Dark movies. Films reviewed: Night Swim, The Zone of Interest, All of us Strangers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With winter comes grey skies and cold winds that can chill you to the bone. So this week I’m looking at three new movies with a dark theme. There’s an evil swimming pool, a Nazi Commandant, and a man visiting his parents… who died decades earlier.
Night Swim
Co-Wri/Dir: Bryce McGuire
Ray and Eve Waller (Wyatt Hawn Russell, Kerry Condon) are moving into a new home in suburban Minneapolis-St Paul. Their two kids, Izzie and Eliot, are less than pleased to be moving again. Izzie (Amélie Hoeferle) is popular and athletic, so she’ll have no trouble making new friends, but her little brother Eliot (Gavin Warren) is shy and withdrawn. But they are all happy their new home has a huge, built-in swimming pool, whose water comes directly from an underground hot spring. Ray used to be a pro baseball player but was forced to retire because he has Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. He hopes exercise and physio will help him recover and return to pro ball, though his doctor thinks that’s unlikely. Until Ray starts to improve — with a great gain in strength and stamina — which Rayattributes to the waters in their pool. But all is not well in swimming pool-land. There’s something strange in those waters. Apparently, a little girl drowned there 30 years earlier. Next, Eliot’s cat disappers. And now everyone in the family is seeing creatures — and hearing voices! — when they spend too much time underwater. What is going on? Is this pool haunted? Do its waters hold magical powers? And can it be trusted around Izzie and Eliot?
Nightswim is a thriller/horror where the unlikely villain is a swimming pool. While the title “night swim” hints at skinny dipping (or other vaguely erotic plot devices) this film is strictly P.G. No sex, no nudity, just all around spookiness. Even Izzie’s crush is on a squeaky clean Christian swim club member. It’s all about families and little league. But is it scary? Maybe a little. There are some disturbing and violent scenes, but for the most 
Night Swim is not bad, but it’s not very scary, either.
The Zone of Interest
Dir: Jonathan Glazer
It’s the 1940s in Poland. Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel) is a careerist member of the Nazi SS who is doing very well for himself. He lives a comfortable, middle class life in a nice suburban home with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and his daughter and two sons. There are attentive staff to serve their every need, along with all the luxuries of modern living. Rudolf is later transferred to an office job in Germany, but his family stays behind to enjoy their cherished home. He eventually is transferred back again and they continue to live their wonderful lives. Except there’s a twist. His job is Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death camp where 1.1 million people were being murdered.
But except for a few small hints of what’s going on inside the camp, it’s pretty easy for the Höss family to ignore all of that. The subtle hints include women fighting over newly-arrived stolen clothes; Rudolf having clandestine sex with a female prisoner; and human body parts floating past Rudolf and the kids while they bathe in the river. In one poignant scene the daughter plays a piano piece she found scrawled on a piece of paper by one of the prisoners. She leaves apples tucked into shrubbery by the wall in the hope of helping the music’s composer. But it all ends up with him and other prisoners killed because of what she did. And that scene is filmed using a green, night-vision camera, presumably from the point of view of the guards.
Zone of Interest is a drama about the lifestyles of the SS during the
Holocaust. It’s loosely based on a novel by Martin Amis, and wholly embraces Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” — that the men who carried out mass murder were just boring, ordinary bureaucrats. But it’s really about the supposition that everyone already knows everything there is to know about the Nazi death camps, so why not make a Holocaust movie all about the Nazis, instead. And Glazer (review: Under the Skin) does that very well. He’s an innovative and fascinating filmmaker. But let me ask you this: do you really want to spend one hour and 45 minutes watching a boring but creepy Nazi family living their mundane daily lives just outside of Auschwitz?
I sure don’t.
All of Us Strangers
Wri/Dir: Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete, 45 Years)
Adam (Andrew Scott) is a guy in his forties who lives on the 27th floor of a new condo in London. He’s working on a screenplay. Adam is gentle quiet and a bit depressed. One night, when a fire alarm goes off, he has to step out of the building, and he realizes he’s the only one in the tower, except a man he sees in a window. Later, Harry (Paul Mescal) the guy he saw, shows up at his door. He’s a real charmer in his 20s, and talks his way inside. They chat, flirt, and eventually end up in bed together.
But aside from Harry and the script he’s writing, there’s something else on Adam’s mind. One day he spontaneously hops on a train out to the London suburb where he grew up. He walks to his childhood home and thinks he sees a boy in his old bedroom window. So he knocks on the door. And to his surprise, it’s his Mum and Dad (Claire Foy, Jamie Bell) still living in the same house. Except “living” isn’t quite right; they both died in an accident in the 1980s when he was twelve, 
leaving his as an orphan. But here they are, the same age as they were then, now younger than Adam is now, but still his parents. They don’t know how long they’ll still be there but they want to make use of this time. Could he take Harry to meet them? How will they react if he tells them he’s gay? Or is this just a fleeting dream?
All of us Strangers is a lovely fantasy drama about isolation and alienation vs family, companionship and love. It’s languidly paced and elegantly presented, though with a surprising end. It’s full of wide, panoramic sunsets, open fields, and empty parks. I’ve never thought of London this way, but in All of us Strangers, this city is nearly empty and 
full of natural beauty, seen through the window of his high-rise condo. From the excellent tiny cast — Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jane Bell — to the exquisite cinematography, this is a well-crafted film that manages to be —simultaneously — eerie, dreamlike and romantic.
I like this one.
The Zone of Interest is now playing, with Night Swim and All of us Strangers both 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.
Famous men. Films reviewed: Anselm, Ferrari, The Iron Claw
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The end of the year is coming up, so it’s a good time to reflect on what we’ve done over the past year — or even longer. It’s also useful to look at what famous people did, and whether you would have made the same mistakes — and accomplishments — that they did. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies — two biopics and a documentary — about famous men from very different backgrounds. There’s a family of pro wrestlers who carry a curse; an Italian industrialist who buries a family secret; and a German painter who digs up unpleasant things from his country’s past.
Anselm
Dir: Wim Wenders
Anselm Kiefer is an artist born into a bombed-out Germany just as WWII was ending. His paintings reflect this, using living, natural media, like wood, grass, leaves, ash and liquified metals. He creates much of his work in isolated factories and warehouses in places like Odenwald, a forest in Germany. He uses the spaces both as a studios and as a source of materials for his work. He resurrects controversial themes once co-opted by the Nazis — like Germanic heroes, nordic gods and Wagnerian winged valkyries— in order to confront a part of his country’s history most of his colleagues were trying to ignore. Especially controversial are a series of photos of himself posing in a Heil Hitler salute in cities across Europe. In fact, though, much of his work focuses on Germany’s history, specifically the Holocaust, featuring quotes from poet Paul Celan. Other paintings show blackened sunflowers beneath cold grey skies, or haunting rows of white sticks. Quite unnerving.
