Luck: It could use more

Luck (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated G, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

It has been said — of some poor souls — that if they didn’t have bad luck, they’d have no luck at all.

 

Sam Greenfield (voiced by Eva Noblezada) falls into that category. Toasters malfunction, door knobs fall apart, bicycle tires go flat and pump handles break. Sadly, she also has spent her entire life at the Summerland Home for Girls, as an orphan never lucky enough to find new parents who would offer her a “forever home.”

 

Although Bob the cat regards the Land of Luck's workings as "just another day at the
office," Sam — a human in a realm where she doesn't belong — is amazed by all of
its wonders.

Now, having just turned 18, she has “aged out” and must make her own way in the big, bad world.

Director Peggy Holmes’ Luck is the newest release from Skydance Animation, and the first to emerge since former Pixar guru John Lasseter came on board in early 2019. Although Lasseter is credited solely as co-producer, this film definitely has familiar, Pixar-esque elements that suggest he had a guiding hand in shaping the script: not least of which is the aforementioned first act, as the characters of Sam and her adolescent best friend Hazel (Adelynn Spoon) are established.

 

You’ll detect the mildly retro, heart-tugging pathos that was so important to films such as Toy Story, Up and Inside Out.

 

Hazel, poised to meet an adoptive couple who might become her “forever family,” has stacked the deck as only a child could: with a cigar box filled with good-luck tokens. She needs only a “lucky penny” to complete what she believes will be her can’t-miss shot at happiness.

 

Sam, although desperate to oblige, has enough trouble coping with her own newly acquired adult responsibilities … starting with a darling studio apartment that conspires to make her late for her first day as a clerk at an arts and crafts big box store. This emporium is run by the cheerful Marvin (Lil Rel Howery), who — upon seeing how Sam makes utter hash of even simple assignments — wisely sends her outside on “cart patrol.”

 

At the end of this long, accident-prone day, a dejected Sam sits on the curb and impulsively shares her panini with a stoic black cat. After it departs, she spots — could it be? — a lucky penny.

 

Sam’s subsequent investigation of this coin’s power is a riot, particularly with respect to its control over the jelly-side-down principle. But this applies only when the penny is in her possession; she guards it carefully, intending to pass it along to Hazel.

 

Alas, not carefully enough.

Deep Water: Rather murky

Deep Water (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang

British director Adrian Lyne hit pop-culture gold with 1983’s Flashdance and 1987’s Fatal Attraction. Although his subsequent films were uneven — Jacob’s Ladder, Indecent Proposal, Lolita — they certainly generated interest and controversy, further cementing his status as a purveyor of erotic thrillers.

 

Despite having long tolerated her nymphomaniacal tendencies, Vic (Ben Affleck) warns
Melinda (Ana de Armas) that she has become too brazen and reckless.

Lyne rebounded with 2002’s Unfaithful, which brought a well-deserved Oscar nomination to Diane Lane, for her nuanced role as a cheating wife who comes to her senses a bit too late.

Then Lyne dropped off the map. For two full decades.

 

He has returned in form with this similarly salacious handling of Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel, adapted fairly faithfully — to a point — by scripters Zach Helm and Sam Levinson.

 

I’m surprised Lyne waited so long to dip into Highsmith; they’re made for each other. Her morality-bending stories dig deep into the psychological quirks of stone-cold psychopaths; the most famous examples are the methodical impersonator in The Talented Mr. Ripley (and four sequel novels), and the murder-trading playboy in Strangers on a Train. Both were made into superb films.

 

Lyne’s Deep Water is a long way from superb, but it certainly grabs one’s attention, due mostly to the earthy, sexually charged performance by Ana de Armas. This is breathtaking, fearless, all-in acting; she oozes carnal intensity with every breath, word and gesture.

 

To casual observers, Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda Van Allen (de Armas) are a content, picture-perfect couple living an affluent life made possible by the extreme wealth he earned as a microchip inventor. Now retired, he publishes a quarterly arts magazine, rides about town on his mountain bike, raises snails as a hobby (!), and is totally besotted with their 6-year-old daughter, Trixie (the utterly adorable Grace Jenkins, in an impressive feature debut).

 

But Vic and Melinda’s marriage actually is one of uneasy convenience: He tolerates her endless string of lovers, as long as she doesn’t break up their family.

