Rare Objects: A quiet little gem

Rare Objects (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms

By Derrick Bang

This gentle, endearingly delicate character drama draws its heart from the Japanese art of kintsugi, wherein — when done properly — an object becomes more beautiful because it’s broken, and then lovingly repaired.

 

Benita (Julia Mayorga, left) happily joins Diana (Katie Holmes) for an impulsive
afternoon away from work.

The “object” in this case is Benita Parla (Julia Mayorga), a university student introduced on the day she leaves a New York psychiatric facility. She checked herself in some weeks (months?) earlier, not because of drugs or alcohol, but due to PTSD and anxiety.

The reason, as we gradually learn via fleeting flashbacks: She was raped in a trendy bar restroom, by a “nice guy” who, after flirty banter and several drinks, suddenly turned into a monster. “Tell anybody,” he breathes into her ear, following the assault, “and I’ll find you.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he whispers “I’m sorry” … as if that somehow makes up for the attack.

 

This isn’t actress Katie Holmes’ first time in the director’s chair, but it’s her best thus far … probably because she didn’t give the central role to herself. She also co-wrote the script with Phaedon A. Papadopoulos, based on Kathleen Tessaro’s 2016 novel of the same title. But it’s an adaptation in name and character dynamic only; very little remains of the book.

 

(That isn’t any sort of problem here, but one does wonder how Tessaro feels.)

 

Benita, having abandoned any thought of resuming college, returns to the tiny Queens apartment that she shares with her single mother, Aymee (Sandra Santiago), a Latin American immigrant who works hard to make ends meet. Benita hasn’t told her mother about what happened: a point we grasp not through any direct dialogue, but via inference. 

 

We eventually realize that going off to college in the first place likely was a point of friction between mother and daughter; Benita recognizes that admitting her recent crisis would merely validate her mother’s initial fears. 

 

Much of this story unfolds in precisely that manner, with Holmes and Papadopoulos trusting us to keep up, and fill in such gaps; that’s the hallmark of a sharp script. Credit also goes to Mayorga, who handles such scenes persuasively; her richly nuanced expressions and body language often tell us more than dialogue would.

 

Benita is at wit’s end: still fragile, haunted by the memory of her attack — the film reveals just enough, via those flashbacks, and avoids exploitation — and terrified by the burden of student loans coming due. Aymee is patient and encouraging, but chooses not to push. (I’m not sure that feels right, but it’s a minor quibble.)

 

The Secret: Dare to Dream — Rather overstuffed

The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.20

I’m always wary of films that open in the celestial heavens, somewhere above Earth, and slowly swoop down through clouds to finally hover above the intended setting; it’s invariably a cue that the filmmakers want us to think what follows will be Significant.

Even for somebody (apparently) accustomed to doing good deeds for total strangers,
Bray's (Josh Lucas) ongoing willingness to help Miranda (Katie Holmes) begins to feel
a bit strange ... as if he has some ulterior motive. (Surprise: He does.)

Instead, what we usually get is cloying, affected and ponderously melodramatic: guaranteed to induce skeptical raised eyebrows and long-suffering sighs.

Director Andy Tennant’s handling of The Secret: Dare to Dream — available via Apple TV and other streaming platforms — skirts the ragged edge of such syrupy twaddle; there’s a definitely sense that we’ve been dumped into an excessively mawkish Nicholas Sparks novel. Happily, this film is saved by warmly earnest performances from Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas … even if the latter gets stuck with some wincingly corny dialogue.

Widowed single mother Miranda Wells (Holmes) works as a manager/food buyer for a family-friendly New Orleans restaurant run by Tucker (Jerry O’Connell), who clearly loves her. Alas, Miranda’s competence on the job isn’t matched by similar care given to her personal life, which is in shambles. She’s short of cash and forever late with bills; she dropped her dental insurance and now can’t afford to get a necessary root canal; and the roof leaks in her crumbling home, also badly in need of countless other minor repairs.

She endures this with the resignation of one who, to quote Marilyn Monroe, always winds up with the fuzzy end of the lollypop. Miranda is one of those people who, if she didn’t have bad luck, would have no luck at all.

She has three doting children, who nonetheless are a bit of a handful. Adolescent Greg (Aidan Pierce Brennan) shares his late father’s fascination with building gadgets; young Bess (Chloe Lee) really, really, really wants a pony. Teenage Missy (Sarah Hoffmeister) pouts constantly, knowing that her upcoming 16th birthday party will be ruined by a more popular girl hosting a party on the same day.

Enter amiable Bray Johnson (Lucas) who drives into town on a mission: to deliver the contents of a large manila envelope to Miranda, a woman he’s never met. Fate arranges a spontaneous introduction, when she accidentally rear-ends his truck while (naturally) driving carelessly. Amazingly, he isn’t angry; the front of her car took the sole damage, which he graciously offers to repair. She accepts; he follows her home.

(I know what you’re thinking, and you have a point. How many “stranger danger” scenarios like this have we seen? But this isn’t that sort of film, so you gotta just roll with it. However ludicrously unlikely it seems.)

