Film noir. Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck. Films Reviewed: Double Indemnity, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers PLUS Tracers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Film Noir. Those dark, mysterious B&W thrillers from the 1940s, full of intrigue, lies, murder, and adultery. They abound with low-lifes, power-hungry toughs, private eyes and femmes fatales. And one of the key players was Barbara Stanwyck. Strong, sexy and smart, she ruled the Hollywood screen. A retrospective, Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck is now playing at TIFF. I’ll admit I’d heard her name but hadn’t seen her films until now. Wow! I get her now: She played powerful women in an era when that meant you’re either evil, immoral, or psychotic.
So this week I’m going to look at two of her film noir movies from the 1940s: there’s a seedy seductress testing the waters of insurance fraud, and a female industrialist with a secret past who might have an affair; and a new release, a noir-ish crime thriller about a young bike courier who jumps, feet first, into organized crime.
Double Indemnity
Dir: Billy Wilder, Wri: Raymond Chandler
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is an insurance agent in L.A. He’s a bachelor, devoted to his job. The one man he looks up to is the firm’s investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson). Keyes is the one who uncovers the crooked scammers trying to push through dubious claims on their accounts. He says “the little man inside” him can always detect when something’s fishy.
One day, when Neff visits an oil man to renew his insurance policy, he instead encounters the man’s wife. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) is a vivacious blonde in a bathrobe who isn’t shy about her good looks. She flirts openly with him, but he smells a scam brewing so he brushes her off. But soon enough they’re together again, making love and plotting an insurance scheme. It would pay her “double indemnity” — a huge amount of money — if the husband dies accidentally in a particular way. He goes for it like a dumb dog, blinded by lust. But after the deed is done, he finds himself in a double bind as the result of his actions. Keyes is suspicious, so Neff can’t see the woman he wants to be with. And Neff begins to suspect there is more to Phyllis than meets the eye.
This is a fantastic, dark story told by a dying man.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Dir: Lewis Milestone
Martha Ivers is a teenaged orphan in Iverstown, a city that bears her family name. She lives with her rich and powerful aunt and an ineffectual boy named Walter, her tutor’s obedient son. Her only friend is a blustering ruffian itching for a fight. Sam is from the wrong side of town but Martha’s attraction transcends class. She tries to run away with him but is brought back by her cruel aunt. But on the very night that they plan to escape Iverstown forever, something happens. In a fit of anger Martha strikes and kills her aunt. Walter sees it happen, but helps her cover up the crime. And in return for his silence she later marries him.
Flash forward 20 years. Sam (Van Heflin) comes back to Iverstown, almost by accident. He discovers his old love Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) now rules the place. She’s a powerful woman who turned her aunt’s small fortune into a huge legacy. Her husband, Walter (Kirk Douglas – his first film), is the District Attorney. Walter is a depressed alcoholic, still madly in love with Martha, who merely puts up with him. They live in separate wings of her mansion. Sam, meanwhile, meets a pretty ex-con on parole named Toni (Lizabeth Scott) and vows to help her out. He asks Walter for a hand, for old times sake.
But when Martha and Sam meet again, an old love is rekindled. Walter attempts to nip it in the bud by having Sam roughed up and driven out of town. But nobody kicks Sam around without paying the consequences. This menage a quatre, involving the highest of the high and the lowest of the low, is played out in a rough urban setting. This is an amazing film, largely forgotten, from an era where the poor and downtrodden were more sympathetic than the rich and powerful. Barbara Stanwyck is amazing, as this self-made powerful woman… and potential psychopath.
Tracers
Dir: Daniel Benmayor
Cam (Taylor Lautner, the wolf-boy in the Twilight series) is an orphan in New York City who works as a bike courier. One day on a ride, he notices some ninja-types bouncing on top of the buildings he zooms past. But when one of them, a woman named Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos) jumps down from a rooftop, he ends up in an accident. He flies through the air,
landing right on top of her. It totals his bike, which puts his sole income in jeopardy: he holds a debt to a loan shark. He needs money … and he really likes Nikki.
After passing a complex test he ends up joining her secretive gang. Turns out they work freelance, pulling off carefully-planned jewel heists and drug deals. Their secret weapon? They’re all skilled in parkour, the French sport of running, climbing and jumping of buildings, which renders them unbeatable. 
But they all have to answer to Miller (Adam Rayner), the self-proclaimed “alpha dog” of this pack. And he doesn’t want anybody messing with his plans… or his girlfriend Nikki. Can Cam pay off his debt, escape this criminal life, and get together with his new true love?
Tracers is a feeble action-thriller, with plot holes so big you could drive a convoy of trucks through them. Teen idol Taylor Lautner is as one-dimensional as always, though Rayner and Avgeropoulos (and some of the actors in smaller roles) are better. A silly movie for sure but I really liked the jumping, climbing and the rest of the parkour chase scenes, They’re great! And I hear Lautner did his own stunts. Is Tracers worth seeing? If you like parkour, definitely. If not, don’t bother.
Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck is playing at TIFF through the month. And Tracers opens today in Toronto and on Pay on Demand. Check your local listings. Also opening today is the Water Docs Festival at Jackman Hall at the AGO – a documentary series… about water!
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks to Michele Josue about her new documentary Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine
15 years ago, in the fall of 1998, in Wyoming, early one morning, a 21 year old man was found tied to a wooden fence. His name was Matt Shepard — he was badly beaten and died soon after in hospital.
Matt was gay, and he was murdered out on the prairie in Laramie, Wyoming by two men in a notorious case of gay bashing. After his death, his case became emblematic of violence against LGBT youth.
Afterwards, his parents fought to expose and expunge homophobic 
violence, and his name is forever associated with this movement. His death is now well known, but his life is not. What about his family, his friends, his likes and dislikes?
A new documentary, Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine, aims to fill in those gaps. It tells about his life before he died. It’s a tender personal story, told by a woman who knew him well. Her name is Michele Josue, and she made this film which opens tonight in Toronto. I talked to Michele at CIUT 89.5 FM about friendship, Matt’s life, how she met him, his family, a cardboard box, hate crime legislation, Switzerland, University life, Wyoming, The Laramie Project…and more!
Christmas biopics. Movies reviewed: Unbroken, Mr Turner
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Happy Boxing Day! This week, I’m talking about two biopics, both historical dramas, both starring great actors from the UK. But they are as different as two movies could possibly be. One’s a young soldier captured and kept in the dark; one’s a painter trying to capture the light.
Unbroken (based on a true story)
Dir: Angelina Jolie
Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) is the child of Italian immigrants in small-town pre-WWII America. He lives on the wrong side of the tracks and is bullied by neighbouring kids. He’s often knocked down, but always gets up for another fight. Running away 
from bullies also makes him a good runner. With his older brother’s help, he trains as a sprinter, competing at the Berlin Olympics. It’s his endurance and surprising reserves of adrenaline that set him apart. Later, he joins the Air Force in WWII and is stationed in the Pacific. His plane crashes into the ocean which he manages to survive… only to find himself captured by the Japanese, and thrown into a POW camp.
So basically The Unbroken is three movies. One is about Louis and two other men: the laid-back Phil (Domhnall Gleeson: Frank) and the nervous Mac (Finn Witrock). When their plane crashes, they have to survive in an 
inflatable life raft in the middle of the Pacific. Slowly starving to death, they fight off sharks, and inclement weather as they test their ability to endure… against all odds. They hang on by listening to Louis describe his mother’s gnocchi. But as days turn to weeks, can they survive on just hope and a tale? (If you’ve seen the Norwegian drama Kon Tiki, this might seem familiar to you.) I liked this part of the movie.
Then there’s Louis’ stay in a POW camp in Japan. It is run by Corporal Watanabe aka “The Bird”. (played by musician/actor Miyavi). Watanabe comes from a rich family, but never makes it as an officer. Now he’s a cruel but effeminate NCO who struts around in his khakis, carrying a bamboo stick. He takes out his frustrations on the prisoners, especially poor Louis. 
Is he jealous of his fame as an Olympic champion? Or is he secretly in love with him? If you’ve ever seen Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, then, again, this may all be familiar to you.
Finally there’s Louis’ boyhood as a competitive teenaged runner, which appears as a series of flashbacks. This is the weakest part of the film, one of thousands of heartwarming stories about plucky immigrant kids who make good.
This movie isn’t terrible. I like Jack O’Connell a lot and he’s plays the role well. And great supporting cast – Jai Courtney, Luke Treadaway, Domnhall Gleeson — are all really good.
But can you believe this was written by the Coen Brothers? But there’s no irony, no humour, just straightforward storytelling. And it’s filled with fake profundities, like If you can take it, you can make it. Sounds like a Tony Roberts motivational speech. I get it – Zamperini did great things but survived. But the pounds you over the head with it, with its unrelenting suffer, suffer, suffer theme. The rest of the prisoners look vaguely familiar after a while, but they’re basically just faces in the background. It’s all about Louis vs Watanabe. Not a terrible movie, but disappointing and unsatisfying with an abrupt ending.
Mr Turner
Dir: Mike Leigh
Mr Turner (Timothy Spall) is a successful businessman in Victorian London, who lives with his dad (Paul Jesson), a retired barber. He lives a good life, doesn’t worry about money. What does he do? He’s a painter. He visits the seashore to observe and take notes. He finds the right pigments in the market to match them. Later, he paints what he sees. On canvases, big ones, lots of them.
