Gladiator II: Let the games resume!

Gladiator II (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Although the lengthy gap between this film and director Ridley Scott’s predecessor seems an eyebrow lift, scripters David Scarpa and Peter Craig cleverly work that passage of time into their plot.

 

Although Lucius (Paul Mescal) isn't expected to survive his first bout in the Coliseum,
he proves unexpectedly resourceful ... much to the delight of the crowd, which has
long thirsted for a new champion.

Fifteen years have passed since Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius hoped, with his dying breath, that Rome would return to the honorably glory that it had enjoyed under the rule of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 

Alas, things didn’t turn out that way; Rome has come under the rule of sadistic twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). They’re reckless, with no sense of history, and believe in chaos, violence and conquest for its own sake. Their Roman Empire exists solely to expand its borders, pillaging every culture in its path, and forcing survivors to fight for their lives in the Colosseum.

 

Their realm’s citizens are in a very, very bad way. Rome has failed its people; Geta and Caracalla couldn’t care less. They’re vain, decadent, hedonistic and quite mad; Geta is a diabolical schemer, while Caracalla — never without his beloved pet monkey, Dundus — is completely unhinged.

 

Quinn and Hechinger plunge into these roles with unrestrained enthusiasm, making the twin emperors flat-out scary, unpredictable and detestable.

 

The story begins as their favorite warrior, Gen. Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), leads the Roman navy across the sea to conquer the coastal realm of Numidia, where Lucius (Paul Mescal) farms with his beloved wife, Arishat (Yuval Gonen). 

 

(Viewers with good memories will recognize the name Lucius.)

 

He and Arishat join the forces protecting their walled city, in a jaw-dropping action sequence orchestrated by Scott, production designer Arthur Max, special effects supervisor Neil Corbould, visual effects supervisor Mark Bakowski, and supervising sound editors Matthew Collinge and Danny Sheehan.

 

The melee lasts almost 20 minutes, with a barrage of battle galleons, swords, bows, knives, catapults, trebuchets, flaming projectiles and what seems like thousands of warriors. It’s awesome.

 

Alas, things doesn’t go well for Lucius. He and the other male Numidian survivors are carted to a rigorous — and deadly — gladiator training camp run by the formidable Viggo (Lior Raz, who has a marvelous scowl). 

 

A Real Pain: A thoughtful, touching drama

A Real Pain (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.17.24

This seems to be the season for notable entries by actors turned directors.

 

Just a few weeks ago, Anna Kendrick made an impressive directorial debut with the suspenseful Woman of the Hour, in which she also starred.

 

Tour guide James (Will Sharpe, foreground) and the rest of their small group fail to
notice when Benji (Kieran Culkin, in red shorts) impulsively embarrasses his
cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg) with a bear hug.

Jesse Eisenberg, still remembered for his Oscar-nominated performance in 2010’s The Social Network, has done her one better; he wrote, directed and co-stars in this intensely emotional relationship drama. It earned Eisenberg the Walda Salt Screenwriting Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and no surprise; this painfully raw study of estrangement often is difficult to endure, because it feels so intimately real.

Equal credit, as well, for the lead performances by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin.

 

New York-based David (Eisenberg) and his estranged cousin Benji (Culkin) reunite at an airport, en route to Warsaw for a Polish Holocaust history group tour. The trip has been made possible by money left by their recently deceased grandmother, and is prompted by their mutual desire to visit the home in which she lived, for many years.

 

Jewish history and the Holocaust are a grim backdrop to a character dynamic already heavy with unspoken angst.

 

The two men couldn’t be less alike. The workaholic David is sweet and smart, but shy, emotionally repressed and impaired by OCD tics partly dampened by prescription meds. He further holds himself together via lists, itineraries and meticulous planning.

 

This isn’t far from Eisenberg’s frequent acting wheelhouse; his flustered, overly apologetic nebbishes have long been a signature. But he’s extremely adept at it, and David’s deer-in-the-headlights reactions to his cousin’s antics are credibly painful.

