Numerical titles. Films reviewed: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, One More Shot
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
When you watch hundreds of movies a year, you start to notice certain trends, like avoid movies with numbers in their titles, especially sequels. But it doesn’t always work. Some people say The Godfather 2, Toy Story 3 or Rocky IV, are the best of their series.
So this week I’m looking at a couple more movies with numerical titles. There’s an Aussie who can travel in time using a swig of magic tequila, and an American who can bring automatons to life in a defunct pizzeria.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Dir: Emma Tammi
(Based on the game by Scott Cawthon)
It’s some time in the not-so-distant past, somewhere in Middle America. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a guy in his twenties who takes care of his 11-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Abby is lonely because no one at school believes the stories she tells. Mike is a lonely former security guard. He used to work in the ruins of former family restaurant Frank Fazbear’s Pizza. In its heyday, the place was wildly popular with children because of its giant, grinning animal-puppets who performed mechanically on a small stage. But the chain was shuttered for good 20 years ago when the animatronics went rogue and killed some kids. Then, one year ago, Mike and Abby barely escaped with their lives when the animals came back to life. Now, if Mike never sees another animatronic monster in his life, it will be too soon. But Abby holds a special affection for them; she considers them her only real friends. They talk to her, understand her problems and look out for her. And it’s hard to get away from them in this town, since everybody knows about them: there’s a festival devoted to Freddy Fazbear and a robotics contest both just around the corner. Meanwhile, Mike is flirting with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a former cop who helped save Mike and Abby in last year’s bloodbath. She also happens to be the daughter of a deranged megalomaniacal 
serial killer who built the original automatons, and who was personally responsible for the hideous crimes they committed. And it goes without saying that Vanessa hates her psychotic father.
But despite all their precautions, Abby is hellbent on returning to the the crumbling restaurant, and in the mayhem that follows , the creatures are set loose to seek vengeance on their perceived enemies in the town. Can Mike, Abby and Vanessa fight them off and save the city? Or will the robots win out in the end?
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the sequel to last years hit movie based on a video game by the same name, about an evil Chucky Cheese-style restaurant. It has some cool special effects, a few scary moments, especially involving a spooky villain known as the marionette. And I love the old 90s computers and the restaurant-gone-to-ruins motif. The main actors reprising their roles are all good. The problem with this movie is its meandering pointlessness, just a series of random episodes that have virtually no affect on what follows or precedes it. So an important character might be brutally murdered by animatronic creatures in one scene, and then 
they drop out of the movie and are never referred to again.
This happens over and over, which makes you wonder is their any coherence or point to this movie, other than chase scenes, brutal killings and jump scares? I went to a screening packed with fans dressed in cos-play cheering and shouting whenever a familiar character from the game appeared on the screen. They seemed to like it. But for the average viewer, like you or me, who’s never played the game, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is just another schlocky knock-off.
One More Shot
Dir: Nicholas Clifford
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1999, in Melbourne, Australia. Minnie (Emily Browning) is invited to a costume party to usher in the new millennium. She’s a doctor in her thirties, single and attractive. Many of her friends — and ex-lovers — will be at that party. She even has the words “party time” tattooed on her skin. But for some reason, she’s not in a partying mood. Her past relationships all went sour, and she’s been alone, and celibate, for far too long. At least her go-to sex buddy Joe (Sean Keenan) is back in town, so at the very least she’ll get some (Joe sports a matching tattoo which bonds them as sex partners forever.)
But when she arrives at the party, everything seems to go wrong. Joe has a new lover — an American bartender or “mixologist” as she calls herself (Aisha Dee) — and it looks serious. The hosts, Rodney and Pia (Ashley Zukerman, Pallavi Sharda) have a beautiful house and young kid, but they seem somehow at odds all the time; Flick and Max (Anna McGahan, Contessa Treffone), whose apartment she’s sharing want to 
kick her out; and the only stranger at the party is a douchey OB-GYN (Hamish Michael) who is also a coke-head. And at midnight, everyone anticipates a computer crash due to the Y2K. Can things possibly get worse?
Oh yes they can. Minnie keeps messing everything up, and alienating all her friends just for a chance to get laid. But then she discovers she has the solution: the ancient bottle of Tequila she’s brought to the gathering. For some reason, each gulp brings her back again to the first time she tried it, right at the door to the party. Can she right all her wrongs and erase all her mistakes before the bottle is empty? Or will she just end up as a drooling hot mess on someone else’s couch?
One More Shot is a very light social comedy about Australian millennials at play. It’s a cute, somewhat funny riff on the Groundhog Day theme. Which makes it more than a little 
repetitive. The cast is attractive and mildly clever, though I couldn’t really sympathize with any of them. But I do like time- travel comedies however they happen, and this version is pretty original. Kept me interested till the end.
While clearly no masterpiece, I enjoyed watching this one.
5 Nights at Freddy’s 2 opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. One More Shot is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
It’s all lies! Films reviewed: Jay Kelly, Zodiac Killer Project, Wicked: For Good
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, about people who lie. There’s a movie star who smiles for the cameras, onscreen and off; two witches and a wizard who hides behind his curtain, and a filmmaker who looks at what lies behind True Crime documentaries.
Jay Kelly
Co-Wri/Dir: Noah Baumbach
Jay Kelly (George Clooney) a major Hollywood star known for his action movies, is wrapping up the last scene of his latest film. He gets a few days off before starting his next feature after attending a tribute to him in Tuscany, as his friend and manager, Ron (Adam Sandler) keeps reminding him. But then a series of unfortunate events begins to occur. Ron tells him that Peter (Jim Broadbent) a noted director who launched Jay’s career when he was just an acting student — has died. And his younger daughter says she’s heading off to backpack and ride the rails in Europe before starting University in the fall… meaning his nest will be empty from now on. So when he runs into Tim (Billy Crudup) at Peter’s funeral — a blast from the past who he hasn’t seen in decades — he decides to join him for a drink at one of their old LA haunts. Tim was a method actor, someone so good he could read a menu aloud in a way that will make you cry. But their drinks turn to fisticuffs when Tim blames Jay for stealing his first role, sleeping with his girlfriend and generally ruining his life. Jay leaves the reunion with a black eye and Tim with a broken nose and a smouldering grudge.
So Jay decides on a change of plans: he’ll fly to Europe and surprise his daughter in Paris for some spontaneous fun. But nothing can be spontaneous for an A-list movie star. Jay flies there in his private jet, with a huge entourage, including his manager, hair stylist, PA, bodyguard and publicist (Laura Dern). But aside from his adoring fans, he can’t seem to make friends, spend time with his family, or do anything of lasting value. What’s a lonely, rich-and-famous guy to do?
Jay Kelly is a sardonic look at the hollowness of a Hollywood movie star’s life. Jay Kelly seems to be modelled on George
Clooney’s own career; they even show clips from Clooney’s past films at Jay Kelly’s tribute, thus blurring the line between reality and fiction. Jay Kelly is always flashing his pearly whites, but seems to have no actual feelings, just poses — that his director, or his publicist tells him to do. The movie’s not bad, but it’s hard to have deep feelings about someone so fake, a character that only finds his true self on the silver screen. It’s like he’s always acting. The biggest surprise is Adam Sandler in a serious role, without any bombastic elements. He’s actually good!
Jay Kelly is a cute light story, with a dark undertone. While not fantastic, it’s still worth watching.