Breathtaking landscapes and seascapes, cloud and light, maybe a steamship, and here and there a ruined castle or a train. He daubs on oil paint, 
smooches it around, and spits on it, blows at it! The results are spectacular and impressionistic, like nothing anyone had ever seen. And ethereal watercolours. Turner becomes famous in his own time, and quite rich — aristocratic artists are forced to come by to ask him for money. But he’s not from titled gentry. He’s frequently snubbed by the snooty upper-class, and not allowed into the principal art salons, only the outside rooms. Queen Victoria is not amused by his paintings. And he had to suffer the comments of insufferable art critics like John Ruskin (wonderfully played by Joshua McGuire).
At the same time, he’s a selfish, loathesome boor, who chews on pigs’ heads and belches. He has abandoned his common-law wife and daughters. He has a shy maid, Mrs Danby (Dorothy Atkinson). When Mr Turner feels like it, 
he’ll sneak up behind her, raise her petticoats and grunt a few times. That’s “sex”. How, you wonder, can such a disgusting, depressed and ugly man create such beautiful art?
Whenever he has a chance, he revisits a seaside town from his youth. There he meets an older woman, a landlady, named Mrs Booth (Marion Bailey). Will she help him out of his perpetual blue funk?
Mr Turner is a very long, slow moving and subtle film, filled with skillfully-crafted characters. They’re not loveable people but not hateable ones either. They seem all completely real. The photography in this movie is just 
amazing. If you’ve ever seen Turner’s paintings, now you get to see the skies, the clouds and the light that actually informed his art. Beautiful. Spall, Bailey and Atkinson play their parts with all their weird tics and eccentricities in place. It’s quite long, but I liked it a lot.
Mr Turner and Unbroken both open today in Toronto: check your local listings. Also opening today is Imitation Game, a fantastic biopic thriller about Alan Turing, the man who invented the computer an broke the German code known as Enigma. Definitely a must-see.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Cracks in the Foundation. The Continent, Rocks in my Pockets, Rosewater
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
From far away, porcelain looks smooth, shiny and flawless, but look too close and fine cracks appear. This week, I‘m looking at movies that expose the cracks in faraway Latvia, China and Iran. There’s an Iranian man who wants to leave prison; three Chinese men who want to leave their island, and a Latvian woman who, at times, wants to leave life altogether.
The Continent
Dir: Han Han
Three young men have lived their lives on a tiny, windswept island off the east coast of China. But they decide it’s time to check out the continent. Like in the classic Chinese novel, they set out on a “Journey to the West. They each have a different reason. Jianghe (Chen Bolin [陈柏霖], who also starred in Buddha Mountain [觀音山] — read my review here) a school teacher an”d eternal optimist, is transferred by the government to a remote location far, far away. Haohan (Feng Shaofeng [冯绍峰]) is a blustering young man dying to see the world. He longs to stand on a determined mountaintop and shout to the world about the size of his dick. And he has a childhood pen-pal Yingying 
(Yolanda Yuan [袁泉]), a pretty girl he’ll finally meet face to face. And true love will soon follow. Their third friend, Hu Sheng, is mentally challenged, and depends on the other two to tell him what to do.
But they soon discover life outside their tiny island is bewildering and confusing. They stumble onto a movie set in WWII. And at their first hotel Jianghe is approached by an escort named Sumi, immediately followed by knocks on the door from aggressive police. Bewildered, he plays the hero, 
busting out through a barred window and “saving” Sumi from a fate worse than death. Or so he thinks. And a sketchy, Cantonese hitchhiker helps them with their navigating – but can he be trusted? Maybe not, in a place where anything that you don’t hold onto with both hands when you gp to sleep will likely be gone by morning. But it’s also a country with stunning and empty vast vistas, rockets flying to outer-space, and cool and savvy people at every turn.
The Continent is writer-director Han Han’s (韩寒) first film, but he’s far from unknown. His blog is the best-known one in China which automatically makes him one of the most famous people in the world. This is not just a simple, picaresque road movie. It’s also a slyly humorous — if bleak — cautionary tale about life in contemporary China.
Rocks in My Pockets
Wri/Dir Signe Baumane
Signe is a Brooklyn artist, originally from Latvia, with a hidden family past. She wants to find out the truth behind the family matriarch, her late grandmother. On the surface, she was a preternaturally hard-worker, known for her Sisyphean feat of carrying endless buckets of water up a steep mountain. She had retreated to a backwoods cabin with her husband, an eccentric entrepreneur, to escape the difficulties of life in the city. But, after a bit of digging, Signe discovers a streak of depression, suicide and mental illness in her family stretching back three generations. The title refers to her grandmother’s attempted suicide by drowning – she was unsuccessful because she forgot to fill her pocket with rocks. Even if the mind wants to end it all, the body – until the last breath — will fight against dying. At the same time, Signe realizes that the many children and grandchildren managed to survive and succeed despite harsh time. In this film, Riga is imagined as a 
place with enormous human faces on their buildings, within a country filled with animistic creatures with long tails, dog ears and goggly eyes that lurk everywhere, just out of sight.
