as they grow older, the teenaged Samia and Ali (llham Mohamed Osman, Elmi Rashid Elmi) discover there’s a world beyond their city, beckoning Samia toward international competition.
But Somalia is unstable, with armed military tanks roaming the streets. Fundamentalists demand all girls wear a head scarf — but what about my running? asks Samia. Regional differences are on the rise and so are religious fights. Local armies and child soldiers are popping up everywhere, making it a dangerous place to live. Can Samia fulfill her dreams in an unstable country? Will she ever make it to the Olympics? And will her family support her if she does?
Samia is a bittersweet, naturalistic biopic inspired by true 
events. It’s told in a series of extended flashbacks from her past remembered by an adult Samia, now fleeing Somalia for Italy, via Libya. This is an Italian film, co-directed by a Kurdish German, and an all-Somali cast. It reminds me a lot of Io Capitano (review here) from a few years ago, though this one, while touching and sympathetic, is less triumphant. It’s also rare — the first movie I’ve seen set in Somalia with Somali actors.
I liked this movie.
Oh, Hi!
Co-Wri/Dir: Sophie Brooks
Iris and Isaac (Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman: Indignation, The Lightning Thief) are a young couple in their twenties staying at a BnB in upstate New York. She is pretty, sexy and fond of practical jokes. He is good looking, chill, and open-minded. They’ve been dating for three months, but this one looks like a turning point. Isaac has perfectly arranged everything for the weekend: a beautiful house to stay in with a lake in the back, and delicious meals he cooks for her. And the sex! They are adventurous and passionate together. So when they uncover some bondage material in closet, they decide to try it out. Isaac agrees to be chained to the bed and it works out better than either of them hoped. But somehow the post-coital cuddling leads to some discussions, which reveal she thinks they have a monogamous long term relationship, while he thinks she’s fun and friendly but just another sex partner with no commitment. And all of 
this happens while he is still tied to the bed.
Iris does not take this lightly; she feels betrayed. Isaac, on the other hand is genuinely frightened with her jokes about wanting to stab a previous boyfriend to death. And as time passes with little progress, both sides begin to panic. If she lets him go, will he call the cops and have her arrested for kidnapping? Is his life in danger? And when Iris’s best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) and her boyfriend arrive to find Isaac still tied to the bed, it gets even more complicated. How will they ever get themselves out of this colossal mess?
Oh, Hi! is a hilarious sex comedy about trust, relationships and a date gone wrong. While I found some of the relationship psychologizing wasn’t fun, it only made up a small part of the movie. I’ve never seen Molly Gordon before — she co-wrote the script — but she has this uncanny ability to suddenly switch from gorgeous sex-goddess to google-eyed maniac. Logan Lerman is more of the straight man, but carries off his laid-back role quite nicely, considering he’s tied to the bedpost for much of the film. The story itself — along with the unexpected twists it takes — keeps you squirm-laughing almost all the way through. Though the audience at the screening I saw was maybe 80% women (who really seemed to like it), I think there’s lots there for men to think about, too.
This is a very funny movie.
Angela’s Shadow, Samia and Oh, Hi! 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.
Two Couples and a Single Mom. Films reviewed: The Wedding Banquet, The Courageous PLUS Hotdocs!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Hot Docs Toronto’s International Documentary Film Festival, is back with a vengeance, next week after last year’s misadventure in potential ruin. The world breathes a sigh of relief! And there are tons of great films to see, many having their world premieres at the festival. And as aways, rush tickets for daytime shows are available for free for students and seniors. So this week, I’m talking about some of the docs I’m looking forward tov watching. And after that, two new movies, one from the US and another from France. There’s a romcom involving two couples and one fake marriage; and a drama about a struggling single mom and her three young kids.
New films at Hotdocs!
Here are some brief description of upcoming docs that look interesting:
Ai Weiwei’s Turandot is a record of the noted Chinese artist and activist’s production in Rome of Puccini’s opera set in a mythical China, and somehow combines ancient themes with modern politics.
Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance by Winnipeg director Noam Gonick is a comprehensive look at the history of queer politics in Canada from the 1960s to the present, focusing on Pride parades as a catalyst for liberation movements.
Virginial Tangvald directs Ghosts of the Sea about a life spent aboard her famous father’s sailing boat, and the dark secrets her family keeps.
Life After is director Reid Davenport’s examination of Medically Assisted Dying from the point of view of devalued, disabled persons, unwillingly pushed toward death to relieve their very real suffering caused by the absence of necessary care.
Spare My Bones, Coyote! (Jonah Malak) is about a volunteer couple who for years have scouted the desert borderlands to rescue migrants lost and dying in the extreme heat and cold.
Deaf President Now! (Nyle DiMarco, Davis Guggenheim) is about a 1988 student strike at a DC University for the deaf when they hired a hearing president. The protests inspired a generation of disability rights activists.
Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass looks at the unique ecosystem of the Everglades.
The Dating Game (Violet Du Feng) looks at the crazy lengths unmarried men in China are going through these days to try to land a wife.
Heightened Scrutiny (Sam Feder) looks at ACLU attorney Chase Strangio preparing his landmark case on trans rights before the Supreme Court.
Unwelcomed (Sebastián González and Amílcar Infante) a Chilean film about the violent reaction to migrants who fled Venezuela to seek refuge there.
