Genre movies. Films reviewed: Relax I’m from the Future, Strange Way of Life, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in October with Toronto After Dark, showing New Horror, Sci-Fi and Action movies from Oct 18-22 at the Scotiabank Theatre in front of huuuuge audiences, the perfect things to watch as Hallowe’en gradually approaches.
This week, I’m looking at strange new takes on traditional genre movies — a science fiction comedy, a western, and a vampire movie — two of which played at TIFF this year. There’s a reluctant vampire in Quebec, two old friends in the old west, and a misbegotten traveller… from far in the future.
Relax, I’m From the Future
Wri/Dir: Luke Higginson
Casper (Rhys Darby) is a guy from the future dressed in a purple lycra onesie. He jumped through a wormhole into the present but isn’t exactly sure what to do now. He doesn’t need anything fancy, he just wants to experience this era, one he considers great musically, artistically and all around cool. The one catch? He can’t go back to the future — he’s stuck here. Luckily he meets a compatible friend named Holly (Gabrielle Graham), a self described black, queer vagina-muncher. She agrees that right now is the best of all possible worlds for her. Though she thinks Casper is a homeless nut bar, she humours him and his strange stories. But everything changes when he proves to her he knows things he couldn’t know unless he travelled in time. Like what’s the next winning lottery ticket or predicting a strange phenomenon falling from the sky. So they agree to team up, to make some money and then save the world. What he doesn’t realize is there’s an assassin sent back in time by the government to disintegrate people just like him. Doris (Janine Theriault) is a ruthless killer who enjoys zapping miscreants like Casper. Then there’s Percy (Julian Richings), a suicidal waiter at a diner who is always doodling weird punk cartoon sketches. In the future, long after his death, Percy will become a famous folk hero, and Casper really wants to meet him before he dies. But will his actions upset the cosmic balance?
Relax, I’m from the Future is a funny low-budget science fiction comedy
about ordinary people bungling there way through time. I admit it, I’ll watch any time-travel movie, no matter how bad. Luckily, this one’s pretty good, both quirky and funny, with some clever, new time-travel twists, and minimal special effects. The costumes are great and the director make good use of split screen technology. It’s shot around Toronto and Hamilton, featuring local hardcore punk band PUP, with a mainly Toronto cast including horror stalwart Richings as Percy and featuring kiwi comedy star Rhys Darby from Flight of the Concords in the title role. If you want something light and silly, check out Relax, I’m from the Future.
Strange Way of Life
Wri/Dir: Pedro Almodóvar
Silva (Pedro Pascal) is a rancher in the Old West. He lives in a homestead in the mountains with his incorrigible, adult son. Jake (Ethan Hawke) is the sheriff of a small town who lives in a simple room. The two once were close but haven’t seen each other for 25 years. Until Silva walks through the police station door one day. Why is he there? Perhaps it has to do with a recent killing, whose shooter is still unknown (though Jake has his suspicions.) Or maybe it’s something totally unrelated to that. Soon enough, they’re up in Jake’s apartment for some hanky-panky as if they never left their wild young days. They were lovers once across the border in Mexico a quarter of a century earlier. Can that relationship be rekindled? Or will the recent murder make that impossible?
Strange Way of Life is a short western about old friends meeting once again. It has showdowns and shootouts, horses and blankets, basically everything you’d expect from a western, just abbreviated and distilled. It’s instantly recognizable as the work of Almodovar: he uses primary colours to push a blue sky, red bandana or green denim jacket into the centre of your vision. It’s all done in the style of a 1960s spaghetti 
western, complete with panoramic scenery, twangy orchestral music, the whole shebang, but with a new, gay twist. This includes a frankly erotic — though not explicit — flashback to a scene involving red wine and Remingtons in a Mexican hideaway. He manages to pack a lot into 30 minutes but it still feels like the preview to a longer feature. But it’s showing along with another 30-minute short by Almodovar, so you’ll get your money’s worth.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant)
Co-Wri/Dir: Ariane Louis-Seize
Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a teenage girl who lives with her cousin in an abandoned warehouse in a small Quebec City. She’s pale with long straight black hair and bangs who dresses like Wednesday Addams. She was traumatized at a childhood birthday party in the 1970s when her parents ate the clown. Now, half a century later, she’s still a teen and still can’t bring herself to kill people. Though a vampire she exists by sipping blood out of plastic medical pouches not jugular veins. Her dad and mom (Steve Laplante, Sophie Cadieux) sympathize with her, but think it’s time for her to grow up and kill some people. Otherwise her fangs may never emerge. That’s why she’s living with her cuz.
Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) goes to the local high school and has a part-time job at the bowling alley. He’s shy and withdrawn. He is brutally bullied both at school and at work by classmates who call him nacho boy and pour cheese whiz into his running shoes. If life is so miserable, why bother living, he thinks. And when he meets Sasha at random in a railway stockyard one night, something clicks. She needs to suck blood, and he’s willing to die. But as they get to know each other better they 
realize there’s something more between them. But how long can it last?
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a very sweet coming-of-age romance in a semi-supernatural setting. It has a retro-goth feel to it with a fair amount of kitschy nostalgia woven in. This movie really grabbed me for some reason. I wasn’t expecting much, so was pleasantly surprised by how nice it is. Sara Montpetit and Félix-Antoine Bénard make a lovely couple of depressed misfits. And, despite occasional blood and horror, it’s mainly a sweet and vampiric rom-com.
Strange Way of Life and Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person both played at TIFF, with Strange opening this weekend, and Humanist next weekend both at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; And Relax I’m from the Future is also opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
August potpouri. Films reviewed: Bad Things, Lasting Impressions, Strays
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is a time to relax travel and have fun, not a time when people want to watch serious movies. So this week I’m looking at a potpourri of different sorts of entertainment than you’re probably used to. I’m talking about lesbians in a haunted hotel, French impressionist paintings on a bistro wall, and abandoned talking dogs in a big city.
Bad Things
Wri/Dir: Stewart Thorndike
It’s dead winter in upstate New York. Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) and her friends are up from the city to spend a night or two at a completely deserted hotel.
Ruthie inherited the place from her grandmother and has to decide whether to give it a go or sell it. With her, are her enthusiastic girlfriend Cal (Hari Nef: Barbie) their hard-boiled pal Maddie (Rad Pereira) and Maddie’s flirtatious acquaintance Fran (Annabelle Dexter-Jones). And it could be a fun weekend: there’s an indoor swimming pool, karaoke, a huge kitchen and tons of empty rooms for pillow fights or foolin’ around. On the negative side, the hotel might be haunted. Fran is the first one to see ghosts, a little girl worried about her fingers, and a pair of female ski champs. Worse, the ghosts can also see her. But when she freaks, the other three just blame it on drugs. Things heat up when Ruthie cheats on her 
girlfriend. But when things start getting really scary, like someone wearing a gas mask while brandishing a chainsaw — they have to decide whether to hightail it back to the city, or stick it out.
Bad Things is a new take on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining from a feminist perspective. It keeps some of the original concepts but twists them all into something new and original. Instead of blood in the hallway it’s mothers’ milk. And there are lots of psychological thrills and chills — it’s hard to know who is crazy, who’s a ghost, who is living, who is dead, and who is killing them all. The acting is good all around, along with appearances by token heterosexuals, Canadian Jared Abrahamson (American Animals, Hello Destroyer, Hollow in the Land, Sweet Virginia) as Brian the handyman and 80s icon Molly Ringwald as the Woman in Red. Bad Things is a low budget movie shot during the height of the pandemic — The Shining it ain’t — but it is good, funny and scary.