 

The bipolar, relentlessly profane Benji navigates wild mood swings with marginal success. At his best, he’s cheery and personable: the life of the party. But in the blink of an eye, he turns rude, antagonistic and needlessly candid, insisting that everybody subscribe to his bent philosophy of the moment.

 

He self-medicates with marijuana and alcohol, which doesn’t help; he often doesn’t remember his previous day’s boorish behavior.

 

Culkin is all over the map; Benji’s manic intensity often lands like a punch in the gut, and his irresponsibility is infuriating. It’s hard to imagine spending even five minutes with this guy; Culkin’s performance leaps from the screen, as if daring us to remain in our seats.

Red One: Too much naughty, not enough nice

Red One (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for scary violence, profanity and unnecessary earthiness

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

This movie is a mess.

 

For awhile, it’s an entertaining mess. Scripters Chris Morgan and Hiram Garcia have fun blending numerous Christmas/Santa Claus myths, and their concept of the high-tech North Pole operation is a golly-gee-willikers smile. Production designer Bill Brzeski clearly went to town, and the visual effects folks do marvelous things with elves and Santa’s awesomely huge reindeer.

 

Having successfully filled in as a mall Santa for a day, the actual Mr. Claus (J.K. Simmons,
right) is escorted back to his reindeer-drivn sleigh by security chief Callum Drift
(Dwayne Johnson).

I’m also charmed by the notion that the actual Santa Claus, code-named “Red One” (J.K. Simmons, at his fatherly best) occasionally fills in for shopping mall duties, because he enjoys “mingling with the people.” This notion cheekily adds weight to a parent’s insistence, to a doubtful child, that yes; that fellow in the chair could be the actual Santa.

I also was willing to roll with a plot line that involves Santa being kidnapped by the evil Christmas Witch, aka Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), to prevent him from making the rounds on the all-important night, while replacing his gift-giving with her own nefarious scheme.

 

But by about this point, the script’s disparate elements begin to burst at the seams.

 

Backing up a bit, the first act establishes the longstanding bond between Santa and his head of security: Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), commander of the North Pole’s E.L.F. team (Enforcement, Logistics and Fortification). After centuries of faithful service, Callum has grown disenchanted with humanity’s rising willingness to behave badly — without concern — thus winding up on the Naughty List.

 

Santa, being Santa, has faith.

 

“Every decision,” he insists, in Simmons’ best, wise-guidance tone, “is an opportunity to do the right thing.”

 

Elsewhere, chronic gambler and expert “fixer” Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) has helped an unknown party track an unusual seismic disturbance ... not realizing that it’s Santa’s reindeer taking off, after his shopping mall gig. Said unknown party turns out to be Gryla; Jack has unwittingly given her the means to find the concealed North Pole, and orchestrate the aforementioned kidnapping.

 

This absolutely horrifies Zoe (Lucy Liu), head of the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (M.O.R.A.), an umbrella organization charged with protecting and defending the mythological world, from Bigfoot to the Easter Bunny. Santa’s absence, with only one day before Christmas, is a crisis of the highest magnitude.

 

Callum and his team quickly locate and enlist Jack, to help them recover Santa: a mission initially pooh-poohed by the skeptical mortal. (We briefly see his kid version in this film’s prologue, played by Wyatt Hunt, as a precocious disbeliever in Santa.) A brief encounter with Cal’s second-in-command, Garcia — a massive talking polar bear — soon sets that straight.

 

Freedom: A captivating romp

Freedom (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to R for violence, nudity, sensuality and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.10.24

Director Mélanie Laurent’s new film is a cheeky, rollicking crime saga based on actual events that seem impossible to believe.

 

Bruno Sulak (Lucas Bravo) and lover Annie (Léa Luce Busato) make a formidable
team, but they soon realize that their luck can't hold out forever.

From the summer of 1978 through the early 1980s, France was captivated by the audacious exploits of “gentleman thief” Bruno Sulak, a former paratrooper with the Foreign Legion, who began his criminal career with a series of daytime supermarket robberies.