Anselm is a documentary by Wim Wenders that shows him at 
work making his art. It’s filmed in a format more often used in superhero movies. I’m talking 3-D here — very unusual for an art film. And, along with the big screen, it gives you a sense of the grandeur of his paintings, which you just don’t get looking at them on your phone or computer screen. They are huge. He creates his work using enormous blowtorches attached to rubber hoses, bulldozers, forklifts and cast iron vats of liquid metals. He works in buildings so big you’d expect them to be smelting steel or building airplanes not painting canvases. There are also some very cool techniques that only seem accessible in the form of film. For example he uses slide and video projections of his work superimposed on an outdoor cloth screen stretched between trees in a forest beneath a dark, starry sky. It also uses actors — played by his and Wim Wenders own family members — to reenact Keifer’s history and the inspirations of many of his themes, including self-portraits of him lying on his back looking at the sky.
To be honest, I had heard of Kiefer and probably seen a painting or two, but knew little about him before this doc. Embarrassingly I even confused his work with that of Gerhard Richter (who also paints large canvases, at times semi-abstract, with references to Germany’s past, as in this fictionalized story of his life). Not any more. Kiefer is as dark and foreboding as Richter is bright and colourful. Now I can say I know a lot about Anselm Kiefer and his art. Is he my favourite artist? No, not by a long shot, but the doc makes his work more interesting and accessible, and now I’d like to see more of it in person. So if you’re into contemporary European art, or a fan of Wim Wenders, you should see Anselm.
Ferrari
Dir: Michael Mann
Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is an automobile industrialist with a passion for race cars in Modena, Italy in the 1950s. It’s a typical morning: he kisses his wife Lina (Shailene Woodley) and says goodbye to his son as he drives away from their isolated villa into town. He has a meeting planned with a new racing car driver for the company’s team. Less typical is the reception he gets when he arrives at his city home and a woman pulls out a gun and shoots him. Laura Ferrari (Penélope Cruz) — is his actual wife! Luckily the bullet misses, but their relationship is clearly not doing well. Their son died and the business is on the rocks. She controls half of Ferrari — they founded the company together with Enzo doing the engineering and Laura handling the business side.
Ferrari makes their money by selling hand-made sportscars to
very rich people around the world. And to keep their reputation, they also race. If Ferrari’s team wins, the company’s value goes up and more people buy their cars. But they’re also Enzo’s passion. And though Modena may be a small city, it’s where Italian race cars are made — Not just Ferrari but Maserati, De Tomaso, Lamborghini — they’re all built in or around there. Can Ferrari win the upcoming race? Can the company survive on its own or will they be taken over by a bigger, foreign corporation? Will Enzo ever admit he has a lover and a son? And will his relationship with Laura ever turn back to normal?
Ferrari is a biopic about the founder of the famed Italian car company, his family and his racing cars. It has some nice locations and authentic looking costumes and sets. Other than that I can’t think of many good things to say about it. This movie is a real clunker. It’s a corny, melodramatic story filled with stiff dialogue and acting or the occasional overacting by people like Penelope Cruz. The non-italian actors all speak 
with terrible fake accents. It’s directed by Michael Mann, the notorious 80s TV director who brought us shows like Miami Vice — never known their deep emotions.
And what’s with Adam Driver? Does he think putting on a suit and hat is enough to turn you into an Italian CEO? He made House of Gucci just two years ago and now he’s Ferrari. While Gucci was total kitsch, at least it was memorable and (unintentionally) funny. But this one is just a bore.
The Iron Claw
Wri/Dir: Sean Durkin
It’s the late 1970s in Denton, Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth.
The von Erich family is known for its athletic prowess in the world of pro-wrestling for two generations. Their Dad, Fritz, runs the Dallas Sportatorium. He and his wife Doris have four sons, all very close: Kevin (Zac Efron) is following his dad into the world of pro wresting, and adopting his signature move — the Iron Claw of the title. He’s a heavyweight wrestler, big and vascular, and wants to win the coveted heavyweight belt. But he’s shy and tongue-tied whether inside or out of the ring. Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) is on the US Track & Field Olympic team in training for the upcoming games in Moscow. David (Harris Dickinson) is a pro wrestler, too, tag-teaming alongside his brother. He’s not a heavyweight like Kev, but he’s agile, bright, and great at trash talking to the crowds. And Mike (Stanley Simons) the youngest one, is staying away from wrestling altogether, turning instead to music — he’s the lead singer in a band.
Their lives are lived under the close watch and heavy hand of
This image released by A24 shows Zac Efron, right, in a scene from “The Iron Claw.” (Brian Roedel/A24 via AP)
their father, a hard-ass manager and coach. Winning is everything. Their mom won’t get involved in family disputes — it’s for the boys to work it out. But Fritz is relentless, forcing his sons to do things they don’t really want to do. It’s a rough and hostile world. And hanging over everyone is the von Erich curse. This is because their oldest brother died in a terrible accident when he was just a boy. Kevin finally meets a woman, Pam (Lily James) and the family continues to be close as they pursue their futures as a team. But a dark cloud seems to be holding them all back. Can the brothers survive the harsh world of pro wrestling and the toxic atmosphere created by their father? Or will they succumb to the von Erich curse?
The Iron Claw is a great drama based on the lives of the actual von Erich family. It’s tense, exciting, and emotionally draining. The wrestling scenes are shot in extreme close-up, bringing you right into the ring. Zac Efron (The Greatest Beer Run Ever, At Any Price, Baywatch) plays it strong and dumb, looking like he’s OD-ed on steroids and botox. Jeremy Allen White (he’s the star of the TV show The Bear) is intense and angry. Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper) plays a tragicomic character, and newcomer Stanley Simons is a naive innocent kid, totally unsuited for the ring. This is an honest look at the good and bad side of the sport and what a famous wrestling family went through. (Surprised it’s not about the Hart family, but that would be a different movie.)
I went into this film expecting a cheesy biopic, but it had me bawling in my seat by the end. The Iron Claw is a terrific tear-jerker.
Anselm is opening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this weekend, with The Iron Claw and Ferrari also playing 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.
