Thoroughbreds: Bad breeding

Thoroughbreds (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and disturbing content
By Derrick Bang

Watching two teenage sociopaths chat their way up to a homicide isn’t my notion of a good time.

Writer/director Cory Finley obviously feels otherwise, since that dynamic is the sole raison d’être for Thoroughbreds, a thoroughly dull and unpleasant little study in girls behaving very badly.

Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, background) feigns innocence, sweetness and light, but — as this
film progresses — we begin to wonder if she's even more twisted than her sorta-kinda
best friend Amanda (Olivia Cooke).

Not that such a topic can’t generate an absorbing or even fascinating storyline. But Finley hasn’t the skill for such an exercise; his film lacks the darkly snarky impudence of Heathers, or the alluringly warped fantasy elements of Heavenly Creatures, or the hypnotic creepiness of Stoker. All three are unsettling — and far more successful — studies of young women dabbling in murder.

Thoroughbreds is Finley’s first effort at writing or directing, and it shows. He stretches a 15-minute premise way beyond endurance — even at an otherwise economical 92 minutes — and his relentless reliance on talking-heads set-ups too frequently makes this feel like a boring stage play. Indeed, it could have been such, except for Finley’s fondness for cinematographer Lyle Vincent’s languorously long and sweeping tracking shots through the hallways and stairwells of the opulent home wherein one of our protagonists resides.

The talking heads in question belong to Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), two insufferably spoiled white-bread bitches whose parents clearly have more money than God. As introduced, Amanda is “troubled,” while Lily is the “noble spirit doing a good deed” via tutoring lessons. But it’s not that simple, and appearances are deceiving.

Actually, they aren’t. It’s pretty obvious, from the start, that both of these girls are warped Bad News.

Amanda, at least, appears to have an excuse. She’s clinically, emotionally barren: unable to experience joy, sorrow or anything in between. She’s therefore brutally blunt and candid during casual conversation, puncturing and stepping beyond all protective levels of social decorum.

Cooke plays this role persuasively, with an intense, owl-eyed stare and vocal delivery that lacks all inflection. We’d think Amanda compromised by an excessively high drug regimen, except that her perceptive gaze misses nothing, and her seemingly detached observations are uncomfortably frank. But that shtick wears thin, as does her black, dead-eyed stare; Finley overuses both.

Cooke may be remembered for her winning turn in 2015’s under-appreciated Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; she’s also soon to star as Becky Sharp in the Amazon/ITV miniseries adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. One hopes she can put this current effort behind her as quickly as possible.

Green Room: Viciously suspenseful

Green Room (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for brutal graphic violence, gory images, profanity and drug content
By Derrick Bang

This is a nasty little chiller ... in the best possible way.

That said, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s gory survival saga definitely isn’t for the faint of heart. The unsettling premise is reasonable enough to be quite scary on its own, and the vicious, suspenseful execution is the stuff of nightmares. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...

As Amber (Imogen Poots, far left) looks on with grim satisfaction, Reece (Joe Cole) attempts
to persuade a trapped skinhead into explaining what the hell is going on; the rest of Reece's
friends — from left, Tiger (Callum Turner), Sam (Alia Shawkat) and Pat (Anton Yelchin) —
wait to see what will happen next.

Saulnier burst onto the scene with 2007’s high-camp gore-fest, Murder Party, which evoked pleasant memories of 1992’s Dead Alive, Peter Jackson’s early-career exercise in similar bad taste. (Well ... pleasant memories for those who go for such things, anyway.)

Saulnier got a lot more serious with his second outing, 2013’s Blue Ruin, which made respectable noise at Cannes and numerous other film festivals. Clearly, he was a filmmaker to watch, and Green Room — his newest exercise in nail-biting tension — is further proof. It belongs in the grand tradition of Straw Dogs, Assault on Precinct 13 and even Night of the Living Dead, all of which trap small groups of people in enclosed spaces, vastly outnumbered by evil forces determined not to let them escape alive.

Things begin quietly enough, as we meet the scruffy members of a hardscrabble punk band dubbed The Ain’t Rights: vocalist Tiger (Callum Turner), guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) and drummer Reece (Joe Cole). They’re nearing the end of a road trip/tour that has netted some artistic satisfaction but little in the way of cold, hard cash; they’re tired and discouraged.

