Mickey 17: One heckuva ride!

Mickey 17 (2025) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.9.25

This is science-fiction cinema at its finest.

 

Director/scripter Bong Joon Ho’s mesmerizing adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel has it all: a fascinating premise, solid characters, a persuasively chilling future, a tone that veers from brutally horrifying to macabre, and scathing social commentary.

 

One Mickey too many? Two "expendables" (both Robert Pattinson) are sent on a suicide
mission, in an effort to do something about the inhospitable elements on the faraway
planet of Niflheim.

That is, after all, science-fiction’s primary mission: to employ a high-tech backdrop as a means of calling out contemporary society’s failings.

And goodness, but we’ve been failing a lot lately.

 

Ho’s film hits the ground running, as the hapless Mickey (Robert Pattinson) struggles to awareness after having fallen into a deep, icy cavern. His stream-of-consciousness ramblings sound defeated and resigned.

 

Then, the overhead roar of engines; a figure appears atop the fissure. Timo (Steven Yeun) peers over the edge ... but instead of assisting, he rappels down just far enough to retrieve Mickey’s futuristic weapon, and then returns to his ship. This leaves Mickey to a fate that becomes even more dire, when weird, many-legged beasties burst into the cavern.

 

Okay, this isn’t Earth.

 

While praying for a fast death, rather than being devoured bit by bit, Mickey recalls what brought him to this fate.

 

We flash back four years and change. The year is 2054. Mickey and Timo have unwisely crossed a nasty loan shark; they’re given four days to replay the loan ... or else.

 

Mickey — a forlorn nebbish who has resigned himself to loser status — impulsively decides to leave the planet; Timo does the same.

 

That proves possible, thanks to a mission being mounted by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a former congressman and failed two-time presidential candidate. Earth has become increasingly inhospitable, and — with the financial backing of a right-wing religious order — Marshall has become the public face of a voyage to the distant planet Niflheim, where a “righteous” new colony will be established.

 

Naïve, wide-eyed true believers line up by the hundreds, most sporting logo caps and flashing uniform salutes. Mickey fills out a form, and — not realizing the significance of this detail — signs up to become an “expendable.”

 

“Are you sure?” the receptionist asks, warily.

 

Why not? It’s not as if Mickey has amounted to anything up to this point.

 

Juror #2: Motion to find this drama engaging!

Juror #2 (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

Available via: MAX

By Derrick Bang

Twisty courtroom thrillers have been scarce lately, and this one’s a corker.

 

Jonathan A. Abrams’ sharp script — an impressive screenwriting debut — is well matched with director Clint Eastwood’s capably measured approach. The first half hour sets up expectations of a feisty battle between prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) and defense attorney Eric Resnick (Chris Messina), possibly moving into 12 Angry Men territory, involving a lone hold-out during jury deliberations.

 

Justin (Nicholas Hoult, second from left in the front row) soon realizes that he likely knows
more than the rest of his fellow jurors. They include Harold (J.K. Simmons, two seats to
Justin's left.)

But no. Abrams’ plot is more twisty ... and while he does include a nod to that famous 1954 Reginald Rose stage play-turned-film, things move in unexpected directions.

The setting is Savannah, Georgia. Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), a recovering alcoholic four years sober, writes for a regional lifestyle magazine. He’s married to Allison (Zoey Deutch), nine months into a high-risk pregnancy, after previous efforts failed. She’s understandably anxious and clinging, and the last thing she wants is for Justin to get tagged after showing up for a jury summons.

 

Their initial dynamic feels brittle, which Hoult and Deutch handle persuasively. She’s a fragile mess, and he’s patient and solicitous to an exaggerated degree. It becomes clear that, just as Allison doesn’t want to do anything to screw up her pregnancy, Justin doesn’t want to betray the second chance that she gave him, four years earlier.

 

Justin does indeed get selected, after an amusing exchange with Judge Thelma Hollub (Amy Aquino, always solid). It’s a murder trial, with James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso) accused of killing his girlfriend, Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood), after a nasty spat at The Hideaway, their favorite bar. 

