Dysfunctional Dystopia? Films reviewed: Sentimental Value, The Running Man, Left-Handed Girl
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Still more Fall film festivals coming at you in Toronto, with the EU film fest — free films from each country of the European Union, plus Ukraine — and Ekran, the Polish Film Festival. So much to see, but look out for Agnieszaka Holland’s biopic of Franz Kafka (called Franz) at Ekran.
But this week, I’m looking at three great new movies, one action and two dramas. There’s an estranged family in Oslo; a fugitive on the run in a dystopian America, and a dysfunctional family in Taipei, Taiwan.
Sentimental Value
Co-Wri/Dir: Joachim Trier
Nora Borg (Renate Reinsve) is a successful stage actress who lives in a grand old house in Oslo. It’s been in her family for generations: it’s where her grandmother killed herself, and where she grew up with her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) and their mom. Their dad, Gustav, (Stellan Skarsgård) disappeared after their divorce when she was still young, and they haven’t heard much from him in decades. Until now. Their mom just died and she and her sister have to deal with the house and go through all their family’s possessions (that’s the “sentimental value” of the title). And dad owns part of the house, too. But he has a second reason for showing up.
He wants to make a movie there, to use the house as his set. He’s a famous film director, but not in his prime anymore; he hasn’t shot a movie in decades. And he wants Nora in the main role of what is likely his swan song. You’re the only one who can do it, he says, just read the script! Nora refuses; bad blood runs deep. So, partly to get the funding he needs to make the picture, Gustav casts a Hollywood actress to play the role that Nora turned down. Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) is a big name, and she’s also a fan of Gustav’s work. What will happen to the house? Will Gustav make his film? And will they ever be on speaking terms again?
Sentimental Value is dramatic comedy about a Norwegian family. It’s full of clever asides and wide-ranging topics, but with a solid core at its centre. What makes Trier such a good director (The Worst Person in the World, Thelma, Oslo August 31st) is he creates believable characters in tough situations but without losing his sense of humour. He constantly plays around with his audience as to what is real and what is 
artifice: we see Nora having a deep, emotional breakdown and then discover she’s acting a role on a stage set. He also uses biting satire to get his points across, skewering the superficiality of both Hollywood and bourgeois Norwegian society. He also repeatedly casts from a company of actors in his films. Elle Fanning and Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård are new, but Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie are familiar faces if you’ve ever seen Trier’s movies (and if you haven’t, you should).
Sentimental Value is moving, funny and full of good stuff to think about. I really liked this one.
The Running Man
Co-Wri/Dir: Edgar Wright
Based on a story by Steven King
It’s some point in the not-so-distant future in a dystopian America. A few rich people live luxurious lives, but the majority eke out a precarious existence within the endless sprawl of urban slums. They’re constantly surveilled by cameras, drones and DNA detectors while a brutal paramilitary police force patrols the streets. What keeps the people satisfied? Watching the reality shows and game shows broadcast from a single, big-brother-like monopoly network which controls the government, big business and media.
Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a skilled labourer and union rep. He also has a volatile temper. He points out dangerous problems on the shop floor, which in this world gets you fired. So he’s out of work, his wife depends on tips in a hostess bar, and their 5 year old daughter is dying of an ordinary flu because they can’t afford basic medicine. What to do? There’s only one choice left: compete on THE RUNNING MAN, a reality show where all contestants try to survive for 30 days being hunted by a gang of professional killers. The winner gets a huge cash prize. And the losers pay with their lives. Luckily, the show’s producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) takes a liking to Ben Richards — he’s smart, strong and most of all, angry! And the audience starts to like him… and his messages of rebellion. Can Ben outsmart the powers that be and survive? Or will the Network crush him, like they did with every Runner before him?
