My, my. Films reviewed: My Animal, Maestro
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at two new films opening this weekend — a horror movie from Canada and a biopic from the US. There’s a young conductor with his eyes on Carnegie Hall, and a young werewolf with her eyes on a figure skater at the hockey rink.
My Animal
Dir: Jacqueline Castel
Wri: Jae Matthews
It’s a cold day in the 1980s somewhere in Northern Ontario. Heather (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) is a young woman with blood-red hair. She reads women’s bodybuilding magazines on the sly and watches female pro-wrestlers late at night on TV. She’s athletic herself — works part-time at the arena’s snack bar — and hopes to join the local hockey team as goalie. Heather lives in the outskirts of town with her grizzled dad who runs a diner (Stephen McHattie), her angry, alcoholic mom (Heidi von Palleske) and the twins Cooper and Hardy (Charles and Harrison Halpenny). She and her little brothers inherited red hair from their mom and an unusual trait from their Dad. That’s why their mom keeps everyone shackled to their beds whenever there’s a full moon. Can’t have them 
running around unwatched after midnight — they might bite someone! Yup… they’re werewolves.
Everyone knows everyone in this town, so when a new face appears at the rink, Heather takes notice. Jonny (Amandla Stenberg) is a beautiful, young, pro figure skater. She’s kept under tight control by her effeminate father (who is also her ice-dance-partner) and her domineering baseball-player boyfriend (Cory Lipman).
But when Heather meets Jonny, they both sense something electric between them. They start going out late at night to parties and adventures, like dropping acid at the casino with their friend Otto (Joe Apollonio). Heather says she wants to show Jonny new things — if she’s not too scared to try. Are they just friends? Or something more? Will Jonny accept Heather’s shape-shifting… never mind her sexuality? Or will Heather’s late-night risk-taking lead to violence, or even death?
My Animal is a beautiful look at a bittersweet romance between a lesbian, hockey-playing werewolf and a (possibly) straight figure skater. Although the two lead roles (starring the wonderful Stenberg and cool newcomer Menuez) are played by Americans, they, and the movie itself, feel totally Canadian, from the Zamboni to the snack bar to the snow-swept highway. (It was shot in Timmins, Ontario). I love the look of this film, playing with red, black and white, from Heather’s dark red bed sheets and ginger hair, to the hockey uniforms and maple leaf flags at the rink. From its gorgeous nighttime photography, to its blurry 80s music tracks, it’s relatively low-budget and simple but really good. Appropriately — and keeping with the red and white colour scheme — it won Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Cinematography at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival. My Animal picks up on paths paved by classic female werewolf pics like Ginger Snaps.
I liked this one a lot.
Maestro
Co-Wri/Dir: Bradley Cooper
It’s 1943 in New York City. Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) is a musician, composer and conductor in his mid-20s, who suddenly gets a phone call from Carnegie Hall. Their regular conductor is ill, and they want Lennie to come in that day, without any rehearsals, to take his place. He leaps into the role, feeling the music and motivating al the musicians to play with passion. The concert is broadcast live on radio, nationwide, to huge response. This kickstarts his future as a conductor and suddenly the world is his oyster. He celebrates his newfound success with his boyfriend David (Matt Bomer) also a musician, and his career starts to soar.
Later, he meets Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) a broadway actress originally from Chile. 
They fall in love and raise three children together. He composes movie and stage scores for hit musicals like West Side Story and Candide, and brings largely unknown composers, like Mahler, into the public eye. But Lennie is never quite ready to give up his gay sex life, and has a series of longtime lovers. Can Lennie and Felicia’s relationship weather both his superstar status and his sexuality? Or will it tear their marriage apart?
Maestro is a biopic about the personal and professional life of the celebrated conductor Leonard Bernstein. The musical side of this film is a visual and audio treat, with extended performances recreated with detailed care, in the original locations, Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and a cathedral in London. Beautiful music and photography. The film itself is told chronologically in three parts. The 40s and 50s are filmed in the style of movies from that period — gorgeous black and white, with elliptical scene changes, where he’ll leave his bedroom and walk straight onto a stage in front of a cheering crowd. Cooper perfectly captures Bernstein’s physicality in his conducting, jumping on the platform, thrusting a hand forward or balancing on one foot. The second part is in a 
grainier faded colour film to represent the 60s and 70s, while the third section is also in colour but with sharp photography, following his increasing fame and his faltering marriage. These are punctuated by word-for-word recreations of actual interviews.
But there’s a big difference between accuracy and reality. The script seems to be based on actual letters and diaries that Lennie and Felicia wrote at the time. This makes their lines sound scripted or transcribed, not real. And in the first section they speak with mannered voices, as if they were characters in a 1940s movie.
Mulligan is wonderful as Felicia, but you wonder, why — in a movie that puts Bernstein’s gayness 
front and centre — are we seeing detailed and extended private arguments between Lennie and Felicia, while his relationships with men are kept opaque? And for a movie about sexuality, why is it so non-sexual? Aside from an occasional post- coital cigarette (he was a chain smoker) or a short kiss, it’s kept anodyne and almost fully-dressed, a movie you could watch with your grandparents without blushing.
There are many delightful parts of the film, with good acting all around, and, as I said, the concerts are magnificent… I just never felt like I was learning anything new about Leonard and Felicia or delving deeply into their psyches.
Maestro is playing now at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and opening soon at other theatres across Canada — check your local listings. My Animal is also playing nationally at select theatres.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.
Off the Beaten Track. Movies Reviewed: Serena, Gemma Bovery, Corner Gas: the Movie
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.
Urban life getting you down? Here are three movies set in small towns. A gothic drama in the Smoky Mountains of Carolina; a comedy in a Saskatchewan town where there’s not a whole lot going on; and a comic drama in Normandy… with a literary twist.
