Numerical titles. Films reviewed: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, One More Shot
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
When you watch hundreds of movies a year, you start to notice certain trends, like avoid movies with numbers in their titles, especially sequels. But it doesn’t always work. Some people say The Godfather 2, Toy Story 3 or Rocky IV, are the best of their series.
So this week I’m looking at a couple more movies with numerical titles. There’s an Aussie who can travel in time using a swig of magic tequila, and an American who can bring automatons to life in a defunct pizzeria.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Dir: Emma Tammi
(Based on the game by Scott Cawthon)
It’s some time in the not-so-distant past, somewhere in Middle America. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a guy in his twenties who takes care of his 11-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Abby is lonely because no one at school believes the stories she tells. Mike is a lonely former security guard. He used to work in the ruins of former family restaurant Frank Fazbear’s Pizza. In its heyday, the place was wildly popular with children because of its giant, grinning animal-puppets who performed mechanically on a small stage. But the chain was shuttered for good 20 years ago when the animatronics went rogue and killed some kids. Then, one year ago, Mike and Abby barely escaped with their lives when the animals came back to life. Now, if Mike never sees another animatronic monster in his life, it will be too soon. But Abby holds a special affection for them; she considers them her only real friends. They talk to her, understand her problems and look out for her. And it’s hard to get away from them in this town, since everybody knows about them: there’s a festival devoted to Freddy Fazbear and a robotics contest both just around the corner. Meanwhile, Mike is flirting with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a former cop who helped save Mike and Abby in last year’s bloodbath. She also happens to be the daughter of a deranged megalomaniacal 
serial killer who built the original automatons, and who was personally responsible for the hideous crimes they committed. And it goes without saying that Vanessa hates her psychotic father.
But despite all their precautions, Abby is hellbent on returning to the the crumbling restaurant, and in the mayhem that follows , the creatures are set loose to seek vengeance on their perceived enemies in the town. Can Mike, Abby and Vanessa fight them off and save the city? Or will the robots win out in the end?
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the sequel to last years hit movie based on a video game by the same name, about an evil Chucky Cheese-style restaurant. It has some cool special effects, a few scary moments, especially involving a spooky villain known as the marionette. And I love the old 90s computers and the restaurant-gone-to-ruins motif. The main actors reprising their roles are all good. The problem with this movie is its meandering pointlessness, just a series of random episodes that have virtually no affect on what follows or precedes it. So an important character might be brutally murdered by animatronic creatures in one scene, and then 
they drop out of the movie and are never referred to again.
This happens over and over, which makes you wonder is their any coherence or point to this movie, other than chase scenes, brutal killings and jump scares? I went to a screening packed with fans dressed in cos-play cheering and shouting whenever a familiar character from the game appeared on the screen. They seemed to like it. But for the average viewer, like you or me, who’s never played the game, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is just another schlocky knock-off.
One More Shot
Dir: Nicholas Clifford
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1999, in Melbourne, Australia. Minnie (Emily Browning) is invited to a costume party to usher in the new millennium. She’s a doctor in her thirties, single and attractive. Many of her friends — and ex-lovers — will be at that party. She even has the words “party time” tattooed on her skin. But for some reason, she’s not in a partying mood. Her past relationships all went sour, and she’s been alone, and celibate, for far too long. At least her go-to sex buddy Joe (Sean Keenan) is back in town, so at the very least she’ll get some (Joe sports a matching tattoo which bonds them as sex partners forever.)
But when she arrives at the party, everything seems to go wrong. Joe has a new lover — an American bartender or “mixologist” as she calls herself (Aisha Dee) — and it looks serious. The hosts, Rodney and Pia (Ashley Zukerman, Pallavi Sharda) have a beautiful house and young kid, but they seem somehow at odds all the time; Flick and Max (Anna McGahan, Contessa Treffone), whose apartment she’s sharing want to 
kick her out; and the only stranger at the party is a douchey OB-GYN (Hamish Michael) who is also a coke-head. And at midnight, everyone anticipates a computer crash due to the Y2K. Can things possibly get worse?
Oh yes they can. Minnie keeps messing everything up, and alienating all her friends just for a chance to get laid. But then she discovers she has the solution: the ancient bottle of Tequila she’s brought to the gathering. For some reason, each gulp brings her back again to the first time she tried it, right at the door to the party. Can she right all her wrongs and erase all her mistakes before the bottle is empty? Or will she just end up as a drooling hot mess on someone else’s couch?
One More Shot is a very light social comedy about Australian millennials at play. It’s a cute, somewhat funny riff on the Groundhog Day theme. Which makes it more than a little 
repetitive. The cast is attractive and mildly clever, though I couldn’t really sympathize with any of them. But I do like time- travel comedies however they happen, and this version is pretty original. Kept me interested till the end.
While clearly no masterpiece, I enjoyed watching this one.
5 Nights at Freddy’s 2 opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. One More Shot is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Award season. Films reviewed: The Secret Agent, Eternity, Hamnet
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
One of the nice things about Toronto is the huge variety of people, music sports and culture. Imagine what mash ups they can generate! I just saw a show called Opera Mania, which combined actual singers from Opera Revue and genuine tag-team pro wrestlers! We were literally in ringside seats, arms-length from fighters body-slamming to the romance of Carmen’s Toreador and opera singers bouncing off the ropes while warbling flawless arias! All on a real-live wrestling ring. Never in my life…
This week, I’m looking at three new movies that played at TIFF this year and are finally being released theatrically. There’s an action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, an historical drama in Elizabethan England, and a rom-com set somewhere this side of heaven.
The Secret Agent
Wri/Dir: Kleber Mendonça Filho
It’s the 1970s in Brazil. Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a bearded, bushy-haired prof heading north from Sao Paolo — where he’s lived for many years — to Recife. He’s trying to keep a step ahead of the authoritarian government’s agents and to make sure his son is being safely taken care of. What he doesn’t realize is a pair of ruthless hitmen have been hired to rub him out. He shows up at Dona Sebastiana’s home, which she has transformed into a safe haven. It’s a place where political activists (like Marcelo), dissidents, leftists, refugees from Portuguese speaking Angola, gay men, and other persecuted individuals can find a safe place to hide. Because of the importance of secrecy, they only use code names. And everyone is a bit wary of strangers. Marcelo changes both his name and his look, from hippy to clean cut, with an official-looking moustache, and lands a job at the highly corrupt local police force. They take a liking to him and place him in plain view at the station. He uses his job to look for his late mother’s missing papers, to clear up a long-held mystery. He also gets to see his son, who is staying with his late wife’s dad who runs a movie theatre. Can Marcelo 
secure his son’s safety, discover his family history, and keep his identity a secret from the two men who want him dead?
