Wolfwalkers: An enchanting fable

Wolfwalkers (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and sequences of violence and peril

By Derrick Bang

The best animation houses have their own distinctive appearance, pacing and storytelling approach.

 

Classic 1940s and ’50s Warner Bros. cartoons looked nothing like their Disney cousins, and nobody would confuse one of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli efforts with a Pixar entry.

 

After spending some time with the forest-born Mebh, left, the town-bred Robyn begins
to realize that her assumptions about her walled town's relationship with the
surrounding woods are not only wrong, but harmful.

The same is true of Ireland’s Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, who — as artists, writers and/or directors under the Cartoon Saloon banner — have previously brought us 2009’s The Secret of Kells and 2014’s Song of the Sea, both of which earned Academy Award nominations.

 

Their unique touch is equally evident in Wolfwalkers, which they’ve co-directed and co-written, with scripting assistance from Will Collins and Jericca Cleland. As with the earlier films, this new animated opus — available via Apple TV+ — is steeped in Irish mythology and folklore, and includes a strong environmental message.

 

There’s also a rather nasty jab at Oliver Cromwell’s 17th century invasion and subsequent occupation of Ireland, for those with an historical bent. (Some transgressions never are forgiven, and the Irish have very long memories.)

 

The year is 1650, the setting a British-occupied walled hamlet in Kilkenny. Rule is maintained by the oppressively Puritan — and ironically named — Lord Protector (voiced by Simon McBurney) and his soldiers. The “heathen” Irish townsfolk are essentially feudal serfs: the men tending sheep and working the land, the women enduring back-breaking labor in the cringingly named “scullery.”

 

Over time, the Lord Protector has ordered that the surrounding woods be systematically cleared away, as a means of “protecting” the town from “vicious” wolves. This does not sit well with the wisest townsfolk, steeped in local lore, who understand that a symbiotic balance must be maintained between people, forest and wolves.

 

The wolf pack has long been protected by the powerful, magic-laden Moll MacTíre (Maria Doyle Kennedy), a “wolfwalker” who is human when awake, and transforms into a wolf when her human form sleeps. Aside from her many others gifts — most related to a wolf’s extraordinarily enhanced senses — Moll has the ability to heal wounds.

Space Sweepers: A hoot 'n' a holler

Space Sweepers (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-MA, for profanity and sci-fi violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.12.21

This South Korean sci-fi epic — the country’s first “space blockbuster,” and an import for Netflix — is absolutely dog-nuts.

 

It’s also a lot of fun.

 

Tae-ho (Song Joong-Ki, left), Jang (Kim Tae-ri, right) and the robot Bubs find something
extremely unusual in their latest haul of space salvage.

Scripters Yoon Seung-min, Yoo-kang Seo-ae and Jo Sung-hee “borrow” from a variety of predecessors — Silent Running, Blade Runner and Elysium immediately come to mind — and overlay those familiar elements with a cheeky original premise. Director Sung-hee Jo’s handling is somewhat chaotic, which befits the rather “messy” future inhabited by a quartet of misfit heroes.

 

The year is 2092. Earth has become an environmental nightmare, with fading sunlight and increasingly acidic soil contributing to the spread of deserts, and the destruction of forests. Thanks to a technological “miracle” orchestrated by the UTS Corp., the wealthy and “connected” enjoy luxurious living in a massive, verdant and enclosed habitat orbiting Earth, reachable via a geosynchronous “space elevator” (long one of my favorite sci-fi concepts, and one that actually might be practical on lower-gravity worlds such as Mars and our Moon).

 

The rest of humanity is stuck on the planet’s poisonous surface.

 

Ah, but all is not lost. UTS head James Sullivan (Richard Armitage) — doctor, physicist, aerospace engineer, historian and the world’s richest and oldest man (at a spry 152) — has ambitious plans to terraform Mars, transforming it into the forested paradise that Earth used to be. 

 

Meanwhile…

 

Thanks to more than a century of orbital development, the region above Earth has become its own nightmare, as satellites fail and other floating debris turns hazardous. This has created a new business model for rag-tag independents, who earn a meager living as orbital garbage collectors: “catching” and then salvaging space junk.

