His Three Daughters: Tense, touching and tragic

His Three Daughters (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.20.24

The fact that this film’s title isn’t Three Sisters is telling.

 

Writer/director Azazel Jacobs opens his story in what feels like the middle of the first act.. Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) are gathered inside their father’s New York City apartment. He has neared the end of a battle against cancer, and has just entered hospice care.

 

Nervous exhaustion leads to an unexpectedly tender moment between, clockwise from
top, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne).

The three women, clearly uncomfortable in each other’s presence, cope in ways that enhance the friction between them. 

What follows takes place over the course of three volatile days.

 

Katie, the eldest and most practical, adopts an authoritative, take-charge manner that involves lists, schedules, phone calls, food for each meal, and “behavioral suggestions” that feel more like commands than requests. (She must’ve been hell to grow up with, as a bossy older sister.) Being useful is her way of coping ... but, ironically, she has no control over her teenage daughter back in Brooklyn.

 

Rachel, a casually sloppy, failure-to-launch stoner who spends all her time sports gambling, does her best to stay out of the way ... and particularly away from Katie’s gaze. 

 

The holistic and somewhat shy Christina, who gamely tries to run interference between the other two, chatters constantly about missing her own young daughter, Mirabelle, back at their West Coast home. She calms herself via yoga, and sings Grateful Dead songs to their father, much to the bewilderment of the other two women. Olsen makes Christina a bit too radiant; we halfway expect to see her surrounded by an aura.

 

Being thrown together by this tragic end-game is uncomfortable enough; it’s even worse because the apartment is so claustrophobic. Jacobs and cinematographer Sam Levy filmed in an actual apartment — not a film set, with moveable walls — which further enhances the tight closeness. (I wondered, at times, where the heck Levy put his camera!) The film stock is warm and slightly grainy, which adds a sense that we’re eavesdropping via a lengthy and painfully intimate home movie.

 

The result feels very much like a stage play, and possesses the same dramatic intensity.

 

The tableau opens up only when Rachel goes outside for a fresh toke ... and to escape Katie’s tight-lipped disapproval. This exasperates the building’s security guard, Victor (Jose Febus), who fields complaints from other tenants unhappy about the smell of smoke. (Not marijuana per se, but any smoke.) 

 

Victor’s amused annoyance notwithstanding, he and Rachel clearly are fond of each other.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Sheer insanity

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for frightening images, occasional profanity, and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.6.22

Magic-laden stories can be problematic.

 

Rules must be established, or else conflict becomes pointless. J.K. Rowling was quite careful, in her Harry Potter books, to ensure well-established strengths and weaknesses on both sides; evil occasionally triumphed, sometimes resulting in the death of beloved characters. Suspense and emotional involvement were maintained throughout the series.

 

On the run from an opponent who can't be stopped by anything, our heroes — from
left, America (Xochitl Gomez), Wong (Benedict Wong) and Doctor Strange
(Benedict Cumberbatch) — pause to consider their next move.

Sloppy writers, on the other hand, simply make up stuff as a given moment demands; the result becomes random and pointless. If our hero suddenly can summon “the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth” — to quote an oft-used spell in the classic 1960s Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Doctor Strange comic book stories — to reverse an incantation cast upon him, well, where’s the suspense in that?

Michael Waldron, sad to say, is a sloppy writer.

 

We should’ve expected as much, given his involvement as creator, executive producer and occasional writer of television’s Loki miniseries, which — despite a promising start — quickly devolved into utter incomprehensibility. The final few episodes were the worst example of random, kitchen-sink scripting I’ve seen in years.

 

Waldron’s approach to this Doctor Strange sequel is no different, and he repeatedly succumbs to the sloppy cliché that is the death of narrative tension: Every character is only as strong, or weak, as s/he needs to be, in order to triumph — or fail — at a given moment. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ad infinitum.

 

This builds to an utterly ludicrous deus ex machina moment during the climax: the equivalent of Dorothy suddenly being told that she always had the means to return to Kansas. I mean, seriously?

 

So:

 

Events begin quietly, as Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) attends the wedding of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), a former lover who — wisely — chose a different path. The ceremony is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a massive, one-eyed octopoid galumphing through New York’s streets, in tentacled pursuit of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).

