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Physiotherapists are trained health professionals who maximise your movement potential and physical function.
Here at Hoys Allied Health + Wellness, we have eight fully-qualified and friendly Physiotherapists, with decades of experience, ready to assist you. Whether it's back or neck pain, a hamstring strain, broken bone or a stiff and sore knee, our therapists can tailor a treatment session to restore you to optimal health; and get you back to living life to the fullest sooner.
Our team of Physios will develop effective and thorough treatment plans aimed at meeting your physical needs and goals. Trained to treat a wide range of conditions including: cardiopulmonary, geriatric, neurological, musculoskeletal and paediatric; you can be assured, you're in the best care with Hoys Allied Health + Wellness.
With three convenient locations: Coffs Harbour, Sawtell and Toormina, you can easily get an appointment to suit you, without the need for a referral for private patients.
Sports Injuries
Sporting injuries are unfortunately an all too common part of many sports people's lives. Here at Hoys Allied Health + Wellness we are just as determined as you are in getting you back on the sports field, or back running, as fast as possible.
Getting fast, effective treatment to even the smallest and most trivial injuries can mean the difference between one week and one year on the sideline. So, don't take your chances. Come and get a qualified Physiotherapist to assess you and provide you with the best treatment plan for your injuries and put you on the road to recovery.
Hoys Allied Health +Wellness is closely associated with many of the local sporting clubs from Rugby League to Rugby Union to AFL to Soccer to Hockey to Basketball to Netball and other sports. Not only do we provide valuable sponsorship partnerships to some of these clubs, but we are also approved to treat players under sports insurance claims.
Post Fracture Rehabilitation
Broken bones, or fractures, are serious injuries that can leave an individual with a serious loss in function. Depending on the type and location of the fracture, the individual may require surgery to restore normal bone alignment, a cast to allow the bone to heal or a simple sling to support the injured limb.
No matter what the initial treatment, a proper rehabilitation program following a fracture is imperative.
Our physiotherapists are qualified at both applying and removing plasters, as well as post-fracture rehabilitation to restore pre-injury function as fast as possible.
Neck and Back Injuries
Research has demonstrated that approximately 80% of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives.
If treated promptly and appropriately, most individuals will find relief from symptoms within several weeks. However, if left untreated, the condition can sometimes worsen and not settle for months or even years. Furthermore, recurrence rates following an initial episode of back pain are as high as 50% within the first 12 months.
Given this alarming information, suitable and speedy treatment of all back pain is extremely important. Our Physiotherapists are highly qualified in treating both acute and chronic back and neck pain and injuries. Every patient who presents with back pain displays different symptoms, therefore the treatment provided is very patient specific and isn't a case of one size fits all. Fast and appropriate treatment from the minor to the most severe cases of back pain is essential. You can be assured that our team of highly-qualified Physiotherapists will develop an individualised plan to reduce pain and improve recovery, getting you back to living your life to the fullest.
Post Surgical Rehabilitation
A suitable rehabilitation program for patients who have undergone a surgical procedure is essential to ensure a return to full pain-free function.
Hoys Allied Health + Wellness team have close ties with many of the orthopaedic and general surgeons located both in Coffs Harbour and greater NSW. With the ever-improving advancements in surgical techniques and procedures, patients are now returning to normal activities at a much faster rate, which is great news.
To ensure a smooth transition after surgery, our Physiotherapists can provide you with the necessary treatment and devise the most effective rehabilitation program to meet your needs and goals, to get you back to your normal lifestyle sooner. No referral is needed for private patients either.
Custom Orthotics
Experiencing neck, back, knee or foot pain? Did you know the key to your pain could be right under your toes?
Correct foot alignment and biomechanics are vital in ensuring optimal joint and body position. Having just a small fault in the function of your feet can have massive consequences on the joints further up the body. Considering this information, it makes sense that identifying and correcting any foot abnormalities is very important for injuring management.
Here at Hoys Allied Health + Wellness we use the most technologically advanced gait analysis system currently available. The Gaitscan™ analysis system is a revolutionary diagnostic tool used for assessing foot biomechanics. With just a few simple steps over the sensor plate, a comprehensive assessment of your foot mechanics can be performed. With this data, our physiotherapists, along with professional orthotic designers, can create the ideal orthotic for you. No referrals are required for private patients either. So, what are you waiting for?


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How to run frugal yet successful business
An overview of a couple of measures business owners and managers can adopt to make their enterprise more frugal
The main reason why individuals come together to form a business is the notion that they can earn more by working together rather than alone. Pooling resources are one of the means through which more work can be done, and reducing costs is the other. In this sense, frugality is the cornerstone of any business endeavor. Therefore, every successful company is by definition a frugal one as well. Does this mean that becoming frugal is an automatic process? Not in the slightest.
Just as earning a profit requires a measure of skill and effort, so does reducing costs. However, just as there is no surefire way to earn money in general, there isn't one to save money either. There is just a percentage of individual strategies which tend to work well in particular circumstances. The only foolproof way to make your business frugal and profitable is by experimenting with different productivity-increasing and cost-saving measures until you find a combination that works well for you. This process is difficult at first, especially for businesses that are just starting out, but it is the only way for a company to succeed in the long run. To make this task easier, we will now give an overview of a couple of measures business owners and managers can adopt to make their enterprise more frugal.
Plan Ahead
The first and indispensable step of running a frugal company is having a plan. Managing and lowering costs requires knowing what those costs are and to know this, you must write down a detailed business plan. At a bare minimum, the document needs to include an executive summary, product or service description, the intended market, an outline of the revenue model, financial overview, and marketing strategy. Based on this information, measures can subsequently be made to cut costs where it seems most appropriate. These measures themselves should then be included in the plan as well, in order to gauge their efficiency after a certain period of time. A business plan is not something written in stone. It has to reflect the current state of the business at any given time. If the prospect of constantly rewriting your plan seems daunting, consulting with professionals on how to do it quickly and efficiently go a long way. For example, if your business is based in Australia, hiring an expert team of Sydney accountants can make formulating a business plan much more convenient.
Save On Office Furnishing
A more humble measure of ensuring business frugality is having the appropriate office space. Sometimes you need a 12-story building to house all employees and equipment, sometimes you need a single room. Finding out which one works for your business is essential for cutting down on costs. Next comes equipment. Solid wood desks and leather chairs can make the working experience more enjoyable, but they are usually a luxury a company can do without. Purchasing second-hand furniture at liquidation sale is a convenient way of furnishing your office at a fraction of the cost.
Use Freeware Software
All business today stand to benefit from using computers in their line of work. However, this often means buying 'industry standard' software solutions just on the basis that everyone seems to be using them. And these can cost a lot of money. If you and your team are sufficiently tech-savvy, or willing to become this, there are plenty of freeware alternatives on the market. The latest version of Windows can be replaced with one of the many Linux distributions for example, and the same goes for software like word processors, spreadsheet creators, image-editing applications, etc. Some freeware software even has a more vibrant community than their paid counterparts, which makes the common issue of lack of tech support non-existent.
Try Alternative Forms of Marketing
Big companies spend a significant portion of their budget on marketing expenses. Film studios, video-game producers, consumer electronics stores, and others have known to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns before launching a new product or service. And yet, despite all that advertising, these products and services often fail to generate expected profits. In other words, marketing investments quickly reach the level of diminishing returns. Instead of spending a lot on marketing, a better option would be to spend creatively. With the advent of the internet as a vehicle for advertising, numerous new advertising strategies became viable, and a lot of them cost very little or are basically free. Using some combination of SEO, viral marketing, social network blogging, etc. for your marketing strategy can bring costs down to a minimum while having a significant return on investment compared with traditional advertising.
As a business owner who is trying to manage their budget, you need to know how to utilize your resources properly to save money. A common bit of economic wisdom is that you have to spend money to make money. While this is usually the case, overspending to the point of debt will lower the odds of your business becoming successful. By focusing on finding quality websites, tools, and resources that are free or affordable to use, you will likely see better results in the long run.

subset: commoncrawl


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How do I remit dues for FY 2019-2020?
Members are welcome to remit payment for annual dues by check or credit card.
A notification about your dues renewal (linking you to your renewal option and prompting payment) will be sent to your registered CLSA email in late June.
Please note:
- Unlike previous fiscal years, a printable electronic invoice will not appear within your member profile. You will, however, be able to access the payment portal in your account and secure a receipt for dues payment.
- For immediate and secure processing, please phone the administrative office at (202) 832-2350. Credit cards will be processed via phone, and members will receive a receipt via email.