The Secret Agent a taut action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, before the fall of the military dictatorship. Always exciting and fast-moving with a complex plot, it’s full of disguises, bugging, lurid newspaper headlines, chase scenes and shootouts. Lots of blood. The plot is revealed both through flashbacks and flash forwards — strange scenes where unexplained present-day researchers are looking through old files to find out what really happened in this case. Wagner Moura is a total movie star, who switches identity more times than you realize over the course of the film. Now, I can’t help comparing this to last year’s stunning Brazilian drama I’m Still Here, also set during the dictatorship, but they are very different movies. This one is mainly there for the entertainment, sort of an I’m Still Here-lite.
But this is not a complaint — I loved this movie.
Eternity
Co-Wri/Dir: David Freyne (Review: Dating Amber)
Larry and Joan (Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen) are a happily married elderly couple, heading to a grandchild’s birthday party. Sure, they argue all the time, but that’s because they know each other so well. And they have to deal with Joan’s cancer.. But when Larry chokes to death on a pretzel at the party, he suddenly finds himself in a strange new world. It’s like Grand Central Station, with trains departing every few minutes. Is he in Heaven? No, it’s a way-station called The Junction, where you choose where to spend eternity. And to help with that decision, there’s a huge convention space with hundreds of booths, each catering to specific tastes. Maybe you like museums, or the great outdoors, or lying on a beach. Or maybe you want to spend eternity as a tourist in 1960s Paris, where everyone speaks English but with a heavy French accent. There’s something for everyone, and you have a week to decide. But Larry wants to wait for Joan, so they can choose a place together. Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is his AC (afterlife coordinator) who is supposed to help him on his way, but doesn’t approve of him sticking around. Luckily he finds a sympathetic ear in Luke, a handsome young bartender (Callum Turner) to whom he pours out all his troubles.
He finally consents to leave the Junction, when… he sees Joan just arriving! She’s young and beautiful, in her early 20s (Larry is in the body of his 35-year-old self; when you die you revert to your favourite age.) Now that all his troubles are solved, he’s ready to leave with Joan. But not so fast! Joan was married before she met Larry and her husband died in the Korean War. And it just happens that her late first husband is none other than Luke, the Bartender. He’s been waiting for 
Joan in the junction for 60 years. Will Joan choose to spend eternity with Larry, her long time partner? Or with her first true love?
Eternity is a fantasy/ romantic comedy with an unusual view of the afterlife. It’s a “high concept” movie with a simple question: should you choose a lifelong partner, or a passionate lover? And there are some fun parts: I liked the cheesy convention centre, the commuter train motif, and the Archives they visit (no spoiler). But they don’t do much with it; it devolves into a very basic rom-com, barely exploring the potentially fun aspects of the story. A former teen idol, Miles Teller plays his role as a grumpy old man trapped in a younger man’s body, but he does it in a most unappealing way. Callum Turner as Luke is also uninspiring, and while Elizabeth Olson is better as their object of interest, there’s still not much to go on. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early provide much-needed comic relief as the ACs, but you can’t rescue a ship that already sank.
I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with any of them.
Hamnet
Co-Wri/Dir: Chloe Zhao
(Reviews: Songs My Brother Taught Me, Nomadland)
It’s England in the late 16th century. Will (Paul Mescal) is a part-time tutor expected to follow in his family business as a glover. But his Dad is nasty and cruel, so he wants to get as far away from him as he can. One day he meets a young woman named Agnes (Jessie Buckley), like no one he’s ever met before. She’s a witch and a healer who knows how to make poultices and tinctures, and carries a trained falcon on her arm. She knows all the secrets of the forest, including the sacred caves and ancient trees, passed on to her for generations. She is suspicious of Will’s worth, but eventually he proves his love, they marry and have children. Although he spends much of his time in the city, when he’s home he loves playing with the twins, especially his son Hamnet whom he teaches how to defend himself with a wooden sword. So Will and Agnes are crushed when Hamnet succumbs to the plague while Will is away writing. 
How will they deal with the death of their young son?
Hamnet is a lovely, rich and extremely moving film about William Shakespeare, his wife and the death of their son. It’s based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It starts as a slow-moving historical romance, with lots and lots of details about daily life in Elizabethan England. You almost think — what’s the point of this movie? But then it turns into an amazing, emotional story, culminating in a no-holds- barred performance of Hamlet, which Will wrote about their son. (Noah Jupe, the actor who plays Hamlet in the play-in-the-movie is the real life brother of Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet). Paul Mescal is appropriately restrained as Will, but Jesse Buckley holds nothing back, she puts her heart and soul into this role. If you’re not gushing tears by the end of this movie, I don’t know what to say.
Hamnet is a must-see.
Secret Agent, Eternity, and Hamnet are all playing right now in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Zacharias Kunuk about The Wrong Husband at #TIFF50
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s 400 years ago in the north. Kaujak and Sapa have known one another since they were babies and they were promised to one another. But when kaujak’s father dies suddenly — at the sometime as a stranger, Sapa leaves for a hunting trip. While he is gone, a man with no wife who is a figure of fun, arrives by Kayak. He takes her and her daughter Kajuak away. In the new area people are not kind and life is bad. But Kaujak continues to fight back. And always lurking in the background is a terrible beast, a giant troll who takes people away.
Will the proposed young couple ever see each each there again? Or will Kaujak be forced to marry the wrong husband?
The Wrong Husband is a new film from Nunavut that interprets ancient stories and the oral tradition with traditional ways of life. It combines the supernatural; with religion to make a moving emotional Romeo and Juliet story. The story is told in Inuktitut with an Indigenous cast. The film is directed and co-written by award-winning Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk. His feature Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner 
won the Camera d’Or at Cannes and countless Canadian prizes, and was a critical and commercial success. Other notable films include The Journals of Knud Rasmussen and Maliglutit or Searchers. The Wrong Husband had its Canadian Premier at the Toronto International Film Festival.