 

It’s a ruthlessly competitive, wholly unregulated industry, and the champs staff a nuts-and-bolts spaceship dubbed Victory. Its four-person crew comprises genius pilot Tae-ho (Song Joong-Ki); the somewhat mysterious, ex-space pirate Capt. Jang (Kim Tae-ri); resourceful and heavily tattooed engineer Tiger Park (Jim Sun-kyu); and a reprogrammed military robot named Bubs (Yoo Hai-jin).

 

The latter is impressively adept with a cable-fed harpoon, which — being a robot — it can hurl while standing atop the Victory’s exterior.

Gamemaster: It's all in how you play

Gamemaster (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Not rated, and suitable for all ages

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.12.21

Full disclosure: Constant Companion and I owned and ran a board game and puzzle store from fall 1978 through winter 1997. So, yes; I’m more interested than most, when it comes to this topic.

 

Charlie Bink, designer of the board game "Trekking the National Parks," contemplates
whether to tweak the rules one more time. Note his game's high-quality wooden and
glass components.

But don’t assume that such a specific level of interest is required, to embrace director Charles Mruz’s engaging little documentary. You’ll get by with even rudimentary knowledge. Besides which, we all grew up playing board and card games, whether with friends or family.

 

(And many of us still do…)

 

That said, be advised: This film — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming outlets — eschews historical content. No time is spent discussing the creation of vintage board game classics such as Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, Candy Land and Scrabble; or how the very nature of games has evolved. (Consider the seismic shifts that occurred in the wake of Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.)

 

Instead, Mruz’s film adopts the format that made earlier documentaries — such as 2002’s Spellbound, and 2018’s Science Fair — so entertaining. We meet and follow the progress of four would-be game designers, as they navigate the discipline’s necessary trials and tribulations.

 

You think it’s hard to get a book published? Try bringing a game to the retail market.

 

Mruz chose well. Each of his four subjects is personable, creative, enthusiastic and delightfully humble: well aware of the difficult path ahead.

 

Scott Rogers, a former video game designer and Disney engineer, began designing his first-ever tabletop game while undergoing chemotherapy for stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The process was its own former of therapy, as it gave him something on which to focus.

 

“I’m a really big Star Wars fan,” he cheerfully recalls, “and I went, I wanna make a Star Wars game. And my friend said, ‘Pfft, forget Star Wars, make your own damn Star Wars. And I’m like, Yeah, I could make my own damn Star Wars.” 

 

The result, dubbed “Rayguns and Rocketships,” became all-consuming: play-testing, fine-tuning the rules, play-testing, making the components, play-testing … you get the idea. 

The Dig: A captivating excavation

The Dig (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for brief sensuality and fleeting partial nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.21

Director Simon Stone’s well-seasoned character drama, available via Netflix, is a thoroughly absorbing slice of old-style British filmmaking: a fascinating, fact-based story inhabited by engaging characters, set in England’s luxuriously verdant countryside.

 

After a harrowing reminder that amateur excavation can be quite dangerous, Edith Pretty
(Carey Mulligan) makes sure that archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) has
suffered no more than a terrible fright.

The countryside in question is Suffolk, the year 1939: just as Britain is battening down the hatches in anticipation of war with Germany. Odd, then, that widowed aristocratic landowner Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) chooses this moment to investigate the large barrows (burial mounds) that dot her 526-acre Sutton Hoo estate (but, well, the actual Pretty did just that).

 

Such mounds were prevalent throughout much of the United Kingdom at this point in time, and it was accepted wisdom that — if they contained anything at all — the contents likely would date back to the Viking era. Edith has no reason to expect otherwise, but even Viking artifacts would be worthy of museum preservation.

 

She hires local archaeologist/excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to investigate; after surveying the various mounds, he settles on a particularly large one. The digging is arduous, painstaking and slow, even with the help of a few estate workers. As the days and weeks pass, with Edith and her adolescent son Robert (Archie Barnes) taking an active interest — and since Basil is living on the estate — he becomes a welcome part of the family.

 

That’s no small thing, since the working-class Basil is akin to a servant himself. But Edith clearly gives no thought to that sort of thing: a deliberate contrast to the way Basil is regarded as “lesser” by his archaeological peers, since he’s self-taught after having left school at age 12.