Her odd family history is portrayed in a series of short, animated episodes, using panels of sketched characters moving against brightly-tinted 
backgrounds. These are interspersed with super-imposed stop-motion images made of rope and papier-mache figurines. This giuves the whole movie an unusual three-dimensional feel, combining classic drawing with computer-manipulated mixes. And omnipresent is the wry and funny –though at times grating – voice of the narrator telling and commenting on her family history. The director shows the deleterious effects of Soviet era psychiatry – one where cures consist of medicinal corrections to chemical imbalances – and how it makes some people long to “erase themselves” and ceasing to exist. A poignant, fascinating and great animated feature.
Rosewater
Dir: Jon Stewart
Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal) is an Iranian-Canadian journalist based in London. He lives there with his beautiful (and pregnant) wife. He is assigned to cover the upcoming elections in Iran, but quickly runs unto trouble as soon as he arrives. He quickly makes friends with a politically active and sympathetic taxi driver who takes him to areas fertile with dissent. But after witnessing a potentially explosive event he is arrested. His charge? Spying.
Ironically, a comic TV interview he had given to an American comedian on the Daily Show is used as evidence of his wrong doing. He is quickly thrown into solitary confinement in a notorious prison. He is psychologically tortured until — says the warden — his will is broken and he will lose all hope.
His family, it turns out, is no stranger to death and imprisonment for 
political views under earlier regimes. Both his father and his sister had gone through it, and appear, in his mind, to convince him to hold on. But will he make it?
Rosewater is Jon Stewart’s first film, and it shows it. Stewart is known for the brilliant and funny The Daily Show that skewers mass media from a left-ish perspective. But a feature film is not a three-minute sketch. The movie starts out great with exciting scenes of news-gatering, but it starts to drag, heavily, once it moves to the prison. While it conveys the loneliness and suffering, solitary confinement does not make for good cinema. Bernal and the supporting actors are fine, but the buffoonish prison guard and the sinister administrator seem too much like the evil twins of Schultz and Klink to take seriously.
The Continent played at the ReelAsian Film Festival which continues for another week (reelasian.com), Rosewood played at TIFF this year and opens today in Toronto, check your local listings; and Rocks in my Pockets opened the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival (which features films on addiction and mental health – with an additional screening tomorrow: go to rendezvouswithmadness.com for times. Also opening: next week at Hot Docs there’s the great documentary called Point and Shoot about a young American traveler/journalist who, despite being non-religious and non-radicalized, nevertheless joins the rebel armies fighting in Libya (listen to my review here). And a surprising story about the Life of Pigeons on CBC’s the Nature of Things.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker John Pirozzi about his new documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll premiering at Toronto’s ReelAsian Film Festival
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for cultural mining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
In April, 1975, Pnomh Penh went silent. Cambodia — a small nation in Southeast Asia — has a centuries-old rich musical heritage. Influenced over a hundred years as a French colony by Western music, Pnomh Penh’s teenagers were swept off their feet by the introduction of rock and roll. Despite US bombing, a military coup and an intense civil war, the Cambodian pop music scene flourished for 
three decades… until the Khmer Rouge took over.
Have thirty years of music disappeared forever? Has it all been forgotten amidst the genocidal horrors of the Killing Fields?
A new film that documents modern Cambodias musical history from the 1950s to the 1970s says “no”. The 
film’s called DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: Cambodia’s lost Rock and Roll, and it’s having its Toronto premiere at the ReelAsian film festival on Saturday, November 8th at 4:00 pm at the Royal Cinema. Using archival photos, vintage film clips, music recordings, and new interviews with key figures, the film brings a history of Cambodian music to Western screens for the first time.
Director John Pirozzi is known for his previous work in Cambodia, and as a cinematographer on films by Patti Smith and Matt Dillon. I reached John in New York City by telephone.
Daniel Garber talks with director Andrew Gregg about State of Incarceration, his new doc on CBC TV’s Doc Zone
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
Some strange things have been happening to Canada’s justice system under the current federal government. We’re building more prisons than ever before, even as we cut spending on rehabilitation of prisoners. Crime rates have reached new lows but we’re imprisoning more people, and keeping them there longer.
What does this mean? Why is it happening? Will it accomplish what the government is trying to do? And how does Canada compare to our neighbour to the south?
