Canadian Film Fest! Movies reviewed: The Players, To the Moon, Skeet
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With the warmer weather, spring film festival season comes to Toronto, starting with the Canadian Film Fest. It features world-, national- and local premieres of great Canadian movies that will be opening later this year. It has a wide variety of genres and topics — sci-fi, comedies, dramas and documentaries — from across the land. They’re very accessible and a lot of fun, and they bring to light current topics unique to this country. And each screening includes a feature and a short film along with the filmmakers themselves in person.
So this week, I’m writing some shorter-than-normal reviews to give you an idea of what’s playing at the CFF this year. There’s a teenaged girl in Toronto trying to broaden her horizons, an ex-con in Saint Johns, trying to follow the straight and narrow, and a middle-aged single dad in Halifax who does ritual dances to the moon.
The Players
Wri/Dir: Sarah Galea-Davis
It’s summer in the early 1990s in Toronto. Emily (Stefani Kimber) is a naive but listless 15 year old girl who wishes her parents would get back together. Her dad moved when her mom returned to University and started sleeping with her prof. But Emily thinks she’s found her calling when she runs into an experimental theatre group in a park, and successfully auditions for a show. But this is no ordinary theatrical troupe. It’s run by a Svengali-like director named Reinhardt (Eric Johnson) and his girlfriend actress Marley (Jess Salgueiro). Rehearsals last for hours, full of primal screams and heavy body contact. Emily is in heaven, viewing herself and the world in brand new ways. Reinhardt pays special attention to Emily, giving her readings in French literature so she can really “understand” the art their creating (an eight-hour version of Hamlet). Even when she spends days at the studio without going home, and strange bruises start appearing on her body, she accepts that it’s part of becoming an actor. But the cultish nature of the group, and Reinhardt’s increasingly dangerous, abusive and sexualized behaviour starts to gnaw at Emily’s psyche. Should she see it through, or get the hell out of that place while she still can?
The Players is a gripping, coming-of-age drama about life as a
young actress in the 1990s, long before the #MeToo movement. It’s first exhilarating and then horrifying. Stefani Kimber is excellent and well-rounded as Emily, through whose eyes the entire story is told. And though it’s director Sarah Galea-Davis first feature, it’s powerful and prescient.
To the Moon
Wri/Dir: Kevin Hartford
Sam (Jacob Sampson) is a corporate executive in Halfax, Nova Scotia. He has recently moved to a picturesque suburb with his rudderless teenaged daughter Ella (Phoebe Rex); his wife died soon after Ella was born. Since then he has given up all sex and dating. Instead, each morning, Sam and Ella do an elaborate dance ritual, ostensibly to stop the moon from crashing into earth! But everything changes when Sam’s sexuality begins to reveal itself when he meets an attractive man at a lunch spot. Is Sam gay? Ella, meanwhile, auditions for a play at her new school, in the hopes of meeting a guy she has a crush on… but is thwarted at every step by a cruel, bully-girl named Isobel. And all of Sam and Ella’s lives are observed by Claire (Amy Groening) a neurotic and nosy next-door neighbour novelist, facing writers block. Can Ella find 
satisfaction at her new school? Can Sam come out as gay, even to himself? And what will happen to their lives if they stop doing the sacred moon dance?
To the Moon is a funny, oddball comedy set in Nova Scotia. It’s the kind of comedy where every character is quirky and armed with a quick witty comeback. It’s cute though hard to believe, but what’s truly hard to believe is the totally unexpected wack ending (no spoilers here.) This may be the first film of Kevin Hartford I’ve ever seen, but it has the blessing of Thom Fitzgerald, the film’s producer, who is an icon in the world of LGBT movies and directed two classics: The Hanging Garden and Cloudburst. If you’re looking for a zany gay comedy from down east, check out To The Moon.
Skeet
Co-Wri/Dir: Nik Sexton
St John’s, Newfoundland. Billy Skinner (Sean Dalton) is a skeet, a tough-guy enforcer who did three years hard time for violent crime. Now he’s out again, back in his sketchy neighbourhood, still ruled by a gangster-poet named Leo (Garth Sexton). But things look worse than what he left. His brother can barely walk, his former crime buddy collects empty beer cans, his mom’s a fentanyl head, and she snorted all the money he was sending her to take care of his teenaged son Brandon (Jackson Petten). But Billy is determined to turn his life around — no more crime or fighting. He’s gets a job mopping floors at the chicken plant, spends time with his son, stays off drugs and attends an obligatory support group. And strangest of all, makes friends with his neighbour Mo (Jay Abdo), a taxi driver, one of many Syrian refugees recently 
housed in his neighbourhood. Can Billy shake off the cursed Skinner family name? Or will he revert to life as a skeet?
Skeet is a moving and hard-hitting drama about a ne’erdowell trying to make it in the tough parts of St Johns. Well acted and shot in glorious black and white, it gives us a sympathetic portrayal of the bleak parts of Newfoundland we rarely if ever see. Luckily, director Nik Sexton — who has honed his craft for years at the Rick Mercer Report and This Hour has 22 Minutes — doesn’t know how not to be funny, so there’s enough humour to keep it from being a drag. I guess you could call Skeet Donnie Dumphy’s evil twin.
