Reminiscence: Not worth remembering

Reminiscence (2021) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated PG-13, for violence, drug use, sexual candor and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.27.21

Ugh.

 

Plodding, ponderous, pretentious twaddle.

 

Not even Hugh Jackman’s considerable charisma can save this one.

 

Nick (Hugh Jackman) and his colleague Watts (Thandiwe Newton) begin a memory
retrieval session with an uncooperative client, who's about to reveal something
that'll come as a nasty shock.

Actually, that’s part of the problem. Writer/director Lisa Joy obliterated Jackman’s charisma, transforming him into a mope with very little in the way of redeeming qualities.

Lineage counts for a lot; my expectations were low, knowing that Joy is one of the key show-runners who turned HBO’s update of Westworld into similarly tedious nonsense with delusions of grandeur. And — sure enough — she lives down to my worst fears with her feature film debut.

 

Reminiscence steals the futuristic Blade Runner look as the setting for an Inception-style dive into a reality constantly muddled by recaptured memories, the “twist” being that we’re often not sure which is which. That’s hardly a novel concept, nor is this clichéd premise helped by the fact that we don’t give a damn about any of these characters.

 

They’re worse than one-dimensional; they’re simply dull. 

 

Joy’s clumsy attempt to further spice this thin gruel with Raymond Chandler’s hard-edged noir sensibilities — as was done so much better in Blade Runner — is laughable.

 

Were it not for the stunning visuals crafted by production designer Howard Cummings and special effects maestro Peter Chesney, this would be a total bomb.

 

The setting is Miami, at some undetermined point in the future. The ocean has risen, due to a climate apocalypse, transforming the city into an American Venice. Water is everywhere; the lower floors of entire blocks of buildings are submerged. (Apparently this hasn’t affected anything structurally, which seems highly unlikely; Joy’s script isn’t long on real-world consequences.)

 

The chasm between the rich and everybody else has shifted onto fraught new territory: those who can afford to live on dry ground — giving an entirely new meaning to the phrase “land baron” — and everybody else. The result was some sort of war, its outcome left vague (along with everything else in Joy’s sloppy narrative).

 

Daytime temperatures are dangerously hot, prompting most people to live at night. Even allowing for this narrative element, Joy and cinematographer Paul Cameron go overboard with dark rooms, darker shadows and even darker streets; it’s sometimes difficult to determine what’s happening in a given scene. (If Cameron had dialed the illumination down a bit further, we’d have been spared having to watch the film at all.)

The Palindromists: Words fail me (in a good way!)

The Palindromists (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Not rated, and (of course!) suitable for all ages

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang

You can’t get much more fringe, than the subject of this droll little documentary.

 

It’ll be adored by folks who build their schedules around Will Shortz’s challenges as puzzle master on NPR’s Weekend Edition; and by folks who enjoy crossword puzzles; and by folks who get a kick out of anagrams, spoonerisms, Tom Swifties and other forms of word play.

 

Orchestral bassoonist Lori Wike poses with one of her favorite palindromes.

It’d also make an excellent double feature with 2006’s Wordplay.

In short, director Vince Clemente’s new film will go over big with word nerds. And if you do belong to that rather idiosyncratic group, then you’ve no doubt endured plenty of glazed looks and rolled eyes while trying to explain this passion to normal people.

 

Children generally encounter palindromes at some point during their grade-school years, likely shared by a math or English teacher looking to lighten the mood. Palindromes are easy to define: They’re words or phrases that read identically, forward and backwards. Basic single word examples include TOT, PIP and DAD; common names include BOB, ELLE and HANNAH.

 

It gets more interesting when multiple words are employed to make a palindromic phrase; classics include MADAM, I’M ADAM (supposedly the first sentence uttered in the Garden of Eden); STEP ON NO PETS; WAS IT A CAR OR A CAT I SAW; and my all-time favorite, A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL … PANAMA!

 

The latter points to a key element of the best palindromes: They should be elegant, and make some sort of sense. Raising a smile is even better. Random assortments of words, no matter how impressively long and perfectly palindromic, are frowned upon.