 

As recounted in flashback — by several witnesses — a few details change, Rashomon-style. Even so, the core events seem solid: Sythe and Carter argued, and he broke a bottle; they continued to yell at each other outside, in the pouring rain; she left in a huff, walking down the darkened road; after a brief pause, he got into his car and followed her.

 

A hiker found Carter’s body the next morning, in a creek channel beneath a bridge along the same road.

 

Killebrew builds a solid case, based primarily on Sythe’s sketchy history and longtime aggressive behavior. But as Resnick subsequently points out, nobody saw his client kill Carter; the evidence is entirely circumstantial. As a sidebar, Killebrew has tied this case to her election campaign for district attorney; she can’t lose. This adds an unsavory note to Collette’s performance, as we wonder whether Killebrew’s judgment is compromised.

Nightmare Alley: Not worth a visit

Nightmare Alley (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.17.21

Mid-20th century touring carnivals, by their very nature, seem … well … sordid.

 

Squalid. Uneasily unpleasant, as if something nasty is happening in the tent around the corner.

 

Although Molly (Rooney Mara) is instinctively wary around charismatic carnival newcomer
Stan (Bradley Cooper), his charm and aw-shucks persistence eventually wear her down.
Which isn't good news...

No surprise, such an environment proved alluring to director Guillermo del Toro.

Nightmare Alley began life as a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham (who, rather disturbingly, in 1962 committed suicide — via sleeping pills — in the same hotel room where he had written the first draft). Dashing Hollywood star Tyrone Power, looking for something meatier than the romantic and adventure roles for which he had become famous, persuaded 20th Century Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck to buy the rights for him.

 

The resulting film was rushed into production and hit theaters the following year; alas, nobody wanted to see Power play such a morally tainted character, and the movie also endured considerable bad publicity — and moral outrage — due to the story’s squalid elements (quite strong, for the time).

 

History has been much kinder; it’s now regarded as one of the era’s finest film noir entries … a reputation del Toro’s remake hasn’t a chance of attaining.

 

Granted, this new adaptation looks terrific; production designer Tamara Deverell and cinematographer Dan Lausten persuasively establish the late Depression era, down to the grime and foulness; and an atmosphere of impending dread hovers over the carnival setting like a shroud.

 

The performances are uniformly strong, and the characters are riveting, with most of them displaying various shades of corruption. It’s also nice to see del Toro and co-scripter Kim Morgan retain Gresham’s grim conclusion. (The 1947 version “softened” the ending, which is that film’s sole flaw.)

 

Alas, del Toro’s pacing is lethargic and ponderous to a degree that ruins everything.

 

The Los Angeles Times recently ran an article titled “Are movies too long?,” and this one’s a poster child for a resounding yes. The 1947 version knew when to get off the stage; it’s a just-right 111 minutes. Del Toro’s remake is a butt-numbing 150 minutes, with nothing to show for such expansion. Indeed, the additional length actually works against the story’s atmosphere and suspense.

 

That’s a shame, because all concerned otherwise do their best, and the classic elements are in place. Every true noirrequires a louse; a very, very, very bad gal; a second, usually trusting and naïve woman whose virtue will be compromised; and assorted sidebar characters of dubious moral quality.

Dream Horse: A crowd-pleasing winner

Dream Horse (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.28.21 

Nothing beats the triumphant emotional rush of a well-crafted underdog story.

 

Except, perhaps, an under-horse story.

 

Particularly one based quite closely on actual events.

 

You just can't beat the excitement of birth, as Jan (Toni Collette) and Brian (Owen Teale)
discover, when their new foal enters the world.

Welsh director Euros Lyn’s Dream Horse is the feel-good film of spring: a timely reminder of the amazing things that can be accomplished when people unite for a common cause. Scripter Neil McKay, gifted with an already incredible true story, has populated these events with the sort of quirky, colorful, small-town residents and eccentrics who pop up in whimsical dramedies such as Gregory’s Girl, The Closer You Get and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

That many of Lyn’s actors are portraying real people, is the icing on the cake.