Zodiac Killer Project
Dir: Charlie Shackleton
Charlie Shackleton is a documentary filmmaker from the UK who is obsessed with the case of the Zodiac Killer. He was a notorious serial killer who murdered any number of victims in the 1960s around the SF Bay Area, but was never caught. Part of his mystique was the many killings later attributed to him, and the series of cryptic letters sent to his victims and fans. Charlie wants to make a documentary based on a book by a policeman who actually encountered the killer… but negotiations with the authors of the book falls through, thus killing any chance of making the Zodiac Killer doc. Instead he decides to make a doc about how he would have made the doc he can’t make.
So the movie ends up being a spoken word-essay — Charlie’s words throughout — as he walks us through what he would have shot, scene by scene: a road stop outside of San Francisco; an urban street corner in Vallejo; a modernistic suburban church. Mundane images all, but always accompanied by clanky music and his eerie descriptions of what eyewitnesses saw in their search for the Zodiac Killer. Added to this are short clips and commentary of other True Crime docs, including films like Joe Berlinger and Bruce 
Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost trilogy, about the three teenagers falsely accused of ritual child murder in West Memphis, Arkansas.
(Which is a great series, btw). But what Charlie points out is, many True Crime directors manipulate viewers using music, camera work and edited interviews to put the suspicion on someone the filmmakers want to blame, but who may or may not be responsible for the crime. And he calls into question the myth of the documentary director as an impartial observer rather than a biased manipulator of the truth.
Zodiac Killer Project is not a normal movie, by any stretch of the imagination (though it is pretty funny) It’s a filmmaker’s monologue on (what I think is) a very interesting topic, that is the deception and self-righteousness behind an entire genre — True Crime; accompanied by extended film images of, frankly, mundane locations. If you’re a cineaste, a movie buff, or a true crime fan, I think you’ll like this one; I do. But if you go expecting the bread-and-butter of True Crime media, the titillating images, the exploitational gross-outs, or self righteous harrumphing about the killer’s innate barbarism, you ain’t gonna find it here.
Wicked: for Good
Dir: Jon M. Chu
It’s another day in the Land of Oz, but things have changed over the past few years. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has been in hiding ever since a massive government propaganda campaign has labeled her the “Wicked Witch of the West”. Her former best friend Glinda (Ariana Grande) is a figurehead who appears before the public in a mechanical bubble. She has no real magic but her job is to keep the peasants calm. She publicly professes her love for handsome Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) a captain in the army, but he pines only for the green-faced Elphaba. And Elphaba’s little sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) is now an autocratic Governor, passing vindictive laws. But Nessa, too, suffers from setbacks: her long-time companion, the Munchkin Buck (Ethan Slater) has had enough of her (he’s secretly in love with Glinda.) And under the under the direction of the two scheming bullies with the only real power in this world — the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame (Michelle Yeoh) — Oz is passing ever more draconian laws, including the stripping of all rights from animals, who once lived and worked side by side with 
humans. Will Elphaba and Glinda ever be friends again? Can they stop the Wizard’s nefarious plans? And who will Prince Fiyero choose to marry?
Wicked: for Good is part two of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. It’s an intriguingly revisionist version of the original Wizard of Oz story. Dorothy and the cowardly Lion appear but only as insipid background characters, The Wizard of Oz is a bad guy, and the Wicked Witch of the West a potential heroine. It’s 2 1/2 hours long but never boring, including three new songs by Stephen Schwartz that weren’t in the original play. Now, personally, I’m not a fan of that genre of music, but Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s voices are a pleasure to listen to. It’s visually dead-on, from the artificial, candy-coloured palate of the Emerald City, to cute and rustic Munchkinland. And I love the Art Deco, steam-punk machinery everywhere. It’s exquisite. Great production values all around: sets, costumes, elaborate dance numbers, and, of course, the flying monkeys.
It does feel like the second part of a two-act play — following a year-long intermission — and it is a much darker ride than last year’s Wicked — but I still enjoyed it.
Jay Kelly, Wicked for good and Zodiac Killer Project are all playing now 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.
Men, music and sports. Films reviewed: The History of Sound, Him, EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is over but the movies keep coming. So this week, I’m looking at three new American movies, two about music and one about sports. There are two men recording folk songs in the forest, an ambitious quarterback at a training camp in the desert, and a former teen idol wowing audiences on a Vegas stage.
The History of Sound
Dir: Oliver Hermanus
It’s the early 20th Century in rural Kentucky. Lionel (Paul Mescal) likes listening to his father sing while he plays the fiddle. Music for him is different from most folks: he has synesthesia. This means each musical note has a distinct colour, flavour and meaning. Eventually his love of music and beautiful voice wins him a full scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music. At a Boston pub one night, he recognizes a song his father used to play, coming from a young man at the piano. David (Josh O’Connor) knows every word. As an ethnomusicologist, he wants to collect as many distinct folk songs and ballads as he can, before they are lost forever. David has perfect pitch and a photographic memory. The two trade songs they know, and somehow, end up in bed together that night. That chance encounter turns into regular trysts at David’s apartment.
Later he invites Lionel to join him in a fieldwork project. They roam across the state of Maine, recording songs everywhere from logging camps to schoolhouses, And they record it all on wax cylinders (this is before flat discs are invented) carefully 
stored in a leather satchel. And each night they sleep together in a tiny tent. Is this true love? And what will happen to their relationship after the project is finished?
The History of Sound is a touching, bittersweet gay romance — before the word gay existed — set within the larger context of war and music. It’s directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) and its based on a short story by Ben Shattuck. I wonder if the characters are modelled on Alan Lomax, the ethnomusicologist who recorded thousands of songs and started the folk music revival in the 1950s. Paul Mescal is spot-on as the sensitive kid in a clapboard shack who grows up to be a cosmopolitan musician; as is Josh O’Connor’s portrayal of an enigmatic musical genius with hidden secrets. The images are as lovely as the music in this tender and moving film.
I really liked it.
Him
Co-Wri/Dir: Justin Tipping
It’s San Antonio, Texas, and their NFL team, the Saviours, is looking for a new quarterback to replace their MVP Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), due to retire in a year. Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) is a young quarterback who lives for football — his father trained him for this since he was a little kid. When he’s offered the position if he agrees to an intense one-on-one, bootcamp with his idol Isaiah White, of course he says yes; this is the fulfillment of all his dream. Thing is, he recently had a serious injury that left him with a bad concussion and a track of staples in his head. If he aggravates his brain, it might end his football career before it starts. But as his father always told him, No Pain, No Gain. Cameron heads out to the training camp in the desert.
There he encounters absolute luxury: gourmet food and priceless art in a spacious brutalist palace. There are saunas and ice baths, and daily blood transfusions for Isaiah. Cameron too tastes this luxury — and sexual temptations — offered by Isaiah’s entourage, especially the grotesquely made-up wife Elsie White (Julia Fox), an influencer who sells her own line of sex toys. Isaiah is the GOAT — the Greatest of All Time — and his virulent fans wear goat horns on their 
heads. Cameron, on the other hand, holds onto silver cross. He’s given a series of Squid-Game-like ordeals he must endure before Isaiah gives him the nod. And as the tasks grow increasingly horrific, his morals are severely challenged. Can he pass the tests? And is he ready to give up his innate morality and embrace pro-sports and all it offers?
Him is a psychological thriller about a young man confronting his hero (who is also his nemesis) even as he uncovers the dark underbelly of pro football. It’s produced by Jordan Peele, so you might expect a suspense/thriller with mind-blowing surprises. If so, you’ll be sorely disappointed. What you’ll get instead is more like a highly-stylized, extended music video than a horror film. There’s lots of dazzle and flash — and an equal amount of blood — but it’s never scary or surprising. And director Tipping uses film techniques like a kid playing with toys. Why are people shown in in infrared X-rays? Why a long fashion shot sequence in what’s supposed to be a scary scene? Why do cowboy-hatted cheerleaders continue dancing in the face of horrific deaths? There are some great visual cues — like the aluminium stitches in his skull evoking the side of a football — but it’s all show, no substance in this cheap morality play.