Based on true stories? Films reviewed: Next Goal Wins! May/December
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Do you have hankering for some good European movies? Well, you can see two movies a night — from Cyprus to Finland, from Bulgaria to Ireland — at the European Union Film Festival, on right now through Nov 30th. The films are showing at the Alliance Francaise where you can buy delicious treats and drinks in the lounge. Best of all, all the movies are free, first come, first served. It’s a small theatre, but line up an hour in advance and you should be good. Go to euffto.com for details.
This week, I’m looking at two new movies. There’s a Hollywood film inspired by an intergenerational love affair, and an uninspired soccer team near the international dateline.
Next Goal Wins!
Dir: Taika Waititi
Thomas (Michael Fassbender) is a professional soccer coach, but one with a bad temper. He’s in the doghouse with his ex-wife Gail and hasn’t seen their daughter in a long time. When he acts out and loses his job, he ends up far, far away — American Samoa, to be precise. He’s there to coach their FIFA World Cup team who played a record-breaking game against Australia. Record breaking in that they lost 31 to zero, making them possibly the worst national soccer team ever. It’s his job to pull the team back together well enough, not that they can become world champions, rather so that they can score a single goal. First problem is he, he’s arrogant and frustrated — he doesn’t want to be there in the first place. He also knows nothing about 
Samoan culture, so it’s hard to get the team back together again. Third, all the players are quirky in their own way. Can Thomas build back team spirit? Or is that one goal just a pipe dream?
Next Goal Wins is an extremely light, not-terribly-original sports comedy. The characters themselves are interesting and well-played, embodying Polynesian culture. The team does a sa’asa’a dance (similar to a Maori kata). And the roles are cast with local players, plus indigenous actors from New Zealand, Australia and Polynesia. Jaiyah (Kaimana) the star player on 
the team is a fa’afafine — someone of a third gender. There’s also a reluctant goalie, a local multi-talented newscaster, and a host of others. Very cute. Problem is this film is so light you could blow it out of the room if you sneeze. There are a lot of chuckles, but the plot is strictly paint-by-numbers — I’ve seen it so many times already. This is Taika Waititi who brought us Jojo Rabbit and Boy, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. This one just doesn’t live up to that. Yeah, Next Goal Wins is entertaining, but in a very shallow way.
May / December
Wri/Dir: Todd Haynes (Wonderstruck, The Velvet Underground)
Savannah, Georgia, 2011. Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is a famous movie star preparing for her next role. Its a biopic based on a true story. She’s a method actor so wants to get to know, intimately, all the real-life players in her story. At the top of the list? Gracie (Julianne Moore) and her husband Joe (Charles Melton). They’ve been married for decades, are still deeply in love. Joe is a radiologist and Gracie arranges flowers. And for the first time in a generation, they will soon be empty-nesters with the twins, Charlie and Marie, about to graduate from high school and head off to college.
So why are they making a biopic about this ordinary, even mundane, family? Gracie is 20+ years older than Joe. When they met she was in her 30s married with children… and he was still a very young teenager. They worked together in a local pet shop, had a sexual relationship, were caught in flagrante delicto in the storage room, and in came the tabloids. Gracie goes to prison, pregnant with his child. They later marry and raise a family… but their story is still a hot 
button topic, with strangers, even now, sending obscene or abusive packages in the mail. The question remains: Were they a naive couple madly in love? Or was Joe a victim, exploited by a much older woman? And will Elizabeth (the actress) tell their story the way they want it told, or the way she wants to tell it?
May / December is an amazing melodrama told in the style of the so-called “women’s films” of old Hollywood, from the 1920s-60s. The fantastic performances in this movie harken back to Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in their prime. Julianne Moore plays Gracie as an incredibly naive — and insecure — believer in true love… but the character is so multifaceted that by the end you question the whole concept as either a self-delusion or possibly a diabolical plot. And Natalie Portman’s Elizabeth who at first seems to be a genuinely caring person, is gradually revealed as (possibly) the 
stereotypical Hollywood actor: mercenary and self-centred unafraid to rundown any innocent bystanders blocking her way. The men, like Joe, are mainly inarticulate lunks.
Todd Haynes deftly incorporates a gay camp sensibility into the film giving it a slightly surreal and often funny air. The soundtrack is adapted from Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between (1971), a story of forbidden love. But in May/ December, to the sound of dark, gushing melodramatic music, we get Gracie opening the fridge door saying: “I don’t think we have enough hotdogs!” (for a BBQ). A movie like this can easily fall into ridiculousness, but May/December gets it exactly right. This a powerful — and uncomfortable — movie.
I recommend it.
May/December is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Next Goal Wins opens 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.
Sharks! Films reviewed: NYAD, Dicks: the Musical
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto Fall Film Festival season continues with three festivals on this weekend: ImagineNative, showing indigenous films from around the world, including an art crawl! Toronto After Dark, with action, horror and fantasy and a devoted audience of fans like you’ve never seen; and Planet in Focus showing some great ecological documentaries, including world premiers.
But this week I’m talking about two more movies that played at TIFF and are now opening theatrically in Toronto this weekend. There’s a long-distance swimmer battling sharks, and two Wall Street sharks searching for their hidden history.
NYAD
Dir: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Diana Nyad (Annette Benning) is a long-distance swimmer, at the top of her game. A competitive swimmer since she was a teen, she broke world records for marathon swimming, starting in 1970. She swims in Naples, Lake Ontario, the English Channel, and other challenges around the world. But her biggest dream is to do something no one has ever done before: swimming from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. But those are shark infested waters, so they build a special metal shark tank to save her from being eaten. Sadly, the swim proves to be a washout, and after that failure, she gives up competitive 
swimming altogether, becoming a TV sportscaster instead.
Thirty years later, on her 60th birthday, she has an epiphany: looking at herself in the mirror she just sees a “bag of bones”. But with the encouragement of her best friend (and ex-lover) Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), she decides to give it one more try… but only if she agrees to be Diana’s coach. This time, they’re going to do it right. Bonnie finds a guy who knows how to scare away approaching sharks, and a captain who never speaks but knows how to handle a boat. Most important, she finds her a navigator (Rhys Ifans) who knows how to read the gulf stream and the weather to avoid swimming against the tide.
After extensive training they all go to Cuba to start the journey. Diana is armed with a playlist of hundreds of songs inside her head to keep swimming to the rhythm, and Bonnie has food and water to drop into her mouth all along the way 
(Diana is not allowed to board or even hold onto the boat for a short rest.) Can a woman in her sixties accomplish something no one in the world has done before? Or is it just a delusion?
