Dangerous places. Films reviewed: Flight Risk, Presence, Nickel Boys
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is finally opening theatrically this weekend; I loved it at TIFF, it’s one of the best movies of the year and Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance as Pansy is unparalleled — don’t miss Hard Truths.
But this week I’m looking at three more movies set in dangerous places. There’s a witness in a prop plane in Alaska, a family in a haunted house, and two teens in a reform school that’s rotten to the core.
Flight Risk
Dir: Mel Gibson (Review: Hacksaw Ridge)
Winston (Topher Grace) is a bookkeeper on the lam. He used to work for the mob, but when they found out he was pocketing too much of their earnings he decided to run. Now he’s hidden away in a remote corner of Alaska where he’s sure they’ll never find him. They didn’t find him, but a pair of US Marshalls did. The cops are led by the hardboiled Madolyn (Michelle Dockery). She’s eager to be on active duty, after years stuck at her desk. She promises Winston full immunity if he agrees to testify. Now she just has to safely bring him to the lower 48. But first to an international airport in Anchorage. It’ll be a short ride over some mountains, and they’ll be on their way. Sure enough, there’s an old prop plane waiting on the tarmac the next morning. The pilot, Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) is a bit of a character, who directs his non-stop patter toward Madolyn. She sits beside him in the cockpit, with Winston — a potential flight risk — safely chained down in the back. Everything’s going perfectly until they realize the plane isn’t heading in the right direction. And the face on Daryl’s pilot license? Well, it isn’t Daryl. Who is in danger, who is dangerous, and who can safely fly the plane to Anchorage?
Flight Risk is a compact, action-thriller set aboard an old prop plane flying over the Alaskan mountains. It’s fast-moving, 
funny and a bit violent. The characters are all cartoonish: Mark Wahlberg has his head shaved with a deranged smile like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. Michelle Dockery, an English actress makes a good tough-as-nails cop. And Topher Grace completes the triumvirate playing Winston as an awkward petty criminal trying to overcome his fears. It feels like those Covid-era movies, with its small cast and single location. But in this case, it’s the constant fights and the changing balance of power in a tiny enclosed space — aboard a fast-moving plane — that give this film its oomph.
Flight Risk is no masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.
Presence
Dir: Steven Soderbergh (The Laundromat, Side Effects, And Everything is Going Fine)
A typical family is moving into their new home. It’s beautiful, quite old, with lots of wood and windows. Chloe and Tyler (Callina Liang, Eddy Maday) each have their own room, but that doesn’t stop them from bugging each other. Tyler is a self-centred high school jock who wants to join the in crowd, and will do anything to get there. To booster his chances, he brings a popular, but suspect, guy Ryan (West Mulholland) into the house. Ryan has his eyes on Tyler’s younger sister Chloe, who is going through the trials and tribulations of adolescence and self doubt. Their Mom and Dad (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan) are also adjusting. She’s the main breadwinner in this family, and is facing a crisis at work. Has she been cooking the books? Dad — an educator — is more laid back, but still senses trouble, especially when it’s interfering with their relationship. But none of them seem aware of a bigger problem that affects them all: The place is haunted! There’s a ghostly presence in this house, that has been there a long time, and is not going anywhere. It floats through the place, unseen and unheard, observing everything but doing nothing. Until it starts letting itself be known. Is this presence a ghost or a poltergeist? Is it good or evil? And what will it do to this family?
Presence is a typical family drama but seen through the eyes of a ghost. The camera (meaning the presence) never leaves the house, and if someone steps outside we can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s not a real horror movie; while there is a 
hint of the supernatural, and a fair bit of suspense, it doesn’t overpower the drama.
And yet… I quite liked this movie. Steven Soderbergh is hit and miss. Some of his films are cheap-looking and predictable, filled with clichéd characters and cookie-cutter stories. Others are innovative and surprising. This one totally works
If you’re looking for a typical horror movie, this ain’t it, but if you want something new and different, you should check out Presence.
Nickel Boys
Co-Wri/Dir: RaMell Ross (Hale County This Morning, This Evening)
(Based on the novel by Colson Whitehead)
It’s the early 1960s in segregated Tallahassee, Fla. Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is an earnest and polite young student who lives with his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). He loves reading and studying and is interested in Black American history and the civil rights movement happening all around him. When his history teacher, Mr Hill — an actual Freedom Rider! — gets him a scholarship at a prestigious Black technical school, everything is falling into place. Until, Elwood, while hitchhiking to his new school is arrested for riding while black! The driver of the car he’s in — a total stranger — is charged with some crime, and Elwood is his accessory. He ends up sentenced to serve time at a notorious reform school called Nickel Academy.
Nickel is a cesspool of corruption and cruelty, a school in name only. The kids are rented out as prison labour, like picking oranges off a tree. When he defends a little kid being beaten up at the school, Elwood is the one punished, not the bullies. And the punishment is severe: beaten until he bleeds or locked into a “sweat box”. Worse than that are the kids who suddenly “disappear”, never to be seen again. Luckily one kid stands up for him and becomes his best friend. Turner (Brandon Wilson) is as cynical as Elwood is idealistic. Elwood’s Nana has hired a lawyer to overturn his sentence — that’s what keeps him going. Turner — from Texas — has 
never had it easy, so he has no hope, just the will to survive. For a black kid in the Jim Crow south, the law doesn’t mean much. He tells Elwood that to get out of this place alive you have to know the rules. There are no laws, or right and wrong; last till you’re 18 and you’ll be free.
But as time passes, and Elwood’s future looks increasingly bleak, he starts to keep copious records of the violence crimes and corruption at Nickel Academy. Can he get the information to the authorities? Will it do any good? And which of the Nickel boys will survive?
Nickel Boys is an excellent historical drama about two young black men trapped in a horrific reform school. While historical in its details, it’s experimental and unconventional in its form. Most scened are shot from Elwood’s or Turner’s POV, with the focus often the ground, the sky, someone else’s hands or feet or the inside of his own head. It’s disconcerting at the beginning but you get used to it. The narrative is not completely linear either, with time jumping forward 20 and 
40 years, to show what happens to Elwood in the future. It’s full of compelling memorable images, like kids picking oranges using high wooden stilts. The two main actors are newcomers but very good in their portrayals. But over everything hangs the awful truth of the terrible crimes at these sorts of places (like the Residential Schools in Canada).
Nickel Boys is both moving and upsetting to watch.
Nickel Boys is now playing, with Flight Risk and Presence both opening 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.
Freedom or death? Films reviewed: The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Room Next Door PLUS Canada’s Top Ten!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Mark your calendars, boys and girls, because the annual Canada’s Top Ten film series starts in just a few weeks. If you’re into highly original movies, you really gotta check this out. I’ve already reviewed many of them, or interviewed them already, but there’s lots left to discover. Things like David 
Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, a truly bizarre mystery about an entrepreneur who invents burial shrouds that allow you to see in real time the decaying buried body of your loved one. It stars Vincent Cassell, Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce. Or Kazik Radwanski (Interview: 2013) & Samantha Chater’s 
brilliant Matt & Mara, with an almost totally improvised script follows old friends (Matt Johnson, Deragh Campbell) who suddenly meet each other again, opening a real can of worms. There are also short films at this festival — I can’t wait to see NFB animator Torill Kove’s latest short Maybe Elephants; her films are just enchanting. And I’m 
curious what Canadian actor Connor Jessup is up to now with his short film Julian and the Wind. He starred in the movies Blackbird (2013) Closet Monster (2016) and the Netflix series Locke and Key (2021) but I have never seen his own work. These are just a few of the great movies in Canada’s Top Ten and they’re all showing at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto.