Him is fun to look at, but there’s nothing there.
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert
Dir: Baz Luhrmann
It’s the 1950s. Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll with a series of hits and the nation goes wild over his thrusting pelvis and his soulful voice. Later, he is drafted into the army where he serves two years. Afterwards he turns to Hollywood where hue churns out a series of hits alongside sex goddesses like Ann-Margaret. And late in the 1960s he signs a multi-year contract to perform before sold-out audiences at a Las Vegas Casino. He’s up there every day, dressed in eggshell blue jumpsuits, covered in silver studs, sequins and spangles, joking with the crowds, and sweating buckets. He is accompanied by a retinue of back up singers, musicians and elaborate lighting. And that is basically how Elvis spends the rest of his life, until he collapses and dies in Graceland, age 42.
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert is a combination documentary and musical performance. Just two years ago, we had both Baz Lurhmann’s biopic Elvis and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, two similar stories told from different points of view, neither of which were particularly good. And now, out of nowhere comes this third one. I’m not an Elvis fan, nor do I like the kitschy
Buzz Luhrmann at EPIC’s world premiere at TIFF50: Photo (c) Jeff Harris
and gaudy films of Baz Luhrmann. Which is why I’m shocked at how much I enjoyed this movie (I saw it on an IMAX screen at TIFF last week, almost by accident.) Ostensibly just a musical record it’s actually a succinct and tight history of the man, so much better than those bloated biopics.
It’s fantastic, a masterpiece of creative editing, colour restoration and music mixing. It’s absolutely stunning. The songs he sings are mainly hits from the 1960s cover-versions of Bridge Over Troubled Water, You’ve lost that Loving Feeling, and even gospel songs. And over the course of a single song, we see him on stage, in rehearsal, or in the recording studio, shot over many years, but without a break in the music. And despite Luhrmann’s gaudy excess, somehow his capture of Elvis in a psychedelic shirt or sparkling gold belt buckles just looks right.
EPIC is the perfect concert film.
Him and The History of Music both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings; EPIC: Elvis Presley In Concert played at TIFF and will be released soon.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Scary creatures. Films reviewed: Jurassic World Rebirth, 40 Acres, Sorry Baby
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Yorgos Lanthimos, who brought us films like The Favourite and Poor Things, didn’t come from nowhere; he’s been directing weird, original movies for two decades. One of his first — and one of my first reviews on this show — is Dogtooth, which still holds a place in my heart. It’s being re-released on the big screen in July, so if you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies about people dealing with scary creatures. There are dinosaurs on the equator, cannibals on the prairies, and a monster in a New England college town.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Dir: Gareth Edwards
It’s present-day New York City, where giant, benign dinosaurs amble through city parks. Bennet (Scarlett Johansson) is a hard-boiled mercenary who dares to go where you’re not supposed to be to steal things you aren’t supposed have. Her latest client? A certain Mr Krebs (Rupert Friend), the sketchy rep of a Big Pharma multinational. And the job? To bring back blood samples from three of the biggest and most dangerous dinosaurs in the world: one from the sea, one from the sky, and one from the ground. The only place these creatures live is around the equator, in areas international law says we can’t go. But Bennet will, along with her longtime collaborator Kinkaid (Mahershala Ali) and their henchmen. Rounding out the pack is Dr Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) a palaeontologist whose dream has always been to see the dinosaurs (whose fossils he studies) alive and in the flesh.
Along the way they rescue a family whose plans — to sail across the Atlantic — are capsized when their boat is attacked by a giant sea monster. They all end up on an island, full of 
hybrid dinosaurs created in labs a generation ago by genetic scientists who abandoned the project when it became too dangerous. But which of them will survive 24 hours among those killer beasts?
Jurassic World: Rebirth is an action adventure, the latest instalment in the ongoing franchise. It’s a cautionary tale of what happens when ambitious scientists bring dinosaurs back to life to build a profitable theme park. Ironically, while the theme parks are gone, the movie feels like a series of carnival rides. First you’re in a speedboat escaping something in the water, then you’re hanging from a cliff, avoiding killer Pterodactyls… Which makes it fun and entertaining, but in an entirely predictable way.
I loved the thrill of the raptors in the first Jurassic Park, but the weird and artificial dino-hybrids in this version look more sad or silly than scary.
40 Acres
Co-Wri/Dir: R.T. Thorne
It’s the near future in rural Canada after an apocalyptic pandemic has left the whole world in ruins, starving for food. Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) lives on the same farm her African-American ancestors moved to after the US Civil War. She’s a hard-ass mom who rules her family like a sergeant (she spent time in the military). Her oldest son, Manny, (Kataem O’Connor) still responds to her questions with only a yes ma’am / no ma’am. Though they live a calm and peaceful life — trading goods with other farmers using shortwave radio and a shared depot — just outside the gate marauders rove around, trying to break into farms and steal their coveted farmland. The Freemans are a blended family, Black and indigenous, with Galen as Dad (Michael Greyeyes) Hailey as Mom, the older kids from previous marriages, and the younger kids born here. They are trained not just how to plant and harvest, but also how to handle heavy artillery, hidden beneath their house. Hailey may operate in a constant state of paranoia, but there are reasons for her extreme caution. If the predators at the gate break through, they won’t just take the farm, they’ll eat the family. Yes, the outsiders are cannibals!
But Manny is growing up, and when he sees a beautiful young
woman (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) swimming in a lake outside the farm, he is stricken with equal parts love and lust. And when she appears at the fence begging for help he sneaks her inside. Can she be trusted? Or is she a cannibal? And could this mean the end of the Freemans?
40 Acres is a post-apocalyptic, science fiction action thriller. It’s gripping, surprising and pretty scary. It presents an unusual point of view, combining an American individualistic, top-down, gun-friendly “get off of my lawn” attitude with a multicultural, work-together Canadian ethos. It’s also a zombie-pocalypse movie, but without the walking dead — it’s humans who do the killing and eating. And in between violent shootouts and fights, the lovely cinematography gives us lots of misty cornfields and lush forests on which to feast our eyes. But the biggest reason to see 40 Acres is Danielle Deadwyler, a dynamic powerhouse in her role as Hailey.
All I can say is: Wow!
Sorry Baby
Wri/Dir Eva Victor
Agnes is an assistant prof in English Lit at a small liberal arts college in New England. She’s lonely, depressed and frightened living in a draughty home with just her cat to keep her company. Well, that and a neighbour who occasionally drops to share her bed (Lucas Hedges). Thankfully, her best friend and former housemate Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is back for a much-needed visit. They lived together as grad students, but while Lydie found work — and a female lover — in New York City, Agnes is trapped in the same college, with same home, same faculty, same courses… she even works out of the same office that used to belong to her thesis advisor. On the surface, she has achieved all the measures of academic success… so why is Agnes so miserable?
Flashback to a few years ago. Even as she is struggling to finish her grad thesis, something very bad happens to her: she is sexually assaulted on campus by someone she knows very well. Though Lydie is supportive, her doctor and the school administration are not. The bad thing is made worse by how messed up she gets afterwards. How can Agnes deal with, accept and overcome her past?