Shifting Baselines (Julien Elie) is about a small Texan town dominated by gigantic, 50-storey tall rocket ships that are part of the new space race.
These are just a few of the films playing at Hotdocs.
The Wedding Banquet
Co-Wri/Dir: Andrew Ahn
It’s present-day Seattle. Min (Han Gi-Chan) is a man in his twenties from South Korea. He was raised by very rich grandparents, who now expect him to take over the family business. But he doesn’t want to. Min’s an artist who cuts up colourful silk kimonos as his medium. And he’s in love with a guy named Chris (Bowen Yang) and wants to marry him. If his grand-parents ever find out, he’ll be written out of the will. And he’s in the US on a limited visa — he needs a green card. Meanwhile, Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), a science geek who does experiments with worms is in love with Lee, a social worker (Lily Gladstone). They want kids, and artificial insemination is proving to be very expensive. What’s the connection? Chris is good friends with Angela and Min thinks he can pull the wool over his grandparents’s eyes if he “marries” Angela and sends them the video. He gets a green 
card, she gets a baby, it’s as easy as pie. Not so fast. Granny (Youn Yuh-jung) is already on a flight from Seoul sending the four of them on a frantic clean up. Can they de-gayify Min and Chris’s home? Can Angela pass as straight? And what will this new wrinkle do to both those couples’ relationships?
The Wedding Banquet is a cute, screwball social comedy. Not uproarious, roll-on-the-floor comedy, but lots of quirky characters and unexpected plot twists. It’s adapted from Ang Lee’s movie of the same name in 1993, but quickly veers on a different path from 30 years ago. The original focused on a clash pf cultures involving a White and Taiwanese couple and the prevailing anti-gay taboos of that generation. In this version, Homophobia is alluded to but kept off screen, and the multi-ethnic humour comes from clueless Asian Americans navigating their way through the vagaries of a traditional 
Korean Wedding.The main actors don’t just play gay, they are gay. The cast is very impressive. Lily Gladstone was nominated for an Oscar for Killers of the Flower Moon, Youn Yuh-jung who plays Min’s grandmother, won one for Minari, and the legendary Joan Chen has a great cameo as Angela’s mom. Bowen Yang plays against type, while Kelly Marie Tran of Star Wars fame is endearingly awkward as Angela.
So while not terribly challenging, The Wedding Banquet presents a modern take on gay-asian relationships that is both endearing and gently funny.
The Courageous
Co-Wri/Dir: Jasmin Gordon
It’s a small town in northeastern France. Jule (Ophélia Kolb) is a single mom with three young kids in public school. Claire (Jasmine Kalisz Saurer) is the take-charge older sister. Loïc (Paul Besnier) is friendly, shy, and possibly on the spectrum; and Sami (Arthur Devaux) the youngest is prone to running around and getting in trouble. But one day the kids find themselves in a roadside diner with no mom. Their car is still in the parking lot, but she’s nowhere to be seen. So they take a long walk beside a highway back to their apartment. She shows up the next morning, but with no explanation. Instead she drives them to see what she says is their new home. It’s out of the way, and a bit run down, but much more spacious than their cramped apartment. But mom forces the kids to take cover and climb out the back door when strangers appear at the front.
You see, Mom isn’t completely honest with her kids. She has very little income, is way behind rent, and can barely find enough money to buy then basic food and clothes. And yet she struggles to provide them with normal kid lives: toys, sports and going to birthday parties. But her ventures with petty theft and shoplifting haven’t worked out well. She has an 
ankle bracelet to prove it. But their dream home is still up for sale. Can Jule come up with the down payment in time? Or will the law and the system catch up with her?
The Courageous is an amazing family drama about a mother who goes to great lengths to keep her family together. It’s told as a slice of life — starting in the middle and finishing before an obvious end. If you’re looking for an easy-to-watch, crowd-pleaser, you won’t find it here, but the bittersweet story-telling, endearing characters and shocking incidents make it much more satisfying.
Beautiful movie!
The Courageous and The Wedding Banquet opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Hotdocs runs from Thursday Apr 24, 2025 – Sun, May 4.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Dangerous jobs? Movies reviewed: Love Hurts, Dark Nuns, Bring Them Down
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Look at Me, a movie from Nova Scotia about an insecure, bisexual actor with an eating disorder, is finally opening in Toronto! In a review about year ago, I called it a “scathing — and humorous — self-examination that exposes Taylor Olsen’s innermost thoughts and fears.” Check it out.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies (two by first-time directors) from around the world. They’re all about people who work at peaceful and innocuous jobs who encounter danger and even death. There’s a Catholic nun in South Korea, a real estate agent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a sheep farmer in rural Ireland.
Dark Nuns
Dir: Hyeok-jae Kwon
Somewhere in Korea, a teenaged boy named Hae-Jun (Moon Woo-jin) is suffering from a serious illness. The doctors are baffled by his condition; nothing they try is working. But Sister Giunia (Song Hye-kyo) a Catholic nun, identifies the problem immediately: the boy is possessed. You see, Sister Giunia is a Dark Nun, a woman born with indigenous shamanistic powers. She can hear what demons say. And this boy needs a full-blown exorcism. But she can’t do it alone.