 

The time is just before the turn of the 21st century, the setting the depressed hamlet of Cefn Fforest in South Wales, fallen on hard times since the closure of its nearby mines. The indefatigable Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) rises at dawn every morning, in order to wash the floors and then work register at a local mega-market; in the evenings, she tends bar at a workingmen’s club.

 

In between, somehow, she looks after her elderly parents and her arthritic husband, Brian (Owen Teale). In her free time (!), as a lifelong animal lover, she raises rabbits, whippets, ducks and even prize-winning pigeons.

 

One evening, she chances to hear a conversation led by club patron Howard Davies (Damian Lewis), while he waxes eloquent about the trials and tribulations — and expense — of raising race horses. Captivated by the notion, despite its complete impracticality, Jan immerses herself in horse lore and pumps Howard for additional information.

 

Fully aware that she’d never be able to buy a racing thoroughbred, Jan opts for the alternative of creating one, by purchasing an undistinguished mare for £300 and installing it in a makeshift stable in her garden. But breeding and then training a racehorse will require much, much more money.

 

Her solution: to enlist the financial support of local townsfolk, via a co-ownership syndicate. On the appointed evening — having mounted and distributed flyers throughout the community — Jan, Brian and Howard nervously wait for somebody to arrive.

 

They ultimately wind up with a motley collection of 23 villagers, each of whom agrees to contribute £10 per week, in service of this wild scheme. Several of these individuals are unemployed and on the dole; others barely make ends meet in their own small businesses. But all are inspired by Jan’s passion, and by the tantalizing notion — however unlikely — of raising and then racing a champion horse.

Stowaway: Clever riff on a classic sci-fi dilemma

Stowaway (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-MA, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.21

Math is unyielding.

 

No matter how desperate the circumstances, no matter how dire the situation, math won’t suddenly offer a more promising result.

 

While Michael (Shamier Anderson, far left) watches nervously, Commander Barnett
(Toni Colette, far right) clarifies their mission's implacable resource limitations to
Zoe (Anna Kendrick) and David (Daniel Dae Kim).

Writer/director Joe Penna’s absorbing Stowaway — a Netflix original — is Tom Godwin’s “Cold Equations” writ large (and a nod to that 1954 sci-fi classic would have been nice). Penna and co-scripter Ryan Morrison have “opened up” Godwin’s short story quite effectively, expanding the character roster, modifying the setting and circumstances.

 

But the core imperative remains the same: You simply can’t argue with math.

 

The story, set in a future when Mars has been colonized, begins as a Kingfisher rocket blasts off from Earth, under the command of Marina Barnett (Toni Colette). She’s joined by medical researcher Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick) and biologist/botanist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim), accomplished academics chosen from thousands of applicants who submitted proposals for Mars-based research.

 

They dock with the Hyperion MTS-42, a modular space station. The spent rocket is transformed into a spinning counterweight at the end of a 500-meter-long tether; this supplies artificial gravity for the months-long journey to Mars. (Very cool concept, I might add.)

 

Shortly after this lengthy trip begins, during routine safety checks, Marina discovers an unconscious man in an overhead compartment that contains the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA). When the body drops to the floor, his weight breaks Marina’s forearm; his safety harness, wrapped around a pipe attached to the CDRA, also inflicts damage.

 

Once he regains consciousness, the newcomer proves to be Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson), a ground crew engineer who blacked out after injuring himself during final pre-flight checks.

 

(I know, I know. The notion that there wouldn’t be some sort of personnel role call prior to take-off, is rather difficult to swallow. We gotta just go with it.)

 

(Technically, Michael also isn’t a stowaway, since he’s present accidentally, rather than intentionally. But that really is picking nits.)

 

Michael initially is horrified by the implications of his plight; the MTS-42 already has traveled past the point of no return, which means he’s looking at a two-year leave from Earth. This is agonizing — and Anderson plays this quite well — because he’s the sole support for his younger sister Ava, back on Earth. Happily, Hyperion officials — reached by radio — rise to the occasion, and promise to house and support her.

 

At which point, Michael calmly accepts the situation, and promises to “carry his weight” to whatever degree the others can use him.