Logan Lucky: Misfit heist comedy beats the odds

Logan Lucky (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat harshly, for brief profanity and crude language
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.25.17

Director Steven Soderbergh appears to have been bitten by the Fargo bug.

The droll, slow-burn Logan Lucky could be described as a cross between Soderbergh’s Oceans 11 and that iconic 1996 crime thriller — and its more recent, and ongoing, television adaptation — with additional regional absurdity supplied by an impudent original script credited to “Rebecca Blunt.”

Jimmy (Channing Tatum, right) employs a cardboard diorama to explain his "perfect
scheme" for robbing the heavily guarded underground vault at the Charlotte Motor
Speedway, as his brother Clyde (Adam Driver) reacts with mounting disbelief.

The quotes are intentional, because no such person exists. As yet, this film’s writer hasn’t been identified, although sources have suggested Soderbergh, or his wife Jules Asner, or several other possibilities. Certainly Soderbergh is no stranger to pseudonyms; indeed, he employs two for Logan Lucky, having supplemented his director’s duties as both cinematographer (under the name Peter Andrews) and editor (as Mary Ann Bernard).

The narrative here certainly displays Soderbergh’s long-established dry wit and arch sense of humor, and the film is guaranteed to delight viewers who appreciate the methodical build-up and eccentric characters that more frequently populate British quasi-comedies.

The storyline takes its time while bringing the primary characters to the stage. The setting is small-town West Virginia, where divorced, down-on-his-luck Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) never gets to spend enough time with doting young daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie, cute as a button). Jimmy’s intentions are good, but circumstances always interfere, much to the displeasure of ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), now married to the insufferably wealthy — and insufferably smug — Moody (David Denman).

Jimmy spends considerable time commiserating with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost an arm during war service in Iraq, and now tends bar at a local dive rather oddly dubbed the Duck Tape. Clyde is convinced that every member of their clan is doomed by a longstanding “family curse,” hence his missing arm, and Jimmy’s injury-related limp, with similar misfortune stretching back generations.

Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) sniffs at such nonsense, and well she should; there’s certainly nothing amiss in her life. Far from it: Aside from being a talented and popular hairdresser, Mellie is obsessed by cars to a degree that extends way beyond being able to quote make and model stats like a baseball fan; she also can hot-wire anything — and always carries the necessary supplies for such endeavors — and knows local traffic patterns, night and day, with the facility demonstrated by taxi-driving Stan Murch, in Donald Westlake’s marvelous Dortmunder novels.

Woman in Gold: Engaging art world saga

Woman in Gold (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Curtis’ absorbing, ripped-from-the-headlines drama could be considered the All the President’s Men of the art world.

During a visit to Austria, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her young friend and colleague,
Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), make a point of visiting Vienna's Belvedere Gallery,
where the painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer has been displayed since just after
World War II. The question is whether it deserves to remain there...

Much the way that 1976 classic made journalistic investigation so fascinating, scripter Alexi Kaye Campbell breathes intrigue and tension into what — in the real world — unfolded as an extended, research-heavy, David vs. Goliath courtroom battle. Campbell has the advantage of the considerable tension surrounding the saga’s Holocaust origins; the result, while sometimes sliding into clichéd melodrama, builds to a suspenseful finale.

On one side of the dispute: octogenarian Jewish refugee Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her callow, almost laughably inexperienced attorney, Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds).

On the other side: the entire country of Austria, personified by condescending museum owners and Ministry of Culture officials.

The situation at issue: actual ownership of five paintings by Austrian master Gustav Klimt, most notably his legendary Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a work iconic enough to be recognized even by people who know nothing about art.

As it happens, Adele Bloch-Bauer was Maria Altmann’s aunt ... and therein lies the tale.

Curtis and Campbell divide their narrative between the late 1930s, leading up to and immediately following Hitler’s annexation of Austria; and the late 1990s, beginning with a stack of letters found by Maria, in the twilight of her comfortable years in California, following the death of her beloved sister. The letters’ contents raise intriguing questions, prompting Maria to seek advice from Randy, a budding attorney and the grandson of a family friend.

Randy initially wants nothing to do with what he perceives is a ludicrous, hopeless case; he’s much too busy trying to fit in at the prestigious legal firm where he has just been hired by the authoritative senior partner (Charles Dance, in a brief but suitably intimidating role). But Maria, imperious in her own right, plays the “Jewish heritage” card ... and, before he quite realizes what has happened, Randy is hooked.

An exploratory visit to Austria hardens his interest, after he and Maria are rebuffed by the aforementioned cultural officials. Despite the restitution law passed by Austria’s Green Party in 1998, they discover — with the assistance of Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl) — that this supposed display of “justice” is little more than a PR ploy, which the country’s nationalists have no intention of applying to any truly revered artworks.

And nothing is more revered than Klimt’s masterpiece, regarded, as Czernin explains, as “Austria’s Mona Lisa.”

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: No chance of that!