A new CBC documentary called STATE OF 
INCARCERATION looks at these issues and speaks to experts on both sides of the argument. It’s directed by Canadian filmmaker Andrew Gregg. (I last interviewed Andrew two years ago about his doc The Norse: an Arctic Mystery. You can listen to that interview here)
I spoke with Andrew at CIUT about the changes to the Canadian justice system, and his eye-opening documentary STATE OF INCARCERATION. It premiers on CBC-TV, Thursday, October 9, 2014 at 9 pm.
Tricksters. Movies Reviewed: Let’s Be Cops, Magic in the Moonlight
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Is a simple change of clothes enough to convince a casual observer you are someone you’re not? Can a thump on a table at a seance make people think you can talk with the dead?
This week I’m looking at two movies about fraudsters, tricksters, and those who want to expose them.
There’s an action/comedy about two ordinary guys in LA who disguise themselves as cops; and a comedy about a magician in the Cote d’Azur who wants to unveil a false psychic.
Let’s Be Cops
Dir: Luke Greenfield
Damon Wayans, Jr. and Jake Johnson (from New Girl with Zooey Deschanel) play best buds and roommates living in LA. They like karaoke and nightclubs but they get snubbed by women, disrespected by tough gangster types, and made to stand in long line-ups. They went to the same college, joined the same frat, and left Ohio with big ambitions. But O’Malley’s (Johnson) pro football career tanked before it started. Now he’s a kids’ football coach.
Damon’s character is doing a bit better – he’s following his passion: video game design. He puts together an elaborate pitch to his work team about his latest project, a police-action-type game. But they trash it before they even play with it. “You need zombies” they tell him. He goes home with his tail between his legs, 
carrying the pair of police uniforms he had planned to use in his pitch.
But he finds a good use for them after all. The two of them wear the uniforms to a costume party that night. And, to their amazement, on their way home, they are mistaken for the real thing. This being LA, immediately a parade of beautiful women ogle them and then smother them with hugs and kisses, because, well, they’re cops.
They also get the respect they miss in their real lives. Strangers listen to them and do what they say. They can walk to the front of the line of any nightclub. And, at the diner they frequent, the cute waitress (Nina Dobrev) suddenly says she likes “Chang” (that’s the name on Damon’s police uniform, and the one he goes by for most of the movie). Their scam starts to escalate. Damon wants to call it quits – it’s totally against the law to impersonate a cop. But O’Malley doesn’t see it that way – he takes it all very seriously. He gets hold of a police car, and starts studying official codes and techniques on-line. Soon enough, they’re behaving like real cops.
They go doubly undercover – now they’re civilians disguised as police disguised as civilians. They become in involved with real police work, alongside local police (Rob Riggle) who take their outfits at face value. Will their plans fall apart when they face real danger, and organized crime? And will Chang’s budding love affair fall apart if his girlfriend ever finds out he’s not a cop?
I thought this movie was a lot of fun. It started as a one-joke comedy – Let’s be Cops, but it gets carried through quite nicely, turning into a good action flick along the way. Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans, Jr. are really funny (except for the offensive Chinese accent) keeping their characters believable without overly mugging to the camera. I liked this movie.
Magic in the Moonlight
Wri/Dir: Woody Allen
It’s the late 1920’s (before the Great Depression). Stanley (Colin Firth) is a professional magician, touring continental Europe. He performs in a riot of chinoiserie under the stage name Wei-ling Soo. He makes elephants disappear and saws women in half. He’s also a rude and snobby egotist. So sure is he of his expertise, that he will gladly debunk any mystic he encounters. So he gladly takes up on a friend’s offer of a vacation in the south of France. Once there, he promises to expose a young psychic operating out of a villa owned by millionaire American industrialists.
But he is surprised to meet the adorable Sophie (Emma Stone), a plain-spoken and pretty young woman from Wisconsin. She doesn’t seem like a charlatan; just a simple girl who falls into momentary fogs… and comes back with uncanny visions. Even Stanley is surprised by how much she knows about him.
He still vows to expose her. But during a séance he is shocked to see what appears to be 
real magic: a floating candle with no strings attached. How does she do it? he wonders. His beliefs are further called into question when they visit his maiden aunt Vanessa (Eileen Atkins) at her villa in Provence.
Meanwhile, Sophie is being wooed, relentlessly, by the heir to a fortune. Brice (Hamish Linklater) plays the ukulele and croons off key to Sophie, telling her if she marries him she’ll live in luxury. He is young, handsome and loaded. The much older Stanley is already engaged to a upper-class, educated Englishwoman. And yet, despite their adversarial stance – of a psychic and a magician sworn to expose her tricks — there seems to be an attraction growing between Stanley and Sophie. And when they are caught in a rainstorm on a country road, they share an intimate 
conversation by moonlight. But can it last? And will it stand up to scrutiny?
Magic in Moonlight is just delightful. It’s the first of a long stream of annoying movies Woody Allen made in Europe that actually works. Well-written, perfectly executed, great acting, beautiful scenery and period costumes, nice music… And Colin Firth and Emma Stone have great chemistry. It’s not a deep movie with any subtle subtext, but it is a very cute romantic comedy, in the best sense of the word.