Nyad is an inspirational biopic about the famous long-distance swimmer and her many tries at accomplishing a seemingly impossible goal. In general, I hate biopics, sports movies, and inspirational stories. But in this case, it totally works. I wanted to see it mainly because it’s directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, a husband-and-wife team of documentarians who specialize in movies about driven individuals trying to accomplish the dangerous and impossible. Like Free Solo, their Oscar-winning doc about a mountain climber who wants to scale a sheer cliff without nets or other safety measures. But this is their first try directing actors. Annette Benning plays Diana realistically, as a sometimes difficult, self-centred woman with a 60-year-old body without the usual Hollywood nips and tucks. Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans deliver reserved but supportive performances. And the underwater photography is brilliant, all the way through.
If you feel like giving up, watch Nyad for some reasons to keep on trying.
Dicks: The Musical
Dir: Larry Charles
It’s present-day Manhattan. Trevor (Aaron Jackson) and Craig (Josh Sharp) are dicks — in the sense they are selfish, insensitive and obnoxious. They both sleep with beautiful women on one nights stands and make big bucks in sales, due to their ruthless ambition — they’re Number One in their respective regions. They live next door to each other, but they’ve never actually met. Until Gloria, their hard-ass boss (Megan Thee Stallion), brings them together in a company-wide competition. It’s hate at first sight… until they make a startling discovery: they’re not just cut-throat rivals, they’re identical twins, separated at birth! They were each raised by one of their parents.
With their sudden ties, they put their careers on hold in favour of a new goal: to meet each other’s parents discover why they did it, and perhaps to bring them together again. Since this is a musical comedy, they switch places using wigs and
disguises. Turns out, both their parents are totally whack. Harris (Nathan Lane), their Dad, is gay and has no interest in remarrying a woman. Furthermore, he keeps a pair of tiny demons with pointy teeth in his apartment; he calls them the sewer boys, Backpack and Whisper. Evelyn (Megan Mullally) has been a recluse since her vagina fell out, and presumably ran away. Can the two dicks ever get their parents back together again?
Dicks: The Movie is a funny, very campy musical-comedy based on the play of the same name, written by the two stars. Each song is more ridiculous than the one before, featuring an amazing number with Megan Thee Stallion. And there’s a thread of absurdity running through the entire film. It simultaneously makes fun of musical comedy while totally embracing it. And it really is hilarious, like a Parent Trap without kids, or a Fringe comedy with a bigger budget. It’s 
directed by Larry Charles, best known for Seinfeld, Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm, so expect lots of ribald, in-your-face comedy. Bowen Yang narrates the story playing God as a gay man, while Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally are hilarious as the eccentric parents. But it’s mainly all about writers and stars Jackson and Sharp.
Never heard of them before, but I can’t wait for the next thing they do.
Dicks the Musical and Nyad 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.
Summer tentpoles. Films reviewed: The Deepest Breath, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A tentpole is a movie that, despite its extremely high budget, is expected to help a studio stay afloat so they can make lots of mid- or low-budget movies — the films I try to cover. But since a lot of these tentpoles are popping up this summer and inundating us with ads and publicity, I can’t completely ignore them. So this week, I’m looking at two of them — an action movie and an action/adventure — plus a sports doc.
The Deepest Breath
Wri/Dir: Laura McGann
Alessia Zecchini is an Italian woman whose dream — since she was a little girl — has always been to free dive. Freediving refers to an extreme sport usually done in natural settings. While there are many variations, it generally involves swimming straight down underwater as deep as you can go, and then turning around and swimming back up to the surface. The type Alessia competes in involves a weighted rope that she follows when swimming down and up. The deeper you go, the better your chance of winning a competition or breaking a world record. But countless people go deep-sea diving — what sets this type apart? Free diving is done without scuba gear; competitors hold their breath the entire time they’e underwater. (We’re talking two, three or four minutes or longer!) It’s considered an extreme sport because if you swim too deep you might black out and drown. So there are safety divers who accompany you, to mitigate the danger — they propel your body to the surface if you pass out. One such safety diver is Stephen Keenan, an Irishman known for his skills and dedication. The two become close in their repeated dives. But can they remain safe in such a dangerous sport?
The Deepest Breath is a sports documentary about Stephen, Allessia and other free divers both in and out of competition, as well as talking-head interviews with their friends and relatives. I was attracted to this documentary because I love underwater 
photography — the deep blues, the colourful fish, the coral reefs, whales and orca people might see as they explore the depths. And the photography is quite beautiful. But I hadn’t realized that most of the movie would just be people competing as they swim down and then up again. Free climbing — rock climbing without ropes or nets — is a highly skilled and very hazardous sport. (A great doc called Free Solo came out a few years ago). Free diving is not the equivalent. It’s just about who can hold their breath the longest as they swim up and down a rope, like a human yo-yo.
There are historical precedents, like women in Japan known as ama (海女) who used to swim topless in deep and rocky waters searching for pearls in oyster beds. But they did it as an occupation, not as a hobby. For the life of me, why do people risk their lives at something so pointless? I also found the movie manipulative: misleading audiences about implied relationships which may or may not have been real, while dropping false hints about the death of certain characters (no spoilers).
If you are a fan of (or a competitor in) free diving or other extreme sports, you’ll love this movie. Otherwise… maybe not.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1
Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a spy who carries out top secret assignments as part of the IMF — the Impossible Mission Team, known only to Kittridge, his boss (Henry Czerny) who works for the US government, and other members of the team. His mission? To rescue a special key from another agent, Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and bring it back. But this is no ordinary key. When interlocked with a second, one, this key can activate a lethal weapon so powerful it makes atomic bombs look like BB guns. The key was stolen from the Russians by an unknown entity, possibly an example of artificial intelligence gone rogue. Hunt liberates the key, but his plans are interrupted by a new player on the scene. Grace (Hayley Atwell) is a beautiful and glamorous thief, who can pick any pocket and open any lock. She’s working for Gabriel (Esai Morales), a mysterious and ruthless villain who represents The Entity — that unknown person, group or computer program seeking to rule the world. And her nimble fingers soon take possession of the key. It’s up to Hunt and his team to follow her through scenic spots in Europe and get back the key, before the Entity blows us all up. But who can he trust?
