Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game — Terrific bumper action!

Pinbal: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, with PG-level sexual banter and mild profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms

By Derrick Bang

Who could have guessed that two fact-based films about gaming — Tetris and this one — would be released simultaneously?

 

Even less likely: Both are quite entertaining, in entirely different ways.

 

While Ellen (Crystal Reed) watches with delight, Roger (Mike Faist) gives her son,
Seth (Christopher Convery), some handy pinball tips.

Brothers Austin and Meredith Bragg — in an impressive writing/directing feature debut — have delivered a charming little film that’s practically its own category: equal parts docudrama, rom-com and (at times) mockumentary. 

However their film ultimately gets pigeon-holed, there’s no denying the gently whimsical touch that deftly balances established history, a charming romantic core, and droll meta touches that impishly poke fun at the making of this film, (supposedly) while it’s being made.

 

No less than New Yorker critic Richard Brody insists that “it’s better than all ten of the [2022] Best Picture nominees.”

 

I can’t go quite that far, but his enthusiasm is understandable.

 

The Brothers Bragg open their film as Roger C. Sharpe (Dennis Boutsikaris), circa today, is prepped in a studio chair, awaiting interview questions from unseen filmmakers. The topic: how he — Sharpe — literally “saved” pinball in New York City.

 

Sharpe demurs, insisting that he’s no more than a “footnote.” Yet he remains willing to tell the story, but only — sharp insistence, accompanied by Boutsikaris’ steely gaze — on his terms.

 

At which point we roll back to 1971, when a much younger Roger (now endearingly played by Mike Faist), while a student at the University of Wisconsin, has his first encounter with a true “pinball wizard.” Immediately intrigued by the possibility of prolonging a game for more than a quick couple of minutes, Roger becomes obsessed.

 

At which point the older Sharpe suddenly reappears, essentially looking over his younger self’s shoulder, in order to supply essential back-story. Boutsikaris continues to serve as on-camera narrator while the film continues: an initially disorienting device that quickly becomes an essential part of the story (thanks in no small part to Boutsikaris’ quiet sincerity).

 

Sharpe also occasionally interrupts on-screen events, insisting that the filmmakers are taking too much dramatic license in an effort to insert a “Hollywood touch.” Such objections noted, a given scene is re-staged to be more historically accurate.

 

(Wisely, the Brothers Bragg employ this gimmick sparingly.)

 

A few years pass. Roger graduates, moves to New York City, gets married, lands a job as an advertising copywriter, gets divorced — a lucky escape, given available evidence — loses his job, and loses most of his furnishings (such accoutrements having been supplied by his former wife’s family’s furniture store). Sleeping on a mattress on the floor, forced to improvise rough-and-ready plank bookshelves, Roger impulsively decides to become a journalist.

West Side Story: Totally captivating

West Side Story (2021) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for strong violence, strong profanity, attempted rape and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.10.21

The initial few seconds are crucial.

 

Any faithful presentation of West Side Story must begin with a dark stage or screen, as we hear the call-and-response pair of whistled triplets … followed by a brief pause, and then the vibrant opening bars of Leonard Bernstein’s overture, as the Jets assemble for the first electrifying dance number.

 

This can't end well: Although the school gym is supposed to be neutral territory, the white
kids (left) and Puerto Ricans clearly aren't sizing up each other's dance moves ... even
though this sequence quickly explodes into one of the film's many amazing
production numbers.

Director Steven Spielberg nails it, with this pulsating, big-screen adaptation: honorably faithful to the 1961 film, while also demonstrating its own, equally dynamic personality.

Actually, everybody nails it.

 

Screenwriter Tony Kushner — who earned Oscar nominations for his two previous collaborations with Spielberg, 2005’s Munich and 2012’s Lincoln — retains the essential late 1950s/early ’60s setting, while adding focus to the “urban renewal” (i.e. slum clearance) that puts additional pressure on the Jets and their rivals, the Puerto Rican Sharks. No wonder they jockey ever more furiously for control of their rapidly shrinking turf.

 

Indeed, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski opens the film with slow, sweeping pans past huge wrecking balls that hover over the demolished remnants of several city blocks that now look like a war zone: a deliberately grim reminder that neighborhoods of color invariably are targeted for such development.

 

(In a rather droll touch, Kaminski’s camera also slides past a large sign that heralds the impending creation of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.)

 

The opening “call to arms” is led by Riff (Mike Faist), who propels the expanding cadre of Jets toward an equally large gathering of the Sharks, led by Bernardo (David Alvarez). The unison dance moves are feral, taunting and gracefully balletic; choreographer Justin Peck, of New York City Ballet, clearly quotes Jerome Robbins’ original dances, albeit with even more intensity.

 

Peck’s staging of subsequent numbers, as the story proceeds, is audaciously clever. The show-stopping “America,” always a highlight, has been moved from a nighttime rooftop to the San Juan Hill’s daytime streets, where it explodes into a massive neighborhood block party of store merchants and passersby, in addition to our main characters. It’s a breathtaking sequence that gets progressively bold and colorful, the moves ranging from Robbins-esque ballet to Caribbean pachanga.

 

“I Feel Pretty” is given an ironic twist, as Maria (Rachel Zegler) and the many female members of her late-night cleaning crew cavort amid the mannequins on the ground floor of Gimbels … where all the clothing and accessories are aimed at white patrons. “Cool,” a straight dance piece in the 1961 film, has been transformed into an increasingly angry confrontation between Riff and Tony (Ansel Elgort), as they wrestle for control of a gun while trying to evade the gaping holes on a rotting pier at the edge of the city.

 

It’s a ferociously tense sequence, Spielberg deliberately playing on our fear that the damn thing’s gonna go off at any moment.