 

Unfortunately, her indiscreet, narcissistic behavior — and an insistence being the center of attention — has made their friends uneasy. They’re also concerned about Vic, particularly because he seems oddly unfazed: even when Melinda — inevitably poured into one of costume designer Heidi Bivens’ barely-there dresses — flirts shamelessly with some guy at the many cocktail parties enjoyed by everybody in their social circle. (Ah, how the other half lives…)

 

Affleck plays this role well; he excels at quietly stoic characters who nonetheless have something bottled up inside. Indeed, there’s a bit more than resignation and mild-mannered apathy in Vic’s gaze, when he watches, from an upper-story window, as Melinda drapes herself onto her next likely conquest.

 

(You’ll detect more than a few echoes of the similar role Affleck played in 2014’s Gone Girl, albeit with different plot twists.)

Space Jam: A New Legacy — Excessive jam

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG, for cartoon violence

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.16.21

As the saying goes — and feel free to insert your debauchery of choice — one milkshake is delicious. Two, three, perhaps even four, are taste bud nirvana.

 

But 762 milkshakes become … well … stale. Tedious. Sensory overload.

 

As a crowd of thousands watches and worries, LeBron James and a digitally upgraded
Bugs Bunny wonder what unpleasant trick their revolting opponents will uncork next.

This new Space Jam goes way beyond sensory overload.

Which is a shame, because — at its core — this film offers a sweet story about the need for fathers and sons to relate to each other.

 

Alas, no fewer than six credited writers — and, I’ve no doubt, many more uncredited hands — turned the result into the world’s most frantic pinball machine. Actually, “frantic” isn’t strong enough. Frenzied. Berserk. Freaked out. Zonkers.

 

Out of control.

 

Definitely out of director Malcolm D. Lee’s control.

 

Lee is best known for overblown, slapstick-laden farces such as Undercover Brother, Girls Trip and Night School, often with stand-up comics in lead roles. He doesn’t know from subtle, pacing, or restraint. He definitely graduated from the school of Throw Everything On The Wall And See What Sticks.

 

And boy, he found a lot to throw on this wall.

 

LeBron James, playing himself, has become a basketball taskmaster with sons Darius (Ceyair J Wright) and Dom (Cedric Joe). The elder Darius is cheerfully eager to follow in his father’s size 16 footsteps, but young Dom has his head in an entirely different game. His passion is coding and IT development; he even has built his own way-cool computer game.

 

Dad is oblivious, much to the chagrin of wife Kamiyah (Sonequa Martin-Green). Basketball is everything; anything else is a distraction.

 

Elsewhere, within the massive server bank at Warner Bros. Studios, an egomaniacal digi-villain dubbed Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle) has been up to no good. Hoping to win real-world adulation, Al has developed cutting-edge tech that could digitally incorporate LeBron into an endless array of media projects.

 

LeBron declines, during a presentation meeting with execs played by Sarah Silverman and Steven Yeun. Actually, LeBron calls the proposal monumentally stupid, which enrages Al — monitoring via Wifi-linked devices — into monumental revenge.

 

In the blink of an eye, LeBron and Dom are sucked into Al’s digital realm, where he seduces the impressionable lad with the thrill of being able to fabricate anything — instantly — while employing crocodile psychology to widen the rift between father and son.

Clouds: A ray of sunshine

Clouds (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for brief profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.20.20

John Kennedy Toole was 25 when he wrote A Confederacy of Dunces. He committed suicide six years later, having long suffered from grief, escalating paranoia and (very likely) despair over having failed to get his book published.

 

Zach (Fin Argus) and Sammy (Sabrina Carpenter) noodle their way through the first
few lines of a song-in-progress, little realizing where this creative burst will
eventually lead.

His mother found a carbon copy of the lengthy novel in his effects; she, too, struck out with several publishers before Louisiana State University Press accepted the manuscript. The book was published in 1980, became a best-seller and — the following year — won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: a level of recognition Toole was long past being able to enjoy.

 

Zach Sobiech, on the other hand, didget to watch one of his songs become a hit.

 

But only briefly.

 

Director Justin Baldoni’s deeply moving Clouds depicts Sobiech’s final tumultuous year — as a high school senior — after having battled osteosarcoma (bone cancer) for several years. Baldoni’s heartwarming film is a dramatized expansion of an episode of the documentary series My Last Days, which he produced in 2013, and which featured Sobiech.

 

This film’s screenplay — by Kara Holden, Casey La Scala and Patrick Kopka — is adapted from the memoir Fly a Little Higher, by Sobiech’s mother Laura. The scripters have taken a few liberties — shortening the key timeline, adding a bit of dramatic tension and a few “movie moments” — but the core story is quite accurate.

 

Accurate enough, in fact, to have earned the approval of Zach’s family and close friends (many of whom pop up in various background shots).