But this week, I’m looking at two new movies, one from Iran (via Germany), and another one from Spain (via the US). There are three female activists looking for freedom in Tehran; and two female writers looking for peace in New York.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Co-Wri/Dir: Mohammad Rasoulof
Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and Iman (Missagh Zareh) are a happily married couple in Tehran. They live out their two daughters, Rezvahn (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). The kids fight a lot, but the family is still close and trusting; no secrets here. But everything changes once their Dad — a government bureaucrat — gets a promotion. He is issued a gun for protection, due to the nature of his new position. You see, he is now sort of a judge within the Islamic Revolutionary Court. This means convicting and sentencing anyone accused of disobeying religious or political laws, ranging from women who expose their uncovered hair, to anyone caught insulting the Supreme Leader or the government itself. And especially anyone caught at a pro-democracy demonstration.
But when Rezvahn’s best friend Sadaf gets beaten up at a demo, and they hide her in the apartment they have to keep it from her Dad. Is he responsible for this crackdown? And when his gun disappears, Iman suspects everyone. Has his family turned on him? A wall of distrust divides the family, threatening its very existence. Can they reconcile or is it too late?
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a powerful and harrowing drama about distrust and betrayal, within a family torn apart by the 
influence of an authoritarian government on all of their lives. It was shot entirely in Iran, on the sly, by noted director Mohammad Rasoulof who smuggled it out of the country. (It was edited in Germany.) He fled for obvious reasons: he was sentenced to 8 years in prison, and corporal punishment — that’s whipping — for his film work.
Two thirds of it was shot within a claustrophobic apartment in Tehran, two years ago, right when a women-led, pro-democracy movement was in full swing. The final third was shot outdoors in a spectacularly eerie lunar landscape, shifting in tone from tense psychological drama to a genuine action/thriller. This movie is neither short nor easy to watch, but it is amazing.
I recommend this one.
The Room Next Door
Co-Wri/Dir: Pedro Almodovar
Ingrid (Julianne Moore) is a successful novelist who lives in New York. At a book signing — her latest one is about her fear of dying — an old acquaintance approaches her. She tells Ingrid that Martha (Tilda Swinton), her old friend from University days, is dying of cancer. Can’t she visit her in hospital? Ingrid hasn’t seen her in decades, though they had been quite close. They even once had a boyfriend in common, Damian (John Turturro). And while Ingrid stayed close to home, Martha (Tilda Swinton) became a renowned war reporter for the NY Times. Her travels took her around the world covering frontline battles in West Africa and the Middle East. They are both happy to see each other again, and Ingrid loves keeping Martha company as she recounts some of her past adventures.
That is until Martha makes a big request. Her death is inevitable, but she hopes Ingrid will stay with her in the room next door (hence the title) so someone will be around when the inevitable happens. (Ingrid is estranged from her only 
daughter). And though deathly afraid of death, Ingrid agrees. They move to a gorgeous isolated wood-and-glass country home. But what will happen next?
The Room Next Door is a touhing, gentle story about two old friends reunited under bittersweet circumstances. Though clearly an Almodovar movie it differs in two ways. This is his first English language feature, and the dialogue seems stilted and clumsy, at least at the very beginning, but interestingly, I stopped noticing it after the first few minutes. Second, the passionate melodrama, the sex, the outrageous humour I expect to see in any Almodovar movie aren’t there. Any conflicts, secrets, betrayals or revelations are few and far 
between. Instead it is subtle, soft, and gentle. And yet it still clearly is Almodovar’s work. The set design, colour palette, camerawork, the structure and the music are instantly recognizable. I love the gorgeous, two-coloured wooden lounge chairs by the swimming pool, the clothes they wear, the soundtrack. Almodovar loves long, intricately told flashbacks, and stories within stories like The Arabian Nights. It satisfies your brain and your heart. And Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are just right in their roles.
So in the end, though The Room Next Door was not the Almodovar film I expected to see, it was still satisfying to watch.
The Room Next Door and The Seed of the Sacred Fig are 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.com.
Bobby, Robbie and Tom. Films reviewed: A Complete Unknown, Better Man, Nosferatu
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Christmas is coming in just a few days, so this week I’m looking at three new movies — two musical biopics and a gothic horror — all opening on the 25th. There’s a young man named Bobby who hails from Minnesota, another named Robbie who looks like a gorilla, and a third named Tom who is headed for Transylvania.
A Complete Unknown
Co-Wri/Dir:James Mangold (Indiana Jones…)
It’s 1961 in Greenwich Village. Bobby Dylan (Timothée Chalamet: Dune, The French Dispatch, Call Me by Your Name, ) is a 19 year old boy from Minnesota, who arrives penniless with just a guitar on his back. The Village is the centre of the folk revival sweeping across America, alongside the civil rights and anti-war movements. Bobby is looking for his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), and tracks him down at a Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. Guthrie is suffering from a debilitating case of Hunnington’s disease. He communicates using grunts and gestures, but clearly likes Bobby’s songs. Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) — the folk giant and political activist — is there too, visiting Woody. He takes Bob under his wing and later introduces him at an open mic show at the Gaslight Cafe. There he meets the beautiful and talented Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), a wildly popular folksinger and activist in her own right.
Bob’s still broke and prone to couch surfing, but soon settles into a casual relationship with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning: Somewhere, Super 8, Ginger and Rosa, Neon Demon, Twentieth Century Women, The Beguiled, The Roads Not Taken, Mary Shelley). Is it love? And despite his unconventional voice, he quickly attracts fans — including stars like Johnny Cash — and his recording career takes off. Joan Baez adapts some of his songs with great success, and the two of them go on tour together — where they become intimate on and off stage. But Bob feels constrained by the folk community and wants to forge new 
musical pathways. What will happen when Bob Dylan goes electric?
A Complete Unknown: The Ballad of a True Original is a biopic about Bob Dylan. It spans a relatively short period of his life and music from his arrival in New York until the Newport Folk Festival of 1965. Chalamet is excellent as the young Bob Dylan, portraying him both as kind and self centred, ambitious and indifferent… usually sitting around in his underwear strumming a guitar. Norton is surprisingly believable as Pete Seeger. Elle Fanning, as Dylan’s neglected lover, seems less real, more of a cinematic concoction to add a romantic undertone to the story. Indeed, much of the plot and characters are invented out of whole cloth— with Dylan’s approval.
What’s really good though is the music. 75% of the movie is 
just singing and playing instruments, performed by the actors themselves. Maybe it’s me, but those songs, those joyful songs… they made me sing along and literally brought tears to my eyes. Live concerts, jams, hootenannies, jamborees, recording gigs… this movie includes everything. Whatever its false notes or historical inaccuracies, the music makes it.
I enjoyed this movie so much.
Better Man
Co-Wri/Dir: Michael Gracey
It’s the 1980s in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Robbie Williams (Jonno Davies) is a boy who lives with his dad, mum and grandmother (Steve Pemberton, Kate Mulvany, and Alison Steadman). He goes to Catholic school where he’s the class clown. He loves singing, acting and telling jokes. He’s not particularly talented but he is charming and cheeky, always ready with a smile, a wink, and a wiggle. He longs for approval from his neglectful father, but rarely gets it. So he vows to become famous some day to prove his worth. Unfortunately he’s the only one who thinks he can make it. Still, somehow he passes the auditions and is invited to join a new boy band called Take That.
