Frozen II: Shouldn't have been thawed

Frozen II (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.22.19

I want to know what this film’s writers were smoking.

Granted, this sequel to 2013’s Frozen has its moments, almost exclusively those involving Josh Gad’s hilarious supporting performance as the relentlessly loquacious snowman, Olaf.

Having just penetrated the strange mist that conceals an enchanted forest, Elsa (foreground)
continues to hear a mysterious voice, although her companions — from left, Sven, Olaf,
Kristoff and Anna — do not.

The rest, however, is a mess.

Folks with a chronic aversion to musicals — and their numbers are legion — generally don’t shun classics such asThe Wizard of Oz, Singing in the Rain or West Side Story, or later genre refinements such as Cabaret and La La Land. No, such folks hate bad musicals: 1969’s Paint Your Wagon, 1975’s At Long Last Love, 1982’s Grease 2 and many others too numerous to mention.

Musicals with wafer-thin stories that usually make no sense, and which are interrupted constantly when the orchestra swells, an actor or two pauses in mid-sentence, stares heavenward, and we recoil with a sotto voce “Oh, gawd; they’re gonna sing again.”

Musicals with truly atrocious songs, not one of which is memorable enough to linger beyond the end credits.

Frozen II is a bad musical. A very bad musical, with genuinely awful, unmelodic and instantly forgotten tunes. Some of which are heard (endured?) more than once.

Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez clearly felt they had to match the success of “Let It Go,” their inspirational, Academy Award-winning ballad from the first film. Ergo, most of these seven new tunes are similarly overcooked and overwrought power anthems, not one of which comes within shouting distance of “Let It Go.” The absence of musical variety — particularly during the film’s second half — becomes unbearable.

You could hear the clanking of eyeballs rolling in their sockets, during Monday evening’s preview screening, each time viewers muttered, “Oh, gawd; she’s gonna sing again.”

There’s such a thing as trying too hard.

The Ides of March: Predictable political maneuvering

The Ides of March (2011) • View trailer for The Ides of March
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang


Despite some powerhouse acting and well-sculpted characters, The Ides of March ultimately delivers a message that hardly comes as a surprise: Politicians will lie, cheat and betray with impunity. Angel-eyed claims to the contrary, they’d toss their grandmothers under a bus in exchange for a few points in the polls.

Press spokesman Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling, center) feeds some sample
questions to Democratic presidential primary candidate Mike Morris (George
Clooney, far left), while members of the campaign staff watch. Such rehearsals
are essential, since Morris must be able to deflect any question posed by the
public or members of the press ... and Myers must anticipate such questions.

No ... really?

The story — adapted by Beau Willimon, George Clooney and Grant Heslov from Willimon’s play, Farragut North — concerns one man’s loss of idealism, but even that isn’t news. Unchecked passion has been dangerous for centuries, because — particularly in the political animal — it inevitably allows one to believe that the end always justifies the means, no matter how ultimately misguided the latter.

The Ides of March is Clooney’s third time in the director’s chair, and it’s easy to see why he was drawn to Willimon’s play; Clooney never has been shy about his political activism. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the fact that he has chosen a narrative that speaks less to the homespun optimism of, say, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and more to the dirty-tricks cynicism running throughout All the President’s Men.

Ultimately, though, the significant plot points here — and particularly the resolution — aren’t nearly as captivating as Good Night and Good Luck, which Clooney also directed and co-scripted with Heslov. That film painted a far more intriguing picture of Edward R. Murrow and the tempestuous early days of television news: a time when it did seem possible for integrity and virtue to triumph.

No more, alas.

Ryan Gosling, enjoying a phenomenal year, stars as Stephen Myers, press spokesman to Democratic presidential primary candidate Mike Morris (Clooney, granting himself this deliberately — and misleadingly — superficial supporting role). Myers has the gifts of gab, finesse and sincerity; he works the media like a veteran conductor extracting the best from each member of an orchestra.

Myers has the added benefit, this time, of believing in his cause. He regards Morris as the real deal; as New York Times reporter Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) notes, with more than a little surprise, Myers has “drunk the Kool-Aid.”

The story is set during the tempestuous week leading up to the Ohio primary, where Morris — coasting with a comfortable lead in delegates — is campaigning against underdog Sen. Pullman (Michael Mantell). The latter is a relatively clumsy Democratic candidate, since he insists on playing the Christianity card; Morris, thanks to his own good instincts and scripted answers fine-tuned by Myers and campaign manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), has little trouble deflecting his opponent’s religiously loaded questions.

The Conspirator: Rule of panic

The Conspirator (2011) • View trailer for The Conspirator
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.15.11


Trust Robert Redford to find a historical courtroom drama that shrewdly echoes current events.

