The Art of Racing in the Rain: Doggone good

The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.9.19

Coincidence can be cruel.

Last week’s preview screening of this film came just two days after Constant Companion and I bid a heartbroken farewell to our canine friend of 15 years. To say we therefore were a vulnerable target for a dog-oriented melodrama would be the wildest of understatements.

Although Enzo (the shaggy one) loves to join Denny (Milo Ventimiglia) in any activity,
nothing compares to the rush of sitting shotgun when they test-drive a car on their
favorite racetrack.

Fortunately, director Simon Curtis takes a sensibly restrained approach to this big-screen adaptation of Garth Stein’s celebrated 2008 novel, which obediently sat on the New York Times best seller list for three-plus years. (That said, while The Art of Racing in the Rain is a clever title for a book, it’s rather a mouthful for a movie: hard to remember, and giving no narrative clues for viewers unfamiliar with Stein’s work.)

In a year laden with sentimental pooch pictures — we’ve already sniffled through A Dog’s Way Home and A Dog’s Journey — this one’s a bit different. Although we’re once again privy to a canine protagonist’s inner thoughts, Kevin Costner’s voicing of this golden retriever (Enzo) is far more thoughtful and philosophical, and less inclined toward humor.

Enzo carefully studies everything: his master and other people, events on television and out in the big, wide world. In other words, Enzo learns; he also has tremendous insight into the human condition. He’s “handicapped” only because his doggy tongue and palate weren’t designed for speech … and he lacks opposable thumbs.

Costner’s dry, matter-of-fact acknowledgment of these two shortcomings, early on, sets the tone for his superlative voice performance. 

Curtis, cinematographer Ross Emery and animal trainer/coordinator Teresa Ann Miller also must be acknowledged for the patience they displayed, in order to get such marvelously contemplative expressions and postures from their four-legged stars: primarily 2-year-old Parker and 8-year-old Butler, playing Enzo during different chapters of this saga.

“The hardest thing to train a dog to do is sit still,” Miller acknowledges, in the press notes. They succeeded brilliantly; Enzo has a regal, dignified presence that makes him seem infinitely wise. This bearing is complemented perfectly by Costner’s voiceovers.

The Bronze: Quite tarnished

The Bronze (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.18.16

Redemption stories are as old as novels themselves, as today’s readers of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and countless other authors can testify. There’s something tremendously satisfying about following the adventures of flawed characters who eventually, finally experience an epiphany, subsequently becoming better versions of themselves.

While a poster of the deceased "Coach P" scowls in the background, Hope (Melissa Rauch)
has an uneasy reunion with long-ago former boyfriend Lance (Sebastian Stan, left). Ben
(Thomas Middleditch), acutely aware of the discomfort, stands ready to intervene if
things get unpleasant.

While this narrative form has been equally popular on the big screen, recent examples have substituted the traditional shortcomings — avarice, deceit, betrayal — with revolting levels of vulgarity and malice. The protagonists in Tammy (Melissa McCarthy), Bad Words (Jason Bateman) and Trainwreck (Amy Schumer), among others, are social pariahs to a degree that is breathtakingly inexcusable ... not to mention their sporting potty-mouths that undoubtedly bring joy to giggling adolescents.

Which is, perhaps, an intriguing social statement ... since such uncouth, infantile sensibilities now seem perfectly acceptable to thirty- and fortysomethings.

(And current Republican presidential candidates. But that’s another story.)

More critically, the balance has been skewed. When we spend 92 percent of a film being horrified by our main character’s relentlessly nasty behavior, is salvation even possible? And even if a script arbitrarily insists on yes ... is it deserved?

The Bronze straddles a very narrow vaulting horse. Some will argue, with complete justification, that the film slips and lands with a thud on the wrong side of the mat. I’m inclined toward feeble generosity, thanks to a couple of clever last-minute plot twists ... but the viewing experience remains wincingly painful at times. Lots of times.

This Sundance Festival indie is a pet project by actress Melissa Rauch, well recognized in her long-running role as Bernadette Rostenkowski, on TV’s The Big Bang Theory. She and husband Winston co-wrote the script; they also co-produced the film itself, in which she stars. The result is — to say the least — light-years removed from her work in Big Bang, and not for the faint of heart (or easily offended).

She plays Hope Ann Gregory, who as a hard-working teenage gymnast became America’s sweetheart after bravely performing at the 2004 Olympics, despite having ruptured an Achilles tendon. The result: an unexpected and well-earned bronze medal. She returned home to a hero’s welcome in the working-class town of Amherst, Ohio, determined to train hard, re-ignite her career, and take a gold next time out.

But it wasn’t to be.

Tammy: Rude, crude and booed

Tammy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Melissa McCarthy’s vulgar fat slob shtick is wearing very thin.

