The Sheep Detectives: Wooly bully!

The Sheep Detectives (2026) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated PG, and needlessly, for mild dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.10.26

Director Kyle Balda’s quaint little charmer is certain to appeal to fans of Babe, Charlotte’s Web and other (sorta-kinda) live-action talking animal movies.

 

This one blends that core premise with a bit of Shaun the Sheep and ... Agatha Christie.

 

Whenever George (Hugh Jackman) feels gloomy or lonely, he cheers himself by spending
quality time with his favorite sheep, Lily.

The film derives from an intriguing source, adapted from German author Leonie Swann’s 2005 novel, Three Bags Full, which is set in the Irish village of Glenkill. 

Scripter Craig Mazin moves the action to the fictitious English countryside community of Denbrook. (Filming actually took place in and around Oxfordshire, and cinematographer George Steel makes ample use of the lush setting.) Mazin also takes serious liberties with Swann’s characters and the plot; the beguiling result bears little resemblance to her novel.

 

Eccentric rancher George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) gets along far better with his sheep — all of whom he has named — than with the townsfolk. He writes long narrative letters to somebody named Rebecca, detailing his workaday activities. He’s also an avid fan of mystery books; once chores are done each day, and the sun begins to set, he sits on the steps leading to his tiny trailer home, and reads aloud to his large flock.

 

At first blush, it seems curious to see all the sheep amble toward the trailer, and settle onto the ground, as if paying attention. As we learn, when George retires for the night, the sheep understand every word, and debate who the culprit might be. 

 

The lively arguments fly between the patient Mopple (voiced by Chris O’Dowd), the curious Zora (Bella Ramsey), the fluffy Cloud (Regina Hall), the proud and dignified Sir Ritchfield (Patrick Stewart), the shaggy Wool-Eyes (Rhys Darby) and rowdy twins Reggie and Ronnie (Brett Goldstein). Ah, but the wise and perceptive Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) always knows the right answer, well before each novel concludes.

 

Lily understands the structure of such books, explaining that it’s always a matter of deducing which suspect had means, motive and opportunity.

 

Meanwhile, budding young journalist Elliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine) arrives in Denbrook, having been sent to write a feature on the town’s “cultural festival.” This turns out to be only three paltry tables set up by prickly innkeeper Beth Pennock (Hong Chau), who becomes grievously insulted when Elliot bluntly notes that her “fair” isn’t such a much.

 

Other key villagers include Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), the clumsy and sweetly befuddled local policeman; Rev. Hillcoate (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), the often bewildered local minister; Ham Gilyard (Conleth Hill), the smugly arrogant town butcher; and Caleb Merrow (Tosin Cole), a fellow sheep rancher who leases half of George’s land for his flock.

 

Beth spits nails every time George’s name is mentioned. George, far from devout, stuns  Rev. Hillcoate and his entire congregation during service one day, by storming into church and dumping a huge wad of bills in the donation plate.

Juliet, Naked: A delightfully insightful dramedy

Juliet, Naked (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.31.18

British author/screenwriter Nick Hornby excels at romantic comedies with bite. He’s also one of the few novelists fortunate enough to have his books treated with respect, when they migrate to the big screen.

Annie (Rose Byrne) and Duncan (Chris O'Dowd) have lived together for 15 years, but
their "togetherness" feels habitual and artificial, rather than being laced with the warmth
that comes from mutual love and devotion.

That’s definitely true of Juliet, Naked, which joins a noteworthy list topped by High Fidelity and About a Boy. Hornby is equally gifted at adapting books by other authors, as evidenced by his accomplished handling of both An Education and Brooklyn. He has an uncanny ear for the fits and starts of relationship dynamics: not merely the way couples interact with each other, but also the manner in which they think and move.

Hornby also has an obvious love of music, and the way it informs key moments in our lives: a subtext readily apparent in Juliet, Naked (which feels, at times, like an Internet-era update of High Fidelity).

Director Jesse Peretz and his three scripters — Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor and Tamara Jenkins — have softened some of the rougher edges of Hornby’s novel, but the key narrative elements and underlying moral are firmly in place. The result is droll, wistful, occasionally pungent and often heartwarming.

And messy, the way relationships can be.

Sweet-natured Annie (Rose Byrne), generous of spirit, has never left the small British seaside community of Sandcliff, where she was born. (Filming actually took place in Broadstairs, Kent.) Although once a resort destination, the town has become as faded and unloved as the struggling museum she curates, having inherited that position from her late father.