Great movie.
Skeet won People’s Pick for Best Flick (Nik Sexton) at CFF.
The Players won Best Director award (Sarah Galea-Davis) and Best Acting award (Stefani Kimber) at CFF.
Skeet, To the Moon, and The Players are three of the movies premiering at the Canadian Film Festival, running Monday March 24th through Saturday, March 29 at the Scotiabank cinema in Toronto. Go to canfilmfest.ca for tickets and showtimes.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Ingrid Veninger about Crocodile Eyes
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s present day Toronto. Independent filmmaker Ruby White (Ingrid Veninger) is working on a documentary about her family. She has stuck a hundred, hot-pink post-it notes on a wall, and is gradually filling in the blanks, using vintage footage she has dug up, and brand new snippets as they happen. Her daughter Sara, an artist, is very pregnant with a four- year-old daughter already there. Little Freya is exploring the world, one blade of grass at a time. Her son Jake is a manager at a movie theatre and a member of a 
band. Ruby’s Slovakian parents, Dedo and Baba, still play an active role in their family; her Mom still vivacious, her Dad on his last legs. But with life, death and birth happening all around her, Ruby must decide what to include in her film and what to leave out. What is real and what is fictitious? And what will her family think of the final film?
Crocodile Eyes is a semi-fictional, semi-documentary slice-of-life drama, told through a raw and visceral lens. It’s both heartwarming and shocking. It’s the work of prize-winning, independent filmmaker Ingrid Veninger, whose films have 
been shown at TIFF and festivals worldwide. She has also taught and mentored countless other filmmakers, many of whom who have risen to their own fame. I’ve been following her work for the past decade and a half, reviewing movies like the wonderful Modra and the hilarious I Am a Good Person/I Am a Bad Person, and have interviewed her twice on this show about Porcupine Lake (2017), and The Animal Project (2014).
I spoke wth Ingrid Veninger in person, at CIUT 89,5 FM.
Crocodile Eyes is having its world premiere on March 28th at the Canadian Film Fest.
Actors. Films reviewed: Look at Me, Hey Victor PLUS CFF
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring has not yet sprung, but it should kick in soon with the Canadian Film Fest on March 18-23rd, at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. With features and shorts, including world premieres, there’s something for almost everybody. It opens with a film about a Trinidadian who comes to Toronto to sell doubles from a street stall to try to help his estranged, dying dad. It’s called Doubles. There’s a drama about Syrian refugees called Valley of Exile by Anna Fahr; a science fiction comedy called With Love and a Major Organ… that organ being a removable heart. (Directed by Kim Albright.) And the festival is closing with The Burning Season by Winnipegger Sean Garrity, starring his longtime collaborator Jonas Chernick. So if you’ve never been to the Canadian Film Fest, maybe you should give it a try this year — the movies are surprisingly good.
But this week I’m looking at two more Canadian movies, both about actors playing fictional versions of themselves. There’s an indigenous former child actor trying to rescue his career, and a needy actor who craves attention but hates his own looks.
Look at Me
Wri/Dir: Taylor Olson
Taylor (Taylor Olson) is a handsome, young actor in Halifax with a square jaw and strawberry blond hair. He loves attention (Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! is every actor’s driving force). He’s also an insecure, body-conscious guy, with an eating disorder. He binges, he purges, he vomits into the toilet. Sometimes he lifts weights to build up muscle, or fasts so his body will look more desirable — whether at an audition or on an online dating site. But when he gains weight he hates himself — he’s fat-phobic — and the cycle starts up again. He has casual sex with girls and guys he meets. He even forges a long-term relationship with a single mom he loves (Stephanie 
MacDonald)… but how long can it last?
Look at Me is a B&W, fictional autobiography on film, a scathing — and humorous — self-examination that exposes Taylor’s innermost thoughts and fears. His face and body morphs almost on camera, as his insecurities rise to the surface. Based on his play, this is Taylor’s funny and tragic cri de coeur, about vanity, fat phobia, and self-loathing.
An excellent performance.
Hey, Viktor
Wri/Dir: Cody Lightning
Cody (Cody Lightning) is an actor who has fallen on hard times. His most famous role was as a child actor in the film Smoke Signals, 25 years earlier. He played young Victor, Adam Beach’s character, as a child. But it’s been a downward spiral since then. Now he’s a sloppy, washed-out drunk, swigging from his mickey as he stumbles through his day.
Only Kate (Hannah Cheesman) a beanpole blond and his best 
friend and manager, still cares about him. She helps him him eke out work in his profession, if not exactly what he’s looking for. Like roles in gay-for-pay porn movies (ouch!) and teaching kids acting lessons. He and Kate have written dozens of scripts but none have taken off.