Sorry Baby is a deeply personal coming-of-age story about one woman’s life in the academic world and the dark incident that colours it. Now, I bet you’re thinking: this is an 
important issue, but it sounds like a real drag so I don’t want to watch it. And listening to how I just described it, I understand why you’d think that. But you’d be totally wrong. This is a very funny, sardonic dark comedy, with quirky characters and realistic situations anyone can relate to; the sexual assault is never shown, only talked about. And the film is packed with brilliant scenes: Agnes talking with a snack bar owner, meeting Lydie’s unfriendly partner and their new baby, serving jury duty, her relationship with her sex buddy, and dealing with her fellow student and detestable rival Natasha (wonderfully played by Kelly McCormack). So I really liked watching this movie but was wondering who is this actress I’ve never seen before, sort of a new Aubrey Plaza? But it wasn’t till the final credits rolled that I realized the writer/director is also the lead actress! Eva Victor plays a literary version of herself.
Sorry, Baby is her first film and it’s pretty fantastic.
Jurassic World: Rebirth, 40 Acres and Sorry Baby 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.
Big. Films reviewed: The Ballad of Wallis Island, Freaky Tales, The Friend
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Holiday Creep. People have been complaining about it for decades: Christmas lights appearing in September, chocolate Easter Eggs on sale in January… but have you ever heard of ‘Halfway to Halloween’ ? Well that’s what they’re calling a new series of films streaming on Shudder in April, marking six months since the last creepy holiday. I haven’t seen them yet, but some of these look really 
good. Like the Irish folk-horror FRÉWAKA, and Shadow of God, a Vatican exorcism thriller described as a “cataclysm of biblical proportions”.
But this week I’m looking at three new movies, two dramadies and one found-footage compilation. There are big egos on a remote island, big crime on the streets of Oakland, and a Great Dane in a tiny New York apartment.
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Dir: James Griffiths
Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) is an irritable English musician who has fallen on hard times. He once was half of McGwyer/Mortimer, a folk-rock duo that dominated the charts of the early 2010s. But they broke up when McGwyer went solo, dumping his partner and lover. While still a name, he has lost any credibility he once had. So he agrees to do a private concert before a small crowd on a remote island… for half a million pounds. He is greeted on the stony beach by an enthusiastic ginger-bearded fellow named Charles Heath (Tim Key). Charles likes bad jokes, bulky sweaters and McGwyer/Mortimer. He’s a super fan, and talks non-stop.
McGuire wishes he’d shut up and leave him alone in his hotel room before the concert. What he doesn’t know is, there is no hotel, just Charles’s rustic stone cottage, the small audience will be just Charles… and it’s not a solo performance, but a double bill. Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) his former partner is on her way from Oregon, and the two haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. Will 
McGwyer/Mortimer get back together again? Will the two fall in love again? Or is McGwyer taking the next boat back to the mainland? And where did Charles get all his money?
The Ballad of Wallis Island is a poignant musical- comedy about the big plans of an ordinary fan. It’s done with a faux retro feel, as if the group split up 50 years ago, not 10. Somehow, all of McGwire/Mortimer’s music was released on vintage vinyl, with all their concerts on VHS. And they really do sing: Tom Basden is a actual musician and Carey Mulligan has a lovely voice. Basden wrote the screenplay with the comedic Tom Key, and they’re a hilarious odd couple. But it’s the tender humour of this story that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
I liked this movie a lot.
Freaky Tales
Wri/Dir: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
It’s 1987 in Oakland California, and trouble is brewing. A gang of neo-nazi skinheads is terrorizing punks (Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo), by raiding their home base, 924 Gilman, to ruin a concert and smash up some heads. A debt collector (Pablo Pascal) is sent on his last job, to extort some money from a clandestine poker player. A corrupt kingpin (Ben Mendelssohn) is sponsoring a criminal raid on the home of a celebrated basketball player named Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis). And Danger Zone (Normani, Dominique Thorne), a pair of wannabe rappers who work at an ice cream parlour, find themselves in a rap battle against a noted misogynist. All these events are happening simultaneously to people leaving the celebrated Grand Lake Cinema after a show. But who will triumph at these battles royales — the good guys or the nazis?
Freaky Tales is an entertaining slice of nostalgia from the 1980s, told in the form of four, vaguely-linked chapters. Apparently they’re based on events that actually happened in Oakland in the 1980s. I love the 
look of this movie; it’s littered with 80s colour combos like pale green with lavender. And it liberally plunders images from old films, including The Warriors and David Cronenberg’s Scanners. The soundtrack is terrific, featuring hardcore, metal and hiphop all in one movie. And it’s got big stars like Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelssohn and even a cameo by Tom Hanks. What’s missing though, is a real story, not just a hodgepodge of battles, fights, and massacres. I get it, it’s a tribute to an era and the city of Oakland, but where are the surprises, twists or experimentation? Not here.
Like I said, I enjoyed watching it, but there’s very little going on beneath its comic-book surface.
The Friend
Wri/Dir: Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Iris (Naomi Watts) is a writer and editor who lives in a sunny, rent controlled apartment in New York City. She teaches creative writing at a local college, but isn’t doing much writing herself. Instead she’s editing the work of her best friend Walter (Bill Murray), her mentor, one-time professor and even once a lover. Problem is, Walter’s dead and besides his unfinished manuscripts, he also left behind three former wives and an adult daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon) he barely knew.
Iris is dealing with writers’ block, and pressure from his publisher to finish editing his work (“dead Walter is much hotter than living Walter”). Most of all she’s coping with her unexpressed mourning over Walter’s unexpected death. And then, suddenly, she finds herself in charge of Apollo, an enormous and stately Great Dane. For some reason, Walter had decided that Iris, not any of his three widows, would be the one best suited to handle his other best friend. But Iris doesn’t like animals and doesn’t know how to treat them. And it’s not like Walter left her any instructions. Apollo is petulant and bossy, pushing her out of her bed and lording it over her home. He won’t eat his food, he won’t drink his water. Iris is at loose ends. But just as she starts learning how to co-exist with the dog, she faces a bigger 
dilemma. It would be devastating to the dog to be torn away from his home yet again. But to discretely keep a Great Dane in a pet-free, rent-controlled apartment is insane… and grounds for eviction. IS there anyway she can save them both? And will Iris and Apollo ever come to terms with Walter’s suicide?
The Friend is a touching comedy about friendship, loss and mourning. For Iris, the friend of the title is both Walter and Apollo. It’s based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez, and it’s told using a literary narrative voice. We listen to Iris the writer, as she deconstructs and rewrites parts of the story we’re watching, even as they happen, with input from the dead writer Walter. Sounds stuffy and academic, right? But although it exists in an world of writing and publishing, this film is funny, sad and deeply moving. Naomi Watts carries the show as the introverted but empathetic writer Iris. And the monumental Great Dane is presented with amazing dignity. Apollo is never comical, nor does he talk, but he manages to convey emotions as deep as any of the human characters.
A very touching film.
The Ballad of Wallis Island, Freaky Tales and The Friend 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.
Dangerous jobs? Movies reviewed: Love Hurts, Dark Nuns, Bring Them Down
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Look at Me, a movie from Nova Scotia about an insecure, bisexual actor with an eating disorder, is finally opening in Toronto! In a review about year ago, I called it a “scathing — and humorous — self-examination that exposes Taylor Olsen’s innermost thoughts and fears.” Check it out.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies (two by first-time directors) from around the world. They’re all about people who work at peaceful and innocuous jobs who encounter danger and even death. There’s a Catholic nun in South Korea, a real estate agent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a sheep farmer in rural Ireland.
Dark Nuns
Dir: Hyeok-jae Kwon
Somewhere in Korea, a teenaged boy named Hae-Jun (Moon Woo-jin) is suffering from a serious illness. The doctors are baffled by his condition; nothing they try is working. But Sister Giunia (Song Hye-kyo) a Catholic nun, identifies the problem immediately: the boy is possessed. You see, Sister Giunia is a Dark Nun, a woman born with indigenous shamanistic powers. She can hear what demons say. And this boy needs a full-blown exorcism. But she can’t do it alone.