He was young and cordial, politely asking each check-out clerk to empty her till, while his partner similarly prompted the manager to empty the safe in the upstairs office. Both Sulak and his colleague brandished guns to show they were serious, but never fired them, or roughed up the citizenry; Sulak made a point of non-violence.

 

Coupled with a “shake up the establishment” air of defiance, Sulak quickly developed a reputation as a “Robin Hood of crime,” and was dubbed a real-life Arsène Lupin.

 

A civil understanding apparently existed between the French gendarmes and such low-level criminals, from the late 1960s to the early ’80s; grudging respect existed on both sides, as long as unspoken boundaries remained in place. This attitude was fueled, in part, by disenchantment with the government, and — during those latter years — public pushback against the pro-capitalist policies of newly elected President François Mitterrand.

 

Indeed, Sulak’s initial robberies were cheered by citizens concerned that the explosive growth of supermarkets would drive beloved family shops out of business.

 

Although Laurent and co-scripter Christophe Deslandes acknowledge being inspired by French author Philippe Jaenada’s 2013 book, Sulak, they’ve taken occasional liberties. Bruno’s “outlaw love” Thalie has been reshaped into Annie Bragnier (Léa Luce Busato, in a stylish big-screen debut), who takes a more active role as getaway driver.

 

But the overall arc of Bruno’s crime career is accurate, and the sensuous interludes with Annie enhance what quickly becomes an energetically frothy romp. There’s also a strong echo of 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, due to Sulak’s cat-and-mouse antics with dogged police inspector George Moréas (Yvan Attal).

Music by John Williams: Rhapsodic

Music by John Williams (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG for brief violent film clips

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

Full bias disclosure:

 

I’ve been a soundtrack nerd since junior high school, when I fell in love with John Barry’s jazz-oriented scores to the early James Bond films.

 

Since meeting in 1972, John Williams, left, and Steven Spielberg have collaborated on
29 feature films ... so far.

And let’s just say that didn’t sit well with my late 1960s, rock-oriented peers, when they caught me listening to soundtrack albums in our local public library. The scornful snickers always made me wince ... but did nothing to diminish my passion.

No surprise, then, that this new documentary was greeted with considerable anticipation.

 

It definitely delivers.

 

My soundtrack library expanded to include John Williams in the wake of 1975’s Jaws. Two years later, his score for Star Wars was a game-changer; it revived enthusiasm for classically hued orchestral soundtracks at a time when many films relied on “jukebox scores” of then-current pop tunes (a transitional detail covered in this documentary).

 

I mean, let’s get serious; who wasn’t blown away by that dynamic opening anthem, as the text crawl slid into the depths of space?

 

That film debuted May 25, 1977, but — unlike these days, when ancillary merchandise is coordinated for simultaneous release — the soundtrack didn’t show up for weeks. I haunted record stores almost daily, to the point that one shop owner simply shook his head when I peered inside the door.

 

But when it finally, finally, finally arrived — oh, my stars and garters — it was a double-album gatefold. Darn near unprecedented, for an orchestral film score. Like, wow.

 

Okay, enough of all that.

 

Director Laurent Bouzereau’s detailed profile of Williams covers an impressive degree of territory in 105 minutes, given that a multi-part miniseries would be necessary to do full justice to the composer’s career. The 92-year-old Williams was an enthusiastic participant, and his anecdotes, close encounters and sage observations are deftly blended with vintage photographs and home movies (both his own and, later, some shot by Steven Spielberg).

 

Bouzereau also employs the talking heads that have become obligatory in such films, but unlike far too many lesser documentaries, these aren’t obscure academics or fawning pop stars of the moment. The list here is meaty and meaningful: filmmakers Spielberg, Ron Howard, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Chris Columbus and James Mangold; fellow soundtrack composers Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman and David Newman; and celebrated musicians Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gustavo Dudamel, Branford Marsalis and Anne-Sophie Mutter.

We Live in Time: One for the ages

We Live in Time (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R for profanity, nudity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.3.24

This is an eye-opening marvel: an absolutely perfect marriage of shrewd writing, skilled direction and transcendent performances.