This introduction is handled economically by Saulnier, who in a few quick scenes tells us everything we need to know about these twentysomethings. Pat is the philosopher; Sam keeps everybody in line; Tiger and Reece are the hardcore punkers. Minor larceny aside — clandestinely siphoning gas, when they lack the funds to fill up their van — they’re reasonably decent folks: just another enthusiastic quartet of musicians trying to get noticed.

After a potentially lucrative gig falls through, they accept a replacement booking, to play an afternoon set at an isolated, rundown club deep in the Oregon backwoods. Their arrival is greeted with quiet suspicion by the locals, many obviously of the skinhead/white supremacist persuasion, but the club manager — Macon Blair, as Gabe — seems friendly enough.

Star Trek Into Darkness: Still voyaging boldly

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.17.13

Director J.J. Abrams’ audacious 2009 re-boot of Star Trek was clever and wildly entertaining, a delight for both hard-core fans and newcomers. (Do the latter actually exist?)

This follow-up is just as successful ... and perhaps even more fun. While also being deadly serious.

Trapped on a hostile planet at the fringes of the Klingon empire, Kirk (Chris Pine, left),
Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) try to figure out whether a cloaked
and impressively powerful assassin is helping them ... or merely eliminating distractions
in order to kill them himself.

Which is an impressive balancing act.

Considerable credit goes to returning scripters Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this time joined by Damon Lindelof, who understand that it’s all right to mess with Gene Roddenberry’s original template — here and there — if such adjustments are made respectfully. And if they make sense, both dramatically and in the greater context of established Trek lore.

Thus, Spock’s home planet Vulcan was destroyed in the 2009 film, signaling that the future of these fresh-faced “Young Trek” characters wouldn’t necessarily unfold according to the Holy Writ as laid down by Roddenberry and the various show-runners who augmented the mythos during the subsequent TV shows and films.

On the other hand, blue-eyed Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk remains an unapologetic babe-hound. Some things can't change.

Star Trek Into Darkness opens on the run — literally — as Kirk and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) flee from the enraged inhabitants of Nibiru, a Class M planet (i.e. one that’s Earth-like). Kirk has “liberated” a sacred object as a diversion, while Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) take a shuttle into a massive volcano, hoping to prevent a cataclysmic eruption that could wipe out the entire civilization.

Despite their efforts to accomplish this clandestinely, Kirk and his crew clearly are violating Starfleet’s sacred Prime Directive, which prohibits any “interference” with a developing culture. (Needless to say, William Shatner’s Kirk violated that directive almost every week, back in the day.)

Regardless of this mission’s outcome — and things definitely don’t go quite as Kirk planned — the brash young Enterprise captain gets a serious dressing-down from mentor Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), once back at Starfleet Command’s San Francisco headquarters. The unhappy result: a demotion and loss of his ship, with Spock assigned elsewhere and the rest of the Enterprise crew left to wonder who they’ll salute next.

From Up on Poppy Hill: Young love and simpler times

From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

From its very first frame, From Up on Poppy Hill is breathtaking.

You’ll literally gasp at the hand-drawn watercolor lushness of the opening tableau, as the young heroine’s neighborhood is unveiled, her home set high on a hill that overlooks Japan’s Yokohama Port. Computer animation, for all its delights, never looks like this; one must go all the way back to the Walt Disney Studio’s early days, and Snow White or Bambi.

When Umi forgets some ingredients for the evening meal, her new friend Shun offers
to speed her down the hill, in order to reach the market as quickly as possible. The
resulting trip is exciting for its breakneck danger, and also for Umi's close proximity to
a young man she's beginning to care for quite deeply.

Or any of the recent offerings from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli, of course, which deliver the same painstaking level of luxurious quality.

From Up on Poppy Hill — incidentally, Japan’s top-grossing 2011 film — marks the first feature collaboration between the legendary Miyazaki and his son, Gorō; Hayao wrote the screenplay with Keiko Niwa, while Gorō directed. The film is adapted from a 1980 manga series by Tetsurō Sayama (writer) and Chizuru Takahashi (artist); the story is a gentle and poignant coming-of-age saga about a teenage girl who can’t let go of a past tragedy.

Aside from the visual splendor, we’re immediately struck by the fact that this is a real-world period piece. For the most part, animated features are set in fantasy realms that involve magical creatures, talking animals or other mythological tropes. Exceptions, such as 2007’s Persepolis, tend to rely on grim political content.

