She Dances: Plenty of the right moves

She Dances (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for fleeting profanity and some drug references

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

This is a Wince During The First Half And Pray For A Reasonably Happy Outcome movie.

 

I don’t mean that in a bad way. Director/co-writer Rick Gomez’s feature debut is a frequently charming little character drama, which depicts the often embarrassing struggle of an estranged father and his teenage daughter trying to re-connect, after a tragedy ripped the family apart.

 

As Claire (Audrey Zahn, left) and Kat (Mackenzie Ziegler) look on with mounting
dismay, a flummoxed Jason (Steve Zahn) discovers that his intended hotel room
upgrade has misfired in a devastating way.

The film also features a noteworthy acting debut by dancer/choreographer Audrey Zahn, working here with her father Steve Zahn, playing — you guessed it — the aforementioned daughter and father.

This seems to have become something of a thing. Ethan Hawke directed his daughter Maya in 2023’s Wildcat; and Ewan McGregor and daughter Clara played a similarly estranged family unit in that same year’s Bleeding Love.

 

This new film is considerably better McGregor’s effort, and for several reasons. The situation is more relatable; Gomez’s touch is gentler, and at times quite funny; and the script — by Gomez and Steve Zahn — grants everybody plenty of persuasively awkward moments that’ll likely feel familiar to many viewers.

 

Kat (Audrey Zahn) has spent her entire life dancing, both for joy and in competition. Her bedroom is filled with ribbons and trophies, and everything has built up to the impending Southern Regional Dance Finals. Kat lives with her mother Deb (Rosemarie DeWitt); her long-unseen father Jason (Steve Zahn) parted following their divorce.

 

The plan was for Deb to take her daughter and longtime partner/BFF Kat (Mackenzie Ziegler) to the competition, but a last-minute emergency demands Deb’s presence elsewhere. With no other options — although Claire initially views this as a non-starter — Deb calls Jason and asks him to step in. Claire still is 17, and the rules require her to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

 

“It’ll be perfect,” Deb insists.

 

“It’ll be perfectly imperfect,” Claire snaps back.

 

Due to the sort of coincidence that often lurks in stories of this nature, Jason and longtime business partner and best friend Brian (Ethan Hawke) are in the midst of negotiating the sale of their popular Two Jack Bourbon business. Immediately recognizing the importance of this opportunity, Brian insists that the astonished Jason doesn’t pass it up.

 

Zahn’s wavering expressions, over this wholly unexpected turn of events, speak volumes: Jason is surprised, pleased, worried and — most of all — terrified ... particularly because he can tell, over the phone, that Claire isn’t wild about the idea. He hasn’t spent quality time with her for years, and hasn’t the faintest idea how to relate to her.

 

Then, too, the long-ago tragedy hovers over everything.

 

Uncle Frank: One of the year's best

Uncle Frank (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.27.20 

I haven’t been this nervous since Anne Hathaway reached for the microphone, in 2008’s Rachel Getting Married.

 

Although she has adored him her entire life, Beth (Sophia Lillis) begins to realize that
there's a lot more to her Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany) than he reveals to most people.

Writer/director Alan Ball’s Uncle Frank — an Amazon Prime original — is a deeply personal and sensitively handled character study, brought to life by an excellent ensemble cast headed by Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis and Peter Macdissi. Ball deftly walks the razor’s edge that often separates comedy from tragedy, delicately developing circumstances that set up a third-act revelation/confrontation that raises our anxiety to the screaming level.

 

We know an emotional train wreck is coming.

 

A lengthy prologue — set in 1969, in tiny Creekville, S.C. — introduces the Bledsoe clan during a rowdy birthday party for elderly patriarch Daddy Mac (Stephen Root). Three generations are present: Daddy Mac, his wife Mammaw (Margo Martindale) and Aunt Butch (Lois Smith); adult children Frank (Bettany), Neva (Jane McNeill) and Mike (Steve Zahn); the latter two’s respective spouses, Beau (Burgess Jenkins) and Kitty (Judy Greer); and a rambunctious passel of grandkids.