The Running Man is a non-stop action movie, with good 
acting and an interesting plot. It’s set in the future, but done in a 1980s style, with zines, nerds and gadgets over spacemen and phasers. There are chase scenes using planes, trains and automobiles, and fiery explosions that level a city block. Glen Powell is wonderful in the lead role, appealing and heroic, painted like a Luigi Mangione fighting the corporate super-villain played by a slimy Josh Brolin. Director Edgar Wright — who brought us Toronto’s greatest Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe — keeps it funny and nerdy; he even casts Michael Cera as a nerdy revolutionary.
The Running Man is a lot of fun to watch.
Left-Handed Girl
Co-Wri/Dir: Shih-Ching Tsou
It’s Taipei’s night market, and a small family is moving into a tiny apartment nearby: I-Jing (Nina Ye) a little girl with a wild imagination, I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) a diffident teenager with a chip on her shoulder, and their hardworking mom (Janel Tsai). She’s opening up a noodle stall to pay their basic rent cheque. Dad is nowhere to be seen; he ran off years ago, leaving the family high and dry. I-Jing quickly adjusts to her new kindergarten class and life in the constantly-moving marketplace. She even helps Johnny (Brando Huang) — a huckster with a heart of gold who sells carnival junk to unsuspecting shoppers — by making announcements on his loudspeaker. Mom is constantly busy, cooking and cleaning her stall, but can’t seem to earn a living. She also takes time to visit her ex-husband, now dying of cancer in hospital. Sadly he leaves his 
abandoned family nothing but funeral debts and a pet meerkat. And I-Ann — who was once top of her class until she suddenly dropped out — works as a scantily-clad “betel nut beauty” selling smokes and the addictive chewing treat from her boyfriend’s shop.
But things get tense when the kids’ Mom is forced to visit their grandparents to ask for some money to tide them over. Mom’s brother is the golden boy who can do no wrong, and her two sisters both live in nice houses and are unsympathetic about her economic condition. And worst of all is grandpa, who scolds i-Jing for being left handed. He tells her left hand belongs to the devil (which she interprets as having an evil hand over which she has no control.) Now grandma is smuggling migrants through airports, mom faves eviction from the market, I-Ann missed her last period, and tiny I-Jing is turning into an avid shoplifter, using her “devil’s hand” to do the dirty work. Can this dysfunctional family ever pull itself back together?
Left-Handed Girl is a social drama about a family of women living on the brink. It’s tender, shocking and hilarious. It’s full of fast, clang-y music, flashy lights and hyper-saturated colour. It’s specifically Taiwanese in details (from bubble tea to class snobbery) but universal in its emotional appeal. And it’s co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, Anora), who swept the Oscars last year with Anora. The characters speak Chinese but it’s clearly a Sean Baker movie, full of imperfect women in precarious times. And its Taiwanese-American director Shih-Ching Tsou worked on all of Baker’s films, so this is part of a long term partnership, with her taking the helm. And it’s Taiwan’s selection for best international Oscar.
I loved Left-Handed Girl, too.
Sentimental Value — opening this weekend — and Left-Handed Girl — next weekend — both played at TIFF. And The Running Man is now playing across Canada; 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.
Unusual road movies. Films reviewed: Nirvanna, the Band, the Show, the Movie; The Long Walk, Sirât PLUS #TIFF50!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you’re in Toronto this weekend, get your collective ass down to “Festival Street” — King st, from University to 
Spadina — to celebrate TIFF’s 50th anniversary. Even if you can’t afford the tickets, they’re tons to see and do. They’re giving away loads of free stuff, like Italian beer, cold brew coffee, Korean noodles… and even free mouthwash. Why 
mouthwash? Why any of this… they’re promotions. But they’re all free! Free outdoor movies, too, each night in David Pecaut Square. And if you’re into celebs, you might see stars like Scarlet Johansen, Mia Goth, Keanu Reeves and 
Jodie Foster, just a few expected to show up.
This week I’m looking at three new road movies, two opening at TIFF. There are European ravers driving through the Sahara desert, 50 boys in a dystopian America on a walkathon for their lives, and two Toronto musicians time-travelling on Queen St West in a magic bus.