But while From Up on Poppy Hill certainly has its solemn moments, they result from family secrets and unexpected revelations, rather than complex issues playing out on a broader national or global stage.

The year is 1963, a time of great excitement in Japan, as ambitious plans are made to showcase the country during the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. References to construction and renewal allude to Japan’s emergence from the still-recent horrors of World War II, but the script never calls undo attention to this sobering element.

Nor do the upcoming Olympics have any impact on Umi Matsuzaki (voiced in this American release by Sarah Bolger). The 16-year-old lives in Coquelicot Manor, a boarding house she essentially runs, while caring for her grandmother and two younger siblings, Sora (Izabelle Fuhrman) and Riku (Alex Wolff). Their mother, Ryoko, is studying abroad in the United States; their father was killed in the Korean War.

Every morning before school, Umi rises early to handle various chores and prepare an elaborate breakfast for her family and the manor’s residents. She does the same with each day’s evening meal. We immediately realize that this dutiful young woman maintains an exhausting schedule from before dawn to late at night, while diligently keeping up with her studies.

Her final ritual each morning, before walking to school, is to raise a set of signal flags on the manor flagpole that her (now deceased) grandfather built for her long ago.

The flags’ message: “I pray for safe voyages.”

Like Crazy: Sweet and revealing

Like Crazy (2011) • View trailer for Like Crazy
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.18.11


Raw, painfully vulnerable intimacy has become a calling card in recent indie dramas, with 2008’s Rachel Getting Married and last year’s Blue Valentine — and its shattering portrait of Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams and a marriage in crisis — setting a very high bar.

Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin) can't get enough of each other,
as their relationship blossoms; they hunger for the intimacy of every shared
moment. The question, though, is what will happen when circumstances
interrupt this courtship at its most fragile juncture: the point when infatuation
ordinarily would transition into deep, abiding love.

Those films now are joined by Like Crazy, a poignant and richly drawn study of young love and the cruel toll extorted by unfortunate timing. Director Drake Doremus — who co-scripted this alternately charming and heartbreaking courtship saga with Ben York Jones — has a masterful eye for the little moments and small, spontaneous gestures that inform a relationship. No surprise, then, that his film took the grand jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Better still, this story is beautifully depicted by stars Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin, who wholly inhabit characters that look, sound and move like smitten couples we’ve all known in the apartment next door. Jones and Yelchin share chemistry, impeccable timing and an engaging, naturalistic closeness that transcends the artifice of acting; at times we feel like we’re eavesdropping on something intensely personal.

That said, Doremus’ pacing is slow at times, and his directorial flourishes occasionally overwhelm — and detract from — the emotions bared in this quiet, delicate little charmer. Many of Doremus’ pacing and editing touches are brilliant; others — such as his jump cuts in early scenes — are merely irritating. But he does establish an engaging narrative flow, and Felicity Jones and Yelchin ensure that we’ll be drawn into the story.

Jacob (Yelchin) and Anna (Jones) meet during a college class. He’s intrigued by the intelligent, provocatively worded essay she reads aloud; she notices his doodles of chairs, tables and other pieces of furniture. He’s a California native; she’s an exchange student from London. Drawing upon her creative strength, she “stalks” him with a lengthy letter slipped under his car’s windshield wiper.

Charmed, he calls her; they meet for coffee. Right here, the film’s core strength becomes evident: This awkward, sorta-kinda first date is punctuated by the weird non-sequiturs we all slip into such conversations, when not wanting to reveal too much of ourselves too quickly, but at the same time wanting to come across as, well, brilliant and perfect.

John Guleserian’s camerawork catches all the essential details: Anna’s shy, nervous expressions; Jacob’s somewhat more self-assured replies. (What guy wouldn’t be pleased by the attention of such an intelligent and attractive young woman?)

They easily slip into the giddy early days of a relationship: the free-spirited outings; the initial tingling frisson of those first kisses; the eventual sweet, mutual surrender late at night, as the lights go out. He makes her a chair; Jones’ squeal of delight — of total, enchanted surprise — could melt steel. She makes him a book of shared memories from their time together: tickets, receipts, photographs and other ephemera, all catalogued with her captivating, adoring prose.

This is Love writ large: infectious, overwhelming, breathtaking.

Fright Night: Bloody good fun

Fright Night (2011) • View trailer for Fright Night
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for gore, violence, profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.19.11


1985's Fright Night was a macabre delight: a smart blend of nerd humor and unexpectedly gory shocks, which made it a minor classic in the horror comedy sub-genre.