 

Ah, but there’s the rub.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: Why did anybody begin???

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) • View trailer

No stars (Turkey). Rated R, for profanity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.25.20

2017’s Mother! was the most boring, insufferably pretentious twaddle I’d seen in years. 

 

I figured a long, long time would pass before something similarly overblown arrived.

 

When Jake (Jesse Plemons, far left) brings his girlfriend (Jessie Buckley, standing) to
meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis), their "friendly dinner" quickly
turns increasingly peculiar.

Wrong.

 

Writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of novelist Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things — debuting on Netflix — actually is worse.

 

For all its failings, Mother! is an obvious allegory that builds to a graspable conclusion. Kaufman’s film offers no such relief in its final act, which grows more aggressively obtuse by the minute. Indeed, he ignores the resolution in Reid’s similarly weird book — which at least partially justifies what has come before — in favor of more eye-rolling stuff ’n’ nonsense.

 

Not 10 minutes into this unbearable 134-minute slog, a little voice in the back of your head will start screaming, “Abandon ship. Now.”

 

Be smart. Pay attention to it.

 

The frustrating thing is, Kaufman isn’t a talent to be ignored. (Sometimes.) His vivid imagination and defiantly non-linear storytelling style exploded with 1999’s Being John Malkovich, brought him an Oscar for 2002’s Adaptation, and demonstrated sheer genius with 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

 

It should be noted, however, that those films found Kaufman working alongside equally outré directors — Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry — who knew how to check the screenwriter’s more ludicrous tendencies. When Kaufman directs his own material — as with 2008’s Synecdoche, New York and 2015’s Anomalisa — the results are unwatchable.

 

As is the case here.

 

Our protagonist and voiceover narrator is an unnamed young woman (Jessie Buckley) who, somewhat against her better judgment, agrees to a day trip to visit boyfriend Jake’s (Jesse Plemons) parents at their secluded farm. She’s been thinking of ending the relationship — she repeatedly informs us, as things proceed — out of, I dunno, boredom, dissatisfaction, whatever.

 

She and Jake chat at length during this initial car trip, as they pass along the bleak and barren Oklahoma countryside. Their conversation rises from the depths of mundane banality, to the heights of philosophical speculation. She’s a quantum physicist — or maybe she’s a poet — or maybe she’s a student with a paper due Wednesday, on “Susceptibility to rabies infection in the sensory dorsal root ganglia neurons.” 

Knives Out: A cutting romp

Knives Out (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for brief violence, profanity, sexual candor and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.6.19

I haven’t had this much fun since 2001’s Gosford Park.

From the opening scene — as two large dogs charge ominously across the grounds of a massive secluded estate, accompanied by an unsettling warble of violins from soundtrack composer Nathan Johnson — we’re obviously in good hands.

While Marta (Ana de Armas) watches uncomfortably, private investigator Benoit Blanc
(Daniel Craig) puzzles his way through one of the many inconsistencies in the
"suicide" that he increasingly believes was staged.

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is a droll, clever riff on classic, Agatha Christie-style drawing room murder mysteries. It’s not quite a spoof — the plot is powered by a devilishly twisty whodunit — but one nonetheless senses that all concerned had a great time in the process.

The top-flight cast is headed by Daniel Craig, resolutely solemn as debonair Benoit Blanc, a Southern-friend private investigator who channels Christie’s Hercule Poirot by way of Colonel Sanders. (Once again, British actors are surprisingly convincing with their Deep South accents.) Craig almost never cracks a smile — it wouldn’t suit Benoit’s character — but the more gravely earnest he remains, the funnier the performance.

And Benoit certainly has a puzzler for his little gray cells.

As the film opens, world-famous and wealthy mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) has been dead for a week, his passing written off as suicide: not an unusual a call, given that he was found with the knife that slashed his throat, his fingerprints all over the handle.

As far as local cops Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) are concerned, the case is closed. They’re therefore baffled when Benoit shows up, claiming to have been hired to investigate the “suspicious circumstances” of Harlan’s death; the gumshoe requests re-interviews with the entire Thrombey clan.

