Daniel Garber talks with Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson about their new film Rumours at #TIFF24
Photographs by Jeff Harris
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Somewhere in Germany, the G7 is holding a summit at a chateau beside an archaeological peat bog site. The leaders of the top western economies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US — are working hard to write a caring communique pledging future improvements in our world. Until something strange happens — all of the support staff suddenly disappear, and this elite cabal of Presidents and Prime Ministers are left to fend for themselves. And there are strange creatures dancing in the woods. Can these hapless leaders band together in time to stop the dangers threaten this planet? Or will they be reduced to suspicious conspiracies and petty rumours?
Rumours is also the name of a bizarre and funny new feature that premiered at TIFF. It combines geo-politics with ancient mythologies and otherworldly forces. Throw in some sexual intrigue and the threat of global apocalypse and you have something very different from anything you’ve ever seen. Rumours is the work of award-winning Winnipeg (review) filmmaker Guy Maddin (Interview: Seances, 2013) and his collaborators Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson. Guy Maddin is known for his uniquely baffling film images that range from unsettling Canadiana to creepy fantasies (Interview: Louis Negin, Keyhole, 2012) infused with perverse sexual neuroses… and more than a few laughs. Guy has worked with Evan and Galen Johnson for a decade now (Interview: The Forbidden Room, 2015).
I spoke with Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson in person, at TIFF24.
Rumours had it’s North American premiere at TIFF and is now playing in Toronto.
Daniel Garber talks with Luis Ortega about Kill the Jockey at #TIFF24
Photographs by Jeff Harris
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Remo Manfredini is the top jockey in Buenos Aires and famous across the continent. He has won millions for his boss, a notorious gangster who supports him. He tolerates Remo’s misadventures — he is infamous for driving drunk or stoned — as long as he keeps winning. But when the tides turn, Remo starts losing races, falling off his horses or getting into terrible accidents. His main rival, Abril, one of only a few female jockeys, is also his friend and on-again, off-again lover. When he loses one race too many, he knows he’d better change his ways before they decide to kill the jockey.
Kill the Jockey is also the name of a new Argentinian film about a remarkable jockey who can’t be stopped. It’s hilarious and fantastical, an epic adventure, a romance, a comedy, drama and a bit of a thriller. It’s written and directed by the intensely creative filmmaker Luis Ortega, who I spoke with in 2018 about his previous film El Angel. Kill the Jockey played at Venice to great acclaim and had its North American premiere at TIFF.
I spoke with Luis Ortega, in person, at the Intercontinental Hotel during TIFF.
Kill the Jockey is Argentina’s choice for Best International Feature Oscar.
TIFF24! Films reviewed: The Substance, Anora PLUS curtain-raisers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival is now in full swing, showing films from around the world — basically what you’ll be seeing in local theatres over the next year or so. Though tickets have gotten a bit pricey and are hard to get, there are still some free screenings, and you can also stand in line for rush tickets even if they’re sold out. Meanwhile King Street West between University and Spadina is closed to traffic this weekend, and worth checking out — lots of games, free samples, drinks, food, and endless fans looking for a glance at celebrities.
So this week I’ll talk briefly about some TIFF movies to look out for, as well as two TIFF reviews. There’s an exotic dancer who meets a young Russian in Coney Island, and a TV dancercise star who meets her better self in Hollywood.
Curtain raisers
Here are a few movies coming to TIFF that look good.
Triumph, set in post communist Bulgaria, is about some high-ranking military brass on a top-secret mission to find a powerful, secret chamber, with the help of a psychic.
The Brutalist starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, is a drama about a post-WWII Hungarian architect brought to America by a powerful industrialist who will change his and his wife’s lives forever.
Diciannove, is a first feature about a 19 year old man leaving Sicily to satisfy his obsession with 19th century (and older) literature.
And We Live In Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as two people who meet at random and form a couple.
These are just a few of many movies premiering at TIFF.