Dues statements were mailed to members of the Canon Law Society of America in mid-June. If you did not receive a statement, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com. Checks may be mailed to the Canon Law Society of America, 415 Michigan Avenue NE, Suite 101, Washington, DC 20017.


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Heists and Outlaws. Films reviewed: Widows, The Whiskey Bandit, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs PLUS Instant Family
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
Being robbed is everyone's nightmare… so why do we love heist movies so much? Maybe it's the excitement and audacity of their heroes and antiheroes. This week, I'm looking at three movies with sympathetic thieves. There's a professional bank robber in Budapest, four female thieves in the Midwest, and outlaws and gunslingers in the old west.
Wri/Dir: Steve McQueen
Veronica (Viola Davis) lives in a Chicago penthouse with her loving husband Harry (Liam Neeson), a successful businessman. But when he is killed in a car crash, she discovers the source of his wealth: he's a professional thief. He – and three other men – died on a job that ended with millions of dollars going up in flames when the getaway van exploded. And some not-so-nice people tell Veronica they want those millions back. What to do? She decides to learn from her husband and form her own gang of thieves for a single, grand heist of their own. But first she needs a team. So she turns to the widows of the men who worked with her husband – total strangers all. Veronica has to convince them all to join in with her plan.
There's Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) a hardworking mom raising young kids while running her dress shop. With her husband gone she could lose everything. And tall, beautiful Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) has been working as a high-end escort since her abusive husband died. They agree to join Veronica. When the fourth widow pulls out of the scheme they recruit Linda's babysitter Belle (Cynthia Erivo) a tough cookie from the projects who can run like lightning. But can four inexperienced women pull off a complex home robbery and outsmart organized criminals who hold all the cards?
Widows is a complex thriller, involving not just the four women but also corrupt Chicago politicians, gangsters, preachers, and power brokers. It portrays the city as rotten to the core. It co-stars Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Daniel Kaluuya, but the men in this movie are just distractions; women are the core, unusual for a crime thriller. This is artist-turned-director Steve McQueen's first mainstream genre movie. Widows is sophisticated, well-acted and skilfully made, but… it's just a movie. It isn't deep or emotionally jarring like his earlier movies Hunger, and Twelve Years a Slave.
It kept me interested but left me feeling hollow inside.
Wri/Dir: Nimród Antal
It's the 1980s in Transylvania, Romania. Atilla Ambruzs (Bence Szalay) is a poor young man, neglected and beaten by his father, sent to juvie for petty theft, and enlisted into the army, where he's an excellent marksman. As an ethnic Hungarian in Ceaucescu's Romania he has no future. So he escapes across the border by strapping his belt to the bottom of a train and holding on for dear life.
In Budapest, he's welcomed with open arms and given a job, a home and status. No, just kidding. He's penniless, homeless and without legal status. Worse, in Hungary he's derided as Romanian! He finally finds work: as a combination goalie and janitor for a pro-hockey team. No pay, but at least he has a place to live.
One night, drinking beer with his buddies, he spots the woman of his dreams. He chases her to the subway, and offers her flowers. Is this love at first sight? But Kata (Piroska Móga) is educated from a rich family, while Atilla is a penniless alien. He needs the proper papers to get ahead, but they require a hefty bribe. So he turns to bank robbing… and he's very good at it. He never fires a shot, never hurts anybody, just leapfrogs the tellers and grabs the cash from the banks safes. And he always avoids the cops– He climb walls, jump from buildings, even swim across the Danube to escape. He disguises his appearance with caps, aviator glasses and a fake moustache, leaving nothing behind but the smell of alcohol on his breath. As his exploits pile up, so does his infamy, dubbed the Whiskey Bandit in the news media and adored as a folk hero. And he lives lavishly – telling Kata and his teammates he made his fortune importing bear skins. But how long will his luck hold out?
The Whiskey Bandit is a great crime/action movie, from the director of the great sci-fi action movie "Predators". Most of the film is narrated by the Bandit telling his story to a crooked detective (Zoltan Schneider). Szalay and Móga have great chemistry, and the story really grabs you. This is a great, rollicking action/adventure. And turns out, it's based on a true story.
I really enjoyed this one.
Wri/Dir: Joel and Ethan Coen
It's the mid 19th Century in the wild, wild west. Picture: wagon trains and prospectors, cowboys and bank robbers. Outlaws and bounty hunters. Their stories are told in a series of short episodes, each its own complete film. Genres change, film by film – musical, serious drama, near horror, or comedy, nicely balanced over a two hour show. They're tied together by the turning pages of an old book of illustrated western tales, but they owe more to Hollywood westerns. The title story is about a singing cowboy all dressed in white… who turns out to be a serial killer. Like most Coen brothers movies this one doesn't skimp on guns, violence and dark, dark humour.
I usually dislike anthology films, but in this film, it works. The dramas are tiny, perfect and very pessimistic. Standout performances include Zoe Kazan as an indecisive young woman on the Oregan trail (this is her second wagon train movie, after Kelly Reichardt's great Meek's Cutoff); Tom Waits as a prospector looking for Mister Pocket, his streak of gold; and Harry Melling (from the Harry Potter movies) as an armless, legless orator travelling from town to town. It's very much a traditional Hollywood western with cowboys, stand-offs, and shootouts – and, regretably, indigenous characters still portrayed as "noble savages", even in 2018. (But in fact all the other characters have stereotypical, largely negative personalities, too.)
Still, it feels like much more than the sum of its parts. superior acting, wonderful music and scenery… This is a great Coen brothers movie.
Also opening today is…
Dir: Sean Anders
Pete and Ellie (Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne) are a happily married, middle-aged couple. They design and renovate houses, and play golf in their spare time. But something is missing… kids! But if they start a family now, they'll be old folks by the time the kid grows up. But what if they adopt? They join a foster care class run by two social workers (Tig Notaro and Octavio Spencer) who teach them the ins and outs. But when they decide to give it a go, they somehow end up with three foster kids, Lita, Juan and Lizzie. An instant family. Lita (Juliana Gamiz) is a wild child who only eats potato chips. Juan (Gustavo Quiroz) is a scared, accident-prone introvert. And Lizzie (Isabela Moner), age 15, is their surrogate mother, and won't listen to anything her foster parents tell her. They were abandoned by their birth mother, an addict and petty criminal. Pete and Ellie decide they'll be their new mom and dad. But will the kids accept them? And when their birth mother is released from prison will they lose these kids they've been trying so hard to raise?
Inspired by the director's own story, Instant Family is equal parts comedy, tear jerker, and realistic look at adoption. It alternates between Ellie, Pete and the kids, the couple's various relatives (the two grandmas are hilarious, the rest of the relatives just irritating); and the foster parent support group they attend regularly to compare notes. To be honest, this isn't the sort of movie I would normally go to if I weren't a film critic. but once there, I did laugh, tear up or cringed, depending on the scene. So if you like inspiring and occasionally funny movies about struggling through parenthood, this is a film for you.
Instant Family, and Widows open today in Toronto; check your local listings. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; and you can see The Whiskey Bandit tonight at 8:30 at the Royal Cinema as part of the EU Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Golden. Films reviewed: The Old Man & the Gun, Let the Corpses Tan, The Sisters Brothers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I'm looking at three genre movies -– a heist, a western and a retro horror/thriller — about the search for gold. There's an old bank robber lookin' for love while stealing krugerrands, two brothers in the old west working as hitmen while searching for gold nuggets, and criminals in Corsica killing for gold bars.
Dir: David Lowery
It's the 1980s in Texas. Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) is the consummate gentleman, always kind and charming, especially with the ladies. He meets one such woman named Jewel (Cissie Spacek) by the side of the road where her car overheated. She's a widow with a ranch but no family or friends nearby. He gives her a ride and they share lunch at a roadside diner. But when he jokingly tells her what he does for a living she doesn't believe him. Who would think such a kindly old man is a bank robber?
But a bank robber he is, and a damned good one. Working with his partners Teddy and Waller (Danny Glover, Tom Waits) they pull off a stream of successful bank heists from Dallas to St Louis, without ever firing a shot or leaving a single fingerprint behind. That is until detective Hunt (a moustachioed Casey Affleck) connects the dots between these seemingly unrelated crimes. (This is long before google.) Can Tucker quit bankrobbing and settle down with Jewel before Hunt tracks him down?
The movie is based on a true story about a career criminal and escape artist but it's so much more than that. It's a tender love story (between Tucker and Jewel), and a buddy drama (between him and his respectful rival, the cop). It's well-acted, wonderfully directed and with a classic script of the kind I thought Hollywood had forgotten how to write. It even has some filmmaking tricks – like a clever history of his escape attempts – inserted in an unexpected place.