She turns to Sister Michela (Jeon Yeo-been), a much younger nun, for help. A Dark Nun like herself, Michela is adept at reading tarot cards,
and can use her powers to see vision, and manifestations of evil. But she is a nun now, and a nurse. She said goodbye to all that mumbo-jumbo years ago, and, besides it’s expressly forbidden by the Church — especially Father Paolo (Lee Jin-wook). He may be a scholar of exorcism, but he doesn’t believe in it. But Giunia is convinced the boy will die unless they intervene. Can she get sister Michela to come aboard? Will the church ever let them do it? And can two nuns and a stammering shaman defeat Satan himself?
Dark Nuns is a pretty typical exorcism/horror movie but with a twist: It incorporates Buddhism and Shamanism within a Catholic ritual. There are a lot of quirks in this movie. Like why do all the Korean priests and nuns have Italian names, like Paolo, and Michela? Are they Ninja Turtles? And the exorcism seemed way off: heavy on the holy water — she pours gallon after gallon of it on the kid! — but awfully light on bibles, crosses or rosary beads. Then there’s the biggest problem of all: it’s a horror movie, but it just isn’t scary. What’s good about this movie? I like the way it compares Korean patriarchal neo-Confucianism with a Catholic Church keeping women out of positions of power. I’m intrigued by the culture-clash of Christianity meets Shamanism. But if you’re looking for a Korean horror movie about shamans and possession, you should watch last year’s Exhuma, instead.
Love Hurts
Dir: Jonathan Eusebio
It’s Valentine’s Day in the suburbs of Milwaukee, and Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is busy baking heart-shaped cookies. No, he’s not in love or in a relationship; all his efforts are focussed on his career as a real estate agent. And he considers all his clients as his friends. But everything changes when a valentine’s day letter appears on his desk. Rose (Ariana DeBose) is back in town. You see, before he went straight, he used to be a killer employed by his older brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) who is a powerful local gangster. And killing Rose was his last job. The thing is, he didn’t kill her and now everyone wants to have a word to Marvin Gable. There’s the poet-assassin Raven (Mustafa Shakir) along with a slew of other killers, with weird names like King, Otis Merlo and Kippy. Can he dodge the bullets and kill the killers, without harming all the clients trying to buy his houses? Or will he be dragged back into a dark world he thought he had left far behind?
Love Hurts is an action movie about people trying to kill each other. Despite the extreme violence it’s told a light and somewhat humorous manner. Unfortunately, it’s also tedious and predictable. The dialogue is dumb, the plot is basically non-existent. (There is also a rom-com sub-plot, with various characters falling in love with their respective crushes, but that seems like an afterthought more than part of the story.) So what’s good about it? Two things. Jonathan Eusebio is 
obviously a first-time director, but what he is not new at is fight scenes. He’s a highly experienced fight choreographer, and luckily most of the movie consists of creative takes on people throwing knives and kicks as they destroy the interiors of houses and video stores. This I like. First time I’ve ever witnessed a killing using a bubble tea straw. And the cast is appealing too. It’s nice to see Ke Huy Quan back again after his big comeback in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. He’s funny! So are Ariana DeBose, Lio Tipton, Sean Astin and Drew Scott… the whole crew.
Is this a good movie? Not really, but it’s very light, easy to watch, and the fight scenes are well-done.
Bring Them Down
Wri/Dir: Chris Andrews
It’s rural Ireland in the present day. Michael (Christopher Abbott) runs a one-man sheep farm, where prize-winning rams graze on rocky hillsides. His abusive dad Ray (Colm Meaney) sits in the kitchen all day shouting angry epithets in Irish at Michael about all the things he’s doing wrong. In the next sheep farm over, young Jack Keeley (Barry Keoghan) does much the same as Michael but not very well. His dad Gary (Paul Ready) — who is Michael’s age — tries to keep things going but the farm is bleeding money. Gary is married to Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), Michael’s ex, and Jack can see his parents are not getting along. Michael hasn’t seen her for 20 years, ever since a car accident killed his mother and sent Caroline to hospital with serious injuries (The accident was Michael’s fault).
But their relatively bucolic lives are interrupted when two rams disappear from Michael’s flock. And there’s only one place they can go — to the Keeley farm just over the hill. But Jack claims they both suddenly died and he threw their bodies into a pit…a very unlikely story. This signals the start of a feud between the two families, involving simmering grudges, sheep poachers, and organized crime. Can their conflicts ever be resolved? Or are both farms headed for 
ruin, violence and possibly even death?
Bring Them Down is a violent, suspenseful drama about escalating grudges between two houses. It’s done in that chop-up style popular among some European arthouse directors where the narrative is not told chronologically. Your perception of “who is to blame for what” gradually shifts as new scenes fill in the blanks. I liked the acting and the dialogue — half of which is in Irish — and it has a compelling plot. The settings are just beautiful, with wide panoramic views of hillsides at dusk and dawn, and images like Michael carrying a lame sheep draped over his shoulders. There are also some strikingly original tableaux like the sheep at an auction house. This is a good first film — it reminds me of Frozen River and Winter’s Bone, all serious looks at crime in rural settings. But why are all these movies about brooding Irish men so depressing? What miserable lives these people seem to lead! If there were a bit of humour or love, Bring them Down would have been a lot easier to take.
But it’s still a good movie, anyway.
