The 2014 Oscar Shorts: Petite delights

The 2014 Oscar Shorts (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.6.15

Much as I anticipate this annual opportunity to focus on big-screen “short stories,” the 2014 Academy Award nominees — as a group — are a bit disappointing.

To be sure, both the live-action and animated categories offer several strong nominees. But others are unsatisfying, even puzzling. The respective nominating committees sometimes focus more on form than content — chiefly with animated shorts — and that’s particularly true this year.

As a result, you’re unlikely to greet the entire road-show package with the same delight and enthusiasm generated by those from previous years; the 2014 nominees are noteworthy more for isolated pockets of excellence, rather than overall superiority.

To cases, then, starting with the live-action nominees:

Irish director Michael Lennox’s Boogaloo and Graham is charming, thanks to Ronan Blaney’s droll script and fine performances by the film’s two young stars. Riley Hamilton and Aaron Lynch play Jamesy and Malachy, the sons of working-class parents (Martin McCann and Charlene McKenna) who maintain an uneasy co-existence with occupational British soldiers in 1978 Belfast.

The boys have little to call their own, and therefore are thrilled when their soft-hearted father surprises them with two baby chicks. The boys name their new pets Boogaloo and Graham, and soon amuse their neighbors by “leashing” the birds and taking them for walks. But as the chicks grow into chickens, their mother becomes increasingly annoyed by the bother, and eventually issues an ultimatum.

The result of which leads to a particularly ingenious conclusion.

The British actually have a tendency to stand out in this category, with A-list stars often lending their talents; I still remember how much I enjoyed Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander, in last year’s The Voorman Problem. They’re matched this year by Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent, both sensational in director Mat Kirby’s The Phone Call.

Hawkins, Oscar-nominated for 2013’s Blue Jasmine, stars as Heather, a shy young woman employed at a telephone crisis center, where she can’t work up the nerve to chat with the good-looking guy (Edward Hogg) who handles one of the other phones. But such idle thoughts are forgotten when she receives a call from a distraught old man named Stan (Jim Broadbent), who can barely speak through his misery.

To Heather’s mounting terror, Stan admits to having taken an overdose of pills, but he refuses to divulge any helpful information regarding his whereabouts. We never see Broadbent: just hear his voice on the phone, or from a point within his home where he’s not quite in view ... but he’s easy to recognize, and he’s mesmerizing.

As is Hawkins. Kirby keeps her face in tight close-up, and the actress works this scenario with heart-stopping conviction. Her emotional intensity is absolutely shattering.

Kirby co-wrote this script with James Lucas, and they build their 21-minute film to a very powerful conclusion.

Mortdecai: Fool's gold

Mortdecai (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, and needless, for fleeting profanity and mild blue humor
By Derrick Bang

I’ve a soft spot for light-hearted caper flicks, and a corresponding tendency to treat them gently, during post-mortem analysis.

It’s therefore with great regret that I pronounce Mortdecai a crushing disappointment.

Intending to rig the art auction on which their fortunes now depend, Mortdecai (Johnny Depp)
and his wife, Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) make a public appearance to allay suspicion.
But will the hapless Mortdecai be able to orchestrate his end of this complex swindle?

Although promoted as a caper saga, that’s not quite accurate; the closest our title character gets to a heist is climbing a ladder to enter a second-story window. And while the story does revolve around a rumored Goya masterpiece enhanced by the possibility that its canvas has been defaced with a code that might lead to long-lost Nazi gold, Eric Aronson’s script dwells too heavily on Mortdecai himself.

Preening, foppish, self-centered Charlie Mortdecai, played in full-blown, upper-class-twit mode by Johnny Depp.

Time was, a new Johnny Depp project was cause for celebration; he brought such panache to most everything he did a decade or so ago, in projects as diverse as Chocolat, From Hell, Finding Neverland and even the first Pirates of the Caribbean. More recently, though, his work has tended toward self-indulgent laziness, with Depp apparently coasting on the merits of his own career, and bringing little to each new party.

These days, in the wake of The Rum Diary, Dark Shadows and most particularly The Lone Ranger, we’re more inclined to roll our eyes at the prospect of a new Depp feature ... much the way his Mortdecai sighs theatrically and rolls his eyes at just about everything here.

That’s the major problem with director David Koepp’s approach; he and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister focus far too much on Depp. Granted, one expects a movie’s star to receive the lion’s share of close-ups, but Depp’s slow, aristocratically condescending line readings — although initially droll — become tiresome, and eventually bring the otherwise fast-paced film to a grinding halt. Every. Time. He. Speaks.

Koepp is trying for a manic, effervescent blend of P.G. Wodehouse and The Pink Panther: a smart choice, since this film is inspired by the charismatic, forever cash-strapped, art-dealer anti-hero in a series of three comic novels by the late British author Kyril Bonfiglioli, and published back in the 1970s. His Mortdecai clearly is based on Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, and the resemblance is cemented further by Mortdecai’s far more capable manservant Jock Strapp, an equally obvious nod to Bertie’s Jeeves.

Bonfiglioli’s Mortdecai books are beloved by no less than Stephen Fry, who will be remembered as the pluperfect Jeeves in the 1990 TV series he did with frequent colleague Hugh Laurie. And if this film’s press notes are to be believed, Depp himself is another Bonfiglioli fan. So far, so good.