Lasting Impressions: The Magic of the Impressionists in 3D
When is a painting not a painting? When it’s an experience. Over the past 5-10 years there’s been a boom in exhibitions of the art of famous painters… but without the paintings. Van Gogh, Chagal, Monet — they take a huge space and fill it with enormous moving projections of their most famous works to view as you walk around a warehouse or convention centre temporarily turned into a pop-up gallery. These were especially popular during the pandemic when it was hard to travel. But this show is different: instead of an ersatz art gallery, it’s a show, almost like dinner theatre. You sit at small numbered tables, where servers bring wine and snacks. When the show begins, the lights dim and you turn your chair to face the screen. And here’s where out gets interesting. To the accompaniment of popular French music — Debussy to Charles Aznavour to Ella Fitzgerald — enormous blowups of French impressionist paintings — sort of a greatest hits — are displayed one by one. The projections use super-saturated colour with intense effect. Part of the paintings are animated: water ripples, clouds drift, leaves shake. And — with the help of 3D glasses — elements of a painting feel like they’re moving: you’re drifting down a stream, floating above Monet’s waterlilies, or at a ballet rehearsal with poised ballerinas drifting slowly toward you in mid-air. It’s not the same thing as seeing a painting on a wall; this is art as a commodity to be consumed. While the animation doesn’t always work — I’d 
rather see a Frenchman’s long beard or a Tahitian woman’s hair staying still in a Renoir or Gaugin painting, than to watch it sway rhythmically in the breeze — the technical quality is excellent: great sound and beautiful images. I’m of the view, if you want art, go to a museum — there’s a show on right now of Mary Cassatt’s impressionist painting at the AGO. But if you want a pleasant, nostalgic outing, where you can enjoy choreographed pictures, music and a glass of wine, this is it.
Strays
Dir: Josh Greenbaum
Reggie is the perfect dog. Though a bit scruffy around the edges, he is loving, faithful, and true to his master Doug (Will Forte). All he wants is a pat on the head and an occasional “good boy”. So what is Reggie (Will Ferrell) doing in a dark alley in some big city? Turns out Doug is a good-for-nothing, scum-of-the-earth master who abandoned poor Reggie 3 hours away from the small town they live in, so the dog could never make his way back home. Reggie is still hopeful — he’s naive and an eternal optimist — but he is quickly disabused of that notion by some big mean dogs who threaten him. Luckily, the street-smart Bug (Jamie Foxx), comes to his rescue like the Artful Dodger, showing him the lay of the land. Being a stray dog is paradise — you can live like a king with no responsibility. They’re soon joined by two other strays: Maggie (Isla Fisher) an elegant pooch with a keen sense of smell who was traded in by her mistress for a smaller cuter lapdog; and Hunter 
(Randall Park) a former therapy dog who is always sympathetic. But when they discover Reggie’s tragic story they decide to help him get revenge. Their mission? For Reggie to find his way back to Doug… and bite off his penis! Will they make it to the town? And what adventures will they encounter along the way?
Strays is a comedy road movie that’s coarse, bawdy, and raunchy. It’s a typical bro movie, with the sort of humour that appeals to 14-year-old boys… you know, lots of jokes about feces, vomit, urine and penises. But somehow, because it’s guileless dogs (not people) telling the jokes, you can laugh all you want without feeling guilty or self conscious. These are real dogs, not CGI images (except when their mouths move). It gets a bit dark at times — jokes about serial killers and lost kids — and I’m really not a fan of explicit, extended images of dog poop… but despite all that, Strays is quite a funny movie.
Lasting Impressions is now playing at the CAA Mirvish Theatre in Toronto; Bad Things is streaming on Shudder, and Strays is opening across Canada this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Only in the Movies. Films reviewed: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, My Love Affair with Marriage, Talk to Me
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In the film industry, one of the biggest gender gaps is with directors — very few movies are directed by women, and corporate studios are loathe to hire them. Which means we get tons of stories told from a male point of view, but far fewer from women. (Documentaries are an exception.) The Female Eye Film Festival showing this week in Toronto is trying to even the odds, by presenting new movies by women from around the world. But things might be changing. I went to a midweek promo screening when theatres are usually quiet, and was shocked to encounter a bright pink crowd. Women in pink skirts and wigs posing for selfies, skinny guys sporting neckerchiefs, kids, grownups, even grannies, were lined up for popcorn and packing the house with a degree of enthusiasm I haven’t seen since Harry Potter. Clearly, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a cultural phenomenon, and I do plan to see it, once the pink tsunami dies down.
This week, though, I’m looking at three new films, one horror and two animation. There’s a hand in Adelaide, Australia, a girl in Riga, Latvia, and four turtles in the sewers beneath Manhattan.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Dir: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears
For anyone who hasn’t heard, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo are four teenagers who live together in the sewer underground in New York City. When they were babies, a secret lab was raided spilling radioactive goo, turning four tiny turtles into mutant humanoid creatures. They were raised by a rat who also was exposed to the slime, and who trained them in martial arts. He has just one rule: never let humans see you, or they will call you a monster and hand you over to evil scientists who will milk you dry to create supersonic weapons. But the masked foursome, being teenagers, wish they could just be like normal humans, going to high school, the prom, meeting other friends… They finally get their chance when they team up with April O’Neil, an aspiring student journalist (nicknamed Puke Girl). If the TMNTs can stop a bizarre crime spree plaguing the city — and 
April report that story on TV news — maybe the people will welcome them in as heroes. Alas, it’s not as easy as it looks. There’s a gang of evil scientists who want their blood, and a mysterious group of mutant supervillains who may be just as strong they are. Can the Turtles avoid the scientists and defeat the mutants? Or will they live their lives eating pizza in the sewers of Manhattan?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a new reboot of the beloved comic, TV and movie franchise. Gone are the skateboards, surfer slang and whitebread voices of their earlier versions; this origin story starts again from scratch, in a multiracial city moving to the tune of 90s hiphop. At least they still eat pizza.. As always, it’s meant for 
small children, who seemed to like it a lot at the screening I went to. I liked it too. It’s visually stunning, with a colour palette ranging from acid green to day-glo blue and fluorescent red projected against dark city alleys. The characters themselves are a combo of 3-D models and hand-drawn illustration, with squiggles and scribbles appearing everywhere. And the voices —of the Ninja Turtles — are actual teenagers instead of grown ups faking it. I went in expecting very little and was surprised and pleased by its fast pace, sophisticated art work and fine music.
My Love Affair with Marriage
Wri/Dir: Signe Baumane (Rocks in my Pockets)
It’s the Soviet Union. Zelma is a little girl at her first day of school in Latvia. She’s tough and self-assured. When a boy starts bothering her, she clocks him. So she’s shocked when she is punished and ostracized for defending herself. “Girls don’t fight” she is told. She doesn’t wear makeup or bows un her hair, so the boy she has a crush on, studiously ignores her. Her mother instructs her to find a man, get married and put up with whatever he does. Later at university, she meets a fellow artist, Sergei, who flatters her and says he loves her. Could he be her soulmate?
Or is love just an illusion?
My Love Affair with Marriage is an animated, feminist coming-of-age story about a Latvian girl — and later as a woman and an artist trying to fit into a society that doesn’t seem ready to accept her. It handles her first period, her sex life, and her frustrating relationships and marriages. And it takes place both both during the USSR and after its collapse. (There’s even some scenes in Toronto.) It’s presented in the form of a highly-stylized animated musical, with three, bird-like women who 
sing songs about her progress like a veritable Greek chorus. The characters are beautifully-coloured, hand-drawn pen and ink, that vary from spare, to surreal, to scientific and even psychedelic. And that’s not all. It’s narrated through a series of medical drawings, narrated by a talking synapse. Each time Zelma falls in love or gets angry, it’s explained as her hypothalamus secreting hormones, oxytocin and dopamine. The film is told and sung in American English (Baumane is Latvian, based in Brooklyn) but it’s totally Eastern European in its humour, style and look. This is the second movie of hers I’ve seen, and I quite liked it.