Robbie doesn’t mind performing semi-clad at gay bars; their popularity is growing, and their catchy tunes are being listened to. And when they finally make it big, he is dazzled by the adoration of countless fans. He falls for the allure of alcohol, drugs and willing sex partners. But why isn’t he making much money? It’s because he doesn’t write the songs, he just performs them.His drug use is getting out of hand. When he quits the band for a solo career, thing look rough. Will his own talent ever be recognized? Will his father ever be 
proud of him? And can he overcome the self doubt that plagues his career?
Better Man is a music biopic about the rise, fall and rise again of the pop singer and performer. The music and plot of this film are both pretty basic. What’s interesting is how he is portrayed. Through the use of CGI, Robbie Williams looks like a human but with the features and fur of a chimpanzee. No one ever mentions it, he doesn’t eat bananas or climb trees, but throughout the movie, he looks like an ape. It represents the self-doubt and insecurity that drives him.
Director Michael Gracey had his start as an animator who learned special effects from the ground up, which leaves him with a vast supply of techniques to dazzle audiences. He has no fear of green screens and embraces CGI whole heartedly. Most of the movie feels like a non-stop, never-ending music video, expertly made. I’m not a fan of boy-band pop, but the sparkling presentation makes Better Man fun to watch.
Nosferatu
Co-Wri/Dir: Robert Eggers (Lighthouse Eggers interview, The Northman, The VVitch Reviews)
It’s the 1830s in a small port city in Northern Germany. Thomas and Ellen Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp) are a young couple, passionately in love. To support their family and any future kids, Tom has a new position at a financial firm, run by the eccentric Mr Knock. Tom is a Bob Cratchit, always trying to please his boss. His first assignment: to visit a fabulously wealthy noble, have him sign a contract, and accompany him back to the city. It seems like a simple task. But Ellen is dead-set against it. Count Orlov cannot be trusted — he will kill you, Tom, she says. How does she know? The nightmares she’s had since adolescence predict it.
But, despite her warnings, Tom heads off to Transylvania. Count Orlov’s (Bill Skarsgård) castle is intimidating, set amongst the stark Carpathian mountain, and none of the local villagers dare to go with him, even draped in ropes of garlic. Tom braves it on his own, but finds the Count mysterious and oppressive. The castle is filled of vicious wolves and with rats.
Tom wakes up each morning feeling drained, with teeth marks on his torso.
Meanwhile, back in Germany, Ellen is tormented with nightmares, driving her toward insanity, despite help from her friends Friedrich and Anna (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin). Tom disappears and, when the Count arrives in the German town, unaccompanied, people start dropping dead from the plague. Can Tom and Ellen free themselves of Count Orlov’s treachery? And what are this vampire’s real motives?
Nosferatu is a remake of Murnau’s 1922 silent film, which in turn was an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But far from being just another vampire movie, this one is totally original. It’s sexualized, scary, funny and grotesque. I saw it in IMAX in all its gothic glory.
Murnau’s Nosferatu was a masterpiece of German expressionism, both modern and iconoclastic; Ironically, this one, made a century later, is deeply rooted in the distant past. Robert Eggers loves this old stuff, and pays meticulous attention to every word of the script and every frame of the film. It’s full of unnecessary but delightful scenes, like Roma singers and Magyar slap dancers, and rat infested canals. Eggers went to Transylvania just to capture that castle on film. He gives us a new Dracula, no Bela Lugosi accent or widow’s peak. This Nosferatu is a burly, imposing man, draped in fur robes, with a grand Hungarian moustache. His skin and muscles are rotting away, putrid with decay. He is driven not by an insatiable thirst for human blood but by lust: he covets a woman.
If you’re into new explorations in horror, I think you’ll love Nosferatu.
Better Man, A Complete Unknown, and Nosferatu all open on Christmas Day 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.
Films reviewed: Your Monster, Drive Back Home, Conclave
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
More Film Festivals are coming up soon, with ReelAsian, Cinefranco and BITS, Blood in the Snow, just around the corner.
But this week, I’m looking at three great new movies. There’s a consortium of cardinals locked in their chambers; a monster discovered in a closet by a NY actress, and a Toronto man forced out of his closet by the police.
Your Monster
Wri/Dir: Caroline Lindy
It’s present day Manhattan. Laura (Melissa Barrera) is a triple threat — she can sing, dance and act. She’s helping her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) write his breakout musical, soon to open on Broadway with her in the lead role. But when she gets sick — the big C! — and needs surgery, he dumps her — out of the blue — while still in hospital. And casts another actress (Meghann Fahy), in her part. The surgery is a success but Laura is a total wreck. She’s doubly devastated, both from the sudden end of her five year relationship and for being cheated out of her big break. Her anger, frustration and self pity are all ready to explode. That’s when she makes an unexpected discovery. There’s a monster in her closet!
The creature (Tommy Dewey) is an actual monster, bearded with long hair, sharp teeth and leonine features, who talks like a dude. Apparently he has lived there all her life (she grew up in this house) she just never saw him before. It’s hate and fear at first sight. He threatens to tear out her throat and eat her alive — and tells her to 
leave the place and never come back. Meanwhile, Laura shows up for the audition uninvited and becomes the understudy for her own role. But things gradually warm up at home, as Laura and her monster get to know each other. But can she take him to the Halloween Ball? Will she ever get to perform her role on stage? And will her boyfriend ever take her back?
Your Monster is a very cute, rom-com/horror with a fair bit of singing, too. It’s a riff on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast but with a funnier monster and brooding beauty with a lot of anger inside. Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey have lots of chemistry while Edmund Donovan is suitably villainous as the bad boyfriend. He looks strangely like Jared Kushner. The movie as a whole is enjoyable and adorable. It takes a funny concept to its extreme. I like the costumes, I like tight script — the whole movie is much better than I expected. There’s a play within the play (half the scenes are rehearsals or performances) but even the “real” home scenes are theatrical. Your Monster will make a great date movie, but just keep in mind there’s a bit of horror within this rom-com.
Drive Back Home
Wri/Dir: Michael Clowater
It’s 1970 in the village of Stanley, New Brunswick.
Weldon (Charlie Creed-Miles) is a mechanic who lives with his mom, his wife and his son in the house he was born and grew up in. One night he gets a long distance phone call from Toronto. His estranged younger brother Perly (Alan Cumming) — an advertising exec who he hasn’t heard from in many years — has been arrested for gross indecency (meaning consensual sex with another man). The cop lays it out. If you can pick him up and take him home, all charges will be dropped. If not, he’s going to prison for five years. So Weldon loads up his pickup truck with enough sandwiches and gasoline for a long trip and leaves his village for the first time in his life. He’s terrified of having to speak French so he takes a circuitous route avoiding Montreal altogether.
He picks up Perly from the cop shop but there is no love lost between them. Perly is a city boy who wears a jaunty cravat while his big brother is a hick, who’s never seen a high-rise apartment or an answering machine. He just wants to drive back home. Perly isn’t a happy camper either: His marriage is a shambles, his career has tanked and his dog is dead, since the cops arrested him. But what’s left for him in Toronto? And so they begin their long journey home. But what secrets will be revealed along the way?
