Barbie: Far more than a plastic toy

Barbie (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for suggestive references and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.23

This must be one of the most unusual ideas ever pitched to a Hollywood film studio. 

 

I’d love to have been a bug on the wall during that concept meeting.

 

Total catastrophe! Barbie (Margot Robbie, center) is dismayed to discover that her
perfectly arched feet have become flat. Her fellow Barbies — from left, Ana Cruz Kayne,
Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and Emma Mackey — are similarly
horrified.

And yet, defying expectations — of some silly, frilly bit of toy-themed fluff akin to 1986’s My Little Pony — this film is thoughtful, audaciously subversive, and one of the most insightful indictments of gender stereotypes ever unleashed.

It’s also quite funny.

 

And pink. Very, very pink.

 

Director/co-scripter Greta Gerwig — along with writing partner Noah Baumbach — have concocted an immersive “Barbie experience” that playfully honors the iconic Mattel doll’s 64-year legacy, while contrasting her idealized realm with the harsher truths of our real world.

 

Although such progressive thoughts certainly weren’t contemplated when the first Barbie hit store shelves on March 9, 1959 — your choice of blonde or brunette — Mattel soon employed the doll as a subtle means of girl empowerment. Barbie could be anything: a doctor, lawyer or scientist; tennis champ or ace baseball player; astronaut, Supreme Court justice or even president of the United States.

 

(Granted, this was primarily marketing savvy; the actual goal was to make money. But if a little idealism rubbed off along the way, so much the better.)

 

Thus — following a hilarious prologue that lampoons the opening sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — we meet pert, perky “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), as she wakens to enjoy another in an impossibly long line of perfect days.

 

Identically perfect days.

 

She rises, greets the Barbies in adjacent dream houses, showers beneath invisible water, enjoys breakfast while drinking invisible milk, and opens her magic wardrobe to get her outfit for the day: a bit of spin, and poof, it’s on her body. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is as amazing and colorfully inventive as Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. (Who knew pink came in so many shades?)

 

Since Barbie’s dream house has no stairs, and is open at the front, she merely steps off the edge and floats to the ground below. (Newton’s laws don’t exist in Barbie Land, nor does wind, gravity or anything else that might interfere with this realm’s pink perfection.)

 

tick, tick ... BOOM! — Explosively dazzling

tick, tick ... BOOM! (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, brief profanity and fleeting drug references

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

The creative process can be soul-deadening.

 

We in the outside world tend to think solely in terms of a result. For example, Rent was a smash success from the nanosecond it opened on Broadway in April 1996, and it brought creator Jonathan Larson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, along with Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, along with a boatload of other honors.

 

While working his day job at the Moodance diner, Jonathan (Andrew Garfield) suddenly
finds himself dancing with — among many others — Bernadette Peters, during a
high-spirited production number titled "Sunday."

But how did Larson get there?

Like most so-called “overnight successes,” Larson was anything but, as this musical reveals. tick, tick … BOOM! got its start as a one-man autobiographical “rock monologue” initially titled Boho Days, and performed by Larson at the Village Gate and New York Theater Workshop on December 14, 1992. The piece is a painfully autobiographical account of the struggle he endured while spending eight years writing his first professional musical, Superbia.

 

Not quite a decade later, tick, tick … BOOM! was reconstructed by playwright/director David Auburn as a three-person show at New York’s Jane Street Theater, where on November 11, 1992, a 21-year-old theater major named Lin-Manuel Miranda attended a performance.

 

We all know what happened to him.

 

It’s therefore not merely serendipitous, but absolutely proper, that Miranda make his feature film directing debut with this screen adaptation. And — no surprise — he has done a superb job.

 

The film is anchored by a sensational lead performance from Andrew Garfield, starring as Larson: a mesmerizing blend of acting chops and heartfelt singing, given that he anchors or solos most of the musical numbers. It’s the sort of exhilarating effort that transcends artifice; not even half an hour into this film, we’re firmly convinced that it is Larson on the screen.

 

Steven Levenson’s screenplay follows Jon during the eight frenzied days leading up to a crucial workshop performance of Superbia. This coincides with the looming arrival of his 30th birthday: a milestone that weighs heavily, because he regards it as the last-gasp chance for being “discovered” at the appropriate point of what he hopes will become a career.

 

The pressure of this “ticking clock” — which we occasionally hear, albeit faintly, when it isn’t overwhelmed by the frequently passionate songs — acts as a metronome for everything else being balanced: his day job as a waiter at the Moondance Diner; the dwindling relationship with girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp), whose desire to pursue her own ballet career is pulling her elsewhere; and the decision by longtime best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús) to abandon the acting grind for a stable, 9-to-5 job in advertising … which Jon regards as a sell-out (while nonetheless being envious of Michael’s doorman apartment).

 

And, as these eight days pass, the advancing specter of the AIDS epidemic also looms large.

Shaft: Still the man!

Shaft (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual content, drug content, brief nudity and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sometimes you can go home again.

That's my boy! After a long day of sleuthing — with a violent encounter or two along the
way — John Shaft II (Samuel L. Jackson, left) proudly drags his son, John Jr.
(Jessie T. Usher) to one of his favorite, babe-laden watering holes.

The humor is more frequent and deliberate than was the case back in 1971, and this new action thriller is unquestionably set in our modern world. And yet director Tim Story, along with scripters Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow, frequently evoke the feisty spirit and atmosphere of the half-century-gone blaxploitation era.

They also honor this film’s predecessors, with sly dialogue references, acknowledgments of past events, and — most crucially — generous nods to Isaac Hayes’ jazz influence. And not just the iconic main theme, but also several familiar underscore cues.

