Brad's Status: On life-support

Brad's Status (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Inevitability is the death of drama.

Ten minutes into Brad’s Status, it’s blindingly obvious where writer/director Mike White will take his story, and precisely how he’ll get there.

Brad (Ben Stiller, right) and his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), time their visit to Harvard so
they can catch a classical music concert by one of the latter's former high school friends.

And that journey is pretty damn dull.

Mind you, the premise would have been a tough sell, even under more optimal circumstances. A middle-class, mid-life crisis feels unpalatably narcissistic these days, and casting Ben Stiller in such a project is way too on the nose. Much of his career has involved playing self-absorbed mopes, and this story’s Brad Sloan finds Stiller treading his own well-worn ground.

A 101-minute self-pity party isn’t my idea of a good time. Particularly when White’s plot bumps are so predictable.

Brad and his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) lead comfortable lives in suburban Sacramento; he runs a nonprofit that matches worthy causes with like-minded angel investors, while she pulls in “real money” with a government job. Their 17-year-old only child Troy (Austin Abrams) is college-bound, prompting a father/son trip across the country, to check out the universities likely to extend offers on the basis of the lad’s strong transcript and solid extracurriculars.

It’s a milestone event for Brad, which triggers all sorts of memories, long-buried desires and Big Questions. Am I successful? Have I done everything in life, that my impassioned, idealistic college-age self intended?

Trouble is, White saddles Brad with some rather insensitive dialogue right off the bat, during the sleepless night before the trip, in the form of a financially themed chat with the patiently exhausted Melanie. Right away, we don’t like Brad. He sounds and behaves like a whiny jerk, and Stiller never does much to change that snap judgment.

Which is a problem, because we’re definitely supposed to identify — even sympathize — with this guy. That’s an uphill struggle, likely impossible for some.

Matters aren’t helped when Brad constantly shares his innermost thoughts, via a constant sulky voice-over. I’ve long found unrelenting off-camera narration a potential red flag in cinematic storytelling; very few writers and directors know how to use it properly. White isn’t one of them; the technique merely slows his already dull fill to a lifeless crawl.

While We're Young: Sly social commentary

While We're Young (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Getting older is difficult enough, in terms of physical and emotional challenges, without having to worry about the need to remain “relevant.”

In the aftermath of a truly silly consciousness-raising experience, Josh (Ben Stiller) and
Cornelia (Naomi Watts) attempt to make sense of the previous evening, to determine
whether any useful insight might have been achieved. Sadly, they've a ways to go before
any genuinely helpful epiphanies.

Perversely, though, that issue has become more challenging in our modern world, with cultural and technological imperatives changing not by the decade, not even by the year, but at times — seemingly — by the month. More than ever before, it feels like only agile young minds have a hope of keeping up.

But is “keeping up” really that important?

Intellectual obsolescence is the core issue of Noah Baumbach’s newest character study, but the writer/director actually has much more on his mind. Part comedy, part drama and all biting social commentary, While We’re Young is a perceptive take on 21st century fortysomethings who worry that life is passing them by ... or, worse yet, long ago left town on the last bus.

Mid-life crises are nothing new, of course; every generation crosses this more-or-less halfway point with varying degrees of the same angst. But Hollywood didn’t really discover the genre until 1955’s The Seven Year Itch, and most of the topic’s classics are more recent: 1973’s Save the Tiger, 1979’s Manhattan, 1999’s American Beauty and 2004’s Sideways come quickly to mind.

While We’re Young definitely belongs in their company. Baumbach has an unerring ear for troubled interpersonal dynamics, dating back to his Oscar-nominated script for 2005’s The Squid and the Whale. That said, some of his subsequent films — however insightful — spent too much time with unpalatable or downright mean-spirited characters; it’s difficult to embrace any message when delivered by, say, the misanthropic title character in Greenberg.