Believing that she needs some quick cash in order to help with her grandmother's impending
medical bills, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy, right) dons a minimal "disguise" and holds up a
fast-food joint ... with a "weapon" that's no more than her pointing fingers in a papr bag.
Yep, that's the level of humor in this bomb.

Tammy isn’t even a rough approximation of a film; it’s merely a series of disconnected scenes and encounters, clumsily stitched together in a limp effort at storytelling. McCarthy charges through the resulting mess like a bull in a china shop, as if daring us not to find her so-called antics funny.

I’ll take that dare, Melissa. You’re not funny.

Neither is your film.

Well, wait ... in fairness, I did laugh once, at a quick shot involving a raccoon and a doughnut. McCarthy had nothing to do with it.

I find it completely bewildering that an actress of McCarthy’s talent and timing, having established her comic chops with TV’s Mike & Molly (winning an Emmy) and the big screen’s Bridesmaids (Oscar nomination), would debase herself with material this puerile, sloppy and slapdash. I’m inclined to believe that even the Three Stooges would have rejected this script as beneath them.

Hollywood actresses have long struggled to achieve a level of equality, credibility and respect akin to their male co-stars ... and this is the path to success? Is demonstrating an ability to out-gross Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Farrelly brothers comedies really a sign of progress?

If so, that’s pretty sad.

McCarthy has nobody to blame but herself, since she shares scripting credit — if such a term even applies — with off-camera husband Ben Falcone, who also makes his directorial debut with this train wreck.

Note to Ben: Don’t lose your day job.

Falcone makes every rookie mistake in the book, starting with his tendency to frame his wife in tight close-ups, so that we can count every sweaty pore. And he clearly didn’t “direct” McCarthy in any sense of the word; he simply points the camera and waits while she stumbles and bumbles through whatever she concocts from thin air. Which ain’t much.

Pineapple Express: A total lemon

Pineapple Express (2008) • View trailer for Pineapple Express
One star (out of five). Rating: R, for drug use, violence and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.08
Buy DVD: Pineapple Express • Buy Blu-Ray: Pineapple Express (Unrated + BD Live) [Blu-ray]


Alas, the Judd Apatow Express has been derailed.

Whether functioning as producer, writer or director, Apatow's recent efforts as a one-man movie machine have fallen into three categories: the good (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), the enjoyably bad (Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and the profoundly ugly (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Drillbit Taylor, You Don't Mess with the Zohan).

Convinced that they've been identified to a dangerous drug baron, Saul (James
Franco, left) and Dale (Seth Rogen, right) confront a mid-level supplier — Danny
McBride, as Red — and bind him with duct tape in an effort to persuade him to
admit whether he ratted them out.

Pineapple Express is almost worse than Zohan.

This leaden, interminable stoner comedy is like a lousy Cheech & Chong flick with violence tossed into the mix. It's aimless, plotless, pointless and atrociously acted, and looks for all the world as if the actors turned up on the set each day as genuinely stoned as the characters being played.

Such work being done, I hasten to add, after the so-called writers — Apatow, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — contributed their effort while flying similarly high.

It's the sole explanation, because only a reefer-hazed arrested adolescent could imagine that this low-rent turkey was even coherent, let alone funny. It appears to have been made on a budget of $1.79, with no money spent on clothing, set design or even credible gunfire effects.

Director David Gordon Green — such a comedown from 2003's All the Real Girls and last year's intriguing (if failed) Snow Angels — apparently selected some chance alleyway, ugly tract house or deserted section of woods, the cast showed up in scruffy street clothes, everybody improvised on the spot, and another five minutes of footage were in the can.

Repeat 22 times, assemble the results completely at random, and you have a movie.

Well ... this movie, anyway.

The story, such as it is:

Rogen stars as wily process server Dale Denton, a scruffy mutt of a guy who mostly enjoys his job because he can listen to talk radio while staying stoned most of the time. He gets his weed from the mopey Saul Silver (James Franco), who impresses our hero on this day with a primo product: a rare new strain of pot dubbed Pineapple Express.

En route to serving his next summons, and while toking on this latest acquisition, Dale is astonished to see his target — Gary Cole, as Ted Jones — murder somebody with the assistance of a corrupt female police officer (Rosie Perez). In a panic, Dale tosses the roach and drives away, returning to Saul's apartment to explain what just went down.

Ah, but Ted turns out to be a truly dangerous drug lord, and the source of Pineapple Express, which he immediately recognizes from the abandoned roach. He sends two goons — Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan, doing a frankly insulting riff on John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, from Pulp Fiction — to pressure the only guy who'd taken delivery of said product (Danny McBride, as Red) into revealing the identify of the only guy he sold it to.

That would be Saul.