Talk to Me
Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou
There’s a phenomenon going around on TikTok in Adelaide, South Australia. On the clips, people have weirdly distorted faces for a little while before they turn back to normal. Those who have done it swear it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever experienced. So some friends decide to try it out one night. It isn’t drugs, it isn’t hypnotism, it’s something totally different. Mia (Sophie Wilde) has been deeply depressed since her mom died of a sleeping pill overdose so she’s sleeping on her best friend Jade’s couch (Alexandra Jensen). They go to high school together. Mia helps out with Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). She picks him up from school and comforts him when he has one of his frequent nightmares. Riley and Jade’s single mom is working all the time. So they decide it’s time to try this new thing out, along with Jade’s boyfriend Daniel.
The party — if that’s what it is — focuses on a graffiti covered plaster hand. You light a candle, hold onto the hand and say “talk to me”. Then you say “I let you in” and that’s where the fun starts. You experience mind-blowing visions, your face distorts wildly, and some people do or say godawful things. 90 seconds later you blow out the candle and let go of the hand and it’s all over. The thing is, what you’re doing is opening the gate between the living and the dead, and allowing these ghosts/spirits/demons into your brain, for that short period of time. But when Mia, Jade, Daniel And Riley try it out, things don’t go exactly as planned. What is that hand? What does it do, 
exactly? And can they undo what they unwittingly started?
Talk to Me is a terrifying thriller/horror, one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m talking pounding heart, gasping for breath, out-and-out horrifying sensations. It also includes a good dose of psychological thriller, in case you like that too. So if you don’t like scary — stay far away. There are some short-lived but shocking scenes of violence at key points in the film. I’ve seen countless movies about seances and ouija boards going bad, but there’s something about this one that feels entirely fresh and new. If you’re looking for some great horror, see Talk To Me.
Talk to Me opens this weekend, check your local listings; My Love Affair with Marriage is the closing film at the Female Eye Film Festival at the HotDocs Cinema in Toronto; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens across the continent on August 2nd.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Earnest movies. Films reviewed: Champions, Blueback, Nico
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movies are just for entertainment, while others have a message. This week, I’m looking at three new movies with an earnest theme, from the US, Australia and Germany. There’s a marine biologist who wants to save a coral reef, a basketball coach who wants to bring a team of disabled people to the championships, and a geriatric nurse who wants to learn how to defend herself… after a racist attack.
Champions
Wri/Dir: Bobby Farelly
Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is a professional basketball coach who has fallen on hard times. Now he’s an assistant coach for a third tier team in Iowa. He’s an arrogant know-it-all who doesn’t know when to shut up. He hooks up with women he meets online but they rarely stay the night. Things go from bad to worse when he’s fired from his team for losing his temper during a game. And then he gets in a car accident for driving while intoxicated.
But the judge shows some sympathy, and sentences him to community service… as a basketball coach. What’s the catch? Everyone on the team has a developmental or intellectual handicap. And they’re hoping to make it to Winnipeg for the regional championships. Problem is, they have no coach and team spirit is near zero. Marcus is equally clueless as to how to coach disabled people.
But gradually they start to get better, and bring back some of their star players. And when they need a bus to take the to away games, a 
woman named Alex (Kaitlin Olson), a Shakespearean actor, volunteers to take them in her costume van. The problem is she’s also one of Marcus’s past one night stands (the danger of living in a small city). They make up and start to get along, even as the team pulls together. But can they make it to Winnipeg? Will Marcus return to his selfish ways or is he a keeper? Is Alex ready to commit? And what are his plans once his three month sentence is up?
Champions is a heartfelt comedy about a down-and-out coach trying to accomplish the impossible. On the downside, it has a fairly predictable plot and Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson are likeable, but seem to coast through their roles. What’s great about this movie is the rest of the cast. The actors playing them have real-life disabilities (they were mainly cast in Winnipeg) including one player who has won a medal at the Special Olympics. They are also funny, wacky and good at what they do. And the characters they play have personalities, sex lives, jobs and families, which you rarely see in films. They’re not there as figures of fun; they’re sympathetic characters who happen to be funny. Thank God the days of Forrest Gump, Gilbert Grape, Nell, and Sling Blade are long gone. Keep in mind, the director previously brought us such gems as Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hal. So maybe Champions is Bobby Farrelly’s apology?
Blueback
Wri/Dir: Robert Connolly
A small fishing village in Western Asutralia. Abby (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist, who spends much of her time studying samples aboard her boat. Raised by a pearl diver and an activist, Abby grew up as a part of the sea. She has felt at home underwater ever since her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) taught her how to hold her breath and swim down to the ocean floor. (Her father drowned when she was still little.) On one of these underwater journeys, she encounters an enormous blue fish, bigger than she is. Initially frightened, she soon realizes he’s gentle and intelligent, and will eat from her hand. A western grouper (or groper as they say in Australia), can live for 70 years and rarely strays from its home. Soon they become fast friends — she spends time alone with him, just the two of them, in his hidden alcove within the coral reefs. She also begins to record what she sees, painting watercolours of the fish she encounters. And she names her special friend Blueback.
But all is not well. A rich developer is trying to buy up the land and tear down all the beachfront houses, including Abby and Dora’s. He’s also behind the dredging of the ocean floor, and allowing industrial fisheries and voracious spear hunters to kill endangered species. Is 
Blueback’s life at risk? Will their idyllic home soon be razed? And what will the future hold for Dora and for Abby?
Blueback is a gentle, slow-paced drama about a mother and daughter living in harmony within an aquatic ecosystem. The story is told through a series of flashbacks of Abby as a child and as a teen, living with her single mom. (Her memories come flooding back when she returns home after her elderly mother has a stroke). Dora leads many of the protests and demos in the village, chaining herself to tractors and petitioning the government save their bay. So there are two or three actors playing Dora, Abby as well as her best friend Briggs (Pedrea Jackson, Clarence Ryan). I approached this film with trepidation — oh god, do we really need another talking fish? Luckily, the fish here don’t talk, they just swim around looking pretty (or bulbous with beady eyes in the case of Blueback.) I wasn’t deeply moved by this film, but I liked Doras political protests. And the scenery — both underwater and on land — is gorgeous.
Nico
Co-Wri/Dir: Eline Gehring
Nico (Sara Fazilat) is a Berliner who works as a home-visit nurse for the elderly. She is zaftig, with curly hair and a warm smile. She enjoys going to parties and hanging out with her best friend Rosa (Javeh Asefdjah). She laughs a lot, but don’t get on her bad side — Nico will stand up to anyone who gets in her way. Until one day she is attacked by a group of people in an underpass. They pull her hair, punch her, kick her and hurl racist taunts. She wakes up in hospital in horrible pain with a black eye and bruises and bandages all over her face and body.
Worse than that, she is scared and withdrawn, suffering from PTSD flashbacks to her trauma. To try to win back some of her confidence, Nico signs up for lessons at a karate dojo whose sensei is a former champion. Maybe learning to block a violent stranger will equip her to face any future attack. But so far she is drained of all energy. In the hope of cheering her up, Rosa takes her to the Fun Fair in the park. There they meet a carnie named Ronny (Sara Klimoska). She’s an undocumented young woman from Macedonian who speaks no German, so they use English instead. Ronnie takes them to rides and bumper cars. Nico feels a bit better, but things are still not back to 
normal. Will she ever feel good again? Is Karate the answer? And why is Ronnie being so friendly to her?