Anora
Wri/Dir: Sean Baker (reviews: Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket)
Ani (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer in her early twenties. She lives with her sister in a small house in Brooklyn. When she’s not performing on stage or doing lap dances in private rooms, she’s probably talking to her friends in the green room. Her best friend works there, and so does rival frenemy. Her whole life is centred on this nightclub, until one night when she is requested to handle a client who specifically wants a Russian-speaking dancer. Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn)
is just a kid, barely legal. After they have fun in the back, he invites her to spend a weekend at his house. It’s a mammoth gated mansion with huge windows and designer furniture. His king sized bed has red silk sheets, and they make love all night long. She meets his coney island entourage and his moustached body guard. Ivan is infatuated with Anora and she likes him a lot, too. On a whim, he flies them all to Vegas on a private jet where he claims his own special suite at a casino. Ivan throws $1000 chips on the table like petty cash. Then this kid buys Ani a huge diamond ring and a sable coat before he proposes. They are married the same day. What she doesn’t realize is he’s the son of an immemsely rich and powerful Russian oligarch. All this money and possessions belong to his parents and they want him back in Russia. They’re flying back to NY to annul the wedding and three tough guys arrive to keep them 
company. Is this legal? And can Ivan and Ani escape from their clutches?
Anora is a fantastic, high-speed adventure, full of emotion, humour, thrills, a bit of violence and lots and lots of sex. Mikey Madison is amazing as the tough but tender Anora, and newcomer Mark Eydelshteyn bounces around like a bag of springs waiting to uncoil. All of Sean Baker’s movies — Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket — are about sex work, and are always told from the point of view of the sex workers themselves. But Anora goes far beyond his previous work in both depth and feelings.
Rarely do I walk out of a movie thinking I want to watch this one again. Anora is that good.
The Substance
Wri/Dir: Coralie Fargeat
Elisabeth Sparkle (Deni Moore) is a TV star. She’s the queen of primetime dancercise, and has millions of fans. She’s been pumping away at it for decades in her trademark lycra leotards. She wears brightly coloured designer fashion, drives a snazzy convertible, and lives in a luxurious penthouse suite facing an enormous rooftop billboard with her smiling face and fit body staring back at her. But one day she overhears her oleaginous producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) talking about her behind her back. To hell with ratings, he says, she’s jumped the shark. We need someone younger and prettier. Is her time running out?
She gets so flustered that she crashes her beautiful sports car and 
ends up in hospital. Miraculously, she escaped without a scratch, but an unnaturally handsome young medic, slips her a note. It’s a secret clinic where scientists have concocted a substance that can develop a “better” version of yourself — prettier, younger, and with more sex appeal — to keep you on top of your game. And after some misgivings, she follows the instructions to a secret place where she picks up the stuff. What she doesn’t realize is, it doesn’t actually make you any younger looking or prettier. No, it creates a fully formed body double to take your place. Sue (Margaret Qualley) takes over in public and lands a TV show to replace Elisabeth Sparkle. But like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, they alternate, one sleeps while the other one plays. And if either of them disobey any of the rules around the substance… bad things happen to them both.
The Substance is a cautionary tale about Hollywood’s extreme infatuation toward youth and beauty. It is shocking, disgusting and amazing. Quaid and Qualley are both great but if anyone understands Hollywood’s obsession with youth and beauty it’s Demi Moore. In 1991, she appeared naked while pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair under the headline More Demi Moore. In 2005, she married Ashton Kutcher, 15 years younger than her. In this movie she’s allowed to take it to extreme proportions — no spoilers — toward a totally over-the-top ending. Director Coralie Fargeat is French, and though the cast and topic are American, it uses a quintessentially French female gaze. There’s a grotesque obsession with food, and who but a French would imagine an American network TV show on New Year’s Eve featuring topless Folies Bergeres dancers?!
Don’t get me wrong, this is an extreme movie, but it is also like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Anora and The Substance are both featured at TIFF this year — go to tiff.net for details.
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 Sook-Yin Lee and Dan Beirne about Paying for It
Photographs by Jeff Harris
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the late 1990s in Toronto.