Dark Nuns, Love Hurts, and Bring them Down are all opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço about Young Werther
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s a sunny, summer day at Toronto’s Union Station. Werther, a young dandy from Westmount, has just arrived with his neurotic, best friend Paul. Werther is there to pick up a family heirloom, and to explore the town. But soon after his arrival he meets Charlotte, a pretty, witty and kind young woman. It’s her birthday! They end up discussing Salinger, dancing a waltz together and smoking a joint. Werther is smitten: this is the woman he wants to marry! He plans to 
sweep her off her feet. But things are not so simple. Charlotte serves as a defacto mother to her six orphaned siblings, and is engaged to Albert, a much older and more successful lawyer. Can young Werther win Charlotte’s heart? Or is he headed for disaster?
Young Werther is a new Canadian romantic comedy based on Goethe’s famous 18th century coming-of-age novel, updated to modern times. It’s a love triangle full of passion and lovelorn loss. It’s written and directed by award-winning, 
Toronto-based filmmaker José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço. José is best known for his short films and music videos but also has an accomplished history in advertising. This is his first feature.
I spoke with José in Toronto via ZOOM.
Young Werther had its world premiere at TIFF24 and is now playing in Toronto.
Films reviewed: Your Monster, Drive Back Home, Conclave
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
More Film Festivals are coming up soon, with ReelAsian, Cinefranco and BITS, Blood in the Snow, just around the corner.
But this week, I’m looking at three great new movies. There’s a consortium of cardinals locked in their chambers; a monster discovered in a closet by a NY actress, and a Toronto man forced out of his closet by the police.
Your Monster
Wri/Dir: Caroline Lindy
It’s present day Manhattan. Laura (Melissa Barrera) is a triple threat — she can sing, dance and act. She’s helping her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) write his breakout musical, soon to open on Broadway with her in the lead role. But when she gets sick — the big C! — and needs surgery, he dumps her — out of the blue — while still in hospital. And casts another actress (Meghann Fahy), in her part. The surgery is a success but Laura is a total wreck. She’s doubly devastated, both from the sudden end of her five year relationship and for being cheated out of her big break. Her anger, frustration and self pity are all ready to explode. That’s when she makes an unexpected discovery. There’s a monster in her closet!
The creature (Tommy Dewey) is an actual monster, bearded with long hair, sharp teeth and leonine features, who talks like a dude. Apparently he has lived there all her life (she grew up in this house) she just never saw him before. It’s hate and fear at first sight. He threatens to tear out her throat and eat her alive — and tells her to 
leave the place and never come back. Meanwhile, Laura shows up for the audition uninvited and becomes the understudy for her own role. But things gradually warm up at home, as Laura and her monster get to know each other. But can she take him to the Halloween Ball? Will she ever get to perform her role on stage? And will her boyfriend ever take her back?
Your Monster is a very cute, rom-com/horror with a fair bit of singing, too. It’s a riff on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast but with a funnier monster and brooding beauty with a lot of anger inside. Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey have lots of chemistry while Edmund Donovan is suitably villainous as the bad boyfriend. He looks strangely like Jared Kushner. The movie as a whole is enjoyable and adorable. It takes a funny concept to its extreme. I like the costumes, I like tight script — the whole movie is much better than I expected. There’s a play within the play (half the scenes are rehearsals or performances) but even the “real” home scenes are theatrical. Your Monster will make a great date movie, but just keep in mind there’s a bit of horror within this rom-com.
Drive Back Home
Wri/Dir: Michael Clowater
It’s 1970 in the village of Stanley, New Brunswick.
Weldon (Charlie Creed-Miles) is a mechanic who lives with his mom, his wife and his son in the house he was born and grew up in. One night he gets a long distance phone call from Toronto. His estranged younger brother Perly (Alan Cumming) — an advertising exec who he hasn’t heard from in many years — has been arrested for gross indecency (meaning consensual sex with another man). The cop lays it out. If you can pick him up and take him home, all charges will be dropped. If not, he’s going to prison for five years. So Weldon loads up his pickup truck with enough sandwiches and gasoline for a long trip and leaves his village for the first time in his life. He’s terrified of having to speak French so he takes a circuitous route avoiding Montreal altogether.
He picks up Perly from the cop shop but there is no love lost between them. Perly is a city boy who wears a jaunty cravat while his big brother is a hick, who’s never seen a high-rise apartment or an answering machine. He just wants to drive back home. Perly isn’t a happy camper either: His marriage is a shambles, his career has tanked and his dog is dead, since the cops arrested him. But what’s left for him in Toronto? And so they begin their long journey home. But what secrets will be revealed along the way?
Drive Back Home is a bittersweet drama about family and trauma. It’s done in the style of classic Canadian Road movies, like Don 
Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road, but this one is about leaving the big city. Their trip through rural Ontario and Quebec alternates between scenic beauty, rustic kindness, and vicious, small-town bigotry. Canada was still rife with homophobic hatred at the time — it was only decriminalized a year earlier, and there are disturbing gay-bashing scenes in this film along with a lot of homophobic F bombs.