This one's better.

Fending off an angry vampire (Colin Farrell) with a cross only works if the
wielder truly believes in God's power ... and in this secular age, and
particularly in sin-laden Las Vegas, devout religious faith in hard to come
by. That's likely to be a problem...

I can cite several reasons for this sequel's success, starting with director Craig Gillespie's crisp pacing and Marti Noxon's slick script, cleverly adapted and updated from Tom Holland's 26-year-old storyline. But the true star of this version is, well, the star: Colin Farrell, who makes one of the best, baddest and most bodaciously bloody vampires the genre has spawned.

And mind you, we're talking a long history of fangsters.

Farrell isn't merely spooky; he's primal and feral in a way that suggests he might have been around long enough to give nightmares to our distant, cave-dwelling ancestors. His malevolent, mocking smile is chilling, and his best bit of physical business — amid numerous — is a tendency, at startling moments, to pause, sniff the air and (we know, with sick fear) register the presence of a nearby victim.

He radiates an aura of menace and tightly coiled power, even under apparently mild circumstances. We'd not be the slightest bit surprised if he seized two ends of a motorcycle, effortlessly lifted it off the ground and then ripped it in half.

But while Farrell deserves considerable praise, I don't want to short-shrift the rest of the cast. Everybody here does a great job, whether looking nervously out windows, dispensing mordant one-liners or fleeing for their lives. And, throughout, Gillespie never loses track of the all-important blend of comedy, tension and splattered viscera.

Indeed, Gillespie is a sneaky sod, just like this story's creature of darkness. This film has a deceptively mild first act, lulling us into a sense of false security, until a tension-laden sequence that climaxes with a ghastly surprise that's guaranteed to propel most of you from your seats. (Buy your tickets quickly, before too many twits spoil the surprises.)

Charlie Bartlett: The doctor is in

Charlie Bartlett (2007) • View trailer
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, drug content, teenage smoking and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.22.08

Hang around long enough, and you'll spot this disclaimer at the very bottom of the final credits for Charlie Bartlett:

"No teenagers were harmed in the making of this motion picture."

Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr., center) gets curious after spotting a long
line of boys and girls waiting to visit the boys restroom, but before he can peer
inside, a thoroughly calm Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin, left) emerges and
heads off in the other direction ... at which point the other students disappear
as well, leaving Gardner to wonder again precisely what the new kid in school
is up to.

That observation sums up the wonderfully arch tone of Gustin Nash's script, which fuels another mordant view of high school life, very much in the mold of Election and Juno.

Indeed, Nash and director Jon Poll quite cleverly reference one of the great anti-establishment movies of all time, by making prominent use of the Cat Stevens song "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," which served as an anthem for 1972's Harold and Maude. The song's appearance here conveys precisely the same sort of triumphant coda: a wistful reminder that success and survival often erupt in unexpected ways, and that some of the best happy endings involve simply surviving another day.

With integrity intact. That's the most important part.

Charlie Bartlett is as hilariously dark a view of high school dynamics as I've seen since Heathers. That film made a heroine out of a girl who essentially turned serial killer in order to establish a place in the social pecking order, whereas Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) gets ahead in his school by supplying prescription medication to an expanding base of "clients."

The film opens as Charlie is expelled from yet another private school, for making and selling impressively realistic IDs. Although outwardly every inch the blueprint of an educated, well-spoken preppy scholar, Charlie has been tossed from every institution within range of the palatial estate he shares with his somewhat scattered mother, Marilyn (Hope Davis).

That leaves only the local public high school: a bubbling stew of unrestrained hormones and individualists who naturally view the academy-dressed Charlie with giggling derision. Our hero eventually makes his way home with a black eye, courtesy of schoolyard thug Murphy (Tyler Hilton, who played the young Elvis Presley in Walk the Line).

Charlie's mother, incapable of considering any other alternative, sends her only child to the shrink they keep on retainer; that gentleman, not really motivated to "cure" this ongoing cash cow, suggests a regimen of Ritalin.

But Charlie's smarter than that. After wisely rejecting this prescription, having perceived that a five-day dose turns him into an over-stimulated madman, he transforms the hostile Murphy into a business partner; they sell the rest of the pills to an eager consumer base at the next high school dance, and marvel at the results.

Suddenly, Charlie has found a new business model ... and a path toward his own popularity.