Nico is about a woman who loses her identity and self image when attacked by a racist gang, and her attempt to win it back again. She is an assimilated German Berliner, who in just a moment has her entire essence stripped away because of her looks. Nico and Rosa are both of Iranian background but to her attackers she is just another Muslim foreigner. Her feminism, her beliefs, her droll sense of humour, her opposition to wearing a hijab — none of that matters to the people who attack her. The film delves deep into her emotions, both internal and external, as she struggles to recover. Sara Fazilat is excellent as Niko as are the raw-but-real characters surrounding her.
Nico is a realistic film with lots of emotional oomph.
I like this one.
Champions and Blueback open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Nico has its Canadian premier on March 14th, 6:30pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Goethe Films: I Have A Crush On You series.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Oscar contenders, 2023. Films reviewed: Saint Omer, The Son, Living
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three potential Oscar contenders opening this weekend. There’s a writer in Paris attending a trial, a bureaucrat in London whose life is a trial, and a Dad dealing with the trials and tribulations of a mentally ill son.
Saint Omer
Wri/Dir: Alice Diop
It’s the early 2000s in a Parisian suburb. Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) is on trial for murder. She admits to leaving the infant on a beach to be washed away with the tides one moonlit night, but why she did it is not so simple. She’s a Senegalese-French woman from Dakar, in Paris as a student. She is beautiful, articulate, poised and intelligent; not your usual murder suspect. As her mother (Salimata Kamate) told her, education and politesse are the two most important traits. But after a series of events she ends up living in a small apartment as a grey-haired, married man’s mistress — no longer in university, with no friends, no job, no future. And virtually no one knows she was pregnant nor that she gave birth at home. She existed in a strange limbo world.
All of this is taken in by Rama (Kayije Kagame) a novelist and 
university prof in Paris. She is following the trial in person, for a new book she’s writing about Medea. Like Laurence, she’s a French intellectual, and a black woman of West African background. More than that, she’s estranged from her mother and is in her first trimester of pregnancy. In a sea of white faces in the courtroom, she feels both a connection and a revulsion toward Laurence. Could this be me on trial? she wonders. And will I be a fit mother?
Saint Omer is a devastatingly powerful courtroom drama as seen through an observer’s eyes. It’s the opposite of a Law & Order episode — no smoking guns or pot twists. Rather it’s Laurence’s retelling of her story before judge and jury Rama’s reactions that carries all the power. It’s intentionally filled with subtle ambiguity so you’re never quite sure whether Laurence is lying and being coached to do so, or if she’s completely sincere. With women holding most of the key roles — including the judge and the defence council — it strips away some misconceptions. The acting (by actress Malanda and artist/performer Kagame) is superb, and the filmmaking amazing. This is documentary filmmaker Alice Drop’s first drama. Somehow, she takes the drab wooden panels of a classroom and a courtroom and turns them into something pulsing with emotion.
This is a great movie.
The Son
Wri/Dir: Florian Zeller
Beth and Peter (Vanessa Kirby, Hugh Jackman) are a newly married, upper-middle class couple with a new baby. All I going well until they get an unexpected knock on the door. His teenaged son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) says he can’t take living his mom anymore (Laura Dern) a full-time nurse whom Peter divorced and abandoned a few years earlier. What a dilemma! He can’t turn away his own flesh and blood, can he? But Nicholas is difficult to live with. It seems he stopped going to school months ago — without telling his parents. And Beth finds him scary. What if he does something to our baby— how can I trust him? So they check him into a psych ward without his consent. But what can they do in the long run with this troublesome teen?
The Son is an overwrought melodrama about divorced parents forced to care for their troubled son. It deals with anguish, anger and regret but only from the parents’ perspective, never from the son’s. He’s just a pain in the ass… and possibly a threat! This movie falls in that sub-genre of sympathetic parents forced to deal with sons who “selfishly” choose to become drug addicts or mental ill. How dare they! Despite what the parents try, those bad sons are criminals and liars at heart who can never be trusted. This dreadful collection of 
never-watch movies includes Beautiful Boy, with Timothy Chalamet and Ben is Back, starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges. This one has equal star power, and is just as hard to watch. It’s especially disappointing because it’s Florian Zeller’s follow-up to The Father a few years back about an elderly man slipping into dementia (Anthony Hopkins, who also appears in this film), as its unreliable narrator. But don’t be fooled. The Son has no redeeming features and is truly one of the worst movies of 2022.
Living
Wri/Dir: Oliver Hermanus
It’s Londin in the 1950s. Williams (Bill Nighy) is a mundane municipal bureaucrat, the head of public works at County Hall. He spends most of his time at his desk — along with his subordinates Rusbridger, Middleton and Hart — keeping busy by ignoring piles of files and requests. Whenever troublesome locals appear, like a group of mothers requesting they build a tiny playground in a vacant lot, they’re quickly disposed of by sending them to another department in the endless bureaucratic labyrinth of city hall. The newly-hired Wakeling is quickly discouraged from working too hard — an empty inbox means you’re doing something wrong. The sole woman, Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), is thinking of quitting to take a managerial job at a local restaurant. Since his wife died, 
Williams has lived a humdrum existence sharing his home with his adult son and daughter-in- law. But everything changes when his doctor brings him some terrible `news: incurable cancer, 6 months left to live. Suddenly everything takes on new meaning as he decides to start enjoying life and making things better for others. But is it too late?
Living is a period drama about life in post-war London. It captures the spark that can be reawakened in even the most humdrum person’s existence. It follows the night Williams spends in the demimonde led by an alcoholic bohemian he meets in a cafe; the days spent helping Margaret, for the chance to share in her youth and vitaity; and a project he hoped to complete in his final days.
I approached this movie with trepidation, because it’s a remake of Kurosawa’s Ikiru, one of my favourite movies of all time, which I didn’t want to see ruined. Happily, Living it is wonderful film in its own right. Maybe only a writer like UK novelist Kazuo Ishiguro could transport a story from Tokyo to London, while staying true to its original meaning and structure, even while giving this very Japanese film a distinctly English feel. Bill Nighy (who usually plays silly characters in crap movies) is wonderfully understated in this one. And South African director Oliver Hermanus, who brought us the great Moffie, again puts his all into the film he’s making.
I recommend this movie.
Living, Saint Omer, and The Son all open this weekend in Toronto, with the latter two playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Gems at #TIFF22. Films reviewed: The Hummingbird, Will-o’-the-Wisp, Unruly
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is finished and after viewing 45+ movies I feel pretty good about it. You’ll be hearing a lot more about TIFF movies like The Fablemans, The Whale, The Glass Onion, Women Talking, The Wonder and The Banshees of Inisherin by the end of the year, but there are also a lot of movies, gems and sleepers, that get left by the wayside, without all the studios promoting them. So this week I’m talking about some of the other movies I saw there — from Italy, Denmark and Portugal — that deserve to be noticed. There’s a rebellious girl trapped on a remote island; a little prince seeking the facts of life in a firehouse; and a man called hummingbird whose fate is guided by a series of unusual events.
The Hummingbird
Dir: Francesca Archibugi
Marco Carerra is a man who places great importance on seemingly random occurrences. Take a fatal plane ride, for example. When he’s a student in Florence in the early 1980s he starts winning big at poker. But when he boards a plane heading for Yugoslavia with his gaming partner, Duccio, that man begins to freak, shouting hysterically at other passengers that they all are “dead” and the seats on the plane are ruined and decrepit. Marco is eventually forced to pull Duccio off the plane, thus missing the flight and their big card game. But it crashes, killing everyone on board. And Marco, with his deep belief in the significance of ordinary events, ends up marrying the flight attendant who also missed that flight. It’s just fate.
