The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and other Roald Dahl Tales: Sadly uneven

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and other Roald Dahl Tales (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, and much too generously, for creepy images and concepts

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

I cannot imagine a more perfect artistic collaboration, and blend of sensibilities, than Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl.

 

The fact that this joint effort by filmmaker and author has long been posthumous — Dahl died in 1990 — matters not a jot.

 

While Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) relates part of his tale to a policeman
(Ralph Fiennes), both men briefly "break the fourth wall" and stare at the viewer, in
order to emphasize a point.

Dahl certainly has been well-loved on the big screen, with adaptations — sometimes more than once — of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda. Anderson also delivered a terrific stop-motion version of Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009.

Dahl was a highly visible presence of television during his lifetime, mostly due to the UK’s Tales of the Unexpected. This series adapted 26 of his short stories over the course of its nine-season run from 1979 to ’87; these morbid little tales — patently adult, and often with twist endings — blended dark humor with murder, infidelity, blackmail and all manner of other beastly behavior.

 

Few people remember the first TV series Dahl hosted, the U.S.-produced Way Out, which ran a mere half-season in 1961, following Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone in CBS’ 10 p.m. Friday slot. Dahl’s unapologetically macabre horror series was far too gruesome for that era’s viewers, and was canceled shortly after airing its 13th episode, “Soft Focus,” the notorious climax of which scared the hell out of everybody (and still packs a punch to this day).

 

The current quartet of adaptations — “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” “The Swan,” “The Rat Catcher” and “Poison” — debuted on Netflix one per day, late last week. They also draw from Dahl’s adult-oriented short stories.

 

As is Anderson’s habit, his approach is — shall we say — unusual.

 

Recognizing that Dahl’s precise and marvelous prose style is responsible for much of the atmospheric magic in his stories, Anderson has these stories narrated — retaining as much text as possible — by Dahl himself (played with appropriate eccentricity by Ralph Fiennes), and also by the characters within the tale.

 

Fiennes’ surroundings are impressively authentic: seated within a nook of Dahl’s re-created “Gipsy House,” his desk laden with many of the totems and ephemera that were part of the author’s actual working environment. (One must marvel at Anderson’s rigorous attention to detail.)

 

“Henry Sugar,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, is the longest of these pieces, at 37 minutes. It concerns a bored and self-centered aristocrat who, as a result of a book he steals, painstakingly develops the talent to see through objects. What he ultimately does with this gift proves unexpected.

 

The King's Man: A royal good time!

The King's Man (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence, profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.24.21

Fans of this series are apt to be mighty surprised — happily, one hopes — by this third entry’s unexpected shift in tone and style.

 

En route to Russia in a private train, Orlando (Ralph Fiennes, far left) shares what he
knows about Grigori Rasputin, while, from left, Shola (Djimon Hounsou),
Conrad (Harris Dickinson) and Polly (Gemma Arterton) listen attentively.

Whereas 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and 2017’s Kingsman: Golden Circle are deranged, profane and gleefully over-the-top comic book burlesques, this new entry is only mildly naughty. It’s more accurately a sly bit of alternate history, with director/co-scripter Matthew Vaughn — and co-writer Karl Gajdusek — setting their cheeky Kingsman origin story against the very real horrors of World War I.

The tone is more akin to a Golden Age classic such as 1939’s Gunga Din … albeit with dollops of 21st century hyper-violence.

 

Key events are rigorously accurate: from the triggering assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which set the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) against the Triple Entente (France, Russia and Britain); to the ghastly horrors of trench warfare that claimed the lives of an estimated 9 million soldiers.

 

Other films have depicted the latter more authentically — director Sam Mendes’ 1917 immediately comes to mind — but Vaughn, Gajdusek and production designer Darren Gilford convincingly establish a similarly grim tableau. One sequence, achieved with some clever CGI, is particularly effective: a bit of time-lapse legerdemain that reveals the impact of two years’ of war, as a pastoral Western European landscape transforms into a barren wasteland laden with mutilated corpses.

 

But this comes a bit later. The conceit of Vaughn and Gajdusek’s script is that this nation-shattering abattoir was orchestrated clandestinely, behind the scenes, by a nefarious cabal whose many members include Russia’s mad monk, Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans). Their leader, known only as The Shepherd — he remains unseen, as with the early 1960s machinations of James Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld — is motivated by an enraged hatred of England, for its centuries-old repression of Scotland.

