The 2023 Oscar Shorts: An engaging program

The Oscar Shorts (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, with parental guidance strongly advised

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.24.23

Many of the past several years’ worth of Academy Award-nominated live-action shorts have been grim and unbearably depressing.

 

Happily, this year’s voters have regained their senses of balance and humor, while still focusing on relatable real-world issues. Rest assured: Two of them still pack a gut-punch.

 

Unhappily, the Academy members who selected the animated entries remain too willing to reward weird style over narrative substance: a shortcoming that definitely compromises two of those entries.

But let’s start on a happier animated note. Australian director Lachlan Pendragon’s An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake, and I Think I Believe It is a droll claymation riff on 1998’s The Truman Show (and further inspired, Pendragon explains, by the 1953 Chuck Jones Warner Bros. cartoon, “Duck Amuck”).

 

A young telemarketer has long focused on toaster sales in an office crowded with numerous phone-bank workers … until, quite unexpectedly, the large avian of this film’s title informs him of a much larger world beyond his office walls.

 

Suddenly made aware that he has no knowledge of his childhood or upbringing — as also is the case with all his co-workers — our hero’s disorientation shoots into hyperdrive after realizing that his actions are controlled by Something Out There.

 

Pendragon’s 11-minute film doesn’t really have a point, but it’s fun to watch.

 

That isn’t the case with Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s The Flying Sailor, a bizarre and clumsily animated depiction of an urban legend that emerged in the wake of the horrific 1917 Halifax Harbour explosion: the largest human-made explosion at the time, equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT.

 

As the legend developed over time, an English sailor was sent skyward, blown out of his clothes, and landed — unharmed — two kilometers uphill. Canadians Forbis and Tilby intend their 7-minute short to be a parable on making peace with the moment, as one’s life flashes before panicked eyes … but the execution is too sloppy to be effective.

Armageddon Time: Heartbreaking growing pains

ArmageddonTime (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming options

By Derrick Bang

If Armageddon is viewed as the end of life as we know it, that’s also an apt description of the rude awakening experienced by an adolescent, the first time s/he is confronted by the world’s harsh realities.

 

When the emotional complexities of adolescence prove overwhelming, Paul
(Banks Repeta, left) knows that he can count on understanding and benevolent
wisdom from his Grampa Aaron (Anthony Hopkins).

Because that moment truly is the end of blissful childhood innocence.

Writer/director James Gray’s delicately nuanced, semi-autobiographical drama is both familiar and painfully intimate. It’s an excellent companion piece to Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, with a similar focus on interpersonal dynamics and emotionally shattering revelations. Both families are Jewish, and this heritage plays a strong role in their lives. Both sets of parents have worked hard to be upwardly mobile, determined to create better opportunities for their children.

 

But whereas Spielberg’s protagonist ultimately finds release in artistic expression, it’s not entirely clear that Gray’s young alter-ego will be similarly successful.

 

His achingly poignant narrative gets additional punch from the well-crafted work by young Banks Repeta, starring here as Paul Graff. Film dramas often take place at a remove, with viewers aware of the distance between themselves and the characters on screen. Thanks to Gray’s sensitive direction, Repeta’s complex performance — and similarly excellent work from the supporting cast — that sense of distance vanishes. 

 

We frequently feel like interlopers, somehow eavesdropping on real-world events taking place in a home just a few doors down from our own.

 

The time is autumn 1979, the setting New York City at its worst. Paul lives with his parents Irving (Jeremy Strong) and Esther (Anne Hathaway), and older brother Ted (Ryan Sell), in a semi-detached two-family row house in Flushing, Queens. The story begins as Paul begins his first day of sixth grade at the local public school, where he immediately stakes out a reputation as a disruptor.

 

He’s intelligent and funny, but not particularly attentive.

 

Paul’s tendency toward disrespect continues at home, where he’s an insufferably picky eater, battles constantly with his brother, and frequently talks back to his mother. The Graff home — and dinner table — often are boisterous affairs laden with grandparents and other aging relatives. Paul’s behavior skates, in part, because his beloved Grandpa Aaron (Anthony Hopkins) understands that the boy still is finding himself.

 

Even so, while Paul remains a sympathetic character — for the most part — he often isn’t likable. (Not unusual for a kid that age.)

 

Marlowe: Rich, retro gumshoe ambiance

Marlowe (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Noir fans will love this one.

 

Director Neil Jordan, always up for a challenge, has faithfully embraced the hard-bitten realm of Raymond Chandler’s laconic, world weary private detective, Philip Marlowe.

 

Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is seasoned enough to know it's unwise to fall for a client, but
Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) is rather hard to resist...

William Monahan’s screenplay draws from 2014’s The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Marlowe continuation novel authorized by the Chandler estate, and written by celebrated Irish author John Banville under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, which he has adopted as a pen name for his crime novels. 