I spoke with Zacharias Kunuk on site during TIFF50 at the Royal York Hotel.
The Wrong Husband is opening in Canada on Nov 28, 2025.
Winner: Best Canadian Feature Film Award, TIFF ’25.
Hocus-pocus. Films reviewed: Good Fortune, Black Phone 2, Frankenstein
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall film festival season continues in Toronto with all sorts of movies to catch your fancy. Rendezvous with Madness shows movies about addiction and mental health, accompanied by discussions with the audience. They also have a knack for finding unknown amazing films whose directors or stars end up famous just a few years later (I saw my first Joaquin Trier flick at Rendezvous with Madness!) Also opening soon are Planet in Focus, with docs about environmentalism and climate change, and Toronto after Dark, on through the weekend, a pioneer in horror and fantasy.
But this week, in honour of Hallowe’en, I’m looking at three movies with a bit of hocus-pocus. There’s a man with a guardian angel, a brother and sister who can speak to the dead, and a mad scientist who wants to builds a new human… out of dead body parts.
Good Fortune
Co-Wri/Dir: Aziz Ansari
Arj (Aziz Ansari) is at a low point in his life. He has a degree in archaeology and lives in LA, but the only work he can find is gig work, deliveries or standing in long lines so rich people don’t have to. He’s so poor he has to sleep in his car. There were a few bright spot in his life; he meets Elena (Keke Palmer) a union organizer at a big box hardware store, and they even went on a date; and he got a short term job as a personal assistant to a billionaire venture capitalist named Jeff (Seth Rogan) whose main activity seems to be sitting in saunas and ice baths. But as luck would have it, he gets fired from the job, things go bad with Elena and even his car — his only possession — gets towed. He’s penniless, in debt, and all alone. What does he have left to live for?
What Arj doesn’t know is he has a guardian angel named Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) looking out for him. In order to save his his life Gabriel — breaking all the angel rules — appears to him. He tells him that he has lots to live for, that money can’t buy happiness, and that Jeff is just as down as he is. And to prove it, he switches their lives. Now Arj has the swank mansion while Jeff is at the gig jobs, barely making enough money to pay for his next meal. The problem is Jeff hates his new life, while Arj has zero complaints about being rich. Gabriel did a boo boo by directly interfering with human lives, and his angel boss Martha (Sandra Oh) tells him, if he doesn’t fix it up, he’s going to lose his wings. Can Arj get Elena to see him again? Will he voluntarily give up all his newfound 
wealth? Can Jeff survive in his new environment? Will Gabriel manage to make everything right again?
Good Fortune is a light comedy co-written, directed and starring Aziz Ansari. It’s cute and funny, if not terribly original. It combines A Christmas Carol, Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places, and It’s a Wonderful Life, with a bit of updating with current details. I like its portrayal of poverty, in all its miserableness, and the mundane life of Angels is fun, too. Seth Rogan does his same old schtick, but he does it well, Keke Palmer has a low-key role, Aziz is personable, and Keanu Reeves actually smiles — haven’t seen that in a few decades.
Good Fortune is nothing spectacular but it is cute and totally watchable.
Black Phone 2
Co-Wri/Dir: Scott Derrickson
It’s wintertime in the early 1980s in the Colorado Rockies. Finney, Gwen and Ernie are three teenaged counsellors in training at a Christian winter camp. There’s a forest, a lake and some spectacular mountains in the background. And they sleep in heated log cabins. But where are all the campers? They stayed home, due to a record- breaking blizzard that closed all the roads. Then why are the three of them there? Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) — who has prophetic dreams — keeps getting messages from her dead mother that tell her to go to this camp. Ernie (Miguel Mora) has a major crush on Gwen and will follow her anywhere. And Finney (Mason Thames) wants to keep on eye on his little sister to make sure nothing bad happens. And the two of them know a lot about bad things happening. A couple years ago, Finn was kidnapped by a sadistic masked serial killer called the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) who murdered countless kids. But a black phone in the basement cell where Finney was locked up allowed him to speak with ghosts of the kids who had died there, and — with the help of Gwen who located him through her dreams — managed to survive, escape and kill the Grabber. But now, years later, the dead seem to be communicating with Finney again, with broken down payphone constantly ringing when he walks past (he dulls his terrifying memories with lots of cannabis). Gwen is even more affected, caught in a fugue state in her half- awake dreams, 
where she she sleepwalks through the snow in her pyjamas, looking for something.
Now at this deserted camp they are haunted by three scary murdered children sending scratchy messages through Gwen’s dreams and through a broken payphone. And worst of all, the Grabber has somehow reappeared. Can the three of them manage to find the dead boys, solve the mystery of the camp, and survive the return of the terrifying serial killer? Or are they all doomed to die?
Black Phone 2 is a follow-up to the very scary original from a few years back. It keeps all the same characters and actors, plus a few new ones: the camp’s owner Mando (Demián Bichir) and his cowboy daughter Mustang (Arianna Rivas). The story is dominated this time by Gwen not Finney. I love the grainy dream sequences that bridge between sleep and reality. And the pace is steady throughout the film. There are some frightening parts, but it just doesn’t seem as scary as the first one. I think we’re supposed to be terrified to see an invisible Grabber iskating on the ice with a mask on but it just looks kinda silly. The plot of the first movie was straightforward and direct. This one is convoluted and confusing. And it includes a fair amount of spiritual messages and scriptural quotes that don’t really add to the story or to its scariness.
Again totally watchable, good horror, just not as scary as the original one.
Frankenstein
Co-Wri/Dir: Guillermo Del Toro
Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is a medical student in Victorian England. The son of a minor aristocrat, the world is his for the taking. But when he shows his research in a dramatic performance before his professors — by bringing the head and torso of a dead man back to life using electric shocks — he is immediately expelled. Luckily he finds a benefactor (Christoph Waltz) from the continent to sponsor his research. Frankenstein sets up his laboratory in an isolated castle. Like a modern prometheus, he goes through piles of dead bodies, cutting out the choicest bits to create his new, superior man. He is joined by his milquetoast younger brother William (Felix Kammerer) and William’s beautiful and intelligent bride Elizabeth (Mia Goth – she has perfect name for this movie). But when the creature (Jacob Elordi) is brought to life using a bolt of lightning, he doesn’t turn out as expected: he is a monster, a brainless slug who can only say one word. His experiment a failure, Frankenstein flees his castle burns down his laboratory, leaving career in ruins, and allowing the monster to die…or did he?
