The Wild Robot: An animated treasure

The Wild Robot (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for action, peril and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.24

This is most sumptuously gorgeous animated film I’ve seen in years.

 

That’s surprising, given that it comes from the American Dreamworks Animation team; the verdant, sparkling look is much more typical of Tokyo’s Studio Ghibli. Indeed, in the production notes, director Chris Sanders described his film’s visual style as “a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest.”

 

ROZZUM Unit 7134, renamed Roz (left), and Fink (right) contemplate the helpless
little gosling that has imprinted itself upon the large robot.

Image isn’t everything, of course, but recalling that Sanders co-directed and co-wrote Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon — both of which earned well-deserved Oscar nominations, for stories concerning species alien to each other, who learn to come together for the greater good — I had no doubt that he was just the right person to adapt Peter Brown’s popular 2016 middle-grade book.

Sanders solos this time, as both director and scripter; purists will recognize that he has, um. “massaged” Brown’s story a bit. Even so, the book’s tone and spirit have been translated faithfully, along with the essential moral that has become even more relevant today: “Kindness is a survival skill.”

 

The setting is our Earth, somewhen in the distant future. A savage storm prompts some sort of crash, which catapults a large crate onto a distant island bereft of human activity. Curious otters, poking inside the partially shattered crate, accidentally activate its inhabitant: a large, flexible robot dubbed ROZZUM Unit 7134.

 

It’s a companion robot, designed to fulfill “any and all tasks” requested by human owners. Upon activation, it requires a task ... but nobody can assign one.

 

The robot is voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, whose sensitive performance here reminds anew that we’ve long needed an Oscar category for such work. Her clipped, metallic, somewhat childlike cadence is note-perfect, as the robot attempts to make sense of these unexpected surroundings.

 

Small animals flee from her; large animals attack her. One encounter proves catastrophic, when she’s knocked over a cliff and lands hard on a goose nest. The mother is killed, the nest destroyed ... except for one egg. When a close scan reveals life inside, the robot decides to protect it.

 

That initially proves difficult, thanks to a predatory red fox that wishes the egg for breakfast. When it unexpectedly hatches, the fox is equally content to swallow the gosling; the robot somehow senses that this would be ... well ... inappropriate.

My Old Ass: Poignant and deeply personal

My Old Ass (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.24

Canadian writer/director Megan Park’s new film is one of the summer’s sweetest surprises: a deeply moving, intimately emotional, and tartly humorous coming-of-age saga ... but not in the way you’d expect.

 

Although Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) doesn't initially believe that a mysterious newcomer
(Aubrey Plaza) is her older self, doubts are erased quickly ... which opens the door to
all manner of questions.

Park’s nuanced skill with interpersonal relationships is impressive. Every one of the nine key characters is well sculpted, and persuasive played by a roster of mostly unknown talent. Her unerring ear for dialogue is equally superb; no wrong notes are hit during the many relaxed chats, confessions and ruminations. The goofy, flirty and often profane banter, between the teenage protagonist and her friends, feels just as natural.

The crucial message — so simple, yet profound — is that life is full of change. We need to cherish every moment, because one never knows if it might be the last time in that place, or with those people, or enjoying a particular activity.

 

We’ve all thought it: If I knew then, what I know now, I’d have paid more attention.

 

All this said, Park presents this moral in a most unusual manner.

 

The time is present day, the setting Canada’s gorgeous Muskoka Lakes region, near the southern tip of Ontario, 140 miles above Toronto. The place practically screams youthful innocence; cinematographer Kristen Correll’s gorgeous tableaus could be framed and hung in prestigious museums.

 

Free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella), two weeks away from heading off to university, is making the most of each day with besties Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). They’re introduced in a small outboard boat, as Elliott motors them to a remote island, where she intends to celebrate her 18th birthday by tripping on mushrooms with them, and spending the night at their improvised campsite.

 

By doing so, she has blown off dinner with her family: her father Tom (Alain Goulem), mother Kathy (Maria Dizzia) and younger brothers Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo). The family tableau is quietly awkward; they even baked a cake, which Spencer took pains to decorate.

 

(Elliott later insists that she informed her mother of these plans, and Kathy graciously acknowledges that may have been the case ... but it’s far more likely that the girl gave no thought to how her family might wish to celebrate her birthday with her.)

 

Speak No Evil: See no movie

Speak No Evil (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang 

A film of this nature requires an unspoken bond with the viewing audience:

 

We play along only if the story’s eventual victims remain credibly oblivious to impending danger ... because, let’s face it: We know where things are heading here, given that James McAvoy’s leering, sinister face looms from all the publicity artwork.

 

Ben (Scoot McNairy), Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler)
initially assume they'll be spending a fun West England weekend with friends met
during a vacation in Italy. Boy, have they got a nasty surprise coming...

(The trailer also gives away the entire film, but that’s a different complaint.)

At first blush, it appears that director/co-scripter James Watkins, along with fellow writers Christian and Mads Tafdrup, understand this bargain. They burden this story’s sacrificial lambs — Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy), wife Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and tween daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) — with plenty of distracting baggage: a frayed marriage, unhappy relocation to London, lost employment prospects, and an overly sensitive and anxious child.

 

A family vacation in Tuscany, although intended as a “do-over,” doesn’t entirely quell Ben’s feelings of emasculation and anger, over Louise’s recent infidelity; she, in turn, is exasperated by his sad-sack failure to re-launch, and his whiny unwillingness to move past her one-time transgression. And both argue how best to parent Agnes, who slides into meltdown whenever separated from her stuffed “comfort bunny,” Hoppy.

