Dumb Money: Smart movie

Dumb Money (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.23

I haven’t had this much fun with economics and Wall Street misbehavior since The Big Short, which this film resembles on several levels: mostly because both fact-based sagas concern Wall Street corporate heads with more money than humanity, who don’t give a damn how their actions affect “reg’lar folks” like me and thee.

 

When Keith (Paul Dano) worries that his precarious investment choices might obliterate
their hard-earned savings, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) — trusting him
implicitly — insists that he should go for it.

And while director Craig Gillespie’s rollicking ensemble piece isn’t quite as sheer-genius captivating as its 2015 companion-in-outrage, it takes an equally audacious swipe at the dark side of capitalism.

More crucially, this is a David vs. Goliath story where the little guys actually come out on top. To a degree. (Some of them.)

 

The villains here are the hedge-fund bastards notorious for swooping in to buy an ailing company — or franchise — for the express purpose of gutting its remaining assets and then departing, leaving bankruptcy and thousands of lost jobs and pensions. They’re also infamous for “shorting” a company’s stock: a skeevy purchasing maneuver that bets said company will do worse in the future than it’s doing currently.

 

(I can think of no better reason to revive public stockades.)

 

Gillespie’s film is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s best-selling The Antisocial Network, his thoroughly researched account of the now-infamous GameStop stock debacle. The sharp, sassy script is by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, both former financial reporters for the Wall Street Journal.

 

(Mezrich has a flair for this sort of ripped-from-financial-headlines material; his previous books include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which hit movie screens as 2008’s 21; and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which became 2010’s The Social Network. His next book, due in November, is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History. Can’t wait.)

 

The GameStop chronicle — yes, the mall-based retail stores that sold new and used computer games and equipment — represented one of life’s occasionally wild perfect storms. It likely never would have happened without the convergence of Covid lockdowns, savvy social media users, and a still-festering, street-level desire to somehow get back at those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The unlikely underdog is geeky, mild-mannered Keith Gill — marvelously played, with aw-shucks sincerity, by Paul Dano — an amateur stock analyst and dedicated social media user introduced here in January 2021, as he posts details of his investment activities from the basement of his home in Brockton, Mass. The basement may be a humble setting, but his multiple cameras, computers and screens produce impressively professional visuals.

 

Keith’s YouTube and Twitter handle: Roaring Kitty. (His Reddit username, DFV, is abbreviated from a nom-de-Internetthat cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog.)

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.)

 

How to Train Your Dragon 2: Not as much spark

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for fantasy action and mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.13.14

Catching dragon-discharged lightning in a bottle is hard enough just once; expecting to replicate such a feat is darn near impossible.

Although Hiccup's father wants him to assume the role of village chief, the young Viking
would much rather explore distant lands astride his beloved dragon, Toothless.
Unfortunately, one of those journeys reveals a very, very nasty villain who'd love to
destroy Hiccup and everybody else in his village.

2010’s How to Train Your Dragon was, to my taste, a perfect film: a clever and luxurious expansion of the first of Cressida Cowell’s series of children’s novels, with an engaging blend of well structured characters, rich vocal talent and — most crucially — a plot that focused quietly on a boy and his rather unusual “dog,” then built to a suspenseful, exciting and unexpectedly poignant conclusion.

One could not help being touched, as well, by the authentic behavior granted Toothless, our young hero’s rare Night Fury dragon: the ever-watchful gaze, the playful curiosity, the protective instincts and the pet-like eagerness to please. The animators did a rare and wondrous thing, by concocting an animated creature — and a mythical one, at that — far more lifelike than any others brought to the big screen, dating all the way back to the gentle woodland critters of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

All of which gave director/scripter Dean DeBlois very large reptilian shoes to fill, with this long-awaited sequel.

We can be saddened, then — although likely not surprised — that Dragon 2 doesn’t live up to its predecessor. DeBlois screwed up the formula, and he has nobody to blame but himself.

1992’s Home Alone 2 remains the textbook case of ill-advised sophomore slump. In an astonishing example of short-sightedness, everybody assumed that the key to success lay in enhancing the slapstick nonsense involving the “wet bandits” who bedeviled little Kevin McCallister, thereby overlooking all the poignant, gently tender kid-on-his-own moments that made the original’s high-comedy final act so funny in contrast. The sequel, essentially nothing but burlesque, fell completely flat.

Successful tone and pacing derive from highs and lows: a balance between the many, many elements that combine to produce an engaging narrative. As my grandmother often warned, not even ice cream sundaes could withstand becoming a steady diet; all too quickly, they’d become bland. And even, well, boring.

That’s more or less what has happened, with Dragon 2. As for why, I’m always suspicious when a filmmaker’s colleagues get jettisoned en route to a sequel. On the first Dragon, DeBlois shared directing and scripting credit with Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, The Croods), with additional writing assists from William Davies and Adam F. Goldberg. Collaboratively, they fashioned a heartwarming tale that was long on interactions between our misfit Viking hero, Hiccup, and his gruff father, Stoick; along with Hiccup’s unlikely attraction to young Viking goddess Astrid; and of course the highs and lows that accompanied Hiccup’s efforts to win the trust of the wild, wounded Toothless.

Then, and only then, did that first film pull out all the stops for its exciting third act.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2: Still a good fit

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008) • View trailer for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for some sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.7.08
Buy DVD: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 • Buy Blu-Ray: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 [Blu-ray]


Earlier this summer, plenty of fans couldn't wait to be re-united with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda.

I'm just as pleased to spend more time with Carmen, Tibby, Lena and Bridget.

As the summer following their first year at college draws to a close, events bring
these four best friends — from left, Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis
Bledel), Carmen (America Ferrera) and Bridget (Blake Lively) — to the
swooningly romantic Mediterranean island of Santorini, where Lena spent such
a pivotal time with her Greek grandparents in the first film.

The young heroines of Ann Brashares' Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants novels made an engaging leap to the big screen in 2005, in a sweet little film that featured respectable work by rising young stars America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively.

At the time, Bledel and Tamblyn were the ones with highly visible careers, on TV's Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia.

Interesting, then, how things change in three years. Gilmore Girls is no more, and Bledel's face has become a bit less familiar; Tamblyn, perhaps the quartet's strongest actress, remains quite busy with indie film projects. On the other hand, both Ferrera and Lively have become the stars of the moment, thanks to Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl.

All of which makes this reunion even more special, because it's unusual for a sequel to attract all its major and supporting players.

I'm also pleased with the approach adopted by new director Sanaa Hamri, taking over for Ken Kwapis. (Screenwriter Elizabeth Chandler worked on both films, although she solos here, having shared credit with Delia Ephron on the first.) Kwapis' approach was a bit too light and frothy, as perhaps was more suited to the first film's focus on flirtations and first love.

The tone is somewhat more serious this time, as established relationships hit the skids and the girls' diverging personalities threaten to destroy the closely knit bond that has held them since childhood. Hamri respects these more serious elements; her film is not marred by (for example) the frivolous and frequent pop song montages that Kwapis employed to excess.

One could argue that this is a revealing distinction between how a male director views young female relationships, and how this same concept is treated by a female director.

Hamri, making her big-screen film debut, is to be congratulated; her approach is noticeably more mature.

The only niggling problem is the relentless forward march of time. All four actresses looked just barely right in the first film, as 16-year-olds (and it was a push for at least two of them). But now they definitely look a bit too old to play 19.

Ah, well. Nothing new in Hollywood. And putting that issue aside, it's remarkably easy to once more become immersed in the lives of these characters.