 

Still blissed out after their first night together, Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut
(Florence Pugh) pause on their respective sides of her closed apartment door,
and quietly contemplate what might come next.

The result is a romantic drama against which all others must be compared, and found superficial and unsatisfying.

Actually, “romantic drama” is too simple a descriptor. Director John Crowley and scripter Nick Payne have concocted a captivating experience that is equal parts drama, comedy, tragedy and several other elements so intricately interwoven, that the sum is far greater than its marvelous parts.

 

All brought to solemn, cheerful, cute, catastrophic and intensely intimate life by stars Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

 

We meet Britishers Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield) as they confront a life-altering decision. She has an immediate response that would involve serious consequences; he’s more cautious and uncertain. These contrasting reactions are, we soon will learn, what initially — and continuously — defines their relationship.

 

They drive home in silence, but before we can process what just occurred, we’re yanked into Tobias’ life at another point in time: alone in a hotel room, faced with documents that must be signed. The immediate uncertainty — past or future? — establishes the means by which Crowley and Payne present this saga: as snapshots from a relationship that has spanned a decade, and (we soon realize) are being remembered in the present day.

 

To quote the film’s production notes, this is how we experience love: “in fits and starts, outside linear logic, in fleeting but indelible moments that are gorgeous, funny, high anxiety, delirious, sad and revelatory ... sometimes all at once.”

 

(Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better.)

 

I’ve generally not be impressed by films that capriciously bounce back and forth through time, like a frightened jackrabbit; the technique can be frustrating and annoying, and often doesn’t serve the story being told.

 

Crowley and Payne, however, pull it off with elegance.

 

When Tobias and Almut first meet, he’s the ultimate methodical, list-making wonk, climbing the corporate ladder at the Weetabix cereal and snack company. She’s an accomplished chef and co-owner of one of those posh London restaurants that serves meticulously garnished tiny portions that wouldn’t satisfy a starving rat. 

 

He knows what he wants, and pursues things with long-winded speeches that justify decisions; he wants children. She’s preternaturally multi-talented, and refuses to be pinned down ... while insisting on being granted the option of changing her mind. She doesn’t see herself with children.

Woman of the Hour: Riveting and chilling

Woman of the Hour (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to R for violence, dramatic intensity, leering sexuality and profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.27.24

Screenwriter Ian McDonald’s savvy script for this true crime thriller made the 2017 Top 10 Hollywood “Black List” of as-yet unproduced motion picture screenplays. I’m amazed it took this long to get turned into a film, and impressed by the skill with which Anna Kendrick did so: definitely one of the best, most assured directorial debuts in recent memory.

 

Dating Game host Ed Burke (Tony Hale) and contestant Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick)
have no idea that one of her three potential suitors is a serial killer.

The hook that powers this story is a shocking eyebrow lift: On September 13, 1978, on a seemingly average episode of the titillating daytime TV series The Dating Game, nobody had any idea that one of the three male contestants, who fielded bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw’s deliberately silly (and scripted) questions, was a serial killer and convicted sex offender who already had served a stretch in prison.

It was a simpler time. No background checks were conducted; contestants — of both sexes — were chosen solely on the basis of appearance and personality. (The mind doth boggle ... and a 5-minute clip from that episode is viewable via YouTube.)

 

Kendrick and McDonald structure their film cleverly, opening with a 1977 prologue that takes place in the wide open spaces of Wyoming. A sweetly bashful young woman named Sarah (Kelley Jakle) has allowed herself to be driven to this remote spot, in order to be photographed by Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto).

 

He frames her, lovingly, for several shots ... and everything feels wrong. His smile and words of encouragement are too smarmy; his posture is coiled, like a snake waiting to strike. Poor Sarah is oblivious.

 

The inevitable is awful, and although Kendrick and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein don’t dwell on it exploitatively, the sequence continues long enough to reveal the horrible way that the actual Alcala cruelly toyed with some of his victims, like a cat torturing a mouse.