Banville’s book is set during the 1950s, as befits a case taking place after Chandler’s final novel, 1958’s Playback, wherein Marlowe acknowledges his advanced age. Jordan and Monahan’s key change bounces these events back to October 1939, the year Chandler’s first Marlowe novel — The Big Sleep — was published.

 

It could be argued that star Liam Neeson, now in his early 70s, would have been a better fit for the seasoned 1950s Marlowe … but the actor slides so smoothly into the character’s shrewdly observant, quietly sardonic PI manner, that it scarcely matters.

 

Production designer John Beard has done a remarkable job of re-creating the Southern California metropolis of Bay City, Chandler’s fictitious depiction of Santa Monica (particularly since exterior filming took place in Barcelona, Spain). As befits the smoky noir atmosphere, cinematographer Xavi Giménez makes excellent use of light, dark, shadows and reflections, particularly during the story’s many nighttime settings.

 

Events kick off when chiffon blond heiress Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) hires Marlowe to find her lover, Nico Peterson, who has been missing for a fortnight. Marlowe and his new client spar verbally, amid mildly flirtatious overtones; she likes it when he uses her last name as her first name. Neeson and Kruger handle this exchange smoothly, further enhancing the tone we expect from a Chandler novel.

 

Marlowe senses that Clare isn’t being entirely candid; additional information requires patience. She eventually acknowledges that her husband Richard (Patrick Muldoon) loves only “polo, alcohol, waitresses … and my money.” Even so, it would appear that Nico was more than a passing fancy.

 

With help from cop friend Joe Green (Ian Hart), Marlowe soon learns that Nico is dead, having been run over by a car while exiting the posh, gated and heavily guarded Corbata Club: playground of the rich and dissolute. Club manager Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), when Marlowe finally wheedles an interview, is brusque and unconcerned; the accident took place on the street outside the club gates, and — therefore — isn’t his concern.

Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — Diminishing returns

Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for mild profanity and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.17.23 

Yeesh. What a mess.

 

This newest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is a classic “kitchen sink” movie: Scripter Jeff Loveness has thrown everything on the wall, in the feverish, desperate hope that something will stick.

 

Kang (Jonathan Majors, right) makes it clear that if Scott (Paul Rudd) refuses to cooperate,
something very bad will happen to his daughter ... which he then will be forced to
re-live for eternity.

Paul Rudd’s Ant Man always has been a bad joke in his own series: a smug, defensive, self-deprecating bumbler cast adrift in adventures that suffer from a clumsy blend of smash-’em-up special effects and forced humor. They’re silly children’s films, completely at odds with the more traditionally heroic stance he displayed as a supporting character in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: End Game.

(I still wince at the memory of the ill-advised tabletop toy train battle that climaxed 2015’s Ant Man. Ouch.)

 

Director Peyton Reed, determined to maintain the style of Ant Man’s two previous starring outings, has made this third adventure another silly children’s film.

 

Events begin with this family unit happily reunited, in the wake of Avengers End Game: Scott Lang (Rudd), his sweetie-pie Hope (Evangeline Lilly), their now-teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope’s mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) and father Hank (Michael Douglas).

 

Cassie has matured into an 18-year-old social activist: a timely nod to current events in this San Francisco setting. She also possesses her grandfather’s passion for science and technology, and — unbeknownst to Scott, Hope and particularly Janet — has been working with Hank to establish a connection to the molecular level of the microscopic Quantum Realm.

 

When Janet does find out, she’s horrified … because, well, y’see, she never explained what happened during the 30 years she was stuck in the Quantum Realm, or why it’s so dangerous.

 

(Yes, this is one of those contrived calamities that wouldn’t exist if characters actually talked to each other.)

 

Ah, but too late! Just as Janet frantically demands that Hank and Cassie cease their efforts, all five — along with the contents of Hank’s lab — are sucked into the weird landscapes and even weirder creatures of the Quantum Realm.

 

Which, sad to say, looks an awful lot like last November’s Strange World. Given that both films emerged under the Disney banner, one suspects a serious case of Looking Over Each Other’s Shoulders.

 

Sharper: A cut above

Sharper (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning Feb. 17) Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.23 

This one has style to burn.

 

Director Benjamin Caron definitely knows his way around atmosphere, and Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka’s deliciously crafty script is as sleek as the elegant outfits that costume designer Melissa Toth has draped onto the primary characters.

 

After a charming first encounter, Tom (Justice Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton)
become inseparable. But what's really going on?

I hate saying anything about the plot, because the fun comes from the discovery — as events proceed — that very little is what it seems. This is a grifter saga, very much in the vein of The Sting, American Hustle and The Brothers Bloom (the latter an overlooked early entry from Rian Johnson, who brought us Knives Out; do look for it).