What a feel-good movie this one is.
Let the Corpses Tan (Laissez bronzer les cadavres)
Dir: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
It's a sundrenched day at a cliffside bed and breakfast in Corsica. Madame Luce (Elina Löwensohn) – a sultry, middle aged woman with a pageboy haircut – is your hostess, but don't expect a five star rating. It's a BnB… from hell. The rooms are made of crumbling rock shelters and breakfast means fried eggs served with live ammo. The guests include a scheming criminal, a crooked lawyer, a young tough, and a smash-faced thug. The only paying guest, Max Bernier, is an over-the-hill novelist from Paris in a perpetual drunken stupor. What are they all there for?
A heist, of course, in the form of a Brinks truck carrying a case of solid gold bars. They carry it off — killing two cops and the driver in the process — but then things start to go wrong. Bernier's beautiful young wife and kid show up unexpectedly, and a pair of motorcycle cops, dressed in black leather, stop by to take a look around. At this point, gunshots start and rarely stop till the end of the movie. Some of the bad guys realize they've been stabbed in the back. Soon everyone on the mountainside is either a hostage or hostage taker, a shooter or a victim (or a potential sex partner) in a final shootout for the gold.
But this plot description doesn't do justice to what this film really is. It's an over-the-top horror/thriller/heist movie, flawlessly done in the style of 1960s spaghetti westerns. It's intense, from the saturated colour to the Morricone score. Every gun shot — and there are thousands – is followed by a mammoth splash of blood; every cigarette is lit with a whoosh of flame that fills the screen; every stabbing has a disgustingly loud squishing sound. There are extreme close ups, with a single eye or curled lip filling the entire screen. And lots of gratuitous nudity and violence, especially when the drunken novelist imagines stylized sex scenes from his own books.
See this one on a big screen.
Dir: Jacques Audiard
It's the 1850s in the Oregon territory, and the country has gone gold crazy. Eli and Charlie Sisters (John C Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix) are brothers who earn their living shooting to kill. Eli is smart and kind at heart, while Charlie takes after their dad, a drunk, mean bastard. They work for a shady robber baron known as the Commodore. Their latest job? Meet up with another man
who will provide them with their victim.
Meanwhile, in a town nearby, is the idealistic Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed) a brilliant scientist who is flat broke. He has an invention that could make him a millionaire. It's a chemical he claims will make panning for gold easy as pie. On his travels he meets an upper-class adventurer named John Morris (Jake Gyllenhall). Warm likes Morris's polite relaxed manner and sees him as a genuinely nice guy. As they travel he share his secret, though not the details, with him. What he doesn't know is Morris – like the Sisters Brothers – works for the evil Commodore, and that he plans to hand over his erstwhile friend to those killers. But things aren't necessarily what they seem. The hunters become the hunted with posses tracking the Sisters brothers for their past crimes. The four find themselves on the same side, at least temporarily, but who can be trusted?
The Sisters Brothers is French director Audiard's first English language film, and he totally pulls it off. This is an excellent western that captures the frantic expansion of the gold rush towns in the old west with entire settler towns appearing, on-screen. We watch characters discover new technology like toothbrushes and hot-water plumbing. It captures the utopian politics of the time (though completely ignoring the plight of indigenous people). Reilly and Phoenix make great shootists, but it's Riz Ahmed who really steals the show. The Sisters Brothers (based on Canadian writer Patrick deWitt's novel), is a wonderful, new take on the classic western.
The Old Man & the Gun, Let the Corpses Tan and The Sisters Brothers — all great movies, though for different reasons — all open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Disruptions. Films reviewed: Marlina the Murderer, Darken, North Mountain
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It's Canada Day weekend – a good time for fireworks, beer, and maybe a movie. So I've been looking around for films not from south of the border — and three unusual ones caught my eye. Two are from Canada — and one from Indonesia — and two of the three are directed by and feature women.
This week I'm looking at three movies about people whose lives are disrupted by unexpected visitors. There's a Mi'kmaq trapper fighting off thieves in eastern Canada, a widow fighting off rapists in eastern Indonesia, and a Toronto nurse fighting medieval soldiers… in a parallel universe.
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
Dir: Mouly Surya
It's present day Sumba, an island in Eastern Indonesia near Flores and Timor Leste. Marlina (Marsha Timothy) is a sad and lonely widow. Her only child died years ago, and her husband's body sits beside her in her home, wrapped in traditional cloth, awaiting his funeral. All she has left are her cattle, chickens and pigs. But her sad relections are interrupted one day by a visitor on a motorbike. It's Marcus (Egy Fedly) an evil, long-haired outlaw from a nearby town. He heard she's alone and comes there to take advantage. I have a gang of six more men on their way, he says. You're a woman all alone, so we own you now. You're going to cook us a meal. We will steal your cattle and anything else you own. And — if you're lucky — we'll rape you, but not kill you. And there's nothing you can do about it.
Marlina is sickened and terrified… but not helpless. She poisons four of the men with her chicken soup, and when Marcus sexually assaults her, Marlina, in a moment of desperation, grabs a machete and chops off his head! Not knowing what else to do, she decides to turn herself in to the local police.
At the truck-taxi stop she meets a neighbour named Novi (Dea Panendra) who reacts rather mildly to the dead man's head she's carrying. Novi is more concerned with her own problems. She's ten months pregnant but the baby just won't come out! So they set off down the long and twisting road to the nearest town.
But two of the killers are still after her. Will Novi ever give birth? Should Marlina turn herself in? And what will she do with Marcus's head?
Marlina the Murderer is a genre-busting drama, part revenge pic, part feminist western, part art house dark comedy. It has an amazingly calm tone in the midst of horrible crime. There are horses, and posses, and road trips and fights. I haven't seen many Indonesian movies, so I'm far from an expert, but the two stars were both in great action movies I actually have seen: Headshot and The Raid 2 – which is a good sign. And it introduces the music, customs and amazing scenery and people of Sumba, a place I had never heard of before this film, but now at least have experienced a taste of it.
Marlina the Murderer is a brilliant, rich and baffling movie.
Dir: Audrey Cummings
Eve (Bea Santos) is a Toronto nurse who's feeling down. She's depressed and her life has lost its point. Until one day she runs into a woman on a sidewalk calling for help. The woman is dressed in a strange medieval leather outfit and is bleeding from a knife wound. She asks Eve to rescue her friends. But when Eve opens a door to a nearby building, she finds herself, like Alice in Wonderland, in a whole other world.
It's a land called Darken, composed of a series of linked rooms and hallways, It's always indoors in Darken and always nighttime. It's governed by a goddess who provides life through her blood and is ruled by an autocratic priestess named Clarity (Christine Horne). It serves as a refuge for outcasts from different eras, all of whom live peacefully together. That is, until now.
The Mother Goddess is out of the picture, and Clarity has declared war on all dissidents. Her spear-wielding guards – all decked out in Game of Thrones gear – provide her the muscle; and a lackey (Ari Millen) — who reminds me of the young Penguin on Gotham — defends her legal rulings.
But Eve falls in with the rebels, including the fierce Kali (Olunike Adeliyi) and the kindly Mercy (Zöe Belkin) who communicates using sign language. Which side will win? And can Eve ever get back to her normal world?
Darken is a science fiction/fantasy set in a parallel universe. It ranges from unexpected plot twists to absolute cheese. Above all, this feature shouts TV, from the set design, to the lighting, to the acting and the script. There are even scenes that fade to black as if they're saying: Insert Ad Here. And I find shows shot entirely on dark blue sets claustrophobic. But that's just me.
On the other hand, women-centred science fiction or fantasy movies are rarer than an affordable apartment in Toronto. And this one has a a goddess, an evil priestess, a heroine, and noble fighters — all played by women. The men are there as peripheral characters or arm candy.
And for that reason alone it might be worth seeing.
Dir: Bretten Hannam
Wolf (Justin Rain) is a young hunter/trapper in a Nova Scotia forest. He knows every rock and tree on North Mountain: where to set the snares, where to hunt the deer. He lives a traditional Mi'kmaq life in his Grandmother's wooden cabin, a life still lit by candlelight. He uses a bow and arrow to kill the animals he eats, and honours and respects each life he sacrifices. It's a simple, quiet existence, punctuated by monthly visits to the town store where he catches up with Mona (Meredith MacNeil), a long time friend.