Thing is, Cody is dead-set on doing a sequel to Smoke Signals, possibly Hollywood’s first movie with an all-indigenous director, writer and cast, including Adam Beach, Gary Farmer, Irene Bedard, Simon Baker, and Cody himself. (Kate claims to have Cherokee blood, but no one takes it seriously.) But you can’t make a movie without money. As luck would have it, they meet a crazy, gun-toting German pawn broker (Phil Burke) who happens to be a huge fan of that film. He says he’ll put up all the money as long as the original cast are in the sequel. Can 
Cody pull himself together enough to make a movie? Can he find a full crew willing to work on it? And what about all those actors? And will he actually spend the money on the film or just dive headfirst into a bucket of cocaine?
Hey Viktor is a bawdy and raunchy comedy about an indigenous actor trying to rescue his career. It’s full of outrageous stunts, like attempting to throw a live baby out of a window. Aside from a few (very funny) side characters, almost everyone plays a fictionalized version of themselves, all using their real names. I thought it was pretty funny, varying wildly between tongue in cheek satire and in your face humour. But most of all this is a show piece of Cody Lightning himself, the writer, director and star. He strips down and exposes… well, everything, with the hope of baring his soul.
And it works.
Hey, Viktor opens next week in Toronto; check your local listings. Look at Me premieres at the Canadian Film Festival on March 19th.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Crime. Films reviewed: The Noise of Engines, The Last Mark, The Outfit
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies — one from the UK and two premiering at this year’s Canadian Film Fest — that look at ordinary people pulled into the world of crime. There’s a customs official accused of sexual misconduct; a dominatrix targeted by a deranged hitman; and a mild-mannered English tailor pulled into the Chicago mob.
The Noise of Engines (Le Bruit des Moteurs)
Dir: Philippe Grégoire
Alex (Robert Naylor) is a young man from a small Quebec town near the US border. It’s a village with a mothball factory a formula 1 race track, and not much else. In this post-9/11 world, the government wants formerly boring customs officers to become ruthless killers in the war on terrorism. So to get away from his town, he takes a job as a firearms instructor at an isolated Canada Customs training school. But when he is caught in flagrante delicto with a large breasted employee he is dragged before the directrice for an interrogation. Though their sex was consensual, his co-
worker had a heart attack from a lack of oxygen due to the anti-covid face shield she was wearing (he ended up saving her life.) And when the much older Directrice’s invites him to sleep with her and her husband, he turns her down. She is furious and exiles him back to his village for punishment. But his troubles don’t stop there. The local police, in a series of Kafka-esque events, label Alex as a sexual deviant, and accuse him of increasingly absurd crimes, such as leaving lascivious drawings on post-it notes in the local church. However life isn’t all bad. At least he has one friend in the village, an Icelandic drag-racer (Tanja Björk) who wants to practice her French and see the local sites. Can Alex survive a two week leave in small-town Quebec? Will the police ever leave 
him alone? And what will become of his relationship with new Icelandic friend?
The Noise of Engines is an absurdist drama about the stultifying effect corrupt bureaucrats and policemen have in small-town Quebec. Aesthetically beautiful — from its stark scenery and retro settings to its modernistic music and elegant titles — this debut feature is a pleasure to watch. The while film is almost dreamlike (and sometimes nightmarish) to the point where you’re never quite sure whether anything is real or if it’s all in Alex’s imagination. Shot both in Quebec and in Iceland it swerves between comedy and horror, settling somewhere in between. I like this movie.
The Last Mark
Dir: Reem Morsi
Peyton (Alexia Fast) is an escort and a professional dominatrix. One night, in a seedy motel room with a client she hears unexpected intruders entering the room. Hidden under the bed she witnesses two professional killers shoot the man she was just having sex with. She escapes but not before they see her. It’s up to the killers to silence the unfortunate witness. Keele (Shawn Doyle) volunteers to catch and kill the witness. He is an older professional reaching the end of his career, while Palmer (Bryce Hodgson) is his new replacement, a psychotic murderer who chops off his victims heads just for the fun of it. But there’s a twist. Peyton left her ID behind, and Keele recognizes her last name — the same as a woman he had a fling with decades earlier. Is it possible that she’s his daughter? He asks Eli (Jonas Chernick) his longtime fixer to do a bit of research — is she related to him, or just another target? In the meantime, Keele kidnaps her and locks her in an isolated cabin, far from the eyes of his head-chopping partner. Can the two if them learn to get along? Do they have anything in common? Can they trust one another? And will he save her or kill her?
The Last Mark is a classic typical, crime dramady, about an odd 
couple pulled together by coincidence. This is the director, Reem Morsi’s first full-length feature, and it holds together well. The cast is good all-around, even the smaller roles, especially Bryce Hodgson as a psycho-killer. This is a Canadian production and cast, but the story is set somewhere vaguely outside of Detroit (though it was shot in Sudbury). It’s violent but not gory, and even moving at times. It’s never slow or boring, and the characters are just quirky enough to keep you interested but still believable. This movie’s pretty good.