And yet Sharper — great double-entendre title, that — doesn’t feel like a grifter movie … at least not initially.

 

Gatewood and Tanaka’s narrative is divided into distinct acts, the first of which unfolds like a meet-cute love story (and Caron stages it that way).

 

Manhattan Bookstore owner Tom (Justice Smith) can’t help being intrigued by customer Sandra (Briana Middleton), when she browses and then requests a specific title. Their conversation is mildly flirty until it gets awkward, when her credit card is declined. Tom makes a magnanimous gesture; she gets embarrassed, and that might have been that.

 

But she turns out to be honest, which touches him. Several weeks pass, during which they become an item. Middleton’s Sandra sparkles with warmth and kindness; Smith is equally fine as the aw-shucks, somewhat naïve Tom.

 

Then things take … and intriguing turn.

 

We next meet Max (Sebastian Stan). He’s suave, smooth and sophisticated: a thoroughly accomplished con artist. He undertakes a long-term project, with a very specific goal in mind. He’s alternately patient and merciless, rewarding small successes and applying punishment when necessary.

 

Stan is the epitome of cool: often dressed in black, radiating a degree of mystery heightened by a slightly mocking gaze and insincere smile.

 

The narrative cuts to a new chapter. Madeline (Julianne Moore) has become cozy with über-billionaire Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow). Here, at last, Gatewood and Tanaka reveal some of their hole cards; Madeline’s relationship feels artificial. Moore’s bearing is calculated, her smile — when Richard isn’t looking — quite predatory. Whatever else is going on, Madeline’s affection for him isn’t genuine.

80 for Brady: Score!

80 for Brady (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for suggestive references, drug content and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.3.23 

This is a nice surprise.

 

Although director Kyle Marvin’s cheerful romp is the silly little comedy one would expect from its premise and publicity, it’s also a delightful showcase for its Hollywood veterans.

 

Four rabid football fans "of a certain age" — from left, Trish (Jane Fonda), Betty
(Sally Field), Lou (Lily Tomlin) and Maura (Rita Moreno) — can't believe they've actually
made it to the Super Bowl.

Scripters Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins shrewdly play to their stars’ strengths, and you’ll likely be surprised by the degree to which you become invested in this story’s outcome.

Add the fact that these events are set against the historic Super Bowl LI, and the result is a “silly comedy” that builds to an exhilarating climax.

 

The setting is Massachusetts in 2017, where longtime friends Lou (Lily Tomlin), Trish (Jane Fonda), Maura (Rita Moreno) and Betty (Sally Field) gather in front of the TV every game day to don team jerseys and watch their beloved Patriots … and, most particularly, quarterback Tom Brady. 

 

This routine has continued for years, ever since getting involved with football helped Lou defeat a bout with cancer. In a nod to sports voodoo — as with baseball players who never change their socks once a streak is established — these four gals diligently mimic their actions prior to a long-ago upset victory: where they were sitting or standing, and what they were saying and doing, down to spilling a bowl of potato chips at a precise moment.

 

Lou is the gutsy ringleader, who insists on the replication of all these details. Trish is glam and feisty; Maura is adventurous and tireless. Betty is smart and down-to-earth: the gang’s pragmatic conscience.

 

Each woman comes with a bit of emotional baggage. Maura hasn’t recovered from the loss of her husband, and — rather than live alone in their home — she has sorta-kinda moved into an assisted living facility, in order to be surrounded by other people.

 

Trish falls in love too quickly, and repeatedly gets her heart broken; Lou constantly worries that her cancer might recur. The precise and practical Betty, although a whiz with math and stats, can’t figure out what to do with her hapless husband (Bob Balaban, as Mark), whose absent-mindedness has become a trial. 

 

Once the game concludes, on this particular afternoon, Lou impulsively decides that they all should attend the upcoming Super Bowl, at Houston’s NRG Stadium.

 

But that’s an impossible proposition. They all live (albeit comfortably) on fixed incomes; obtaining tickets is prohibitively expensive, to say nothing of travel and lodging. 

Knock at the Cabin: Don't open this door

Knock at the Cabin (2023) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated R, for violence, dramatic intensity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Would somebody please burn this man’s Directors Guild card?

 

M. Night Shyamalan continues to demonstrate an impressive ability to stretch a 30-minute premise to the point that it screams for mercy.

 

While young Wen (Kristen Cui) cowers behind Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and a similarly
trussed-up Eric (Jonathan Groff) looks on dazedly, Leonard (Dave Bautista) once
again explains — hoping to get a different answer — what is required of the three of them.

The result — here, as in so many of his films — is ponderous, overwrought, absurdly melodramatic and insufferably boring.