Sunny and Chester — a VJ and a cartoonist — live together in a house in Kensington Market. Up to now, they’ve been in a loving, monogamous relationship but their sex-life is kaput. So Sunny suggests they broaden their sexual outlook, and seek new partners.
This leaves a void in Chester’s life: sex. Finding a new girlfriend is out of the question. Dating is costly, time-consuming and rarely leads to sex. So he decides to try a different path. What will happen to Chester’s and Sunny’s lives when he starts “paying for it”?
Paying for It is a new film about sex work and relationships, told from the point of view of the John. It’s brilliant, shocking, hilarious and touching. Based on Chester Brown’s graphic novel by the same name, it’s directed and co-written by Sook-Yin Lee. The film stars Dan Beirne as Chester and Emily Lê as Sunny. Dan is a prolific Canadian TV and film actor who is also one of the funniest and most underrated actors working today. Dan has starred in countless TV shows and movies including Great Great Great and The Twentieth Century. The multi-talented Sook-Yin is a producer, director, actor, and musician who began as a VJ on MuchMusic, and went on to direct films like Octavio is Dead, and starring in pictures like Shortbus.
Paying for It is having its world premiere at TIFF on Friday, September 6th at 930 PM.
I spoke with Sook-Yin Lee and Dan Beirne in-person and in-studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
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.
Daniel Garber talks with Mia McKenna-Bruce about How to Have Sex
Mia McKenna-Bruce Photography: David Reiss, Hair: Ben Talbot, Make-Up: Sara Hill, Styling: Tilly Wheating
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tara and her two best friends, Em and Skye, have finished school, written their A Levels and want to celebrate. So, like tens of thousands of others, off they go to a mediterranean resort with more sex, drugs, alcohol and loud music than you can shake a stick at. But the elephant in the room is Tara — she’s a “big fat virgin”, and her mates want to make sure she returns home cured of that ailment. But when the time comes, Tara doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, who she’s doing it with, and whether she has any say in the matter. And when it doesn’t go as planned, she doesn’t know what to do, or who to turn to. Turns out she still doesn’t know how to have sex.
How to Have Sex is a stunning bittersweet, coming-of-age 
drama about friendship, cultural expectations and consent. It’s writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s first feature and stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. The film won the prestigious Un Certain Regard Best Film prize at Cannes, and is nominated for best British film at the BAFTA awards. Mia won Best Lead Performance at the British Independent Film Awards and was named Screen International’s ‘Star of Tomorrow’. She has also appeared in many TV shows and films since 2009, including The Witcher, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Vampire Academy.
How to Have Sex opens in Canada 0n February 9th.
I spoke with Mia in London via Zoom.
Mia won the 2024 BAFTA Rising Star Award on February 18, 2024.
Daniel Garber talks with Molly McGlynn about Fitting In
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Lindy is a 16-year-old girl living with her single mom who recently moved back to the small city and home her mother grew up in. She’s beautiful, smart and personable, and fits right in at her new school. Soon she has a best friend, a place on the track team, and a potential boyfriend she really likes. But everything falls apart when she discovers she has a rare medical condition called MRKH: she was born without a uterus and a smaller vagina. Which makes it impossible to 
have conventional intercourse with her boyfriend. She’s facing a crisis but is terrified of telling anyone about it. Can her doctor’s gruelling regimen allow her to return to “normalcy”? And will she ever fit in with heteronormative standards?
Fitting In is a funny, endearing and delightful new dramedy, a coming-of-age story about a teenaged girl learning to accept her body. It’s directed by award-winning filmmaker and writer Molly McGlynn, known for movies like Mary Goes Round, and TV shows including Working Moms and Grown-ish.
I spoke with Molly McGlynn in person at #TIFF23.
Fitting In opens in Canada on February 2nd.
A New World? Films reviewed: Going In, Poor Things
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
December is supposed to be a time for fun and relaxation, so this week, I’m looking at two new movies that you might find fun to watch. There’s a comedy/action movie set 40 years ago in Toronto, and a wild comedic fable set a century ago in Europe.