The Outfit
Co-Wri/Dir: Graham Moore
It’s the mid-1950s in Chicago. Leonard (Mark Rylance) is a bespoke tailor, originally from London. He apprenticed on Saville Row before opening his own shop. Now in Chicago he works with his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutsch), an ambitious ginger-haired young woman from the neighbourhood. She collects exotic snow globes with the idea of someday living in the cities in her glass souvenirs. And she’s dating Richie (Dylan O’Brien) a brash young gangster, on the sly. And that’s trouble. You see, the whole neighbourhood is under the thumb of Richie’s dad, a local kingpin, who is also Leonard’s best customer. He doesn’t want Richie to mess things up. As a favour, he lets them use his shop as a safe house, leaving important messages in an innocuous wooden drop box at the back. But one day, a recorded cassette mysteriously appears in an envelope. Apparently it was recorded by the Feds… but how did it get there? Was it a secret plant in the FBI? A rival gang? Or the Outfit (a syndicate for 
organized crime groups) And how did they record it — is there a rat within their own ranks? Francis (John Flynn) first lieutenant in the gang, is sent in to investigate, soon followed by the kingpin himself, along with his bodyguard. As suspicion grows, and bullets start to fly, it’s up to Leonard to try to smooth the waters… but is he too late? And who is the rat? The kingpin, his son Richie, his lieutenant, or possibly even Mable or Leonard himself?
The Outfit is a clever suspense drama about loyalty, suspicion and lies within a crime gang and how it effects the people all around it. Mark Rylance is terrific as the stiff-upper-lip “cutter” (he doesn’t want to be a called a tailor) and his behind-the-scenes machinations. Like a stage play, the whole film is set within the three rooms of his shop over the course of a single day, but doesn’t feel claustrophobic, just precisely made, like the hundreds of pieces of cloth Leonard sews together to make a single suit. Graham Moore who wrote The Imitation Game also directed this excellent period drama. No spoilers here, but this film has more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at. It’s more clever than emotional, which makes for a fun — though at times violent — mystery/drama. I like this one, too.
The Outfit opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. The Noise of Engines has its Toronto premiere on March 23rd and The Last Mark its Canadian premier on April 1st, both at the Canadian Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Kelly McCormack about her new film Sugar Daddy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Darren is a small town girl with big city ambitions. She left her divorced mom and adoring sister behind for a music career in Toronto. She found a gaggle of artists to hang with and an apartment-mate who has a crush on her. She earns her rent at a catering job. But when, in a Dickensian plot turn, she’s caught taking home leftover sandwiches — she finds herself fired, broke, starving, and nearly homeless. What to do? She signs onto a service where she’s paid to go on public dates with much older, much richer men. This solves her money deficit… but what about her career and sense of self worth? Will Darren’s new arrangements lead to success? Or is she doomed to failure as an artist on the payroll of a “sugar daddy”?
Sugar Daddy is a coming-of-age feature about a young woman
discovering her self worth, and what her youth, body, and talent will fetch on the open market. The film is written, produced by and starring Toronto-based writer, musician, actor, and artist Kelly McCormack. Kelly has made her mark on stage and screen — you’ve probably seen her as Betty Anne on LetterKenny as well as parts on Ginny and Georgia on Netflix and the upcoming A League of their Own on Amazon.
I spoke with Kelly via Zoom in Toronto. I previously interviewed her along with Alec Toller in 2014 about her off-beat film Play: the Movie.
Sugar Daddy premiered at the Canadian Film Festival on April 1st, and opens on VOD, beginning April 6th, 2021.
Women around the world. Films reviewed: Nina Wu, White Elephant, French Exit
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring is here and so is Toronto’s film festival season, even with all the theatres still closed. First up is the Canadian Film Fest which is on now.
This week I’m looking at three new dramas about women around the world. There’s an actress haunted by an audition in Taipei; a high school girl crushing on a white guy in Scarborough; and an insolvent socialite retiring in Paris.
Nina Wu
Dir: Midi Z
Nina Wu (Wu Kexi) is an aspiring actress in Taiwan. Originally part of a rural theatre company, she moved to Taipei to make it big, but so far, six years on her big break has yet to show itself, So when her agent offers a possible role in a festival-type feature looking for an unknown actress to play a complex character in a psychological drama, she jumps at the chance. But there’s always a catch: the part calls for full frontal nudity and explicit sex. That’s not all — there’s a gruelling, and highly competitive hiring process she has to past through first. Luckily she lands the lead role. Unluckily, the director, in order to get a “real” performance out of her, treats her like hell on set and off. He works her into a frenzy, slaps her face, insults her and puts her very life in danger. She understands what an actor has to go through to deliver a spectacular performance. But that’s not all. A dark, hidden 
secret from the recent past, still haunts her, and is gradually pushing her to the edge. Someone is stalking her. She has disconnected memories of walking down endless narrow corridors in a red gown, passing identically dressed women at every corner. What is happening? What does it all mean? And can she survive?
Nina Wu is an exquisitely beautiful mystery-thriller about the life of an actress suffering from PTSD. It’s about her, her dreams and hallucinations, as well as the movie in the movie. 
So at any given moment she could be acting her role, having a nightmare, or experiencing a hallucination — and you don’t always know which one it is. Nina Wu is a collaboration between the director, Midi Z, originally from the Shan State in Myanmar, and Wu Kexi a stunning and emotionally powerful Taiwanese actress, based on her own experiences. With haunting music, striking costumes and set, beautiful cinematography and a fascinating story, Nina Wu shows the dark side of the movie industry coated with a vibrant and flashy gloss.