 

We then leap to 1978 Hollywood, where aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is auditioning for a bargain-basement role offered by a pair of slimy casting directors (Matty Finochio and Geoff Gustafson). The encounter is embarrassing and dehumanizing; Kendrick’s frozen smile and wounded gaze speak volumes.

 

As becomes clear, when Sheryl later commiserates with neighbor and best (only?) friend Terry (Pete Holmes), she has been struggling with this goal for awhile, with no success. She even has an agent, who eventually gets Sheryl booked onto The Dating Game: a great way to get noticed, she’s promised.

 

Sheryl’s prep and participation in this sexist excuse for daytime entertainment becomes this film’s narrative center: a single-day experience periodically interrupted as the film jumps back and forth in time, to track a few of Rodney’s other ... um ... activities.

Camera: Darn near picture-perfect

Camera (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to PG-13 for dramatic intensity and brief drug use

Available via: Amazon and Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

This charming independent drama has been released without fanfare, with no publicity, and no reviews by significant print or media outlets.

 

After an initial misunderstanding, Eric (Beau Bridges, right) quickly apologizes and does
his best to make amends with the understably wary Oscar (Miguel Gabriel).

It’s clearly a labor of love by director Jay Silverman, who financed it solely via his own production company. The obviously modest budget nonetheless attracted name talent including Beau Bridges and Bruce Davison, although the film is stolen by young Miguel Gabriel; he and Bridges anchor the bittersweet and poignant script by Jamie Murphy and Joseph Gamache.

The result, a quietly compelling ode to the power of mentorship, deserves much better exposure than it’s likely to receive.

 

The setting is present-day Jasper’s Cove, a small coastal California fishing community. (The 18-day shoot actually took place in and around Morro Bay; locals will recognize famous landmarks such as Morro Rock and the Piedras Blancas Light Station.)

 

The community is struggling, due to the local waters having been overfished. Veteran fisherman such as Frank Flynn (the always engaging Davison) and Manny (Jorge-Luis Pallo) have their backs against the financial wall; the latter contemplates selling his beloved boat. Jasper’s Cove has become, as one character later puts it, “a place where fun goes to die.”

 

But 9-year-old Oscar (Gabriel) is oblivious to all this. Although a newcomer, he has quickly become a ubiquitous wanderer in town and the surrounding area, never seen without a vintage twin-lens reflex film camera slung around his neck, and hanging onto his chest. But the camera is damaged, and cannot be used.

 

Oscar is mute, due to complications from life-saving surgery when he was younger, which makes him the frequent target of a trio of contemptible adolescent bullies.

 

Oscar’s mother, Evelyn (Jessica Parker Kennedy), does her best with him; she has taught him to communicate via a series of flash cards bearing common greetings, questions and responses. He’s by no means slow; he can hear and understand perfectly, and seems intelligent for his age. But he’s also shy, self-conscious and easily frightened; he wears vulnerability like a shroud, which makes him an easy target for the aforementioned young thugs.

 

The recently widowed Evelyn has just moved them to Jasper’s Cove. She works hard, as a single parent trying to hold her little family together, and therefore can’t watch over her son as much as she’d like.

 

His Three Daughters: Tense, touching and tragic

His Three Daughters (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.20.24

The fact that this film’s title isn’t Three Sisters is telling.

 

Writer/director Azazel Jacobs opens his story in what feels like the middle of the first act.. Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) are gathered inside their father’s New York City apartment. He has neared the end of a battle against cancer, and has just entered hospice care.

 

Nervous exhaustion leads to an unexpectedly tender moment between, clockwise from
top, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne).

The three women, clearly uncomfortable in each other’s presence, cope in ways that enhance the friction between them. 

What follows takes place over the course of three volatile days.

 

Katie, the eldest and most practical, adopts an authoritative, take-charge manner that involves lists, schedules, phone calls, food for each meal, and “behavioral suggestions” that feel more like commands than requests. (She must’ve been hell to grow up with, as a bossy older sister.) Being useful is her way of coping ... but, ironically, she has no control over her teenage daughter back in Brooklyn.