 

Meanwhile…

 

Following a brief 1902 prologue set during South Africa’s Boer War, during which we meet Orlando, the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), and his young son Conrad (Alexander Shaw), the story flashes forward a dozen years. Fiennes excels at this sort of refined, crisply authoritative figure; Orlando is unapologetically aristocratic but also mindful of his station, and the need to behave honorably for the common good.

 

As a result of events during that prologue, he’s also a devoted pacifist: a philosophy that increasingly puts him at odds with the impetuous Conrad (now played by Harris Dickinson), who — like so many young men of his era — wishes to prove his bravery in “glorious battle.”

No Time to Die: A gilt-edged Bond

No Time to Die (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence, disturbing images and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters (where it belongs!)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.08.21

It’s bloody well about time.

 

Back in 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was jeered by critics and the public because a) George Lazenby wasn’t Sean Connery; and b) the script had the audacity to present a James Bond with genuine feelings for the woman with whom he’d fallen in love.

 

While James Bond (Daniel Craig, left) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) nervously
wait, Q (Ben Whishaw) struggles to crack the security on a computer network that may
reveal crucial information about the mysterious "Heracles" project.

History has validated what some of us knew all along: Lazenby held his own just fine, and those very story elements — the injection of authentic emotion — cemented its status as one of the all-time best Bonds.

Over the course of Daniel Craig’s five-film arc, his Bond has been defined by loss: the loss of Vesper, in Casino Royale, and M, in Skyfall; and the dismissal of his profession, in Spectre. He has endured along the way, battered and bruised, becoming as recognizably human as one could hope for, in such an action franchise.

 

It’s certainly no accident, mere minutes into this new epic, when Hans Zimmer’s score injects an echo of “We Have All the Time in the World,” the poignant anthem from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One has to smile.

 

Indeed, No Time to Die is laden with similar echoes of the past: from a title credits sequence that opens with the colored polka dots employed in the credits of Dr. No, to Vic Flick’s unmistakable heavy guitar twang — elsewhere in this film’s score — in John Barry’s classic arrangement of “The James Bond Theme.”

 

The impressively ambitious script — by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and director Cary Joji Fukunaga — even works in a hitherto-untapped bit of Ian Fleming: Dr. Guntram Shatterhand’s “Garden of Death,” from the novel You Only Live Twice.

 

But that comes later. No Time to Die — a much harsher affair than most Bonds — opens on a flashback involving a terrified adolescent girl and a kabuki-masked assassin. The encounter proceeds in several surprising directions, concluding as a shuddery memory for Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), emerging from the sea as an astute Bond notices her uneasy mood.

 

They’re enjoying the carefree life chosen when they walked away from Bond’s career, at the previous film’s conclusion. But despite their mutual devotion, these are two people with secrets; we know Bond’s, from previous adventures, and we’re about to discover Madeleine’s.

 

It proves … complicated.

 

But that, too, comes later. We’re first blown away by the longest pre-credits sequence in the entire series, which climaxes with an audacious car chase through the tight corners and narrow, labyrinthine streets of Matera, in Southern Italy. Although plenty more action is yet to come, this opener is the film’s most audacious, edge-of-the-seat sequence.

The Dig: A captivating excavation

The Dig (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for brief sensuality and fleeting partial nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.21

Director Simon Stone’s well-seasoned character drama, available via Netflix, is a thoroughly absorbing slice of old-style British filmmaking: a fascinating, fact-based story inhabited by engaging characters, set in England’s luxuriously verdant countryside.

 

After a harrowing reminder that amateur excavation can be quite dangerous, Edith Pretty
(Carey Mulligan) makes sure that archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) has
suffered no more than a terrible fright.

The countryside in question is Suffolk, the year 1939: just as Britain is battening down the hatches in anticipation of war with Germany. Odd, then, that widowed aristocratic landowner Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) chooses this moment to investigate the large barrows (burial mounds) that dot her 526-acre Sutton Hoo estate (but, well, the actual Pretty did just that).

 

Such mounds were prevalent throughout much of the United Kingdom at this point in time, and it was accepted wisdom that — if they contained anything at all — the contents likely would date back to the Viking era. Edith has no reason to expect otherwise, but even Viking artifacts would be worthy of museum preservation.