The rest of the movie follows the creature as he grows, learns to speak and read, discovers his own strength and power, and to differentiate between good and bad. But how will he turn 
out? And will humans ever accept him?
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is an entirely new look at Mary Shelley’s novel, unlike any version before it. The green-faced, flat-headed Frankenstein is nowhere to be seen. Elordi is amazing as this tabula rasa with unexpected powers and emotions. He’s a completely sympathetic character for the first time. It’s the scientist who is the real monster in this movie, but one with motives and who can feel remorse. It takes place in locations you’d never associate with Frankenstein, starting aboard a ship in the Arctic.
There’s also an extended chapter set in a cabin in the woods with a blind hermit. Yes, this Frankenstein is a gothic horror 
movie — which he’s been making all his life, like Crimson Peak (2015) — but this one takes it to a higher level. It’s visually stunning, wonderfully acted, it’s long but never boring, and besides the violence, gore and horror, there’s also romance and pathos, friendship, beauty and self-discovery.
What can I say — this is one great Frankenstein.
Frankenstein and Good Fortune which both premiered at TIFF, and Black Phone 2 all open in Toronto 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.
Hot and cool. Films reviewed: Ne Zha 2, Honey Don’t! PLUS Canadian films at #TIFF50
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m talking about two more hot summer movies, one from China and one from the US. There’s a red-hot demon who wants to live forever, and a cool, hard-boiled detective who faces death on a daily basis.
But first a look at Canadian movies premiering at TIFF’s 50th anniversary.
TIFF Canada
This year, TIFF has programmed dozens of Canadian movies — far two many to mention, but here’s a brief survey of some films worth notice.
First some documentaries:
In Modern Whore director Nicole Bazuin and subject Andrea Werhun (she was featured in Paying for It: Interview last year) challenge misconceptions about sex work and sex workers. Ni-naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising by Shane Belcourt (Red Rover: review) with Tanya Talaga is about an indigenous youth-led, 90 day armed occupation in Kenora, Ontario, back in 1974. And Min-Sook Lee’s (Migrant Dreams: interview) deeply personal film There Are No Words looks at her own mother’s suicide when she was still a child.
How about some dramas? First, two Canadian films set nowhere in particular:
There’s Honey Bunch, by Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli, a psychological thriller about a couple in an isolated rehab centre; and Clement Virgo’s (Brother: Review; The Book of Negroes: Interview) Steal Away, the story of two princesses… of a sort.
From Atlantic Canada comes Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) Bretten Hannam’s (Wildwood: Interview) eerie thriller about two Mi’kmaw brothers confronting their past; And Andy Hines’ Little Lorraine, a crime thriller about drug-smugglers in a Cape Breton mining town.
Two Quebec movies look really promising. Philippe Felardeau’s (Monsieur Lazhar: Review) Lovely Day is a comedy drama about the events leading up to a wedding; and Mathieu Denis’ (Corbo: review) The Cost of Heaven, a shocking true-crime family drama that took actually place in Montreal in 2012.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what two young Toronto directors are up to next. Chandler Levack’s (I like Movies: Interview) Mile End Kicks is a romantic comedy about a music critic who moves to Montreal to get her life in order. While Matt Johnson’s (Blackberry: Review) Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is a comedy apparently about a failed cover band in Toronto want to play at the Rivoli.
Blood Lines is Gail Maurice’s (Rosie: Interview) singular, same-sex Metis love story from the Prairies. And Tasha Hubbard’s (Nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up: Interview) Meadowlarks is a real-life drama about four indigenous siblings separated by the Sixties Scoop getting back together again in Banff, Alberta for the first time in 50 years.
And, finally, from the North comes Oscar-winner Zacharias Kunuk’s (Maliglutit: review) The Wrong Husband, an Inuit historical drama / folktale set 4,000 year in the past.
That’s just a sample of some of the Canadian films premiering at TIFF.
Ne Zha 2
Wri/Dir: Jiaozi
It’s hundreds of years ago in China, when demons and gods still roam the earth. Two supernatural beings, the fiery and impetuous Ne Zha and the calm and focused Ao Bing, once rivals, now find themselves in the same situation.They are both bodyless, floating around like ghosts. If they don’t get their bodies back soon, they will cease to exist. Once they’re reborn, if they pass three tests, they can drink the potion of immortality. Fortunately, a magical cure involving a giant lotus blossom drenched with semen-like fluid, can bring them back to life. Unfortunately, it works for Ne Zha but not for Ao Bing. And Ne Zha needs Ao Bing’s steady hand to pass the trials. So they come to a compromise: Ao Bing’s spirit will share Ne Zha’s body and they’ll try to work together. But can they pass the tests, resist the four dragons, cooperate with the old man of the south in his floating jade castle, stay out of the cauldron of fire, and fight off the thousands of evil demons who may try to eat them?
Ne Zha 2 is an animated kids’ movie straight out of China, about a rambunctious little red devil with pointy teeth, a wide mouth and fierce eyes. It’s a sequel, and is immensely popular in East Asia, even more so than the original. Ne Zha 2 has only played in IMAX in China but has already cleared 2 billion 
dollars. There’s tons of Chinese cultural and folklore and historical stuff you probably won’t understand, but I think kids will get it. Lots of jokes little kids will laugh at, about farts, piss, and vomit. There are dozens of characters voiced in English by stars like Michelle Yeoh. The animation is usually great, but there are scenes where the background doesn’t match the characters, which is off-putting. And it’s 2 1/2 hours long, which is a big chunk of your time. So if you curious about what the most popular animated film ever looks like, now’s your chance.
Honey Don’t!
