Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

We’re all tired of being dissed, but there are a lot of disses that just can’t be avoided. This week I’m looking at three “dis” movies. A biopic about a renowned musician diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, an Italian drama about a dysfunctional couple, and a documentary about dishonesty.

(Dis)honesty: The Truth About Lies

Dir: Yael Melamede

We are all liars. And we all lie about the same things in the same way. Or so says a new documentary about lying. It focuses on the work of Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioural economics and psychology at Duke University and MIT. In an experiment repeated thousands of times all around the world, Ariely tested students in groups asked to self-mark their tests, drop them into a shredder and report to an official. And they were paid $1 for each correct answer. What they didn’t know was that the tests weren’t actually shredded.

Afterwards, Ariely compared the actual answers on the pages with the fake scores the people had told them. And he found that most people do lie, to the same extent, about the same things all around the world. The movie says a lot more, and also interviews real people, like politicians who cheat on their wives or insider traders on Wall Street, to look at their rationales for dishonesty. This is a very slick, fascinating and easy-to-understand documentary. Excellent film!

Hungry Hearts

Dir: Saverio Costanzo

Jude (Adam Driver) is an engineer, a tall, well-dressed young man in New York City. Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) is a beautiful, petite Italian woman with pale skin and fiery red hair who works at the Embassy. Somehow the two strangers find themselves locked inside a tiny, grungy basement toilet in Chinatown. Jude is to blame for the horrible stench, and Mina for the constant complaining. The two of them are trapped in a claustrophobic and unhealthy situation.

So what do they do next? They have sex, fall in love, get married and have a baby. If only they had followed their first impressions and never met. They soon discovered they are different in every way. Jude likes science, doctors and hospitals. Mina is into fortune tellers, vegetarianism, naturopathy, and instincts. Not a big problem until the baby (known only as “Baby”) comes into the picture. Jude, (the big American) prone to anger and violence, thinks the kid is sick and starving and is not growing big enough or fast enough. Frequently depressed Mina (the cultivated European) thinks the problems are all on Jude’s side. Add Jude’s mother Anne, a real buttinsky, to the picture (played by the venerable Roberta Maxwell) and things quickly escalate. Will they survive the stink, decay and claustrophobia of their dysfunctional life?

While Hungry Hearts has its good points, this is a real drudge of a movie filled with endless bickering, crying, hitting and altogether awfulness. The honeymoon lasts about 90 seconds and the rest of the movie is less torrid sex, more horrid fights.

Love & Mercy

Dir: Bill Pohlad

It’s the mid 1960s. The Beach Boys is a cheesy pop band known for its catchy tunes, tight harmonies, and its formulaic California sound: all about girls, surfing, and roadsters. Most of the members are brothers or cousins, and they’re getting ready for their triumphal tour of Japan, when something happens. Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) has a panic attack on a plane and decides to stay home in L.A. While they’re touring, he’s composing, arranging and producing an incredible album.

LA’s famous studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew provide the music and Brian goes wild. He tosses paper clips onto piano strings to make a plinkier sound. He brings dogs into the studio to bark. He even has them play in two separate keys… at the same time. The result is Pet Sounds, one of the most highly-praised pop albums ever recorded – and rightly so. It even inspired the Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper” album.

This is Brian Wilson in the sixties. The movie’s also about Brian Wilson in the 80s (John Cusack). We see him enter a Cadillac showroom where he meets the saleswoman Melinda (Elizabeth Banks), a blue-eyed blonde. It’s the 80s so she has big hair and enormous aquamarine shoulder pads. Brian talks to her slowly and hesitantly, as if he’s never seen a woman before and isn’t used to speaking out loud. They gradually become close, but face a formidable obstacle in the form a man.

Dr. Gene (Paul Giamatti) is a psychiatric Svengali who has taken complete control over Brian’s life. What he eats, where he goes, even whom he’s allowed to talk to. He diagnosed Brian as paranoid schizophrenic and has him pumped full of toxic amounts of meds. (That’s why he walks around with his mouth half-open staring off into space.) Can the 1960s Brian bring all his musical dreams to fruition? And can the 1980s Brian ever re-emerge from his medically induced haze?

Love & Mercy is long, detailed and sometimes slow. Its two parts are told chronologically, but the story jumps back and forth between the 60s and the 80s, so you follow both the of them throughout the film. I was left only half-satisfied by the story, but the music…! The music seduced me into listening to Beach Boys music – which I had never taken seriously before — obsessively for about a week afterwards. See it for the music.

Hungry Hearts and Love & Mercy, and (Dis)honesty (at the Bloor Cinema) all open today in Toronto, check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.