Drive Back Home is a bittersweet drama about family and trauma. It’s done in the style of classic Canadian Road movies, like Don 
Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road, but this one is about leaving the big city. Their trip through rural Ontario and Quebec alternates between scenic beauty, rustic kindness, and vicious, small-town bigotry. Canada was still rife with homophobic hatred at the time — it was only decriminalized a year earlier, and there are disturbing gay-bashing scenes in this film along with a lot of homophobic F bombs.
The two main actors are English and Scottish but both quite good, and maintain decent Canadian accents, gruff for Creed Miles and arch for Cumming. The rest of the cast features prominent Canadian actors, with Clare Coulter as Adelaide, the hard-ass mom, Guy Sprung, as a Francophone farmer, Dan Beirne as a priest and Alexandre Bourgeois as a young guy they meet in a roadhouse bar. Drive Back Home is a moving look at Canada’s bad ol’ days.
Conclave
Dir: Edward Berger
A hush hangs over the Vatican; his holiness the Pope is dead. And the world’s Cardinals, in red robes with white mitres, are congregating to choose the next pontiff from within their group. Ballots are secret, but until one receives 2/3 of the votes, they are literally locked-in, no contact with the outside world. What are their criteria for the next pope? He must be virtuous and humble, but also healthy and strong. And he must be honest as the Pope is infallible. Bishop Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is the Dean in charge of the highly secretive process. The most popular candidates: Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a modest liberal reformer, Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a bombastic traditionalist, and the highly respected Adeyami (Lucian Msamati). But Lawrence is privy to new information just before the lockdown. A drunken monsignor alleges the Pope fired Tremblay (John Lithgow) just before he died. And mystery man, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), appears out of nowhere claiming to be the Cardinal of Kabul, Afghanistan. And then there are the nuns, including Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) who remain 
silent but see and hear everything. Which bishop will they choose to turn the conclave’s smoke from black to white?
Conclave is a stunningly- good thriller about secrets and subterfuge within the Vatican. The constant changes of political alliances as well as shocking revelations will keep your rapt attention until the very end. It presents a Vatican that’s both exquisite and decadent, with black mould spreading on it’s columns. It’s all the work of German director Edward Berger who made All Quiet on the Western Front, with Volker Bertelmann’s powerful music, and fascinating camerawork. It was filmed at Rome’s famous Cinecitta studio who are always deft at recreating the Vatican. I love this constant attention to detail — red sealing wax, Latin prayers, and tortellini soup.The acting is superb, especially Ralph Fiennes. I’ve never been a fan, but he is just sooo good in this role, maybe his best I’ve ever seen. Altogether, this makes Conclave a great night out.
Your Monster and Conclave both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Drive Back Home is having its Toronto premiere tonight at CAMH on Queen West as part of the Rendezvous with Madness film fest.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Depression. Films reviewed: The Crow, Between the Temples
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Depression can lead to strange decisions. This week I’m looking at two new movies, a supernatural action thriller, and an unusual romantic comedy. There’s a lover who can’t live after his girlfriend dies; and a cantor who can’t sing after his wife dies.
The Crow
Dir: Rupert Sanders
It’s an unnamed big city somewhere in the world. Shelly (FKA twigs) is a piano prodigy, who, with help from her ambitious mom and some shady investors headed by the mysterious Mr Roeg (Danny Huston), has risen to the top. She is living the highlife in a swank apartment and hanging with beautiful people at exclusive nightclubs.
Eric (Bill Skarsgård: John Wick Chapter 4) is a ne’er-do-well who grew up on a rundown farm with neglectful parents. Now, he finds himself in the big city, his face and body covered in meaningful tattoos. He lives a precarious life with hoody friends, with a secret space to hide out in — a warehouse filled with plastic covered mannequins. His interests range from goth music to the pen and ink drawings he scratches on scraps of paper.
So how did they both end up locked in a juvie rehab centre? For Eric it’s a foregone conclusion, but Shelly is there for drug possession. But her life is in danger after discovering she has footage on her cel phone of a heinous crime, committed by the dark and powerful Mr Roeg. When Eric and Shelly meet in the rehab/prison it’s love at first sight. They escape and run away, to the big city where they make passionate love in haut couture fashions while spilling bottles of champagne over each others’ bodies. But Mr Roeg’s bad guys soon catch up, murdering them both. That’s when Eric has to decide: should he pass back into the world of the living to seek revenge and Shelly from hell? Or will he let himself die and pass on to heaven?
The Crow is a supernatural action/thriller about young lovers caught
between life and death. It has attractive stars, opulent sets, cool fashions and a good music playlist. Along with some extended fight scenes. The thing is, the movie doesn’t really make sense, it’s hard to sympathize with the hollow main characters, and it’s full of unexplained plot turns and dead ends. It feels like an unresolved two-hour music video. It begins in a city like Chicago, but where everyone has English accents. There are cobblestone streets and European opera houses. The movie is called the Crow, but aside from some black birds flying in the background, they don’t have much to do with it. Eric stains his face with black mascara to match the iconic Crow movie poster, but we never find out why.
I didn’t hate this movie, but it is a big pointless mess.
Between the Temples
Co-Wri/Dir: Nathan Silver
Ben (Jason Schwartzman: Asteroid City, My Entire Highschool Sinking into the Sea, The Overnight, Saving Mr Banks, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) is a middle aged guy in upstate New York. He’s been sad and withdrawn since his wife died. Now he lives with his two moms, Judith and Meira Gottlieb (Dolly De Leon, Caroline Aaron). They’re taking care of him in this time of need. They’re also constantly setting him up with new girlfriends to replace his dearly departed… in which he has no interest. He’s a cantor who works at the local synagogue but lost his ability to sing when his wife died. And what good is a cantor who can’t chant? Which drives him into a deeper depression in an ongoing cycle. He reaches rock-bottom one day when he lies down on a highway hoping the next truck will end it all. Instead the sympathetic driver helps him up and drops him off at a roadside bar. There, the teetotalling Ben gets totally sloshed on Mudslides (a white Russian with Irish cream). This leads to a drunken fistfight with a random stranger and a shiner on his face. But that’s where he meets a new friend, a sympathetic older woman, who looks somehow familiar. And then he remembers: it’s Mrs O’Connor (Carol Kane) his music teacher when he was a small child. And she’s a widow, too.
Gradually they spend more time together, sharing their stories. Mrs O’Connor (now reverting to her 
original name, Carla Kessler) explains she was a red-diaper baby, the child of American communists. As a teenager she liked listening to her friends singing at their bar mitzvahs but she didn’t understand and totally rejected any religious meaning. But now, 60 years later, she wants to have a Bat Mitzvah herself. Couldn’t Ben, a real cantor, teach her how to do it? He agrees, and they enter an intimate professional relationship focussed on singing. As it turns out she’s the only one who can make him laugh. But can this lead to something more serious? And can a 40 year old man hit it off with a 70 year old woman?
Between the Temples is a cute and clever romantic comedy. It’s all about the humour in uncomfortable situations and family misunderstandings, both his and hers. I have to mention the classic Harold and Maude, but aside from the intergenerational theme and the nice hippy-ish soundtrack, this one is original and stands on its own. Carole Kane is marvellous as Carla — she’s a comic genius who with her curly blonde hair and enormous eyes has kept her waifish, childlike look in her 70s. Jason Schwartzman is great for his dry delivery. And Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Silence) is excellent as Ben’s Filipina Jewish mother.