Mission: Impossible — Day of Reckoning is a light, fun movie with non-stop action. I find Mission: Impossible movies annoying for their ponderous plots and Tom Cruise-centric focus. This time, it’s funnier than usual, and also has many interesting characters: Ilsa, 
Grace, but also a deranged assassin named Paris (Pom Klementieff) and a diffident criminal broker known only as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). That’s right, this is an action movie with four fascinating female central characters! That’s rare. The stunts and special effects are really impressive, as is the scenery in Rome, Venice, and across the continent.
On the other hand, the dialogue in this movie is atrocious. I mean abysmally bad, in some scenes. A sequence set in the Pentagon may live on in history as some of the worst lines ever written. (Could it have been written by AI? No, it’s even worse than that.) It’s also Part One of a two-part series, so you’ll have to watch another one next year to tie up the loose ends.
But if you’re looking for pure summer entertainment, check this one out.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Dir: James Mangold
It’s 1944 in Nazi Germany. Indiana Jones (a de-aged Harrison Ford) is an archaeologist known for his bravery and derring-do. With his side-kick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), they’re hoping to find a priceless relic amongst countless crates of stolen loot. They are captured and tortured by their cruel adversaries, but manage to escape, along with part of an ancient Greek device invented by Archimedes— the Dial of Destiny. Flash forward 25 years to Manhattan in the late 1960s. Indie is now an over-the-hill college professor, whose get up and go has got up and went. His treasure-hunting days are over, his wife (Karen Allen) has left him and his students don’t care what he says. But everything changes when Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter, shows up unannounced. She grabs the dial and runs off with it to Morocco. She’s not the only one interested in this dial — government agents want it, too, and so does Dr Voller (Mads 
Mikkelsen) a former Nazi turned NASA rocket scientist who Indie and Basil encountered back in 1944. Indie reverts to his old personality, and complete with hat and whip, he flies off to Morocco. And after some jostling and negotiations, he joins Helena and her loyal street-urchin pal Teddy (Ethann Isidore) on a transcontinental journey to locate the other half of the dial. But who will get there first?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the latest, and possibly the last of the movie franchise. Considering Harrison Ford is 81 now, I think he carries it off pretty well. Does the movie work? Totally. It’s a family-oriented action/ adventure film. Maybe I like it for the 
nostalgia factor, which is the basis of the whole series — Spielberg and Lucas made Raiders of the Lost Arc in the 80s in an attempt to recapture the movies they grew up with. But it has enough twists and turns, secrets and surprises, to keep you interested, start to finish. Mads Mikkelsen plays a perfect villain, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is great, too. I actually really liked this one — it redeems the whole series.
One thing I don’t normally do is compare two movies, but I was struck by how similar this movie is to the latest Mission: Impossible. They both have chase scenes driving tiny cars pursued by gun-crazed drivers — a yellow Fiat 500 in Rome in Mission: Impossible, vs a Morrocan tuk-tuk in Indiana Jones. They both have half of a device with incredible power — a key and a dial — and are searching for the other half. They both have fight scenes on the roof of a fast-moving train passing in and out of tunnels. And 
there’s a clever pick-pocket — Grace in Mission, Teddy in Indie — who befuddles both the hero and the villains. And each of these tentpoles cost about $350 million each to make: That’s more than the budget of every feature made in Canada that year put together. Which is better? I liked them both, but I’d say Dial of Destiny is the better one.
Indiana Jones and thee Dial of Destiny is playing now, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and The Deepest Breath both open this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Bikes and books. Films reviewed: The Last Rider, Umberto Eco: A Library of the World
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s Summertime and Toronto is melting. Luckily there are lots of new movies playing at festivals, both indoors and out. The ICFF is showing great movies from Morocco to China at the distillery district throughout July. Art of Documentary Film Festival is on next Saturday, July 15th, at Innis Town Hall Theatre featuring a talk by Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson, the great Toronto directors who brought us Scarborough. And later this month keep an eye out for the Female Eye Film Fest featuring memorable movies and shorts directed by women.
But this week I’m looking at two new documentaries that stimulate the body and the mind. There’s an Italian film about books and American one about Bikes.
The Last Rider
Wri/Dir: Alex Holmes (Maiden)
It’s 1989. Greg LeMond is a champion professional cyclist who was the first American ever to win the Tour de France. He has trained since a teenager in Lake Tahoe, growing up with a gut-knowledge of their mountains and steep roads. He meets Cathy, his future wife, like in a movie, at a Holiday Inn. He is soon recruited as a member of the Renault team, moves to France for training, and becomes world famous. Cathy comes with him, dropping out of College.
But after winning the Tour, he falls into a deep depression, followed by a terrible accident: he is accidentally shot and almost killed on a turkey hunt with his family. This happens while Cathy is in labour, so Greg barely gets a chance to see their newborn for weeks. But after a few years of recovery, they decide he should try once again.. Not to win the Tour de France, but just to see if he can finish it (remember: competitive cycling, especially climbing up 
gruelling Alpen roads like in the Tour, requires absolute perfection in strength, skill and stamina— and Greg still has metal pellets riddling his body!)
But to everyone’s surprise, it becomes a three way race for Greg, Pedro Delgado and Laurent Fignon. Who will wear the yellow jersey?
The Last Rider is a biographical sports doc about that historical and exciting race in 1989. It’s 75% period video footage — the Tour de France is heavily photographed, start to finish — and 25% new taking-head interviews with LeMond, his family and many participants in that race. 1989 was before the dirty side of professional cycling — all the scandals, illegal drugs and supplements that became endemic in the sport — so there is a sense of innocence and pathos permeating this story. I am not a big fan of the sport — I barely follow it — but it was still an exciting watch.
Umberto Eco: A Library of the World
Dir: Davide Ferrario
Umberto Eco is a writer, novelist and semiotician from Piedmont, Italy. He writes books — including international bestselling novels like The Name the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum — and academic essays and treatises. He also accumulates and reads an astonishingly diverse number of books. And though he is an academic, he avoids ranking books by their moral or political value, ignoring the usual canons of good vs bad literature.
His shelves are filled with Charlie Brown bobble heads beside Voltaire, devoting equal space to fumetti — low-brow italian comics — and pulp fiction, as he does to obscure codices scribed by medieval monks. The more obscure the better. There are illuminated manuscripts of animals with human heads. And — unlike the current vogue of labelling works as misinformation, disinformation or “fake news” — Eco loves writers who churn out huge quantities of books of dubious credibility and provenance. Like the 17th-century German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who studied and wrote about practically everything, including travelogues of China (despite never having been there), and treatises on mathematics, music, medicine, the tower of Babel and Egyptian hieroglyphics. There’s always room for mysticism, conspiracy theories and apostate Cathars. Eco died in 2016 but left behind a stupendous collection of books, including his own 
Umberto Eco: A Library of the World is a fascinating, esoteric and aesthetically pleasing documentary about Eco and his writing, the books he read, and about libraries worldwide. Members of his family tell their stories and they and actors recite aloud some of Eco’s works, both profound and mundane. There are also 
If you like Umberto Eco’s work, this is a must-see; and if you’ve never heard of him watch this movie — you’ll learn learn a thing or two.