Dir: Ethan Coen
It’s a hot summer’s day in Bakersfield, California; so hot you could fry an egg on the trunk of a car. But you wouldn’t want to do it on this one: it’s upside down in the desert, the wheels still spinning, a woman dead inside. An accident? Or murder? Honey O’Donohue, PI (Margaret Qualley) is there to investigate. And so is a police detective named Marty (Charlie Day) who practically drools whenever Honey is around. To his eyes, she’s a tall glass of water — and he wants a sip! — but he’s barking up the wrong tree: Honey only sleeps with women… and usually one night stands. And she’s not just a pretty face, she’s sharp, with a dry wit, a hard drinker who can deck any gunman without breaking a nail. She’s at the crime scene because the dead woman is her client — she hired Honey because she felt she was in danger. Turns out she was right, and dead bodies are piling up for unknown reasons. And all roads lead to a deeply corrupt and lascivious preacher named Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) who clearly has the devil in him. He has wanton sex with parishioners and a 
side hustle selling drugs for the French Mob. So Honey enlists a rough-looking gumshoe named MG (Aubrey Plaza) to help her catch the bad guys, and find her missing niece. They end up in bed together, repeatedly. Is this love? Or just lust? And will Honey ever find out who’s behind the crime wave?
Honey Don’t! is a very light and fun detective story, loaded with sex and violence, that spoofs old fashioned film noir movies. It quotes generously from Russ Myers’ films like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!, and other cult classics. It’s the work of Ethan Coen — one of the two Coen Brothers — and his partner Tricia Cooke. This is number two of a planned trilogy of Lesbian B-Movies (Cooke is bisexual). Admittedly, I walked out of this movie scratching my head — it’s highly entertaining, but very superficial and doesn’t neatly tie up all the loose ends. But you know what? After a day thinking about it, I kinda like the way it doesn’t completely finish… it feels like the pilot episode of a TV detective series. Margaret Qualley is terrific, and Aubrey Plaza looks and acts totally different from any of her recent roles. So if you’re yearning for 90 minutes of forgettable sex, violence and over-the-top characters, I think you’ll like Honey, Don’t.
I did.
Honey Don’t and Ne Zha 2 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.
Parents and their children. Films reviewed: Tuesday, Kidnapped
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Sunday is Fathers Day, so this week I’m looking at two movies about parents and children. There’s a mother whose daughter is threatened by a big ugly bird, and parents whose son is kidnapped by the Pope.
Tuesday
Wri/Dir: Daina Oniunas-Pusic
Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is a teenaged girl in London who is dying of an incurable disease. She likes comics and drawing. She spends most of her time in her bedroom with her Nurse Billie (Leah Harvey) or else in the walled garden outside her home, because she is too weak to get around anymore. She only sees her mother at night when she comes home from work. Until a stranger shows up in her life. It’s a huge bird, like a giant parrot, covered in filthy, black feathers. He is death incarnate, and he’s come to take her away by placing his wing over her body. But instead, she asks to talk to him. She helps him clean up, revealing colourful plumage, and she tells him a joke — the first time he’s laughed in centuries. So he lets her live, for now, but she can’t tell anyone about him. Meanwhile Tuesday’s mom Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), has a secret of her own. She quit work a long time ago, to take care of her dying daughter. But she can’t face it; instead she spends all day sitting alone in a nearby park, doing nothing. And she’s been selling off all their possessions to help pay for the nurse. But everything changes when Tuesday tells her about her imaginary friend… and Zora is shocked to find she’s telling the truth. But she refuses to accept her daughter’s death, and takes an extraordinarily drastic step to stop the inevitable from happening. But what will these new changes bring to the family and the world and can Zora ever accept the inevitable loss waiting to happen.
Tuesday is an unusual but strangely moving fantasy about a 
mother and daughter confronting death. It starts out a bit odd, and gradually turns into a very strange movie indeed. But while it deals with some horrific ideas, it’s not a horror movie. It has supernatural elements, but it’s not meant to be scary. And despite its religious concepts of life and death, it’s not a faith-based movie. What it is is a very moving, mother/daughter drama about death. Julie Louis Dreyfuss, best known for her deadpan comedy in Seinfeld and Veep, plays it straight in this one, and really bares her soul in a deeply moving performance. And Lola Petticrew is equally sympathetic as Tuesday. This is nothing like most movies you see, but very effective nonetheless; come prepared both to laugh and cry.
I really liked this movie.
Kidnapped
Co-Wri/Dir: Marco Bellocchio
It’s the 1850s in a middle-class neighbourhood in Bologna. Salomone Mortara (Fausto Russo Alesi) lives with his wife Marianna Padovani Mortara (Barbara Ronchi) and their children. One night there is a banging on their front door: it’s the police demanding an inspection. They want to see Edgardo Mortara, an angelic little boy, number six of eight kids. Local officials are apologetic, but they must hand him over, under the orders of Father Feletti (Fabrizio Gifuni), the local inquisitor. But surely there’s some mistake, they say, what could this little boy have done? He was secretly baptized as a baby by his maid, they say, and no Christian child can be brought up in a Jewish family. Bologna — and much of Italy — was then part of the Papal States, where the government, the police, and the judiciary were all under the direct rule of the Vatican’s representatives and ultimately Pope Pius IX. And despite their vehement objections and petitions, they whisk the crying child off to Rome.
He is brought to the House of Catachumens, a special school for converts to be taught the Latin Mass. Little Edgardo (Enea Sala) misses his family terribly but a friend he meets says if you want to go home soon, just cooperate and learn the prayers, you don’t have to believe them. His flabbergasted father and devastated mother are desperately trying to get him out of there, but to no avail. But the story has caught the eye of the international press, making 
banner headlines in Paris, London and New York. And this makes Pope Pius IX even more steadfast in his beliefs. Will the family all convert to Catholicism to get back their son? Will Pope Pius relent and let him go home again? And who will the little boy choose as his guardians: his Mama and Papa or Il Papa, the Pope himself?
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara is an overwhelming drama based on true historic events. Though little-known today, it had a huge affect on world politics, history and, ultimately, the unification of Italy. It takes place in their homes of Bologna, The Roman Ghetto, in courtrooms, on canals, and within the Vatican itself. Its powerful music, lush photography and opulent sets and costumes support the passionate almost melodramatic acting. Barbara Ronchi is fantastic as Mrs Mortara, while Paolo Pierobon as Pope Pius comes across as a creepily salacious Mafia don, cuddling up to his favourite little boy and letting him hide beneath his robes (as he had huddled in his mother’s skirts when first abducted.) It also veers into fantasy within the dreams of various characters, from little Edgardo who dreams of de-crucifying Jesus so he can go home, and the Pope who has nightmares of being forcibly circumcised by a gang of rabbis. Kidnapped is an amazingly powerful historical drama set within the changing tides of 19th century Europe.