Going In
Wri/Dir: Evan Rissi
It’s the late 1980s in Toronto. Leslie Booth (Evan Rissi) is a young lecturer who waxes eloquent about Hegelian dialectics to bored college students. He doesn’t smoke, drink or cuss and stays away from drugs. He even goes to bed early if his on-again, off-again girlfriend isn’t spending the night. But everything changes when a strange man, all dressed in black, starts showing up everywhere he goes. Reuben (Ira Goldman) is a Jamaican-Canadian who wears a huge Star of David around his neck. He used to be Leslie’s best friend, going out on the town every night, but haven’t seen each other for five years. And Leslie has been on the straight and narrow ever since.
But Reuben needs his help, and is calling in a favour. His brother has disappeared, and he suspects it’s the work of a Toronto drug kingpin named Feng (Victor D.S. Man). Feng has cornered the market on a highly-addictive pill hitting the streets known as Pearl. Users love the experience, but addicts end up looking like zombies with solid white eyes. Reuben wants to penetrate this Triad and save his brother’s life, but the only way to do it is to get hold of a pair of tickets to Feng’s annual tournament. So Leslie joins with Reuben 
and finds himself falling into old habits, snorting coke and frequenting sleazy bars to get more information. But the closer they get to their target the more dangerous it all looks. What is that tournament about? And can they rescue Reuben’s and get out unscathed?
Going In is a Toronto action/comedy movie set in — and in the style of — the 1980s. It’s also a buddy movie with a black guy and a white guy, like Lethal Weapon, Beverley Hills Cop or Silver Streak. But unlike those Hollywood hits, Going In is a micro- budget movie — we’re talking tens of thousands not hundreds of millions — with unknown actors and minimal special effects. Evan Rissi 
wrote, directed and stars as Leslie, while Ira Goldman who plays Reuben also produced it. And Victor D.S. Man as the villain looks like he walked straight out of an old Hong Kong flick.
Surprisingly, this movie works. It’s clearly low-budget but it doesn’t seem slapdash. While it plays into a lot of film conventions and stereotypes, there are some very original scenes that I’ve never seen before — like the tournament they’re trying so hard to get into (no spoilers) It also has a good soundtrack, a b-ball match, some fight scenes and even a psychedelic out-of-body experience. And it’s not afraid to have the CN Tower constantly popping up in the background, to remind us that it’s Toronto, not NY, Detroit, Boston, Phillie or any of the other cities Toronto usually pretends to be in movies shot here. Keep in mind that this is a DIY movie, not from a big studio, and you might get a kick out of it.
Poor Things
Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) is a medical student in Victorian England. He regularly attends surgical demonstrations by Dr Godwin Baxter (an unrecognizable Willem Dafoe) a controversial scientist with outrageous ideas. Baxter’s face is grotesque, like something that was cut into pieces and sewn back together. But the doctor takes a liking to shy Max, and hires him to live in his home and look after his daughter Bella (Emma Stone). Bella is a beautiful woman in her late 20s, but who behaves like a recently-hatched duckling just learning to walk. She has a vocabulary of just six words, and is given to stabbing, tearing or biting anything put in front of her. But with Max’s help, she quickly learns to speak and think, and is full of questions about the world. She is not allowed out of her home — it’s too dangerous, they say. You see, Bella is an adult woman with a baby’s brain implanted in her skull, one of the mad scientist’s latest experiments. As she matures, she and Max fall in love and plan their wedding — though still in a strictly patriarchal relationship (she refers to her father/creator Godwin Baxter as God for short.) But before they can marry, a scoundrel named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) shows up on the scene. He sweeps Bella off her feet with the introduction of something new into her vocabulary — sexual pleasure — which she greatly enjoys. He 
promises endless sexual satisfaction and rollicking new adventures if she follows him on his trip. Bella realizes Duncan is a cad and a rake but agrees to go with him anyway, postponing her marriage to Max indefinitely or at least until after she sees the world.