Another important date happened at their summer home on the beautiful Tyrhennian shoreline. The Carrera’s summer home is right next door to the Lattes’ house. And Marco has a huge crush on the beautiful Luisa, their daughter. But the night he thought he would lose his virginity to Luisa (for whom he would hold a torch forever) was also the night when his quarrelling parents went out for the evening, his brooding brother Giancarlo got so drunk he passed out, and their 
sorely neglected sister Adele committed suicide, turning all their worlds upside down.
The Hummingbird — Marco’s nickname as an unusually small child until a sudden growth spurt in his teens after his father enrols him in hormone treatment — is a wonderful, novelistic movie that traces the intricately woven story of Marco’s life, his love, his family, his wife, his daughter and eventually his 
granddaughter. But not in any obvious order. The story jumps back and forth between his childhood, his adolescence, and his middle and old age, keeping you guessing as to why he did what he did. When I say novelistic, I mean literally, with multiple characters coming in and out of his life making shocking revelations along the way, and calling into question his fundamental beliefs. It’s based on the novel Il colibrì by Sandro Veronesi which won the Strega Prize, Italy’s greatest fiction award, and it does feel like a classic story. What’s really surprising is it was published in 2020, during the pandemic, and the film must have been made since then. The movie stars Pierfrancesco Favino as the adult Marco, Berenice Bejo as Luisa Lattes, Nanni Moretti as Marco’s friend, a psychiatrist (no spoilers here), and Kasia Smutniak as his tempestuous wife.
Keep an eye out for this sleeper and be sure watch it when it comes out.
Will o’the Wisp
Dir: João Pedro Rodrigues
It’s present-day Portugal. Prince Alfredo (Mauro Costa) is a pale young prince with curly blond hair. heir to the crown. He lives in a palace full of statues and paintings recalling his family’s colonial history. (Though the country gave up its monarchy in 1910, his mother still considers Republican and Castilian the two worst insults in their language.) But with Alfredo coming of age his father, the king, decides to tell him what’s what. He takes him for a walk through the royal forest to admire the tall pine trees there. But his father’s description of tumescent tree trunks throbbing with sap so excites the lad, that he is forced to rethink his future. He doesn’t want to be king anymore, now he wants to be a fireman — specifically one who will protect those trees, about which he has an erotic attachment.
At the fire station, Afonso (André Cabral) a handsome black student is tasked with introducing the prince to the firehouse and the forest. He introduces him to the other fireman, they practice exercises, search and rescues, recussitation, fireman carries, and sliding down poles, but for Alfredo, everything has a sexual subtext. Soon the subtext turns to out-and-out sex, with the two young fireman rolling 
around on the forest floor while shouting pornographic and racist epithets in the throws of ecstasy. But can the the little prince find happiness in the arms of a fireman? Or are his regal responsibilities too heavy a burden to bear?
Will o’the Wisp is one of the strangest, least classifiable films you’ve ever seen. It’s an historical romantic science fiction comedy, and an arthouse-modern dance- 
musical satire. It’s only 67 minutes long, but in that short time you’ll see The-Sound-of-Music kids in school uniforms singing weird songs as they pop their heads out from behind trees; homoerotic exercise montages, and elaborate dance routines on the firehouse floor. I can’t say I understood all the cultural references that had the Portuguese viewers in the audience howling with laughter, but I could experience the beauty, ridiculousness and shock running throughout the picture.
Unruly
Co-Wri/Dir: Malou Reymann
It’s the 1930s in a working-class Copenhagen neighbourhood. Maren (Emilie Kroyer Koppel) is a free-thinking teenaged girl who knows what she likes and what she hates. She likes getting drunk, dancing to jazz and hooking up with guys. And she hates authority figures — including her mom — telling her what to do. But when her family cuts her off and she becomes a ward of the state, she doesn’t realize her past actions will have grave consequences. She refuses to cooperate with a doctor (Anders Heinrichsen) trying to diagnose her “ailment”. He declares her unruly and out of control, and sends her off to a remote island known for its hospital for mentally handicapped women. Sprogø island is festooned with pretty flowers and picturesque homes where the patients are taught to be submissive, cooperative, quiet girls, under the watchful eye of Nurse Nielsen (Lene Maria Christensen). They are schooled in sewing, cooking and cleaning on the all-female island (though Marin is able to secretly meet with a young repairman). It’s a hospital, not a prison, she is told, but there’s no way to escape. And if you disobey, or even spread bad attitudes, you are strapped to a table and kept in solitary confinement.
Her roommate, Sørine (Jessica Dinnage) acts as the rat, reporting on any woman 
who disobeys the rules. But as Maren gets to know her better she soon discovers the real reason for Sørine’s behaviour: she just wants to be reunited with the child they took away from her. Will Maren learn to accept her fate? Will she find a way to escape the island? Or is she stuck there forever?
Unruly is a deeply moving drama based on an actual hospital that operated in Denmark until the 1960s. Its many crimes included involuntary sterilization, mis-diagnoses, torture and authoritarian rule. Instead of having a series of stock characters, with easy to categorize heroes and villains, all the women develop over the course of the film, giving it an unexpected profundity. This film is a lovely and tragic look at a terribly flawed institution and the people it affected.
Will-o’-the-Wisp, The Hummingbird, and Unruly all premiered at TIFF.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Disturbed or unusual boys and men. Films reviewed: Halloween Kills, Mass, I’m Your Man
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring Film Festival season continues in October, with ImagineNATIVE showing wonderful indigenous films and art from here and around the world beginning next week; and Toronto After Dark, bringing us the best new horror, sci-fi and action movies, now through Sunday.
This week I’m looking at three new movies — a slasher horror, a serious drama, and a romantic comedy — about disturbed or unusual boys and men.
There’s a dangerous man with a knife and a mask; two sets of parents mourning the death of their boys; and a woman whose perfect date isn’t exactly human.
Halloween Kills
Dir: David Gordon Green
It’s 2018 in Haddonfield, Illinois. This town is notorious for a series of murders beginning in the late 1970s, by Michael Myers, a mysterious man in a white mask. Michael has brutally killed countless people using a sharp knife on Halloween. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) was a babysitter who survived this attack and the many others that followed. When he reappeared at this year’s Halloween, 40 years later, Laurie was not that surprised. Together with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and grand-daughter Allyson (Andi Matichek) they managed to finally defeated this monster by leaving him trapped in a burning house. Or have they? You see, Michael is virtually indestructible, with the mind of a disturbed six-year-old boy combined with the strength of a supernaturally strong man. Turns out — surprise, surprise, surprise, — Michael is not dead. He’s back and ready to kill more people. So three groups set out to stop him: a posse of costumed competitors at a talent show at a local dive bar; a frenzied mob of vigilantes shouting Trump-like slogans; and Laurie Strode’s own crew. But can anyone defeat Michael Myers?
Halloween Kills is a classic, almost nostalgic, reboot of the 1970s slasher.
This one takes up immediately after the 2018 version ends. But unlike that darkly humorous take, this one is more of a campy bloodbath filled with non-stop gruesome violence. It also includes flashbacks to the 70s, introducing a group of characters from that night and where they are now, 40 years later. There’s not much of a plot, per se, more just scene after scene of people being murdered by Michael. Which is not to say I didn’t like it. The music (by John Carpenter) the camerawork, the design and art direction, the whole feel of it provides a wonderful counterpoint to the disgusting blood and guts. Halloween Kills is a delightfully pointless salute to the original 70s slasher.
Mass
Wri/Dir: Fran Kranz
An Episcopal church in a small town is preparing for a meeting. It’s not the usual choir practice or AA meetings. This one is different. Four people — two middle-aged married couples — have never met face to face but know a great deal about each other. Their sons went to school together. Gail and Jay (Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs) are filled with dread, and seething with anger. They almost can’t bear to enter the building. Linda and Richard (Ann Dowd, Reed Birney) are desperately trying to make a connection and to mend — not burn — the bridges that bind these two couples. What is it that ties them together? Linda and Richard’s son gunned down a dozen people in his school, including Gail and Jay’s boy, before turning the gun on himself.