Nothing changes except the seasons, until… he finds an older man's body leaning against a tree. He's bleeding, barely alive, and is holding a leather satchel filled with cold, hard American cash. Wolf tends to his wounds until Crane (Glenn Gould) comes back to life. Turns out he's from this place and speaks the same language.
Their first conversations are fraught with violence and fistfights and filled with suspicion. But at some point their initial violent antipathy shifts to something very different: they become lovers! And just as they're making sense of it, a group of strangers comes to the mountain. A posse of crooked cops and organized criminals. They want the cash and don't care who they kill to get it. Can a pair of indigenous lovers wielding bow, arrow and tomahawk overcome a heavily-armed contingent?
North Mountain is half violent thriller, half passionate, aboriginal gay love story. Rain and Gould (of Plains Cree and Mi'kmaq heritage, respectively) are excellent as the two lovers, and the action – including references to Peckinpaw's ultra-violent Straw Dogs – is as heart-pounding as any good thriller.
North Mountain, Darken and Marlina the Murderer all open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Western-ish. Films reviewed: Lucky, Hostiles, Sweet Country
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If the western seems like an old, tired genre to you, there are some new movies you should take a look at. They reinvent the western by changing key elements and points of view.
This week I'm looking at three new movies that are westerns (or at least western-ish). There's justice in the outback, a northbound trail, and a lonesome cowboy in the great southwest.
Dir: John Carroll Lynch
Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton) is a very lucky man. He's 89 years old, smokes a pack a day, lives on milk, coffee and bloody mary's – and not much else – and is still in perfect health. He's a crotchety old coot who wears cowboy boots and a straw hat. He lives alone in a small town in the great southwest, amidst giant Seguara cacti and hundred-year-old tortoises. He likes yoga calisthenics, mariachi and crossword puzzles. He hangs out at the local diner by day and at the corner bar at night. So why is Lucky so sad?
The other day he fell in his kitchen for no reason. His doctor says that's just what happens when you're old. This makes Lucky reexamine his long-held attitudes and his stubborn ways. But can you teach an old dog new tricks?
Lucky is a nice and gentle look at an old cowboy in a multi racial southwestern town. It's an arthouse film, full of music, stories, and funny, quirky characters, (played by David Lynch, Tom Skerrit and others.) It also functions as a tribute to Harry Dean Stanton himself, who plays the music and provides the backstories for the anecdotes Lucky tells. Stanton died earlier this year, but the film is less of an epitaph than a wry celebration of his life.
I like this movie.
Wri/Dir: Scott Cooper
It's the 1890s in New Mexico. The Indians have all been killed or jailed under an army led by Captain Blocker (Christian Bale). Blocker is widely known for his fighting prowess and his cruelty – they say he's scalped more natives than anyone. So he's surprised when the President himself orders him to protect and accompany his sworn enemy on a trip to Montana. Blocker fought and jailed Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) a decade earlier. But now the Chief is dying of cancer and wants to be buried in his ancestral lands. Blocker sets off with the Chief, his family and a squad of soldiers. On the way they meet Rosalie (Rosamund Pike) a dazed mother still holding a dead baby to her breast. Her entire family was wiped out in a Comanche raid a few days earlier. She joins the group. The Chief offers to help them fight the Comanche but Blocker doesn't trust him – he keeps him shackled to his horse. Is the enemy of his enemy his friend? But as the soldiers travel ever northward they begin to understand their captives, and overcome the fear, bigotry and hatred that killed so many.
Hostiles is a good, traditional western, shot against breathtaking scenery. It's a bit slow, and there are way too many long-winded apologies as each character asks for forgiveness when he confesses his crimes. (One dramatic mea culpa would have been enough.) Though told from the white point of view, it is sympathetic toward the plight of First Nations. It satisfies as a Western with the horseback riding, shoot-outs and lots of dramatic tension. And Christian Bale makes a great silent soldier who sees the light.
Dir: Warwick Thonrton
It's 1929 in Northern Territory, Australia with three homesteads not far from a small town. They're owned by whites, but worked by aboriginal families. Sam (Hamilton Morris) works for a kindly preacher (Sam Neill); Cattleman Archie (Gibson John) is indigenous but comes from far away. And mixed-race kid Philomac (Tremayne Doolan) lives near — but not with — his white father.
In comes Harry March, a deranged WWI veteran demanding some "black stock" – how he describes aboriginal workers — to repair a fence. Sam and his family volunteer, but March gives them no food or money for their work, and then sexually assaults Sam's wife.
They flee back to the preacher's house, pursued by March, armed and dangerous. Sam defends himself but ends up killing March, a white man (as secretly witnessed by Philomac). So Sam and his wife flee into the bush pursued by a posse that includes Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) and Archie as their guide. The sergeant is the de facto law in these parts and plans to lynch Sam whenever he finds him. But things changes when Sam ends up saving the Sergeant's life and turning himself in. Then an actual judge shows up to conduct the trial. But can an Aboriginal man receive justice in a white, frontier town?
Sweet Country is an excellent western set in 20th century Australia. It gives a raw and realistic look at brutal racism and frontier justice. It's also a subtle examination of identity, and the uneasy give-and-take among the different aboriginal groups, the white settlers and their mixed race descendents.
I recommend this movie.
Sweet Country won the Platform Prize at TIFF and the Special Jury Prize at Venice.
Lucky starts today in Toronto, check your local listings, with Hostiles opening later on. You can catch Sweet Country on Thursday, Oct 19th at the Imaginenative film festival. Go to Imaginenative.org for show times and tickets.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Life in Nature. Films reviewed: The Gardener, Certain Women
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto's spring film festival season continues. LGBT films, shorts and documentaries from around the world are featured at Inside Out beginning next week. Get into shape in June with CSFF, a new festival featuring Canadian Sports docs and shorts. Toronto's Japanese Film Festival brings the newest dramas, thrillers and samurai hits served up with sake tasting at the Japanese cultural centre. And contemporary Italian cinema is showcased at the ICFF.
April showers bring May flowers, so this week I'm looking at slow-paced movies set against natural beauty. There an arthouse drama in rural Montana, and a look at the gardens in Quebec.
The Gardener
Dir: Sébastien Chabot
The Cabots are a famous upperclass American family. You've probably heard the ditty about Boston:
…the home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
This documentary is about those Cabots, and what one man in particular created. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the family has owned a huge tract of land in the Charlevoix region near Quebec city for their summer estate. It's an area of bucolic fields and breathtaking views overlooking the St Lawrence. But Francis Cabot (1925-2011) decided to do something more with it. He designed Les Quatre Vents, the four winds, an amazing private garden. It's planted with perennials that bloom throughout the year, leading to waves of yellow, violets, greens and reds in sequential seasons. Cabot believed gardens should not be sterile units of symmetrical topiary, but a sensuous experience. The gardens are filled with smells of flowers, buzzing bees, trickling streams flowing past vast fields. It is divided into different sections, each one revealed as a surprise when you turn a corner or, cross a bridge. Gorgeous black and white horses, foliage from the Himalayas, a moonbridge reminiscent of Suzhou and a traditional Japanese garden complete with a hand-crafted teahouse.
If you're expecting a hard-hitting documentary, look elsewhere. this is not an expose about the family's history in Salem Massachusetts or its roots in the slave trade. Rather, it's very much an homage or a tribute to the magnificent garden that one man created. If you love gardens and consider them symphonies, this one takes you on a guided tour through it all with commentary from its late creator. It's less of a film than an experience. I had never heard of Les Quatre Vents before I saw this film, but now I want to go there.
Certain Women
Dir: Kelly Reichardt (Based on stories by Maile Meloy)
Laura (Laura Dern) is an established lawyer in a tiny town in Montana. Much of her time is spent on a single case where the plaintiff, an older man named Fuller (Jared Harris) was screwed by his former boss. He was injured at work, affecting his vision, but because he accepted a token payment, leaving him high and dry and unemployable. She told him way back that his case is unsinkable, but he keeps coming back to her office… maybe for a different reason? Meanwhile, Gina (Michelle Williams) is dead set on buying a ranch, Her husband Ryan (James le Gros) and her teenaged daughter aren't interested, but Gina refuses to give up. She will buy that house! But at what personal cost?
And nearby, a young law student named Elizabeth (Kristen Stewart) finds herself teaching a night class at a school four hours away from her home. The students are all teachers who want answers to their own petty legal disputes, but Elizabeth knows nothing about education… or teaching. The one bright spot is a boyish rancher (Lily Gladstone) who shows up out of boredom – she's like a lonesome cowboy who never sees anyone except horses and dogs. After class, she offers to drive Elizabeth to the local diner so they can talk. And after a few meetings, the lonesome cowgirl shows up not in her pickup but on horseback. "hop on!" Could this be the start of a romantic relationship with the doe-eyed rancher?