At first blush, they seem united in genuine grief … but after even minimal probing, they turn out to be quite the collection of grasping, spiteful, self-centered, back-biting misfits.

Hearts Beat Loud: The healing power of music

Hearts Beat Loud (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for fleeting profanity and mild drug references
By Derrick Bang

Unexpected little charmers, such as this one, are the reason I love this job.

The core premise has been can’t-miss ever since Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney made the immortal suggestion — “Hey, kids; let’s put on a show!” — back in 1939’s Babes in Arms.

Whatever else might be happening in their lives, Frank (Nick Offerman) and his daughter
Sam (Kiersey Clemons) always experience joy when making music together

The format shifted a bit over time, these days generally attaching itself to gentle relationship dramas, where a shared love of music paves the way toward love, reconciliation and/or inner peace. Recent examples include director John Carney’s delightful trio: Sing Street (2016), Begin Again (2013) and the incomparable Once (2007).

Director/co-scripter Brett Haley’s Hearts Beat Loud definitely belongs in their company.

Haley has quietly been building an indie career characterized by unabashedly sentimental dramas such as I’ll See You in My Dreams and The Hero: gentle little films no doubt mocked by condescending viewers who sprinkle cynicism on their breakfast cornflakes, but which are adored by those of us seeking relief from lowest-common-denominator Hollywood bombast.

Haley makes films about people: folks you might know, and certainly would like to know. And if they happen to have an artistic streak, well, that just makes them more interesting.

Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) owns a one-man record store in Red Hook, Brooklyn: a relic more than a generation out of date, whose shelves are lined solely with vinyl. Customers are a long-vanished species; the shop is approaching the final few seconds of the last track on Side B. Frank has just informed his landlady, Leslie (Toni Collette), that he’s packing it in.

The decision kills him, because music has long been in his blood. He met his wife while both performed in clubs: She sang, he played backup. She’s years deceased, under tragic circumstances that Haley and Marc Basch’s script reveals cleverly, subtly, delicately.

Their daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons) is the second apple of Frank’s eye: an ambitious, hard-working student with plans for medical school. She has thus far spent the waning days of her final summer, before college, cracking the books in an effort to get a head start in what she knows will be a highly competitive environment.

It’s a double loss for Frank: his shop and his daughter.

Tammy: Rude, crude and booed

Tammy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Melissa McCarthy’s vulgar fat slob shtick is wearing very thin.

Believing that she needs some quick cash in order to help with her grandmother's impending
medical bills, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy, right) dons a minimal "disguise" and holds up a
fast-food joint ... with a "weapon" that's no more than her pointing fingers in a papr bag.
Yep, that's the level of humor in this bomb.

Tammy isn’t even a rough approximation of a film; it’s merely a series of disconnected scenes and encounters, clumsily stitched together in a limp effort at storytelling. McCarthy charges through the resulting mess like a bull in a china shop, as if daring us not to find her so-called antics funny.

I’ll take that dare, Melissa. You’re not funny.

Neither is your film.

Well, wait ... in fairness, I did laugh once, at a quick shot involving a raccoon and a doughnut. McCarthy had nothing to do with it.

I find it completely bewildering that an actress of McCarthy’s talent and timing, having established her comic chops with TV’s Mike & Molly (winning an Emmy) and the big screen’s Bridesmaids (Oscar nomination), would debase herself with material this puerile, sloppy and slapdash. I’m inclined to believe that even the Three Stooges would have rejected this script as beneath them.

Hollywood actresses have long struggled to achieve a level of equality, credibility and respect akin to their male co-stars ... and this is the path to success? Is demonstrating an ability to out-gross Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Farrelly brothers comedies really a sign of progress?

If so, that’s pretty sad.

McCarthy has nobody to blame but herself, since she shares scripting credit — if such a term even applies — with off-camera husband Ben Falcone, who also makes his directorial debut with this train wreck.

Note to Ben: Don’t lose your day job.