Nirvanna, the Band, the Show, the Movie
Co-Wri/Dir: Matt Johnson
It’s about 17 years ago in downtown Toronto. Aspiring musicians Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol (played by themselves) are composing music and planning elaborate schemes to get invited to play on the stage at the Rivoli on Queen St West But so far no luck. The band is called “Nirvanna”, with an extra N; but they sound more broadway than grunge. They live in a Toronto row house with a trailer home parked behind. Fast forward a few decades and Matt and Jay are still trying to get booked at the Rivoli for the first time. Matt’s latest scheme? To jump off the top of the CN Tower with parachutes and land inside the Skydome in the middle of a Blue Jays game. That should get enough attention to get their band booked, right? But as Matt’s ridiculous schemes get ever more outlandish and dangerous, Jay becomes increasingly frustrated. And when they somehow manage to travel back in time, a la Back to the Future, thus changing history, it messes up everything and their band might cease to exist. Can the two of them get back together in time to save the band… and their own lives?
Nirvanna… is an uproariously funny pseudo-documentary, done in the manner of Borat, but more gently Canadian. I absolutely love Matt Johnson (The Dirties, Blackberry), with his cringey sense of humour, always lightly dipped in horror and disaster. I’m not familiar with Jay McCarrol, but he’s an excellent musician and a perfect foil for Johnson’s grandstanding ineptitude. The 
time travel is accomplished because they’ve been filming the series for about 20 years. As for the special effects, I’m still not sure if they actually jumped off the CN tower… but it sure looks like they did. Breaking news: I literally just spoke with the filmmakers: Matt says it’s all real, Jay says it’s all fake. Either way, Nirvanna now stands beside Scott Pilgrim as the most Toronto-y movie of the century.
The Long Walk
Dir: Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)
It’s the corn belt in a dystopian, future United States. The country is a military dictatorship and the people live in poverty. Fifty young men, one from each state, have signed up for an annual race. The winner gets a huge cash prize as well as any dream he wishes to fulfil. His triumph will add a sense of hope and pride to the country’s citizens — or so the contest’s organizer, The Major barks at the boys (played by an unrecognizable Mark Hamill).
One competitor, Ray (Cooper Hoffman: Licorice Pizza) introduces himself to other players, and quickly makes friends with Pete (David Jonsson). They soon added Art Baker from Louisiana (Tut Nyuot) who wants to win the money, and Hank Olsen (Ben Wang) a nerdy-looking guy with a wisecracking, urban accent. They call themselves the four musketeers, and vow to look out for each other. Some of the racers keep to themselves. Barkovitch, (Charlie Plummer: Lean on Pete, The Return) a rabble rousing misanthrope hurls discouraging insults at his competitors. Collie (Joshua Odjick) is an indigenous man who walks to the beat of a different drum. And an ultra-fit athlete (Garrett Wareing) is so sure of his own victory he doesn’t even grace anyone with a response. The problem is, there can only be one winner. And the 49 losers? They will all be dead. You see, it’s a race to the death, and anyone who lags behind the requisite three miles an hour is summarily murdered by soldiers in tanks rolling beside the walkers. If anyone lags in their walk three times — including drinking, tying your shoes or even sleeping — they die. Who will survive this gruelling competition?
The Long Walk is a dark dystopian road movie movie about 
male bonding, friendship and resistance to an autocratic state. It’s shot in a rustic, sepia tones in marked contrast to its horror theme. It’s based on a story by Stephen King, and directed by Francis Lawrence who brought us the Hunger Games movies. While it doesn’t hold back on violent blood, guts, and despair, at least it keeps alive some feeling of hope throughout. The Long Walk is totally watchable, the acting is great and I like the characters. But — maybe because of the story’s inevitability — it never really grabbed me. This could have been a deeply moving weeper, but instead it’s just a gruesome race, with a wee bit of political consciousness.