Gail and Jay’s lives are ruined and they are still trying to recover from the massacre. But Linda and Richard’s lives are even worse. They can’t publicly mourn the loss of their only child, and are bombarded by hate mail. They are filled with guilt and remorse — is what their son did their fault? Were they bad parents? Did they pay too much attention, or not enough? Through an open and unmoderated discussion, including the showing of photos and telling of stories, the two couples are there to better understand the feelings of the others, and ultimately, to look for 
forgiveness. But will they find it at a small table in a spartan church room?
Mass is a highly emotional look at four fragile adults. It’s basically a long, slow-paced conversation, especially between the two mothers. The acting is great, and the topic is supercharged. You have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate Mass. I found it a bit hard to watch, with zero eye candy or external flashbacks, basically nothing to look at other than their faces. it’s visually dead, except for the raw emotions expressed by the four characters… but if you stick with it, you’ll find the most emotional moments are cleverly inserted, almost incidentally, near the end.
I’m Your Man
Co-Wri/Dir: Maria Schrader
Alma (Maren Eggert) is a single woman, a noted academic at a famous Berlin museum. She specializes in Sumerian cuneiform tablets. She also spends one day a week with her angry father who is suffering from dementia. Her life, and career, are satisfying but uneventful. Until she becomes a reluctant participant in an unusual experiment: to spend three weeks living with and observing, a perfect lover. This man, they say, is handsome, smart and courteous, there to address and satisfy all her wants and needs. But who is this mysterious date? It’s Tom (Dan Stevens). Tom’s hair teeth and body, are always perfect. He never gets angry, and speaks with an oddly alluring foreign accent. And he goes out of his way to make her life more romantic, dropping rose petals in her bubble bath by the light of flickering candles. He likes to dance the Rumba, And he is highly skilled in bed, precisely trained on how to give a woman the ultimate orgasm. But Alma recoils from him, refuses to sleep with him, and treats him like dirt. She gives him a small cot to sleep on in a windowless storage room.
What’s Alma’s problem?
Tom is a robot. And one designed especially for her. But while 82% of German women in her age bracket say they desire candles and rose petals, Alma is not one of them. She hates that stuff. And she feels put upon by this machine. Where is his sense of humour? Where is his spontaneity? Where is his humanity? But the thing is, Tom is not just a machine, he has artificial intelligence. He can learn, adapt and change… as long as she lets him into her life. Can the two of them ever understand 
each other? Will their relationship become sexual? And is love possible between humans and machines?
I’m Your Man is a surprisingly romantic story, wonderfully told. It explores concepts of love, reality and what people really look for in a relationship. It’s funny, quirky, tender and surprisingly easy to believe, despite the science-fiction premise. While there are some special effects, most of the stranger stuff is handled by the actors themselves. I’m Your Man uses a simple idea to explore unexpected places.
This movie really grabbed me — I liked it a lot.
Halloween Kills, Mass, and I’m Your Man all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
End of summer movies. Films reviewed: Flag Day, 499, Candyman
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I know, everyone’s still thinking about Covid-19, vaccinations and Delta, Delta, Delta… but it’s also beastly hot and horribly humid. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in an air-conditioned movie theatre, (safely spaced away from the other moviegoers?) This week I’m talking about three new films that open this weekend — a documentary, a family drama and a horror movie. There’s a Spanish conquistador recording notes in a book; a ghostly killer whose hand is a hook; and a grifter who vows to help out his daughter… by hook or by crook.
Flag Day
Dir: Sean Penn
It’s the 1970s in the US midwest. Jennifer and her little brother Nick lived with both their parents, until mom (Katheryn Winnick) kicked dad (Sean Penn) out of the house. He’s a liar and I won’t put up with him anymore! But after watching their mom spiral into alcoholism, the kids only have fond memories of their dad. So they ask to spend time with him. They move into his ramshackle hut by a lake, alongside his new, young girlfriend. He teaches 11-year-old Jennifer to drive, and they spend crazy times by the lake and on the highway. It’s all like an exciting adventure… until the motorcycle gang he works for — and owes money to — start visiting the home. Dad gets beaten up and the kids move back in with mom.
Later, in the 80s they’re back in school. Jennifer (Dylan Penn) is 
a goth rebel and Nick (Hopper Penn) is a withdrawn teen. Mom has remarried to a creepy guy, and the kids suffer for it. But when the stepdad starts crawling into bed with Jen, that’s the last straw — she has to get out of there. She travels across the country until she finds her father. He is not in great shape — neither mentally nor financially. And his criminal tendencies start to re-emerge. Can Jennifer reconcile with her dad and mom and pursue her goal to become a journalist? Or is she doomed to follow in their footsteps?
Flag Day is a family drama (based in a true story) about the ups and downs of a father-daughter friendship. It stars a real father and daughter, Sean and Dylan Penn. The movie starts on Flag 
Day (an unofficial, patriotic US holiday), with the father — an accused counterfeiter — is being pursued down a highway by a line of police cars with a helicopter overhead. The rest of the movie is about what led to this point: mainly Dad trying to get away with his crimes to help his beloved daughter.
I have mixed feelings about this film. I’ve seen enough to know that if it’s bad in the first 10 minutes, it will probably only get worse. (Flag Day feels wooden and slow.) But I decided to give this one a chance… and you know what? It gets much better. There’s way too much crying — every scene of the movie involving Jennifer or one of her parents leaving or coning back is punctuated by more tears. And voice-over narration can ruin any connection you might feel to the characters on the screen. On the other hand, the whole movie is nicely shot on grainy video filled with beautiful fireworks, bonfires, flaming BBQs — (lots of fire and water!); the characters develop and get more and more interesting as you get to know them; and the whole thing (nearly) pulls together by the end. It’s set mainly in Minnesota but was shot in Manitoba, giving it an “authentic” feeling of working-class, white America. Flag Day isn’t perfect but it’s not bad either, once you give it a chance.
499
Co-Wri/Dir: Rodrigo Reyes
In 1521, Cortez and a few hundred conquistadors invade the Aztec kingdom. They overthrow Montezuma and slaughter countless people, laying waste to the beautiful capital of Tenochtitlán in their insatiable search for El Dorado, the mythical city of gold. Later, one of the conquistadors (Eduardo San Juan) survives a shipwreck and washes to shore, complete with armour, helmet, pantaloons and sword. He walks from the beach to Tenochtitlan, but it’s not how he remembers it. Somehow he has skipped the past 499 years and is now near Mexico City, circa 2020.
499 is a documentary with a twist. It’s a travelogue through 
modern day Mexico as seen through the eyes of a relic from the past, a man mired in 16th century Christian morality and Spanish Imperialism. He feels he can slaughter local “Indios” with impunity. But, gradually, as he sees what’s become of Mexico today — the drug cartels and corrupt police forces, along with the relentless crime, torture and death they bring — he is forced to rethink his beliefs. He becomes less of a soldier, and more of a passive observer, speaking with Mexicans and writing down what they say as they tell him their harrowing stories.
But it’s not all sad stuff. We also see the beauty, the splendour, the weirdness and the wonder all around him. Dance, music, acrobatics, art, culture and history are all shown in glorious panoramic cinematography. There are bullfights and strip bars, and interviews with actual masked gangsters… as well as their victims.
499 is an eye-opening doc about contemporary Mexico disguised as a time-travel movie.
Candyman
Dir: Nia DaCosta
It’s present-day Chicago.