But Baumbach’s approach has been gentler of late, starting with the forlorn misfit played so winningly by Greta Gerwig, in 2012’s Frances Ha. Maybe it’s because Baumbach is gaining maturity not merely as a filmmaker, but also as a person; it can’t be accidental that he’s the same age as his protagonists in While We’re Young, definitely his kindest — and therefore more approachable — film to date.

We meet Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) as they nervously try to interact with a newborn: not theirs, as we quickly discover, but the first child of best friends Fletcher and Marina (Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia). As displayed so expressively by Watts — Cornelia tries, but doesn’t quite succeed, to hide her agitation — this moment is a crisis, and not merely because it revives painful memories of their own failed attempts to have children.

No, it’s a crossroads. Just as marriage leaves still-single friends feeling isolated, new parents with kids instantaneously join yet another social clique that simply doesn’t allow for childless members ... no matter how polite the lip-service.

Just like that, Josh and Cornelia feel left out.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Bittersweet lament

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: PG, for occasional crude language and mild profanity, and a bit of fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.3.14

James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” originally appeared in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and subsequently went on to become one of the most frequently anthologized American short stories. It subsequently begat a charming 1947 Danny Kaye film, a 1960 stage adaptation — as part of the revue A Thurber Carnival — and a woefully underappreciated 1969-70 TV sitcom, My World and Welcome to It, that barely scraped along for a single season (and still hasn’t been released on home video, drat the luck!).

Walter (Ben Stiller), desperate to make an impression on Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), imagines
all sorts of adventurous meet-cute moments, as with this fantasy of appearing before her
as a suave and rugged Arctic explorer

Now, rather unexpectedly, Thurber’s whimsical day in the life of a mild-mannered nebbish has become a poignant lament on the demise of print journalism. From the wild ’n’ crazy Ben Stiller, no less. Who could have imagined?

Not I; that’s for certain.

Initially, though, Stiller’s film — he directed and co-scripted (with Steve Conrad), in addition to starring in the title role — lives down to my worst expectations. The opening half-hour slides clumsily into slapstick nonsense as we meet Walter, the “Negative Assets Manager” at Life Magazine. That droll job title actually refers to Walter’s selection and careful handling of the dynamic photographs that have characterized the publication.

He toils quietly in the Time Life Building’s sub-sub basement, helped only by a single assistant, Hernando (a disarmingly dry Adrian Martinez), while fantasizing about all the astonishingly brave and bold moments that have been captured on the images he has handled. Walter also imagines working up the courage to approach co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig), invariably concocting a scenario that involves saving her life, or otherwise impressing her greatly.

When back on earth, he can barely muster a morning greeting ... despite the fact, as we can tell, that she’s clearly interested.

Although set in the modern day, Stiller and Conrad have re-invented Life’s timeline in order to suit their purpose: to follow Walter on what becomes the worst day of his life, as the magazine’s corporate owners announce the termination of its print edition. Just as life has passed Walter by, life now is about to pass Life by.

Even his job has been rendered superfluous, since the advent of digital photography has wholly transformed the art and craft of photojournalism. But not for one lone hold-out: the dynamic Sean O’Connell (a cameo by Sean Penn), an old-school camera jockey who’ll still roar toward the heart of an exploding volcano, snapping pictures while standing on the wings of a biplane.

But on the boring ground, the magazine’s conversion to dot-com oblivion is being overseen by the new Managing Director in Charge of The Transition: the consummately arrogant, presumptuously inconsiderate and relentlessly intimidating Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott). Sensing a victim who won’t fight back, the bullying Hendricks wastes no opportunity to belittle Walter ... who simply makes matters worse with his tendency to drift into occasional fantasy fugues.

The Watch: You definitely don't want to

The Watch (2012) • View trailer
One star. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity, vulgar sexual content, violence and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

This misbegotten train wreck represents the triumph of a pithy high-concept pitch over common sense, plot logic and artistic integrity.