With an amazing cast, this small, subtle comedy is warm and effective.
The Crow and Between the Temples 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.
Bad destinations. Films reviewed: Borderlands, Only Flows the River, Cuckoo
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Looking for fun and adventure? Look no further. This week I have three new movies from around the world: a supernatural thriller set in Bavaria, a dark mystery in northwestern China, and an action comedy that takes place…in outer space!
Borderlands
Co-Wri/Dir: Eli Roth
It’s outer space in a post-apocalyptic future dominated by a multi planetary corporation known as Atlas. The worst place in the universe is the planet Pandora, once prosperous, but now decrepit and desolate. That’s where Atlas CEO’s daughter still lives. Pandora is a mecca for treasure hunters looking for a legendary vault, one that will provide limitless wealth to its discoverer. Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) Atlas’s teenaged daughter, still lives there. But when she is kidnapped by Roland, an ex-soldier (Kevin Hart) and Krieg, a deranged, masked muscleman (Florian Munteanu) Atlas is furious, not least because his daughter may hold the key to that vault. So Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) approaches Lilith (Cate Blanchett) to bring her home. Lilith is a hard-boiled bounty hunter, notorious for her ruthlessness; she’ll shoot anyone who gets in her way. And she hates Pandora more than most, having lived a traumatic childhood there. But business is business, so when Atlas offers an enormous sum of money to compete this “simple” job, she flies off to rescue Tiny Tina.
Problem is it’s anything but simple. Tiny Tina doesn’t want to be rescued. She’s also dangerous: the cute teddy bears she carries are lethal explosives. Eventually they form a truce: Lilith, Roland Tina, and Krieg, along with Claptrap — a wise-cracking R2D2 — and Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) an academic with a sketchy past. But can they fight off all those dangerous treasure hunters? And who in this group can be trusted?
Borderlands is a science fiction action/comedy based on a video game. It’s filled with strangely shaped vehicles, scary monsters and cool weapons. It has pretty good special effects and a stellar cast. Unfortunately, the movie kinda sucks. It’s like a third-rate Mad Max. Eli Roth, is a competent, though gory, horror director, but he totally missed the boat with this one. The story stays close to the original game, but who wants to watch characters advancing to higher levels in a game you’re not playing? It just doesn’t translate into a movie plot: Cross a bridge before it 
collapses. Enter the elevator before the bad guys attack… Boooring. The jokes are not funny, the script is awful, the CGI is relentless, and the characters are shamelessly stolen from movies like Blade Runner, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Tank Girl.
Perhaps fans of the game will enjoy seeing their favourite characters on the big screen, but otherwise I can’t see any reason to watch this.
Only the River Flows
Co-Wri/Dir: Wei Shujun
It’s the early 1990’s in China. Detective Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) is a recent arrival to Banpo, a rundown small town on the Yellow River. HIs wife is pregnant with their one child, He was an award winning cop back in Yunnan before transferring here and the ambitious Police Chief (Hou Tianlai) has high hopes. He wants to move the police HQ to an abandoned cinema. But first, Ma’s team must prove its crime-solving talent. Lucky for Ma a kid finds a dead body by the riverbank. It’s an old lady who tends her geese but rarely interacts with anybody else. She lives with a formerly homeless drifter she adopted, who people in the village call Mad Man. However any evidence was washed away with the flowing river. A similar killing is discovered a few days later by the river; a local poet, whose writing ties him to a single woman.
There are a lot of seemingly unconnected clues. A cassette tape found near a crime contains crucial information recorded on it. One interrogated witness admits his guilt —- but is he telling the truth? The more clues they find, the less sure Ma is. And the longer he takes to close the file, the more agitated his ping-pong-playing Police Chief becomes. Eventually, truth merges with fantasy until Ma can’t tell his dreams from reality. Can he regain his clear 
head and catch the real killer (or killers)? Or will this case be his last?
Only the River Flows is a policier portraying an earlier China that’s dirty and poor. Though it involves a series of killings, the mystery is less important than the mood: dark, wet and crumbling. There are some surprisingly memorable scenes: like a primitive CSI where they strike a hog carcass to determine which knife was used in the killing. The film manages to be cynical and satirical, without being out-and-out depressing, poking fun at things like the PRCs obsession with official banners and awards. The acting is good, but the camerawork and art direction is great, infusing the film with a miserable nostalgia. I’ve never seen a film by Wei Shujun before, but his reputation precedes him. And he was born after the film takes place.
Not bad at all.
Cuckoo
Wri/Dir: Tillman Singer
It’s the forests of Bavaria, in the not-so-distant past. Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is a depressed and angry 17-year-old who carries a switchblade in her pocket. She likes scowling and playing goth music on her electric guitar. She was sent to Germany to stay with her divorced dad, his second wife and their kid Alma (Mila Lieu) after her mom died. They live in a modern house near a seedy, isolated resort — named after the cuckoo — that they want to develop. The hotel is owned and run by a slimy control freak named Herr König (Dan Stevens), who hires Gretchen to work at the front desk; We need more English speakers, he says.
But she soon discovers this guesthouse is no picnic. Female visitors are prone to vomiting and keeling over in the lobby. Strange noises and powerful invisible waves, coming from nowhere, wreak havoc with their brains. And when Gretchen rides her bike home one night — over Herr Konig’s objections — she is closely followed and nearly killed by a terrifying hooded woman — with round glasses and grasping claws — running all the way. She narrowly escapes by seeking refuge inside the local hospital. But the police dismiss her scary experiences as a prank by local kids. Her family and their friends (except her mute half-sister Alma, and a bearded detective named Henry) seem to have turned against her. The longer Gretchen stays there, the more beaten up she gets, with an arm in a sling and gauze across her forehead. But every attempt to escape is thwarted by invisible forces, fueled by time gaps in her memory. Can she ever get away from this godforsaken place? And who are the scary people here: Demons? Vampires? Werewolves?
Cuckoo is a highly-original story of a sensitive teenaged girl 
trapped in a bizarre situation. It’s a fantasy thriller/horror but different from anything I’ve seen. It’s not set in any particular era but probably the 1990s. (Picture older hospital rooms, endless rows of filing cabinets) Writer-Director Tillman Singer also composed some of the songs. The acting is excellent, and more than that, the actors really seem to enjoy their strange characters, especially Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) and Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey). Cuckoo is funny, sexy, scary, totally unpredictable and weird as all get-out.
I loved this one.
Borderlands, Only the River Flows, and Cuckoo all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Through the grapevine. Films reviewed: Twisters, Widow Clicquot
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Is your headspace being dominated by thoughts of politics and elections? If so, you need some distractions! I’ve got just the thing for a hot day like today. This week, I’m looking at two new summer movies — an historical drama and a disaster-thriller — both about strong women. There’s a widow who risks the wrath of grapes, and a meteorologist who throws caution to the wind.