Brianna and Anthony (Teyonah Parris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) are a rising young power couple in Chicago. They live in a luxury high-rise. She’s a curator at a local art gallery, and he’s an artist. But when he wants his paintings included in a group show, his gallerist says his work is getting stale. Find something new. So he sets out to explore a local urban legend to incorporate it in his work. It’s the story of Candyman, a ghostly serial killer who operated out of a public housing project called Cabrini–Green. It was a sorely neglected area, populated mainly by poor blacks, located just across a street from one of Chicago’s richest and mainly white neighbourhoods, the Gold Coast. (Looks like Bree’s apartment was built over the remains of the project.)
Candyman tempts victims by offering them candy, and kills 
them surrounded by a swarm of honeybees, using a sharp hook he has for a hand. And he can be summoned by saying his name 5 times while looking into a mirror. Anthony’s latest work is called Call My Name, a mirror that dares its viewers to summon Candyman. It gets little notice until people associated with his art start turning up dead. Suddenly, he’s a hot property and art critics say he’s important. But Anthony knows the truth. Candyman is real, he’s dangerous, and he’s Anthony’s to blame for letting him loose on the world. Can he and Bree stop the Candyman before he kills more people? Or is it too late?
Candyman is a sequel to the Wes Craven’s horror movie from the 90s, and it turns conventional slasher-horror movies on their head. Bree’s brother Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is flamboyantly gay but also a credible character with a life all his own, not just a victim to be laughed out. Black characters don’t exist merely in reaction to whites — they’re the focus of the movie. Killings are usually shown from a distance or off-camera — while there’s blood, it’s not excessively gory (compared to most slasher movies). Scary but not terrifying.
Aesthetically, Candyman is deeply satisfying with art direction way above what you normally see: minimalist composed sets, breathtaking cityscape views of Chicago filmed upside-down in black and white, and shadow puppets used to illustrate the story within the story… so cool. The filmmakers — producer Jordan Peele and co-writer/directer Nia DaCosta — are black, as are the main characters… but not most of the victims. DaCosta skewers the cut-throat world of fine art, using razor-sharp political satire. Candyman is not a conventional slasher/horror movie, and probably won’t scare your pants off, but it offers lots of eye candy to look at and even more to think about.
I liked this one a lot.
Candyman and Flag Day just opened this weekend in Toronto — check your local listings. And you can catch 499 at the Paradise Theatre for two days only: Aug 28-9th.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Films reviewed: Swan Song, Beyond Monet, Respect
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With the end of lockdowns finally reaching Toronto, people are itching to catch up on what they’ve been missing — from getting their hair cut, going to an art gallery, or listening to a concert on the big screen. This week I’m looking at two movies and one experience. There’s soul in Detroit, hairdressing in Ohio, and French impressionism in downtown Toronto.
Swan Song
Wri/Dir: Todd Stephens
Pat Pitsenbarger (Udo Kier) was once known as the Liberace of Sandusky Ohio, known for his gaudy jewelry, his pastel pantsuits and his flamboyant style. The richest women in town flocked to his hair salon where he could accomplish miracles with just his fingertips and a can of hairspray. But now he’s long-forgotten, a penniless old man living in a nursing home with puke-green walls and fluorescent lights. What happened?
His protege Dee Dee (Jennifer Coolidge) opened up a larger salon across the street from his, poaching his longest clients, including Rita Sloan a millionaire and his oldest patron. Then his lover David died of AIDS. And since this was before same-sex marriage, their shared house was inherited by a distant relative, leaving him homeless. So for Pat, Sandusky is just history. Until a lawyer named Mr Shamrock arrives at his room with a new development. Rita has died, and in her will she insists Pat be the one to style her hair in her coffin. And if he does he’ll inherit 
25,000 clams. So Pat sets out on a long journey back to long-lost Sandusky, encountering strange people and places along the way. Will he get there in time for Rita’s swan song? And can he finish the job without any beauty supplies?
Swan Song is a very gentle, low-key, and slow- moving homage to the gradually fading world of small town gay life in America. Though nostalgic, it doesn’t present a white-washed version. It features Pat (loosely based on a real person) as an inveterate shoplifter, Eunice his best friend who is known for loitering in public toilets, as well as the seedy gay bar where they used to lip-synch torch songs. Udo Kier, the great German actor, has fun with his role, injecting his own trademark campiness. Swan Song is a cute and gentle, (though too slow-moving) LGBT comedy.
Beyond Monet
Claude Monet was a fin-de-siècle French painter who daubed his canvases with bright spring colours. Critics at the time referred to his work derisively as impressionism, thus providing a name for the movement. But as his fame grew, his eyesight faded, and by the end his works veered to the nearly abstract. Today, though, his paintings of fields, gardens, water and most of all waterlilies are among the most famous of that era. Beyond Monet is an exhibition, not of his art, but rather an immersive experience. His works are projected on a circular, 360 degree wall and ceiling, about the size of a football stadium. The works themselves are constantly rising, falling, or gradually turning around inside the exhibition space, so you can see all of it without moving from your area. It’s constructed around a large wooden cupola in the centre, along with shiny, round landing pads spread all around to sit on. The images are softly animated: waves in his paintings rise and fall; in his winter scenes, snow seems to blow against the landscapes, while flowers and lillies bloom before your eyes. And a constantly-shifting — and at times quite lovely — original soundtrack of music and sound effects (like birds, crickets or waves) adds to the mood.
The exhibition is in three parts. The first consists 0f a few curved wooden bridges and some gossamer sheets hanging from the tall ceilings. It also has a series of bilingual signs explain the art. You pass through a hallway festooned with cheap mylar strips, into the main room where the actual show takes place.
Is seeing an original canvas by Monet the same as a projection, however well-rendered and animated, in a large space? No… not even close. This isn’t art, it’s about art. It reminds me of those parks with miniature versions of the Eiffel tower and the Taj Mahal.
What it is, though, is a pleasantly relaxing experience for those who want to appreciate Monet without the trouble of seeing his actual stuff. Interestingly, the entrance features an assortment of empty wooden canvas frames, to remind us, I suppose, that the real art is still on museum walls. But with the pandemic on, perhaps Beyond Monet is a way to get the feeling of his work without travelling far. And the show is well- ventilated, well-spaced and with a limited number of guests at any one time.
Respect
Dir: Liesl Tommy
It’s 1952. 10-year-old Aretha Franklin, known as “Ree”, lives in a middle class Detroit neighbourhood. Her father (Forest Whitaker) is a firebrand baptist preacher with a huge congregation. He is a colleague of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, who Ree calls Uncle Martin. He holds Saturday night get-togethers where little Ree is the featured performer in a musical household. Still a child, she has the voice of a full-grown woman, and performs be-bop and scat singing, not just gospel. Her father intends to make her a star. By the late 50s he gets Aretha (Jennifer Hudson) signed with John Hammond at Columbia Records where she records old jazz standards with a full orchestra. But without any hits.
Then everything changes in the late 60s when she is taken under the wing of producer Jerry Wexler at Atlantic, the man who coined the term Rhythm and Blues. He introduces her to the back-up players at Muscle Shoals, men who know how to feel the music. Aretha brings in her sisters as back up singers, and 
the rest is history. She becomes the queen of soul and her songs internationally famous.
This music biopic follows her career over a 20 year period, from 1952 to 1972. And it’s not a smooth and steady ride. It’s called Respect partly because of her hit single but also to point out the lack of it she experiences from both her domineering father and her tempestuous relationship with the often violent and manipulative Ted (Marlon Wayans) her sometime husband and manager. It also exposes the harsh underbelly of her stable, middle-class life. She is raped at an early age (this is implied not shown) and gives birth to a number of sons while still in her teens (her grandma takes care of them.) Her father says she has “demons” inside, but maybe it’s just her trying to break free, whether through her music or alcoholism, from the relentless disrespect and physical and mental abuse she suffers for much of her young life.