Having learned that a newly discovered silver sphere is a powerful
alien weapon, our numbnuts heroes — from left, Jamarcus (Richard
Ayoade), Bob (Vince Vaughn), Evan (Ben Stiller) and Franklin (Jonah
Hill) — proceed to blow up all sorts of stuff, accompanied by much
raucous laughter. Sadly, they can't laugh hard enough to make us
viewers believe that any of this dreck is the slightest bit amusing.

The Watch may not wind up as the worst big-studio effort of 2012, but it’ll do until that one comes along.

Words simply fail me. I can’t believe this mess ever started as an actual script; it feels like so-called writers Jared Stern, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg got stoned one evening, jotted wild ’n’ crazy ideas onto pieces of paper, threw them in the air, assembled them randomly and then handed the stack to director Akiva Schaffer, who apparently saw no reason to argue.

Schaffer, it should be noted, was a longtime writer and director — of digital shorts — on TV’s Saturday Night Live. He paused long enough, during that tenure, to direct Andy Samberg in one of 2007’s limpest comedies, Hot Rod. Haven’t ever heard of it? That’s to your advantage; don’t go looking.

At the risk of repeating an old cliché, on the basis of that film and his “work” here on The Watch, Schaffer ain’t fit to direct traffic. Nor would I let him direct me to a market half a block away; he’d undoubtedly get it wrong.

Failed comedies can be egregiously awful, and this one certainly qualifies. The dialogue sounds under-rehearsed; the characters lack continuity or credibility; the plot sorta/kinda stumbles from one scene to the next. As is typical of too many numbnuts “doofus projects” these days, profanity and vulgarity are tossed about like spent condoms — actually one of the many running gags — in the vain hope that such elements can draw laughter. Not because any of the lines are actually funny, but ... just because.

Random dialogue exchanges are reflexively homophobic, racist, sexist and all other –ists that come to mind; about the best that can be said, is that these guys are equal-opportunity offenders.

And as bad as the limp-noodle efforts at slapstick humor are, things get even worse when Christophe Beck’s soundtrack swells with what’s intended to be feigned emotion, for a scene Schaffer apparently hopes will be heartwarming. Gaaahhh...

Tower Heist: Quite a steal

Tower Heist (2011) • View trailer for Tower Heist
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for profanity and snarky sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.4.11


I had to check my calendar, to make sure it wasn’t 1982.

There was Eddie Murphy, as fresh, feisty and funny as he was back in 48 Hrs. and Trading Places. No preening. No mugging. No vanity turns.

Josh (Ben Stiller, far left) and his unlikely crew — from left, Mr. Fitzhugh
(Matthew Broderick), Enrique (Michael Peña), Charlie (Casey Affleck) and
Slide (Eddie Murphy) — case the luxury tower condominiums across the
street, seeking a way to evade FBI agents, police officers and regular staff
members while somehow making their way to the penthouse, where they hope
to find and steal $20 million.

Honestly, Murphy hasn’t been this entertaining in a live-action film for ... well, decades. He’s been an arrogant, self-centered glory hound for so long that I’d forgotten he could be anything else.

And Tower Heist is the perfect vehicle for this vintage, everything-old-is-new-again Eddie Murphy. In many ways, director Brett Ratner’s film even feels retro, as if it might have been made back in the 1970s or ’80s, during the glory days of heist comedies such as The Hot Rock and The Thief Who Came to Dinner.

Yep, this film is that much fun.

Ratner knows this territory, having helmed After the Sunset — a nifty, under-appreciated 2004 heist flick with Pierce Brosnan — in between Rush Hour and X-Men entries. Ratner delivers just the right breezy, light-hearted tone, while granting us a despicable villain to loathe: a guy we’re begging the heroes to take down.

More crucially, Ratner and his four writers — Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage — pay careful attention to every member of an engaging ensemble of characters. And, in the grand tradition of such storylines, they’re the most unlikely “burglars” since Dick Van Dyke oversaw an aristocratic household of larcenous servants in 1967’s Fitzwilly.