On a personal note, my childhood next door neighbour, Mrs Sharon Stahl, ended up writing her doctoral theological dissertation on this case, so I had head about it many years ago and it’s amazing to finally see it dramatized on the big screen.
Fantastic movie.
Tuesday is now playing at the TIFF Lightbox, and Kidnapped also opened 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.
Three Women. Films reviewed: Immaculate, Exhuma, The Queen of my Dreams
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies about three distinct women from three different religions. There’s a nun fighting for her life in Italy, a shaman fighting demons in Korea, and a Canadian woman fighting with her Mom in Karachi.
Immaculate
Dir: Michael Mohan
Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) is a novice at a convent in Italy. It’s an ancient edifice dating back hundreds of years, with an airy courtyard surrounded by lovely white pillars, and situated amongst Italy’s rolling hills. She has just arrived from Michigan, but is already taking her vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. She was invited to join the convent by Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) a former scientist who, like Cecilia, had a calling. Her job? To tend to the sick and dying, mainly older nuns who have lived their entire lives within their stone walls. There is little privacy there, especially for novices. Anyone can wander into their rooms, day or night.
But something strange is going on. When she touches a relic of the true cross, she faints. She wakes up days later with few memories of what happened. She goes to confession but her priest seems to fade away inside the booth. And one morning she throws up in the shared baths. Could that be morning sickness? Could she be pregnant? Bishops and doctors examine her closely: she is still a virgin. Which makes this an immaculate conception! It’s a miracle! It’s the second coming! Soon people are gazing at her in awe, reaching out to touch
her face. But this is not why Cecilia took her vows. She doesn’t trust the convent’s doctor — who just happens to be an obstetrician in a convent full of nuns. And then there are the frightening sisters who cover their faces in masques of red gauze to carry out enforcement. When her only friend, Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) disappears, Cecilia realizes she has get out of this place — or this nun will be done. But how can she escape?
Immaculate is a thriller/horror about an innocent young woman trapped in an Italian house of by some religious fanatics. But for a movie about a nunnery there sure are a lot of breasts on display… draped in damp white diaphanous gowns in the baths or partly exposed late at night. That’s half of this exploitation movie: soft-core porn. The other half, though, is extreme, bloody violence and sadistic torture — what I call “gorno”: Disgusting, extended violence you’re forced to watch for its titillating effect. This leaves the movie both ridiculous and over the top, and more gross than scary, in the manner of an Italian Giallo movie from the 70s… but without any camp.
That said, I actually liked Sydney Sweeney as the innocent woman who fights back. And while this is clearly a B movie, it does end on a suitably shocking note.
Exhuma
Wri/Dir: Jang Jae-hyun
Hwarim (Kim Go-eun) is a young Korean woman on a Japanese flight to LA. She’s going there to investigate a client from a filthy-rich Korean family that suffers from strange dreams and illnesses. Not just the man himself, but his new born baby, and other relatives. She’s a shaman, travelling with her coworker Bong-Gil a heavily-tattooed, former baseball player (Lee Do-hyun) who can see visions and dreams. They determine evil forces are at work here, and call for an exhumation of a distant ancestor’s grave to rectify some unknown problem. The family agrees and pays them a hefty salary to make it work. Back in Korea, they turn to Kim a geomancer (Choi Min-sik) and his assistant. He knows about how Yin and Yang, Feng Shui and the Five Elements all must be correctly aligned to make for a peaceful grave. But the grave they find is anything but peaceful. The coffin is buried beneath an unmarked tombstone, on a distant hilltop near North Korea, reachable only through a chain-locked road where no one ever goes. It’s home to a skulk of foxes and a pit of snakes. And despite their lengthy shamanic 
rituals, somehow an ancient evil spirit escapes from the grave wreaking havoc on everyone nearby. It’s not just a ghost that says “boo”; it takes on a physical form, looking for humans as his slaves, to feed him sweet melons and mincemeat. And woe be to him or her who disobeys. Human livers taste just as good. Can these four brave souls defeat a dark evil from a rich family’s hidden past?
Exhuma is a supernatural horror/thriller about a fight against the deep, dark mysteries from Korea’s history (including references to their brutal occupation under Imperial Japan). The film is done in an interesting way, incorporating actual shamanic rituals into the story. In one scene, to the sound of pounding drums, Hwarim does an extended ecstatic dance around the bodies of four hogs impaled on skewers. Not the sort of thing you usually see in a horror movie.
Exhuma was a huge hit in Korea when it was released there a month ago, and I’m not at all surprised.
I like this one.
The Queen of My Dreams
Wri/Dir: Fawzia Mirza
It’s 1999 in Toronto. Azra (Amrit Kaur) is an aspiring actress with a steady girlfriend. She has been on bad terms with her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha: Polite Society) since she was caught playing spin the bottle with a girl at her teenage birthday party. But she still communicates with her friendly Dad (Hamza Haq: Transplant) a doctor. The one thing Azra has in common with her mother is their obsession with an old Bollywood movie starring Sharmila Tagore. But when her Dad suddenly dies on a visit to Karachi, Pakistan, Azra and her brother must fly there for the funeral. This sets off a series of revealing memories both from Azra and Mariam. Suddenly we’re 
transported back to 1969, when Mariam is a totally different person and Karachi a swinging city, filled with bars, discos, VW bugs and Beatlemania.
Mariam is a rebel who rejects her parents’ arranged marriages when she falls for her future husband. Then we’re in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in 1989. Young Azra (wonderfully played by Ayana Manji) joins her mom’s work as a Tupperware lady. These scenes are a coming of age replete with a moustache on her upper lip, her first dance with a boy, and being excused from class during Christian prayers. But can the 1999 mother and daughter reconcile with their pasts in 1989 Nova Scotia and 1969 Karachi and learn to love each other again?
The Queen of my Dreams is a wonderful family drama that deftly weaves three eras and three generations across two continents. It deals with religion and sexuality, rules that are made to be broken and others that are upheld. I don’t know if this film is autobiographical or not, but it really rings true. Amrit Kaur plays both the adult Azra and a younger version of Mariam, while Hamza Haq plays the Dad both in youth and middle age. Not just that: Nimra Bucha (Mariam) and Kaur in their daydreams are both transformed into the main character in their favourite Bollywood film. Sounds really complicated, right? It’s not! It’s totally accessible and understandable with wonderful realistic characters, funny lines and deeply moving dialogue. The production design deserves a special mention. The ’60s scenes use traditional film to perfectly capture the look of Kodacolor movies from the period, through costumes, hair, locations, cars — and especially its cinematography. And on top of everything else, this is Fawzia Mirza first feature film.