Certain Women is another fine, modern-day take on the classic Western (from a female POV) by the great director Kelly Reichardt. It's actually three separate stories whose characters briefly appear across the plots. For example, the movie opens in a cheap hotel room where Laura just had a noonday rendezvous with a bearded man (but you don't find out whose husband he is until later.) Set against the breathtaking mountains and dusty roads of smalltown Montana, it feels like a C&W song come to life. It's slow paced but never boring. It has that rural feel – things happen more slowly out west. This is a touching drama littered with unrequited love, and driven by the Certain Women of the title: people who make big decisions for selfish reasons, without realizing how much it hurts the people around them.
Certain Women and the Gardener both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Ferenc Török about 1945
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It's a beautiful summer day in a small town, with many exalting in their new prosperity. There's a wedding planned for the town square, and the pretty young bride is looking forward to her new home. The town clerk is especially proud, since all his hard work is finally paying off. He's the king of the castle… until everything starts to unravel when two strangers are spotted at the local train station. Two men with beards. The place is rural Hungary, and the year?
It's 1945.
1945 is the name of a new drama set just after WWII. A short fable, shot in real time about greed, death, treachery, betrayal, and guilt. it played at the Berlin Festival and was the opening feature at Toronto's Jewish Film Festival, 2017. It's directed by Ferenc Török. Ferenc is a noted Hungarian writer and film director who is the winner of the Béla Balázs Award for outstanding achievement in filmmaking.
I spoke to Ferenc in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM.
He talks about WWII, Hungary, history, "Freedom Year", fascism, communism, discrimination, Jews, Roma, High Noon, Béla Bartók, xenophpbia, Béla Tarr, De Sica, Rossellini, Viktor Orbán, and more…!
1945 opens in Toronto on Aug 24, 2018.
End times? Films reviewed: Arrival, The First, the Last
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With the reality of the recent US election sinking in, people are using words like Brexit 2, Armageddon, Apocalypse and even Thermonuclear War. So this week I have a couple end-of-days movies to capture the prevailing mood. There's a Belgian western about lost souls who think the world is about to end, and a US science fiction drama about scientists trying to stop the world from ending.
Dir: Denis Villeneuve
Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguistics professor who speaks Chinese, Portuguese and Sanskrit. She occasionally translates top-secret documents for the US government. She has red hair, blue eyes and porcelain-like skin. She once had a daughter she adored but Hannah died of an incurable disease. Now Louse lives alone in a brick and glass lakeside home comforted only by her memories. Then something cataclysmic happens.
Twelve enormous, lozenge-shaped spaceships arrive on earth. They hover, silently and menacingly, over twelve random places, including Montana in the North America. there's rioting in the streets, mayhem, mayhem, mayhem. Right away, she gets a knock on the door; it's Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) a high-ranked officer. He needs her help translating strange clicking sounds into English. Translate? says Louise. I can't translate a language I don't understand.I need to speak directly to the aliens. So they whisk her off to an army base in rural Montana along with an arrogant physicist named Ian (Jeremy Renner). Together they're expected to figure out why the aliens are there and whether the army should attack them. Easier said than done.
The aliens let them board the spaceship, kept separate by a glass wall. Louise is shocked by what appears in the mist. No little green men here; these aliens are septipods – hideous sea creatures with seven legs — and hands that look like starfish. These mollusks have pulpy-grey bodies and can shoot out ink, like octopuses. Louise also discovers they are highly intelligent, with a sophisticated written language with multi-dimensional ring-shaped characters that look like Japanese brush painting. They float, suspended, underwater.
And their cryptic message? Something involving weapons! This pricks up the ears of a sinister CIA agent, her nemesis. With the world on the brink of thermonuclear war, it's up to Louise to communicate with the aliens and decipher their message before armageddon.
Arrival is a fascinating and thoughtful science fiction drama, told through the eyes of an academic. It's part of the new trend of science-y fantasies that favour intellect over explosions. It's similar to films like The Martian and Gravity, but I like this one the best. While Jeremy Renner is dull and Forest Whitaker unremarkable, Amy Adams is great as the pensive Louise. Arrival takes place in a barren military camp and it's overloaded with khaki, camo and annoying Cold War jargon like domino effects and zero-sum games. But it's also a feel-good movie with a truly surprising twist. It can satisfy your craving for excitement without resorting to superheroes.
The First, the Last (Les Premiers, les Derniers)
Wri/Dir: Bouli Lanners
It's present-day Wallonia, a place of barren fields, billiard halls and abandoned warehouses. Cochise and Gilou, two rough-and- tough middle aged guys, are hired by an anonymous client to retrieve a valuable lost telephone in exchange for lots of cash. Gilou (played by the director) is a white-bearded man in a midlife crisis, who thinks he's dying, while Cochise (Albert Dupontel) is a moustached heavy in a leather jacket, always ready to fight but looking for love. Gilou sets up camp in a lonely motel run by an ancient innkeeper, who looks like an old-age version of himself. Cochise moves in with a woman he meets on the road.
The phone they seek is in the hands of a mysterious young couple named Esther and Willy (Aurore Broutin, David Murgia) who are making their way down a highway, dressed in high-viz orange jumpsuits they found on their journey. They are society's outcasts, mentally disabled and homeless, but at least they have each other. They need that comfort now, especially since Willy learned that the world is about to end (he saw it on TV). Esther declares they must find a proper gift for a final visit she has to make before it's all over. And they meet a Jesus-like figure on the way, who tries to take them under his wing.
But neither pair realizes they have wandered into the badlands, an area filled with crooked sheriffs, black marketeers, and all- around villains who don't take kindly to strangers. So while the phone hunters are tracking down the outcasts, they're all being sought — violently so — by the bad guys. There is also a mysterious gangster, an antlered stag, a mummy and a lost child to make things interesting. Can any of them find what they're looking for?
The First, the Last is a satisfying — if baffling — western, set among the highways and desolate fields of French-speaking Belgium. It has the "European" feel of a movie like the Lobster, only not so straightforward. There's also twangy music, nice cinematography, and all-around good acting, including a cameo by Max von Sydow as an undertaker.
Arrival arrives today in Toronto, check your local listings; is playing at the EU festival, now until the 24th. Tickets are free, but be sure to line up early to get a seat. Go to eutorontofilmfest.ca for showtimes. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Return of the Western? Movies reviewed: The Magnificent Seven, Brimstone #TIFF16
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Is the Hollywood Western dead? Or is it back from the dead? As a genre, I thought old-fashioned westerns faded away in the 1960s and 70s, despite a few last-gasp efforts to revive it.
So imagine my surprise when the first public screening I saw at TIFF — as well as the last one — were Westerns. They were superficially similar, but very different in substance. So this week I'm looking at those two westerns: a multi-ethnic reboot about a shoot'em-up posse, and a feminist rewrite about a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
The Magnificent Seven
Dir: Antoine Fuqua
Rose Creek is a god-fearing mining town in the old west, complete with sheriff, church, and saloon. One day a church meeting is interrupted by frightening incident. A bad man – accompanied mean by gunmen – declares the town now belongs to a robber barren named Pogue. They have one week to hand it all over or leave town. And to drive his point home, he unceremoniously shoots anyone who objects.
The people are in despair until a lawman arrives on horseback. Chisolm (Denzel Washington) says he can put together a team that will defend the town for its rightful owners. He just needs to be paid. They agree, and he sets out to find his soldiers. And what a colourful group they are. First is Faraday, a card shark (Chris Pratt) already in town. He's a smooth-talking swindler but quick on the trigger. Vasquez is a criminal on the run. Goodnight Robichaud (Ethan Hawke) is a sharpshooter from the confederate army with PTSD. He works the rodeo circuit with Billy, a Korean knife thrower. They're joined by Jack, a bearlike bounty hunter who lives in a log cabin, and Red Harvest, a warrior armed with bow, arrow and spear, but far from his people. Together they are the "Magnificent Seven".
To counter them, robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Saarsgard) recruits a hundred heavily armed men, complete with horses, rifles, and a Gatling gun. They line up on a hillside waiting for the attack. Can seven men defeat 100 bad guys and save the town? And which of them will survive this battle royale?