Twisters
Dir: Lee Isaac Chung (Review: Minari)
Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a meteorologist. Not the weatherman who writes numbers on a green screen on your local TV news; she’s the real thing, with an important job at a government bureau in New York City. So what is she doing in Oklahoma? The state is facing an unusual number of major tornadoes all at once. She was invited down there by Javi (Anthony Ramos), an old classmate and study-buddy who worked with her on her experiment involving using polymers to stop tornadoes. But the experiment went wrong, killing the rest of their team, thus taking away any desire she once had to chase tornadoes. And yet here she is back in Oklahoma. She’s lending a hand to Javi’s corporate sponsors, who supply shiny white SUVs in exchange for some crucial tornado info.
But she faces severe competition. The place is swarming with 
adventure seekers, journalists and tourists. Tyler (Glenn Powell) is a cowboy huckster — a self-described “Tornado Wrangler” — who sells T-shirts and coffee mugs with his own grinning face on them. He’s a “chaser”, someone who seeks out tornadoes and gets as close to them as he can without being sucked away. His gimmick is to shoot fireworks up into tornadoes as they pass by. Looks great on YouTube… He drives a souped-up red jeep, and speeds ahead of Javi’s white vans. But Kate is in a league all her own. She can look at a dandelion and predict, with amazing accuracy, which way the next tornado is coming. And Tyler starts to take note. Who should Kate side with — serious Javi, or aw-shucks Tyler? And will any of them survive the big storm on the horizon?
Twisters is a thriller disaster movie about… well, tornadoes and the people who chase them. That’s most of the movie. It’s kind of a sequel to the movie Twister (1996) but shares none of the same characters, actors, or plot lines, except that they’re both about tornado chasers. There’s definite electricity between Kate and Tyler — Glenn Powell is brimming with charisma, and the appealing Englishwoman Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a credible American (though not much off an Oklahoman) — but those sparks never catch fire. If you’re expecting love, lust or sex, you chose the wrong movie. There’s not even a single kiss here. What you do get is amazing special effects: collapsing water towers, exploding oil refineries, roofs torn off buildings, streetcars running off their tracks…and lots sandlots of people holding onto something solid to avoid being swept away. I don’t know about you, but I really like disaster movies. Who needs a plot when you get to watch the world collapse?
Widow Clicquot
Dir: Thomas Napper
It’s the early 1800s in Napoleonic France. Madame Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot (Haley Bennet) is a wealthy aristocrat from Champagne. In her early twenties she is married off to the equally rich François Clicquot (Tom Sturridge) who inherited vast vineyards. Although she dislikes him at first — he is somewhere between eccentric and crazy — she grows to love his childlike, playful exuberance. The guy has tousled hair and wears diaphanous pirate shirts, while Madame dresses in breezy white blouses. Soon he has her singing to grape vines, too. When she’s not in the vineyards, she’s in her laboratory studying wine sediment in beakers and test tubes. But eventually his eccentricity turns erratic, sometimes slipping into accidental violence. Madame sends their daughter off to the Abbee, but by their 6th year together, he is dead.
Now she’s a widow, and heir to the estate, but the trustees have never heard of a woman vintner. They offer her a fair settlement and tell her to take the money and run. Never!, cries widow Clicquot. These vines, this terroir it’s Francois’ soul! And she feels personally attached to it, too. But everything goes wrong. They buy cheap glass bottles which explode. And selling wine across borders is a no-no during the Napoleonic wars. She turns to Louis (Sam Riley) a wine salesman, for help. She needs to get her latest concoction — a dry pink wine with tiny bubbles — to the market. It’s the only thing that can save her grapes and the chateau she lives in. But will her new type of wine ever catch on?
Widow Clicquot is a historical drama filled with the expected 
stories: passionately swooning lovers, double-crossing colleagues, floppy hair and costumes and verdant green valleys. It’s also about a rich woman who dares to fights the system. Not all that much happens in this movie which makes it drag in the middle. Tom Sturridge is ridiculous as the flakey husband, Haley Bennet is better though still stiff, as Madame, and Sam Riley as the travelling salesman is the best of those three. I was dreading a total corporate kiss-ass for the famous champagne maker, but it wasn’t that way at all. It’s based on a book that portrays her as a determined woman, despite her flaws, so two points for that. It’s not a spoiler that she is the famous Veuve Clicquot who basically invented modern champagne. And I liked the historical aspects.
Widow Clicquot is not a great movie, but lubricate yourself with enough flutes of Veuve and you won’t really care.
Widow Clicquot and Twisters 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.
Odd relationships. Films reviewed: Touch, Katie’s Mom, Longlegs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The 22nd annual Female Eye Film Festival starts on Wednesday and runs through the weekend, showing short films, docs and features all directed by women. Films come from as far away as Kyrgyzstan and as close as right here, with CIUT’s own Christian Hamilton’s short film “Just Grand” in the Thrills & Chills program.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies — a romantic comedy, a drama and a thriller horror — all about unexpected relationships. There’s an Icelander in London with a crush on his boss’s daughter; a divorcee in Pasadena who has a fling with her daughter’s lover; and an FBI agent with a mysterious connection to a serial killer.
Touch
Co-Wri/Dir: Baltasar Kormákur
It’s early 2020 in Iceland. Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson) is a restauranteur and a choir singer approaching retirement. He is awaiting the results of a brain scan. And with rumours of an upcoming pandemic his late wife’s daughter warns him to shelter at home. But he is driven by a quest he has thought about for half a century.
50 years ago, the younger Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s son) is an earnest student at the London School of Economics. He is tall and skinny with blonde hair and a wispy beard. He is disgusted by the political indifference of his classmates. So he drops out and applies at the first help wanted sign he sees — a small Japanese restaurant called Nippon, run by a plain-spoken man named Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki, a.k.a. モックン). And as he walks through the door he catches sight of a beautiful young woman with pale skin and long black hair. Is it love at first sight? Her name is Miko, (Kôki) she’s 
Takahashi’s daughter, and she’s dating a Japanese man. Beneath his gruff exterior Takahashi is a nice guy — he appreciates the fact Kristofer grew up beside the sea and worked on a fishing boat. But he is extremely protective of his daughter, for unspoken reasons. When Kristofer and Miko fall in love they keep it a secret from Takahashi… until the restaurant suddenly closes down and Miko disappears without a trace. Is she still alive and in London? Can he find her during a pandemic? And would she even remember who he is?
Touch is an extremely moving, bittersweet drama that spans half a century. It alternately follows both the young Kristófer’s first love in London in 1970 and the elderly Kristófer’s search for Miko in 2020. It’s based on an Icelandic bestseller, and has novelistic feel to it. It also deals with prejudice, exclusion, biracial families and historical wrongs. Touch is directed by Baltasar Kormákur, an underrated director if there ever was one, who has made a series of successful mainstream action thrillers (Reviews: Beast, 2 Guns and Contraband, but this heartfelt drama is a cut above. And by the end, tears were pouring down both sides of my face.
Katie’s Mom
Co-Wri/Dir: Tyrrell Shaffner
It’s present-day Pasadena. Nancy (Dina Meyer), is bored, lonely and angry. Bored because she’s in her 40s and single again, through no fault of her own. Sex is a distant memory. She thinks autoerotic stimulation means driving through a carwash… twice. Lonely because her two adult kids, Katie (Julia Tolchin) and Eli (Colin Bates) have moved out and she only sees them on holidays. And she’s much too embarrassed to spend any time with friends, now that she’s divorced. And angry because her ex-husband Morty, a plastic surgeon, dumped her for his much younger secretary and now they’re going to get married. So when both her kids show up for the Chrismukkah dinner (that’s Christmas and Chanukah on the same day) she finally feels things are getting better. But Katie has a surprise: she brought her new boyfriend Alex (Aaron Dominguez) with her and he needs a place to stay.