The two main actors are English and Scottish but both quite good, and maintain decent Canadian accents, gruff for Creed Miles and arch for Cumming. The rest of the cast features prominent Canadian actors, with Clare Coulter as Adelaide, the hard-ass mom, Guy Sprung, as a Francophone farmer, Dan Beirne as a priest and Alexandre Bourgeois as a young guy they meet in a roadhouse bar. Drive Back Home is a moving look at Canada’s bad ol’ days.
Conclave
Dir: Edward Berger
A hush hangs over the Vatican; his holiness the Pope is dead. And the world’s Cardinals, in red robes with white mitres, are congregating to choose the next pontiff from within their group. Ballots are secret, but until one receives 2/3 of the votes, they are literally locked-in, no contact with the outside world. What are their criteria for the next pope? He must be virtuous and humble, but also healthy and strong. And he must be honest as the Pope is infallible. Bishop Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is the Dean in charge of the highly secretive process. The most popular candidates: Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a modest liberal reformer, Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a bombastic traditionalist, and the highly respected Adeyami (Lucian Msamati). But Lawrence is privy to new information just before the lockdown. A drunken monsignor alleges the Pope fired Tremblay (John Lithgow) just before he died. And mystery man, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), appears out of nowhere claiming to be the Cardinal of Kabul, Afghanistan. And then there are the nuns, including Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) who remain 
silent but see and hear everything. Which bishop will they choose to turn the conclave’s smoke from black to white?
Conclave is a stunningly- good thriller about secrets and subterfuge within the Vatican. The constant changes of political alliances as well as shocking revelations will keep your rapt attention until the very end. It presents a Vatican that’s both exquisite and decadent, with black mould spreading on it’s columns. It’s all the work of German director Edward Berger who made All Quiet on the Western Front, with Volker Bertelmann’s powerful music, and fascinating camerawork. It was filmed at Rome’s famous Cinecitta studio who are always deft at recreating the Vatican. I love this constant attention to detail — red sealing wax, Latin prayers, and tortellini soup.The acting is superb, especially Ralph Fiennes. I’ve never been a fan, but he is just sooo good in this role, maybe his best I’ve ever seen. Altogether, this makes Conclave a great night out.
Your Monster and Conclave both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Drive Back Home is having its Toronto premiere tonight at CAMH on Queen West as part of the Rendezvous with Madness film fest.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Odd relationships. Films reviewed: Touch, Katie’s Mom, Longlegs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The 22nd annual Female Eye Film Festival starts on Wednesday and runs through the weekend, showing short films, docs and features all directed by women. Films come from as far away as Kyrgyzstan and as close as right here, with CIUT’s own Christian Hamilton’s short film “Just Grand” in the Thrills & Chills program.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies — a romantic comedy, a drama and a thriller horror — all about unexpected relationships. There’s an Icelander in London with a crush on his boss’s daughter; a divorcee in Pasadena who has a fling with her daughter’s lover; and an FBI agent with a mysterious connection to a serial killer.
Touch
Co-Wri/Dir: Baltasar Kormákur
It’s early 2020 in Iceland. Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson) is a restauranteur and a choir singer approaching retirement. He is awaiting the results of a brain scan. And with rumours of an upcoming pandemic his late wife’s daughter warns him to shelter at home. But he is driven by a quest he has thought about for half a century.
50 years ago, the younger Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s son) is an earnest student at the London School of Economics. He is tall and skinny with blonde hair and a wispy beard. He is disgusted by the political indifference of his classmates. So he drops out and applies at the first help wanted sign he sees — a small Japanese restaurant called Nippon, run by a plain-spoken man named Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki, a.k.a. モックン). And as he walks through the door he catches sight of a beautiful young woman with pale skin and long black hair. Is it love at first sight? Her name is Miko, (Kôki) she’s 
Takahashi’s daughter, and she’s dating a Japanese man. Beneath his gruff exterior Takahashi is a nice guy — he appreciates the fact Kristofer grew up beside the sea and worked on a fishing boat. But he is extremely protective of his daughter, for unspoken reasons. When Kristofer and Miko fall in love they keep it a secret from Takahashi… until the restaurant suddenly closes down and Miko disappears without a trace. Is she still alive and in London? Can he find her during a pandemic? And would she even remember who he is?
Touch is an extremely moving, bittersweet drama that spans half a century. It alternately follows both the young Kristófer’s first love in London in 1970 and the elderly Kristófer’s search for Miko in 2020. It’s based on an Icelandic bestseller, and has novelistic feel to it. It also deals with prejudice, exclusion, biracial families and historical wrongs. Touch is directed by Baltasar Kormákur, an underrated director if there ever was one, who has made a series of successful mainstream action thrillers (Reviews: Beast, 2 Guns and Contraband, but this heartfelt drama is a cut above. And by the end, tears were pouring down both sides of my face.
Katie’s Mom
Co-Wri/Dir: Tyrrell Shaffner
It’s present-day Pasadena. Nancy (Dina Meyer), is bored, lonely and angry. Bored because she’s in her 40s and single again, through no fault of her own. Sex is a distant memory. She thinks autoerotic stimulation means driving through a carwash… twice. Lonely because her two adult kids, Katie (Julia Tolchin) and Eli (Colin Bates) have moved out and she only sees them on holidays. And she’s much too embarrassed to spend any time with friends, now that she’s divorced. And angry because her ex-husband Morty, a plastic surgeon, dumped her for his much younger secretary and now they’re going to get married. So when both her kids show up for the Chrismukkah dinner (that’s Christmas and Chanukah on the same day) she finally feels things are getting better. But Katie has a surprise: she brought her new boyfriend Alex (Aaron Dominguez) with her and he needs a place to stay.