White Elephant
Dir: Andrew C
Its the mid-nineties at a Scarborough high school. Puuja (Zaarin Bushra) is a
16-year-old Toronto-born girl who doesn’t quite fit in. She’s too Canadian for her Indian-born friends Preet and Amit (Gurleen Singh, Dulmika Kevin Hapuarachchi), too Indian for Indo-Caribbeans, and too brown for the white kids. Her main pastime is going to movies and hanging at Tim Horton’s. But when a random encounter at a theatre with a white guy she thinks is cute, things start to change. Trevor (Jesse Nasmith) doesn’t go to her school, but he’s from the neighbourhood, and hangs with his friends nearby. He seems to like her, at least as a friend. Pujaa starts lightening her hair, changing her style and wearing green-tinted contact lenses to fit in. But can a brown girl date a white guy in Scarborough? Or is their Romeo and Juliet friendship bound to fail?
White Elephant is a look at the racial division, rivalry and prejudice among kids in a multi-cultural community, as seen through the eyes of Puuja. It’s a shorter than average-film, just one hour long, but it covers a lot of ground.
There are some strange details. I’ve never heard of Canadians putting their hands on their hearts during the national anthem — that’s an Americanism. And why would Pooja’s Calcutta-born Dad scolds her for not speaking Hindi. (Wouldn’t he speak Bengali?) But these are minor quibbles. Acting was good all around, the costume design was fun, and the film gave a voice to groups rarely seen on the screen.
French Exit
Dir: Azazel Jacobs
(Based on the novel by Patrick DeWitt)
Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a Park Avenue socialite known for her attitude. She can cut down the fiercest critic with a withering glance, and if snubbed by a waiter she’s apt to set her table on fire. She’s not one to be underestimated. When her husband died she withdrew her nondescript son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) from prep school and brought him home. Eight years later, the coffers run dry, and she’s insolvent. So she sells her jewelry and paintings and pulls a “French exit” —an unannounced getaway — on an ocean liner with a satchel full of Euros. She’s accompanied by Malcolm and their cat. Malcolm is sad because his girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots) refuses to follow him to Paris. (Oh to be young-ish and in love-ish again, says Frances.) They set up house in her best friend Joan’s pied à terre and start to enjoy life in Paris. And they soon have a motley crew of friends 
dropping by: Madame Reynard, a lonely fan, Madeleine, a psychic, Julius, a private detective, and others. Frances is spreading the wealth, handing off wads of cash to everyone she meets. It’s almost as if she’s trying to use it all up before she says goodbye. But first she must find her runaway cat, whom she believes is a reincarnation of her late husband. Can Malcolm adjust to life in Paris? Will he ever see Susan again? What is the real reason Frances came to Paris? And what will happen when her money runs out?
French Exit is a leisurely-paced, whimsical story, based on a novel. Lucas Hedges as Malcolm is so low key and introverted, you can barely notice him; while Michelle Pfeiffer Frances is a fantastical creation. It feels like a modern-day version of Auntie Mame. It’s written by Canadian novelist Patrick DeWitt based on his own recent book, which gives it lots of room to develop characters and supply funny lines. It may be light and inconsequential, but it’s a pleasure to watch.
French Exit and Nina Wu both open today; and White Elephant is playing at the Canadian Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Happy trails. Films reviewed: Ghost Town Anthology, Red Rover, The Hummingbird Project
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You know, Canada makes a lot of movies. Oscar season might be over, but the Canadian Screen Awards are on at the end of March, with lots of great nominees, including Les Salopes, The Drawer Boy, What Walaa Wants, The Grizzlies and The Hummingbird Project. And for a look at next year’s possible winners the Canadian Film Fest will be showing a dozen new movies starting on Tuesday.
This week I’m looking at three new Canadian movie about people blazing new trails. There’s a man in Toronto following a path to Mars, another man constructing a straight line from Kansas City to Wall Street, and locals in northern Québec trying to block strange outsiders from entering their town.
Ghost Town Anthology (Répertoire des villes disparues)
Wri/Dir: Denis Côté
Irénée-Des-Neiges is a mining town in Northern Quebec whose mine was shut down. The population is steadily decreasing and young people are moving south. So when Simon Dubé, one of the few young man left in the town, dies in a strange car crash everyone is devastated. His mom (Josée Deschênes) and little brother Jimmy (Robert Naylor), are hit especially hard. Was it an accident, a suicide, or something else? Whatever the cause it seems to 
spark a change in attitude in this dying town.
The Mayor Simone Smallwood (Diane Lavallée) reassures everyone that while it’s a sad event, the town will survive – we are a place for the living and will never be a ghost town. But Jimmy tells his best friend André (Rémi Goulet) his dead brother is communicating with him – so they go to visit the shack where his coffin is stored till spring (you can’t dig graves in the winter up north).
Adèle (Larissa Corriveau) a gawky young woman, prone to paranoia, is sure she hears strange noises late at night. Loulou and Robert a pair of retired busybodies thinks there might be wolves in the woods. Pierre and Camille, the attractive rich couple who own the local restaurant, see the shrinking of the town as a good thing – maybe they can renovate abandoned houses? When a grief counsellor arrives from Montreal (wearing a hijab, no less! *gasp*) the mayor sends her packing. We can take care of 
ourselves. We don’t like outsiders.