Things become even more frustrating when she hears Katie and Alex having sex each night. She’s ready to kick him out… but it turns out Alex is a really nice guy. He cooks and does the dishes without being asked. He’s an architecture student and actually listens to what Nancy has to say. Most important, she finds him very attractive. And the feelings seem mutual. But of course she could never sleep with her daughter’s boyfriend, could she? Or could she? And when her fantasies turn into reality, she doesn’t know which way to turn. Who can she tell? Is this a one time fling? And what will happen if Katie ever finds out?
Katie’s Mom is a light romantic comedy that’s funny and cute. It’s 
about a middle-aged woman’s sexual awakening held back by familial obligations and social norms. It features a solid comic performance by Julia Tolchin and a charming Aaron Dominguez. But Dina Meyer — known for her smoking-hot performance in Starship Troopers in 1997 — is still on fire 30 years later. The filmmaker compares it to The Graduate, but from Mrs Robinson’s point of view. I wouldn’t go that far — and it’s no spoiler to say Dustin Hoffman ain’t storming no wedding doors here. But it’s a fun, inter-generational romcom told from a much-needed female point of view.
Longlegs
Wri/Dir: Oz Perkins
It’s the early 1990s. Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a rookie FBI agent, quiet and introspective somewhere pn the spectrum, the product of a bible-thumping mom (Alicia Witt). She is one of many agents working on an open case involving a serial killer. The killer has slaughtered a large number of families over two decades, but he is very hard to profile. No witnesses, no photos, no fingerprints.
The killer — nicknamed Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) has entered each of his murder sites unimpeded. And in every case, the killings— always involving a husband, a wife, and a young daughter — seem to have been done by the families themselves. And the killer always leaves a cryptic letter — written in code — behind. The Agency has reason to believe another killing is imminent, but of all the agents, only Lee, on a hunch, is able to interrupt one of these ghoulish killings as it takes place. She is subjected to a battery of psychological tests… How did she know where to go? Is she psychic? Lee and her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) take over the case. She spends countless nights poring over files, trying to connect the dots. And as she comes closer to tracking down Longlegs her own long-hidden memories start coming back. Has she ever seen him in person? And if so what did he look like? And can she stop the killings?
Longlegs is a creepy and shocking thriller horror. It shares themes with Silence of the Lambs (a female FBI agent looking for a 
deranged killer) and Zodiac (the killer leaves notes written in abstract characters). But it differs from conventional horror movies with its art-house production style. No typical jump scares or schlocky effects. The photography and lighting is soooo good, with jagged angles and sharp shapes. Many shots are lit by a single light source. She lives in a home that looks like a log cabin. Director Oz Perkins revisits his own past themes (review: Gretel and Hansel) with inverted triangles and odd illuminati. Maika Monroe is excellent as the scared agent as is Alicia Witt as her religion-obsessed mom. While a freakout scene by Nicholas Cage is nothing unusual, this one will stick in your mind for a long time. And though at times it verges on the ridiculous, I found Longlegs’ suspense and scariness completely satisfying.
Touch and Longlegs both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Katie’s Mom is the Gala Feature at the opening ceremony of FEFF at the TIFF Lightbox next Thursday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Archnemeses! Films reviewed: Kill, Despicable Me 4, Escape
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Classic novels and movies needed a hero or a heroine to save the day. But in really good stories there’s also a nemesis, an enemy to fight and defeat. This week I’m looking at three new movies, from Korea, India and France — two action thrillers and an animated comedy — about arch-nemeses. There’s a former villain in witness protection, a commando on a train heading in a southern direction and a communist sergeant preparing his own defection!
Kill
Co-Wri/Dir: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Amrit (Lakshya) is a commando in a special unit of the Indian army. Along with his best buddy Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) they lead their troops in tactical operations using martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. But he’s in a bit of a jam. The love of his life, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is pledged to another man in an arranged marriage. To elope seems too risky; her father is an oligarch with immense power and wealth. Even so, they arrange for a secret meeting aboard the express train her family are riding south from Amritsar to Delhi. And, right there, with the two of them squeezed into a cramped toilet Amrit proposes marriage, complete with ring. But what neither of them realize is the train has been targeted by a brutal gang of bandits for an attack on the sleeper cars. The dacoits kill the guards, and steal watches, jewelry and cash from everyone there. And they sexually threaten the women. They’re led by a capricious Fani (Raghav Juyal) the nefarious son of the clan’s patriarch. But when Amrit and Viresh see what’s happening, they decide it’s time to fight back… but can just two commandos take on an entire family of bandits?
Kill is a non-stop, violent action movie, the first of its kind out of
India. It’s nothing like Bollywood, no songs, dances, or extended flirting. This is heavy-duty fighting all the way through. This is Lakshya’s first starring role — he’s good-looking and intense, a natural leading man. He plays Amrit as a regular Punjabi drawn almost to madness when he sees his lover threatened. Then he goes berserk. He wears a blood-stained shirt for most of the film, and beware: there’s a lot of blood to be spilt. Much of the action takes place in the aisles of an express train, between cars, on the roof, and out the exit doors. Weapons range from sabres, to rifles, a metal fire extinguisher and the fighters’ bare fists. The fighting is superbly choreographed, really well done. And the sound effects are chilling — the sound of skull hitting metal the slash. Off a knife, the thud if fists hitting flesh…I’ve never seen an Indian movie like this, and I quite enjoyed it. If you can get into intensely violent, non-stop action movies — on the scale of the great Indonesian flic The Raid — then I think you’ll really like Kill.
Despicable Me 4
Dir: Chris Renaud, Patrick Delage
Gru (Steve Carell) is a former supervillain who is now on the straight and narrow. He lives with his beloved wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), their three adopted daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, and their newborn baby son. But he has to dive back into the world of villainy when he is sent on a secret assignment: to return to the criminal boarding school of his childhood, the Lycée Pas Bon. Once there he must capture and jail his lifelong rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). Now Gru has his Minions — diminutive bright yellow creatures who obey his orders but are always up to no good — but Maxime has minions of his own: cockroaches! He’s built up a veritable army of the insects, and when he escapes from prison, he vows revenge against Gru and all those around him. To safeguard his family, Gru enters a witness protection program where they are all given new names and identities and a suburban home to live, and told to “blend in”.
The problem is their next door neighbours, the Prescotts, have a 
Despicable Me 4 is an animated kids’ comedy about a former villain facing off against a current villain. It’s the latest in an immensely successful French movie franchise (Reviews: Despicable Me, Minions: The Rise of Gru) about a likeable villain and his makeshift family. It combines simple animation with funny lines and goofy characters, Once again, I viewed it in an audience packed with kids who seem to love it. Personally, it seems to be getting a bit tired, like they’re running out of new ideas. The one genuinely funny aspect are the Minions, all voiced by Pierre Coffin. When they’re around, you’ll be laughing with their silly and imaginative slapstick humour. Despicable Me 4 isn’t great, but it did keep me entertained. And the kids will love it.