 

She hires local archaeologist/excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to investigate; after surveying the various mounds, he settles on a particularly large one. The digging is arduous, painstaking and slow, even with the help of a few estate workers. As the days and weeks pass, with Edith and her adolescent son Robert (Archie Barnes) taking an active interest — and since Basil is living on the estate — he becomes a welcome part of the family.

 

That’s no small thing, since the working-class Basil is akin to a servant himself. But Edith clearly gives no thought to that sort of thing: a deliberate contrast to the way Basil is regarded as “lesser” by his archaeological peers, since he’s self-taught after having left school at age 12.

 

Nothing is quite as condescending as British class snobbery, and Fiennes does a marvelous job of imbuing Basil with quiet dignity and patient resolve, when confronted by it. His deepening bond with Edith and Robert notwithstanding, he also tends toward obsession, ignoring frequent letters from his wife, May (Monica Dolan).

 

Basil becomes convinced that these Sutton Hoo barrows might pre-date the Viking era (eighth to 11th century): in fact, might be Anglo-Saxon (as early as the fifth century). Naturally, his disdainful colleagues dismiss this notion.

 

Then Basil finds some iron rivets. A ship’s iron rivets. (Bear in mind, we’re well inland.) Only figures of immense merit — such as kings — were buried with their ships.

Official Secrets: Thou shalt not lie

Official Secrets (2019) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.13.19

This fact-based drama could not be better timed.

More than ever, we must be reminded of the imperative necessity of speaking truth and integrity to power.

Once exposed and arrested, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) is allowed a brief visit from
her husband, Yasar (Adam Bakri). In a touching act that feels genuine, he brings her a
thick jacket, because he knows the jail cell will be cold.

Along with the value of the Fourth Estate, and its role in exposing the filthy secrets of power-mongers who believe they can get away with anything.

And of the foolishness of reflexively relying on a crutch such as Spell check.

Director Gavin Hood makes smart, thoughtful films that don’t get near enough attention in the mainstream market. Folks who stumbled across 2015’s Eye in the Sky were mesmerized by its intriguing depiction of a wartime conundrum — do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few? — as it related to the potential civilian fatalities that would result from a drone strike targeting a suicide bomber.

Hood’s film had the intensity of an intimate stage drama, and it was comforting (if naïve) to imagine that the civilian/military chain of command actually might ponder such consequences. At the end of the day, though, Eye in the Sky — however provocative — remains a mere philosophical exercise, because it’s fictitious. 

That’s not the case with Official Secrets. 

Hood’s newest film isn’t merely a depiction of actual events; it illuminates an impressively brave act that should be a humiliating footnote in this country’s reckless 2003 invasion of Iraq. Instead, the incident is all but unknown on this side of the pond … which, frankly, is shameful.

It made far more noise in England, where — to this day — people debate whether Katharine Gun is an honorable patriot on par with our own Daniel Ellsberg … or a traitor to her country.

That should be enough to get you into a movie theater. Better still, Hood and his co-scripters — Gregory and Sara Bernstein, adapting Marcia and Thomas Mitchell’s nonfiction book, The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War — have crafted their film with the clever precision of a multi-act suspense thriller.

Somewhere toward the middle, you’ll begin to wonder: How the hell could we not have known about this?

Add a terrific ensemble cast of top-notch British actors, and you couldn’t ask for more.

The LEGO Batman Movie: A delightfully sassy genre mash-up

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.17

This film doesn’t merely break the fourth wall; that invisible structure between viewer and on-screen action is virtually shattered ... into thousands of little LEGO bricks.

When newly minted Gotham City Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon suggests teaming
up with Batman, the resolutely lone-wolf vigilante is at a loss for words ... but only
brieftly. His answer: "No."

Rarely have a genre, franchise and stable of characters so cheekily, hilariously and relentlessly indulged in winking, nudging and self-parody. In its own gleefully warped way, this may be the best big-screen Batman movie ever made. It’s certainly the funniest and most consistently entertaining.

That said, the approach taken here by director Chris McKay — and a veritable army of scripters — is vastly different than the gentler touch that characterized 2014’s The LEGO Movie. That first film charmed audiences, in great part, because of its unexpected innocence and sense of discovery: a tone that was essential to the story’s climactic “surprise reveal.”