She sets off on this journey with Duncan aboard an ocean liner docking in various ports which she naively explores and learns from what she sees. She’s the ultimate fish out pf water, a novelty to all she meets, because she speaks so frankly and forthrightly. Bella has yet to learn basic societal rules about class, money, capitalism, sex, nudity and modesty. She explores this strange world scientifically and logically, much to Duncan’s dismay. Who is she really and where did she come from? Is sex a market commodity or something more personal? Will her naivety lead to disaster? Or will she return, 
triumphant, to London with her innocence intact?
Poor Things is a brilliant social satire about sex, class, feminism, and society. It incorporates elements of 18th century novels like Fanny Hill, Tom Jones and Candide. It’s surreal, absurdist and psychedelic, but ultimately comes across as a fable or a morality play. It’s all filmed on an elaborate set (shot in Hungary), in a weird, steampunk Europe that never existed beneath a sky filled with blimps and zeppelins. (It looks like Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil.) The costumes are outrageous — Bella has enormous shoulder pads bigger than her head. Emma Stone is amazing as Bella, though Mark Ruffalo overdoes it as Duncan — teetering between funny and ridiculous.
I’ve been following Yorgos Lanthimos’s films since Dogtooth in 2009, and this one revisits many of his earliest themes: absurdist humour; adults who speak awkwardly like small children, and who grow up isolated, never 
allowed to leave their home, by a dictatorial, god-like father figure. It feels like Dogtooth Part Two: The Outside World. But now he commands a big enough budget to build ornate sets, costumes and wigs, with dozens of fascinating characters. I’m sure some of you will hate this movie, or be offended by it, but I think it’s absolutely brilliant.
Poor Things opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Going In is available digitally online across North America, from December 19th.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.
Same-sex couples. Films reviewed: Unicorns, Solo, Rotting in the Sun
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in October with ImagineNative — brilliant films and art by and about indigenous people in Canada and around the world from 17-22; and Planet in Focus, the International Environmental film festival, with features, docs and talks on nature, activism, and climate change, from the 12-22.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies about same-sex relationships, two of which played at #TIFF23. There’s a straight mechanic who unwittingly falls for a drag queen in a London pub; a Quebecois drag queen who falls for a French one in a Montreal bar; and a Chilean artist who meets an American influencer on a nude beach in Mexico.
Unicorns
Co-Dir: Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd
Luke (Ben Hardy) is a mechanic who lives in Essex, near London. He works at his father’s garage, and spends the rest of his time with his 5 year old son. His wife abandoned them when his kid was still a baby, but luckily his dad will babysit if he’s out on a date. For Luke dating usually means furtive sex and one-night stands with women he hooks with online. But one day, after leaving a London curry house, he stumbles into a nearby nightclub, and is riveted by the eyes of a beautiful woman performing an alluring dance on stage. Clearly, the feelings are mutual — Aysha seeks him out afterwards, for a snog and a grope at the stage door. Only afterwards does Luke realize the woman is actually a man in drag. He freaks and leaves. Aysha (Jason Patel) is disappointed — he thought Luke knew they were in a South Asian drag bar. But Luke is straight and almost sickened by what happened.
Still, there is something there. Luke agrees to act as a paid driver (and unpaid bodyguard) for Aysha and her fellow drag queens. They need transportation to get them safely to private “gaysian” (gay+asian) parties on the down low, in places like Manchester. 
The tips she gets at these parties pays her rent. Gradually, they get to know one another better. When Aysha really hits it off with his son, Luke starts thinking maybe she is just the woman he’s looking for. Problem is, he’s not trans, he’s a man named Afik. Aysha is just his drag name. Will the attraction still be there if Aysha goes away? And can a straight white man and a gay South Asian drag queen form a couple?
Unicorns is a poignant, romantic drama about two people from two sides of a deep divide. And while there is some shocking violence and unexpected plot turns, the filmmakers keep it real and subtle. This is co-director James Krishna Floyd’s (of mixed heritage) first feature, and does an excellent job of it. Ben Hardy is a well-known heart throb and soap star in the UK, while Jason Patel is a newcomer — this is his first role. Luckily, the two have amazing chemistry and are compelling to watch.
This is a good first movie.