I’ve seen The Queen of my Dreams twice now and I still love it.
Exhuma opens at the TIFF Lightnox; Immaculate, and The Queen of My Dreams 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.
Scary? Films reviewed: The Beasts, The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is Emancipation Month in Toronto, commemorating the end of slavery in the British commonwealth, including Canada. So in honour of that there’s a free screening of RasTa: A Soul’s Journey, at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park on August 13th.
But this week I’m looking at two new, scary movies. There are sailors who want to abandon ship, and farmers who don’t want to leave their land.
The Beasts
Co-Wri/Dir: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) are a middle aged professional couple living in Galicia in northwestern Spain. He’s a burly, reserved man, while she is direct and no-nonsense. They gave up their lives and careers to settle among the rocky hills, growing organic tomatoes and vegetables. They love the simple life, working hard, breathing the fresh air and taking long walking through the nearby forests and hills They get along well with some of their neighbours, but not all of them. And especially not Xan and Lorenzo, a pair of wiry, adult brothers who keep nomadic horses. Lorenzo (Diego Anido) may be simple-minded but is prone to cruel, practical jokes, with Antoine as the victim. Xan (Luis 
Zahera) is much worse. Xan insults him, calls him a derogatory name for French people, mutters veiled threats and even spits at him.
At the centre of their dispute is a contract which Antoine and Olga refuse to sign. A multinational energy corporation wants to turn the village into a wind farm. But after all the money, time and work they have put into it, they don’t want to throw it all away for a small buyout. It’s their home. This is what makes their neighbours so angry. They want to leave their ancestral homes forever. And as their fight grows, it gradually turns to violence. What will become of them?
The Beasts is an intense, dark drama played out in a clash of cultures and class. The film starts with a group of men physically wrestling with horses in slow motion. This motif comes up later in the movie in an 
unexpected way. It’s billed as a thriller, but it’s not — I’d call it more of a slow-burn drama, spread out over more than two hours. The dialogue is in French, Spanish and (I’m guessing) Galician, since it doesn’t sound like any Spanish I’ve ever heard before.
Is it a good movie? I like the characters, and the acting and the drama, and its beautiful cinematography, locations and music. But the film has a weird structure, with a very long ending after an intense chapter in the middle. It’s less thrilling or scary than it is creepy and disturbing, though it does have a satisfying finish. I just don’t quite get the point of this movie. If you like feeling uncomfortable for a couple hours but not really challenged, then you’ll probably like The Beasts.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Dir: André Øvredal
It’s the 1890s and the three-masted Demeter is loading at a Romanian dock, preparing for its voyage to Dover, England. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) has mustered all his sailors on the ship, as well as Wojchek, his first mate (David Dastmalchian), Joseph, his bible-thumping cook (Jon Jon Briones) and his eight-year-old grandson Toby (Woody Norman). It’s the captain’s last voyage so he wants to pass on some of his lore. The only unfamiliar face is Clemens (Corey Hawkins), the ship’s doctor. Not a sailor, but he does hold a medical degree from Cambridge (very uncommon for a black man in Victorian England). But with such a small crew, even the doctor has to take his turn steering the ship and on night watch. But the most unusual thing is this ship’s cargo: a series of large wooden crates filled 
with dirt and branded with a sinister-looking mark. The locals refuse even to board the ship, but the crew is happy that there’s a big cash bonus if they deliver the cargo in time.
Unfortunately, things start to go wrong pretty quickly. First, a female stowaway is found on board — and sailors considered women on ships bad luck. Anna (Aisling Franciosi) is half dead, speechless and frightened. Clemens keeps her alive with frequent blood transfusions. Then all the ship’s animals — from livestock, to a dog, to even the rats hidden in the hold — are found dead. And then the crew starts disappearing, one by one. Is this a disease? A stowaway killer? Or something even worse? And will the Demeter and its crew ever reach its destination?
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a well-crafted thriller/horror about a vampire on board a ship, based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And — no spoilers here — if this vampire looks familiar, it’s because he’s Nosferatu, the cadaverous, long fingered, pointy-eared creature made famous by the silent German expressionist masterpiece by FW Murnau, released a full century ago (1922). This Nosferatu can fly, 
swim, hypnotize its victims and seemingly pass through walls. He’s almost indestructible. The film is beautifully shot in a German studio, with the camera flying down long passageways, into the galley, under tables and up to the sailmasts. The soundtrack is punctuated with tapping sounds that reverberate the length of the ship. The acting is quite good all around. And this vampire is a scary one.
The one thing that’s missing is pathos — with a few exceptions, you don’t feel close or attached to most of the characters. But that’s a minor problem in a good horror movie. And this one gives new life to a very old vampire.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter and the Beasts are both opening this weekend in Toronto, with The Beasts playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
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 Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor about Satan Wants You!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In the 1980s, tabloids like the National Enquirer and daytime talk shows from Oprah to Jerry Springer were talking about everyone’s biggest fear: that animals and small children were being kidnapped by witches and sacrificed to the devil. A new psychological method known as Recovered Memory Syndrome was in vogue, and countless adults who suffered trauma as a child, were somehow recalling bizarre satanic rituals doing back to their earliest memories. And in courtrooms across America, daycare workers, teachers and social workers were accused of heinous crimes, leading to arrests, trials and prison sentences, based on dubious testimony. Who would have 
thought this all harkened back to a young woman named Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder in peaceful Victoria, BC?
Satan Wants You! is a new documentary that delves into the case of Michelle Smith, her psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, the bestselling book Michelle Remembers that followed and the ramifications it led to. This compelling film tears the veil from this story, using period TV footage, and new interviews with family members and everyone involved. Satan 
Wants You is written and directed by Vancouver-based documentarians Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor. Steve and Sean are a prize-winning team known for their films on pop culture and queer topics and whose doc Someone Like Me won the Audience Choice award at Hot Docs in 2021.
I spoke with Steve and Sean, in person, at TIFF 2023.
Satan Wants You! had its world premiere at this years Hotdocs Film Festival, and is now playing at the Rogers HotDocs Cinema in Toronto.