 

Fourteen-year-old Beth (Lillis) stands out as a quiet observer, keenly attuned to the moods of others. Alas, she isn’t quick enough to prevent an irate Daddy Mac from explosively chewing out the younger kids: an eyebrow-raising moment that reveals a truly nasty temper.

 

We also don’t notice Frank right away; like Beth, he seems somehow removed from the noisy celebration. The exchange of gifts reveals a guarded dynamic between Frank and his unpleasant father. We assume it’s the former’s outsider status; unlike everybody else in the room, Frank long ago left Creekville for the Big Apple, where he has become a revered literature professor at New York University (NYU).

 

Frank escaped the vicious cycle of high school pregnancies that trap Creekville 16-year-olds into a lifetime of drudge jobs: a fate he hopes Beth also can avoid. He’s her favorite adult: the only one who treats her like a person, and not a child, listening attentively to her every word. But she fears her limited options, given family circumstances.

 

Don’t settle for who people expect you to become, he advises; become who you want to be.

 

That sentiment caps an achingly sweet and poignant chat on the porch, an entire world removed from the noisy clan on the other side of the wall: staged by Ball with carefully nuanced sensitivity, and delivered with touching persuasiveness by Bettany and Lillis.

 

This film is bookended by an older Beth’s off-camera narration, much in the manner of the adult Scout, in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird. (A bit later, Ball cheekily has Beth admit that Harper Lee is one of her favorite authors.)

 

Captain Fantastic: A thoughtful modern parable

Captain Fantastic (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and occasional chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.22.16

Cannes winners can be obtuse, maddeningly weird and deadly dull; this is, after all, the film festival that bestowed a Palme d’Or upon 2011’s execrable Tree of Life.

Ben (Viggo Mortensen, center) and four of his children — from left, Bo (George MacKay),
Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton, partly obscured), Vespyr (Annalise Basso) and Kielyr
(Samantha Isler) — gather their most recent homemade craft goods, in anticipation of
a routine visit to the nearest trading post.

On the other hand, other entries are quirky, imaginative and unexpectedly endearing, as is the case with Captain Fantastic, which took this year’s Un Certain Regard Directing Prize and was nominated for the overall Un Certain Regard Award.

Matt Ross is best known as a busy television actor with ongoing roles in eccentric shows such as American Horror Story and Silicon Valley; he occasionally moonlights as a filmmaker. His big-screen feature debut — 2012’s 28 Hotel Rooms — didn’t amount to much, but Captain Fantastic is guaranteed to change his career. Ross’ sensitively calculated script is matched by his delicate direction; he’s also blessed with an ensemble cast that rises to this quite unusual occasion.

I never cease to be amazed, having spent so much time studying our century-old film medium, by the continuing emergence of fresh stories told in captivating ways. “Captain Fantastic” is unconventional and challenging, to be sure; but it’s also poignant, shrewdly perceptive and a subtly critical statement of our times. That’s a lot of subtext for an idiosyncratic little indie, but Ross pulls it off.

Mostly because, at its core, this also is a story of the love and loyalty that bonds a family: something everybody can relate to.

Our introduction to Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his six children is unexpected, to say the least: all seven of them mud-smeared, in order to blend into forest foliage while stalking a deer. It’s a bloody rite of passage for eldest son Bo (George MacKay), who brings down the creature with a knife. Ross doesn’t shy from the gore.

Neither do any of Bo’s siblings, down to youngsters Zaja (Shree Crooks) and Nai (Charlie Shotwell), who revel equally in this feral ritual. The carcass is taken home, skinned and dressed by 15-year-old twins Vespyr and Kielyr (Annalise Basso and Samantha Isler). Everybody washes up and tackles assigned chores, later assembling for rigorous calisthenics and a grueling run through the woods.

Later, after night has fallen, they gather around a crackling fire, quietly reading weighty books on science (Jared Diamond) and philosophy (Noam Chomsky), or challenging fiction such as George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Somehow sensing when his children have had enough, Ben teases a quiet song on his guitar; Bo joins him. Twelve-year-old Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) displays a rebellious streak by inserting an aggressive drum beat; there’s a breathless moment, as his siblings wait to see how their father will handle this intrusion, but Ben smiles and modifies his own playing to follow the beat. The others, relieved, laugh and dance as the family makes music together.