 

(For those who haven’t kept up with their comic books, Chavez debuted in 2011, as an alternative universe Marvel character.)

 

The creature is defeated by Strange and his “sorcerer supreme” mentor, Wong (Benedict Wong), after which they pepper America with the obvious who/what/why questions. Turns out she has the power to create star-shaped holes in reality, which grant access to other realities in the multiverse (something Strange helped Peter Parker mess with, in the most recent Spider-Man entry).

Avengers: Infinity War — Too much of a good thing?

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and perhaps generously, for relentless brutal violence and destruction, fleeting profanity and occasional crude references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.27.18

Way back in the day, Universal Studios had the bright idea to gather all of their movie creatures together in a couple of glorious monster mashes — 1944’s House of Frankenstein, and 1945’s House of Dracula — after their individual franchises had run out of steam.

With Thanos due at any moment on the devastated planet titan, our already exhausted
heroes — from left, Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Drax
(Dave Bautista), Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) — prepare for
a final battle.

Marvel Studios has unleashed the same superhero romp for precisely the opposite reason. Having meticulously set the stage each year since 2008’s Iron Man — carefully bringing new characters into an overall continuity akin to what has been crafted in Marvel Comics since 1962 — Avengers: Infinity War is the undeniably awesome result of a shrewd master plan that only gained momentum during the past decade.

No doubt about it: This film is a comic book geek’s dream come true: bigger, better (in some ways) and badder (in other ways) than everything that has come before. Directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo — allied with scripters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with the legion of Marvel Comics writers and artists acknowledged in the end credits — have wrought nothing less than dense cinematic myth-making on the scale of Star Trek and Star Wars.

(Needless to say, all of the above owe a huge debt to J.R.R. Tolkien and other veteran sci-fi and fantasy authors.)

Disclosure No. 1: Uninitiated mainstream viewers are likely to have no idea what the heck is going down. To be sure, the broad stroke is obvious: Big, bad Thanos (Josh Brolin, barely recognizable beneath impressive layers of costuming, make-up and CGI) must be stopped by just about everybody else. But the fine points are likely to be lost on anybody who hasn’t avidly devoured every Marvel Studios entry to this point.

Like — for example — why Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain American (Chris Evans) aren’t talking to each other. Or what U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) has to do with that. Or why Thor and his fellow Asgardians are journeying between the stars in immense spacecraft. Or why Vision (Paul Bettany) and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are hiding in Scotland.

Or — most obviously — who the heck some of these characters even are.

Wind River: A compelling, smoothly flowing drama

Wind River (2017) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for strong violence, rape, profanity and disturbing images
By Derrick Bang

The narrative in writer/director Taylor Sheridan’s superbly mounted Wind River is driven by equal parts grief, loyalty and justice ... the latter not necessarily to be confused with the rules of law.

Having back-tracked a fleeing young woman's progress through the harsh landscape of
the snow-covered mountains near Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) and FBI agent Jane Banner
(Elizabeth Olsen) make an unexpected discovery.

In three short years, actor-turned-filmmaker Sheridan has established an impressive reputation for thoughtful, riveting dramas that place characters in situations — and environments — where the American dream is little more than cruel irony.

His scripting debut, with 2015’s Sicario, becomes more relevant by the day: its grim, uncompromising depiction of drug violence along the U.S./Mexican border an unhappy reminder of the degree to which American demand is responsible for Mexican supply. Last year’s Hell or High Water perceptively explored the callously unjust circumstances that drive disillusioned men to criminal activity, when they’re on the wrong side of the wealth/poverty divide in West Texas; Sheridan earned a well-deserved Academy Award nod for that one.

He also has been fortunate to see his projects embraced by strong casts delivering some of their finest work: from Emily Blunt’s naïve and idealistic FBI agent in Sicario; to the cat-and-mouse chase between Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham, in Hell or High Water. Good or bad, noble or ignominious, the characters are always fascinating: often bearing the burden of some degree of failure.

Sheridan also has an ear for both dialogue — the way people actually talk to each other — and, even more crucially, the way they behave with each other.

And now, with his quietly powerful Wind River, he has zeroed in on what remains of America’s frontier, which — sadly — also is a damning indictment of American history, and the utter failure to properly address past sins.

