Thunderbolts* — A modest storm

Thunderbolts* (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.11.25

One must be a total Marvel Cinematic Universe geek in order to recognize these second- and third-tier characters, let alone recall their back-stories.

 

This story's rag-tag, sorta-kinda superheroes — from left, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen),
Bob (Lewis Pullman), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Red Guardian (David Harbour)
Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) — grimly realize
that they're facing another nasty problem.

And while it’s superficially clever to unite them in such a manner, scripters Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo haven’t done much with the “reformed villain” concept that comic book creators Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley concocted, back in 1997. 

Pearson and Calo also tried to inject the snarky humor delivered so well in the first two Guardians of the Galaxy entries ... with only marginal success. Most of this film ranges from ho-hum to just plain dumb, and director Jake Schreier brings absolutely nothing to the party.

 

The story begins as Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) — adopted sister of the late and much lamented Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), both of them skilled Black Widow assassins — infiltrates and destroys a Malaysian laboratory, having been sent by corrupt CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, gleefully evil).

 

Back in D.C., de Fontaine is being grilled by a committee chaired by Congressman Gary (Wendell Pierce, recognized from TV’s Elsbeth), who can’t wait to have her impeached and arrested for high treason. Fully aware of her vulnerability, de Fontaine has been clandestinely “cleaning house” by having her pet mercenaries destroy all traces of the illegal O.X.E. Group’s “Sentry” superhuman project; Yelena’s recent action was one such mission.

 

Gary is assisted by his star witness: junior Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), aka The Winter Solder, a crucial part of numerous MCU films, notably alongside the original Captain America.

 

Times are grim. The Avengers have disbanded; Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is dead; Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has left for Europe, after seeing his beloved S.H.I.E.L.D. destroyed following a HYDRA takeover; other heroes are occupied with their own stuff; and the world recently watched in horror, as the U.S. President morphed into Red Hulk (in Captain America: Brave New World, a few months ago).

 

People are afraid of supers ... and de Fontaine cheerfully exploits this paranoia.

 

As the final self-protective measure, she orchestrates a mission involving all of her mercenaries: Yelena; Ava Starr, aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen); Antonia Dreykov, aka Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), also a Black Widow; and disgraced former Captain America John F. Walker (Wyatt Russell), now dubbed U.S. Agent. But it’s a sham; each has been ordered to kill one of the others, supposedly for betrayal, and — as an added touch — the O.X.E. setting also is a death trap.

 

To make matters stranger, their initially hostile fracas is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a pajama-clad civilian who identifies himself simply as Bob (Lewis Pullman). He hasn’t the faintest idea why he’s there, or where he came from.

Drive-Away Dolls: Unapologetic trash

Drive-Away Dolls (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for full nudity, violence and relentless profanity and sexual content

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

This is the smuttiest film I’ve seen in quite awhile.

 

That might have been enough to discourage any sort of endorsement ... but, well, y’see, this flick also is pretty damn funny.

 

When a flat tire forces James (Margaret Qualley, left) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan)
to check the trunk for a spare, they find something ... rather unexpected.

For folks with a deranged sense of humor, that is.

(Guilty as charged.)

 

Those familiar with the Coen brothers’ sensibilities will recognize the tone and territory, although this time out Ethan Coen is directing on his own, from a seriously daft script he co-wrote with wife Tricia Cooke. They deliberately set out to bring modern sensibilities to the sort of gratuitously sleazy 1960s drive-in fare that film critic Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Irving Bloom) championed in the 1980s and ‘’90s. (Motorpsycho and Bad Girls Go to Hell are cited in this film’s production notes. I’ve yet to have the pleasure.)

 

The result is an aggressively vulgar, noir-ish blend of smutty sex, nasty criminal behavior and screwball comedy: definitely not for the faint of heart or sensitive of mind.

 

The year is late 1999, the city Philadelphia. A late-night prologue finds an extremely nervous man (Pedro Pascal) in a dive bar, clutching a silver metal briefcase while awaiting contact from another party.

 

What follows does not go well for him.

 

Elsewhere, the cheerfully uninhibited, hypersexual Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is caught cheating on her girlfriend, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). Jamie couldn’t be faithful if her life depended on it; she’s much too fond of one-night hook-ups. Even so, the resulting break-up leaves her at loose ends.

 

Jamie’s best friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) — also gay, but in a much quieter way — is dissatisfied with her life and current employment. Her solution: quit the job and travel to Tallahassee, to visit her bird-watching Aunt Ellis (Connie Jackson). Marian begs Jamie to tag along; she doesn’t need much persuading. A road trip would give both women time to re-think some stuff.

 

But money is tight, so they decide to offer their services at a drive-away car service, where those needing to go from A to B can transport a vehicle one-way, for another client.

The Beanie Bubble: Bursts with fun

The Beanie Bubble (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.11.23

On June 3, 1999, a massive truck was side-swiped and overturned on Atlanta’s I-285 during rush hour, spilling its contents onto the freeway.