The Good Dinosaur: Jurassic lark

The Good Dinosaur (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.27.15

Time and again, the folks at Pixar have demonstrated a talent for wildly imaginative, outside-the-box storytelling.

The secret lives of toys. The source of our nightmares, and our emotions. Superheroes with family and identity crises. The fate of a tiny, semi-sentient robot left alone to clean up a polluted Earth.

Arlo (far right) and his tiny "pet," Spot, find themselves in the middle of a range war, when
a trio of cattle ranchers led by Butch (second from left) take on a pack of rustling
velociraptors.

And now, perhaps, the best and biggest “what if” of all: What if that huge asteroid hadn’t hit Earth, roughly 65 million years ago?

According to Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, at least some of the massive saurians would have established an agrarian society, homesteading and raising families much like 19th century American settlers. Indeed, this whole narrative is a playful riff on classic Western archetypes, from the aforementioned farmers to nastier aggressors lurking in outlying regions, with an actual “cattle” round-up thrown in for good measure.

At the same time, traditional family values have been grafted onto dinosaurs, often with droll intent, in the time-honored fashion of countless earlier animated Disney films that have anthropomorphized everything from elephants to Dalmatians. Indeed, much about The Good Dinosaur feels less like “standard” Pixar fare — if there is such a thing — and more like the coming-of-age plot beats of traditional Disney animated storytelling.

Then there’s also the matter of the rather unusual “pet” nipping at the edges of everything else here: a narrative element likely to make ultra-conservative, man-is-the-center-of-everything types choke on their Cheerios.

If all this sounds like rather a lot for one film, well ... yes, that’s an issue. “The Good Dinosaur” feels a bit overcooked, and it lacks the tight focus that marks Pixar’s best films. I’m always wary of scripts credited to multiple authors, and this one acknowledges five writers — Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Meg LeFauve, Kelsey Mann and Bob Peterson — with Sohn also in the director’s chair.

At times, this saga doesn’t quite know how to find its legs, much like the title character.

Dallas Buyers Club: A smart investment

Dallas Buyers Club (2013) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity, strong sexual content, nudity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Some heroes are born. Others are made.

Kicking, screaming, scratching and spitting every step of the way.

Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey, right) initially reacts with knee-jerk contempt
when the cross-dressing Rayon (Jared Leto) offers to help establish a rather unusual
business model. Soon, though, "just business" grows into something a great deal
more profound.

Ron Woodroof’s unexpected saga wasn’t nearly as poetic or dramatically mesmerizing as is suggested in Jean-Marc Vallée’s new film, Dallas Buyers Club, but there’s no doubt that the real-life Woodroof was an unlikely champion for the disenfranchised, much the way Oskar Schindler found his calling during World War II.

Texas born-and-bred Woodroof was a hard-living, harder-drinking electrical contractor when he was blindsided by an HIV diagnosis in 1986, and given sixth months to live. (Vallée’s film shifts this life-changing moment to 1985, to tie the unfolding drama to Rock Hudson’s announcement, that July, that he had AIDS.)

Not one to blithely accept a death sentence, Woodroof went into the research tank and emerged a year later to found what became known as the Dallas Buyers Club: an underground source of drugs not approved by the FDA for use in the United States ... but, in many cases, legal in other countries and known to be helpful for HIV-positive patients, and those with full-blown AIDS.

Woodroof’s story, and the Dallas Buyers Club, were profiled in Bill Minutaglio’s compelling article in Dallas Life Magazine, published on Aug. 9, 1992. Woodroof died not quite a month later, on Sept. 12. During the seven years he ran his guerrilla drug network, there’s no question he helped prolong the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of desperately ill people ... just as he prolonged his own life.

Interesting, then, that we’ve waited two full decades for a film to be made about this feisty, foul-mouthed, oddly charismatic Texas renegade.

Vallée’s film is powered by a galvanic performance from Matthew McConaughey, who notoriously dropped 47 pounds in order to convincingly play the emaciated Woodroof. That’s obviously a drastic move, but it certainly lends considerable verisimilitude to what we see onscreen, just as Christian Bale’s similar weight-loss routine brought jaw-dropping realism to his portrayal of crack-addicted Dicky Eklund, in The Fighter.