 

Fin Argus, best known for the TV shows The Commute and Total Eclipse, makes a solid feature starring debut as Zach. It’s a challenging role; under Baldoni’s careful direction, Argus deftly navigates the extremes of stubborn determination — without becoming some sort of overly cheerful poster child for cancer sufferers — and, alternatively, bouts of grinding despair.

 

The family dynamic also feels wholly natural, notably the good-natured teasing and jostling that takes place with older siblings Alli (Vivien Endicott Douglas) and Sam (Dylan Everett), and younger sister Grace (Summer H. Howell). The interactions between Argus and Howell are particularly strong, and one of their later scenes is a killer.

 

The Photograph: Nicely developed

The Photograph (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. PG-13, for sensuality and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.14.20

It has been so long between gentle, sensitively constructed relationship dramas, that it took a minor act of will to get back into their rhythm.

While trying to satisfy his curiosity regarding a famous photographer with humble
Louisiana roots, Michael (LaKeith Stanfield) encounters Mae (Issa Rae), currently
curating an exhibit of the woman's work.

Writer/director Stella Meghie’s thoughtful little film shares its charms without bombast. No car chases or explosions. No gun battles. No ironic catastrophes. No unexpected, life-altering freak accidents. No natural disasters or other indications of Mother Nature’s displeasure. (Well, OK; there is a hurricane. But it serves mostly as a backdrop that heightens the developing intensity between two characters.)

This is just an uncomplicated set of cleverly intertwined love stories between characters separated by time but linked by behavior.

How utterly refreshing.

Meghie has an unerring ear for naturalistic dialog — whether flirty or contemplative — all of which is delivered with persuasive sincerity by her well-sculpted characters. It’s always fun to watch such people fall in love; movies have excelled at that since the medium’s conception (but not so much lately, sad to say).

It’s equally engaging to fret over conflicted, angst-riddled individuals who put head above heart: to wonder whether they’ll see the light and take the offered shot at romance. Or, indeed, if instead we must acknowledge that some folks are destined for a path that doesn’t include the stability (confinement?) of conventional togetherness.

And whether they’ll come to regret such a decision.

Journalist Michael Block (LaKeith Stanfield), a rising star at a New York-based magazine, heads down to Louisiana for a feature piece on how coastal communities are recovering, post-Katrina and Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Answer: Not well.) His local contact is crab fisherman Isaac Jefferson (Rob Morgan, nicely understated), a modest, easygoing fellow who never felt compelled to abandon the environment in which he grew up.

During an otherwise routine interview, Michael’s attention is drawn to a series of striking, black-and-white photographs, including one of the photographer herself: Christina Eames, a native daughter who broke Isaac’s heart a generation ago, when she left to seek fame and fortune in New York.

Brittany Runs a Marathon: An inspiring effort

Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief drug content
By Derrick Bang

We’ve often heard that artists suffer for their work.

Jillian Bell suffered more than most.

When Brittany (Jillian Bell) enters her first actual race, she winds up pacing
Seth (Micah Stock), who quickly becomes her comrade-in-agony.

She pulled a Christian Bale before and during the filming of Brittany Runs a Marathon, which is highlighted by her effervescent — and, at times, quite brave — performance in the title role. (Bale notoriously dropped 63 pounds when he made 2004’s The Machinist.)

Writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo’s indie charmer is the sort of “modest” film that rewards discovery, and deserves to be enjoyed by as wide an audience as possible. The icing on an already delectable cake: It’s based on a real-world woman’s actual journey of self-discovery and accomplishment.

As much as Bell owns this film, she’s surrounded by a wealth of engaging supporting characters, all brought to captivating life by an equally talented ensemble cast. Their diverse personalities are thoughtfully constructed; the resulting duo and group dynamics are spot-on; and Colaizzo’s script drops plenty of hilarious one-liners without making these individuals seem any less real-world.

That’s a neat trick.

On top of which, Colaizzo inserts some perceptive — and desperately needed — jabs at the too-frequently-cruel narcissism of the social media generation.

New York-based Brittany Forgler (Bell), 27 and feeling more like 37, has lost control. Her life — hard partying, chronic under-employment and ghastly “relationships” — is the stuff of an immature high school or college student, with no thought of adult responsibility. And, yes; she has let herself go physically, and it’s catching up with her.

All of which has become a serious concern to her older sister, Cici (Kate Arrington), and brother-in-law, Demetrius (Lil Rel Howery), who essentially raised Brittany following a nasty parental divorce. But sibling disapproval isn’t sufficient; Brittany isn’t brought up short until she tries to score some prescription Adderall, and instead gets a gentle reprimand from her doctor (Patch Darragh, in a brief but telling role).

The message: Get healthy. Before the downward spiral becomes dire.