 

The payload: a massive shipment of “Stretchy the Ostrich” Teenie Beanie Babies, bound for a McDonald’s outlet.

 

"Success," insists Ty Warner (Zack Galifianakis), "is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 perecent
presentation." New business partner Robbie (Elizabeth Banks) plays along, when the
two prepare to make a splash at their first collaborative toy fair.

Rather than stop to determine if the driver was all right, or call 911, numerous motorists — according to an Associated Press wire story — “leaned from their cars to scoop up the Beanie Babies with one hand, while they kept rolling with the other hand on the wheel.”

Co-directors Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash open their engaging film with a re-enactment of that chaotic scene, albeit with a bit of dramatic license: full-size Beanies, a wide variety of styles, and drivers exiting their cars to grab an armful.

 

The Beanie Bubble — scripted by Gore, from Zac Bissonnette’s 2015 non-fiction book, The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute — is a dramatized account of the toy craze that captivated folks during the latter years of the 20th century, and early 21st. It’s a deliciously scathing indictment of both speculative greed — on par with the 17th century Dutch tulip craze — and the Svengali-like sway an entrepreneur held over three key women in his professional and personal life.

 

Although there’s no doubt Ty Warner was an incredibly gifted businessman with acute market sense, he also exploited and subsequently abandoned talented colleagues who deserved equal credit for his company’s success. Given that two also became lovers, Gore and Kulash’s entertaining film shines a well-deserved light on the fact that success, in this case, required a village of four.

 

Much of this saga’s depiction here is accurate; other key details are — shall we say — massaged. Gore and Kulash are up front about this, opening with a cheeky text block that reads “There are parts of the truth you just can’t make up. The rest, we did.”

 

Their film unfolds in a non-linear fashion, bouncing between multiple timelines that depict how Warner (played here by Zack Galifianakis) meets and soon relies upon Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Sheila (Sarah Snook) and Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan).

 

Robbie — at loose ends, stuck in an unhappy marriage — enters Warner’s life in 1983, just as his fledgling toy company achieves its first breakthrough: plush cats that are deliberately under-stuffed, to make them more cuddly and lifelike. The two become lovers and partners, with Robbie’s sharp business acumen quite instrumental in building the Ty brand.

 

Banks deftly captures the nuanced thrill of a woman given an opportunity to emerge from an unhappy shell, to become a mover and shaker. Robbie becomes dynamic, playful and (so she believes) firmly in control of what blossoms into an exciting career. She’s also the only person who can stand up to the often imperious Warner; Banks’ steely sideways glance gets plenty of action.

 

Bad Education: Actually, it's terrific!

Bad Education (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated TV-MA, for considerable profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.20

Boy, this one couldn’t be better timed.

As we continue to be astonished by the actions of the wealthy, arrogant twits who conspired with Rick Singer to cheat their children into top-flight universities — and the additional hubris of the few parents who blithely insist that they didn’t know their actions were wrong — it’s essential to be reminded that such behavior is nothing new.

School superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and faithful colleague Pam Gluckin
(Allison Janney) always look like cats who've swallowed a particularly tasty canary. One
wonders who they might be torturing, in the high school basement.

Director Cory Finley’s Bad Education isn’t merely a marvelously scathing piece of filmmaking, anchored by top-flight performances from Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney; it’s also a crafty cautionary tale lifted from actual events. Mike Makowsky’s script is impressively faithful to what actually went down at a prestigious Long Island high school in 2002.

The HBO original film airs many times during the next few weeks, starting Sunday and Monday evenings (and also is available to stream, via HBO Go or HBO Now). 

But do yourself a favor: Don’t investigate until after watching this film. Much of its fun comes from the way Finley and Makowsky tease, hint and beguile us during their initial two acts, with a subtly snarky tone that often belies the atmosphere of impending doom — of what sort, we initially can’t imagine — that hangs over these proceedings.

Considerable credit goes to Jackman, for his (typically) charismatic portrayal of Frank Tassone, the capable, extraordinarily successful and much-revered superintendent of New York’s Roslyn school district. Finley opens the film on tight close-ups of Frank, as he primps and dresses in tailored CEO apparel for another typical day at work: at first blush, a sequence of disarming banality.

But Frank’s glance in the mirror lingers perhaps half a beat too long, his satisfied smile perhaps just a shade too narcissistic.

Jackman’s performance throughout is laden with such subtle tics, twitches and gestures, slyly suggesting that — at all times — Frank, himself, is adjusting, modulating and refining a performance.

Or maybe the man is simply vain, physically fit and fastidiously diet-conscious, forever swilling health drinks that resemble liquid charcoal. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he delivers. And Frank definitely has delivered during his tenure, building Roslyn High School into the state’s fourth-highest performer for seniors admitted to prestigious universities.

With that has come a corresponding rise in property values and community wealth, delighting realtors, the school board, and all the rest of Roslyn’s movers and shakers. As far as they’re concerned, Frank walks on water.

It’s hard to argue, particularly as Jackman radiantly portrays him.