Feel the Beat: Dance 7, Script 3

Feel the Beat (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated TV-G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.17.20

For the most part, this is a Hallmark TV movie with delusions of grandeur, having debuted instead on Netflix.

When April (Sofia Carson, left) agrees to coach her small town's young dancers, the
girls in question don't realize they're about to face a prima donna drill sergeant tackling
this challenge for her own selfish reasons.

It’s saved from sentimentality overload solely due to its feisty kid supporting cast, and a few nice touches in the otherwise formulaic and wholly predictable script from Michael Armbruster and Shawn Ku.

Director Elissa Down brings nothing to the party; her approach is unremarkably bland from the first frame to the last. Even during the rare moments of something approaching dramatic conflict, the atmosphere is relentlessly bubbly and cheerful.

Many of the adults here don’t feel like real people; they’re closer to TV sitcom constructs. Notable exceptions include the always dependable Enrico Colantoni, best remembered as Veronica Mars’ gumshoe father, and similarly cast here as our protagonist’s father; and Brandon Kyle Goodman, who displays solid comic timing as a flamboyant Broadway costume designer.

The kids, happily, are a different story. They’re a lively mix of sizes, appearances and attitudes, ranging from 7 to 13 years of age; they credibly inhabit characters who, if not granted much depth, are sketched deftly enough to be distinctive; we have no trouble telling them apart, and each gets numerous opportunities to shine.

Star Sofia Carson, an appealing Disney Channel discovery looking to expand her horizons, delivers what little the script demands of her; she can’t be blamed for a director and writers who don’t show much imagination. (I’ve long felt that scripts which don’t give their characters last names — as is the case here — tend to lack depth.)

The story begins in New York, where talented but self-centered dancer April (Carson) rudely steals a cab en route to an audition; naturally, the person left behind turns out to be the director for whom she’s auditioning. Said individual, justifiably furious, has the power to blackball April. And uses it.

Days later, with no other options, April returns to her small Wisconsin hometown of New Hope, with her metaphorical tail between her legs. Her sympathetic father says all the right things, with the mildly acerbic edge that Colantoni delivers with such eye-twinkling élan. 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: A bold, but failed experiment

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

This is so not the movie most folks likely are expecting.

Not even 10 minutes in, it feels like we’ve stumbled into the Twilight Zone.

When cynical journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys, right) arrives at the Pittsburgh studio
where Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is filmed, he's surprised to be greeted effusively by
Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), as if they were longtime friends.

A couple of clues signal this not-quite-rightness. The film’s aspect ratio is 4:3, as with old television set images (as opposed to any sort of wide-screen format). The visuals appear slightly out of focus, as if we’re watching a VHS tape; director of photography Jody Lee Lipes has re-created 20-year-old television-style cinematography. The result seems “blurry” because we’ve become so accustomed to pristine HD camerawork.

Lipes pans slowly over the familiar, scale-model neighborhood set, complete with toy vehicles — notably the Neighborhood Trolley — moving jerkily among the rows of houses, in the low-budget, pre-CGI fashion. The gentle, equally memorable piano melody rises — Nate Heller’s soundtrack sublimely mimicking the iconic Johnny Costa, whose improvised keyboard work was such an integral part of the show — and Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks) enters in ritual fashion.

The jacket comes off, replaced by a red cardigan: zipped all the way up — and then halfway down — with a snap. He sits; the formal shoes yield to canvas boat sneakers. All the while, he softly croons the iconic opening song — “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — without ever losing that gentle, inviting smile.

The replication is almost spooky: the stance, the voice, the welcoming expression. More than that, the aura that always radiated from Fred Rogers. The latter must’ve been a challenge: Either that, or Hanks has discovered a way to channel the dear departed.

Right about now, we wonder: Where the heck are we going?

At which point, the merely puzzling sails into the positively weird.

Mr. Rogers shares a picture-board, opening each of the little doors to reveal a photograph beneath. Some are familiar, as with the puppet King Friday the 13th. But the next door conceals a head shot — practically a police booking photo — of Mr. Rogers’ “good friend,” Lloyd Vogel. He looks quite worse for wear, with a black eye and bloodied nose.

Mr. Rogers softly laments the plight of those consumed by anger, unable to forgive the trespasses of others. Whereupon we slide into Lloyd’s life, to witness the events that brought him to this sorry state.

Veronica Mars: Back on the case

Veronica Mars (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: Rated PG-13, for profanity, sexual content, drug content and violence
By Derrick Bang

Rob Thomas obviously is an honorable fellow, and he deserves considerable credit.

Veronica (Kristen Bell) is surprised to discover that yet another intimate video of Logan
(Jason Dohring) and his recently murdered girlfriend has been posted to the Internet,
further swaying public opinion into believing that he's guilty of the crime. But this begs
the more pressing question: Who shot this footage, and how?

Mindful that his big-screen Veronica Mars project owes its very existence to the crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign that raised $5.7 million, Thomas — as director and co-scripter, sharing the latter credit with Diane Ruggiero — did his very best to deliver a film that meets fan expectation and smoothly updates events from the cherished 2004-07 TV series ... while also functioning as a self-contained adventure that (hopefully) is approachable to first-time viewers with no reference to the original show.

A tall order, and one that Thomas mostly pulls off.

Full disclosure demands that I acknowledge being one of the 91,585 Kickstarter backers, from 3,655 different cities in 88 countries, who pledged some $$$ to help create this film. It made perfect sense to me, since I’ve also (for example) supported PBS programming with pledges since being old enough to write checks.

As one of the show’s longtime fans — star Kristen Bell refers to us as “marshmallows” — I’m quite pleased by the results. That said, this big-screen Veronica Mars looks and feels less like a full-blown movie, and more like a two-part television episode granted a bit more budgeting juice. I recall, back in the day, that several of the 1960s Man from UNCLE two-parters were re-cut and released theatrically, particularly in foreign countries; this Veronica Mars update shares that pedigree.

Back during Hollywood’s golden age, this would have been a respectable B-feature. Nothing wrong with that; indeed, many so-called B films are remembered far more fondly today, than the higher-prestige A pictures with which they shared billing.

By way of contrast, the many Star Trek films that followed the original show’s three 1960s seasons definitely look like big-screen spectaculars quite far removed from their humbler TV origins. Joss Whedon’s Serenity, as well, granted impressively opulent closure to the short-lived Firefly, which had gone off the air several years earlier.

It’s an intriguing distinction, perhaps having something to do with the modest, easily relatable sensibilities that made Veronica’s television adventures so approachable in the first place. Veronica also owed her quick popularity, in part, to good timing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (also from Whedon) had just gone off the air, and Thomas’ plucky high school heroine — and the coterie of friends, frenemies and enemies she gradually accumulated — admirably filled the niche left empty after Buffy had staked her last blood-sucker.