Solo
Wri/Dir: Sophie Dupuis
Simon (Theodore Pellerin) is the youngest drag artist at a Montreal bar. He’s naive, trusting and sexually inexperienced. He performs elaborate acts dressed in outfits his older sister helps design. And he always looks forward to visiting his Dad, stepmother and sister for Sunday brunch. His mother is an internationally famous opera star, who left the family for greener pastures when he was a teen. But everything changes when Olivier (Félix Maritaud) a charismatic older guy in his late twenties shows up at the drag bar direct from Paris. Simon is blown away by his sex-centred drag performances, and wants to learn from him. Soon they are an item, in and out of bed, and onstage. Simon will do 
anything Olivier wants: moving in together, staying away from his family, even how Simon should perform his own acts.
But the concessions all seem to be one-way. Olivier sleeps with other men, insults Simon’s judgement, and plays mental tricks on him. Around this time, Simon hears some shocking news: his mother is coming to Montreal, back from a triumphant tour off Europe. He hasn’t seen her in years, so this will be the crucial reunion Simon has been longing for and waiting for for so long. How will their meeting go? What role will Olivier play? And will she come to watch his Solo drag performance?
Solo is a moving and tender portrayal — set within Montreal’s drag community — of a young man forced to face his demons and figure out who are his friends and who are his enemies. I know very little about the drag scene (I’ve never seen Rupaul’s Drag Race, for example) but it doesn’t require outside knowledge to understand what the movie’s trying to say. Theodore Pellerin is amazing as Simon, and — though much less sympathetic — so is Félix Maritaud. And for a movie about drag it’s surprisingly devoid of camp. If you’re looking for a tear-jerker with lots of musical performances, you’ll enjoy Solo.
Rotting in the Sun
Dir: Sebastian Silva
Sebastian Silva (Sebastian Silva) is a jaded Chilean artist and filmmaker who lives in an apartment in Mexico. He enjoys reading books about suicide and depression. When he’s not dodging work deadlines or dealing with construction noise in his minimalist apartment, he’s likely walking his dog Chima, doing pop art paintings of giant cartoony penises, or snorting bumps of pentobarbital. His beleaguered housekeeper Señora Vero (Catalina Saavedra, in a great performance) takes it all in, but never comments.
On the recommendation of a colleague he takes some time off to relax at a gay nude beach in Zicatela, but is non-plussed by all the body parts on display. When he almost drowns there, he meets Jordan Firstman (Jordan Firstman) an instagram influencer. Jordan thinks it’s Kismet — he saw one of Sebastian’s films just the night before, and here they both are washing up on shore. They must collaborate on a production. Sebastian is less 
enthusiastic, but Jordan insists. But when he arrives at Sebastian’s door in the city, he is nowhere to be seen. Is he ghosting him? Or has something really bad happened to Sebastian? And will Jordan ever solve this mystery?
Rotting in the Sun is a contemporary indie film in the style of a highly-sexualized comedy. It’s equal parts mystery, screwball comedy, and scathing social satire, with a fair amount of 
nonchalant, explicit sex. Silva reimagines Mexico as an uber-gay paradise, where the local park fountain has a statue of Michelangelo’s David, the beaches are packed with nude men, and every room in his apartment reveals an orgy behind closed doors. This constant decadence is contrasted with the panicky and naive Señora Vero desperately trying to hide Sebastian’s whereabouts. Silva and Firstman play exaggerated versions of themselves, to hilarious effect.
You know the expression “a bag of dicks”? This movie is a dump truck of dicks. But if you don’t mind looking at lots and lots and lots of penises, you’ll get a kick out of this shockingly subversive comedy.