The first film also was instructive, in the sense of establishing its LEGO universe, the structural rules therein, and the unexpected quest that gave humble construction worker Emmet Brickowoski his opportunity for greatness.

This sequel takes all that for granted ... meaning, for starters, that you’d better already know the significance of being a “master builder.” More to the point, aside from the chuckles constantly prompted by the brick-y look of these characters and their surroundings, McKay and his writers don’t really exploit the “LEGO-ness” to any significant degree; this film probably would have been just as much fun in any animation style.

The first film was more intimate, at an individual brick level, which made it rather sweet. This sequel is more cinematic, operating on a much larger scale that frequently obscures its LEGO qualities.

Instead, the story gets its momentum from colorful pizzazz, warp-speed editing, self-referential gags, bad puns and an irreverent sense of humor: all qualities that I’d expect from an animation director who made his rep on snarky Adult Swim TV shows such as Robot Chicken and Titan Maximum.

The result is akin to a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feature, if mocking commentators Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot and Gypsy were, themselves, part of the film they were dissing.

On top of which, this film’s primary story credit goes to novelist Seth Grahame-Smith, who was responsible for the genre-mangling mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. About which, no more need be said.

Kubo and the Two Strings: An enchanting fable

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and scary moments
By Derrick Bang

It’s extraordinarily difficult to replicate the look, atmosphere and ambiance of an entirely difficult culture, and yet the Oregon-based Laika animation studio has done just that, with Kubo and the Two Strings.

With a rather large monster preparing to stomp and/or devour them, Kubo is stunned into
temporary immobility. Fortunately, Monkey and Beetle are better prepared for action ... as
also is true of the tiny origami samurai warrior perched on Kubo's shoulder.

Director Travis Knight and a trio of writers — Shannon Tindle, Marc Haimes and Chris Butler — have concocted what feels like an authentic Japanese folk tale, laced with fantastic characters and a little boy who is, himself, a purveyor of stories. The stop-motion animation style will be recognized by fans who adored previous Laika efforts, such as Coraline and ParaNorman, but in this case with an added twist: This new film’s look is inspired by origami and classic Japanese woodblock printing.

The action takes place in a colorful realm of rough-hewn sawtooth patterns, strong linear striations and bold but simple colors, all inspired by the work of woodblock masters such as Kiyoshi Saito and Katsushika Hokusai. The resulting texture — the apparent “feel” of the images — is truly lovely, and unlike anything else we’ve seen from today’s panoply of animation studios.

But of course style cannot be paramount; it must serve the story. That’s absolutely the case here, as we quickly become immersed in an otherworldly narrative with the mythic authenticity of a Hayao Miyazaki fable.

“If you must blink, do it now,” we’re cautioned, as this saga begins. “If you look away, even for an instant, then our hero will surely perish.”

Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a popular street urchin who lives near a fishing village in ancient Japan, and survives by enchanting townspeople with wild tales of samurai warriors and mythical creatures, all brought to life via origami figures created magically when he plays a guitar-like shamisen. The coins collected are sufficient to buy food and meager supplies for both Kubo and his mother; they live in a cave on a high cliff that overlooks the vast ocean.

Kubo’s mother slips in and out of awareness, suffering from trances that are governed by the rising and setting of the moon. This condition has persisted ever since the perilous ocean journey that brought her and the then-infant Kubo to this land. Worse yet, the boy is missing his left eye, the orb — we’re told — having been plucked out by his grandfather, the evil Moon King (Ralph Fiennes).

During her cognizant moments, Kubo’s mother speaks lovingly of her absent husband, a warrior who lost his life defending his family from the Moon King. And more than anything else, she cautions, Kubo must never, ever linger outside after dark.

A Bigger Splash: Only a ripple

A Bigger Splash (2015) • View trailer 
3 stars. Rated R, for graphic nudity, strong sexual content, frequent profanity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

A sun-dappled Mediterranean island, four attractive people, an uneasy romantic quadrangle linked in all sorts of directions ... the ingredients are ideal for a dreamy, sexually charged romp.

With this quartet — from left, Penelope (Dakota Johnson), Harry (Ralph Fiennes),
Marianne (Tilda Swinton) and Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) — a walk to the beach is far
from blissful. The interpersonal tension is palpable, and it only gets worse with time.