Sirât
Dir: Oliver Laxe
It’s a red sandstone skyline somewhere in Northwest Africa. A huge wall of speakers is spewing heavy drum and bass rhythms out of a wall of speakers, with hundreds of semi-nude dancers moving in a throbbing crowd. It’s a European rave attracting people who look like they’ve been moving to the music since the 1990s. Totally out of place are a middle aged Spanish man named Luis (Sergi López) and his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona). They’re handing tiny leaflets to everyone they see, about their missing daughter/sister. She’s also a raver but hasn’t been seen in years. Suddenly the music stops, soldiers march in and one if them starts shouting through a megaphone: the area must be evacuated immediately, with all Europeans following the military back to safety. With much grumbling, the dancers pile into makeshift schoolbuses move out of the area… until suddenly two vehicles — an ATV and a military transport truck — veer off track and head in the opposite direction. They’re going south toward a legendary rave near Mauritania. In a split-second decision, Luis and Esteban decide to follow 
them in their urban SUV, of their best chance of finding the missing girl. The crusty ravers don’t want them to follow but agree to let them tag along.
And a ragtag bunch they are, with weathered features, pierces and tattoos, peg-legs and missing limbs. They speak French, Spanish and English.But they also have a wicked sense of humour, and an overriding communal spirit. What no-one seems to realize is they’re driving headfirst into the impossible terrain of the western Sahara desert in the middle of a revolutionary war.
Sirat is a fantastic, nihilistic road movie, that combines elements of Mad Max, Nomadland and Waiting for Godot. It takes you on the twists and turns of disaster, keeping you on your toes all the way. I’m not revealing any more of the plot, but suffice it to say it thumbs its nose at traditional Hollywood narratives. The acting seems very close to documentary style, and apart from López as Luis, all the cast seems to be non-actors playing themselves. (They are called by their real names.)
If you can stand the shock, you must see Sirat.
Sirat and Nirvanna, the Band, the Show, the Movie are both premiering at TIFF right now; and The Long Walk opens across Canada on Sept 12.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Pleasant danger. Films reviewed: How to Train a Dragon, The Life of Chuck PLUS TJFF!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
As the days get longer and the skies get warmer, people want to go out and have fun, looking for an enjoyable night out. So this week, I’m looking at two new entertaining, feel-good movies, that at first glance seem to be just the opposite. One’s about horrible monsters terrorizing a small island, the other’s about the end of the world.
But before that, let me tell you about a few movies playing at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival showing movies from around the world through this weekend, and digitally until June 18th.
TJFF, 2025
The festival opened with Once Upon My Mother, (Ma Mere, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan), bilingual-Canadian director Ken Scott’s (review: Starbuck) humorous look at the memoir of Roland Perez, a renowned Parisian attorney and writer. He’s the 6th child in a crowded family of Moroccan immigrants born with a clubfoot in 1963, but whose driven mother, Esther (wonderfully played by Leïla Bekhti), refuses to accept it. She — and will power alone — will make him walk, no, dance!, as if there were no physical problems standing in his way. These efforts are all done to the tunes of pop singer Sylvie Vartan on his sisters’ record player, as he struggles to learn to read.
This is a charming and quirky family comedy.
In The Other, documentarian Joy Sela attempts the impossible: to film people from two sides of an intractable conflict — that of Israel and Palestine — talking frankly with each other. Ordinary Israelis, and Palestinians from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and those from Israel proper, voluntarily getting together. People on both sides of this polarizing conflict, whose families or friends have been killed, kidnapped, jailed or persecuted, attempt to share personal photos and stories, and actually get to know “The Other”. While most of the film was shot before the enormities of the current Gaza war took place, it’s still important in that it holds out the hope of peace and understanding, and the end of this brutal war and the events and conditions that led up to it.
Never Alone (by Finnish director Klaus Härö) is a true story set in Helsinki in 1942, where an outspoken, prominent businessman, Abraham Stiller (Ville Virtanen), comes to the rescue of a group of Jewish refugees who arrive by ship from Austria. And soon after, Stiller has a noisy run-in in his store with a random man who loudly opposes the presence of refugees. What he doesn’t realize is he has picked a fight with Arno Anthoni, a Nazi collaborator and the head of the Finnish State Police. The movie has a noir-ish feel, full of secret papers, clandestine backroom deals, and shadowy prison cells. Never Alone is a tense, historical drama that looks at Finland’s somewhat spotty record in the first half of WWII.