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) • View trailer for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence and terror, much of the latter directed at a little girl
By Derrick Bang


To fall back on an indictment that I use with depressing frequency these days, this film boasts a classic example of the so-called idiot plot: The story lurches forward from one improbable event to the next only because each and every character behaves like a complete idiot at all times.

Nobody believes Sally (Bailee Madison) when she insists that evil little pixies
have invaded her huge home. She therefore takes a picture of one — attagirl! —
but then loses her "proof" when one of the critters snatches it away ... at which
point the foolish child turns stupid again, and chases it into a darkened library,
where she can be attacked by dozens of them. You'd think the girl would have
smartened up by this point...

The only saving grace — although this creates an entirely different set of problems — is that our cast of characters is so ludicrously, unnaturally limited, that we need not assume the entire human race has been force-fed dopey pills. It's just these five people.

It's simply impossible to sympathize with characters who are so bone-stupid.

Consider: Your handyman stumbles out of the darkened, obviously sinister basement of your ancient, isolated Rhode Island mansion; he's cut, slashed and bleeding in dozens of places, sharp blades still literally hanging from his body ... with no indication of what or who injured him, or how many attackers were involved.

And you ignore this? Mark it down as an "accident"?

Consider: Our 8-year-old heroine, although admittedly a little girl, is a modern little girl who seems to have all her faculties. She nonetheless displays the intelligence and self-preservational skills of a turnip, forever crawling into and under places that are clearly dangerous. Spooky voices call to her from a nasty, carefully sealed grate in that same malevolent basement ... so what does she do? She opens the grate.

She does not deserve to survive this story; none of these characters does. They don't earn that privilege.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro — the accomplished horror impresario who wrote and directed Mimic and Pan's Labyrinth, and who produced The Orphanage — has claimed that 1973's made-for-TV flick, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, is the scariest movie he ever saw on the small screen. It has some juice, I'll acknowledge; director John Newland had oodles of experience with TV-size chills in programs such as One Step Beyond, Thriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But stars Kim Darby and Jim Hutton weren't really right for the material, and I doubt the film would raise gooseflesh among modern viewers.

But if del Toro retains such fond memories, well and good; that should have made him the perfect choice to script a modern remake.

I can't imagine what went wrong. Everything about this script — credited to del Toro and Matthew Robbins — is contrived, ill-conceived, sloppy or just plain daft.

No exchange of dialogue between "loving couple" Alex (Guy Pearce) and Kim (Katie Holmes) sounds authentic; every conversation, whether trivial or agitated, rings false. They also share zero chemistry.

Alex professes to be a loving father to 8-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison), a claim hardly validated by any of his detached behavior. And despite obviously disapproving of his ex-wife's tendency to medicate their daughter on the advice of pill-pushing shrinks, when Sally finally wises up and reacts with appropriate levels of stark terror to what is happening in this story, Alex blandly accepts a new psychiatrist's suggestion to shove more drugs into the poor girl. Is this supposed to be tough love?

Mad Money: Moderately amusing spare change

Mad Money (2008) • View trailer
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for mild sensuality and a fleeting drug reference
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.24.08

Although unlikely to set the world on fire, Mad Money is a breezy little caper romp that provides ample opportunity for stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes to display their light comedy chops.

Although their first score falls short of setting them up for life, Nina (Queen
Latifah, left), Bridget (Diane Keaton, center) and Jackie (Katie Holmes) become
giddy over the mere fact that the scheme worked ... and that it can be repeated.

The production values are modest, and Glenn Gers' script doesn't tread any particularly provocative ground; aside from the high-wattage cast, this is the sort of pleasant diversion that usually turns up as a made-for-TV movie ... or, back in the day, would have been the bottom half of a movie theater double- feature.

Which is not intended as condemnation. B-films with no particular pretensions often are far more entertaining than their bigger-budgeted cousins.

Perhaps most impressive is the degree to which Diane Keaton, 62 years young, carries this film; she just gets better and better. Finally content to abandon all those Woody Allen-esque behavioral quirks that became her stock-in-trade for so many years following Annie Hall, Keaton now is comfortable in a broader range of moods. Here, she's the most methodical and organized of a trio of quite unlikely bank robbers, and she's quite credible as a white-collar master criminal.

Not so credible as a mop-wielding cleaning woman, but hey, we can't have everything.

Director Callie Khouri, who won an Academy Award for writing 1991's Thelma and Louise before becoming a hyphenate and directing and scripting 2002's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, has an ear for the gal-chat that bounces between the three protagonists. Better still, all are sympathetic characters, and that's important: We're expected to identify with them, even as they turn larcenous.

But Gers' script is quite aggravating in one respect: its reliance on a flash-forward framing device that reveals, right away, that our heroes are being grilled by the cops. In other words, they've been caught, and we learn this even before we get a sense of what they'll do to attract this sort of attention.

Even clumsier is the talk-to-the-camera technique that Khouri employs a few times; this gimmick almost never works in a conventional film, and should be reserved solely for serious historical projects such as Reds.

We're thus robbed of a great deal of the story's potential suspense. There's no question of whether they'll get busted; our musings now are restricted to when and how. That's a daft artistic decision.