The setting is the snow-enshrouded, late winter/early spring environment of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, where U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) routinely employs his tracking skills to eliminate predators — wolves, mountain lions — caught killing livestock. He’s an honorable man, liked and respected by ranchers and just-plain-folks within and bordering the reservation.

I Saw the Light: Needlessly dim

I Saw the Light (2015) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

During a remarkably prolific career, Hank Williams released 35 singles that reached the Top 10 in Billboard’s Country/Western best-sellers chart, 11 of which hit the coveted No. 1 spot. Many of the latter — among them “Lovesick Blues,” “Hey, Good Lookin’ ” and “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” — continue to be covered, to this day, by new pop and country artists.

Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston) indulgently allows his wife Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen) to
join him at the microphone, during one of their live shows on radio station WSFA ... while
the members of his backing band, the Drifting Cowboys, try not to wince.

All the more remarkable, considering that Williams’ recording career was so brief. To paraphrase an old chestnut, when Williams was as old as Mozart, when the latter died at age 35, he (Williams) had been dead for six years.

Writer/director Marc Abraham’s biographical drama focuses exclusively on William’s professional career, from shortly before his first recording session, to the substance abuse and weak heart that claimed his life at age 29. But despite being based on the respected 1994 biography by Colin Escott, George Merritt and William MacEwen, Abraham’s film is a maddeningly superficial affair that devotes far too much time to Williams’ alcoholism and his prickly, on again/off again relationship with Audrey Mae Sheppard, at the expense of conveying even the slightest sense of the singer/songwriter’s creative spark.

Although I Saw the Light is laden with Williams’ songs — performed with impressive faithfulness by star Tom Hiddleston, who sings every note — they all arrive whole and complete, as if God simply dropped them, fully formed, into Williams’ head. We see no scribbled lyrics and crossed-out rhyme schemes; no late-night experimentation with guitar chords; no real-life incidents that bring a smile to Hank’s lips, and prompt him to sit down and pen a tune.

That’s simply nonsense.

By dropping us abruptly into the rising, post-WWII arc of Williams’ career, we also get no sense of back-story: the boy who took guitar lessons from Alabama blues musician Rufus Payne, and how that shaped what followed; the kid who was isolated from his peers because of spina bifida, which left him unusually gaunt. Abrahams opens his film with Hank’s marriage to Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), thereby bypassing all sorts of essential details that would explain why she and his mother Lillie (Cherry Jones) despise each other so much.

Granted, the broad strokes are obvious: Both women want to control Hank’s career. But that alone isn’t enough to justify the obvious contempt Lillie shows for Audrey, and we’re left to wonder what went down before this movie begins.

Mostly, though, Abrahams gives us a thoroughly unflattering portrait of Williams, played to insolent, short-tempered and highly unstable perfection by Hiddleston. He’s an excellent actor, easily able to project the charisma with which Williams could light up a stage. But the unflattering emphasis on Williams’ flaws frequently feels like character assassination.

Godzilla: Radioactive waste

Godzilla (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem, creature violence and civilian casualties
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.16.14

The good stuff, up front:

Fairness demands that I acknowledge visual effects supervisor Jim Rygiel and production designer Owen Paterson, who have done a superb job with this film’s monster mayhem. As also was the case with last year’s Pacific Rim, the massive sense of scale is handled quite persuasively, and Northern California audiences will get a kick out of seeing familiar San Francisco landmarks flattened like pancakes.

When Godzilla trails a winged, radiation-chomping MUTO (Massive Unidentified
Terrestrial Organism) to San Francisco, you just know the Golden Gate Bridge
will be toast!

Additionally, our dino-sized star is granted a quite distinctive personality.

However...

If mankind as a whole behaved as inanely as the cretins in this narrative, the monsters would deserve to win.

Writers Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham have concocted a truly absurd premise, and their dialogue sparks unintentional laughter at every turn. This is purple, afternoon-soap melodrama at its absolute worst, and matters aren’t helped by director Gareth Edwards’ insistence that his actors deliver all their lines with the sort of clipped, wooden stoicism we associate with stuff that routinely got skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

OK, let’s assume — for the sake of argument — that Edwards & Co. deliberately tried to imitate the hilariously grave tone of the post-atomic sci-fi flicks back in the 1950s. That would suggest we treat this update of Godzilla as high camp: the sort of romp that becomes entertaining precisely because it IS so solemnly sincere.