 

Most people abandon such nonsense upon achieving adulthood, but Clemente’s film isn’t interested in most people. Having previously helmed one of the best documentaries to cover video games — 2011’s Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters — I can well imagine his wheels spinning anew, after hearing about the First Annual World Palindrome Championship, which took place March 16, 2012, in Brooklyn, New York.

 

(As it happened, the event was misnamed; although it was indeed the first, subsequent contests have been quinquennial … which is to say, every five years.)

 

Clemente decided to profile the contestants who would vie for the second bout, scheduled to take place March 24-25, 2017, in Stanford, Connecticut. In a gesture of solidarity, host Will Shortz — you just knew he’d be involved, right? — booked this event alongside the less eclectic 40th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament; this way, the palindromists were guaranteed a full-house audience.

 

The resulting film was literally years in the making, in part because it was crowd-funded via Kickstarter; and in part because it took Clemente awhile to interview everybody ahead of time, and then again during the two-day event; and in part because then he needed supplementary crowd-funding via Indiegogo, in order to complete post-production.

 

The result is impressively entertaining — for word nerds, anyway — despite such humble origins.

Flag Day: Don't raise it

Flag Day (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, drug use and violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The fact-based story here is compelling and astonishing: the saga of a young woman who survives not only a horrific parent — a pathological liar and toxic “entrepreneur” — but her own dangerous detour into life on the streets, before achieving an epiphany that helps her not only survive, but thrive.

 

Jennifer (Dylan Penn), determing to reform her deadbeat, unreliable father (Sean Penn),
moves in with him and undertakes a serious makeover effort.

Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth’s script is adapted from journalist Jennifer Vogel’s searing 2004 memoir, Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life. Vogel also granted considerable assistance during production, so she clearly approved — and assured the authenticity (for the most part) — of this depiction of her early years.

Scary thought.

 

Director Sean Penn clearly intended this as a showcase for his actress daughter, Dylan, and she does her old man proud; her persuasive, deeply moving performance is all over the emotional map. We grieve for her character. Repeatedly.

 

Too bad Dylan’s old man didn’t return the favor.

 

As director, Sean Penn’s aggressively arty “style” pretty much destroys this film. His unrelenting, tight-tight-tight close-ups and up-the-nostrils angles are insufferable, and he relies on them throughout the entire film. It’s the ultimate insult: the lazy, TV-soap-opera affectation of a director who doesn’t trust his actors to carry a given moment.

 

Penn also favors jittery camerawork — I wondered if cinematographer Daniel Moder had been ordered to bounced on a trampoline — and often detours into blurry, grainy, 16mm “memory moments” intended to mimic sloppy home movies.

 

Just about every time Dylan Penn hits a crucial dramatic scene, her father steals focus by calling too much attention to his self-indulgent directorial tics and hiccups.

 

It’s an impressive job of sabotage … which is pretty damn ironic. How could he not have realized that he was ruining his own daughter’s fine work?

 

After a brief prologue in the early 1990s — which telegraphs the story’s conclusion — we’re introduced to the dysfunctional Vogel family: father John (Sean Penn), wife Patty (Katheryn Winnick) and adolescent children Jennifer (Jadyn Rylee) and Nick (Beckam Crawford). The adult Jennifer (Dylan Penn) narrates the details of their tempestuous upbringing, highlighting the degree to which John’s chronic unreliability exacerbates Patty’s fragile insecurity.

 

It’s the mid-1970s. John blows what little money he makes on flamboyant gestures, and then can’t make rent or put food on the table. Patty knows it’s just a matter of time before they’ll once again throw all their worldly possessions into the beat-up station wagon, and drive to some other Midwestern town, where John will somehow con their way into another short-term home.

CODA: A heartwarming treasure

CODA (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for frequent sexual candor and amusing profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.20.21

If you’ve been dismayed by the absence of real people and relatable stories in recent films, you’ll love this one.

 

Ruby (Emilia Jones, left) is mortified when she's forced to vividly translate the intimate,
ah, "medical problem" that is plaguing her parents (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin),
while a mildly amused doctor takes in every detail.