Umbertio Eco: A Library of the World starts next Friday at Hot Docs cinema, and The Last Rider which recently opened in Toronto is playing later this month at the Lavazza INCLUCITY FESTIVAL in the distillery district; 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.
“I” and “L”. Films reviewed: Every Body, Blue Jean
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Film Festival continues with ICFF, the Italian Contemporary Film Fest, once again showing movies out of doors in the Distillery District. The seats are huge and comfortable, complete with large puffy earphones, and there’s a great selection of movies to watch, starting Tuesday with Freaks Out, a fantasy about a circus in Rome in the midst of WWII. The festival continues through July 22.
But this weekend, there’s another big event in this city, the Pride Parade. So, in honour of that, I’m looking at two new movies, a drama and a doc, that fall into the alphabet soup of 2SLGBTQQI+, specifically in the L and the I categories, meaning Lesbian and Intersex. There’s a gym teacher facing trouble in Thatcher’s England, and three Americans coming out as Intersex.
Every Body
Dir: Julie Cohen (RBG)
What is meant by intersex? And why is it kept a secret? And what medical practices and procedures and popular beliefs should be challenged? Intersex refers to people who don’t fall neatly into our typical male/female definitions of sexual anatomy, reproduction and genetics. But it’s not just one thing, it’s many things; there are over 40 different types of people who fall under that definition. And until recently, it was relegated to the shadows and almost never mentioned in public. This is changing.
This new documentary looks at three intersex Americans and what they’re doing to give people like themselves a public face. Alicia Roth Weigel is a political consultant in Austin, Texas who rose to fame when she testified before state hearings on a so-called Bathroom Bill, intended to prevent trans people from using public washrooms that don’t match their “biological sex”. The thing is, although Alicia presents physically as a woman since birth, her chromosomes are XY — according to this bill she is “biologically” male, and thus should be barred from using 
women’s washrooms. River Gallo, a stage actor and screenwriter from New Jersey, was born without male gonads but brought up by their Salvadoran parents as a boy. And as a teenager doctors surgically implanted prosthetic testicles so they could feel more “male”. Now River presents as a woman but with a notably deep voice. They’re fighting to stop doctors from performing unnecessary cosmetic surgery on kids with atypical genitals. Sean Saifa Wall is a PhD student and intersex advocate originally from the Bronx who was raised as a girl. He was born with testicles inside his body, but doctors castrated him at puberty, saying they could lead to cancer. He ties his struggle for intersex rights with his equally intrinsic identity as a black man.
The documentary first follows all three subjects as they tell their stories, and then talks to them as a group. They are shown the notorious case of David Reimer. Born as a twin boy in Winnipeg, David’s penis was badly damaged in a botched hospital circumcision. Under the guidance of Dr John Money at Johns Hopkins University, he was raised as a girl. Money theorized any child’s gender is fluid until the age of two, and used him as a celebrated case study that proves his theory. But in fact, it didn’t work, and as a child he continued to strongly resist the gender and new name imposed on him, and upon reaching puberty he refused to go on female hormones. Though his case is now well-known in Canada — he made his story public as an adult — a generation of doctors were trained using his specific case as the basis of numerous medical decisions. Finally, the movie brings intersex people together as part of a movement, one that is little known but quickly growing.
Every Body is the first documentary I’ve seen that turns to intersex people for their information, rather than using them as objects to be examined or as research subjects. It shows you a group of people more common than you think — up to 1.7% of the population share intersex traits — and what should be done, politically, medically, and socially, to better recognize their rights.
Every Body has fascinating stories — a real eye-opener.
Blue Jean
Wri/Dir: Georgia Oakley
It’s 1988 in Newcastle, England. Jean (Rosy McEwen) is a Phys Ed teacher at a state school. She’s pretty and athletic with bleached blonde hair in a pixie cut. By day, she coaches the girls’ netball team. By night, she plays snooker at a lesbian bar. She loves spending time with her girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes), who is buxom and butch with a buzz cut. But what she doesn’t want is for the two sides of her life to overlap. Boundaries are crucial. Especially since Thatcher’s government is introducing harsh anti-gay laws; Section 28 would prohibit the “promotion of homosexuality”.
Though broadly sweeping in its scope, the new measures seem aimed particularly at state schools. So Jean keeps her private life completely private. Boundaries! Then there’s her family life to make things even more complicated. Jean is divorced and wants nothing to do with her ex-husband. But when her sister suddenly appears with her five-year-old nephew when their mom has a 
stroke, the privacy of her relationship with Viv is also called into question.
Meanwhile, there’s a new girl in her class. Lois (Lucy Halliday) is confident and outspoken with tousled brown hair. Jean likes her and encourages her to join the netball team. And Lois seems to have a bit of crush on her favourite gym teacher. But she has to deal with Siobhan a ginger rival on the team, who is loathe to lose her status as top player, and is prone to starting fights. As a teacher Jean knows how to defuse student problems — she does it on a daily basis. But everything starts to fall apart when she spots Lois playing snooker at her lesbian bar. If Lois comes out at school, and is somehow associated with Jean, her career would be finished. What is a woman to do?
Blue Jean is an intimate drama about the problems facing a young lesbian teacher in Thatcher’s repressive England. It’s moving and romantic with a rising tension permeating the story. Radio and TV reports in the background about Thatcher’s Section 28 along with period music, provide a constant thread that holds the narrative together. And her mundane work life is presented in opposition to the sex, music and spectacle of her nightlife. This may be writer/director Georgia Oakley’s first film, but she manages to bring together great acting and a compelling story without ever resorting to treacle.
I liked this one a lot.
Blue Jean is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Every Body opens on July 30th 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.
WAIT THREE SECONDS BEFORE TURNING OFF
Earnest movies. Films reviewed: Champions, Blueback, Nico
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movies are just for entertainment, while others have a message. This week, I’m looking at three new movies with an earnest theme, from the US, Australia and Germany. There’s a marine biologist who wants to save a coral reef, a basketball coach who wants to bring a team of disabled people to the championships, and a geriatric nurse who wants to learn how to defend herself… after a racist attack.
