The Peanut Butter Falcon: Utterly captivating

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, brief violence and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.23.19

Precious few films deserve to be mentioned alongside Mark Twain’s richly evocative, character-driven prose.

This is one of them.

Determined to take advantage of Rule No. 1 — "Party!" — Zak (Zack Gottsagen, left) and
Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) dip rather too enthusiastically into a jug of moonshine bestowed by
an obliging store owner.

The comparison runs deeper than tone and atmosphere. Writer/directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz deliberately evoke the spirit of Samuel Langhorne Clemens as their endearing, deeply heartwarming tale proceeds. It’s easy to imagine Twain having concocted just such an intimate,  transformational fable, had he settled in the swampy, reed-filled inlets and quiet sandy beaches of North Carolina.

Nilson and Schwartz’s mythical saga has a similar sense of otherworldly timelessness, ingeniously leavened with a dollop of contemporary social consciousness. The script — and precisely crafted dialog — never put a foot wrong.

The result is utterly charming.

Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down Syndrome, chafes in a nursing home for senior citizens in the final stages of life: the only facility willing to accept him, after being abandoned by his original family. Despite an inherent optimism and outward cheerfulness, he’s restless and miserable in an environment clearly not suited to his needs.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), an empathetic volunteer who has tried to be a friend; at the very least, she’s closer to his age than anybody else. Zak appreciates the effort, and promises that she’ll be one of the privileged few invited to his next birthday party.

Zak’s only joy comes from endlessly re-watching an old promotional videotape starring his longtime hero: a professional wrestler dubbed the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). More than anything else, Zak dreams of traveling to Florida, in order to enroll at his idol’s wrestling school.

Elsewhere, personal tragedy has left Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) unable to cope with the world. At the loosest of ends, sleeping rough and incapable (unwilling?) to hold a steady job, he survives solely by stealing the caged catches of other crab fishermen. But that’s a dangerous gamble, when everybody similarly scrambles to stay alive; Tyler runs afoul of rival fishermen Duncan (John Hawkes) and Ratboy (Southern rapper Yelawolf), who threaten to kill him.

Zak, no stranger to escape attempts, finally succeeds one night with some assistance from his roommate, Carl (Bruce Dern, enjoying a late-career Renaissance playing feisty old coots). Alas, the effort leaves him clad solely in briefs. Stumbling barefoot and shirtless in the dark, he finally hides beneath the tarp in a dockside skiff … which happens to belong to Tyler, who has just compounded his problems with a stupid and spiteful act.

Forced to flee by boat into the reedy inlets, with Duncan and Ratboy in vengeful pursuit, Tyler is well away before he discovers the stowaway.

The Mustang: A thoroughbred

The Mustang (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug content and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.12.19

Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre isn’t afraid to minimize dialog.

The impatient Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts) gets absolutely nowhere during his early
sessions with the wild buckskin he has named Marquis. The reason is simple: The
horse isn't about to yield to a man who radiates such impatience and anger.

More than most, the Paris-born filmmaker understands the dramatic impact of silence and ambient sounds; she trusts her actors, cinematographer (Ruben Impens) and editor (Géraldine Mangenot) to shape and tell the story.

De Clermont-Tonnerre recognizes that cinema is a visual medium, where the accomplished manipulation of image is just as important as anything else … if not more so. This isn’t radio, where long speeches are necessary to convey context.

A good film director lets us see it, digest it. And confidently expects us to get it.

Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts), halfway through an 11-year sentence for domestic violence at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, has resisted rehabilitation efforts. We meet him during a session with the prison psychologist (Connie Britton), who can’t get much out of him. Roman is stoic, wary and uncooperative.

“I’m not good with people,” he finally mumbles.

She therefore assigns him to the prison’s “outdoor maintenance” program.

As we learn during an introductory text screen, the public rangelands in our 10 western states are home to roughly 100,000 wild horses that struggle to survive in an environment that can comfortably support roughly one-quarter that many. To help stabilize the population and prevent habitat destruction, thousands are captured each year by the Bureau of Land Management; the lucky ones are adopted, while many spend the rest of their lives in long-term holding facilities.

(Watching a herd rounded up by helicopter, as the film begins, is a jaw-dropper. Who knew?)