Respect is part performance, part melodrama, alternating between a near constant flow of music interspersed with re-enactments with her family, business, and love life. We see her ups and downs (mainly her downs), along with many — maybe too many — fights, tantrums and meltdowns. Biopics have two choices: either hire great actors with mediocre or dubbed voices, or great singers. Hudson is the latter. She has a fantastic voice, featured here in so many genres — gospel, jazz, soul and pop — which holds the movie together. The melodramatic scenes are a mixed bag, some very moving, others cringe-worthy. Whitaker is really good as CL Frankin, and Hudson is in nearly every scene. While Respect is not a great movie, I greatly enjoyed watching it.
Look for Swan Song on VOD and digital formats. Respect opens theatrically in Toronto this weekend — check your local listings. And Beyond Monet is exclusively showing at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre now.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
The Twentieth Century. Films reviewed: Escape from Mogadishu, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, 12 Mighty Orphans
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some movies have titles that tell you a lot about what you’re going to see. This week I’m looking at three such movies, all set during the 20th century. We’ve got Koreans in Mogadishu in the 1990s; child refugees from Nazi Germany in the early 30s; and Texan orphans playing football in the Great Depression.
Escape from Mogadishu
Dir: Seung-wan Ryoo
It’s 1990 in Mogadishu Somalia, and the country is on the verge of collapse. Its authoritarian President Barre is still in power but rebel forces are gaining strength. It’s also the year when both North and South Korea are joining the United Nations, and are in heavy cold-war competition to build up more allies than their rival in vote-rich Africa. And the two ambassadors, Ambassador Han from the south (Kim Yoon-seok) and Ambassador Rim (Heo Joon-ho) from the north are in constant competition to curry favour with Barre’s government. And they each have heavy-hitters to help them. Kang (In-Sung Jo) is a recent arrival from the notorious Korean CIA. He’s arrogant and rude, but effective. Likewise, his counterpart from the north. They each run underhanded schemes against the other side, from planting fake news reports, to hiring thugs to steal embassy materials. But the Somali government is losing its grip, and there’s mayhem on the streets. And when all communications cease, both sides realize they 
have to get the hell out of Mogadishu. And due to strange circumstances, the North and the South are forced to cooperate, and try to escape together.
But will it work?
Escape from Mogadishu is a Korean action/thriller set in a Somalia teetering on the brink of civil war. There are child soldiers shooting rifles at random, corrupt police, and mobs of looters running rampant. Both North and South Koreans loathe their rivals — the countries are technically still at war, with a 40-year-old ceasefire at their shared border. When they encounter each other face-to-face, the ROKs thinks the DPRKs are trained as killers since they 
were kids; while they’re sure the South Koreans are either trying to poison them or force them to defect. And neither country can let it be known they’re doing anything that might help the other side.
This is a fun movie about rivals caught in an apocalypse. It includes an amazing, 30-minute chase scene as they try to escape. It’s set in Somalia (and shot in Morocco) but it’s really about Koreans — rivalry, suspicion, with the underlying hope of brotherhood and peace. The Somalis are there as decoration, mainly portrayed as corrupt, violent, crazy, untrustworthy, or else as silent, nameless victims — typical of most war movies. The Korean characters are more rounded but not always favourable either. Escape from Mogadishu has a hardboiled, cynical tone, but with a great streak of ironic humour and an underlying message of good will. This movie was just released in South Korea and it’s the years first blockbuster. So if you like action thrillers, you should check this one out.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Co-WriDir: Caroline Link
It’s 1933 in Berlin. The Kempers are an upper middle class family living in a nice neighbourhood. Dad (Oliver Masucci) is a leading theatre critic, also known for his radio broadcasts. Mom (Carla Juri) is a pianist. Their son, Max (Marinus Hohmann) is into Zorro, while little Anna (Riva Krymalowski) likes drawing pictures of animals at the zoo. And they all adore their housekeeper Heimpi. But with elections a week away, and Hitler’s Nazis likely to prevail, Dad is worried. As a committed socialist and an unsparing critic, he’s prominent on Hitler’s enemy list. If the Nazis win he will likely be jailed or killed. So the family packs up a few suitcases for a quick trip to Switzerland. They plan to come back after the election. No such luck. Hitler triumphs, and they’re stranded in 
Zurich. The government seizes all his possessions and furniture, brown shirts burn his books, and newspapers stop publishing his work. Suddenly they are refugees, and Jewish intellectuals, no less, an exceedingly unpopular category.
So they settle into country life in a tiny alpen village near lake Zurich. Anna is baffled by the strange accent, their melted cheese and odd customs. Girls are separated from boys and kept at the back of the classroom, and boys throw rocks at girls they like. She soon adjusts and makes local friends. But their parents must keep a low profile. Dad is a wanted man, with a price on his head, and Nazi sympathizers are everywhere. Eventually they movie to Paris, where antisemitism is rife. As they sink deeper into poverty, they are forced to 
choose between necessities (like food, pencils and lightbulbs) and luxuries (like books and meat). Will the tide ever turn in their favour?
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a realistic and poignant story about a young girl’s life as a refugee in the 1930s. It’s about the whole family but seen through Anna’s eyes. It’s also about her internal trauma — her drawings turn from cute animals to people drowning in the ocean or crushed in an avalanche. It’s based on the semi-autobiographical novel by the late British author and illustrator Judith Kerr. So, as a film, it’s not the kind that builds to big climax and denouement; rather it’s episodic storytelling, a collection of vivid memories taken from the author’s childhood. The movie is filled with the wonder and disillusionment of a girl growing up in an unkind world, but it never loses its optimism.
This is a very nice and engrossing film.
12 Mighty Orphans
Dir: Ty Roberts
It’s the 1938 in the Texas panhandle dustbowl, where starving farmers are abandoning their land and their children. Rusty Russel (Luke Wilson) is a renowned high school football coach starting a new job. He has taken many teams statewide championships. But his newest school is an exception. The kids here are barefoot, undernourished and illiterate. And they’re all orphans. But the coach is determined to change all that. So he tries to put together a football team, the school’s first, from among the orphans. They’re regularly flogged by Frank Wynne (Wayne Knight) who runs a for-profit printing press on school grounds and who treats the kids as virtual slaves. Rusty offers an 
enticement — when you’re training on the football field, you won’t be working on the fields.
Rusty pulls together a ramshackle bunch of scrawny, gap-toothed kids with low-esteem. And a newcomer, Hardy Brown (Jake Austin Walker) a 17-year-old seething with anger. With the help of the school’s medic, the kindly alcoholic Doc Hall (Martin Sheen), they manage to get the boys to resemble something like a team. Through pep-talks, motivation and intensive training, they’re ready to play ball — but against whom? The other schools want nothing to do with them. And they’re so much smaller than the average football player they don’t stand a chance even if they do play. But the Mighty 
Mites persevere, and make it into the league. But can they ever win? And will they learn to call themselves orphans with pride not shame?
12 Mighty Orphans is a wonderful, heartwarming sports movie about a team of underdogs trying to make it. I have no interest whatsoever in high school football, and yet I found this movie captivating. It’s a traditional-style movie — it could have been made in the 1940s — but still feels fresh. Each kid has his own personality, with names like Snoggs (Jacob Lofland), Fairbanks, Wheatie, and Pickett — all based on actual players. With clear-cut villains, and bittersweet heroes, it’s simple and easy to follow but moving, nonetheless.
This is a good one.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is now available on VOD and other digital formats. 12 Mighty Orphans and Escape from Mogadishu both open theatrically in Toronto this weekend — check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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