Except that this clearly wasn’t Edwards’ intention, given how he has insisted, in pre-publicity interviews, that Hollywood hasn’t delivered enough “serious takes on giant-monster movies.” Hate to tell you, Gareth, but you’ve not improved that situation.

So, maybe he’s so clumsy that he didn’t realize he was trying for camp. That still doesn’t work, because the aforementioned mayhem includes multitudes of civilian fatalities, with some folks perishing quite horribly. Edwards goes for the same death-by-apocalyptic spectacle that made previous doomsday popcorn flicks such as 2012 and last summer’s Man of Steel so unsettling.

Some films of this nature have begun to display a level of gleeful, kid-like callousness that evokes images of little boys pulling the wings off flies. Just as hard-core torture porn flicks such as Saw have turned complex evisceration into a spectator sport, these mainstream action flicks have upped the ante so much that (for example) the stomping of innocent bystanders becomes a pinball-style laugh line.

Which is ironic, because — for the most part — we care more about these innocent bystanders, than the tight-lipped blank slates who pose as this story’s protagonists. Not one of these so-called stars plays anything approximating a real character; they’re all one-dimensional archetypes ... and quite stupid ones, at that.

Martha Marcy Mae Marlene: Portrait of paranoia

Martha Marcy Mae Marlene (2011) • View trailer for Martha Marcy Mae Marlene
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for disturbing violent and sexual content, profanity, rape and nudity
By Derrick Bang


If a film’s influence is judged by its ability to linger in the mind, days and weeks later, then Martha Marcy May Marlene is incredibly powerful. Quite some time later, I still can’t get some of its images from my head.

Try as she might, Lucy (Sarah Paulson, left) can't break through the barrier with
which younger sister Martha (Elisabeth Olsen) has surrounded herself.
Something awful happened to Martha, and unless she finds a way to confront
and move past this trauma, it may haunt her forever.

Writer/director Sean Durkin’s psychological drama is at first intriguing, then mildly unsettling and finally downright creepy: far too close to real-world parallels to be dismissed as casual entertainment. (Not that “entertaining” is a word I’d use in the first place.)

That said, both Durkin’s sluggish pacing and his movie’s low-budget origins betray it; the film stock is distractingly grainy, and Jody Lee Lipes’ cinematography is too dark at times, with a few scenes literally nothing but murk. Much of the dialogue is spoken quietly, and either looped poorly in post-production or not at all; as a result, some of the conversations are difficult to discern.

Fortunately, star Elizabeth Olsen does most of her acting via complex, haunted expressions and phenomenal body language; this is the best portrayal of an irrevocably damaged spirit that I’ve seen in a long time. Olsen is both mesmerizing and unforgettable: quite appropriate, then, that her face is the last thing we see, before the story fades to its final blackout (rather chillingly, I might add).

Durkin opens his film with an idyllic overview of a farming commune somewhere in the woods of upstate New York. This silent montage is bucolic and utopian, with men and women working various chores while young children seek fun in mud puddles.

But this tranquil sequence has a darker side. The first disconcerting sign comes as dinner is served: The men eat first at the single table, taking their time with the meal, while all the women wait — silently — in the next room. After the men leave the table, the women are released to enjoy their own food. The implication is that they get scraps.

The following morning, a lone figure rises early from a “bedroom” strewn with blankets, sleeping bags and ramshackle beds, prone bodies all but lying atop one another. Martha (Olsen) quietly heads downstairs, slides out the front door but is spotted by another young woman; Martha flees into the nearby forest, pursuit not far behind.

She escapes. (Perhaps.) With nowhere else to turn, she phones her long-estranged older sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who drops everything to collect Martha and bring her back to a lush, lakeside Connecticut summer home.

Details emerge slowly: much more slowly than they would in real life. This is by design; Durkin parcels out bits of information parsimoniously while cross-cutting between Martha’s terrified flight in the “now,” and her experiences in what eventually emerges as more cult than commune, in the “recent past.”