How to Train Your Dragon
Co-Wri/Dir: Dean DeBlois
It’s the middle ages on a remote, mountainous island populated by a multicultural Viking consortium. They speak with Scottish brogues and wear pointy horns on their helmets. Their biggest problem? Dragons — of every shape and form — who steal their sheep and wreak havoc. Stoic, the island’s ridiculously bearded chieftain (Gerard Butler) leads them repeatedly into dangerous battles with these fire-breathing monsters, in the hope of someday discovering their lair, and killing them all. But young Hiccup (Mason Thames), an inventive, non-conformist, doesn’t want to kill dragons. He’s a lover, not a fighter, and has a major crush on the young swordswoman Astrid (Nico Parker). When he discovers a disabled Night Fury dragon that he names Toothless, Hiccup fashions a prosthesis so he can fly again. He trains Toothless to fill a space somewhere between rival, best friend and pet. And by closely observing his strengths and foibles Hiccup learns all the dragons’s secrets. But his dad — the Chieftain — enrols him in a gladiator-like training camp, full of ambitious viking wannabes — like Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut,— to teach him to kill the beasts, including his secret best friend. Are dragons the dreaded enemies of the Vikings, or are they just big misunderstood puppy dogs?
If “How to Train Your Dragon” sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a live action remake of the hit 2010 3-D animated kids’ movie by the same name. (And in the same vein, this review is largely the same as the one I wrote 15 years ago. If they can do it, so can I) But I was a bit trepidacious about what they might do to the cartoon version which I really liked. Well no need to worry. It’s similar but not identical. The animated version is funnier and goofier. I like the new costumes, especially the furry mukluks they all wear. Part of the cast — like Gerard Butler — are back again, and the newbies, especially Mason Thames, with his cartoon-like features, fit their parts fine. But as I watched this one on the big screen, I was blown away by the spectacular mid air flying scenes, where Hiccup rides through the skies on Toothless’s back. I don’t remember that from the first one. When I looked at my old review, there it was. The “…effects were great…with a lot of breathtaking scenes and battles, and a good amount of suspense. At times it felt like being part of a good video game – weaving between rock formations, through the clouds, under the northern lights – and I mean that as a compliment.”
This may be a kids’ movie, but I totally enjoyed watching How to Train Your Dragon all over again.
The Life of Chuck
Co-Wri/Dir: Mike Flanagan
Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a school teacher in a bucolic small town… who feels a bit strange. Things aren’t functioning like they used do. Everyday people and buildings disappear, even as the stars in the sky fizzle out, one by one. The one thing that is working are posters, billboards, skywriters and flashy ads everywhere celebrating an unknown man named Chuck. Who is this Chuck? What’s going on? Is this the end of the world? Yes, it is… well, sort of.
But then comes act two.
A well dressed man in a business suit hears a busker playing the drums in a city square in Boston. He begins to dance, first alone, and then with a ginger-haired woman, who, caught up in the excitement, joins him. Here is the ‘Chuck’ Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) we’ve been hearing so much about. Act three fills in the blanks: where Chuck came from (played here as a young man by Jacob Tremblay), why he is so central to this story, 
and what he represents for this world, and how magic plays a small part.
While The Life of Chuck is ostensibly a film about the end of the world as seen through horror-meister Stephen King’s eyes — the man who brought us The Shining, and Carrie and Misery and Cujo and Pet Semetary — it’s actually a sweet and gentle revelatory movie that owes more to the poems of Walt Whitman than to any ghosts or vampires.