Writer/director Sian Heder’s richly nuanced CODA — say it as a word, not an acronym — is a sure cure for the summer blockbuster blues. Her warmly sensitive script is populated by engaging characters brought persuasively to life by a cast of talented (and mostly unrecognized) actors. The resulting coming-of-age story has more depth than most; it’s the wry, frequently funny and occasionally shattering saga of a teenage girl struggling between family loyalty and finding her own bliss.

The setting is modern-day Gloucester, Mass. Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) wakens each day at 3 a.m., in order to join her father Frank (Troy Kotsur) and slightly older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) on the family’s fishing boat; the daily catch keeps a roof over their heads. Ruby’s participation is essential, because she’s the conduit to all the buyers and other fisherman; she’s her family’s sole hearing member (which is to say, a Child Of Deaf Adults).

 

Her father, mother (Marlee Matlin, as Jackie) and brother are culturally deaf, relying on sign language to communicate with each other, and with Ruby … and relying on her as interpreter (which can get embarrassing during, say, visits to a doctor).

 

After each early morning’s ocean excursion, Ruby bicycles to the local high school, where she tries to avoid falling asleep during her senior year classes. She’s long been the target of cruel taunts, in part due to her “weird” family, and also because she often arrives smelling strongly of fish. Best — and only — friend Gertie (Amy Forsyth) is her sole salvation.

 

The plan, up to this point, has been for Ruby to join the family business full-time after graduation: something she never has thought to question.

 

But one otherwise ordinary day, as all students select an elective class, she impulsively signs up for choir … mostly because she has been silently crushing on Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), who also did so. Truth be told, Ruby has grown up adoring all sorts of music, particularly that of obscure pop/rock bands.

 

The first choir session is deeply intimidating, thanks to the flamboyantly formal behavior of instructor Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez, who deserves an Oscar nomination). His almost regal bearing would elicit snickers of derision, if he weren’t also so damn intimidating. But that’s all surface; it quickly becomes apparent that he’s one of those sublimely talented teachers who makes a difference in young lives.

 

He quickly recognizes that Ruby is talented. Quite talented. Even if it takes her awhile to accept this opinion.

The Protégé: Solid action chops

The Protégé (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence, profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Revenge thrillers are a lot more interesting when the characters involved have actual personalities, as opposed to being one-dimensional rage machines.

 

With respect to the latter, Wrath of Man is a recent case in point: sheer boredom.

 

With a successful assignment behind them, Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and Anna
(Maggie Q) turn their attention to a long-dormant mystery ... little realizing the
consequences of this seemingly innocuous investigation.

Happily, The Protégé is cut from superior cloth. Scripter Richard Wenk understands solid character development — he gave us both Denzel Washington Equalizer entries, among others — and director Martin Campbell has two gilt-edged Bonds under his belt, in addition to 2017’s terrific Jackie Chan vehicle, The Foreigner.

If star Maggie Q were a better actress, the results here would be similarly noteworthy. Sadly, her thespic limitations are a distraction, particularly when in the company of seasoned scene-stealers such as Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton.

 

Following a brief prologue that tips its hat to the core premise in 1994’s Léon: The Professional, we’re introduced to Anna (Maggie Q) and Moody (Jackson). They run a rather unusual extermination business, with high financial returns for the successful removal of two-legged cockroaches. They’re always successful.

 

Indeed, Moody taught Anna everything he knows. And she was an eager pupil.

 

By day, she’s an antiquarian book dealer — intelligent, refined and shrewd — with an adorable street-corner London shop. She also spends as much time as possible with Moody, whom she adores as a surrogate father. She’s troubled by the implications of his relentless coughing jags, but maintains a neutral face while (for example) celebrating his 70th birthday with a particularly special gift. (Guitar geeks will salivate.)

 

An old case has been nagging Moody; he asks her to investigate somebody who went off-grid back in the 1990s. Back in her shop, Anna is approached by a cultivated and sophisticated gentleman who introduces himself as Michael Rembrandt (Keaton). He also knows books; they quote Edgar Allan Poe to each other. Their banter is superficially flirty, but the undertone is tense. Deadly.

