Late Night: Stay up for it!

Late Night (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and occasional sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.14.19

I’ve suffered through so many vulgar, trashy, profane and infantile comedies during the past several years, that it seemed like the entire genre had been hijacked by such junk.

Imperious late-night talk show host Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) would only
"make nice" in this manner, with lowly writer Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), if a publicity photo
were required. Otherwise, Katherine wouldn't waste a moment with such a staff peon...

Bless you, Mindy Kaling, for reminding us that witty, sophisticated humor still exists on the big screen.

Late Night is delightful. Kaling’s consistently amusing script is blessed with both sharp one-liners and shrewdly wry jabs at sexism, racism, ageism, tokenism and several other isms that don’t immediately leap to mind. The story also takes pointed pot shots at television and its cult of personality, while giving us the funniest behind-the-scenes writers’ room gang since we lost television’s much-loved 30 Rock.

And, unlike far too many lazy scripters these days, Kaling doesn’t focus solely on her story’s key characters; she also grants sidebar folks distinct personalities, and gives them little moments in which to shine. 

Manhattan-based Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a pioneer in her field, with multiple Emmy Awards to prove it: She’s the only woman to host a long-running late-night talk show. Unfortunately, she hasn’t changed her approach after three decades, and her ratings are tanking in an age where audiences prefer social media to social discourse. Stuffy philosophers can’t compete with YouTube “celebrities” who make embarrassing videos with their pets.

Worse yet, the notoriously impatient Katherine suddenly is accused of hypocrisy: as a so-called progressive feminist whose writers’ room is staffed solely by men. White men. Mostly young white men.

Stung by the accuracy of this charge, she orders her executive producer — Denis O’Hare, as the long-suffering Brad — to take the first “diversity hire” who walks into the building. Due to a hilariously improbable set of circumstances, that turns out to be Molly Patel (Kaling), a former chemical plant efficiency expert from suburban Pennsylvania, who has dreamed of being a comedy writer.

And whose sudden presence in the writers’ room goes over like the proverbial lead balloon.

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.”

Adam: Tender beginnings

Adam (2009) • View trailer for Adam
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for brief profanity and mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.28.09
Buy DVD: Adam

Advocacy cinema takes many forms, the most effective examples often arriving stealthily, as quiet, consciousness-raising little dramas that call attention to disenfranchised members of society.

Writer/director Max Mayer's Adam is just such a film: a sweet, poignant character study about a young man with Asperger's Syndrome — a form of high-functioning autism — and a sympathetic young woman who falls in love with him, and attempts to expand his sheltered, withdrawn lifestyle.

Unless confronted directly, Adam (Hugh Dancy) prefers to ignore other people,
having learned that he frequently misinterprets what they say. This initially
puzzles Beth (Rose Byrne), but she gradually discovers that an honest soul
lurks beneath her neighbor's reserved exterior.

The film is being marketed as a romantic comedy, which seems misleading; although certainly laced with amusing moments — most derived from the title character's tendency to take statements and actions at face value — Mayer's script is rather too serious to be lumped with inconsequential fluff such as The Proposal.

But calling Adam a sensitive "message movie" probably would be the box-office kiss of death, so I can't really fault Fox Searchlight's approach.

For the most part, and especially when he concentrates on his story's two primary characters, Mayer's film is thoughtful, absorbing, poignant and gently informative: a clearly sympathetic portrait of a man trying his best to cope with a condition that makes him utterly helpless in social and interpersonal situations, which the rest of us casually take for granted.

At times, though, Mayer's tone is disrupted by the intrusion of a secondary plot line — and the needlessly over-the-top performance of a supporting actor — that are unnecessary and out of place, and rip us right out of the core narrative.

I find this mis-match surprising for an individual (Mayer) who has directed more than 50 new plays Off-Broadway and around the country, and is a veteran director for TV shows such as Alias and The West Wing. I'd expect Mayer to have a better understanding of balance, and recognize how he damages his otherwise delicate film with occasional "Hollywoodizing" elements.

Fortunately, most everything else pales alongside the excellent work of Hugh Dancy (The Jane Austen Book Club, Confessions of a Shopaholic), who delivers as carefully shaded a performance as I've seen since Cliff Robertson (Charly) or Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man).

Confessions of a Shopaholic: No account

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) • View trailer for Confessions of a Shopaholic
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.20.09
Buy DVD: Confessions of a Shopaholic • Buy Blu-Ray: Confessions of a Shopaholic (Two-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

I tried to imagine, while leaving the theater with such a rancid taste in my mouth, whether I'd have loathed the heroine of Confessions of a Shopaholic even if the film had been released at a time when the entire U.S. economy weren't tanking.

Oh, yes, I decided.

After indulging in another spending binge, Rebecca (Isla Fisher, center in light
cap) is confronted by "Shopaholics Anonymous" group leader Miss Korch
(Wendie Malick, holding Fisher's arm), who insists on the "tough love"
measure of forcing our heroine to donate everything she just purchased to a
charity outlet. Naturally, this will include a bridesmaid's dress for Rebecca's
best friend's wedding, layering even more "comic tension" into this big-screen
adaptation of Sophia Kinsella's popular book.

Absolutely.

That said, I cannot imagine what was going through the minds of everybody at Disney, to have made them believe that filmgoers wouldn't revolt at the very sight of this thumpingly laughless tribute to conspicuous, debt-laden con- sumption.

Intelligent people — those with a shred of perception — understand that some stereotypes wear out their welcomes; some even become offensive over time. Al Jolson's blackface routine in The Jazz Singer would elicit riots today. Dudley Moore's cuddly bazillionaire in 1981's Arthur was pretty much the last "lovable souse" that Hollywood dared put on the big screen.

And, let's face it, now is not the time to expect us to embrace this film's ditzy-but-good-hearted-deep-down Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), who spends herself into multiple calamities during the course of this clumsy, gaspingly ill-conceived attempt at a romantic comedy.

"Desperate" is the word that comes to mind, when scrutinizing this ill-conceived flick. That single word covers Fisher's performance, director P.J. Hogan's efforts to wrest a few giggles from the lifeless script, and Disney's damn-the-torpedos decision to punish us with the wretched result.

Granted, Sophia Kinsella's book — and its sequels — obviously struck a chord with a subset of readers: most specifically those who identified with a financially challenged heroine who couldn't fathom credit card interest penalties if her life depended on it.

But scripters Tracey Jackson, Tim Firth and Kayla Alpert retained only the basic concept while strip-mining Kinsella's novel, and moving it from England to the United States (a serious miscalculation, right off the top).

Somehow, they left all the charm behind. What emerges, under Hogan's ham-fisted guidance, is just this side of a train wreck.