I initially held out a bit of hope, because unlike most of Shyamalan’s original scripts, this one is based on an existing book: Paul Tremblay’s Bram Stoker Award-winning horror novel, The Cabin at the End of the World.

 

But no. Although Shyamalan — and co-scripters Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman — have altered key details to make these events somewhat more palatable, their film remains ridiculous. (And, based of what has been changed, I’ve no desire to read Tremblay’s book any time soon.)

 

Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their adorable 8-year-old adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) are a loving, mutually devoted family unit. They’ve begun a vacation at Ye Old Isolated Cabin In The Woods (a horror flick cliché long overdue for retirement) and, thus far, life has been nothing but laughter and joy.

 

Then, while Wen is collecting grasshoppers one morning, she’s approached by the imposing Leonard (Dave Bautista), who — despite the wave of menace that seems to shimmer from his skin — attempts to befriend her.

 

Right away, we’re dealing with a modern little girl who should be well schooled about how to react when confronted with stranger danger. And while immediately running into the cabin wouldn’t change the trajectory of what follows, her failure to do so is an early indication of the daft psychology that permeates this entire film.

 

Moments later, Leonard is joined by three others: Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint). At that point, Wen does run to her parents. They barricade the doors and windows; Leonard knocks on the front door and asks that they be let inside … otherwise, they’ll simply break in.

 

(Then why ask permission? It’s not like they’ve vampires, who must be invited across the threshold.)

 

This imposing quartet soon gets inside, each of them now carrying a large, nasty and impressively lethal weapon. (Leonard prefers the term “tools.”) Eric and Andrew resist to the best of their ability, and wind up tied to chairs.

Mission Majnu: Thoughtful espionage caper

Mission Majnu (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated TV-MA, for dramatic intensity and violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

It’s always fascinating to see how different cultures embrace familiar cinema genres.

 

Director Shantanu Bagchi’s Mission Majnu is an engaging — if occasionally unlikely — take on the one-man spy flick, as typified by the likes of James Bond and Jason Bourne. Scripters Parveez Sheikh, Aseem Arrora and Sumit Batheja have employed an actual event — the mid-1970s nuclear proliferation crisis between India and Pakistan — as the backdrop for the usual blend of scheming politicians, double agents, double-crosses and dire consequences in the event of failure.

 

Covert agent Amandeep Ajitpal Singh (Sidharth Malhotra) has become convinced that
Pakistan is building a secret facility, in order to develop a nuclear bomb ... but where?
And how can he supply proof, to his handlers back in India?

Their angst-ridden hero, played persuasively by Sidharth Malhotra, is something of an outcast: sent on an undercover assignment overseen by a field supervisor who despises him.

The film opens with the successful completion of Operation Smiling Buddha, the code name (yes, seriously) given to India’s first successful nuclear bomb test, on May 18, 1974. Pakistan, still smarting from its quick defeat during the brief 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, objects globally to this development; India suspends further testing.

 

But Pakistan is being duplicitous. India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW, the equivalent of Britain’s MI6) receives reports that Pakistan is covertly building its own nuclear facility. But proof must be gathered, in order to expose this operation on the world stage.

 

At this point we meet Tariq (Malhotra), a cheerful Pakistani tailor with a talent for ingratiating himself with others. He meets and marries Nasreen (Rashmika Mandanna), a beautiful blind woman, during a somewhat jarring detour into Bollywood, complete with music, songs, colorful costumes and an elaborate wedding ceremony.

 

She becomes pregnant soon thereafter.

 

Ah, but this is all artifice. Unbeknownst to Nasreen, the lowly Tariq actually is Amandeep Ajitpal Singh, a RAW agent still haunted by the memory of watching his father commit suicide, after being accused of sharing Indian intelligence reports with Pakistan. Singh has spent his adult life determined to clear the family name, which makes him an ideal undercover agent in the eyes of RAW chief RN Kao (Parmeet Sethi).

 

This opinion isn’t shared by Sharma (Zakir Hussain), surely the most toxic field contact in the known universe, who verbally abuses Amandeep every time the poor guy checks in, most notably with repeated references to his father’s traitorous activity.

 

Sharma, convinced of the likely failure of Amandeep’s efforts to find proof of Pakistan’s nuclear activities, assigns another RAW agent — Sharib Hashmi, as the scruffy Aslam Usmania — to watchdog the situation.

 

To make matters even worse, India’s political winds shift. Operation Smiling Buddha and this covert operation were endorsed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Avantika Akerkar), who is replaced in the next election by Morarji Desai (Avijit Dutt). He has little use for RAW’s intelligence data; he also seems far too cozy with Pakistan’s Gen. Zia-ul-Haq (Ashwath Bhatt).

 

This doesn’t make Amandeep’s assignment any easier … or his life any safer.