Magic in the Moonlight starts today, and Let’s Be Cops opens in Toronto on August 13th. Check your local listings. Also look out for An Honest Liar, a wonderful documentary about another magician who exposes fake psychics. It’s playing at the HotDocs theatre in a week. And Toronto’s Palestinian Film Festival has an outdoor screening and party in Christie Pits on August 8th. Go to TPFF.ca for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Likes. Movies reviewed: Chef, Being Ginger PLUS Luminato
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Do you like to “like” things? Then you might like Toronto’s Luminato festival of music, dance, theatre and film starts this weekend. There’s a free event on Sunday at the Air Canada Centre where you can join a music mob. You bring whatever musical instrument you like to play and join in with what might be the biggest performance of Ravel’s Bolero ever.
But what if you like something smaller, more personal? This week I’m looking at two low-key American movies about ordinary, single guys. One’s a divorced dad who just wants to cook what he likes; the other’s a university student who wants to meet a girl who likes guys like him.
Chef
Wri/Dir: Jon Favreau
Chris Casper (Jon Favreau) is a famous chef who lives in LA. He’s not one of those namby-pamby chefs – no way! His umami bites back, his artisanal gochujang packs a wallop. You can tell Carl’s a tough guy from the knuckle tattoos that say el jefe. He must have spent time in foodie prison. So don’t mess with this guy — he’s got a temper.
But one day, a local critic (Oliver Platt) – and his former booster — revisits the restaurant. He says the food there is tired, unadventurous and mediocre. What?! Unadventurous? I’ll show you adventure! Carl is furious. He learns about a newfangled social network known as “twitter”, and shoots him a nasty reply. But 
he doesn’t realize that everybody can read his tweets. It goes viral and events spiral. He challenges the critic to come back and try his new menu. But the conservative restaurant owner (Dustin Hoffman) insists he stick to the traditional dishes. Carl says no, so it’s goodbye Carl.
Meanwhile, on the home front, his kid feels neglected by his divorced father. The weekly visits to theme parks don’t amount to quality time. There’s no communication, no heart-to-hearts. Carl puts all his effort into cooking, but nothing 
into just hanging with his boy (Emjay Anthony). His beautiful, nice, smart, and rich ex-wife (why, exactly, did they get divorced?) has a plan. Inez (Sofia Vergara) invites Carl to come down to Miami with them. Once there, he gets an old food truck and fixes it up. Now he can devote himself to cooking while spending lost time with his son. So, with the help of his sidekick sous-chef Martin (John Leguizamo), the three of them embark on a cross-country tour, learning local recipes and making friends as they drive. But what will happen when they’re back in LA?
This is not a bad movie, especially if you like beautiful scenery and lots of scenes of people cooking and eating delicious recipes. Still, the social networking subplot (what is this strange new thing called the “internet” and how does it work?) feels embarrassingly old and dated. Chef is not a comedy either, since it’s basically lacking in laughs. And it’s not a love story – no romance or sex in this movie. What it is is a very light family drama about a middle-aged foodie getting to know his son. And you know what? I think that’s good enough.
Being Ginger
Dir: Scott P. Harris
Are redheads discriminated against? Are they the object of derision because of the colour of their hair? So asks a new documentary. Scott is an American college student in Edinburgh. And he wants to meet a pretty girl. The problem is, he can’t seem to find a girl to date. Why? He thinks it’s because he’s a ginger, a guy with red hair. And women, especially in the 
UK, he says, don’t like gingers. (Scott was bullied as a kid, and it left him feeling insecure.)
So he thinks by interviewing women with a camera, maybe he’ll find one who likes redheads. (Incidentally, he doesn’t want a redhead either: “Gingers don’t date gingers”: it feels creepy and incestuous to him – too close to home.)
But the people he meets aren’t very sympathetic: (Audio clip) Whoa! That’s harsh.
Finally he hears about a huge ginger convention – a veritable redhead festival in the Netherlands. It’s an eye-opener for Scott. In a sea of orange, he finally finds a place where he belongs. Is this like the black power movement? Scott wonders. Uh… no. But the festival might help him overcome his doubts and maybe meet a ginger-lovin’ woman.
Being Ginger is a cute, small, and very personal documentary (with beautiful animated sequences) about one guy’s struggle to accept his redness.
Chef and Being Ginger both open today in Toronto – check your local listings. And there’s a ginger appreciation screening with a Q&A at the Bloor Cinema on June 10th, free for all you redheads.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Not Forgotten. Movies Reviewed: The Face of Love, Advanced Style, The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz PLUS Hot Docs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Things change, people die, time passes… But some things – and some people – are not easily forgotten. This week I’m looking at three movies about people who should be remembered.