At first blush, Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash delivers on that promise. We meet rock superstar Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) and documentary filmmaker Paul De Smedt (Matthias Schoenaerts) as they enjoy a blissfully average day on the volcanic island of Pantelleria, off the coast of Sicily. They make passionate love in the pool of their luxurious vacation home, then — dressed only minimally — head for the warm delights of a beach that routinely attracts many of the island’s other residents.

She’s on an extended sabbatical, recovering from a throat injury that has left her unable to speak in more than a husky whisper. He works on projects as he can, but mostly tends to her every need. The bond is intense; they’re obviously devoted to each other.

Alas, their peaceful solitude is about to be interrupted. Nay, not just interrupted: rent asunder. Scripter David Kajganich (adapting a story by Alain Page) muddies these luxurious waters, and that’s a problem: The further we get into this self-indulgently long film, the less interesting and more tedious it becomes.

Along with just plain odd. After a lengthy set-up that is no more than relationship angst, Guadagnino and Kajganich abruptly switch gears, with a final act that’s procedural crime drama. Which is unexpected, to say the least.

And not really justified by what comes before.

Kajganich’s script is “inspired” by French filmmaker Jacques Deray’s 1969 “New Wave” classic La Piscine. That’s all well and good, but Deray had a much better handle on the undercurrent of illicit intent that fueled third-act events. Guadagnino and Kajganich are much too leisurely, their approach too vague, to justify their unexpected shift in tone.

Hail, Caesar! — A block, a stone, a worse than senseless thing

Hail, Caesar! (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for mildly suggestive content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.16

A new Coen brothers film usually is cause for celebration.

Not this time.

Capitol Pictures studio head Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) has just learned that his
water ballet star, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), is pregnant. She's also
unmarried: a potentially juicy scandal waiting to be scooped up by hovering
Hollywood gossip columnists.

Hail, Caesar! is a classic study of wretched excess: a labored, overcooked, star-heavy production that isn’t nearly as funny as everybody seems to think.

I’m reminded of Steven Spielberg’s 1941, also a bloated period comedy made at a point when the then-young director thought he could do no wrong. It, too, is an overwrought mess that mostly wastes the talents of a cast that was impressive for its time.

Spielberg’s 1941 attempted to mine humor from a WWII-era storyline that proposed a Japanese submarine invasion off the California coast. Hail, Caesar!, set in Hollywood during the “nifty fifties” — when, terrified by the arrival of television, the motion picture industry’s glorious façade was beginning to show visible cracks — attempts to mine humor from (among other things) a Communist submarine invasion off the California coast.

A moment which, it must be mentioned, climaxes the film’s most protracted and thoroughly inane subplot.

At its core, though, the Coen brothers’ script is a day-in-the-life study of Hollywood studio chief Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), who confronts various crises — large and small — during a typical 24 hours. His soundstages are laden with sets and stars for numerous films in various stages of production, and all are typical of the time period:

• A sophisticated drawing room melodrama, where disgruntled, mildly prissy director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) has just been saddled with corn-pone singing cowboy star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) as his new young protagonist;

• A sailors-at-sea musical, with song-and-dance superstar Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) channeling Gene Kelly;

• A waterlogged, Busby Berkeley-style extravaganza, headlined by swimming sensation DeeAnna Moran (Scarlet Johansson); and, most particularly...

• A biblical epic featuring famed studio leading man Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), as a Roman centurion who undergoes a moral conversion after encountering no less than Jesus himself.

SPECTRE: Return of the über-villain

SPECTRE (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.6.15

This likely is obvious, but it bears mention anyway: Christoph Waltz was born to be a Bond villain.

That chilling insouciance. That monomaniacal smile. That calm air of authority and indifference. The utter certainty that nothing — and nobody — could stand in his way.

After having knocked Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) almost senseless, the unstoppable Hinx
(Dave Bautista, center) does his best to batter Bond (Daniel Craig) and hurl him to his
death from a speeding train.

Waltz’s Oberhauser is sinister.

His interrogation/torture scene here with Daniel Craig’s James Bond is the best — the most memorably macabre — since Auric Goldfinger responded to Sean Connery’s nervous “Do you expect me to talk?” with a mildly vexed “No, Mr. Bond; I expect you to die!”

SPECTRE represents the fruition of simmering narrative plans that have been in play since the Bond franchise was so cleverly re-booted with Craig’s introduction, in 2006’s Casino Royale. The tip-off comes during this new film’s opening credits, as fleeting glimpses of characters from the previous three films waft in and out of Daniel Kleinman’s sleek and sexy visuals.