 

Nothing is quite as condescending as British class snobbery, and Fiennes does a marvelous job of imbuing Basil with quiet dignity and patient resolve, when confronted by it. His deepening bond with Edith and Robert notwithstanding, he also tends toward obsession, ignoring frequent letters from his wife, May (Monica Dolan).

 

Basil becomes convinced that these Sutton Hoo barrows might pre-date the Viking era (eighth to 11th century): in fact, might be Anglo-Saxon (as early as the fifth century). Naturally, his disdainful colleagues dismiss this notion.

 

Then Basil finds some iron rivets. A ship’s iron rivets. (Bear in mind, we’re well inland.) Only figures of immense merit — such as kings — were buried with their ships.

The Little Things: A big mistake

The Little Things (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated R, for violence, disturbing images, nudity and profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.21 

You don’t often see three Oscar winners starring in the same film.

 

Too bad they’re so ill-served by this inept crime drama.

 

Looking to show off in front of visiting veteran detective Joe "Deke" Deacon (Denzel
Washington, center rear), homicide Det. Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) browbeats a junior
officer, while Det. Jamie Estrada (Natalie Morales) watches nervously.

The Little Things, exclusive to HBO Max, benefits from the participation of Denzel Washington and Rami Malek, both of whom bring far more to the table than writer/director John Lee Hancock deserves.

 

In fairness, Hancock can be a talented director. He guided Sandra Bullock to an Academy Award in 2009’s The Blind Side, and I thoroughly enjoyed how he handled Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, in 2019’s The Highwaymen.

 

But as a writer, he record is spotty at best; his best efforts are adaptations of existing books, as with The Blind Side and 1997’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He certainly has no flair for concocting a psychological crime thriller such as this one, which repeatedly screams for the superior touch of a seasoned mystery author.

 

As Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan observes, in 1973’s Magnum Force, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

 

Hancock obviously doesn’t.

 

The year is 1990, likely to avoid the intrusion of cell phones, social media and DNA evidence. Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) is sent down to Los Angeles, for what should be a quick evidence-gathering assignment. He runs afoul of preppy L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide Department Sgt. Jim Baxter (Malek), whose “college boy” condescension provokes little more than an amused smile from Deke.

 

Washington delivers it with quiet élan. Actually, pretty much everything Washington does, emerges with elegance and dignity.

 

Turns out Deke has “history” with this Los Angeles department, having departed under something of a cloud. (Hancock shares these details via maddeningly sparse and fleeting flashbacks, as the film proceeds.) Deke left behind a few friends — Det. Sal Rizoli (Chris Bauer), and L.A. coroner’s assistant Flo Dunigan (Michael Hyatt) — but most other department stalwarts were happy to see the back of him.

 

Baxter heads the task force charged with tracking down a serial killer who has been doing nasty things to attractive young women. Perhaps as a passive/aggressive means of showing up the old-timer, Baxter invites Deke along to a fresh crime scene, where the newest victim has just been discovered. This ploy fails, forcing Baxter to reluctantly admire Deke’s methodical analysis and careful eye for “the little things.”

 

The two men begin an initially prickly — but soon mutually respectful — partnership.

 

Because, as it turns out, the details of this current murder spree have uncanny similarities to the equally morbid serial killer case that Deke obsessively pursued, back in the day: to the cost of his health, his marriage and his job.

 

Palmer: A poignant ode to second chances

Palmer (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual content, brief nudity and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.5.21

Films such as this one, are why I love my job.

 

Cheryl Guerriero’s sharply observed screenplay for this sweet character drama is matched by scrupulously persuasive performances throughout. That said, special mention must be made of stars Justin Timberlake — absolutely the finest, most heartfelt acting job he has turned in thus far — and newcomer Ryder Allen, all of 7 years old during production.

 

Attendance at Sunday morning church service is mandatory for anybody living with
Vivian (June Squibb, foreground right), which Palmer (Justin Timberlake, foreground
left) quickly learns. Young Sam (Ryder Allen), a semi-permanent house guest,
couldn't be happier.

Actor-turned-movie maker Fisher Stevens coaches superbly subtle work from both: a degree of directorial sensitivity that I never would have expected from his only two previous features: 2002’s Just a Kiss and 2012’s Stand Up Guys. Guerriero’s story is thoroughly engaging, but it’s also fun to sit back and watch all the little bits — the pauses, expressions and gestures — that make Timberlake and Allen’s characters so believable.