The Magnificent Seven is a remake of a remake – the 1960 spaghetti western based on Kurusawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) – and it shows its age. There were very few surprises in this movie and it had a mechanical feel. Here's the shoot out, there's the recruiting scenes, and here comes the big battle. I like the multiracial cast – diversity on the screen is always a good thing– but aside from their looks and their weapons their background never really enters the storyline. (Apparently the director considers women an ethnic group, too, so there's one token woman shooting alongside the rest.) The movie has an all-star cast, but you can tell they're doing it for the fun of it (and the money) not to stretch their acting chops. Neither does director Antoine Fuqua – known for films like Training Day. This one does not measure up.
Even so, I can enjoy a movies for its good shootouts, explosions and mayhem. Take it for what it is – an entertaining, though instantly forgettable, western. It's OK, but nothing special.
Wri/Dir: Martin Koolhoven
Elizabeth (Dakota Fanning) is a young woman who lives in a small California town in the old west, complete with sheriff, church and saloon.
She's a respected midwife, but mute, so her 5-year-old daughter serves as her translator, her tiny voice conveying her mom's very adult messages. But things go wrong when a fire-and-brimstone preacher enters town. The Reverend (Guy Pierce) says there are sinners among us, and they will be punished. Soon after, Elizabeth is forced to deliver a premature infant right in front of the pulpit. To save the mother's life she is forced to abort the male baby. This sparks a furor in the town: with an angry man carrying the torch, goaded on by the preacher's words. How dare she save the life of a woman over that of a baby boy? That's God's decision, not hers.
But it soon becomes clear that this is a small battle in a much bigger fight. The preacher is out to get Elizabeth, and only the two of them know why. The preacher is willing to torture — or even murder — anyone who gets gets in his way. She refuses to give in and proves a powerful opponent. What is their connection, their history? Why is she mute? What brought her to this town? And what secrets do they hide?
Brimstone is told in an unusual way, in a series of biblical chapters, like Revelations and Exodus. Each successive chapter takes place before the previous one, so you only understand the meaning of the last scene until you see the next one. The story follows her homelife as a girl with a strict father and an abused mother (Carice van Houten). She learns the facts of life from two wounded gunslingers she keeps hidden in her barn. We also find about her life as a young woman in another town's cathouse, and how and why she left there.
Dakota Fanning plays the lead as teenager, young woman and mother, and she's completely believable in all three. Guy Pearce is chilling as the horribly malevalent preacher. The movie is a scathing indictment of the treatment of women in America, by religion, by society, and by men in general.
Brimstone is troubling, disturbing and shocking, especially for a western. It doesn't shy away from hard-to-handle issues. I had to turn my head from the screen, it was so horrific in a few scenes. It is violent in a way the Magnificent Seven isn't, even though Seven has a huge amount of killing, while death is rarer in Brimstone. I don't want to give the details away, since it depends on the revelations of the story, but let me just say it is not for the faint of heart. Brimstone is a fantastic, heart-wrenching drama with a lot to say.
The Magnificent Seven is playing now, check you local listings; and hopefully Brimstone will be released later this year. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Art House or not? Films reviewed: Florence and the Uffizi Gallery, The Revenant, Mustang
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
"Art house movies". That traditionally meant low-budget indie movies that play at rep cinemas and film festivals. But times are changing and definitions are blurring. This week I'm looking at three movies. A violent, outdoor western with scenery as pretty as art; an art-house drama about five Turkish sisters confined to their house, and a 3-D look at an Italian house of art.
Florence and the Uffizi Gallery (in 3D and 4K)
The Republic of Florence was a city run by oligarchs, not kings, in the Italian Renaissance. And above all were the Medici family. This film – with the help of Italian art historians and an actor playing one of the Medicis — takes you on a tour of Florence. You see its bridges, chapels, palaces and museums and get a very close look at – and explanation of – its paintings, sculptures and stained glass windows. Most of all it looks at the art of the Uffizi Gallery. Uffizi means office, as it was originally built for bureaucrats in the 16th Century. Now it has Botticelli's Birth of Venus, the very different Davids of Donatello and nearby Michaelengelo (in the Piazza di San Marco); Caravaggio's head of Medusa, and the great battles of Paolo Ucello. I remember reading Janson's History of Art when I was a teenager so a lot of these images are familiar to me, but this is the closest I've ever come to the art itself. The movie is a combination tourist ad and art recording. One criticism: 3D is great for sculpture and architecture – the camera all but caresses the naked statues it films – but two-dimensional paintings turned 3-D just look weird. But unless you're heading to Italy soon, this is your best chance to see it all up close.
The Revenant
Dir: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
It's the 1830s in the old West. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a guide for a troupe of frontiersman carrying their furs to a trading post. He's helped by his son Hawk of the Pawnee Nation (Forrest Goodluck) – they communicate in Pawnee. But they are attacked and many killed – seemingly for no reason – by Sioux warriors on horseback. Glass bravely gets them to safety. Then a second disaster strikes: he is attacked and nearly killed by a huge bear defending her cubs. He can't go on, but the team's captain leaves three volunteers to give him a proper burial when he dies: Hawk, Bridger a greenhorn on his first trip (Will Poulter) and Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) a very shifty character. Fitz does something terrible and then throws Glass's body in a ditch. He convinces the naïve Bridger he's dead and they're under attack. They flee to the fort. But Glass finds the strength to come back from the dead – that's what revenant means – and seek revenge.
The Revenant is a simple story played out in the spectacular scenery of western Canada. It seems historically accurate, with indigenous groups speaking their own language, and it shows some of the atrocities whites committed against them. And there's some cool background music and furry costumes and hats. But this is actually a mainstream action movie – fights, chase scenes, a damsel in distress, and a heavy dose of parental revenge – that's all gussied-up in art-house garb to try to win a few Oscars.
Don't get me wrong – I liked it, despite the excessive blood, graphic wounds, and DiCaprio's non-stop grunting and staggering around. And there are some interesting mystical sidebars and dreamy detours to add a bit of spice to the very simple story. But basically it's still just an action/Western.
Dir: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Lale, Nur, Ece, Selma, Sonay are five young sisters living in eastern Turkey on the Black Sea. They are five beautiful girls with rosy cheeks and raven hair, brimming with girl power. Since their parents died, they've lived with their uncle and grandmother, and are more or less left to their own devices. They spend their days playing, reading, watching soccer, and flirting with guys. They are as free as wild horses, like Mustangs running across the prairie. But then something changes. When school gets out for summer, they're spotted splashing in the water and playing chicken fights with some of the schoolboys. And later one sister is seen, unsupervised, with a boy in an orchard.
Suddenly their home becomes a prison, their entrances and exits tightly controlled. They're like princesses locked in a castle tower. They're told to cover their hair, act civilized, be polite, conservative, and submissive. It doesn't work. Theyre tough and independent girls, not so easily tamed. Even so, soon they're being married off, one-by-one, to men they don't love. Can any of the sisters resist this, and escape to freedom?
Mustang is a really nice, low- key movie. It's a sweet, funny and touching coming-of-age drama. The five young actresses are all new and all wonderful. The cast and first-time director are Turkish, but the film has a very French feel to it (it's France's nomination for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar), along with a healthy dose of Fiddler on the Roof.
The Revenant is now playing in Toronto and Mustang opens today. And Florence and the Uffizi Gallery is playing next Thursday, on January 21st; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Non-Christmassy Christmas movies. Films reviewed: Son of Saul, The Hateful Eight
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Merry Christmas! You're probably drinking a hot toddy or roasting chestnuts on an open fire somewhere. But this week I want to talk about movies opening today that don't fit the usual Christmas mould. There's an American western about eight people in a cabin in a blizzard who want to live to see the sun rise; and a Hungarian drama about a man in a Nazi concentration camp who wants to live to see his son buried.
Son of Saul
Dir: Laszlo Nemes
It's 1944, WWII, inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Saul Auslander (Géza Röhrig) is a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner there. He is one of the SonderKommando, who are kept alive and given certain privileges because of their duties. The Sonderkommando handle the gristliest part of the death apparatus. They tell the newly-arrived prisoners to undress, ushers them into the tiled shower room and locks the doors. The showers are actually gas chambers — that's where they kill them. Afterwards he unlocks the metal doors again and clears away the dead bodies to be burned. He does this over and over, never seeing the light of day. He is dead inside, just like the bodies he drags away.
At the same time, some of the prisoners are planning an elaborate scheme to photograph the mass murder. Others are planning to escape, to show the photos to the outside world. Then something unusual happens. Cleaning up the gas chamber, he notices a young man, gasping for breath, but somehow still alive amidst all the dead bodies. It's like a miracle. Then Saul looks at him: that's my son.