(Just in passing, Kleinman finally nailed the tone established by the masterful title sequences designed and choreographed so well by the late, great Maurice Binder. The main difference: Kleinman’s are creepier. Which isn’t a bad thing.)

With respect to foreshadowing, longtime fans know that we’ve been here before. Connery’s Bond spent several films dealing with villains set into motion by a  Machiavellian figure silhouetted at the head of an enormous boardroom table, recognized only by the fluffy white cat snuggled into his lap.

Indeed, an early scene in SPECTRE knowingly references just such a sequence from 1965’s Thunderball ... although this update has a more tempestuous outcome.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Grandly chaotic

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.21.14

This one’s hard to categorize.

On the one hand, and perhaps most visibly, Wes Anderson’s newest opus is a madcap farce populated by eccentric and oddly polite characters who hearken back to those found within West London’s famed Ealing Studios comedies, during the late 1940s and early ’50s.

With the police hot on their heels, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes, left) and his faithful
junior lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori), frantically try to figure out where to hide a
priceless Renaissance painting that they have, ah, liberated.

On the other hand, it’s a droll send-up of Agatha Christie mysteries, with suspicious butlers, nosy maids and assorted other shady and avaricious characters, all of them anxious about the contents of a will that keeps throwing up codicils, riders, supplements, postscripts and assorted other appendices, possibly even superseded by the second copy of a second will.

On the third hand, it’s an affectionate ode to an era of more civilized behavior, when traveling strangers regaled each other with fascinating tall tales while enjoying a sumptuous meal; and when courting lovers exchanged passionate letters.

Then, too, there’s an affectionate nod to Inception, with its nested narratives.

And, last but certainly not least, however we choose to define this unapologetically zany melodrama, it most certainly could have come only from the eccentric imagination of director Wes Anderson ... and perhaps that’s the only explanation that matters.

Anderson’s films take place within a fanciful universe of his creation: one slightly off-center from our own, with occasionally familiar cultural landmarks that merely add to the gently bizarre atmosphere, laced with characters who deliver crucial soliloquies and peculiar non-sequitors with equal aplomb, and always with resolutely straight faces.

No character ever laughs at something said by another; at best, the speaker might get a raised eyebrow that Signifies A Great Deal.

In short, Anderson’s films are strange. Very strange, and definitely an acquired taste. I generally swing toward admiration, but not always; his previous outing, Moonrise Kingdom, is a thorough delight ... but I almost couldn’t make it through The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

This one falls somewhere in between, leaning more heavily toward the wacky delights of Moonrise Kingdom. Anderson has concocted the script with co-conspirator Hugo Guinness, claiming inspiration from pre-code 1930s Hollywood comedies and the stories and memoirs of Viennese author Stefan Zweig (!).

Avid film fans with a fondness for old-style filmmaking technique likely will have a ball. Mainstream viewers who casually wander into the theater will be convinced, after only 15 minutes, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

And, to be fair, they won’t be wrong.

The Invisible Woman: What the Dickens?

The Invisible Woman (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: R, and quite ludicrously, for mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.17.14

Consider the irony: Actor/director Ralph Fiennes’ new film about Charles Dickens, a storytelling craftsman, is undone by a maddeningly clumsy script.

During a late-night social gathering, Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) entertains the
guests by hypnotizing Frances Ternan (Kristin Scott Thomas, far left), much to the
delight of her daughers, from left, Nelly (Felicity Jones) and Maria (Perdita Weeks).
Nelly, however, is far more captivated by Dickens himself, than by his little party trick.

However authentic the 19th century setting, however lavish the costumes, however fascinating that so many of the English estates and countryside settings seem not to have changed, it remains impossible to become involved with this narrative. Abi Morgan’s screenplay is slow, difficult to follow, and needlessly enigmatic. Essential details are glossed over or rendered so subtly as to be overlooked.

Morgan already has demonstrated an unconventional approach to biographical material; her screenplay for The Iron Lady was less about Margaret Thatcher, and more about the nature of grief, and the cruelty of old age. Viewers wanting to learn something about the career that shaped and defined Thatcher walked away disappointed; folks are likely to do the same after enduring Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman.