She turns to Sister Michela (Jeon Yeo-been), a much younger nun, for help. A Dark Nun like herself, Michela is adept at reading tarot cards,
and can use her powers to see vision, and manifestations of evil. But she is a nun now, and a nurse. She said goodbye to all that mumbo-jumbo years ago, and, besides it’s expressly forbidden by the Church — especially Father Paolo (Lee Jin-wook). He may be a scholar of exorcism, but he doesn’t believe in it. But Giunia is convinced the boy will die unless they intervene. Can she get sister Michela to come aboard? Will the church ever let them do it? And can two nuns and a stammering shaman defeat Satan himself?
Dark Nuns is a pretty typical exorcism/horror movie but with a twist: It incorporates Buddhism and Shamanism within a Catholic ritual. There are a lot of quirks in this movie. Like why do all the Korean priests and nuns have Italian names, like Paolo, and Michela? Are they Ninja Turtles? And the exorcism seemed way off: heavy on the holy water — she pours gallon after gallon of it on the kid! — but awfully light on bibles, crosses or rosary beads. Then there’s the biggest problem of all: it’s a horror movie, but it just isn’t scary. What’s good about this movie? I like the way it compares Korean patriarchal neo-Confucianism with a Catholic Church keeping women out of positions of power. I’m intrigued by the culture-clash of Christianity meets Shamanism. But if you’re looking for a Korean horror movie about shamans and possession, you should watch last year’s Exhuma, instead.
Love Hurts
Dir: Jonathan Eusebio
It’s Valentine’s Day in the suburbs of Milwaukee, and Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is busy baking heart-shaped cookies. No, he’s not in love or in a relationship; all his efforts are focussed on his career as a real estate agent. And he considers all his clients as his friends. But everything changes when a valentine’s day letter appears on his desk. Rose (Ariana DeBose) is back in town. You see, before he went straight, he used to be a killer employed by his older brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) who is a powerful local gangster. And killing Rose was his last job. The thing is, he didn’t kill her and now everyone wants to have a word to Marvin Gable. There’s the poet-assassin Raven (Mustafa Shakir) along with a slew of other killers, with weird names like King, Otis Merlo and Kippy. Can he dodge the bullets and kill the killers, without harming all the clients trying to buy his houses? Or will he be dragged back into a dark world he thought he had left far behind?
Love Hurts is an action movie about people trying to kill each other. Despite the extreme violence it’s told a light and somewhat humorous manner. Unfortunately, it’s also tedious and predictable. The dialogue is dumb, the plot is basically non-existent. (There is also a rom-com sub-plot, with various characters falling in love with their respective crushes, but that seems like an afterthought more than part of the story.) So what’s good about it? Two things. Jonathan Eusebio is 
obviously a first-time director, but what he is not new at is fight scenes. He’s a highly experienced fight choreographer, and luckily most of the movie consists of creative takes on people throwing knives and kicks as they destroy the interiors of houses and video stores. This I like. First time I’ve ever witnessed a killing using a bubble tea straw. And the cast is appealing too. It’s nice to see Ke Huy Quan back again after his big comeback in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. He’s funny! So are Ariana DeBose, Lio Tipton, Sean Astin and Drew Scott… the whole crew.
Is this a good movie? Not really, but it’s very light, easy to watch, and the fight scenes are well-done.
Bring Them Down
Wri/Dir: Chris Andrews
It’s rural Ireland in the present day. Michael (Christopher Abbott) runs a one-man sheep farm, where prize-winning rams graze on rocky hillsides. His abusive dad Ray (Colm Meaney) sits in the kitchen all day shouting angry epithets in Irish at Michael about all the things he’s doing wrong. In the next sheep farm over, young Jack Keeley (Barry Keoghan) does much the same as Michael but not very well. His dad Gary (Paul Ready) — who is Michael’s age — tries to keep things going but the farm is bleeding money. Gary is married to Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), Michael’s ex, and Jack can see his parents are not getting along. Michael hasn’t seen her for 20 years, ever since a car accident killed his mother and sent Caroline to hospital with serious injuries (The accident was Michael’s fault).
But their relatively bucolic lives are interrupted when two rams disappear from Michael’s flock. And there’s only one place they can go — to the Keeley farm just over the hill. But Jack claims they both suddenly died and he threw their bodies into a pit…a very unlikely story. This signals the start of a feud between the two families, involving simmering grudges, sheep poachers, and organized crime. Can their conflicts ever be resolved? Or are both farms headed for 
ruin, violence and possibly even death?
Bring Them Down is a violent, suspenseful drama about escalating grudges between two houses. It’s done in that chop-up style popular among some European arthouse directors where the narrative is not told chronologically. Your perception of “who is to blame for what” gradually shifts as new scenes fill in the blanks. I liked the acting and the dialogue — half of which is in Irish — and it has a compelling plot. The settings are just beautiful, with wide panoramic views of hillsides at dusk and dawn, and images like Michael carrying a lame sheep draped over his shoulders. There are also some strikingly original tableaux like the sheep at an auction house. This is a good first film — it reminds me of Frozen River and Winter’s Bone, all serious looks at crime in rural settings. But why are all these movies about brooding Irish men so depressing? What miserable lives these people seem to lead! If there were a bit of humour or love, Bring them Down would have been a lot easier to take.
But it’s still a good movie, anyway.
Dark Nuns, Love Hurts, and Bring them Down are all 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.
Wolf men and assassins. Films reviewed: Wolf Man, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It may be cold outside, but things are burning up on the big screen. This week I’m looking a two new movies, a thriller horror and a documentary. There are wolf men in Oregon, and assassins in Congo.
Wolf Man
Co-Wri/Dir: Leigh Whannell
It’s present-day San Francisco. Blake (Christopher Abbot) is a lapsed writer who devotes his life to his wife and daughter. Charlotte (Julia Garner) is a careerist who is rarely at home, so Blake takes on the parenting role. He spends all his time with their precocious 10-year-old daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). But he and Charlotte are constantly bickering about her absentee-mom-ism. So when a package arrives with his late father’s will and a set of keys, he wonders if this is the miracle they need to keep thew family together. He has inherited — a house, a barn, and countless acres of lush green forest — the beautiful country he grew up in. Blake suggests the three of them go on a road trip together for some quality time. Young Blake was raised in isolation by a hard-ass survivalist who was strict and demanding toward his motherless son. That’s why Blake is so indulgent towards Ginger, who still dresses like a Disney princess at age 10.
So off they head for his isolated cabin in remote Oregon. But
what Blake seems to have forgotten is there are wolves in them thar hills! Big bad wolves, mean ugly wolves, the kind who stand on two feet and like wolfing down people like them. Sure enough, as they approach their farm one of them woolfies drives their u-haul off the road… and they’re forced to run for their lives. Luckily the house is still wolf-proof, with iron bars on all the windows. Unluckily, Blake gets himself slashed by the Wolf Man, and he’s changing into something different. Can he keep his vulpine urges in check and protect his family from harm? Or will he be the biggest danger to them of all?
Wolf Man is a cabin-in-the-woods werewolf movie with a few new twist. In this version, people don’t turn into wolves on a full moon and then change back again; they’re in it for the long haul. And these werewolves aren’t sleek, or sexy or furry, never mind cute or loveable. They’re more like zombies infected with a horrible virus that makes their teeth and hair fall out and their skin go bumpy and gross. These werewolves want to eat flesh and blood, preferably human. Once infected, they can no longer speak or understand people.