But the intensity of McConaughey’s performance here derives from a great deal more than his painfully thin frame; he charges through this role with a level of desperation that matches his character’s angry struggle to stay alive. And anger is the right word, because Woodroof quickly comes to believe that the U.S. medical establishment is, at best, moving much too slowly to battle a disease primarily killing the nation’s “expendables”; or, at worst, actively conspiring with Big Pharma to develop and deliver piecemeal treatment in a manner designed solely to maximize profits.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days — More underdog hijinks

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.3.12

Few things are dependable in Hollywood, but the movie adaptations of Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid books are a welcome exception.

In an effort to impress Holly (Peyton List, right), Greg (Zachary Gordon,
center right) claims to know how to play tennis, much to the horror
of Rowley (Robert Capron), who knows full well that he and his friend
never have stepped onto a court before. The hateful Patty (Laine
MacNeil) knows this as well, and she looks forward to this fresh
opportunity to humiliate Greg.

Various filmmaking teams have hewed closely to the all-essential tone established in Kinney’s books. Additionally, the clever means of animating his books’ stick-figure artwork — for title credits, and as transitional segments between live-action escapades — further reassures fans that these characters are in good hands.

Indeed. They’re also in good acting hands, and this continuity is just as pleasant. Although different cute girls have wandered in and out of hapless Greg Heffley’s orbit — it’s a shame Chloë Grace Moretz’s career took off, because it would have been nice to see her character again — the rest of the cast members have been a refreshing constant.

Best of all, director David Bowers and the production team possess the wisdom to resist the numbnuts slapstick that infects far too many so-called “family films” these days. To be sure, Greg’s various misadventures are mildly exaggerated for comic effect, but nothing here seems wholly inconceivable. And while some adults are held up for ridicule, that’s mostly a function of the way kids view their parents, as opposed to an indictment of anybody over the age of consent.

With school having let out for the summer, Greg (Zachary Gordon) is looking forward to endless days parked in front of the family TV set, playing his beloved video games. Alas, his parents have other ideas; his father (Steve Zahn, as Frank), in particular, wants his middle son to be more of an outdoor type, like the sports-minded boys who live across the street.

This strikes Greg as the height of absurdity, since he is — by his own admission — hardly anybody’s idea of well-toned physicality. And, truthfully, Frank should know better; his fondness for spending hours painting Civil War miniatures isn’t any different than Greg’s devotion to video games. And if you think there’s a lesson to be learned here, you’re correct.

Initially, though, Greg and his father have nothing in common ... except their shared loathing of a sappy daily newspaper comic strip called “Li’l Cutie” ... which seems a case of Kinney making fun of his own artistic stylings.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules — These kids rule!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011) • View trailer for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.25.11


Jeff Kinney's clever and perceptive Wimpy Kid series made a thoroughly delightful transition to the big screen last year, when Diary of a Wimpy Kid became a well-deserved hit.

That was surprising enough, given the pitfalls waiting to trap unwary filmmakers who easily could have ruined the blend of line drawings and kid-oriented wisdom that made Kinney's book — and its several sequels — so popular with its target audience. (And — don't tell anybody! — with their parents.)

Surveying the aftermath of a party they weren't supposed to host in the first
place, Greg (Zachary Gordon, left) and older brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick)
are further horrified to learn that their parents will be home at any moment ...
which leaves precious little time to clean up the mess and conceal any
lingering evidence.

The even greater surprise is that the just-released sequel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, is every bit as charming as its predecessor. All involved avoided the temptation to which so many lesser filmmakers succumb, which results in a sophomore effort that's heavier on the cruel, property-damaging slapstick and lighter on the poignant story elements that touched viewers' hearts the first time around. (Think back to Home Alone and its more-was-less sequel.) Director David Bowers, making a solid live-action debut after cutting his teeth on the animated features Flushed Away and Astro Boy, wisely resists several opportunities to crank up the mayhem; the result feels just as real-world as the first film.

Which is crucial, of course, because the whole point of Kinney's books is that his readers identify so strongly with their protagonist. Damage that relationship, and any film adaptation would suffer.