Since 1990, a few hundred have been sent every year to the Wild Horse Inmate Program, where they’re trained for sale at public auction.

The results are impressive — astonishing, even — for both men and mustangs. As dog lovers already know, an animal’s unconditional love, and obvious lack of judgment, can reassure and help a damaged individual learn how to re-socialize.

White Boy Rick: Not worth the bother

White Boy Rick (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug content, violence, sexual candor and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

The point of this film — the reason for its existence — eludes me.

The press notes proclaim it a “moving story” of a blue-collar kid who “enters into a Faustian bargain” and ultimately is “manipulated by the very system meant to protect him” and “betrayed by the institutional injustice and corruption that defined Detroit, the home they loved.”

The hook is planted: Ricky (Richie Merritt, left), not wanting his father to be arrested,
reluctantly agrees to a dangerous undercover scheme proposed by FBI agents
Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Byrd (Rory Cochrane).

Like, wow. Lay it on a bit thicker, could you?

Makes me wonder if these folks watched their own film.

At no time can the narrative in White Boy Rick be considered “moving” to any degree, nor is there room for an ounce of sympathy for any of these individuals. It’s impossible to chart a fall from grace, when somebody hasn’t any to begin with.

Nobody in director Yann Demange’s film is likable:  not for a nanosecond. Nor are they interesting/captivating in the manner of characters in a Martin Scorsese crime film. These are just mopes,  and spending 110 minutes with this gaggle of amoral scumbags and opportunists is a bewildering waste of time. 

We reach the conclusion and wonder, okay … to what purpose?

Demange’s filmmaking skills are acceptable, and several performances are noteworthy. Screenwriters Andy Weiss, Logan Miller and Noah Miller adhere respectably to the real-world facts, and Tat Radcliffe’s grainy, gritty cinematography gives this saga the feel of a documentary; there’s a sense that these events are happening in real time, and we’re granted access as invisible observers.

An argument can be made that law enforcement officials shouldn’t take advantage of ingenuous minors, but Ricky Wershe Jr. was hardly a poster child for exploited innocence. He was a seasoned delinquent without a trace of conscience long before the FBI came calling; blame for that undoubtedly falls on the shoulders of his low-life father, who cheerfully schooled his son in a life of crime.

We meet 14-year-old Ricky (Richie Merritt) as he helps his father (Matthew McConaughey) out-hustle a bent dealer at a Detroit gun show. It’s immediately apparent that Rick Sr. is a blue-sky dreamer who flits from one unlikely get-rich-quick scheme to another; his current “occupation” involves selling illegally enhanced AK-47s to local thugs.

Ricky, his older sister Dawn (Bel Powley) and their father eke out a lower middle-class existence in a predominantly African-American eastside neighborhood, roughly seven miles from downtown Detroit. Ricky’s grandparents — Ray (Bruce Dern) and Verna (Piper Laurie) — live across the street, grimly hanging onto their memories of a time when the area was booming, and filled with Chrysler employees and their families.

The Hateful Eight: Insufficiently nasty

The Hateful Eight (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for strong bloody violence, gore, profanity, graphic nudity and racist behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.15

Quentin Tarantino’s best films are highlighted by deliciously snarky dialog, scene-stealing — and sometimes career-reviving — performances by delectable character actors, and twisty scripts that build tension to the screaming point.

Every time somebody enters Minnie's Haberdashery, those already inside — in this case,
John Ruth (Kurt Russell, left), Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a wincing
Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) — have to yell for the door to be nailed shut, lest the
blizzard blow it open again.

The Hateful Eight gets two out of three.

Tarantino’s tough-talkin’ homage to classic Westerns — complete with an awesome new orchestral score from 87-year-old Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), his first Western score in 40 years — simply doesn’t have enough story to justify its butt-numbing 182-minute length. The set-up is rich with potential, and it screams for the multiple back-story treatment that made Kill Bill so engaging ... but no; aside from two brief flashbacks, we and the cast are stuck in the same claustrophobic cabin for three interminable hours.

Granted, the actors do their best to hold our attention. Ultimately, though, the posturing and narrow-eyed ’tude can’t make up for a script that doesn’t kick into gear until after the intermission (roughly 100 minutes in).