Unicorns had its world premiere at TIFF; Solo had its Toronto premiere there and opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Rotting in the Sun — along with a selection of other films by Sebastian Silva — is now streaming on Mubi.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
#TIFF23! Capsule reviews: The Nature of Love, Anatomy of a Fall, Dumb Money PLUS Aggro Dr1ft, Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World, The New Boy, A Boy and the Heron
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Have you been down to King st between Spadina and University lately? If not, get down there now, because, for the weekend it’s been transformed into Festival Street. The festival, of course, is TIFF, showing world premieres of some of the best movies out there. But there are also free screens, showing classics like Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige (who I interviewed on this show a while back), free outdoor concerts — including Nickelback, the band everyone loves to hate — and loads of celebrities and their fans, scrambling to see them up close. There’s also yummy food and drink samples for free, various red carpets, lots of booths and games and places to pose, with sponsors including the countries of Spain and Korea, promoting their burgeoning film industries. Everything is taking place around King St W, and in the nearby David Pecaut square.
So this week I’m going to talk about movies at TIFF: movies that I haven’t seen yet, but really want to see; and some movies I know more about, but promised to keep my capsule reviews short and sweet.
TIFF Movies I’m looking forward to
Here are a few movies which I haven’t seen yet but am very much looking forward to seeing.
Aggro Dr1ft is a movie I know very little about, except that it was entirely filmed using infrared light. Harmony Korine is one of the most brilliant experimental filmmakers out there, and I’ll watch anything he does. I’m especially pleased to hear of massive walkouts at the Venice Festival screening — all the more reason to watch it in Toronto.
Another one I can’t wait to see — and which probably won’t make it to commercial theatres anytime soon — is Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World, by Romanian director Radu Jude. If it’s as absurd and outrageous as his last one — Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn — I’m hopping to be as confused, shocked and surprised by this one.
I’m also looking forward to The New Boy about an indigenous kid
in Australia who walks into a remote monastery to perform miracles. The director, Warwick Thornton, brought us the great Sweet Country in 2017, so eager to see what he’s up to next.
There are other categories too. Don’t miss out on some of the excellent documentaries at TIFF. There’s Silver Dollar Road about a black family in North Carolina fighting a land developer, from French director Raoul Peck; The Pigeon Tunnel by Errol Morris looks really good: it’s about the spy and
spy novelist John Le Carre; and on the lighter side, a doc about a camp for trans and non-binary kids in Alberta! It’s called Summer Qamp and it’s directed by Jen Markowitz.
Finally, although I never review short films — never enough space — there are some fantastic programs 
set up for the festival. I’ve only seen one so far, Casey Lum’s Bloom (about one woman’s strange relationship with a potted plant) but I’m sure there are lots more fascinating films where that one came from.
And, finally, can’t wait to see A Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s latest — and possibly last — animated film. He did Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and so many others, and I’m sure this one will live up to Ghibli Studios very high standards.
Now, here are some capsule reviews of movies opening at TIFF:
The Nature of Love aka Simple Comme Sylvain, is Montreal’s Monia Chokri latest, about Sophia, a happily-married university prof (Magalie Lépine Blondeau) whose life changes when she meets Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) a small-town contractor they hired to repair their cottage. She falls for him, hook, line and sinker… and he seems to feel it, too. Can this be love? Or is the life of a sophisticated Montrealer just too different from a skidoo-riding handyman? The Nature of Love is a wonderfully campy and touching sex comedy from Chokri.
Anatomy of a Fall
Dir: Justine Triet
Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is a renowned German novelist who lives with her husband in the French Alps. But when their blind son finds his Dad lying dead in the snow just outside of their chalet, no one knows whether he fell, jumped out a window, or was pushed. The Anatomy of a Fall, is a gripping courtroom drama about Sandra’s trial for a murder that might not have actually happened. This won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and I can see why.
Dumb Money
Dir: Craig Gillespie
Keith Gill aka Roaring Bunny (Paul Dano) is a small town dad who talks about and posts his stock market each night online, to an ever increasing audience. But things really take off when he tries to stop short-sellers on Wall Street from driving a shopping mall chain Game Stop out of business. And when tens of thousands of regular people join him to drive up its undervalued stock, Wall Street fights back… but can ordinary folk ever beat the bigwigs? Dumb Money is a very enjoyable comedy based on events that happened just a couple years ago.
The Nature of Love, Anatomy of a Fall, and Dumb Money — and many more — are playing at TIFF this week, and opening theatrically later this year.
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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