Champions
Wri/Dir: Bobby Farelly
Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is a professional basketball coach who has fallen on hard times. Now he’s an assistant coach for a third tier team in Iowa. He’s an arrogant know-it-all who doesn’t know when to shut up. He hooks up with women he meets online but they rarely stay the night. Things go from bad to worse when he’s fired from his team for losing his temper during a game. And then he gets in a car accident for driving while intoxicated.
But the judge shows some sympathy, and sentences him to community service… as a basketball coach. What’s the catch? Everyone on the team has a developmental or intellectual handicap. And they’re hoping to make it to Winnipeg for the regional championships. Problem is, they have no coach and team spirit is near zero. Marcus is equally clueless as to how to coach disabled people.
But gradually they start to get better, and bring back some of their star players. And when they need a bus to take the to away games, a 
woman named Alex (Kaitlin Olson), a Shakespearean actor, volunteers to take them in her costume van. The problem is she’s also one of Marcus’s past one night stands (the danger of living in a small city). They make up and start to get along, even as the team pulls together. But can they make it to Winnipeg? Will Marcus return to his selfish ways or is he a keeper? Is Alex ready to commit? And what are his plans once his three month sentence is up?
Champions is a heartfelt comedy about a down-and-out coach trying to accomplish the impossible. On the downside, it has a fairly predictable plot and Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson are likeable, but seem to coast through their roles. What’s great about this movie is the rest of the cast. The actors playing them have real-life disabilities (they were mainly cast in Winnipeg) including one player who has won a medal at the Special Olympics. They are also funny, wacky and good at what they do. And the characters they play have personalities, sex lives, jobs and families, which you rarely see in films. They’re not there as figures of fun; they’re sympathetic characters who happen to be funny. Thank God the days of Forrest Gump, Gilbert Grape, Nell, and Sling Blade are long gone. Keep in mind, the director previously brought us such gems as Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hal. So maybe Champions is Bobby Farrelly’s apology?
Blueback
Wri/Dir: Robert Connolly
A small fishing village in Western Asutralia. Abby (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist, who spends much of her time studying samples aboard her boat. Raised by a pearl diver and an activist, Abby grew up as a part of the sea. She has felt at home underwater ever since her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) taught her how to hold her breath and swim down to the ocean floor. (Her father drowned when she was still little.) On one of these underwater journeys, she encounters an enormous blue fish, bigger than she is. Initially frightened, she soon realizes he’s gentle and intelligent, and will eat from her hand. A western grouper (or groper as they say in Australia), can live for 70 years and rarely strays from its home. Soon they become fast friends — she spends time alone with him, just the two of them, in his hidden alcove within the coral reefs. She also begins to record what she sees, painting watercolours of the fish she encounters. And she names her special friend Blueback.
But all is not well. A rich developer is trying to buy up the land and tear down all the beachfront houses, including Abby and Dora’s. He’s also behind the dredging of the ocean floor, and allowing industrial fisheries and voracious spear hunters to kill endangered species. Is 
Blueback’s life at risk? Will their idyllic home soon be razed? And what will the future hold for Dora and for Abby?
Blueback is a gentle, slow-paced drama about a mother and daughter living in harmony within an aquatic ecosystem. The story is told through a series of flashbacks of Abby as a child and as a teen, living with her single mom. (Her memories come flooding back when she returns home after her elderly mother has a stroke). Dora leads many of the protests and demos in the village, chaining herself to tractors and petitioning the government save their bay. So there are two or three actors playing Dora, Abby as well as her best friend Briggs (Pedrea Jackson, Clarence Ryan). I approached this film with trepidation — oh god, do we really need another talking fish? Luckily, the fish here don’t talk, they just swim around looking pretty (or bulbous with beady eyes in the case of Blueback.) I wasn’t deeply moved by this film, but I liked Doras political protests. And the scenery — both underwater and on land — is gorgeous.
Nico
Co-Wri/Dir: Eline Gehring
Nico (Sara Fazilat) is a Berliner who works as a home-visit nurse for the elderly. She is zaftig, with curly hair and a warm smile. She enjoys going to parties and hanging out with her best friend Rosa (Javeh Asefdjah). She laughs a lot, but don’t get on her bad side — Nico will stand up to anyone who gets in her way. Until one day she is attacked by a group of people in an underpass. They pull her hair, punch her, kick her and hurl racist taunts. She wakes up in hospital in horrible pain with a black eye and bruises and bandages all over her face and body.
Worse than that, she is scared and withdrawn, suffering from PTSD flashbacks to her trauma. To try to win back some of her confidence, Nico signs up for lessons at a karate dojo whose sensei is a former champion. Maybe learning to block a violent stranger will equip her to face any future attack. But so far she is drained of all energy. In the hope of cheering her up, Rosa takes her to the Fun Fair in the park. There they meet a carnie named Ronny (Sara Klimoska). She’s an undocumented young woman from Macedonian who speaks no German, so they use English instead. Ronnie takes them to rides and bumper cars. Nico feels a bit better, but things are still not back to 
normal. Will she ever feel good again? Is Karate the answer? And why is Ronnie being so friendly to her?
Nico is about a woman who loses her identity and self image when attacked by a racist gang, and her attempt to win it back again. She is an assimilated German Berliner, who in just a moment has her entire essence stripped away because of her looks. Nico and Rosa are both of Iranian background but to her attackers she is just another Muslim foreigner. Her feminism, her beliefs, her droll sense of humour, her opposition to wearing a hijab — none of that matters to the people who attack her. The film delves deep into her emotions, both internal and external, as she struggles to recover. Sara Fazilat is excellent as Niko as are the raw-but-real characters surrounding her.
Nico is a realistic film with lots of emotional oomph.
I like this one.
Champions and Blueback open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Nico has its Canadian premier on March 14th, 6:30pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Goethe Films: I Have A Crush On You series.
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 Ry Levey about Out in the Ring
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Picture this: scantily clad men and woman grope each other in same-sex displays. Over-the-top performers dressed in outrageous costumes , wigs and makeup, posture before shrieking crowds. What are we talking about here: gay and 
lesbian porn? Or maybe Rupaul’s Drag Race? No! This is the world of pro-wrestling, known for both it’s outright campy behaviour and its homo-erotic displays, along with a deep-seated record of discrimination against LGBT wrestlers. That was the past, and things have changed. But what is it like now to be “out in the ring”?