Falcone makes every rookie mistake in the book, starting with his tendency to frame his wife in tight close-ups, so that we can count every sweaty pore. And he clearly didn’t “direct” McCarthy in any sense of the word; he simply points the camera and waits while she stumbles and bumbles through whatever she concocts from thin air. Which ain’t much.

Enough Said: Whimsical ode to second chances

Enough Said (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for profanity, sexual candor and partial nudity
By Derrick Bang

This is a sweet little dramedy: the gentle saga of two lonely middle-aged people attempting to establish a second act with each other. Despite taking full advantage of its upper-middle-class Los Angeles setting, Nicole Holofcener’s intimate, conversation-laden film easily could be a stage play, where I suspect it might have more success finding an audience.

Albert (James Gandolfini) really isn't ready for a new relationship; neither is Eva (Julia
Louis-Dreyfus). Somehow, though, not being ready together begins to work. Alas, an
unexpected complication is destined to interfere with their growing bond; the question
is whether they can survive the fallout.

Even during these calmer days of early autumn, with the bombastic summer behind us, films such as Enough Said struggle for viewers.

That’s a shame. Far too few movies explore the quiet isolation of late fortysomethings who worry that life has passed them by: that they’re no longer entitled to the happily-ever-after that once seemed an essential clause in the contract of adulthood. In that respect, Holofcener’s film is refreshing merely by its very existence; that it explores this subject with honesty and candor is a bonus.

Holofcener has based her artistic career on serio-comic examinations of modern American women in crisis, starting with 1996’s Walking and Talking, and continuing with Lovely & Amazing (2001), Friends with Money (2006) and Please Give (2010). She clearly has an artistic rapport with Catherine Keener, who starred in all four of those films, and also has a strong presence in this new one.

But Keener takes a supporting role this time; the central character, Eva, is played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a strong TV presence — most famously in Seinfeld, currently in Veep — whose big-screen career has been restricted mostly to voicing characters in animated features. That’s a shame, because her wry, self-deprecating shtick is an ideal defense mechanism for her character here.

(That said, a few of Louis-Dreyfus’ comebacks do sound too much like a stand-up routine; Holofcener could have reined her in just a little bit.)

Eva works as a professional masseuse and has adapted, if reluctantly, to life as a single mother. She remains on reasonably cordial terms with her ex, and has custody of their teenage daughter, Ellen (Tracey Fairaway). We meet Eva during the strenuous routine of an average day, as she schleps her unwieldy portable massage table from one client to the next, obviously deriving no joy from these regular encounters with often self-absorbed people.

But it’s a living, and Eva can take solace from regular contact with best friend Sarah (Toni Collette) and her husband, Will (Ben Falcone). And we sense that Eva has worked hard to derive comfort — if not satisfaction — from her workaday schedule. Unfortunately, that stability is about to be shattered, because Ellen is days away from leaving for college. Eva, her very soul wrapped up in her daughter’s constant companionship, is fraying visibly around the edges.

The Way, Way Back: A droll little gem

The Way, Way Back (2013) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, mild profanity and brief drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.13

We don’t necessarily realize this right away, but the battle lines are drawn in this film’s opening scene: War has been declared, and no quarter will be given.

Having enjoyed a delightful day together, which has lent weight to their growing
fondness for each other, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Duncan (Liam James)
return home to a chilly reception from the aggressive adult that this boy has grown to
loathe: the bully who has become his divorced mother's constant companion. And,
just like that, the day's magic evaporates...

Sadly, our adversaries are badly mismatched, which the villain of this piece knows full well. And he’s perfectly willing to reduce his opponent to emotional rubble.

The Way, Way Back is one of the best coming-of-age tales ever caught on film: a captivating blend of snarky comedy and heartbreaking pathos that evokes pleasant memories of Summer of ’42, Stand by Me and other classics of the genre. This project is cast to perfection, with every actor — in parts large or small — making the most of the sharp script from writer/directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

Very few films leave us wanting more, as the screen darkens, the lights come up, and we regretfully abandon our seats. I didn’t want this one to end. Indeed, I wanted to watch it again, if only to catch some of the dialogue that was buried beneath the laughter coming from last week’s delighted preview audience.