Escape
Dir: Lee Jong-pil
It’s present day at the DMZ in North Korea. The Demilitarized Zone — it separates the north from the south — is full of landmines, with sentinels in towers watching closely for any movement on either side. Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) is a Sergeant in the Korean Peoples Army nearing the end of his ten-year term there, and dreads returning to work in a coal mine. There is no family to go home to. He has firmly embraced the national ideology of Juche, or self-reliance. But in Kyu-nam’s case, self-reliance has taken on new meaning. Each night, he sneaks out of his bunker, climbs through a window, and crawls his way across the minefields toward the border, recording all the safe spots along the way. He plans to defect to the South before the next rainfall causes the landmines to shift. But he runs into trouble when a pudgy private named Dong-hyuk (Hong Sa-bin), who idolizes the Sergeant sees his trial runs. Dong-hyuk longs to be reunited with his mother and sister in South Korea. So he tries to escape on his own, using Kyunam’s map… but he mucks things up, putting them both in danger of a firing squad.
But who appears at the desertion trial, but Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan), a Major with connections. He has connections with Kyu-nam going way back, and declares him a national hero, and sets him up in a cushy job as an aide-de-camp for a drunk general. But Kyu-nam is committed to his plans. Can he reach the border before Hyun-sang can catch him? Or are they doomed to a violent end?
Escape is a fast-moving action thriller, full of complex schemes 
and near escapes… along with plenty of unexpected surprises. Koo Kyo-hwan plays the major as a slightly effeminate, upper-class nepo-baby who would rather be a concert pianist than an officer. This villain reveals hints of a secret gay past, adding to his mystery. Lee Je-hoon plays a macho, self-reliant soldier who just wants to choose his own future and have enough food to eat (based on what he heard about the South from the propaganda broadcasts he picked up on his transistor radio). The entire film takes place in the North. It portrays a country filled with poverty, malnutrition and class divisions— based on Party membership — where the ordinary people just scrape by, while the effete elites gorge on fine meats and liquors. I have no idea how accurate it is, but I liked the details, from the socialist realist murals, the giant slogans, and the maroon coloured dress-uniforms the officers wear.
And, of course, its gripping plot that will keep you glued to the screen.
Kill, and Despicable Me 4, both open this weekend in Toronto, and you can catch Escape at the TIFF Lightbox; 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.
A triptych and a prequel. Kinds of Kindness, A Quiet Place: Day One
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you’re wondering what to do on this long holiday weekend, I can tell you what you should do. Go see some movies. Here are two I recommend — an art house drama and a horror thriller. One’s a prequel in Manhattan, the other’s a triptych in New Orleans.
Kinds of Kindness
Co-Wri/Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
(Past reviews: Poor Things, The Favourite, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster, Alps, Dogtooth, )
It’s nowadays in the American deep south, where a lot of strange things are going on. Robert (Jesse Plemons) is an executive who lives a highly regimented life. Each day he reports his stats to Michael, the CEO. These include exactly what he eats at each meal, how much he drinks, even whether or not he slept with his wife (Hong Chau) the night before. He follows his boss’s orders down to the smallest detail. In return, his boss pays his salary and his car and sends him pricey — but inherently useless— gifts. But when Michael orders Robert to murder someone, he draws the line.
Daniel (Plemons) is a police officer whose wife Liz (Emma Stone) is lost at sea in a boat accident. She is eventually rescued and returns home. But he insists she’s not really his wife: she looks, speaks and acts exactly as his real wife did, but he is sure she was switched for someone else. So he thinks of ways to expose her plot.
Two strangely-dressed members of a bizarre religious cult 
(Stone and Plemons) centred on bodily fluids, are seeking a woman to join their group, because of special powers she might have. But is their devotion to the cult leaders Aka and Obi (Chau, Dafoe) absolute? Or do they owe allegiance to certain outside forces?
Kinds of Kindness is a series of three short, complete films shown in sequence. While each story has different characters, they are played by the same cast: Stone, Plemons, Chau, Dafoe, plus Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie, and Joe Alwyn. Only one character, a cryptic, usually dead or nearly dead man known only as RMF (Yorgos Stefanakos) is in all three.
But this is a Yorgos Lanthimos film, so naturally it’s loaded with awkward behaviour, stilted dialogue, and deadpan humour. He also flirts with the most shocking and gruesome themes imaginable, things like accidental suicide, cannibalism, 
self mutilation, and drugged sex, but presented in the most blasé way possible. The art direction is brilliant, presenting garish consumerism in the form of giant pantsuits and bright coloured sports cars. So uncool it’s beyond brilliant.
The acting is fantastic.
Plemons plays variations on a theme: angry white guy, kiss-ass white guy, and angry kiss-ass white guy. Dafoe is a domineering patriarch, whether all-powerful, ineffectual or benign. Margaret Qualley can sex it up as a kept mistress or play it down as a veterinarian. And Emma Stone is perfect, as always, with fully-developed oddball characters in at least two of the films. I know people who love Lanthimos’s movies and people who really hate them. I’m on the love side, but I can’t say Kinds of Kindness didn’t disturb me. It did.
But that’s part of his genius.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Co-Wri/Dir: Michael Sarnoski
Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) is is a depressed and lonely poet. She doesn’t live in NY City anymore; nor does she write. She lives in a hospice now, waiting to die of an incurable illness, with only a kind nurse (Alex Woolf) and a little black and white cat named Frodo to keep her company. But today will be a bit different. She and the the rest of the patients are heading into the city to watch a show. Sam agrees to go, as long as she can have one of the things she misses most — a slice of NY pizza. But the trip is cut short by a surprise emergency announcement: everybody must leave the city immediately! The emergency is a series of fighter jets that are dropping something on the city, something dangerous and deadly. Soon the streets are chaotic, filled with crashing cars and screaming people. Sam is separated from her group, stunned by a huge explosion that leaves her covered with dust and ash.
What’s going on? A small army of enormous creatures that look like a deadly cross between insects and gorillas have descended on the city, slaughtering and eating hundreds of people at a time. They have long claws that can slash you apart, and can find you using their extremely sensitive sense of hearing. They can hear a pin drop a mile away. On the other hand, they can’t see, they can’t smell, they can’t swim. So if you stay completely 
still and make no human -ike noises, they can’t find you. The tunnels are flooded and the bridges destroyed to contain the monsters so the only way off the island is by ferries leaving the South Street Seaport. Waves of people head south… except Sam., her cat and an Englishman in a suit she met named Eric (Joseph Quinn). They’re walking against the tide, heading up to Harlem together to claim that last slice of pizza. But can they stay quiet long enough to get there alive?
A Quiet Place: Day One is an apocalyptic, dystopian thriller horror. Lupita N’yongo does an excellent job as a woman who is both strong and dying, adding pathos to what could have just been fear. I saw the IMAX version and the sound and camerawork is amazing, with blurred backgrounds and amazing tricks in the dark using flashlights and phones. Special effects are seamless; they look completely real. And there a number of moving scenes that rise above the usual horror you expect, like the foreboding in a marionette show. There are lots of poignant moments like that. Occasionally it goes over the top in its 
sentimentality, — like when Eric does a Charlie Chaplin style pantomime — but it usually stays in check.
Day One is a prequel to the rest of the Quiet Place series, giving some hints as to the origin of a world overrun by monsters, while intentionally leaving much of it unanswered. Are they aliens? Biological weapons? Were they created on earth or did they come from outer space? I don’t know, but it keeps you wondering all the way through this powerful horror thriller.
A Quiet Place: Day One, and Kinds of Kindness, 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.
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