But the outsiders keep coming, including strange little kids wearing felt masks and Peruvian ponchos. Who are they and what do they want? Are they real, or just a hallucination? But when things turn really strange, the town has to make a decision – move away or get rid of these unusual outsiders with help from the outside.
Ghost Town Anthology is an eerie look at history, kinship, and mourning in small town Quebec. It’s also about the xenophobia and fear of strangers that persists long after secularism replaced Catholicism as its official religion.
Shot in beautiful, grainy 16mm film, it embraces the coldness and grey skies of a Canadian winter. With good acting and a consistently surprising story, Denis Côté continues his flirtation with magic realism in this unusual film.
Very interesting movie.
Red Rover
Dir: Shane Belcourt
Damon (Kristian Bruun) is a failed man. He’s a geologist at at a mining firm in Toronto’s financial district but his MBA boss Brad steals his research and treats him like dirt. His 
ex-girlfriend Beatrice (Meghan Heffern) dumps him the day he proposes, pushing him into the basement of the house they share. Now 
he’s forced to listen to her having sex with Mark (Morgan David Jones) a narcissist instructor from Australia she’s shacked up with. Damon is just a pudgy, depressed introvert who wallows in his misery. 
His only pastime is searching for treasure on the beaches with a metal detector.
But everything changes when he runs into a woman dressed in a space suit dancing in the 
sands. Phoebe (Cara Gee) is a singer- songwriter who is everything he is not – joyful, hopeful and full of life. She’s currently promoting Red Rover, a program to send a few people to settle on the planet mars! It’s sponsored by Gopi, a 
billionaire, who will choose the best applicants. She agrees to help Damon apply and they gradually are drawn to each other? Is it love or just a fling? Can Damon regain his self confidence? And is her really flying to Mars?
Shot in Toronto, Red Rover is a lighthearted rom-com with an unusual science fiction twist. It’s full of people telling stories and singing songs… and Cara Gee is especially appealing as the quirky love interest.
The Hummingbird Project
Wri/Dir: Kim Nguyen
Vinnie Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) is a young guy full of spit and vinegar. He works with his cousin the nerdy and neurotic Anton Zaleski (Alexander Skarsgård) a computer programmer. They work at a Wall street investment firm headed by the canny Eva (Salma Hayek). She keeps a close eye on her employees. Vinnie has a grand vision: to build a fiber optic line stretching from the Kansas City stock exchange directly to Wall street. By sending data a few milliseconds faster, the speed of one flap of a 
hummingbird’s wings. he could make billions of dollars on stock trades.
But the project is enormous. It involves digging a tunnel through mountains, under rivers in an absolute straight line, withthosands of tiny land purchase – just the width of the cable – along the way. He finds a secret investor from New Jersey to pay for it, an engineer, Mark Vega (Michael Mando) to do the physical planning, and hundreds of others to do the digging. They are 
working against time. Anton has to speed up the transmission. The investor has to keep investing, and Vinnie himself is postponing a potentially lifesaving operation to bring the project in on schedule. But can they complete the project in time, and overcome all the obstacles along the way?
The Hummingbird project is a look at the importance of the small local obstacles that can stall huge projects, and the burning ambition needed to complete it. It’s wonderfully shot in a forests and mountain ranges, with backplows, giant helicopters and sputtering drills all along the way. It’s a sometimes touching, sometimes tender story of an impossible dream. Eisenberg is great as Vinnie and Skarsgård unrecognizeable as Anton. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this movie’s energy, ambition and passion. It just seems at times that the meandering story is just an excuse for showing cool scenery and actors in hard hats.
Ghost Town Anthology opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. The Hummingbird Project opens in a week, and Red Rover is the opening night feature at the Canadian Film Fest next Tuesday night.
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 Nicole Maroon and Vladimir Jon Cubrt about their new film Luba
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Luba and Donnie are a married couple with a young son, Matty. Their marriage faltered when Donnie’s drug use got out of hand, but since rehab things are looking up. Little Matty commutes between Lou’s flat and his grandma’s home where Donnie is living. They’re barely staying afloat with precarious jobs — he’s in construction while she’s serving jell-o shots for tips. Will poverty, depression and crack grind them into 
the dirt? Or can a family be saved by the hope and determination of a strong young woman named Luba?
Luba is also the name of a heartfelt family drama that looks at life in Toronto through the eyes of a family left behind. It stars Nicole Maroon as Luba and Vladimir Jon Cubrt as Donnie. Nicole is a master of Fine 
Arts whose range includes everything from Shakespeare to City TVs Meet the Family; while Vlad is celebrated on stage, screen and on TV’s Hannibal. The two co-produced Luba and Vlad wrote the script.
I spoke with Nicole and Vlad in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM. They talk about Acting, Luba, Hockey, Ukrainian-Canadians, Jack Nicholson, Toronto, the film’s genesis, why Nicole was cast in the title role… and more!