There’s no sex in this movie, not even a kiss, it’s totally sterile. In this neck of the woods everyone’s a guy, with literally no women at all. And every man could be a wolf man. Women and girls are urban sophisticates, while men and boys are potential redneck killers. Christopher Abbot plays Blake as a male Oprah mom who is inevitably drawn back to the dangerous manliness he grew up with. Julia Garner’s Charlotte is a less developed character, just an aloof woman forced to either scream and run or fight back.
But not enough to save a story that doesn’t quite cut it.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Co-Wri/Dir: Johan Grimonprez
It’s June 30, 1960, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is reborn as a free, democratic state, after nearly a century of brutal colonial rule under the King of Belgium. Leopold II is notorious for chopping off the hands of men, women and children who didn’t produce their quota of rubber. Congo (under the Union Minière) is a very rich country full of diamonds, copper, tin, and uranium, extracted and shipped to Europe and the US. Its rubber and copper were crucial to winning the world wars and their uranium fuelled the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Its first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, gives a speech on independence day, celebrating the transfer of power from their previous colonial rulers. He rightly condemns the colonial atrocities and speaks out in favour of the non-aligned movement (former colonies in Europe and Asia). While his speech is well-received locally, Europeans — including the Belgian 
royal family — are shocked and aghast. Will they lose control of the Union Minière, and will the US give up its uranium source? Not a chance. They accuse Lumumba of being a communist, despite his stressing independence and nationalism. So they declare Katanga, an area rich in minerals, as independent from the DRC. The seceded state is essentially ruled by white Europeans and Rhodesian mercenary police and a military that operates with impunity, kidnapping miners and bombing uncooperative villages.
The US (especially the CIA), fearing the so-called communist Lumumba, launch a two-pronged campaign: a covert one, involving assassinations, bombings, kidnappings and regime change; and a diplomatic one, where famous American jazz musicians are flown to independent African states to perform as ambassadors of Jazz. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone and Max Roach, have no idea they ware working 
for a CIA front. By January, 1961, the wildly popular Lumumba is dead, assassinated in Katanga with Belgian and American complicity.
Soundtrack of a Coup d’Etat is a fantastic documentary that retells the events of those six months. The doc is 2 1/2 hours long, so I can only give you the briefest outline of what it’s about. But the film itself is amazing, covering everything from pan-African nationalism and the Cold War, to non-aligned nations, colonialism, and the UN. We hear Malcolm X in Harlem, Andrée Blouin on women’s rights in Africa, Castro in NY, and Nikita Khrushchev’s famous shoe speech (where apparently he didn’t actually say what they said he said) in the general assembly. It’s filled with compelling imagery: Alan Dulles the head of the CIA smoking his pipe; a North Rhodesian mercenary recounting the tens of thousands of people they killed with impunity; the Soviets crushing Hungary, and Voice of America broadcasts. There are hilarious propaganda newsreels like the US parachuting record players and vinyl discs across the iron curtain. And through it all, jazz music from America to Africa.
The film is made of excerpts from previously-made audio
documentaries combined with non-stop black and white footage and stills. Most cuts are only about 2-3 seconds, giving the whole film the feeling of a glorious collage of African history. (It’s similar to the films of Adam Curtis, but without his spoken narration.) Many of the subtitles are large fonts superimposed on photos in blues, yellows and pinks, like the cover of a Blue Note jazz album.
A crucial historical document and a work of art, Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is a must-see.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and Wolf Man both 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.
Blockbusters. Movies reviewed: Gladiator II, Wicked, PLUS Scared Sh*tless at #BITS
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
What’s a blockbuster? Apparently they were named after the American bombs in WWII that were so powerful they could flatten a city block. And as winter holidays approach, the big studios are releasing potential blockbusters; real movies not just Disney, Marvel and Star Wars drivel. Two new movies, Wicked and Gladiator II, open this weekend perhaps in an attempt to duplicate the way Barbie and Oppenheimer drew crowds into theatres. If they’re both hits, I wonder what people will call them? Wick-iator? Gladwick? Who knows? (Since recording, “Glicked” has become the word of choice.) This week I’m looking at those two big-budget Hollywood films: swords and sandals in ancient Rome and songs and dances in the land of Oz. But before that, for something completely different, a low-budget horror comedy about Toronto toilets.
Scared Shitless
Dir: Vivieno Caldinelli
Sonny (Daniel Doheny) is a depressed college drop out. Since his mom died of an unspecified infection, he’s suffered from a pathological fear of germs. He relentlessly washes his hands after touching almost anything and is always armed with small plastic bottles of Pepto-Bismol to keep himself from being sick. He lives with his dad, Don Donahue (Steven Ogg), the owner and sole employee of Donahue plumbing. Unlike Sonny, Don has no qualms about getting his hands dirty — it’s part of his job. So he decides to take a leap, and bring his germaphobic, OCD son with him on his next assignment. Maybe the shock of plumbing will pull him out of his stupor.
Luckily, it’s an easy one. Old Mrs Applebaum (Marcia Bennett) 
calls him almost weekly to help with a dripping faucet or a backed up toilet. “I think she just likes the company” he says. Sonny gets the dry heaves from look at a toilet, never mind touching one. But he agrees to do it. Meanwhile, all is not well at the Palmer Estates, that low-rise 1960s apartment building with questionable plumbing. Turns out, one of the tenants is a mad scientist who has created an apocalyptic monster, which is living within the building’s pipes. (The biologist is played by Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney channelling Captain Kangaroo). The beast is shaped like a giant fleshy tadpole, but with four lethal appendages dangling out of its razor sharp gullet, big enough to bite off your head or your nether regions.
And when blood starts appearing in the toilets, Sonny realizes this is bigger than he thought. He turns to the building’s superintendent to call 911. But Patricia, the super, (Chelsea Clark) who coincidentally was Sonny’s classmate at university, refuses to call. The building belongs to her parents, and she doesn’t like any 
bad PR. So the two of them — and his Dad — bravely set off to find the trouble before it gets any worse. But are they two late?
Scared Shitless is a crude and funny comedy/horror movie about a monster who lives in your toilet. Since it takes place in an apartment, you get to meet all sorts of weird and kinky characters, like an elderly couple into S&M role play. I think it’s trying more for the funny than the scary, and that’s fine with me. It’s also very much a Toronto movie, with both the main actors and the supporting ones — including perennial horror favourite Julian Richings — are recognizable as locals. Ogg, Doheney and Clark are all fun in their roles, as is the monster, known as Project X. It’s the creation of the legendary Steven Kostanski who previously brought us Manborg and Psycho Goreman. So if you’re the kind of person who keeps copies of Fangoria hidden under your bed, you will love Scared Shitless.
Paul Mescal plays Lucius in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.
Gladiator II
Dir: Ridley Scott
It’s the early 200s in ancient Rome. Lucius (Paul Mescal) is a gladiator preparing for a fight in the coliseum. But he’s not there for the coins he might win or the chance of buying his freedom in the future. He wants revenge and he wants it now. He’s a slave, captured after a battle in Numidia where his wife was killed. And he blames Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), a much-admired general. Lucius was discovered by entrepreneur and kingmaker Macrinus (Denzel Washington) who thought he noticed rage in Lucius face — just what a great fighter needs. But others are interested in Lucius too. The crowds cheer for him, the Senators scheme for him, and the two emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and his brother Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) have ideas of their own. But it’s Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) — a major character in the first Gladiator movie — who has personal reasons for him to stay alive. Who is Lucius? Why is he so important? And will he get the revenge he seeks?
Denzel Washington plays Macrinus in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.