Annie is equally stuck in a 15-year relationship with boyfriend Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), a film studies professor at a nearby college. Their bond exists more by habit than actual affection; they’re certainly kind to each other, but passion is absent. So is any possibility of children, which Duncan dismissed long ago, and Annie gets little joy from “parenting” her irresponsible adult sister Ros (Lily Brazier), who has woeful taste in lovers.

Duncan’s most annoying habit, however, is his desire to be regarded as the world’s foremost expert on reclusive American singer/songwriter Tucker Crowe, who dropped out of sight years ago, at the height of his fame. To that end, Duncan spends all of his free time maintaining a web site dedicated to the mostly forgotten rocker, where he text-chats with fellow obsessives who scrutinize every line and word of Crowe’s songs, seeking “truth” and “meaning.”

It’s clear that Duncan has long rhapsodized for hours at a time about such minutia — most notably regarding the songs on Crowe’s magnum opus album, Juliet — with Annie as a trapped but tolerant listener. Shoot me now, her expression clearly indicates, but he’s oblivious.

Molly's Game: All in!

Molly's Game (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.5.18

Truth isn’t merely stranger than fiction; sometimes it’s flat-out astonishing.

Molly’s Game is the mesmerizing study of Molly Bloom, who — in a parallel universe — might have been the gold medal-winning Olympics skier that she was trained to become, from an early age.

Having become master of her own high-stakes poker domain, Molly (Jessica Chastain)
strides confidently through the room, fully aware of the impact she has on her all-male
clientele.

Or, maybe, she’d have blossomed into the high-profile lawyer being nurtured by her academic talents.

In our world, derailed by a freak accident and occasionally hampered by a rebellious spirit, she applied her preternatural intelligence to become — of all things — the “Poker Princess” known in upper-echelon circles for running weekly, invitation-only games for some of the wealthiest high-rollers in Los Angeles and New York.

Her rise and fall — and rise and fall, and rise and fall — is detailed with supernova intensity by famed scripter Aaron Sorkin, also making a splashy directorial debut in this adaptation of Bloom’s page-turning 2014 memoir, Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker.

And yes, the film is as breathtaking as that title.

Perhaps too breathtaking.

As Sorkin’s longtime fans are well aware, his rat-a-tat dialog sizzles with the manic incandescence of classic Hollywood screwball comedies, albeit on a far higher level of dramatic gravitas: often laden with information dumps that demand not only one’s full attention, but (couldn’t hurt) a college graduate’s vocabulary.

There’s a reason Sorkin’s best-scripted episodes of TV’s gone but still much-beloved West Wing clocked in at a fast-paced 45 minutes; most viewers probably couldn’t have endured more. The same narrative ferocity can be found in any isolated 15 to 20 minutes of Molly’s Game, particularly as anchored by Jessica Chastain’s hypnotically alluring starring role, and Idris Elba’s equally powerful supporting performance.

Taken as a whole, though, this 140-minute film is exhausting. Even too many chocolate milkshakes can overwhelm the most enthusiastic palate, and — as director — Sorkin has over-indulged his writing sensibilities. (Tellingly, this fate that did not befall his Academy Award-winning script for 2010’s The Social Network, when his efforts were carefully modulated by director David Fincher.)

Molly narrates her own unlikely saga, Chastain giving these events the stream-of-consciousness passion of a seasoned sportscaster. As is his frequent custom, Sorkin eschews a conventional linear approach for a three-pronged attack divided mostly between the “present” — April 2013 through May 2014 — and the whirlwind events that began a decade earlier. Occasional deeper flashbacks illuminate the childhood training sessions under her disciplinarian father, Larry (Kevin Costner), by profession a clinical psychologist and Colorado State University professor.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Enchanting fantasy

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and quite scary fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang

It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect marriage of imaginative picto-fiction and eccentric filmmaking sensibilities.

All dressed up and ready for ... we know not what: from left, Olive (Lauren McCrostie),
Claire (Raffiella Chapman), the invisible Millard (Cameron King), the Twins (Thomas and
Joseph Odwell) and Emma (Ella Purnell).

Author Ransom Riggs’ neo-gothic Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was released to acclaim in the summer of 2011, spending well over a year on The New York Times’ Children’s Best Sellers list. It occupies a niche that blossomed with the 2007 arrival of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, brought to the big screen with panache by director Martin Scorsese.