 

Keaton makes excellent use of his arched eyebrows and condescending, reptilian gaze. Campbell wisely lingers on it.

 

Rembrandt departs; Anna watches him thoughtfully. (Credit where due, Maggie Q does contemplative thoughtfulness pretty well. Her line deliveries, alas, are another matter.)

 

Hours later, all hell breaks loose.

The Vault: Definitely worth opening

The Vault (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.13.21 

We must acknowledge that complex heist films are utterly preposterous, involving improbable insider knowledge, unlikely coincidence and impossible split-second timing.

 

That doesn’t make them any less fun.

 

Having already navigated an impressive series of obstacles, our heroes — from left,
Thom (Freddie Highmore), James (Sam Riley) and Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) —
are stunned by what comes next.

Director Jaume Balagueró’s entry in this engaging genre is a multi-national production involving five writers and 10 production companies, half of which display their insufferably arty logos before the film begins. Normally, so many cooks would be a recipe for disaster, but Balagueró somehow keeps an iron grip on this menagerie.

The caper also involves a twist I’ve not previously encountered: an objective so mysterious — the eponymous vault — that our protagonists have no idea what they don’t know about it … and yet must crack it.

 

But that’s getting ahead of things.

 

The setting is roughly a decade ago. Professional marine salvage expert Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) and his longtime partner James (Sam Riley) have just concluded a decades-long hunt for the remains of a 17th century ship, half-buried on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. Moreland knows that the booty includes a set of coins used by the ship’s captain, Sir Francis Drake, to reveal where he buried vast treasures that he plundered during his career as a privateer.

 

Treasures that the British government wishes to retrieve, since Drake had a tendency to cheat his Elizabethan sponsors (so this story would have us believe). Ergo, Moreland has been getting clandestine assistance from a shadowy MI6 operative (Famke Janssen).

 

Alas, before Moreland can search the many recovered chests for the coins, his operation is intercepted by the Spanish Coast Guard. Since he lacks a legal salvage claim, the Spanish government seizes everything and locks it in an impregnable vault, somewhere within Madrid’s historic Bank of Spain. The nature of this vault, reputed to be the world’s most secure, has remained a carefully guarded secret for 70 years.

 

Elsewhere, 22-year-old Cambridge University engineering student Thom (Freddie Highmore) has just become a media sensation, courted by all manner of tech corporations, thanks to the ingenious manner in which he averted what could have become a major environmental crisis. Thom is a think-outside-the-box improviser with little interest in corporate fealty; he’s more intrigued by solving “impossible tasks” for their own sake.

 

Which makes him ideal for Moreland’s purposes.

The Suicide Squad: Totally deranged

The Suicide Squad (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence and gore, relentless profanity, sexual references, drug use and fleeting graphic nudity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Fans of trash cinema — and their number is larger than you’d expect — fondly remember the 1980s glory days of Troma Studios, which brought us gleefully gruesome low-budget classics such as The Toxic Avenger, Surf Nazis Must Die, Rabid Grannies and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, among many others. 

 

Having battled their way through most of an island nation, our "heroes" — from left,
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Bloodsport (Idris Elba),
King Shark and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) — simply cannot believe what
they now must deal with.

Writer/director James Gunn’s carnage-laden sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad — this new one adds a crucial “The” — is like a Troma flick with a big-studio budget. That homage clearly is deliberate, since the voluminous end credits include an acknowledgment of The Toxic Avenger.

Which is to say, this is an unapologetically tasteless, offensive, gruesome and profane 132 minutes of hyper-violent gore, made (perhaps) a bit more palatable by equally relentless gallows humor. It’s The Dirty Dozen gone dog-nuts.

 

Gunn and visual effects supervisor Kelvin McIlwain include all possible means of torturing a human body, invariably amid gouts of splattered blood: decapitations, sliced limbs, craniotomies, gouged eyeballs, halfectomies (just what it sounds like), close-range shotgun blasts, and every other imaginable form of slicing and dicing. (Actually, they may have missed defenestration, but I’m not going back to double-check.)

 

Oh, yes: and being devoured by an enraged, land-based shark.