The vintage atmosphere notwithstanding, the setting is completely contemporary: a luxury New York Central Park condominium complex dubbed The Tower, where manager Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) commutes from Queens — rising at 4:30 a.m. each day — in order to ensure that every last little detail is perfect for each tenant.

That’s every detail, whether dog-sitting an elderly woman’s pampered pooch, warning a philandering husband that his wife has returned three days early from an overseas trip, or running interference as bank officials try to evict destitute former Wall Street broker Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick).

Josh also enjoys matching wits during chess games played via the Internet with investment titan Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), who lives in the penthouse, where his many pleasures include a daily swim in the rooftop pool.

Much as the tenants depend on Josh, he also is respected by his own staff: the beloved elderly doorman, Lester (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who shares old jokes with anybody who will listen; a feisty maid, Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe, well remembered from Precious), who takes guff from nobody; the evasive Miss Iovenko (Nina Arianda), clandestinely studying for the bar while insisting she’s doing no such thing; and newly hired Enrique Dev’Reaux (Michael Peña), a bellhop/elevator operator-in-training delighted to have traded up from his former position at Burger King.

Oh, yes: and Charlie (Casey Affleck), Josh’s brother-in-law, who works as The Tower’s concierge and isn’t nearly as savvy as he imagines himself.

Greenberg: Sheer torture

Greenberg (2010) • View trailer for Greenberg
Two stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, strong sexual content, nudity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.1.10
Buy DVD: Greenberg • Buy Blu-Ray: Greenberg [Blu-ray]


Filmmaker Noah Baumbach opens and closes Greenberg with tight close-ups on Greta Gerwig's expressive face, and in both cases we're overwhelmed by a painfully raw display of naked emotion: hope, uncertainty, frustration and uncomplicated compassion.

Particularly the latter: Gerwig's Florence Marr is the best part of this film, and Baumbach does well to highlight this talented young actress — born and raised in Sacramento -— as much as possible.

After another of their "romantic" encounters goes horribly awry, Florence
(Greta Gerwig) can't wait to abandon the mean-spirited Roger (Ben Stiller) for
the rest of the evening. Too bad she doesn't run him over with a bus; now,
that would be worth watching.

Unhappily, Ben Stiller's title character is the worst part, which makes this tightly wound relationship drama rather difficult to endure.

I'll be more blunt: We're sometimes forced, by circumstance of employment or casual encounter, to spend excruciating hours with people we can't stand. Why the heck should we endure a similar jerk in a movie?

Although we're obviously intended to sympathize with Roger Greenberg — to tolerate and be patient with this lost soul, as he struggles at the mid-life crossroads — Stiller's character doesn't earn such respect, nor is there reason to cut him any slack. He's an abusive, misanthropic, misogynistic, self-centered cretin who doesn't deserve the kindness shown by several of the other characters in this story, and particularly not by Gerwig's Florence.

Watching Roger turn nasty and emotionally belittle Florence is stomach-clutching the first time. Enduring it the second time, the third time, the fourth time ... is inexcusable. Gerwig's performance is so credibly, painfully shaded — Florence is so vulnerable, so willing to suffer the abuse — that it's like watching somebody drown kittens in a barrel.

And to what purpose?

That's the key question about Baumbach's film, which he directed and co-wrote with occasional collaborator Jennifer Jason Leigh. (They worked together on 2007's Margot at the Wedding.) Why are we wasting time with this intellectual thug?

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian — Exhibits charm

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) • View trailer for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for harmless comedy violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.09
Buy DVD: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian • Buy Blu-Ray: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Three-Disc Edition + Digital Copy + DVD) [Blu-ray]


Blend a museum of natural history, an uptight night watchman and a magical tablet that brings all the exhibits to life between dusk and dawn each day, and the result was $574 million in worldwide ticket sales.

One does not ignore numbers like that.