Tim Burton has just done the same with Miss Peregrine, and if the results aren’t quite as impressive, it’s a beguiling near-miss. This new film also plays to one of Burton’s career themes: the importance of responding with kindness and grace to the misfits in our world, as opposed to shunning or fearing them.

Scripter Jane Goldman — boasting oodles of fan cred for her handling of Kingsman, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and two of the X-Men films — has faithfully retained both the core plot of Riggs’ unusual narrative, as well as its mythical, off-kilter and slightly morbid atmosphere.

That’s no small feat: As with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, much of Miss Peregrine’s appeal lies in the manner in which the story unfolds, and how Riggs chooses to tell it.

Both books also cleverly exploit actual world history, transporting readers to pivotal eras that are both simpler and more dangerous.

And, perhaps best of all, both books evoke the imaginative blend of words and images that was much more common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, led by fantasists such as Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. It would be nice if modern readers — of all ages — grew more tolerant of books with pictures.

Rather drolly, both film adaptations share the same young star.

Miss Peregrine begins in present-day Tampa, Florida, as teenage Jake (Asa Butterfield) discovers that his beloved grandfather, Abraham (Terence Stamp), has died — or been killed — under sinister circumstances. Jake finds the body in the woods near Abraham’s house, and is horrified to discover that his grandfather’s eyes are missing. Worse yet, Jake briefly glimpses a huge something lurking nearby, in the mist.

St. Vincent: Quite a character

St. Vincent (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, mature thematic content and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.24.14

Bill Murray gets more emotional complexity out of a dangling cigarette, than most actors could generate via three pages of dialogue.

Intending to teach an all-important work ethic to young Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), Vincent
(Bill Murray) orders the boy to mow the yard ... despite the fact that actual blades of grass
are long gone, leaving nothing but dirt and dust behind.

He fires on all cylinders in this cheerfully caustic dramedy from writer/director Theodore Melfi, as polished a feature debut as one could hope for. (While he also co-wrote and directed Winding Roads back in 1999, that never made it past the film festival circuit ... so it doesn’t really count.)

Murray’s sterling presence aside, this film also boasts the best curmudgeon/trusting little boy dynamic since Billy Bob Thornton terrorized young Brett Kelly, in Bad Santa. But this film’s Jaeden Lieberher is a much stronger actor ... in his first film role, no less.

Cranky old coots are a cinematic staple going all the way back to W.C. Fields, who quite notoriously admitted to liking children “if they’re properly cooked.” More recent examples include Jack Nicholson, in As Good As You Get, and Clint Eastwood, in Gran Torino.

The hallmark of a truly sublime performance, however, comes with an actor’s ability to embrace and re-invent a timeworn cliché: to utterly own what once was a stereotype, and make it his own. Murray’s work here is just that sort of revelation.

His Vincent is a crusty, ill-kempt slob who occupies an equally dilapidated house in one of Brooklyn’s fading Sheepshead Bay side streets. An average afternoon involves several losses at the local racetrack, where quietly dangerous loan shark Zucko (Terrence Howard) warns about past-due debts, after which Vincent kills the rest of the day on a well-worn stool at a bar where everybody knows his name. And that he drinks too much.

Meals are an afterthought. The one treasure in Vincent’s life is his fluffy white cat, Felix, who definitely dines better than his master. Even after-hours sessions with his favorite stripper, a Russian “exotic dancer” named Daka (Naomi Watts), are more formality than pleasure; Vincent can’t even be bothered to stop smoking, or remove his clothes, while, ah, doing the nasty.

We’re somehow unsurprised to see that Daka is quite pregnant, not that this has slowed her strip club routines. Much. Yet. Watts has a great time with this feisty role, mangling the English language with straight-faced aplomb. Daka also is the only person who routinely stands up to Vincent, giving as good as she gets.

Calvary: Affirmation of faith

Calvary (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor, drug use and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.15.14

This one should be required viewing for all filmmakers, particularly those residing in Hollywood.

During a conversation more candid than they've had for a long time, Fiona (Kelly Reilly)
admits that she'd be shattered if something ever happened to her father (Brendan Gleeson).
Sadly, this comes as disturbing news to the priest, who carries the knowledge of his own,
likely very impending mortality.

Not merely because writer/director John Michael McDonagh has delivered a powerful drama fueled by Brendan Gleeson’s heartbreaking and impeccably subtle starring performance — about which, more in a moment — but because McDonagh flawlessly demonstrates the proper way to breathe complex life into every single supporting character, even those glimpsed only briefly.