 

Their vacation package includes communal dining each evening, during which the Daltons fall into easy company with the gregarious Paddy (McAvoy), his surprisingly young wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their adolescent son Ant (Dan Hough). They’re mischievous and buoyant: just the tonic to lift Ben and Louise’s spirits.

 

Even so, Paddy’s charm seems a bit ... aggressive. But that’s probably Ben and Louise’s imagination.

 

All vacations come to an end, and the Daltons’ return to London revives old wounds. Cinematographer Tim Maurice-Jones amplifies this atmospheric shift by replacing Italy’s soft light and warm tonalities with London’s dreary, harsher grays and muted colors.

 

A postcard from Paddy and Ciara repeats an invitation, first extended back in Italy: You really must spend some time with us, at our West England farm. Recalling the lift their company provided, Ben, Louise and Agnes impulsively make the long drive.

 

On their home turf, Paddy and Ciara are ... a bit different. His mischievous side becomes bolder, her flirtatious nature subtly threatening: both challenging Ben and Louise’s comfort zones. Paddy plays on Ben’s insecurities; Louise’s rising concerns are dismissed as unwarranted or even rude, leaving her feeling uncertain and embarrassed. Davis plays this aspect of her character very well, whereas McNairy’s over-the-top weenie behavior becomes insufferably tiresome.

 

Ghostlight: Spiritually uplifting

Ghostlight (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.15.24

Shakespeare never gets old.

 

(That said, I’ll get back to The Bard in a moment.)

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) desperately needs to find a way to bond with his out-of-control
daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), but remains oblivious to the fact that
she isn't their little family's biggest problem.

Chicago-based co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson have created a superbly nuanced depiction of a family’s struggle to overcome grief: as delicately shaped and intimate a film as I’ve seen in a long time.

O’Sullivan also wrote the wholly persuasive script, which never hits a wrong note. The performances are equally sublime, with all major roles played by veterans of the Windy City’s theater circuit, which O’Sullivan knows quite well.

 

At the risk of succumbing to cliché, this film will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) is a city construction worker, currently part of a crew tearing up a Waukegan street in front of a dilapidated storefront theater. The noise is deafening, to the point that Dan gets a tongue-lashing from spunky Rita (Dolly De Leon), who’s connected with whatever is going on inside the theater.

 

His bewildered lack of reaction is typical of the man we watched rise earlier that day, heading off to work as Oklahoma’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” plays in the background: as upbeat as Dan’s demeanor is downbeat. He seems to carry the weight of the world on his massive shoulders; his expression is blank, his manner resigned, his emotions so repressed that we cannot imagine him smiling.

 

His work shift is interrupted when he and his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), are called to the school where their teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), once again has misbehaved: this time to the ragged edge of expulsion. In several swift scenes, with emotionally jagged strokes, Mallen Kupferer depicts a girl in full-blown emotional meltdown: disrespectful, profane, erratic and given to savage outbursts.

 

We quickly learn, via O’Sullivan’s deft touch with sparse dialogue, that Dan and Sharon are at wit’s end; they’ve spent time on patience, counseling and other efforts to “fix” Daisy, while paying insufficient attention to their own fraying marriage.

 

But as it turns out, Daisy isn’t actually the problem.

 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: A double-barreled delight

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, somewhat generously, for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language and suggestive material

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.1.24

Jimmy Webb must be tickled by the fact that somebody successfully concocted a plot point to the nonsensical lyrics he wrote for “MacArthur Park.”

 

When the escalating supernatural chaos subsides for a bit, Lydia (Winona Ryder, right)
and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) enjoy a bonding moment while looking at an
old photo album.

That’s merely one of several hilarious musical moments in director Tim Burton’s whacked-out revival of everybody’s favorite undead demon, played once again with throaty impudence by Michael Keaton.

All the familiar elements are once again in play, from the orchestral drum-beat of Danny Elfman’s title theme, to cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ disorienting opening montage, which eerily blurs the line between bucolic, small-town community and a tabletop miniature of same.

 

Burton and his writers — Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith — have enhanced the ookiness and playful gore, while also adding a degree of danger. The first film may have been all in good (if zany) fun, but this one has a genuinely menacing undertone.

 

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has parlayed her earlier experiences into an enormously successful media career, as a professional ghost-chaser. Her manager, Rory (Justin Theroux), is an insufferably snooty fashion plate who fancies himself the trendiest and most sensitive guy on the planet. He’s also in love with Lydia, which — to say the least — seems an odd pairing.

 

The unexpected death of Lydia’s father (played by Jeffrey Jones, in the first film) prompts her return to the long-shuttered family home in bucolic Winter River. She’s joined by her mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and  moody, rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, immediately recognized from television’s Wednesday). The girl is all but estranged from her mother, and with good reason, having been essentially ignored while Lydia focused on her flourishing career.

 

Astrid has an additional, quite understandably reason for her sullen melancholy; her father — Lydia’s husband — long ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As a result, Astrid now has lost both beloved father figures.

 

On top of which, as a dedicated activist and environmentalist, the pragmatic girl doesn’t believe in ghosts. (She’s in for a surprise...)

 

Meanwhile, in Afterlife Central, way down below, the balefully malevolent Delores (Monica Bellucci) reassembles herself, after having been chopped into bits centuries earlier: easily the most grotesquely ghastly sequence Burton ever concocted. Turns out she was Beetlejuice’s lover, way back in the day, until their unhealthy relationship hit an, um, unfortunate snag.

 

Now that she’s back, and possessed of über-creepy soul-sucking powers, she’s determined to pay Beetlejuice back in kind ... and woe to those who get in her way.