Luba had its Canadian premier on Saturday, March 24th at 5:30 PM at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre as part of the Canadian Film Fest.
At CFF Luba won both the Audience Choice Award for Best Picture and the Reel Canada Indie Award.
In the Trash. Movies Reviewed: A Swingers Weekend, The Go-Getters, Isle of Dogs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Canadian Film Fest is on now, bringing lots of new movies to the big screen, movies made right here in Toronto and across the country. Comedies, dramas and real life stories.
Hollywood movies often glamourize everyday life with an idealized view of the world the average person can never attain. But sometimes movies look in the opposite direction… downward, toward the gutter. This week I’m looking at movies set among the trash. There’s an island of garbage filled with abandoned dogs, a couple of ne’er-do-wells who live in rubbish, and a married couple who risk trashing their marriage for a weekend getaway.
A Swingers Weekend
Wri/Dir: Jon E. Cohen
Lisa and Dan (Erin Karpluk – Being Erica, Randal Edwards) are a power couple. She’s in real estate and he’s CEO at an energy drink corporation, and they’re taking a break from their Toronto jobs for a weekend retreat in a lakeside villa up in cottage country. They’ve invited the attractive TJ and Skai (Michael Xavier, Erin Agostino) — he’s an artist, she’s into yoga – for a gourmet dinner and a weekend of kinky sex. But their planned foursome gains a fifth and sixth wheel when unexpected guests show up at the door. Geoffrey and Fiona (Jonas Chernik, Mia Kirchner) are Dan’s old friends whose marriage is falling apart. Can a weekend of bed-swapping inject new life into the respective couples’ relationships? And what are their real motives behind this swingers’ retreat?
A Swingers Weekend is a cute comedy that’s surprisingly tame. No nudity, it’s more of a social satire than a bedroom farce.
The Go-Getters
Dir: Jeremy LaLonde
Owen and Lacie (Aaron Abrams, Tomie Amber Pirie) are an odd couple. She’s a streetwalker who works for a disabled pimp called Cerebral Paulie, who keeps her addicted to oxycodone. He’s a nearly homeless alcoholic who mooches drinks from his brother’s skid row bar. He robbed her of her last fiver when she was ODing in a puddle of vomit on the bathrooom floor. It was hate at first site. But circumstances conspire to make them work together so they can buy bus tickets to Brockville to renovate an abandoned home.
They try robbing panhandlers, selling sex to teens, and fleecing buskers, but nothing seems to work. Will they ever escape from hideous Toronto? The Go-Getters is an unusual look at the lowest of the low in downtown Toronto. But guess what – this is a comedy! Yup, I’m not joking. Abrams as Owen looks like a younger and dumber Dr House (Hugh Laurie), and Pirie is truly unique as a loud-mouthed hooker with a heart of lead.
Isle of Dogs
Dir: Wes Anderson
It’s Japan sometime in the future. Megasaki in Uni prefecture is a big city controlled by the evil and corrupt Kobayashi dynasty. The Kobayashi clan own everything from the golf courses to the amusement parks and pharmaceutical labs. And they are all cat lovers who despise dogs. The dogs all come down with an odd disease called snout flu. Mayor Kobayashi – under the thumb of the corpse-like Major Domo – declares all dogs persona non grata. To save the city from 
infection, he says, he is banishing all the city’s dogs to Trash Island off the coast. This even includes his nephew Atari’s dog Spots. (Atari was adopted by his distant uncle when his parents died in a train crash.)
But when Atari flies to Trash Island in a toy airplane to rescue his pooch, he discovers a strange world rarely seen by humans. It’s ruled by gangs of alpha dogs, headed by a team of five: former pets Duke, Rex, King and Boss, as well as the mysterious Chief, a stray who likes to fight. (He bites.) They vow to help Atari find his dog Spots… or die trying.
Meanwhile, back in Megasaki, student journalists — led by exchange student Tracy — smell a skunk among the cats. They sense there’s a conspiracy targeting dogs and – with the help of a hacker — they vow to save the dogs and the missing boy Atari, and to make City Hall pay for their crimes. But will they make it in time?
Isle of Dogs is an epic fantasy made with stop-motion animation. The humans speak Japanese (with voiceover translation) and the dogs speak a stilted Japanese English. The story sounds simple and a bit goofy, but it’s not. It’s pure, non-stop eye candy, with art and illustration 
flooding your brain at the pace of a Simpsons episode.
It feels like Wes Anderson made a list of all English words derived from the Japanese — yakuza, sumo, sushi, geisha, samurai, bonsai, kabuki, haiku, anime, manga, otaku, cos-ple, taiko — and worked them all into the film. The thing is, it’s not cheap laughs and cultural plundering, it’s lovingly, respectfully, and exquisitely reproduced.
The constant barrage of images includes Japanese pop art, manga, ukiyo-e, 
silhouettes, and 2-D animation, all portrayed with a futuristic/retro/ steampunk feel (if such a thing is possible). Wes Anderson has done stop- motion animation before — The Fantastic Mister Fox — but this one is a quantum leap beyond that. None of Mister Fox‘s nudge-nudge, wink-wink snark in this movie; just affectionately rendered geek culture.