To be sure, this updated Shaft — as a character — owes more to Samuel L. Jackson’s 2000 revival, than to Richard Roundtree’s initial portrayal. The best one-liners are tailored to Jackson’s smug, sly delivery, and most of the plot gets its momentum from his ultra-cool presence. 

But Jessie T. Usher’s third-generation John Shaft Jr. definitely pulls his weight; he has been granted a personality engaging enough to carry a future series on his own shoulders, should fate (and box-office returns) move in that direction.

He’s introduced as an infant, during a flashback prologue which depicts the near-fatal ambush that proves one violent event too many for the baby’s mother, Maya (Regina Hall). Frightened beyond endurance, but still clearly in love with Shaft II (Jackson), she nonetheless begs him to leave them, and keep his distance. Which he does, reluctantly, his presence a reminder to John Jr. solely via a series of hilariously inappropriate birthday presents, as the years pass.

Along the way, Maya does everything in her power to groom her son into a sensitive, clean-cut, well-mannered and responsible young man: as unlike his father as possible.

Flash-forward to the present day, where John Jr. is the proud recipient of an MIT diploma, and is newly ensconced as a rookie FBI data analyst in an office overseen by short-tempered Special Agent Vietti (Titus Welliver, utterly wasted in an underwritten, one-dimensional role). John Jr. has retained two best buds since childhood: Karim (Avan Jogia), who always had his back; and Sasha (Alexandra Shipp), now a doctor at a New York City hospital.

Dark Phoenix: Better than average

Dark Phoenix (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for considerable sci-fi violence, disturbing images and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Comic book writers are notorious for adjusting, revising, reworking or even completely undoing the mythic back-stories and details of long-established characters. 

The spooky, otherworldly Vuk (Jessica Chastain, right) insists that she can help the
confused and increasingly overwhelmed Jean (Sophie Turner) control cosmic powers
that are literally off the chart. Naturally, Vuk's motivations are far less than pure...

Nothing is sacrosanct: not even death. If so-and-so perished nobly while saving the universe, s/he can be resurrected five years later via some previously undisclosed loophole. (If all else fails, rely on time travel.)

Putting up with this is difficult enough with comic books, but at least such contrived and manipulative nonsense can be “justified” during multiple issues over the course of many months.

It’s a lot more disconcerting when the newest X-Men entry — Dark Phoenix — makes absolute hash of the continuity established in previous films … or so it seems. Apoplectic fans sputtering “But … but … but!” are advised to pay closer attention to what went down in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Which is how writer/direct Simon Kinberg gets away with the jaw-dropper that hits during this new film’s second act.

It also kinda/sorta justifies — albeit with an eyebrow lift — this film’s more-or-less replication of events already covered in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. Both are based on the iconic Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum/John Byrne “Dark Phoenix Saga,” which played out in comic book form from 1976 to ’80 (back when only one X-Men comic book hit the stands each month, and boy, those were simpler times).

At its core, this is a common superhero plot device: What happens when a good hero turns bad?

Having proven themselves heroic after events in 2016’s (thoroughly unsatisfying) X-Men: Apocalypse, Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his mutant students happily bask in the unaccustomed glow of public acclaim. Charles has a direct line to the U.S. president; children eagerly purchase dolls and other ephemera related to their favorite X-Man … or X-Woman, as the shape-shifting Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) tartly suggests should be the team’s actual designation, given how frequently the gals save the day.

That’s no mere idle comment. Female characters are front and center in this film, and it’s darn well about time.

Love, Simon: Utterly adorable

Love, Simon (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual references, mild teen misbehavior and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Director Greg Berlanti’s teen-oriented charmer reminds me of how much I miss the great John Hughes years: the decade marked by Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful and numerous others.

Masters of all they survey (well ... maybe not): Simon (Nick Robinson, second from left) and
his friends — from left, Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Abby (Alexandra Shipp) and Leah
(Katherine Langford) — chat while heading toward drama class, and another rehearsal
for the high school musical.

Back when movie teenagers displayed some intelligence, chatted using words of more than one syllable, and fell in and out of love in a manner that felt genuine.

No cheap vulgarity or offensively exploitative nudity. And none of the terminally ill — or already dead — kids who’ve been populating a recent sub-genre.

Indeed, Berlanti’s handling of Love, Simon feels like an engaging cross between Gregory’s Girl — now, there’s a classic — and Hughes’ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, albeit reconfigured for the social media age. Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker have delivered a marvelous adaptation of Becky Albertalli’s 2015 young adult novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda; their script is funny, poignant, shrewdly perceptive and — on several occasions — devastatingly, hide-behind-your-hands shattering.

I wanted to sink through the movie theater floor at least twice. Been there, imagined that. Never made public mistakes quite so catastrophic, but hey: could have.

To cases:

Seventeen-year-old Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) lives a perfect life, blessed with kind and progressive parents — Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner, as Jack and Emily — and a doting younger sister (Talitha Bateman, as Nora) to who he is equally devoted. The comfortably secure family lives in a gorgeous home, complete with dog.

Simon has his own car, with which he collects his posse each school morning, stopping en route for a coffee fix shared with longtime BFF Leah (Katherine Langford), best guy friend Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and comparative newcomer Abby (Alexandra Shipp). We don’t see much in the way of routine class work, but everybody is involved with the drama group production of Cabaret.

This musical’s haphazardly talented cast — drama teacher Ms. Albright (Natasha Rothwell) having been instructed to accept all students, regardless of thespic or singing ability — includes Martin (Logan Miller), the socially inept class clown who always says and does the wrong thing at the worst possible moment. Somebody to be pitied, but also somebody to be avoided.

Life couldn’t be better, right?

Well ... no, not really.