Things become even more frustrating when she hears Katie and Alex having sex each night. She’s ready to kick him out… but it turns out Alex is a really nice guy. He cooks and does the dishes without being asked. He’s an architecture student and actually listens to what Nancy has to say. Most important, she finds him very attractive. And the feelings seem mutual. But of course she could never sleep with her daughter’s boyfriend, could she? Or could she? And when her fantasies turn into reality, she doesn’t know which way to turn. Who can she tell? Is this a one time fling? And what will happen if Katie ever finds out?
Katie’s Mom is a light romantic comedy that’s funny and cute. It’s 
about a middle-aged woman’s sexual awakening held back by familial obligations and social norms. It features a solid comic performance by Julia Tolchin and a charming Aaron Dominguez. But Dina Meyer — known for her smoking-hot performance in Starship Troopers in 1997 — is still on fire 30 years later. The filmmaker compares it to The Graduate, but from Mrs Robinson’s point of view. I wouldn’t go that far — and it’s no spoiler to say Dustin Hoffman ain’t storming no wedding doors here. But it’s a fun, inter-generational romcom told from a much-needed female point of view.
Longlegs
Wri/Dir: Oz Perkins
It’s the early 1990s. Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a rookie FBI agent, quiet and introspective somewhere pn the spectrum, the product of a bible-thumping mom (Alicia Witt). She is one of many agents working on an open case involving a serial killer. The killer has slaughtered a large number of families over two decades, but he is very hard to profile. No witnesses, no photos, no fingerprints.
The killer — nicknamed Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) has entered each of his murder sites unimpeded. And in every case, the killings— always involving a husband, a wife, and a young daughter — seem to have been done by the families themselves. And the killer always leaves a cryptic letter — written in code — behind. The Agency has reason to believe another killing is imminent, but of all the agents, only Lee, on a hunch, is able to interrupt one of these ghoulish killings as it takes place. She is subjected to a battery of psychological tests… How did she know where to go? Is she psychic? Lee and her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) take over the case. She spends countless nights poring over files, trying to connect the dots. And as she comes closer to tracking down Longlegs her own long-hidden memories start coming back. Has she ever seen him in person? And if so what did he look like? And can she stop the killings?
Longlegs is a creepy and shocking thriller horror. It shares themes with Silence of the Lambs (a female FBI agent looking for a 
deranged killer) and Zodiac (the killer leaves notes written in abstract characters). But it differs from conventional horror movies with its art-house production style. No typical jump scares or schlocky effects. The photography and lighting is soooo good, with jagged angles and sharp shapes. Many shots are lit by a single light source. She lives in a home that looks like a log cabin. Director Oz Perkins revisits his own past themes (review: Gretel and Hansel) with inverted triangles and odd illuminati. Maika Monroe is excellent as the scared agent as is Alicia Witt as her religion-obsessed mom. While a freakout scene by Nicholas Cage is nothing unusual, this one will stick in your mind for a long time. And though at times it verges on the ridiculous, I found Longlegs’ suspense and scariness completely satisfying.
Touch and Longlegs both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Katie’s Mom is the Gala Feature at the opening ceremony of FEFF at the TIFF Lightbox next Thursday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Pot o’ Gold. Films reviewed: French Girl, One Life, Love Lies Bleeding
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tomorrow is St Paddy’s day so this week I’m looking at three new movies, from Canada, England and the US, about people looking for their own pot o’ gold. There’s a New Yorker in Quebec looking for love, an Englishman in wartime Prague searching for orphans to rescue, and a young woman in New Mexico looking to flee to Vegas with her bodybuilder girlfriend.
French Girl
Wri/Dir: James A. Woods, Nicolas Wright
Sophie and Gordon are an unmarried couple in New York in their late 30s. Gordon Kinski (Zach Braff) is an eighth grade English teacher in a public school in Brooklyn. He loves donning 16th century tunics to teach Shakespeare to 14 year olds. Sophie Tremblay (Evelyne Brochu) is a wizard in the kitchen — professional kitchens that is. She’s the chef at a popular restaurant. They’re getting ready for a long-planned vacation in upstate New York, far away from their jobs. But their plans are changed when a strange woman appears. Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens) is a celebrity chef with cooking shows and restaurants all around the world. She wants Sophie to audition for executive chef at her newest branch. The restaurant is in the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, Sophie’s home town. For Gordon, who has rarely left NY City, Quebec is terra incognito. But he agrees to come with her, thinking it’s the perfect time to propose marriage. He also will offer moral support and meet her family. And what a family it is.
The Tremblays live on their sheep farm near Quebec City. There’s an angry Dad, a doting mom, a gossipy older sister, and Junior
(Antoine Olivier Pilon) an intimidating cage boxer who collects samurai swords. And then there’s their elderly grandma who has a tendency to pop up beside their bed when they’re having sex. Gordon, who speaks no French, feels very out of place, but still tries desperately to fit in. What he doesn’t know, but the 
family does, is that Ruby, Sophie’s potential future boss, is also her former lover. Will Sophie get the job? Will her family accept Gordon? And is the rich and glamorous Ruby competing with him for Sophie’s hand?