The Nazi's quickly put a stop this. They strangle the boy and send him to the morgue for an autopsy to determine "what went wrong". But for Saul, his life suddenly has a purpose. He, a man with no religious upbringing and no family, now is determined to give the boy a proper burial amidst all the mass killing. It's an impossible mission. He somehow has to rescue the body, wrap it in a shroud, hide him from the Nazis, find a place to bury him and a holy man, a rabbi, to say the proper prayers.
Son of Saul is an intensely moving, high- tension drama. It somehow captures – without comment — the chaos, mayhem and absurdity of a Nazi concentration camp, with its omnipresent death, pain and humiliation.
It's shot with a handheld camera that follows him, non-stop as he walks around the camp. (Sonderkommandos wear a special uniform that lets them move around the camp.) The action never ceases, from start to finish, constantly on the move adding high stress to the unceasing horror of the film.
It also has an immediacy missing from most Holocaust movies (if there is such a genre). It feels like you are there, following his every step. Also unusual is powerful Christian images of the film, such as Saul holding his blameless son in his arms, like Michelangelo's Pieta.
Son of Saul is an excellent, if harrowing, movie. And it has a good chance of winning the Oscar for best foreign language feature.
The Hateful Eight
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) is a uniformed military officer walking on the Overland Trail in Wyoming after the US Civil War. He flags down a stage coach and asks for a ride before a blizzard hits. The reluctant passenger, John "the hangman" Ruth (played by a hefty Kurt Russell), doesn't want anyone on board. He's taking a woman wanted for murder to be hanged in Red Rock, and collecting the 10,000 bucks. But he relents when he recognizes the Major – they met once before, and Ruth was impressed to see a black man carrying a handwritten letter from Abraham Lincoln himself. And, it turns out, there once was a very high bounty on the Major's head. The prisoner is Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) a foul-mouthed murderess with a black eye. She is handcuffed to John Ruth who will only give her up to the to the Sheriff of Red Rock. Warren is also a bounty hunter and carries the bodies of outlaws he wants to give to sherriff. And who do they meet next? Why Chris Mannix (Walter Goggins) a notorious southern renegade from the war, who claims to be… the newly-appointed Sherriff of Red Rock! But can he – or any of them – be trusted? Or do they all just want to claim the reward or to free the prisoner.
The snow falls harder till they reach Minnie's Haberdashery, an inn on the trail. Inside are four unfamiliar men: Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) a fancy-talking English hangman, General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Kentucky Fried confederate racist; Joe Gage, a cow-puncher wearing suspiciously clean duds (Michael Madsen) and Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir), an unknown man who says he's filling in for Minnie.
Each of the eight is filled with racist bile, hidden secrets, and countless skeletons in their respective closets. Which of them are the good guys and which are the bad guys. And will any of the hateful eight survive till morning?
I enjoyed this movie, though it's not for everyone. It's three hours long, and made in the old style, complete with an overture, an intermission, and a soundtrack by the king of spaghetti westerns, Ennio Moricone. And it's being shown on 70mm film in Panavision. Super wide screen. And while technically a Western, the story is more like an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery: who can be trusted and who is a secret killer? The film gives what we expect from Tarantino: flawless recreations of the look and feel of old movies, extreme violence, and stretching the boundaries of what people will allow on the screen. All of the characters are amazing, especially Goggins as the Sherriff and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the foul mouthed woman. I never felt bored.
But it does leave me uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. For one, the only black and female characters are constantly called the B word and the N word. Second, for a western there are virtually no fist fights – lots of shooting but not much punching. The exception is Daisy. She starts out with a black eye, and from there, she gets punch in the face many times by many characters. (I guess that's supposed to be funny or shocking.) But it made me wonder: why all the men beating up the woman? Still, if Tarantino movies are your thing, The Hateful Eight won't disappoint.
The Hateful Eight and Son Of Saul both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com


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Renewable energy Design your own renewable energy system.
Earth Pathways Diary Lucille is the contributing astrologer for this UK diary. The artwork in it will blow your cobwebs away.
Rod Suskin Rod teaches astrology and does readings. He is very very good at what he does.
I am a member of the Moonshare Co-operative and we produce the awesome Earth Pathways Diary. The 2017 diary has just come off the press. Remember to follow us on facebook.
I am the chair of the Newcastle Philosophy Society.
See my blog: http://lucillevalentine.wordpress.com/
This amazing photo is by Linda Basson. To get more like them contact me and I will put you in touch with her.
Astrology is an ancient science and it is an art. It is a mirror with many facets in which the astrologer can show you your self.
I am a professional astrologer currently living in Newcastle upon Tyne and trained in Cape Town, South Africa. I completed Rod Suskin's "challenging three-year Diploma course in professional astrology" in 2003.
And in case you wanted to know, my first job was with the CSIR as a chemical engineering technician and then after finishing my BSc in Computer Science, I worked in the IT field with some necessary pauses for birthing and breastfeeding. So I am perfectly suited to the noble calling of astrology, a life long study.Personal consultations
These I do by phone or skype or face to face in Newcastle upon Tyne. Contact me by email {click here to email Lucille} and I will get back to you with times for an appointment. I need the following to do the reading:
Your date of birth, and an accurate time of birth as well as the place of birth. What does this give you?
I use the birth data to prepare the reading ahead of time and when I call you on a landline or we connect in one of the agreed ways the reading will last approximately one hour. South African clients can pay me into my SA bank account.


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Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2018/259
The Death and Rebirth of Privacy-Preserving WiFi Fingerprint Localization with Paillier Encryption
Zheng Yang and Kimmo Järvinen
Localization based on premeasured WiFi fingerprints is a popular method for indoor localization where satellite based positioning systems are unavailable. In these systems, privacy of the users' location is lost because the location is computed by the service provider. In INFOCOM'14, Li et al. presented PriWFL, a WiFi fingerprint localization system based on additively homomorphic Paillier encryption, that was claimed to protect both the users' location privacy and the service provider's database privacy. In this paper, we demonstrate a severe weakness in PriWFL that allows an attacker to compromise the service provider's database under a realistic attack model and also identify certain other problems in PriWFL that decrease its localization accuracy. Hence, we show that PriWFL does not solve the privacy problems of WiFi fingerprint localization. We also explore different solutions to implement secure privacy-preserving WiFi fingerprint localization and propose two schemes based on Paillier encryption which do not suffer from the weakness of PriWFL and offer the same localization accuracy as the privacy-violating schemes.
Category / Keywords:
cryptographic protocols / Localization, privacy, security, WiFi fingerprint, cryptanalysis, homomorphic encryption, attack
Original Publication
(with major differences):
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications 2018 (INFOCOM 2018)
received 9 Mar 2018
Contact author:
zheng yang at helsinki fi
Available format(s):
BibTeX Citation
All versions of this report
Short URL:
Cryptology ePrint archive


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This heavy brass thing….I think is a fingertip towel holder for the bathroom. I thought it could be a Bling Bling holder for my teenagers room. I let my daughter pick the color on this one.
I found these items at the thrifty store – no spray paint needed, LOL !
A great big heavy pitcher for $3.99
A wire basket – with the new tags still in place for $1.99
A spoon rest for $1.99
Don't forget to scan the craft area of the thrift store…I purchased two bolts, two different times. Here is fabric I can use. Each for $2.99- that is a super buy.
Linen Look fabric – looks like my burlap but way softer. I have many plans for this baby.
This fabric matches my daughters room – I think there is plenty to make curtains and other things. Woo Hoo !
I have a few more large projects that I am working on , or sitting in line ready to be worked on. My youngest, starts high school tomorrow so I have been busy school shopping and such.
Please visit:
http://southernhospitalityblog.com/ - Rhoda
http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ – Susan
to visit other great transformations and thrifty finds !
Hugs ~ Kammy


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Profile Description
As a Certified Civil Trial Attorney, Robert Hicks handles a wide variety of negligence, malpractice, products liability and premises liability cases involving both the public and the private sectors. Hicks has successfully recovered millions of dollars on behalf of his clients. His recoveries for his clients include:
$3.85 million for a mechanic burned by fuel oil ignited by a defective product.
$2.74 million in a medical malpractice wrongful death action for failure to diagnose deep vein thrombosis leading to a fatal pulmonary embolism
$1.9 million for the wrongful death of a five-year-old boy who fell from the window of a high-rise apartment building where the landlord failed to install proper window guards.
$1.38 million to the estate of an eight-year-old child who died of post operative bleeding, proving that the defendant physician had failed to treat the bleeding.