Gladiator is an epic action drama set within a decadent ancient Rome, complete with senators, citizens plebes, gladiators, slaves and the Pretorian Guard. I have a low bar when it comes to action movies; as long as they have good fights and chase scenes, it’s acceptable. This one has so much more: a compelling plot with unexpected twists, great characters and excellent acting. Paul Mescal plays the driven gladiator as a classic hero on a quest. Denzel Washington is nicely
Pedro Pascal plays General Acacius in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.
slippery, and Pedro Pascal is truly majestic as the military hero. The cast is rounded out by Derek Jacobi — who brought ancient Rome to a generation as I,Claudius — and Little Britain’s Matt Lucas as the MC. There are even quotes from Virgil in the dialogue — not your usual action movie fare. Gladiator II is not perfect. There was no romance or love aside from filial piety. I thought the CGI animals — especially a vicious troupe of man-eating monkeys — was ridiculously fake. And though it harkens back to the sword and sandal flics of the 50s and 60s, Gladiator is no Spartacus, and Ridley Scott ain’t Stanley Kubrick. But Scott still knows how to craft a totally watchable, old-skool Hollywood drama like almost nobody else.
What can I say? I had a great time watching Gladiator II.
Wicked
Dir: Jon M. Chu
It’s the land of Oz. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is a new student at Shiz, an exclusive boarding school like Hogwarts but without much magic. Her Dad — the governor of Munchkinland — sent her there to take care of Nessarose, her beloved little sister. Elphaba doesn’t get along with her roommate, the most popular girl in school. Glinda (Ariana Grande) is everything Elphaba is not. She’s a rich, frivolous, self-centred airhead, who cares more about fashion than thinking. She wears pink frocks, and tosses her blond tresses from side to side, to get whatever she wants. Elphaba is smart, diligent and pure-hearted. She dresses only in black, so as not to draw attention to herself. Why then is Glinda adored and envied, while Elphaba is mocked and feared?
It’s because of her skin colour; as Kermit the Frog said, it’s not easy being green.
But one person does like her: Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). She believes Elphaba possesses magical powers she just needs to keep them under control. If she does, perhaps the kind and benevolent Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) may even allow her to visit him in the Emerald City. When Glinda hears this, she decides it’s time to kiss and make up. .. and maybe she’ll get to learn some magic, too?
But their relationship is complicated. Glinda is dating a dashing young prince (Jonathan Bailey) who seems more intrigued by the green-faced and moody Elphaba than by her. And Dr. Dillamond, their history teacher, is a goat. Animals once were equal to humans, but not any more. While Glinda is indifferent to their plight, Elphaba thinks the animals must be respected and 
protected. With all these ideas whirling around Elphaba’s head, what will happen next? Is Glinda her friend or her rival? And will she ever get to meet the Wizard of Oz?
Wicked is a spectacular musical about the origin of a misunderstood young girl who later becomes known as the wicked witch of the West. It’s a whopping 2:45 long, but you wouldn’t know it; it whizzes by at a very fast pace. Even so, it’s only part one of a two-part saga. It’s based on a broadway musical, which was adapted from the novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire , which in turn was a riff on the movie The Wizard of Oz and the L Frank Baum books. Apparently, the musical was a huge hit and has a fanatical following — at my screening there were people in at my screening loudly applauding after every great solo. And I bet they also liked a scene where Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel — who starred in the original stage production — sing a duet, sort of a play within a play.
But I went in an absolute beginner, knowing nothing about it. Didn’t matter.
Wicked is an excellent movie. It’s all shot on a set, but is cinematic, not theatrical. There’s seamless editing, great acting, and impressive art direction. Dozens of professional dancers twist and leap across the stage. Cynthia Erivo is a powerful singer whose Elphaba is nicely empathetic. We can feel her. She’s amazing. Ariana Grande may be a pop star but she shows genuine talent here: a skilled actor with a beautiful voice.
I am not a devotee of Broadway musicals, but I really enjoyed Wicked.
Wicked and Gladiator II open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Scared Shitless is playing tonight (November 23) at 9:30 pm, as part of B.I.T.S. Canadian horror festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Assorted monsters. Films reviewed: The Apprentice, Piece by Piece, Don’t F**k with Ghosts
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s fall film festival season is in full swing with Planet in Focus, celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. It’s running from Tuesday through Sunday next week, with international features and shorts on climate change, activism, environmentalism and indigenous issues. And on Friday, October 18, there’s a free screening at Hot Docs of We Will Be Brave, about Good Guise, a Toronto collective that sparks conversations around healthy masculinity through art. That’s part of the For Viola series honouring Viola Desmond.
But this is also October, when ghouls and ghosties flock to our screens. So this week, I’m talking about three new movies about various types of monsters. There’s a monstrously popular music producer from Virginia Beach; a notorious real estate developer trained by a monster in New York; and two guys searching for ghosts in Winnipeg.
The Apprentice
Dir: Ali Abassi (Review: Border)
It’s the mid 1970s, and New York is a wreck, with soaring crime, homelessness and bankruptcy. When the Mayor asks the feds for help, Gerald Ford tells them to “drop dead”. Into the world emerges an ambitious young developer. Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) was born rich, but cowers under his oppressive father’s rule. Fred Trump (Martin Donovan) a real estate developer from Queens, made his fortune building segregated public housing. Donald is stuck at crap jobs, collecting rent and evicting destitute tenants. But he has big ideas. His plan? To buy the venerable Commodore, an old hotel with 2000 rooms on 42nd street a hotbed of porn palaces and drug dealers. But how can he raise the money with his dad being sued by the feds for his racist rental practices? Donald has an idea. He joins an exclusive club with the hopes of meeting a certain lawyer he thinks can solve all his problems. The lawyer is Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) a notorious rightwing attorney with ties to organized crime. Cohn played a central role in the 
McCarthy Hearings, and still brags about executing the Rosenbergs. He agrees to take on Donald as his protege, and teaches him his three crucial rules: Attack, attack, attack (whether lawsuits, blackmail or intimidation) Deny everything , and always declare victory, even when you lose. (See: 2020 election). The club is also where he meets the beautiful and brash Ivana (Maria Bakalova), whom he is destined to marry. She will instill in him a love of garish, nouveau-riche interiors. The film follows these three people’s intertwined lives through the 70s and 80s until Cohn’s death.
The Apprentice (absolutely no connection to Trump’s much later reality show) is a very dark biopic about the origin of Trump’s bizarre motivations and strategies. Sebastian Stan gives an excellent portrayal of Trump; he’s actually sympathetic for his earnestness and naivety in the beginning, but who spirals into something deeply disturbing by the end. This is not an SNL parody, it’s a realistically developed character. Likewise, Strong plays Roy Cohn as a dead-eyed, sybaritic bully, hosting gay orgies, even while publicly denying his sexuality to the end. He doesn’t look like Roy Cohn, but he sure does act like him. With a great selection of 70s and 80s pop songs throughout the film, and the grotesque golden opulence of Trump’s homes captured on grainy colour film of the era, The Apprentice is a funny and disturbing biopic.
Piece by Piece
Co-Wri/Dir: Morgan Neville (Review: Best of Enemies)
Pharrell Williams is a highly successful music producer, musician, singer, composer and fashion designer. His work spans the genres from hiphop, to pop music and electronica. But his life hasn’t always been that way. He grows up in a working-class housing area in Virginia Beach, Va. and starts drumming at an early age using kitchen utensils. He’s into Star Trek, Stevie Wonder and Greek Gods (his apartment is actually named Atlantis!) He soon forms a band with his schoolmates, and later, starts working at a nearby recording studio, learning the ins and outs of music producing.
He soon rises in popularity, both for his own work, and that of the stars he works with, a who’s who of hip hop and pop. He has a succession of hits with Kendrick Lamar, Snoopdog, Timbaland, and Jay-Z, then branches out to include pop stars like Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Robin Thicke, and Daft Punk, all producing worldwide hits. They come to him for the tracks he creates and samples, as well as a certain je ne sais quoi he adds to their music. But how long will his popularity last?