Only in the Movies. Films reviewed: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, My Love Affair with Marriage, Talk to Me
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In the film industry, one of the biggest gender gaps is with directors — very few movies are directed by women, and corporate studios are loathe to hire them. Which means we get tons of stories told from a male point of view, but far fewer from women. (Documentaries are an exception.) The Female Eye Film Festival showing this week in Toronto is trying to even the odds, by presenting new movies by women from around the world. But things might be changing. I went to a midweek promo screening when theatres are usually quiet, and was shocked to encounter a bright pink crowd. Women in pink skirts and wigs posing for selfies, skinny guys sporting neckerchiefs, kids, grownups, even grannies, were lined up for popcorn and packing the house with a degree of enthusiasm I haven’t seen since Harry Potter. Clearly, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a cultural phenomenon, and I do plan to see it, once the pink tsunami dies down.
This week, though, I’m looking at three new films, one horror and two animation. There’s a hand in Adelaide, Australia, a girl in Riga, Latvia, and four turtles in the sewers beneath Manhattan.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Dir: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo are four teenagers who live together in the sewer underground in New York City. When they were babies, a secret lab was raided spilling radioactive goo, turning four tiny turtles into mutant humanoid creatures. They were raised by a rat who also was exposed to the slime, and who trained them in martial arts. He has just one rule: never let humans see you, or they will call you a monster and hand you over to evil scientists who will milk you dry to create supersonic weapons. But the masked foursome, being teenagers, wish they could just be like normal humans, going to high school, the prom, meeting other friends… They finally get their chance when they team up with April O’Neil, an aspiring student journalist (nicknamed Puke Girl). If the TMNTs can stop a bizarre crime spree plaguing the city — and 
April report that story on TV news — maybe the people will welcome them in as heroes. Alas, it’s not as easy as it looks. There’s a gang of evil scientists who want their blood, and a mysterious group of mutant supervillains who may be just as strong they are. Can the Turtles avoid the scientists and defeat the mutants? Or will they live their lives eating pizza in the sewers of Manhattan?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a new reboot of the beloved comic, TV and movie franchise. Gone are the skateboards, surfer slang and whitebread voices of their earlier versions; this origin story starts again from scratch, in a multiracial city moving to the tune of 90s hiphop. At least they still eat pizza.. As always, it’s meant for 
small children, who seemed to like it a lot at the screening I went to. I liked it too. It’s visually stunning, with a colour palette ranging from acid green to day-glo blue and fluorescent red projected against dark city alleys. The characters themselves are a combo of 3-D models and hand-drawn illustration, with squiggles and scribbles appearing everywhere. And the voices —of the Ninja Turtles — are actual teenagers instead of grown ups faking it. I went in expecting very little and was surprised and pleased by its fast pace, sophisticated art work and fine music.
My Love Affair with Marriage
Wri/Dir: Signe Baumane (Rocks in my Pockets)
It’s the Soviet Union. Zelma is a little girl at her first day of school in Latvia. She’s tough and self-assured. When a boy starts bothering her, she clocks him. So she’s shocked when she is punished and ostracized for defending herself. “Girls don’t fight” she is told. She doesn’t wear makeup or bows un her hair, so the boy she has a crush on, studiously ignores her. Her mother instructs her to find a man, get married and put up with whatever he does. Later at university, she meets a fellow artist, Sergei, who flatters her and says he loves her. Could he be her soulmate?
Or is love just an illusion?
My Love Affair with Marriage is an animated, feminist coming-of-age story about a Latvian girl — and later as a woman and an artist trying to fit into a society that doesn’t seem ready to accept her. It handles her first period, her sex life, and her frustrating relationships and marriages. And it takes place both both during the USSR and after its collapse. (There’s even some scenes in Toronto.) It’s presented in the form of a highly-stylized animated musical, with three, bird-like women who 
sing songs about her progress like a veritable Greek chorus. The characters are beautifully-coloured, hand-drawn pen and ink, that vary from spare, to surreal, to scientific and even psychedelic. And that’s not all. It’s narrated through a series of medical drawings, narrated by a talking synapse. Each time Zelma falls in love or gets angry, it’s explained as her hypothalamus secreting hormones, oxytocin and dopamine. The film is told and sung in American English (Baumane is Latvian, based in Brooklyn) but it’s totally Eastern European in its humour, style and look. This is the second movie of hers I’ve seen, and I quite liked it.
Talk to Me
Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou
There’s a phenomenon going around on TikTok in Adelaide, South Australia. On the clips, people have weirdly distorted faces for a little while before they turn back to normal. Those who have done it swear it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever experienced. So some friends decide to try it out one night. It isn’t drugs, it isn’t hypnotism, it’s something totally different. Mia (Sophie Wilde) has been deeply depressed since her mom died of a sleeping pill overdose so she’s sleeping on her best friend Jade’s couch (Alexandra Jensen). They go to high school together. Mia helps out with Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). She picks him up from school and comforts him when he has one of his frequent nightmares. Riley and Jade’s single mom is working all the time. So they decide it’s time to try this new thing out, along with Jade’s boyfriend Daniel.
The party — if that’s what it is — focuses on a graffiti covered plaster hand. You light a candle, hold onto the hand and say “talk to me”. Then you say “I let you in” and that’s where the fun starts. You experience mind-blowing visions, your face distorts wildly, and some people do or say godawful things. 90 seconds later you blow out the candle and let go of the hand and it’s all over. The thing is, what you’re doing is opening the gate between the living and the dead, and allowing these ghosts/spirits/demons into your brain, for that short period of time. But when Mia, Jade, Daniel And Riley try it out, things don’t go exactly as planned. What is that hand? What does it do, 
exactly? And can they undo what they unwittingly started?
Talk to Me is a terrifying thriller/horror, one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m talking pounding heart, gasping for breath, out-and-out horrifying sensations. It also includes a good dose of psychological thriller, in case you like that too. So if you don’t like scary — stay far away. There are some short-lived but shocking scenes of violence at key points in the film. I’ve seen countless movies about seances and ouija boards going bad, but there’s something about this one that feels entirely fresh and new. If you’re looking for some great horror, see Talk To Me.
Talk to Me opens this weekend, check your local listings; My Love Affair with Marriage is the closing film at the Female Eye Film Festival at the HotDocs Cinema in Toronto; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens across the continent on August 2nd.
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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