 

The premise is familiar, but — when the execution is this earnest — that’s no drawback.

 

Former high school football star Eddie Palmer (Timberlake), once a hometown hero who earned an athletic college scholarship, took a massively wrong turn and wound up serving 12 years in a state penitentiary. He did “good time”; he kept his nose clean and paid his debt to society.

 

The film opens as he returns to his small-town Louisiana roots, moving in with his grandmother Vivian (June Squibb), who raised him. The weather-beaten community feels time-locked; although smart phones and computers are present, they remain at the periphery. More than once, Palmer — as he prefers to be called — insists that he’s perfectly content with the rotary phone on the wall.

 

(Filming took place in Hammond — not too far from Baton Rouge and New Orleans — and production designer Happy Massee ensures that the ambiance is strongly mid-20th century Southern Americana.)

 

Palmer’s early efforts at “making the rounds” are acutely uncomfortable, Timberlake’s posture and gaze sliding between wariness and embarrassment. He’s greeted enthusiastically by old friends Daryl (Stephen Louis Grush) and Ned (Nicholas X. Parsons), both of whom are Obvious Bad News; we worry about this, although Palmer seems smart enough to steer clear.

 

His reception from another former friend, Coles (Jesse C. Boyd), is more guarded. Following in his father’s footsteps, Coles has become a cop; some sort of residual tension permeates this reunion, although Coles clearly is happy to see Palmer. The same can’t be said of Coles’ father (Dane Rhodes), the local top cop, who grimly expects to re-arrest Palmer in due course.

 

Penguin Bloom: Truly soars

Penguin Bloom (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-14, for dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.21  

Never underestimate the healing power — or sensitivity — of an attentive animal.

 

Even an unlikely one.

 

Sam (Naomi Watts) cannot reconcile her current condition with the robust, physically
active woman she used to be: a past lovingly documented by dozens of photos
taken by her husband.

During a 2013 family holiday in Thailand, Sam Bloom leaned against a second-story balcony railing; the rotten wood shattered, and she fell to the concrete patio below. Although lucky to survive, the damage to her spinal cord left her paralyzed from the chest down.

 

Perhaps worse, the accident also crushed her spirit. As time passed, the previously active career nurse, and happily married mother of three rambunctious young boys — raising this family on Sydney’s Northern beaches, where she ran, swam, biked and surfed every chance she got — spiraled ever downward into a miasma of despair.

 

And then … a miracle.

 

Australian director Glendyn Ivin’s Penguin Bloom, based on the popular 2016 memoir co-written by Sam’s husband Cameron and Bradley Trevor Greive, is a charming adaptation of the unlikely incident that turned Sam’s life around. Shaun Grant and Harry Cripps’ script is quite faithful to actual events … as should be expected, given that Sam and Cameron “Cam” Bloom are co-executive producers.

 

But — and this is important — their involvement has not buried this film beneath an insufferably noble or sugar-coated patina. Ivin unerringly maintains a careful balance, blending heartbreaking anguish — a family in serious danger of unraveling at the seams — with, unexpectedly, hope and gentle humor. The film gets its power from two cast members: Naomi Watts, as the beleaguered Sam; and newcomer Griffin Murray-Johnston, making an impressive acting debut as eldest son Noah.

 

The story is told from their point of view, either individually, or as part of the shared family dynamic; as a result, Watts and/or Murray-Johnston are in pretty much every scene.

 

They easily hold our attention.

 

As does the third crucial cast member. Who has wings.

 

Ivin begins his film with Sam at low ebb, and sinking lower; details of her accident emerge later, via Noah’s tormented voice-over. He can’t understand why his mother has withdrawn into herself; she can’t understand why everybody else doesn’t acknowledge that she has become worse than a burden, but an entirely useless human being.

 

In & Of Itself: Marvelous sleight-of-film

In & Of Itself (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, but contains profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.12.21 

Back in 1996, director/playwright David Mamet helmed one of magician Ricky Jay’s stage performances, which gave the resulting 60-minute film its title: Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants.