There’s a romantic drama about a widow who can’t forget her husband; and I’m looking at two films coming to Hot Docs – Toronto‘s International Documentary Film Festival. One’s about a young man, a hero of the internet; the other’s about some stylish, elderly women becoming famous on-line.
The Face of Love
Wri/Dir: Arie Posen
Nikki (Annette Bening) and her husband (Ed Harris) are still deeply in love after decades of marriage. They live in LA, and go to a beach resort in Mexico every year. But one day his dead body washes up on the beach, and Nikki is devastated. Can she go on without him?
Five years later, things seem normal. Nikki’s working again. She dresses houses for real estate dealers to make them look lived-in, even though they are empty and lifeless. Sort of like Nikki. But she goes through her daily routine: talking with her neighbour Roger (Robin Williams) and skyping with her adult daughter. Roger used to be her husband’s best friend, but now he has feelings for Nikki (she’s not interested).
But one day, at an art museum she used to visit, she catches a glimpse of a man. He
looks exactly like her late husband. He could be an identical twin.
Tom (Ed Harris) is an artist and teacher. And after some clever stalking and faked coincidental meetings, Nikki manages to meet Tom, and date him. She is madly in love with her late husband, and finds what she’s missing in Tom. He sees her adoring eyes and takes it as the sort of passion he never got from his ex-wife. She sees Tom as her actual husband, returned 
to her.
For Nikki it’s like a dream, and she’ll do anything to stop from “waking up”. She hides Tom from her daughter and from Roger next door. And she hides from Tom the fact he’s her late husband’s doppelgänger. And Tom has a deadly secret of his own that he’s not telling her. Is Nikki crazy? Is Tom deluding himself? Is this love or just an illusion? And can it last?
I kind of liked this mysterious romance: it feels like a soft-core Alfred Hitchcock movie: mystery without murder, conspiracy without crime. Ed Harris and Annette Bening make a good couple, simultaneously low-key but also passionate. It’s not an exciting movie, though. Don’t expect a thriller from a movie about relationships.
Advanced Style
Dir: Lina Plioplyte
Ari Cohen is a young man who lives in New York City. He’s a photographer and a blogger. Because of his great respect for his own grandmother he decides to celebrate the many older women he sees decorate that city’s sidewalks. He 
approaches women over 60 and asks if he can take their picture for his blog (also called Advanced Style). But he’s not looking for just any old lady. They have to have charm, style, and panache. He looks for women who use their clothes, makeup and hats to construct a work of art: themselves.
And these women all have their own stories. One worked as a dancer in Harlem’s famed Apollo Theatre in the Depression. Another was a magazine editor. One is a renowned party hostess, another teaches art. And they each have their own style 
trade marks, from a woman who constructs elaborately stylized bright orange false eyelashes; to another who owns a vintage clothing shop, to a punk-rocker in her 60s.
It’s not like their lives are perfect. Says one woman, “everything I have two of, one hurts.”But they’re finding a second (or third) wind with their looks on display on posters, on TV, in fashion magazines and now in this great movie. Advanced Style is a hilarious, heart-warming and surprising crowd-pleaser.
The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
Dir: Brian Knappenberger
Aaron Swartz might not be a famous name, but it should be. He grew up with the internet, and was lecturing computer scientists and lawyers as a teen. He helped launch crucial features of the Internet, including RSS, Creative Commons. He played an essential role in the social network and news comment site Reddit, and was a millionaire many times over while still a kid. But instead of retiring to an easy life in silicon valley, he decided to devote himself to internet freedom through activism and hacktivism.
You may have heard of SOPA. It was an attempt to give US government control over web content. Basically, if a site was seen by the film and music industries as violating their copyright, the government could just close a site down. It was thought of as an easy, anti-piracy law, and it easily passed in Congress. But thanks to Aaron’s efforts, 115,000 websites – eventually including huge ones like Wikipedia, Google and Facebook – turned opinion around and defeated the very restrictive bill. This film is a biography of all the things Aaron Swartz did, and how he was dragged
down and eventually driven to suicide (not a spoiler) after being relentlessly pursued by the FBI and government prosecutors. The filmmaker directed the excellent We Are Legion a few years ago, and this extremely moving and informative film is even better. I think everyone should see this movie.
The Face of Love opens today in Toronto, check your local listings; And The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz has its international premier on Hot Doc’s opening Night next Thursday, with Advanced style having its world premier the following Tuesday. Go to hotdocs.ca for more information.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Rom not Com. Films Reviewed: Gloria, Tim’s Vermeer, For No Eyes Only
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
It’s Valentine’s Day. For some reason, romance in movies has been inexorably tied to comedy. You’re in love? It must be a joke. Well, today I’m forsaking the romcoms and the soppy romances. I want to talk about some unusual movies about love, sex, and obsession. A Chilean movie about a divorced woman’s search for love, an American doc about a man’s search for proof, and German flick about a kid’s search for secrets.