Serena
Dir: Susanne Bier
George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) is a lumber baron in the roaring 20s. He’s also a big-game hunter, searching for the elusive panther. He dreams of clear-cutting the smoky mountains of North Carolina, and, with the profits, expanding into the rain forests of Brazil. But he’s a good guy — you can tell because he chops his own wood and saves his workers’ lives. There would be no 
problems at all, if it weren’t for those meddling government types. They want to make it into a national park, just because of its breathtaking scenic beauty, and the rare flora and fauna living in those foggy, tree-covered mountains.
But everything changes when he spots a blonde woman at a horse show. Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) is a strong and independent woman from out west and born to the wood. Beautiful, glamorous and tough as nails, she’s as comfortable in an evening gown as she is on horseback. She can 
kill a rattler with an axe from across a field and is handy with a rifle. He proposes on the spot and makes her a full partner in his business… to the chagrin of his male colleagues. But Wall Street crashes and tough times follow. Things start to fray at the edges. There’s Galloway (Rhys Ifans) a sketchy ex-con with “the sight”: Serena once appeared in a vision so he’ll protect her to the death. And there’s talk George might have an illegitimate son in the village. And his partners are losing faith in the business. Can Serena and George find happiness in a lumber camp? Or will it drag them into a spiral of jealousy, revenge and madness?
Susanne Bier is a well-known Danish director, and Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence scored in two big hits: Silver Lining Playbook and American Hustle. Is this three for the win? Not a chance. It’s a clunky potboiler with a confusing and messy story, and extremely uneven acting. Lawrence plays it to the hilt as a deranged, screeching devil-woman, while Cooper sticks to the single-emotion style of acting. Whether it’s shock, lust, anger, or bewilderment, he just stares off into space with his mouth slightly open. Serena is not awful, it kept me watching and interested, but it’s just not very good.
Gemma Bovery
Dir: Anne Fontaine
Martin (Fabrice Luchini) is an intellectual from Paris. He moves to small-town Normandy, near Rouen, to take over his dad’s bakery. He likes kneading dough and pondering great literature. His wife is a world-weary realist, and his teenaged son prefers Call of Duty to French culture. But dad’s thoughts are still filled with the 19th century novels of Flaubert. So imagine his surprise when a young English couple that moves into the dilapidated house next door, shares the names of the characters in Madame Bovery! Down-to-earth Charles repairs furniture, while his bored wife Gemma (Gemma Atherton) decorates homes with trompe d’oeil to make them appear older. And just like Madame Bovery, she craves a more exciting 
life.
Martin, though, knows the book well and feels he can predict every thought they will have and every word they will say. Soon enough, he sees her making eyes at the town rake, handsome Hervé (Niels Schneider: J’ai tué ma mère, Les amours imaginaires) a local squire living in a nearby castle. Don’t go with him, it can only lead to ruin! Martin thinks. In his mind he sees them in period costume, dancing in the ballroom. In reality, the quaint town, including the aristocracy, is crumbling all around him. Martin tries to manipulate the local characters – using secret methods – to save them from their novelistic fates. But will it work?
The entire film is narrated, at times directly to the camera, by Martin himself. He takes us through the story, mainly to the various dinner parties, where people speak fractured English and French. He is especially incensed by a nouveau riche couple, an English/French marriage who see French culture as merely wine and Camembert.
Gemma Bovery is two movies in one. There’s Flaubert’s novel reenacted in Martin’s head, and there’s a satirical look at contemporary France. Because of the meta- aspects of the film, you don’t feel as deeply invested in the characters’ lives; you’re always a step away from what’s happening. But it more than makes up for that with its cleverness. And because it’s an Anne Fontaine movie, it carries that sensual, erotic tone she’s so good at. And the actors, especially the beautiful Gemma Atherton, are a joy to watch. I like this movie.
Corner Gas: The Movie
Dir: Brent Butt
If you’ve ever watched Canadian TV, you’re probably familiar with Dog River, Saskatchewan. It’s an uneventful prairie town known mainly for its gas station, its coffee sho
p, and its wise-cracking locals. There’s dry Brent at the gas station (Brent Butt), his dad and mum — cranky Oscar and rational Emma (Eric Peterson, Janet Wright), pretty Lacey at the coffee shop (Gabrielle Miller), and the local police. 
Then there’s the incorrigible Hank (Fred Ewanuick) and the trickster Wanda (the very hilarious Nancy Robertson).
Nothing ever happens there, right? Wrong! To turn a sitcom into a feature film, you need an epic plot. In this film the town goes bankrupt, the people run amok, and Tim Horton’s starts sniffing at the real estate. Their only hope? A Toronto contest looking for the quaintest town in Canada. Can they pull it all together in time? Not bloody likely… it’s a
comedy, folks.
Believe it or not, I only saw the TV show once. It felt too slow paced, so I couldn’t get into it. Clearly, I’m not one of its fans (who are legion). But the movie? It was surprisingly funny. There are corny parts and some gags fall flat of course, but on the whole the humour is clever, inventive, ironic… even subversive. And it does all this without any potty laughs, frat boy nudges, boobies, four-letter words, dumb blondes, racial and ethnic stereotypes or fat jokes. Not a small accomplishment.
So if you’re looking for Canadian humour, here it is, and then some.
Gemma Bovery and Serena both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Corner Gas: the Movie is playing now through the weekend. Also in Toronto, look out for the MUFF society — specializing in girl-tastic pics for women — kicks off their monthly series with Spice World (yes, I do mean that Spice Girl movie) only at the Royal. And First to Fall – a documentary about two students in Canada who volunteered to fight with the rebels in Libya — is finally screening in Toronto, tonight at the Jayu Human Rights Film Festival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I interviewed the directors last summer.
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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