 

Gunn has no shortage of chutzpah. Recognizing that the 2016 film was a grim, joyless affair, he has doubled-down on this one’s unceasing snark. The most ridiculous lines, emerging at the most inappropriate moments, are uttered with straight-faced sincerity … which, of course, makes them even funnier (if your predilections run to such things).

 

And I do love the clever intertitles that bridge events and signal flashbacks (“Eight minutes earlier…”).

 

Gunn also earns geek cred for resurrecting some of the craziest characters ever introduced in DC comic book lore, such as the one updated here as TDK (and played by fan fave Nathan Fillion, although he’s hard to recognize beneath the mask); and the even more unlikely Starro the Conqueror, the first supervillain faced by the original Justice League of America, when that team debuted in early 1960.

 

Unlikely, to be sure … yet also quite creepy.

 

But that comes much later. Events kick off with the clandestine, late-night invasion of the island nation of Corto Maltese, which — thanks to a vicious regime change — suddenly has become a threat to the good ol’ US of A. Our assembled “mercenaries” are misfit, hyper-enhanced villains given this chance to shorten their sentences at Belle Reve, a prison with bragging rights for having the country’s highest mortality rate.

 

These degenerate delinquents are released to the care of Task Force X leader Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), with their every move monitored back in the States by government techies supervised by the merciless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). One false step, and she’ll activate the micro-bomb implanted in the base of each villain’s skull, thereby blowing his — or her — head off.

 

(Yes, of course we get to watch that happen.)

Gunpowder Milkshake: Gleefully explosive

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for frequent profanity and strong, bloody violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.23.21

A title such as this one practically screams “guilty pleasure.”

 

Indeed, it’s a pleasure.

 

Albeit extremely guilty.

 

With all manner of vicious thugs hot on their heels, Scarlet (Lena Heady, left) guides
Sam (Karen Gillan, right) and young Emily (Chloe Coleman) through a secret
escape route.

Director/co-scripter Navot Papushado’s opulently stylish revenge/survival thriller is a total kick: the sort of high-octane B-movie that’ll be adored by fans of Baby Driver and Guy Ritchie’s early-career crime flicks. Papushado, production designer David Scheunemann and cinematographer Michael Seresin give this violent romp all manner of atmosphere: way-cool settings, exaggerated and cleverly distinct color palettes, and a degree of intensity that threatens to burst from the screen.

These backdrops are populated by outré characters laden with ’tude: burlesques who couldn’t possibly exist in the real world (and thank God for that). Then there’s the most important element, which sets this film apart from grim, joyless cousins such as John Wick and its sequels: The script — by Papushado and Ehud Lavski — has heart.

 

The hyper-violence is mitigated by our lead character’s virtuous decision to Do The Right Thing.

 

Fifteen years ago, 12-year-old Sam (Freya Allan) learned — in the worst possible way — that her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey) worked as an assassin for a ruthless crime syndicate known as The Firm. That day also was the last time Sam saw Scarlet; the girl subsequently was raised by The Firm, and has followed in her mother’s lethal footsteps.

 

She has become coldly, mercilessly efficient: the go-to “handler” dispatched to clean up The Firm’s most dangerous messes.

 

As the film opens, Sam (now Karen Gillan) has been a little too thorough with her most recent assignment, much to the chagrin of Nathan (Paul Giamatti), her handler and surrogate parent figure. The blowback is likely to enrage the local Russian mob, with which The Firm has an uneasily cordial understanding.

 

While Nathan frets over how best to handle the repercussions, he sends Sam on an easier assignment: to kill a man (Samuel Anderson) and retrieve a bundle of cash that he stole from The Firm. During this confrontation, she learns that he took the money in order to ransom his 8-year-old daughter Emily (Chloe Coleman), who has been kidnapped by a quartet of mopes concealed behind monster masks.

 

This triggers Sam’s memory of her own younger self, orphaned under similarly dire circumstances. In the blink of an eye, Sam’s loyalty to The Firm evaporates; we see the shift in Gillan’s gaze. No matter the consequences, she intends to protect that little girl.

 

Consequences prove plentiful.