Gloria
Dir: Sebastien Lelio
Gloria (Paulina Garcia) is an average, middle-aged divorcee in downtown Santiago. Her life is stale, worn-out. She lives alone in an apartment, with just a noisy neighbour and a hideous, hairless cat intruding on her privacy. Her home life is depressing, her office job is stultifying. And her kids are adults now. But she’s not willing to give up. She’s still full of energy – she wants to enjoy life, sing songs, fall in love, be in a one-on-one relationship. And, well, she wants to get laid.
So she starts hanging out in discos that play seventies music. (The people there all look like they went to this club back when those songs were new.) She goes there to pick up men – much older men. Ideally, she wants a man who is honest, who respects and desires her.
After some misfires, she falls for Rodolfo, a very conservative, rich, elderly 
man. He takes her for a drive to show her his wealth, his power. At first their relationship seems solid… but can she trust him? He interrupts their lunches with extended calls on his cel. And he’ll drop everything to run home whenever his daughters say they need him (He’s divorced – he says — but he’s still responsible for his girls.)
She wants him to meet her family and friends. Will he commit? And will he fit in with her lifestyle? (Gloria’s a free-thinking Chilean, Rodolfo’s roots are with Pinochet’s right-wing military.)
Although this movie is told in an everyday manner, this is a fantastic, bittersweet look at one woman’s life. The actress, Paulina Garcia, completely embodies and embraces Gloria – flaws and all. She convey’s what she’s thinking; not through words, but in her eyes. The whole movie is told from her point of view, and she exposes everything – body and soul — for the camera. This is a fantastic movie, and Garcia’s performance is flawless and unforgettable.
Tim’s Vermeer
A Penn and Teller film; directed by Teller, narrated by Penn.
Tim Jenison is a tremendously successful Texan inventor of devices gadgets and software. Somehow, he became fascinated by the paintings of Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. How could they be so perfectly 
lit, so realistically focused, so uncannily lifelike? He embarks on a mission – an obsession really – to discover the mechanical basis behind Vermeer’s art. He is convinced that Vermeer used a camera obscura – a dark room that projects inverted light images against a wall – long before photography and electric light was discovered. To his theory he adds the element of dentist’s mirrors, little discs on sticks.
Next he sets out to prove it – by rebuilding an exact replica of all the things portrayed in one of Vermeer’s paintings! Why? He recreates the furniture, the windows, the musical 
instruments, everything… then sets up his camera obscura and dentist mirrors and begins to paint. Can he do it? Told by the team of magic debunkers Penn and Teller, this is a strange but fascinating story of a rich man who has the time and money to pursue his obsession. The strangest thing about his painting is the complete and total absence of any artistic feeling or aesthetic sense.
For No Eyes Only
Wri/Dir: Tali Barde
This is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. In that movie, Jimmy Stewart is stuck in a wheelchair with a broken leg but – through his apartment’s rear window he can see into the windows of the apartment behind him. And he thinks he witnesses a crime.
In this movie, Sam (Benedict Sieverding) is a high school student in Germany.
He’s the star field hockey player but has a broken leg. He was mowed down by the new kid, a tall and intense guy named Aaron (directorTali Barde). Sam is sure Aaron is up to no good. With too much time at home, Sam discovers a hacking system that allows him access to his classmates’ computer cameras – his personal rear window. This gives him an inside view of all his friends’ bedrooms – everything they don’t want anyone else to see. Including Livia (Luisa Gross), his secret crush.
Luisa is mature confident and sophisticated, while Sam loses all his bravado and stumbles when talking to her. She takes the lead and invites herself to his home for some “computer lessons”. She’s figured out Sam’s been watching.
At first she’s angry, but, soon she’s joining in on his intramural spy-project. That’s when they notice something strange is going on with Aaron. Where’s his dad? Why does he hide a kitchen knife in his bedroom? What’s he carrying to the basement? Is 
there really a crime? Or is it just their overactive imaginations?
It’s a fun movie but with an after-school-special feel to it – it’s a little too cute for a thriller. But if you consider it was made for just a fistful of Euros (less than 4000) by a recent college grad… Incredible! Though made in 2012, with Snowden’s recent revelations about NSA spying on ordinary people, this film is even more relevant today.
Gloria opens today in Toronto and Tim’s Vermeer opens next week: check your local listings. For No Eyes Only is playing this weekend at the TIFF Next Wave festival. Go to tiff.net/. Also opening today is the fun Paraguayan thriller 7 Boxes, and the amazing courtroom documentary Pussy Riot: a Punk Prayer about the Moscow trial of Russian activists/musicians Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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