Tarantino makes us wait much too long for the good stuff, and by then things are rather anticlimactic.

And yes, I’m fully aware that the “good stuff” is the enfant terrible filmmaker’s gleeful dollops of blood and gore. But even here, it feels like Tarantino is only half-trying; having teased us with a cabin laden with hammers, shovels, iron spikes and all sorts of other implements of potential mayhem, he settles for gunfire. Which, tasteless as it sounds, is quite disappointing.

As he did with Kill Bill, Tarantino divides this saga into chapters, starting with “Last Stage to Red Rock.” The setting is post-Civil War Wyoming, with a six-horse stagecoach doing its best to outrun an approaching blizzard. The driver is forced to halt after coming upon former Union soldier-turned-bounty hunter Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), perched in the middle of the road atop three of his sanctioned kills.

Warren’s horse has given out on him; he’s hoping for a lift to Red Rock. But that’s a problem; the stage has been chartered exclusively by fellow bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell), who is handcuffed to his prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and escorting her to a date with the hangman at Red Rock.

The wisely suspicious Ruth views any strangers as either a) somebody trying to steal his bounty; or b) somebody trying to rescue Daisy. But it turns out that Warren and Ruth know each other, if only vaguely; the requested ride is granted, if grudgingly.

Nebraska: A memorable trip

Nebraska (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity and vulgarity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve been waiting 40 years for Bruce Dern to snag this sort of role.

And so, I would imagine, has he.

When David (Will Forte, left) insists on seeing the house where his father Woody (Bruce
Dern, center left) grew up, the building's sad, dilapidated and abandoned state aptly
mirrors Woody's dismay over the lifetime of disappointment that haunts him. Woody's
wife Kate (June Squibb) takes advantage of this excuse to dredge up unpleasant
memories, while David's brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) warily watches his combative
parents, wondering if they'll flare into another squabble.

The American film industry has no shortage of unsung and underappreciated actors, male and female. Some carve out respectable careers as supporting players: familiar faces who, with their mere presence, immediately raise the quality of a given movie. Jack Warden, George Sanders, Joan Cusack, Shelley Winters and George Kennedy come to mind.

Others work just as hard but never quite achieve name-brand recognition: forever hoping for that one golden shot that’ll make all the difference, usually retiring into obscurity without having had that chance.

Thanks to Nebraska, Dern is one of the lucky ones.

Until now, he has been the stalwart second banana in projects as varied as Smile, The Great Gatsby, All the Pretty Horses and Coming Home, the latter earning him a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. Leading roles have been few, but I’ve never forgotten the intensity of his essentially solo turn in 1972’s Silent Running (a sci-fi entry dismissed as preposterous at the time, which has become more uncomfortably prophetic with every passing year).

Dern brought life not only to his own role in that cautionary tale, but also to the three boxy, robotic “drones” that — thanks to his persuasive performance — developed their own individual personalities. No small feat, decades before CGI magic was even a gleam in anybody’s eye.

Even then, Dern was a master of earnest, heartbreaking passion, imbuing his sad-sack characters with the forever chagrined intensity of the eternally downtrodden and disenfranchised. Men who nonetheless cling to even the faintest hope, no matter how preposterous.

A great work of art doesn’t emerge from an empty canvas, of course; Nebraska also owes its deliciously biting charm to its rich script from newcomer Bob Nelson — a remarkable big-screen debut — and the sensitive, perfectly modulated direction of Alexander Payne, who has delighted us with misfit sagas such as Sideways, Election and The Descendants.

Payne usually writes or collaborates on the scripts for his film; Nebraska marks the first time he has fully surrendered the screenplay chores. But it’s easy to see why; Nelson’s droll premise and mordant execution display the same slow-burn humor and slightly left-of-center sensibilities, while granting us a central character every bit as stubborn, irascible and resolutely unlovable as Jack Nicholson’s title character in Payne’s About Schmidt.

Tone is everything in Payne’s films, and Nebraska could be considered Fargo on downers: somewhat quieter and slower, but every bit as rich with Midwestern quirks and slow-drawlin’ ambiance.

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.”