Not that this new film isn't funny. Indeed, it's often hilarious, precisely because screenwriters Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah — closely following Kinney's template — play to all the adolescent-oriented catastrophes that give boys nightmares: not knowing how to approach the cute new girl in school, getting caught doing something dumb in a very public setting, and (oh, the horror!) accidentally winding up in a women's public restroom.

At its best, which is frequently, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules echoes the perfect blend of kid-size trauma and adult perspective that director Bob Clark brought to his adaptation of Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, so many years ago. You really couldn't ask for more.

Well, yes I could: It's also nice to see the entire cast return from the first film, particularly since everybody was so well suited to their roles. (Well ... everybody except Chloe Grace Moretz's Angie. But I guess you can't expect everything.)

Having survived the various catastrophes and angst-laden crises of his previous year, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) is relieved to enter the seventh grade, where he expects (hopes?) life will be less traumatic for him and best friend Rowley (Robert Capron). Not likely. Greg is still plagued by bratty, pig-tailed classroom nemesis Patty (Laine MacNeil) — the Margaret to Hank Ketchum's Dennis — and still suffers the geeky, weird behavior of tag-along Fregley (Grayson Russell). Plus, there's a new problem: a teacher who recognizes the Heffley name all too well, and immediately assumes that poor Greg is equally guilty by association.

The Great Buck Howard: Not so great

The Great Buck Howard (2008) • View trailer for The Great Buck Howard
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for mild profanity and a fleeting drug reference
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.20.09
Buy DVD: The Great Buck Howard • Buy Blu-Ray: The Great Buck Howard [Blu-ray]

Indie films come in a wild variety of flavors; that's what makes them so interesting. You simply never know what to expect.

Some are ultra-low-budget guerrilla productions, fueled by little more than raw determination and funded by maxed-out credit cards; El Mariachi and The Blair Witch Project would fit into this group. Regardless of the quality of the finished product, you can't help admiring the audacity of all involved, and the fact that their films got made and released at all.

Troy (Colin Hanks, center left) watches with interest as fading stage mentalist
Buck Howard (John Malkovich, center) checks his TV coverage with his agent,
Gil (Ricky Jay), to see whether he might have a chance to claw his way back
into the big time.

Others, at the opposite end of the spectrum, possess the better funding and A-list stars that we'd often expect from a Hollywood studio production. The only real difference seems to be the comparative modesty of the project itself: a generally quiet script and concept that lack the juice liable to attract enough attention in the cinema marketplace.

The Great Buck Howard belongs to the latter group. Once upon a time, this would have been a B-film perched at the bottom half of a double-feature: an opportunity for name talent to try something a little different.

Sean McGinly's little film is impressively mounted, with top-drawer production values. The opening credits sequence is extremely clever: an early indication that a lot of care and love went into what we're about to watch.

Unfortunately, despite its poignant premise, McGinly's film is very, very slow, his directorial hand so gently employed that he risks putting audiences to sleep just as effectively as the title character's hypnotism act. Even when people get annoyed with each other here, they do so placidly, as if everybody had popped a few Valiums before hitting the set each day.

Our young protagonist, Troy Gable (Colin Hanks), is introduced as he bolts from law school, finally compelled to act on the conviction that he'd never be happy as a lawyer. With vague ideas of becoming a writer, but aware of the need for a steady paycheck in the meanwhile, Troy accepts the obviously questionable position of dogsbody for fading mentalist Buck Howard (John Malkovich).

Although something of a celebrity back in the day — Buck repeatedly boasts that he appeared 61 times on TV's The Tonight Show, when Johnny Carson was host — the limelight has dimmed. These days, Buck is reduced to playing dilapidated theaters in cities such as Bakersfield and Akron, Ohio: the stage mentalism equivalent of old-time stand-up comics who once prowled the Borscht Belt.

Oddly enough, though, Buck doesn't seem to mind. He genuinely enjoys interacting with a sparse audience primarily composed of post-retirement fans; they, in turn, tolerate the sidebar portions of his act, as when he sits at the piano, every evening, to croon a wincingly awful rendition of "What the World Needs Now Is Love."