I have to admit, I’m no fan of Tom Hiddleston I didn’t like him in the Hank Williams biopic, or as Loki in the Thor Movies. But he is perfect in this movie about Chuck. So if you’re in the mood for a really nice, inspiring, easy-to-watch movie with lots of semi-profundities, you should see the uncategorizable and always surprising Life of Chuck.
I really liked this one.
How TO Train Your Dragon and The Life of Chuck open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Never Alone, The Other and Ma Mere, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan. Are among many films playing at TJFF in person and digitally.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Broken. Films reviewed: Parthenope, The Unbreakable Boy, The Monkey
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: there’s a boy with breakable bones, a toy monkey who could break your bones, and a woman whose beauty breaks every man’s heart.
Parthenope
Wri/Dir: Paolo Sorrentino (Reviews: Youth, Hand of God, The Great Beauty)
It’s Naples, 1950 and a woman gives birth in the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The baby is called Parthenope, named for both the city and the Greek myth. She grows up to be a young woman of epic beauty and legendary intellect (Celeste Dalla Porta). Men who try to seduce her, find their own words silenced by her pithy comebacks. Her days are filed with a search for beauty, happiness and meaning. She absorbs everything she reads, from John Cheever to Claude Levi-Strauss. Her closest friends are her brother Sandrino (Dario Aita) and Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo) the son of a maid. Together they form sort of a quasi menage a trois.
Parthenope aces her orals and is accepted into the prestigious anthropology department at the local university. From there she follows three very different paths: Academia — a professor takes her under his wing; Love, deciding which of her countless suitors should she consent to sleep with; and the 
city of Naples, itself. Along the way she encounters a corrupt and carnal bishop, a depressed superstar diva, a millionaire with a private helicopter, and many others. But will any of these people provide her with the answers she seeks?
Parthenope is a gorgeous and sumptuous look at post-war Naples as seen through the eyes of a beautiful woman as she lives her life. Celeste Dalla Porta is appealing to watch, but she is opaque and impenetrable: she merely observes without ever doing anything. Paolo Sorrentino is known for his his beautiful images, especially women as objects of desire. But he doesn’t seem to know what to do with a woman as his subject. Instead we get a hollow simulacrum of a main character, who drifts aimlessly but happily through her life as she encounters quirky strangers. I love the photography, the scenery, the people and the music — a collection of bright and shiny colours — but watching Parthenope leaves you feeling like you just flipped the glossy pages of a fashion magazine: superficially attractive but pointless.
The Unbreakable Boy
Co-Wri/Dir: Jon Gunn (Reviews: Ordinary Angels, I Still Believe, American Underdog, Jesus Revolution)
Scott (Zachary Levi) is a young salesman with big ambitions: he plans to move to Manhattan someday and make it big. But in the meantime, he likes golf, fine wine and travelling. He spends most of his time with his best friend Joe, a burley bearded man who is always giving him advice (Drew Powell). One day he meets a pretty and charming woman named Teresa (Meghann Fahy). Sparks fly, and nine months later, she gives birth to Austin (Jacob Laval). They’re not married but decide to bring him up together. But there’s a catch: he requires special care. Like his mom, Austin has Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a genetic condition that makes your bones very brittle. He suffers his first fracture in the birth canal, with many more breakages to follow. Eventually he is joined by a younger brother, Logan, who doesn’t share his breakability.
13 years later, Austin — aka the Aus-man — is now a happy school kid with a vivid imagination. He’s also on the autistic spectrum, but contrary to stereotypes, he’s outgoing, talkative and attends normal classes. He talks constantly, just like his dad. (I forgot to mention: Scott’s best friend Joe is imaginary) But all is not well. The family is deeply in debt. Austin is bullied at school. And Scott is drinking way too much, especially since he lost his job. Can the family pull itself back together? Or are they headed for ruin?
The Unbreakable Boy is a very cute, true story about an ordinary family working together to overcome their problems. As narrated by Jacob Laval as the Aus Man, it’s simple, touching and funny. I like the way it demystifies kids with
medical conditions and autism. And unlike most medical dramas, it’s not a weeper, though perhaps overly earnest. One warning: it is a faith-based movie, generally a red flag for cringe. Not my thing. Thankfully this one avoids most of the problems of that genre; preachiness and finger wagging and in-your-face prayers. If you’re in the mood for a light, informative, feel-good Christian movie that won’t make you squirm, check this one out.