Isle of Dogs is stunning to watch. I’ve seen it twice now, and want to see it again, as soon as possible. It’s exquisite, beautiful, awe-inducing… I’m running out of adjectives. I love this movie, and if you revel in the visual and all things Japanese, you must see this animated film.
Isle of Dogs opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. The Go Getters and other films are playing this weekend at the Canadian Film Fest. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Family relations. Films reviewed: The Second Time Around, Wilson, Personal Shopper
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Family ties can span generations. This week I’m looking at movies about family relationships. There’s a grandmother looking for love, a middle-aged misanthrope looking for his daughter, and a young woman in Paris looking for her twin brother… even though she knows he’s dead.
The Second Time Around
Dir: Leon Marr
Katherine (Linda Thorson) is an elegant, silver-haired widow who loves the opera. She dreams of someday seeing a performance at La Scala. She lives with Helen, her grouchy daughter (Laura de Carteret), Helen’s husband, and her granddaughter Sarah, an art student (Alexis Harrison). But when she breaks her hip, she is placed in a retirement home for rehab and recovery. It’s a huge 
change. Up to now, she has always lived in a family home: with her parents, then her husband and finally her daughter. Not to worry, her temporary home is full of new friends.
There she meets Isaac (Stuart Margolin), a gruff and grumpy old man who complains about everything. A former tailor, he smokes cigars, plays poker with his buddies, and is never far from a mickey of rye. But when she catches him unobserved, mending clothes for a friend while softly singing a yiddish tune, 
she discovers Isaac is actually a pretty nice guy. Sparks fly and their relationship develops… perhaps to something bigger?
The Second Time Around is a gentle, low-key drama with the feel of a high school movie of the week. Retirement homes apparently 
have clubs, cliques, lunchroom gossip, even a senior prom — in a place where everyone’s a senior. It also deals with a slew of real life issues, including death, disabilities, depression… as well as passionate sex. And it features Canadian TV stars from the past half century: Louis Del Grande, Paul Soles, Jayne Eastwood and the late Don Francks in his last movie role. I just felt it hard to connect with what was, essentially, The Retirees of Degrassi Street.
Wilson
Dir: Craig Johnson (Based on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes)
Wilson (Woody Harrelson) is a middle-aged man who lives in a tiny house, with a small dog, in an unremarkable city. He has two personality traits that don’t go together. He 
loves social contact and will talk to strangers; but he also hates people and thinks the world is going to hell. He’s an opinionated, overbearing misanthrope who swears like a sailor. When his old man dies and he realizes he’s all alone in this world, he climbs into his wood-panelled station 
wagon and sets out to find his ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern). She was a pregnant, drug-addicted sex worker when she left him 17 years earlier. Last thing he heard she got an abortion and moved far, far away. But Wilson doesn’t use computers, smartphones or social networks. So he doesn’t realize she lives in the next county over, and that all those years ago, she put their baby up 
for adoption. Now they team up to find the 17- year-old. But can a misbegotten family hold together based only on rude behaviour patterns and DNA?
Wilson is a very funny, dark comedy about a man looking for his place in a world he doesn’t like. It’s based on the graphic novel by the amazing cartoonist Daniel Clowes, who brought us works like Ghost World, and Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. It’s not your typical slapstick comedy. Rather, it’s a hilariously sad look at the fate of unlikeable outcasts and what they can learn.
Personal Shopper
Wri/Dir: Olivier Assayas
Maureen (Kristin Stewart) is a personal shopper for a super celebrity named Kyra. Her boyfriend lives in Oman, and her twin brother is dead. She roams the aisles of haut couture houses choosing sequinned gowns, leather harnesses and priceless baubles for her boss. She carries blank cheques to pay for it all but earns little money herself. She puts up with Kyra’s tyrannical 
behaviour because she needs to stay in Paris until she receives a sign from her twin brother. Lewis had the same heart defect she suffers from and they both vowed who ever died first would communicate with the other.
She spends the night in the spooky, empty house where Lewis used to live, to see if he would talk to her. Instead she sees a troubled spirit that scratches crosses into the 
furniture. Later she starts receiving anonymous texts on her phone, by someone who seems to know her every thought. It pays for hotel rooms and sends her cryptic paper notes. Is the mysterious stalker a man or a woman, living or dead? And should she be excited… or terrified?
Personal Shopper is a great new drama – in English, but set in Paris – from French director Olivier Assayas, who recently brought
us Clouds of Sils Maria. This one’s even better. It neatly combines theosophy and spiritualism with high fashion and celebrity culture. Maureen bridges the two sides. I like Kristin Stewart – my main problem with her is she’s not a great speaker. She tends to mumble and always speaks the same way. Luckily in this movie she relies less on her voice, and more on her body, her face, her movement. She broods and she panics. She poses with her naked torso at a fashion house, or curls up into a ball in a haunted mansion. Stewart is the movie, and she does a good job of it. I really liked this movie.
Personal Shopper, Wilson and The Second Time Around all start today in Toronto; check your local listings. The Canadian Film Fest is on now, and Sundance Now — a curated indie, doc and art house channel — starts streaming in Canada today.
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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