 

Rachel, a casually sloppy, failure-to-launch stoner who spends all her time sports gambling, does her best to stay out of the way ... and particularly away from Katie’s gaze. 

 

The holistic and somewhat shy Christina, who gamely tries to run interference between the other two, chatters constantly about missing her own young daughter, Mirabelle, back at their West Coast home. She calms herself via yoga, and sings Grateful Dead songs to their father, much to the bewilderment of the other two women. Olsen makes Christina a bit too radiant; we halfway expect to see her surrounded by an aura.

 

Being thrown together by this tragic end-game is uncomfortable enough; it’s even worse because the apartment is so claustrophobic. Jacobs and cinematographer Sam Levy filmed in an actual apartment — not a film set, with moveable walls — which further enhances the tight closeness. (I wondered, at times, where the heck Levy put his camera!) The film stock is warm and slightly grainy, which adds a sense that we’re eavesdropping via a lengthy and painfully intimate home movie.

 

The result feels very much like a stage play, and possesses the same dramatic intensity.

 

The tableau opens up only when Rachel goes outside for a fresh toke ... and to escape Katie’s tight-lipped disapproval. This exasperates the building’s security guard, Victor (Jose Febus), who fields complaints from other tenants unhappy about the smell of smoke. (Not marijuana per se, but any smoke.) 

 

Victor’s amused annoyance notwithstanding, he and Rachel clearly are fond of each other.

Lonely Planet: Love is its own reward

Lonely Planet (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and fleeting nudity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Romantic dramas come in a variety of flavors, and this one can be filed under Attractive People in a Swooningly Gorgeous Setting.

 

During a day trip to a colorful town bustling with activity, Katherine (Laura Dern) and
Owen (Liam Hemsworth) discover that they genuinely enjoy each other's company ...
which comes as a surprise to both.

Writer/director Susannah Grant knows the territory, having previously scripted and/or helmed modest charmers such as Ever After: A Cinderellal Story, In Her Shoes and Catch and Release.

Her notion here is that travel can be transformative: that journeying thousands of miles from the (perhaps stale) familiarity of home, can help people see themselves in a fresh light.

 

Celebrated author Katherine Loewe (Laura Dern) — stuck on her next book, in part because of relationship strife — abruptly decamps to an upscale literary retreat at a lavish estate in Marrakesh. (Given that she’s hoping for quiet solitude, I’d argue that being surrounded by half a dozen gregarious writers is an odd choice at best ... but we gotta roll with it.)

 

Convivial host Fatema Benzakour (Rachida Brakni) also has invited first-time New York-based author Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), whose beach-read hit the best-seller lists and resulted in courtship offers from numerous publishers. She arrives with boyfriend Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth); he’s a high-rolling financial “fixer” who matches property-owning clients with corporations that wish to develop the land.

 

Although present to support Lily, Owen must take conference calls at odd hours of the day and night, due to the five-hour time difference. He and Lily obviously are a mismatched pair; the relationship likely worked while she was struggling to break through, but things are different now ... particularly because she quickly becomes intoxicated by the degree to which she’s fêted by Fatema and the other attendees.

 

Owen therefore feels increasingly isolated: an obvious outsider in a circle with which he’s wholly unfamiliar. Katherine can’t help noticing; she has a seasoned author’s eye for body language and emotional awkwardness. But she has her own battle to fight, and likely wouldn’t have given Owen much more thought ... until, entirely by accident, he winds up joining her on a bumpy road trip and a day of sightseeing in the Northern African hinterlands.

 

Because they’re both outsiders — at the retreat, and also amid this unfamiliar culture — they bond as casual friends.

 

Rez Ball: Shoots and scores!

Rez Ball (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, teen drug/alcohol use, occasional profanity and crude references

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.13.24

This continues to be a terrific year for inspirational sports sagas, and director Sydney Freeland’s heartfelt drama is another winner.

 

Coaches Heather and Benny (Jessica Matten and Ernest Tsosie III, far right) watch the
game action, along with team members, from left, Ruckus (Damian Henry Castellane),
Warlance (Jojo Jackson) and Levi (Jaren K. Robledo).