Although guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) has his hands full, when all sorts
of chaos erupts in the Smithsonian's many galleries, he has the advantage
of resourceful assistance from the plucky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams).

Happily, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is every bit as clever, charming and harmlessly exciting as its 2006 predecessor. Indeed, this sequel is even a bit better; the new setting — the many buildings housing the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. — allows much freer rein for the already amusing premise.

And for once, all concerned have been content to more or less repeat their winning formula. This sophomore outing for Ben Stiller's high-strung Larry Daley doesn't sacrifice its heart on the altar of more mindless and destructive slapstick, a creatively bankrupt decision that plagues far too many comedy sequels.

No, this romp in the Smithsonian is just as sweet and heartfelt as its predecessor, which means it should make just as much money.

True, the gimmick is just as silly, as well; one cannot apply logic to either of these films. (I never cease to be amazed, for starters, by how many historical figures from various parts of the world return to life spouting flawless English.) You gotta just kick back and go with the flow, and Stiller and returning director Shawn Levy — along with returning scripters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon — make that pretty easy.

Larry, having survived and even profited from the events in the first film, has forsaken his unusual friends at New York's Museum of Natural History for a new career as an infomercial titan (a calling perceptively skewered in a short prologue). With a client list that's soon to include Wal-Mart, Larry hasn't found the time for those late-night visits to play fetch with the dinosaur skeleton, or observe the evolving friendship between the miniature cowboy, Jedediah (Owen Wilson), and the equally diminutive Roman centurion, Octavius (Steve Coogan).

Madagascar, Escape 2 Africa: African pride

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) • View trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Four stars (out of five). Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.7.08
Buy DVD: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa • Buy Blu-Ray: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Rare is the sequel that outshines its predecessor.

Godfather 2 comes to mind, along with Aliens.

And now, on a much more trivial — but no less entertaining — level, we can add Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

This doesn't look like New York! After a near-death experience while flying
Penguin Airways, our heroes — from left, Melman, Gloria, Alex and Marty —
are astonished to discover that they've been dumped into an African wild animal
preserve. Better still, a nearby watering hole boasts a wealth of giraffes, hippos,
lions and zebras. Could this be ... home?

The degree to which 2005's Madagascar entered the public consciousness has been obvious for months, as movie fans young and old burst into smiles and bobbed their heads in time with the theater preview's signature tune refrain of "We like to move it, move it." Clearly, interest has been high in this second visit with Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo.

Ironically, though, those very lyrics had much to do with my dissatisfaction with the first Madagascar. It didn't move all that well, with a first act that couldn't quite make up its mind which approach to take, and characters that seemed little more than animated vehicles for the endless one-liners spouted by (respectively) Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Individuality and purpose were seriously lacking, which made it difficult to identify with the four heroes, no matter how cleverly they were animated.

Well, directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath — who, with Etan Cohen, also wrote this script — have improved things considerably. Aside from the clever sight gags and the often screamingly funny situations into which our protagonists are dumped, each critter also gets a serious dramatic character arc, all of which tie in with the larger running narrative: the ongoing desire to leave this wild environment and return to the comforts of the New York Zoo.

First, though, we're treated to a prologue that recaps the major plot points of the first film, and adds some crucial backstory, as we discover how Alex wound up in New York in the first place. This involves a pell-mell chase and a tragic moment of parental loss, both of which signal the zippy pacing and more involving dramatic arcs to come.

Then it's back to the present, as our four friends happily board the dilapidated plane somehow resurrected by all the lemurs under the rule of the cheerfully daffy King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen). Everybody expects a smooth flight, which seems foolish, given that the aircraft is being piloted by the militarily precise but clueless penguins (Chris Miller, Christopher Knights and McGrath).

And, sure enough, the trip comes to an abrupt halt, dumping our entire cast in the middle of an African wild animal preserve, in a crash sequence with enough hilarious sight gags to fuel the entire film, let alone this madcap three-minute sequence.