 

A brick seemingly frozen in mid-throw, halfway through a shattered window, is disturbing
by its very nature. What Derek DelGaudio eventually does with that brick, is
simply astonishing.

(The two had been friends since Jay co-starred in 1987’s House of Games, and from then on he often popped up in Mamet’s films.)

 

Flash-forward a quarter-century, and director Frank Oz (Little Shop of Horrors, The Score, etc.) has just helmed this sorta-kinda documentary about conceptual magician Derek DelGaudio, and his one-man stage performance. It’s available exclusively via Hulu.

 

“Documentary” isn’t quite accurate, and I’m frankly not sure how to label this whatever-it-is. It’s part filmed stage production, part performance art, part social commentary, part confessional memoir, part head trip, and — oh, absolutely — part magic act.

 

But however we designate it, this is a must-see experience. (Actually, “experience” is an apt descriptor.)

 

Oz also directed DelGaudio’s theater show, which debuted in Los Angeles in May 2016, then moved to an Off-Broadway opening that sold out the 150-seat Daryl Roth Theater every night of its initial 10-week run. When the dust finally settled, In & Of Itself had run 72 weeks and 560 performances — becoming one of the most successful shows in Off-Broadway history — at which point DelGaudio folded his tent, cryptically stating, “I feel like I’ve said what I wanted to say.”

 

And left the public begging for more: an artistic void happily filled by this film.

 

“Cryptic” is another good descriptor, and you’ll likely spend the initial 10-15 minutes wondering whether this will be worth your time. Patience, grasshopper … because yes, it is.

 

At its core, DelGaudio’s performance revolves around identity. The film opens as, pre-show, each audience member selects one card — from the hundreds arranged on a wall — that reflects his/her sense of self. (“I am a geologist.” “I am an opponent.” “I am a drag queen.” “I am a grandfather.” “I am a drummer.” “I am a master of the universe.” And so forth.)

 

Oz, who’d never before directed a stage show, is perfectly suited to this material. He is, after all, an identity illusionist himself, having become famous for transforming inanimate constructs into fully fleshed characters such as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Yoda.

The White Tiger: An impressive roar

The White Tiger (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual candor and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.21 

There’s a trainload of rage in this thoroughly engaging film.

 

During their initial outing, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife, Pinky Madam
(Priyanka Chopra), are surprised to discover that their new driver, Balram (Adarsh Gourav)
hasn't the faintest idea how to get where they're going.

Director/scripter Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s award-winning 2008 novel has been described as a cross between Slumdog Millionaire and Parasite, and that’s reasonably accurate. But this film has the added benefit of a caustic sense of humor — darker than dark — and its protagonist’s sharply observed understanding of the way in which globalization has exacerbated the cruel divide between India’s upper and lower castes.

 

Our “hero,” Balram (Adarsh Gourav), is introduced in a position of prominence. He has become that which he always hoped to attain: an entrepreneur. This isn’t an easy achievement in his country, as he explains; an Indian entrepreneur must be “…straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time.”

 

Balram narrates his saga by way of a letter written to Chinese Premier Web Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India in 2010. “American is so yesterday,” Balram begins. “China and India are tomorrow.” (If American viewers respond to that introduction with unease, I’ve no doubt that was Bahrani’s intention.)

 

Balram (played, as an adolescent, by Harshit Mahawar) grows up in the poor village of Laxmangarh. He’s a bright, curious and perceptive child: that rarest of jungle creatures, a “white tiger,” symbol of freedom and individuality. But his intelligence opens no doors in a feudal hamlet under the thrall of a big city coal baron dubbed “The Stork” (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his thuggish elder son, “The Mongoose” (Vijay Maurya). They extract one-third of the already meager rupees the villagers earn.

 

Balram watches his father literally work himself to death, while the family elder — Granny Kusum (Kamlesh Gill) — berates the man, for not laboring harder.

 

This mind set — the adult Balram explains, in voiceover — is due to the most insidious of India’s “inventions”: the rooster coop, where caged birds silently watch their fellows being slaughtered, while calmly waiting their turn. This characterizes India’s “dark” under class: not merely trapped in a perpetual cycle of poverty and servitude, but trained over centuries to accept that it should be that way.

 

As the adult Balram further observes, “Election promises had taught me how important it is, not to be a poor man in a ‘free’ democracy.”