Out in the Ring is a new documentary, over four years in the making that traces the history of LGBT people in and around the world of pro-wrestling. It talks with athletes, present and past, famous and infamous. It also meticulously traces their history, giving both an 
insiders’ visceral view and an outsiders’ critical stance. And it delves deep into the sometimes shady business of pro-wrestling. It’s the work of producer/ director Ry Levey — a labour of love.
I spoke with Ry Levey in Toronto via ZOOM.
Out in the Ring is having its world premier at the Inside Out film festival on June 3rd, at 4:45 pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Hope? Films reviewed: The Matrix Resurrections, Try Harder, American Underdog
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
New Year’s Day is a good time to look toward the future and make plans. So this week I’m looking at three new movies, a drama, a documentary, and a science fiction action /thriller, about looking forward. There’s a football player who dreams of playing for the NFL, a group of high school students who dream of going to Stanford, and a video game creator who dreams of a world completely different from our own.
The Matrix Resurrections
Co-Wri/Dir: Lana Wachowski
Tom Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a video game maker and programmer in Chicago. His baby is a series called The Matrix —0 there have been three versions so far and the company is thinking of creating a fourth. The game — created and programmed by Tom and financed by his business partner (Jonathan Groff) — is about two fighters named Neo and Trinity who fight in a parallel world against a villain named Smith. At a cafe Tom frequents, he notices a woman named Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), and she notices him, too. Have they met? No, but Trinity and Neo, the characters in the game, look very similar to Tiffany and Tom. And Tom has been having weird dreams and deja vu, so his analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) gives him meds — blue pills — to keep his mind from wandering. That is, until one day glitches start to appear on his computer matrix, unexplained activity within his own designs. These soon morph into changes in real life: people, (actually characters he 
created) are appearing in the office! And they know who he is… Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a fighter, and Morpheus (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) are their to explain it all.
You’re not Tom, they say, you’re Neo. And it isn’t your dreams that are false, it’s your daily life that’s made up. You can pass through mirrors, climb walls, jump off roofs and fly! And if he just stops swallowing those blue pills he’ll see what the world is really like — a futuristic dystopia of people kept alive in rusty pods guarded 
by scary bots. Will he stay in his current world or break free? What awaits him in the other world? And will Tiffany/Trinity come with him if he goes?
The Matrix Resurrections is the long awaited sequel to the famous Matrix trilogy that has permeated our popular culture. People still use the terms “swallowing the blue pill” to refer to those who go about their daily lives ignoring a darker reality. It incorporates older footage in the forms of dreams and flashbacks, while introducing new characters as well as new actors playing older roles. It’s two and half hours long, much of which is gun fights, chase scenes, and endless SGI images.
Does it work? I’m not a Matrix fanboy, so I have no deep, vested interest in finding out what happens to these characters. I like the new plot twists, and the whole meta-aspect of it (it initially presents the previous episodes as existing in this universe but only as video games). And it’s fun just to watch (though a bit too long). I enjoyed this final version of the Matrix, but it didn’t change my life.
Try Harder
Dir: Debbie Lum
San Francisco’s Lowell School, known for its exceptional test scores and a graduation rate of nearly 100%, is one of the most famous public schools in California. Students there are under pressure — from their parents, other students, and themselves, to achieve high marks, SAT scores and ultimately to get into a prestigious university. This documentary looks at five students as they try to navigate the stress of senior year.
The film follows the students at school, in their classes, at teams and clubs, and at home. The school — like the city — has a large Asian-American population, mainly of Chinese origin, but explores the stark differences as well, of class race and culture. Some are the kids of recent immigrants, while others are a part of the city’s long history. It also looks at differences in 
attitudes and stereotypes. This film doesn’t try to dig too deeply or uncover surprising turns; rather it observes and talks to the subjects and lets nature take its course — as they apply to universities and change their expectations over the course of the year. Try Harder is an intimate look at how teenagers handle what many consider the most important year of their lives.
American Underdog
Dir: Andrew Erwin, Jon Erwin
Kurt Warner (Zachary Levi) is born in small-town Iowa and raised by his divorced mom. Ever since he was a kid he has always wanted to be a pro football player. He practices religiously, till his arm can throw balls like a howitzer. After high school he makes the team at Northern Iowa University, but spends most of his time on the bench. One night, at a roadhouse bar, a certain woman catches his eye. Brenda (Anna Paquin) is a no-nonsense former marine who likes line dancing and Country & Western music. But she won’t give Kurt her number. How come? She has two small kids, including one with disabilities, and she doesn’t have the time to waste on guys like him. But Kurt is persistent. He brings her flowers, and more important, just it off with Zach (Hayden Zaller) her legally blind and disabled son. So they start dating. Meanwhile his career is advancing nicely, until he is asked to try out for the Green Bay Packers. Is this his big chance? Nope, he only lasts one day.
Now he has to work as a stock boy at the local grocery store. Eventually he is recruited to play pro football… well, kinda. It’s a new sport called Arena Football: played indoors on smaller fields, with fewer players and is much faster than the usual game. The years pass, and he’s spotted by someone who wants him to play on for the St Louis Rams — that’s NFL. But can 
someone who is way too old to be a rookie, and too green to be a pro ever make it in the NFL? And can he win and keep Brenda’s heart?
American Underdog is a moving family drama and sports biopic based on a true story. It’s no spoiler to say that Warner ended up taking his team to the Super Bowl and was awarded Most Valuable Player and is now in the NFL Hall of Fame. But this film tells us what led up to it and how he got there.
This is what’s known as a “Christian” or “faith-based” movie, a particular American genre, with no nudity, sex, drugs or even cussing. It’s all about cornfields and country music… not my usual cup of tea. Nor am I football 
fanatic. But you know what? It’s a compelling story, with real situations and interesting characters. It’s not sappy or corny or cheesy, nor is it cringe-worthy (unlike your average Hallmark movie). No. This is an honestly good, nice film. OK, there’s no way — even in a dark room — that you would ever mistake a 40-year-old Zachary Levi for a college student. No way. But that’s beside the point. He’s good, and so is Paquin, and Hayden Zaller as the kid Zach is adorable without ever being cutesy. I saw the Erwin brothers previous Christian film, “I Still Believe” and there’s no comparison — this one is a cut above.
American Underdog, is now playing theatrically, check your local listings. You can find the Matrix Resurrections in theatres and certain streaming services, while Try Harder is playing at Hot Docs cinema and on VOD.
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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