The Monkey
Wri/Dir: Osgood Perkins (Reviews: Longlegs, Gretel and Hansel)
Hal and Bill (Christian Convery) are identical twins, but they couldn’t be more different. Bill, who was born a few minutes earlier, is self confident, athletic and aggressive. Hal is withdrawn and wears glasses as he tries to keep out of Bill’s way. But his brother is a bully, humiliating and hurting Hal on a daily basis, using a posse of popular girls as his private army. The two live with their single Mom (Tatiana Maslany) ever since their Dad, an airline pilot, walked away one day and never came back. When the boys go through the many souvenirs he brought home from around the world, they uncover something very unusual. It’s a mechanical automaton that’s an organ-grinder monkey. You wind him up and he plays a drum to the sound of carnival music. A harmless toy, right? Not exactly. When the drumstick comes down something terrible happens. Like when their babysitter is accidentally decapitated at a Benihana restaurant. But when it kills their beloved mother, the boys decided to hide the monkey somewhere that it can do no more harm. They are adopted by their aunt and uncle, a pair of swingers in small-town Maine. But they too are eventually killed in gruesome accidents. Was the money to blame?
Flash-forward 25 years. Hal (Theo James) still lives in Maine close to his teenaged son Petey (Colin O’Brien). He visits him only once a year, to lesson the chances of the cursed monkey in harming him. But then two cataclysmic events threaten Hal’s normal 
life. First, Petey’s stepfather Ted (Elijah Wood) announces his plans to adopt him, making this the last time Hal will see him. Second, a series of terrible events are killing countless people in and around the town he grew up in. Can Hal find that damned Monkey and stop it from killing someone else? And can he simultaneously spend his last days with his son while keeping him out of danger?
The Monkey is a shocking and disgustingly hilarious movie about an evil toy and the people it affects. It’s done in a retro style, like Mad Magazine meets the Twilight Zone. It’s directed by Oz Perkins, known for his stylized movies that feel like fairytales (Gretel and Hansel) or nightmares (Longlegs). With this one, based on a short story by Stephen King, he seems to have found a happy medium. Simultaneously comical and grotesque, you watch the movie waiting with baited breath for the next disaster to happen. Theo James is perfect as the hapless Hal, but so is every other character in this weird movie, each given their own minute of ghastly glory: a pawn shop owner, a girl gang, a real estate agent, a pot dealer, a televangelist… it’s a limitless, mind-blowing romp. The Monkey is grotesque comedy/horror at its peak.
I love this movie.
Parthenope, The Unbreakable Boy, and The Monkey 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.
Back from the Dead. Films reviewed: Pet Sematary, The Invisibles, Amazing Grace
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
We all know people are born and they die, things come and go. But every once in a while things and people we believe are long gone seem to come back to life. This week I’m looking at three very different movies about coming back from the dead. There’s Aretha’s gospel concert buried since 1972; a documentary about young German Jews who hide in Nazi Berlin till 1945; and a horror movie about pets who come back from their graves in small town Maine.
Pet Sematary
Dir: Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer
(Based on the novel by Stephen King)
Louis (Jason Clarke) is a Boston doctor suffering from ER burnout. He’s overworked, overstressed, and overtired. So to relax and spend more time with his family he takes and easy job in the quaint small town of Ludlow, Maine. He’s there with his nervous, religious wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), and their two kids, little Gage, and his pride and joy Ellie. Ellie (Jeté Laurence) is an eight year old who loves ballet dancing and her furry cat Church 
(short for Winston Churchill). Their old wooden house is on a sprawling estate in a small forest with a high speed highway running through it. But their quiet lives are disrupted by some strange events. First, when a young patient of Louis dies in his care after a car accident, the dead boy seems to return, over and over to talk to him in his dreams.