Although suggested by Michael Powell’s 2019 nonfiction book, Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation, Freeland and co-writer Sterlin Harjo developed their own characters and storyline. Freeland comes by the topic honestly; her high school basketball days at Navajo Prep spawned a lifelong love of the game.

No surprise, then: The tone, characters and Navajo culture are rigorously authentic (and just as captivating as the basketball action).

 

The present-day setting is the fictitious reservation community of Chuska, named for the mountain range that runs along the Arizona/New Mexico border. The story begins as longtime best friends Nataanii (Kusem Goodwind) and Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt) razz each other during some lively one-on-one. Their bond is palpable, but Nataanii’s bearing is withdrawn, somehow fragile.

 

He still grieves for his mother and sister, recently killed by a drunk driver.

 

Nataanii has returned to school, and everybody in town is thrilled that he’ll once again be the celebrated champion of the Warriors basketball team. Nobody is happier than Coach Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten), who relies on him to rally everybody’s spirits. She understands that his leadership eases any awkwardness the boys might have, being coached by (ahem) a woman.

 

Alas, matters quickly take a tragic — but not unexpected — turn.

 

Lacking her star player, and with Jimmy and his teammates emotionally shattered, their first season game — against the Santa Fe Catholic Coyotes, their hated rivals — is an embarrassing disaster.

 

Heather hopes to groom Jimmy into the leadership role, but he has a lot on his emotional plate. Aside from having lost his best friend, his mother Gloria (Julia Jones) — a single parent — is a longtime alcoholic who relies on him for financial support; that means additional shifts at the burger joint where he works.

 

Gloria is sullen, often angry, and chronically depressed; Jones handles this role with grim authenticity. When Jimmy asks why she never attends the games, to watch him play, her reply is a gut-punch: “I don’t want to see you fail.”

Salem's Lot: Not enough bite

Salem's Lot (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: MAX

By Derrick Bang

Film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels have run the gamut, from the excellent — Misery, Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie — to the deplorable: Thinner, Cell, Lawnmower Man and many, many others.

 

With sundown rapidly approaching, the wary vampire hunters — from left, Susan
(Makenzie Leigh), Ben (Lewis Pullman), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Mark (Jordan
Preston Carter) and Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) — contemplate how
best to invade the dread Marsden House.

Most often, the fault lies with inept directors and scripters. Sometimes, though, the fans who inhabit what King calls Constant Reader Land are upset because a given adaptation changed so much that it “ruined the book.” To those folks, King always cites what James M. Cain said to a student reporter who bemoaned how Hollywood had altered books such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

“The movies didn’t change them a bit, son,” Cain replied, pointing to a shelf of books behind his desk. “They’re all right up there. Every word is the same as when I wrote them.”

 

Director/scripter Gary Dauberman’s respectful handling of King’s famed 1975 novel does pretty well, when it comes to fidelity. He includes almost all the central characters, hits most of the story’s key plot points, and deftly maintains the unnerving atmosphere King established so well, with the juxtaposition of quaintly bucolic, small-town Americana invaded by macabre, old-world Evil.

 

And when Dauberman does slide the story into different territory — notably during the third act — he does so cleverly; the climax is both ingenious, and suspensefully mounted with an assist from editor Luke Ciarrocchi.

 

That said, this film fails in another, equally important manner: overall pacing. 

 

After taking time, during a leisurely first act, to introduce the key players and set up the looming threat, a fleeting second act rushes far too quickly into the aforementioned finale. King’s luxurious attention to detail — the nuances of sidebar characters, and their back-stories — are completely absent.

 

This is particularly egregious with respect to school teacher Matt Burke and local priest Father Callahan (although that’s getting ahead of things a bit).

 

The result is a jarring case of whiplash, as if great chunks of this film had been left on the cutting-room floor. Dauberman has admitted that his first cut ran three hours, which I suspect would have been preferable; director Tobe Hooper’s 1979 two-part TV miniseries, running 183 minutes, was — and remains — vastly superior.