The action takes place in the summer beach community of Marshfield, Mass., and the surrounding area on Boston’s South Shore. Although the setting is contemporary — only because we spot smart phones and ear buds — the locale feels oddly timeless, as is appropriate for the narrative. Youthful angst knows no specific era; the desperation of adolescents struggling for maturity has been relevant ever since Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

This anywhen atmosphere is further amplified by Water Wizz, the somewhat dilapidated water park that plays such an important role in these events. (It’s no set; Water Wizz is a fully operational, mom-and-pop operation in East Wareham, Mass.) Back in the day, Hollywood sometimes used traveling carnivals and circuses as settings for coming-of-age sagas; fading theme parks seem to have become the modern equivalent.

I’d love to see this new film on a double bill with 2009’s under-rated Adventureland, which has a similarly nostalgic vibe, although its protagonist is a bit older. Now, that would be a grand night at the movies.

Anyway...

Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam James) has been dragged along for a summer “vacation” at the beach house owned by his divorced mother Pam’s (Toni Collette) overbearing boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). To say that Trent is a calculating bully would be understatement; he views Duncan as a potential impediment toward his pursuit of Pam — an absolutely accurate appraisal — and snatches every opportunity to crush the boy’s already fragile spirit.

Hitchcock: Not an entirely good eve-ning

Hitchcock (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for violent images, sexual content and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.7.12

2012 has been a banner year for Alfred Hitchcock.

The London Symphony Orchestra debuted composer Nitin Sawhney’s innovative score for a sparkling new print of 1926’s silent suspenser, The Lodger — regarded as the first true “Hitchcock thriller” — at London’s Barbican Center on July 21. 

Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins, left) guides Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and
Anthony Perkins (James D'Arcy) through an early scene in Psycho, as Marion Crane
and Norman Bates have a mildly flirtatious conversation that will trigger the awful
events to come.

1924’s The White Shadow — a silent melodrama long thought lost, on which Hitchcock served as scripter, assistant director, editor and art director — was found (mostly intact!) in mislabeled film canisters by a researcher at the New Zealand Film Archive, and has been lovingly restored and posted online, for all to enjoy.

And the past month has seen not one, but two quasi-biopics set during Hitchcock’s prime in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

That sort of attention can be a mixed blessing, particularly when the first of these projects — The Girl, which debuted Oct. 20 on HBO — was little more than character assassination. Toby Jones may have been persuasive as Hitch, but Gweyneth Hughes’ tawdry script plumbed truly deplorable depths, while clearly overstating the degree to which the director’s infatuation with Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) became unhealthy and sadistic during the making of The Birds.

Happily, the newly released Hitchcock is a more palatable brew. Scripter John J. McLaughlin — working from Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho — doesn’t have any axes to grind, and he also benefits from the genuinely fascinating, behind-the-scenes back story.

Psycho was a landmark production in all sorts of respects, from the shrewdness with which Hitchcock outmaneuvered the censorious Hays Office — one of the early artistic assaults that illuminated the growing irrelevance of that body of ultra-conservative bluenoses — to the film’s brilliant marketing campaign, which kept people out of their showers for weeks, just as Jaws would keep them away from the ocean in 1975.

Hitchcock benefits from several great performances, starting with Anthony Hopkins’ dignified depiction of the Master of Suspense, and Helen Mirren’s feisty reading of his wife and longtime creative collaborator, Alma.

They’re merely the tip of the iceberg. James D’Arcy’s portrayal of Anthony Perkins, who starred as Norman Bates in Psycho, is so authentic that it’s startling; at times, D’Arcy seems more like Perkins than Perkins himself. Scarlett Johansson is similarly striking as Janet Leigh, who winds up taking that fateful shower in a scene that has been imitated and spoofed countless times. Johansson doesn’t try for mimicry as much as D’Arcy, but she definitely conveys the way Leigh walked, acted and struck a pose; close your eyes slightly, to silhouette D’Arcy and Johansson, and it genuinely looks and sounds like Perkins and Leigh rehearsing a scene.