The Conspirator, set in the aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, focuses on what many view as a moral imperative: the need to adhere to the rules of American law, even — and most particularly — during times of national crisis. Vengeance, bloodlust and perceived expediency cannot be allowed to dictate our behavior, lest we sink to the level of those we presume to judge.

Having won his client, Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), the privilege of some fresh
air and sunshine after having been confined to a dingy, straw-filled cell, attorney
Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) accepts an invitation to sit with her. Much to
his surprise, he's beginning to see this woman less as a "heinous Confederate,"
and more as a human being.

One cannot imagine a better project for Redford, who has based his recent directing career on politically charged content. While not nearly as shrill as 2007’s Lions for Lambs, this film is just as likely to divide viewers along predictable party lines, and that’s a shame; the message here is equally crucial for those on either side of the partisan divide.

For if nobody is safe from the possibility of a witch hunt dressed up to resemble a court of law, then we’re all vulnerable ... depending only on who’s in charge, or shouts the loudest, at any given moment.

That’s ... unsettling.

We tend to forget, all these years later, that Lincoln wasn’t the only target that fateful night of April 14, 1865; the assassins who shot him while the president enjoyed an evening of theater also attempted to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. The goal was nothing less than a complete overthrow of government, arranged by ultra-loyalist Southerners inflamed by the outcome of the Civil War, just five days after Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

The man responsible for killing Johnson succumbed to nerves and never made the attempt. Seward, recovering from a nasty fall a few weeks earlier, probably survived his attack thanks to the neck brace that deflected his would-be assassin’s numerous knife blows.

Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. the following day. This film’s distributor, Roadside Attractions, deserves credit for cleverly releasing The Conspirator on April 15.

Historians generally agree that the plot was orchestrated by popular stage actor John Wilkes Booth, who was killed during the subsequent manhunt. Numerous other conspirators were rounded up, some of whom made no attempt to conceal their actions.

This film’s storyline, thoughtfully scripted by James D. Solomon and Gregory Bernstein, focuses on one alleged conspirator whose involvement seemed open to doubt: Mary Surratt, who ran the boarding house where Booth and his cronies frequently met to discuss their plans. Initially, Surratt was but one of scores of people arrested and imprisoned solely because they may have known or come into casual contact with Booth and his fellow plotters. But the suspects eventually were narrowed down to the eight people brought before a military tribunal that began May 1; Mary Surratt was the lone woman among the eight.

All were civilians, and all were tried not by a jury of their peers, but in front of a military court of nine officers who needed only reach a simple majority for conviction, and a two-thirds majority for a death sentence.

Whatever Works: Mostly successful

Whatever Works (2009) • View trailer for Whatever Works
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.09
Buy DVD: Whatever Works • Buy Blu-Ray: Whatever Works [Blu-ray]

Woody Allen's life and film career certainly have been a long and strange collective journey; at this point, it can become difficult to determine where one leaves off and the other takes over.

Since he has written and/or directed at least one film per year since 1971 — a truly astonishing output — and is best remembered for idiosyncratic and extremely personal works such as Annie Hall, Hannah and her Sisters and Deconstructing Harry, one can't help believing that Allen has employed cinema to exorcise personal demons and struggle toward an understanding of life, the universe and everything.

Even when he's criticizing her, Melody (Evan Rachel Wood) cheerfully hangs
onto every word coming from Boris (Larry David), because she believes that
anything spoken by a "genius" must be worth embracing. Eventually, a funny
thing happens: Rather than diminishing Melody's vibrant, sunny nature, Boris
begins to perceive the flaws in his own behavior.

The delightful surprise, of course, is that so many of these highly personal films have succeeded as mass entertainment.

All of which brings us to Whatever Works, a quirky little comedy-drama that builds to Allen's current solution to the Big Secret: a Chimera he has chased since 1975's Love and Death. Whereas this pursuit and its possible answers were more complicated back in Allen's younger days, his epiphany now is encapsulated in this film's very title.

Love, happiness, job satisfaction and everything else in life are, as this film's Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) keeps reminding us, a fragile combination of luck and struggle to begin with: Ergo, we must do anything necessary — whatever works — in order to seize and hold onto it.

Even when peace and personal fulfillment involve thinking outside the box. Particularly when that's the case.

The problem, despite this film's upbeat message and truly delightful resolution, is that Yellnikoff — no accident, that last name — is such a bitter pill to swallow.

David, famous for his work in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, more or less takes that character to misanthropic extremes in this film. Boris is a cranky, miserable, world-class grouch who somehow hasn't managed to drive off the small coterie of friends necessary to serve as a reluctant audience for his endless rants about people, society and every topic from child-rearing to gun control.

A former Columbia professor and self-proclaimed genius who came close to winning a Nobel Prize for quantum mechanics, Boris now is known mostly for his failures: failed marriage, failed career and even a failed suicide attempt. He now spends his days insulting the small children unfortunate enough to study chess with him.