French Girl is a funny and cute romcom about a culture clash between an eccentric family and a fish out of water. It’s also bilingual — the Tremblays speak French while Gordon and Ruby speak English. While French Girl follows many of the cliches and conventions of a romantic comedy, it still seems sweet, fresh and delightful.
I liked it despite myself.
One Life
Dir: James Hawes
It’s the late 1980s in a small city in England. Nicky Winton (Anthony Hopkins) is a retired stockbroker who lives with his wife Greta (Lena Olin). They’re expecting a visit soon from their expecting daughter, so she tells him to throw out all his junk to make way for baby. He has tons of files and papers from the 1930s he hasn’t looked at in years. Plus a treasured leather briefcase with a photo album in it. Everything in the album happened in 1938. That was when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia to annex the “Sudetenland”, sending thousands of refugees — including Jews, intellectuals, leftists, Socialists, and Communists — to Prague to stay out of Nazi hands.
A much younger Nicky (Johnny Flynn) visits Prague and is overwhelmed by all the refugees, including countless children, many orphans, living in the streets. He wonders, how many children could he transport by train to England before Germany invades Prague? There were similar programs for kids in Austria and Germany, but not Czechoslovakia. His German-born mom (Helena Bonham-Carter) says she’ll do whatever she can to help. And a team in Prague is recording names of kids 
who can be saved. Can Nicky convince the British government to issue visas, raise the needed funds, and find foster parents to take care of them? Will he get them out before the Nazis march in? Or is it a fools game?
One Life is an historical drama — based on a true story — about an unsung hero and what he accomplished in 1938. The story jumps back and forth between the 30s and the 80s, half about the daring mission of a young man, and half about the old Nicky telling his story. I wanted to see this film for two reasons: because of the story — who doesn’t want to see children rescued from the Nazis? — and because it’s directed by James Hawes, who brought us that excellent TV spy thriller series Slow Horses. Sadly, One Life couldn’t possibly be less thrilling. While there are a few touching moments near the end, most of this film is as slow as molasses. Hopkins sleepwalks through his part while the audience nods off.
Sad to say, One Life is a snooze fest.
Love Lies Bleeding
Co-Wri/Dir: Rose Glass
It’s 30 years ago in a small town in New Mexico. Lou (Kristen Stewart) works at her estranged father’s hardcore gym, a rusty warehouse filled with muscleheads spouting No Pain No Gain slogans. Most of her time is spent unclogging toilets with her bare hands or fending off the amorous advances of a crackhead named Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov). It’s a hell-hole. Until a breath of fresh air blows in through the door. Jackie (Katy O’Brian) is a competitive bodybuilder in pink and purple lycra with big hair and bigger muscles. She’s an Okie just passing though town on her way to a competition in Vegas. But when she decks two lugs who threaten Lou, it’s love at first punch. Soon they’re making passionate love in Lou’s lonely apartment. Soon enough, she’s supplying Jackie with steroids to reach body perfection before they head off to Vegas.
But all is not well in rural New Mexico. Lou’s brother in law, JJ (Dave Franco) is a mega-douche who works for her Dad, Lou Sr’s (Ed Harris). Lou Sr is a crime boss who runs the town from his gaudy mansion. When JJ’s not cheating on his wife (Lou’s sister), he’s beating her up. And he has hired Jackie to work at Lou Sr’s gun club, after she agreed to have sex with him. (She doesn’t yet know that Lou is related to all of them). But when the truth comes out, and Lou’s sister ends up in ER, Jackie is 
jacked. She slips into a manic ‘roid rage looking for revenge, while pulling Lou into a spiral of violence, death and retribution. Will Jackie make it to Vegas? Will someone pay for the murders? And where will the dead bodies go?
Love Lies Bleeding is a brilliantly dark film noir, about small-town crime in the southwest. It’s filled with distorted psychedelic fantasies within a tragic world. It’s also a love story filled with lots of hot lesbian sex. The production design is amazing. Most of the characters sport 80s mullets and the whole movie pulses with a driven soundtrack and neon colours. This is only Rose Glass’s second feature (after Saint Maud) but she once again incorporates real settings within a surreal plot. This one includes a behind-the-scenes look at professional bodybuilding, complete with spray-on suntans and their strangely contorted muscle-popping poses. But beware — the 
movie is filled with shocking, graphic violence. Dave Franco is great as a sleaze ball, a grizzled Ed Harris is suitably sinister as a crime boss with foot long greasy blond hair spouting beneath a completely bald tonsure. Anna Baryshnikov (the dancer’s daughter!) is perfect as a hippy girl long past her prime. And Kristen Stewart and newcomer Katy O’Brian absolutely sizzle together.
If you’re looking for a crime-thriller that’s gripping, shocking and aesthetically stunning, don’t miss Love Lies Bleeding.
One Life, French Girl, and Love Lies Bleeding 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.
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.