Then Ellie sees kids from town in spooky animal masks burying dead pets on their property. It’s an ancient custom, explains kindly old Jud (John Lithgow) their nearest neighbour. He’s lived there all his life and understands the local lore. So when Ellie is despondent when her beloved cat is run over Jud tells Louis a secret. There’s powerful magic up on the mountain beyond the pet cemetery. Bury the cat under a cairn and he will come back to you from the dead. Sure enough, Jud is right. But it isn’t cute and loveable 
anymore. When you play with the the forces of good and evil, of life and death, bad things will surely happen.
Pet Sematary – a remake of the movie based on the Stephen King novel – is suitably scary. The small, excellent cast nicely contained in a single location give it a good cabin-in-the-woods quality, but it’s scariness is less adventurous. It uses the age-old techniques – spooky dreams, little “boo!” moments, even twists on the overused images of the mirror in medicine cabinet, and the dark room in the basement. And then it degenerates from scariness into outright, Bride-of-Chucky kitsch. I enjoyed Pet Sematary as a good, old-skool horror movie, just don’t expect anything new.
The Invisibles
Dir: Claus Räfle
It’s 1943, in Nazi Berlin, and Joseph Goebels has officially declares his Germany’s capital judenfrei – free of Jews. But he doesn’t realize that 7,000 Jewish Germans still lived their hidden in plain view. This docudrama tells four true stories about young people who 
survived the Holocause while living in Berlin. They don’t hide in an attic like Anne Frank’s family; instead they continue their lives right in the middle of everything. Cioma (Max Mauff) sells all his possessions and poses as someone whose house was bombed in Köln, moving to new vacant rooms each day. He finds work for a high placed civil 
servant forging ID papers. Hanni (Alice Dwyer) bleaches her hair, calls herself Hannelore and hangs out in dark movie theatres in the Kurfürstendamm. Ruth (Ruby O. Fee) and a friend find jobs as maid and nanny for the kids of Nazi officers. And Eugen (Aaron 
Altaras) is placed with former colleagues of his dad, a doctor, dressing in a Hitler Youth uniform. But there are informants and Gestapo agents everywhere, searching for people like them. Who will survive?
The Invisibles is a fascinating retelling of largely unknown stories. It’s part documentary – the film regularly cuts to interviews in German with the actual people it happened to – and part drama with the thrilling stories replayed by well-known young actors.
Fascinating and thrilling stories, well told.
Amazing Grace
Dir: Sydney Pollack, Alan Elliott
Its 1972 at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, LA.
Reverend James Cleveland is leading a very special service for his devout parishioners. None other than the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin herself will be performing, alongside the Southern California Community Choir. The congregation is urged to feel the spirit, clap their hands, and get up 
from their seats and dance. But wait a minute — since when has pop sensation Aretha Franklin beena gospel singer? The answer is: all her life. Her father is the famous Detroit Baptist preacher C.L. Franklin, and she was touring churches with her amazing voice since the age of six.
This concert became a huge hit album – many people say it’s Aretha’s best recordings – and the movie includes her back-up musicians, the choir, and the audience, including some very 
famous people, like Mick Jagger, gospel singer Clara Ward and lots of others I couldn’t quite recognize. A beautiful, intensely moving concert and church service. Interestingly, it’s been sitting in film cans, unscreened until now. For some reason, Aretha blocked its 
release her whole life, perhaps because it is so personal to her, perhaps because the sound and images were never synchronized. That’s all fixed now.
It’s a grainy hyper-realistic verité-style film that shows everything: retakes, the cameramen, the soundboard, the director running around pointing, and Aretha in a sparkling white gown, sweating under the hot lights. If you’re a fan of Aretha Franklin, and want to experience those two days of 1972, you must see Amazing Grace.
Pet Sematary and The Invisibles both open today in Toronto; check your local listings, and you can see Amazing Grace beginning next Friday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
culturalmining.com 
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