Too many lazy screenwriters give us one, perhaps two, maybe even three compelling characters; the rest, invariably, are little more than scenery. Wallpaper with a few lines of dialogue, but certainly nothing approximating actual people.

McDonagh, in great contrast, populates his newest film with what seems an entire small town’s worth of men, women and children who matter. Nor is this merely a function of crafting compelling personalities; McDonagh and casting director Jina Jay also found actors able to breathe life into each of these characters.

Every supporting player is introduced in a vignette that feels like its own mini-movie, with the quiet, sometimes raw power we’d expect from a live stage drama. Half an hour into this film, we’re transfixed, thinking Goodness ... this is how it should be done. And why doesn’t it get done this way more often?

All that said, Calvary is a deeply melancholy and quite disturbing drama that builds to a shattering conclusion: not an easy story to experience, and a difficult film to recommend capriciously.

It’s also a very brave film, with a narrative — and a revelatory point of view — all but ignored at a time when strident media overload indicts people and institutions, based on guilt by association.

Father James (Gleeson) is a Catholic priest in the tiny hamlet of Easkey, County Sligo, on Ireland’s craggy, wind-battered West Coast. The rugged pastoral setting, gloriously illuminated by cinematographer Larry Smith, is both verdant and curiously lonely, much of the action taking place against the brooding Knocknarea, a massive, table-shaped hill that dominates this land.

Father James is a good man: benevolent and patient, yet unwilling to suffer fools at all, let alone gladly. His sharply perceptive observations are perhaps his most visible flaw; he resents people who dissemble or otherwise avoid truths — mild or painful — and he’s not shy about saying as much.

Epic: Wishful thinking

Epic (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: PG, and needlessly, for "scary images" and mildly rude language
By Derrick Bang

This is a gorgeously produced animated fantasy, with opulent visuals and a color palette that cleverly reflects the story beats; I’d expect no less from director Chris Wedge and his Blue Sky Studios, the folks who brought us the Ice Age series.

M.K. (voiced by Amanda Seyfried), suddenly responsible for the safety of a pod that
will help preserve the surrounding forest, fends off hilariously unlikely romantic
overtures from Mub (Aziz Ansari), a slug who fancies himself quite the chick magnet.

The impressive voice talent is well cast, with our primary characters granted personality and depth by Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Chris O’Dowd, Beyoncé and particularly Christoph Waltz, who makes a grand villain.

The dialogue is droll and snarky, with quite a few laughs coming from O’Dowd.

And yet...

Narratively, Epic is curiously flat and uninvolving: far less than the sum of parts that should have worked better than they do. The premise is contrived and scattershot, with bits begged, borrowed or stolen from other, superior fantasy sagas. Waltz’s scenery-chewing malevolence notwithstanding, there’s never a sense of genuine peril: no feeling that our heroes are in any real danger, or that they’ll fail to save the day in the manner foretold in the first act.

The storyline is based loosely on The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, one of imaginative author/illustrator William Joyce’s many delectable children’s books. Actually, “loosely” still overstates the case; 20th Century Fox has gone out of its way to distance this film from Joyce’s book.

Frankly, all concerned might have done better to follow Joyce’s template more closely, since this script — credited to Tom J. Astle, Matt Ember, James V. Hart and Daniel Shere — is a derivative, disorganized mess. Characters too frequently seem to have been granted screen time — and dialogue — based on the popularity of the star providing the voice, as opposed to reasons relating to plot continuity.

That’s a bass-ackwards approach to filmmaking, and the awkward results are plain.

This Is 40: Fractured family frolic

This Is 40 (2012) • View trailer
Three stars. Rating: R, for relentless crude humor, sexual candor, pervasive language and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.21.12

Some perceptive truths about marriage, mid-life crises and parental angst linger around the edges of This Is 40, but they tend to be overshadowed by Judd Apatow’s reflexive insistence on vulgar humor, crude slapstick and bewildering plot detours. Obviously, he just can’t help himself.

Pete (Paul Rudd), having failed to realize that Debbie (Leslie Mann) could use some
help while getting their daughters ready for school, attempts to recover from this tactical
error while Sadie (Maude Apatow, far left) and Charlotte (Iris Apatow) watch with
wary amusement.