Surprising fantasy lives. Films reviewed: Sometimes I Think about Dying, Argylle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
February is Black History Month, which is the best time to celebrate black cinema from a historical perspective. The Toronto Black Film Festival is running from Feb 14-19th, showing new features, docs and shorts. This year they’re celebrating actress Pam Grier, with her 70s film Foxy Brown, and in a tribute to the late, great Charles Officer, they’re showing Akilla’s Escape, a thriller set in Toronto. And Sway, Emmanuel Kabongo’s new thriller is having its Canadian premiere at this same festival. Mubi, the streaming site for avant-garde, indie and festival films, is programming black cinema this month in their Cut to Black series. You should check out Samuel D. Pollard’s excellent documentary MLK/FBI about J Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping and execrable treatment of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and his family.
This week, I’m looking at something completely different: two new movies about lonely women with surprising fantasy lives. There’s an office worker who dreams of dying, and a reclusive novelist who dreams of adventure.
Sometimes I Think about Dying
Dir: Rachel Lambert
Fran (Daisy Ridley) — best known as Rey in the Star Wars movies) is a young woman in a small coastal town in the pacific northwest. She works at a dull office job, in charge of supplies and flow charts. Fran likes beige sweaters and cottage cheese. She spends all day staring out the window at ships docking in the harbour, loading and unloading containers by crane. Basically, she’s depressed, bored and lonely; she lives alone and never goes out. The only unusual thing about her — something that she’ll never confess to anyone else — is the strange fantasies that bounce around her head. She pictures herself lying in a grassy forest… dead. She enjoys the calm and peacefulness of being a corpse. She isn’t suicidal, she isn’t a zombie, she just likes the concept.
Until one day, a stranger arrives at the office, taking the place of Fran’s recently retired coworker. Robert (Dave Merheje) comes directly from Montreal. He’s bald and bearded with a dry sense of humour. His big secret is he has never worked in an office job before, and is completely baffled by the culture. They bond through texting, and he eventually asks her out on a date. And suddenly Fran’s life changes for the better. Her fantasies shift from grassy knolls to funeral pyres! They go to an actual party and meet new friends. But will she ever open 
up to him? Can she reveal her secret? And will she ever smile?
Sometimes I Think about Dying is a tender social satire about the boredom of daily life and the bubbling cauldron of emotions lurking just beneath the surface. It feels like an Aki Kaurismaki movie transplanted to small-town USA. Daisy Ridley — the British actor best known as fighter-pilot Rey in the Star Wars franchise — is subtly funny as Fran. And Canadian actor and stand-up comic Dave Merheje is good as her “normal guy” foil Robert. It’s a simple movie, but with enough twisted humour to keep you interested.
It’s cute.
Argylle
Dir: Matthew Vaughn
Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a frumpy middle-aged woman who lives with her cat Alfie in a log cabin between a picturesque mountain and a lake. She earns her living writing action novels about a dashing spy named Argylle, who roams the planet on daring missions. Elly, on the other hand, is a homebody who is deathly afraid of flying and will only leave her home to attend a book launch in a nearby city. Her books are bestsellers, with her devoted fans eagerly awaiting #5 in the series. But her mom (Catherine O’Hara) — who proffers advice on all her books before they’re published — says the ending just doesn’t do it.
So she sets off on a train ride to hash through the manuscript with her mother. But everything changes on that train ride, when a stranger — a bearded long-haired man in dirty clothes — aggressively takes the seat across from her and refuses to move. He’s a fan of her books, he says. Turns out the entire train knows exactly who she is… and for some reason, they think her books are the key to the secret world of espionage, and for that reason, want her dead!
This strange man (Sam Rockwell) turns out to be a spy 
himself, fighting for the good guys. He manages to fight off dozens of would be assassins and brings Elly to safety. She grabs her cat and they fly off to Europe. But this is just the first step in a whirlwind journey of international intrigue, where the CIA — the good guys?! — are fighting the bad guys (a sinister cabal known as The Division) for worldwide domination. Why does everyone think her fiction is prophetic? Can frumpy Elly solve these mysteries? And will she ever know the truth?
Argylle is a highly stylized roller-coaster ride of light comedy and high-speed action. The bright colours and extreme violence and mass murder — but with no blood — is fueled by a non-stop infectious disco soundtrack. The movie begins with scenes from her novels where Argylle (a plastic-looking Henry Cavill) and his teammates have unbelievable ridiculous shoot outs and chase scenes in exotic locales. But it soon resets to “real life” where things are slightly more believable. The thing is, it all starts to merge, to the point where “reality’ is even more extreme than “fiction”. In Elly’s mind, her fictional spy Argylle periodically takes the place of her less appealing cohort.
The story makes marginal sense, with so many U-turns and double crosses your head will spin. But that’s not what the movie is about. It’s there for sheer entertainment — a ride on planes, trains and ice skates — as the film chugs along its merry way. Visually, it’s one giant green screen, with endless CGI and special effects, to the point where it’s almost a cartoon. Is that Henry Cavill’s face and hair or a computer generated plastic figurine? Is that Bryce Howard’s breasts or a CGI simulacrum? Who knows? Who cares!
This is all about spectacle, with some truly spectacular scenes of mass murder muted by bright billows of pink and lavender smoke. There’s gun porn, with the camera caressing thousands of assault weapons lined up in a shiny-white tribute to machine guns. And major star power, including Dua Lipa, John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, and Samuel L Jackson.
Is Argylle a good movie?
No!! It’s ridiculous, high-budget schlock… but it’s also eye-candy perfection.
Argylle starts this weekend, and Sometimes I think about Dying opens next week; 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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