$1.5 million from an obstetrician and sonogram technician for failing to detect fetal abnormalities on a screening sonogram resulting in the birth of a child with severe and multiple birth defects.
$1.75 million from a construction company for the wife and children of a construction worker who was killed when struck by a temporary support, proving that the defendant violated Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) regulations.
$1 million for a construction worker who suffered a severe leg injury when struck by a truck, proving that the negligence by traffic control officers combined with negligence of the truck driver caused the accident.
$1.225 million settlement of wrongful death medical malpractice claim for failure of emergency room doctor consider dissecting aortic aneurysm in the face of classic symptoms resulting in an eight hour delay before the correct diagnosis was made preventing timely surgical intervention.
$550,000 settlement of wrongful death psychiatric malpractice case for failure of defendant psychiatrist to recognize escalating symptoms of severe depression resulting in death by suicide.
Hicks belongs to many professional organizations and has served in professional leadership positions including President of the Richard J. Hughes American Inn of Court, Chairperson of the New Jersey State Bar Association Committee on Medical Malpractice and as Faculty Member at the American Board of Trial Attorneys Trial College at Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
In addition to extensive trial experience, Hicks has had many successes in the Appellate Courts and was lead counsel in Crippen vs. Central Jersey Concrete Pipe, 176 N.J. 397, 823 A2d 789 (2003), in which a widow sued her late husband?s employer for covering up its failure to correct violations found by OSHA in its equipment circumventing the statutory Workers Compensation bar to employee lawsuits against their employer. In 2007, he was named to Lawdragon?s 3000 Leading Plaintiffs? Lawyers in America list, which includes less than one percent of all the lawyers in America. Hicks has been named in New Jersey?s Super Lawyers every year since it?s inception in 2005.
- Practice Area Freehold
- Medical Malpractice


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: Supporting the power grid balancing and increasing the flexibility of the energy system is possible by means of dispatchable renewable energy sources. The specific challenge is to increase the potential of renewable dispatchable technologies in providing flexibility to the energy system. Different technologies are suitable to address this challenge.Scope:
Proposals will address one of the following sub-topics:
Proposals are expected to bring the technology from TRL 5 to TRL 7 (please see part G of the General Annexes).
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 12 to 15 million would allow this challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.Expected Impact:
The developed technologies will allow plant and system operators to operate successfully in the modern power markets and to make a significant contribution to European renewable energy objectives and policies.Cross-cutting Priorities:


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Film Maker – Sales Leader – Digital Publisher – Keynote Speaker – Podcaster
Director of SSB Advertising Agency; Australia's leading Life Insurance Sales Adviser; Board of Trustees Member of Occidental and Transamerica Life Insurance Company; Life Member of the international MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table). Director of Samson Film Productions and Co-Producer of the feature film "The Odd Angry Shot"; Keynote Speaker – on four Continents and in all States of Australia; Creator of the Cancer Council "Daffodil" Logo; Publisher of Mansam Magazine; Founder of Wingman Podcast Services; Presenter and Speaker at Wingman Sam seminars, on "Purpose".
If you are interested in a personal discussion or would like to know more, please contact Sam:
Mobile: 0412 220 515
Email: email@example.com
Location: Sydney, Australia


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It only took 59 years and three viewings but I believe this is the best fit interpretation for the wonderfully perplexing story
Thoughts for Veteran's Day 2018
The real war to end all wars was begun by Napoleon and ended with MLK/RFK's near simultaneous murders
Riddle me this: which twin is older?
When I meet twins, I sometimes tell them the story of how I once delivered twins but both ended up being the older one.
A 30yo man being is evicted from his parents' home
In this post, I would like to address a cultural zeitgeist, of a 30yo man being evicted from his parents' home.
What is change blindness?
Today, I feel we should discuss a critically important topic: change blindness.
In order to function, we have to maintain a simulation of reality and when we are distracted, emotionally perturbed, or lazy, we do not perceive change.


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Accept that artificial intelligence (AI) will change your life and your job — dramatically.
Learn the difference between AI, machine learning, robots, bots, IoT, and simple automation — and you learn as much as you can about each of them. (You avoid "AIwashing" — simply using the term because it sounds cool and tech-y.)
Gain the insights and skills you need to stay smart & engaged in an AI-powered world. Many jobs will become obsolete. Others will become more central and critical to an organization's success. Be among those humans who prosper!
Accept that artificial intelligence (AI) will change your life and your job — dramatically.
Gain the insights and skills you need to stay smart & engaged in an AI-powered world. Many jobs will become obsolete. Others will become more central and critical to an organization's success. Be among those humans who prosper!
Halla I/O
Halla I/O WHY? Our mothers usually suggested we try new foods, now AI is helping us. Halla I/O was created with intelligent ordering (I/O for short) to be a personal food finder. Unlike recommendations from Grubhub or OpenTable; Halla I/O suggests recipes or local...read more
Marketing Vitals
Meet Marketing Vitals WHY? Whether adding a new appetizer to the menu or bringing back a classic drink, restaurants always want to serve customer tastes. Marketing Vitals' software makes recommendations to restaurateurs based on 9 data parameters: Business Analytics,...read more
Pazzi WHY? Robot pizza prep may make restaurants a lot of dough. One such restaurant is Pazzi, a French-based eatery entirely run by autonomous robots (called Pizzaiolo) created by EKIM. It will be the first pizzeria to be fully run by robots, unlike competitors Zume...read more
AI, Machine Learning & Robotics in Food & Beverage
Food-tech continues to boom. The National Restaurant Association and Fancy Food conferences are in May and June respectively. So what better time to showcase the latest 2019 AI, robotics, and technologies that are changing what we eat and how it's prepared and served...read more
Meet Starship WHY? Breakfast can be the most important meal of the day and now hundreds of college students are enjoying "breakfast in bed" daily at George Mason and Northern Arizona University, thanks to autonomous delivery robots from Starship, in a joint venture...read more
Eran Henig and Yishay Waxman
Meet Eran Henig & Yishay Waxman WHY? Why? Think of Platterz as a Seamless for corporate catering. Co-founders Henig and Waxman recently raised $15 million, including support from Aleph, an investor in WeWork. The Toronto- and New York-based company says that their...read more
Meet Alfred WHY? How many human chefs can assemble 200 bowls an hour? Four Alfreds are that productive. This innovation from Dexai Robotics is described as "the next microwave." Not intended to replace human chef, but simply assist his or her, Alfred can increase...read more
The Ghost Restaurant
Meet The Ghost Restaurant WHY? Despite its Halloweeny sounding name, it's a venue that only exists for the purposes of food delivery, a rapidly-accelerating category. Less expensive than a traditional brick-and-mortar establishment, it provides chefs with a place to...read more
Meet Winnow WHY? Hotels and restaurants waste almost 280k tons of food yearly. Now a new technology-based system monitors and reports what gets trashed. Winnow, which is AI-powered, has saved hotels and restaurants "tons" of money, by reducing waste costs 3-8 percent....read more
Meet Frobot WHY? In recent years the new dessert fad of frozen yogurt has dominated local malls and cities. The ability to mix and match so many flavors into one little cup brings hundreds of people to shops everyday, but this all comes at a huge cost. Real estate and...read more


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Building the Right Environment to Support AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning
At TechEd 2014, Microsoft made a couple of big announcements related to its Visual Studio integrated development environment. First, a preview version of Visual Studio now supports Apache Cordova, an open source set of tools for creating hybrid apps using HTML and JavaScript. The update extends the IDE's mobile development capabilities, giving developers more options.
Second, the company announced a new set of APIs for integrating third-party services with Visual Studio Online. Initially, eighteen partners are announcing APIs for the development platform.
At the same event, Microsoft made several other announcements related to its development tools, including a new preview of the next version ASP.NET, improvements to its DevOps tools, an OpsHub TFS to Visual Studio Online Migration Utility and new cloud development services for MSDN subscribers.
View article
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Mensola Accent Table - Gun Metal
Our Price
This new GUN METAL BLACK STAINLESS is absolutely beautiful. This is not Nickel plated, but rather a special treatment that is bonded into to the stainless. Very durable and has a beautiful depth in the color.
The Mensola accent table is stocked in Gun Metal Black finish. Also available in stock in Brushed Stainless Steel finish.
Dimensions: 21" L x 13 3/4" W x 22 1/2" H
*Most items can be delivered anywhere in the continental US. However, due to our strict quality of service standards, only some items are available for "Click-to-buy". To receive a shipping quote, please contact your local store using this link or click here for out of state inquiries. Please include your zip code and the item(s) you are interested in.