Nor should he, I suppose, since many of his films — either as producer, director or writer — tend to be crowd-pleasers. But we must remember that his lengthy 21st century résumé reads very much like the gag quotient in any one of his projects: Every Bridesmaids or Superbad follows on the heels of a bomb such as Drillbit Taylor, Funny People or Get Him to the Greek ... just as the truly funny bits in This Is 40 are bookended by stuff so forced and ill-advised that we can’t help wondering what Apatow was smoking that day.

Maybe that’s why This Is 40 runs a ridiculously self-indulgent 134 minutes. With that much time on his side, and that many comedic shots in the barrel, some of the humor is bound to stick.

Although Apatow oversees a busy comedy empire, This Is 40 is only his fourth feature as director, following The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and the tediously morose Funny People. This new film, something of a peripheral sequel to Knocked Up, focuses on the five-years-later lives of Pete and Debbie (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann), that film’s sidebar characters.

Except that Katherine Heigl, who played Debbie’s sister Alison in Knocked Up, is nowhere to be seen here. Apparently she got lost in translation.

As this new film’s title suggests, events center around the ramp-up to Pete’s impending 40th birthday. He’d normally share this milestone with Debbie, but a refusal to face the onset of middle age has prompted her to deny her own birthday; indeed, she even rolls back the clock and claims a younger age, a running gag that becomes truly hilarious during a routine doctor’s office visit, when various nurses and receptionists try to nail down her birth year.

That scene works, by the way, because Apatow goes for subtle underplaying, rather than his usual, last-row-of-the-upper-balcony broad strokes.

Friends with Kids: The best-laid plans...

Friends with Kids (2011) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang


Most adult friendships face two crisis points.

Couples signing on for the long term — whether via the bond of marriage, or a less formal commitment — inevitably lose their single friends. All concerned may try to avoid this outcome, but the dynamic invariably fractures. The singletons don’t want to be third wheels; they’re also likely to feel lonely in the face of such love.

When longtime best friends Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt)
decide to have a baby together, they initially get hung up over how to handle
"the act" itself; after all, they're friends, not lovers. Finally, Julie hits the
perfect solution: "Let's just pretend that we're really into each other," she
suggests. Ah, but is it only pretense?

Then, too, I’ve always suspected that our (former) single friends, back in the day, decided that we just weren’t fun any more.

Okay, so couples make new friends, generally with other couples. The second rift occurs if all your new friends start having children ... but you choose not to take that path. Getting together —enjoying everybody’s company during a raucous night out — becomes impossible, in great part because new parents just can’t do that.

Fine, you think, then why not visit them at home? And yet — somehow — even that never seems to happen.

My suspicion, this time, is that the new parents now regard their childless friends with grim disapproval and jealousy, because they’re not suffering enough.

This is a rich dynamic, and one that writer/director Jennifer Westfeldt mines to excellent comic effect, in Friends with Kids. But while her first few acts are funny, snarky and hilariously vulgar — in the way we now must accept, post-Judd Apatow and Bridesmaids — Westfeldt’s film is far from frivolous. The core premise here comes with an unpleasant catch, and she doesn’t shy away from its consequences.

Although primarily an actress, Westfeldt pops up every so often with perceptive, sharp-edged scripts; she enjoys exploring relationships that involve unusual twists, and she remains well remembered for writing and starring in 2001’s charming Kissing Jessica Stein. Her sophomore writing effort, 2006’s Ira & Abby, wasn’t as successful; Friends with Kids — her third script, and her directorial debut — deserves to do much better.

Although Westfeldt always writes herself the starring role, she’s savvy enough to involve talented colleagues, each of whom is granted an equally rich character. Friends with Kids is no different in that respect, and Westfeldt is doubly lucky to have snagged Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Chris O’Dowd, all still riding high on the buzz of last year’s Bridesmaids.

Thirtysomething Manhantanites Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) have been best friends for years: each squarely in the other’s corner, come what may. Jason seems content to sail through a series of short-term relationships with well-endowed hotties; Julie hasn’t been able to make things click in the romance department. Despite their devoted bond, they’ve never considered dating each other, perhaps sensing that such an act might destroy their friendship.

Although not really a “couple” themselves, Julie and Jason are part of a convivial sextet that includes the married Ben and Missy (Jon Hamm and Wiig), and the equally hitched Alex and Leslie (O’Dowd and Rudolph). Outings are lively, profane and cheerfully vulgar: good friends having great times together.