Piece by Piece is a documentary about the life and career of Pharrell Williams. It’s narrated by Pharrell himself, in an interview with the director, as well as talking heads of most of the stars he’s worked with. What’s unusual about this doc is it’s all done using LEGO animation. Instead of the actual people, you see LEGO people who waddle when they walk and have basic faces 
painted onto cylindrical plastic heads. But does it work? I’m of mixed feelings. I was expecting a LEGO movie — fast moving, constant jokes, mind-blowing psychedelic animation — featuring Pharrell, but what I got was an interview with Pharrell using the style of LEGO. (Picture the movie Barbie, but without people just Barbie and Ken dolls) There are some cool creative parts. I love the animation of waves on the beach, the re-creation of video clips, and a cool conceit running through the story — Pharrell’s magic musical touch symbolized by glowing geometric shapes that he puts together for that perfect beat. And I loved the constant music. But in general the images and interviews were more or less the same as any music doc venerating its star— largely unremarkable. A LEGO recording studio is still just a recording studio. And those LEGO people are just irritating. This movie is OK, but I was not blown away.
Don’t F**k with Ghosts
Co-Wri/Dir: Stuart Stone
Stu and Adam (Stuart Stone and Adam Rodness, who co-wrote the script) are a pair of Toronto filmmakers pitching their latest project — Bigfoot! But their financiers have another idea in mind: put together a film proving the existence of ghosts, and it’s sure to be a hit. But, just in case, they take their contract to a ginger- bearded entertainment lawyer (Josh Cruddas) for help. He warns them to find some real ghosts or else they won’t get paid. So they head off to Winnipeg “the Murder Capital of Canada”. And to help them find the spooks, they enlist a series of experts to help them in their quest. It seems Winnipeg is also the capital of supernatural hustlers: ouija board specialists, psychics, aura readers, fortune tellers, magicians, clowns… even a “ghost sherpa” (Tony Nappo), who takes them on a strange journey involving smoking jackets, psilocybin and a 
jacuzzi. They finally locate a house where some grizzly murders once took place. But will they ever find any real ghosts?
Don’t F**k with Ghosts is a low-budget, semi-supernatural Canadian comedy, done in the form of a reality show. So there’s the usual bickering between the two main characters (who also happen to be in-laws), hot mic “gotcha” scenes, and various other embarrassments “accidentally” caught on camera. And no spoilers, but I will say there are some unexpectedly well-done special effects toward the end.
Is Don’t F**k with Ghosts scary? No, not a bit. But is it funny? Well, not too bad…
The Apprentice, Piece by Piece, and Don’t F**K with Ghosts 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.
Through the grapevine. Films reviewed: Twisters, Widow Clicquot
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Is your headspace being dominated by thoughts of politics and elections? If so, you need some distractions! I’ve got just the thing for a hot day like today. This week, I’m looking at two new summer movies — an historical drama and a disaster-thriller — both about strong women. There’s a widow who risks the wrath of grapes, and a meteorologist who throws caution to the wind.
Twisters
Dir: Lee Isaac Chung (Review: Minari)
Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a meteorologist. Not the weatherman who writes numbers on a green screen on your local TV news; she’s the real thing, with an important job at a government bureau in New York City. So what is she doing in Oklahoma? The state is facing an unusual number of major tornadoes all at once. She was invited down there by Javi (Anthony Ramos), an old classmate and study-buddy who worked with her on her experiment involving using polymers to stop tornadoes. But the experiment went wrong, killing the rest of their team, thus taking away any desire she once had to chase tornadoes. And yet here she is back in Oklahoma. She’s lending a hand to Javi’s corporate sponsors, who supply shiny white SUVs in exchange for some crucial tornado info.
But she faces severe competition. The place is swarming with 
adventure seekers, journalists and tourists. Tyler (Glenn Powell) is a cowboy huckster — a self-described “Tornado Wrangler” — who sells T-shirts and coffee mugs with his own grinning face on them. He’s a “chaser”, someone who seeks out tornadoes and gets as close to them as he can without being sucked away. His gimmick is to shoot fireworks up into tornadoes as they pass by. Looks great on YouTube… He drives a souped-up red jeep, and speeds ahead of Javi’s white vans. But Kate is in a league all her own. She can look at a dandelion and predict, with amazing accuracy, which way the next tornado is coming. And Tyler starts to take note. Who should Kate side with — serious Javi, or aw-shucks Tyler? And will any of them survive the big storm on the horizon?
Twisters is a thriller disaster movie about… well, tornadoes and the people who chase them. That’s most of the movie. It’s kind of a sequel to the movie Twister (1996) but shares none of the same characters, actors, or plot lines, except that they’re both about tornado chasers. There’s definite electricity between Kate and Tyler — Glenn Powell is brimming with charisma, and the appealing Englishwoman Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a credible American (though not much off an Oklahoman) — but those sparks never catch fire. If you’re expecting love, lust or sex, you chose the wrong movie. There’s not even a single kiss here. What you do get is amazing special effects: collapsing water towers, exploding oil refineries, roofs torn off buildings, streetcars running off their tracks…and lots sandlots of people holding onto something solid to avoid being swept away. I don’t know about you, but I really like disaster movies. Who needs a plot when you get to watch the world collapse?
Widow Clicquot
Dir: Thomas Napper
It’s the early 1800s in Napoleonic France. Madame Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot (Haley Bennet) is a wealthy aristocrat from Champagne. In her early twenties she is married off to the equally rich François Clicquot (Tom Sturridge) who inherited vast vineyards. Although she dislikes him at first — he is somewhere between eccentric and crazy — she grows to love his childlike, playful exuberance. The guy has tousled hair and wears diaphanous pirate shirts, while Madame dresses in breezy white blouses. Soon he has her singing to grape vines, too. When she’s not in the vineyards, she’s in her laboratory studying wine sediment in beakers and test tubes. But eventually his eccentricity turns erratic, sometimes slipping into accidental violence. Madame sends their daughter off to the Abbee, but by their 6th year together, he is dead.
Now she’s a widow, and heir to the estate, but the trustees have never heard of a woman vintner. They offer her a fair settlement and tell her to take the money and run. Never!, cries widow Clicquot. These vines, this terroir it’s Francois’ soul! And she feels personally attached to it, too. But everything goes wrong. They buy cheap glass bottles which explode. And selling wine across borders is a no-no during the Napoleonic wars. She turns to Louis (Sam Riley) a wine salesman, for help. She needs to get her latest concoction — a dry pink wine with tiny bubbles — to the market. It’s the only thing that can save her grapes and the chateau she lives in. But will her new type of wine ever catch on?
Widow Clicquot is a historical drama filled with the expected 
stories: passionately swooning lovers, double-crossing colleagues, floppy hair and costumes and verdant green valleys. It’s also about a rich woman who dares to fights the system. Not all that much happens in this movie which makes it drag in the middle. Tom Sturridge is ridiculous as the flakey husband, Haley Bennet is better though still stiff, as Madame, and Sam Riley as the travelling salesman is the best of those three. I was dreading a total corporate kiss-ass for the famous champagne maker, but it wasn’t that way at all. It’s based on a book that portrays her as a determined woman, despite her flaws, so two points for that. It’s not a spoiler that she is the famous Veuve Clicquot who basically invented modern champagne. And I liked the historical aspects.
Widow Clicquot is not a great movie, but lubricate yourself with enough flutes of Veuve and you won’t really care.
Widow Clicquot and Twisters both 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.
culturalmining.com 
leave a comment