The title refers to Ellen (Nelly) Ternan, who in 1857, at the age of 18, came to the attention of Dickens during a Manchester performance of The Frozen Deep, a play that he had co-written with his good friend Wilkie Collins. Nelly and her two older sisters, Maria and Fanny, were at that time following in the acting footsteps of their mother, Frances Ternan, who had achieved modest fame on the London stage.

Dickens, then 45, was married and the father of nine children. He nonetheless fell in love with Nelly, an arrangement that her mother likely “tolerated” both because of the celebrated author’s stature, and because her youngest daughter had scant acting talent. Besides which, Victorian-era actresses generally were regarded as only one short step above prostitutes ... so it could be argued that Nelly didn’t have much of a reputation to protect.

But Dickens did. Despite the very public manner in which he disavowed his wife and mother of their many children — publishing a letter in his own magazine, Household Words, which blamed her for their estrangement — he nonetheless managed to keep his relationship with Nelly below public (and press) radar.

Dickens and Nelly remained lovers and companions until the author’s death in 1870, at which point — and here’s the fascinating part — the 31-year-old Nelly, still looking quite youthful, “re-invented” herself as a much younger woman. While staying with her sister Maria in Oxford, she caught the eye of an undergraduate named George Wharton. They eventually married — he was 24, she a clandestine 36 — and settled in Margate, where they had two children and ran a boys’ school.

When anybody asked about her unusually extensive library of Dickens’ works, she’d claim that the author had been a family friend when she was a little girl.

(One assumes that Nelly eventually confessed at least part of the truth to her husband, when her advancing age became more obvious, and at a point when their relationship could have withstood the revelation.)

Skyfall: Shaken and stirred!

Skyfall (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense action sequences, sensuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.9.12

Daniel Craig’s stint as James Bond has been about rebirth and re-invention, and Skyfall is no different, albeit with an intriguing twist: It feels more like John Le Carre than Ian Fleming.

Somehow, Daniel Craig's James Bond, left, always seems to wind up tied to a chair,
and forced to listen as the villain — in this case, Javier Bardem's Silva — shares his
nasty plans. But this is no ordinary villain, and Silva has no intention of destroying the
world's economy, or igniting a war with Russia or China. This maniac's mission is much
more personal, and it'll cut to the very core of Britain's venerable intelligence agency.

As also was the case with Casino Royale, things get personal.

The formula seems the same at the outset, with an audacious, action-laced pre-credits teaser set in Istanbul, which finds Bond and a fellow field agent (plucky Naomie Harris, as Eve) in hot pursuit of a baddie who has ambushed some MI6 colleagues and stolen a vitally important computer hard drive. First on foot, then in cars and motorcycles, and finally atop a moving train, Bond relentlessly pursues this fellow, ultimately with the assistance of a backhoe (!), all to an exhilarating orchestral score from composer Thomas Newman.

Then, at the climactic moment ... things take an unexpected turn.

And not just in terms of plot, as the scripting trio — returning scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (their fifth 007 epic), allied with Oscar-nominated playwright John Logan (The Aviator, Hugo) — moves the narrative into increasingly un-Bondian waters. Director Sam Mendes gradually shifts the tone as well, utilizing the obligatory exotic locals as a means of moving the action from London to Scotland — the long way around — for a stripped-down third act very much akin to his masterful 2002 adaptation of The Road to Perdition.

An unusual approach, for our big-screen imbiber of cocktails shaken, not stirred? Indeed. But there’s a reason for the madness concocted by Mendes and his writing team: an artistic flourish that suitably honors this 50th anniversary outing in cinema’s longest-running continuous franchise. (Dr. No opened in London on Oct. 5, 1962.)

There’s also plenty of madness elsewhere, in the form of Silva: an adversary who stands among the most memorable of Bondian megalomaniacs, and is brought to chilling life by Javier Bardem. And if we see a bit of his horrific Anton Chigurh, from No Country for Old Men, that’s probably no accident.

Bond villains too frequently have felt like pretend scoundrels with fancy dress and fancier accents — particularly during the spoof-laden Roger Moore years — but Bardem’s Silva is the real deal. His introductory soliloquy on the feral nature of trapped rats probably is the best scene-stealing debut ever granted any Bond baddie, and Bardem sells the moment masterfully.

And this fellow isn’t out to rule the world; he merely wants revenge.

For what, precisely? Ah, therein lies the tale.