The Marvels: Far from marvelous

The Marvels (2023) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for relentless action violence and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.10.23

Oy. What a train wreck.

 

This film is bad in the worst possible way: It’s embarrassing.

 

An embarrassing waste of its cast, and a new low for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

 

Our heroes — from left, Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and
Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) — watch with horror, as this story's Big Bad
embarks on planet-killing activity.

I cannot imagine what prompted Those In Charge to believe that director/co-writer Nia DaCosta — with only two small features behind her, most recently 2021’s dreadful remake of Candyman — had the chops for a project this ambitious.

Clearly, she doesn’t.

 

The so-called script she cobbled together with Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik is a mess: unstructured, uneven, random, laced with glaring hanging chads, and sporting a deus ex machina finale that I defy anybody to explain.

 

Which is a genuine shame, and a lost opportunity. Iman Vellani’s bubbly Kamala Khan was a delightful presence in 2022’s Ms. Marvel limited series, and Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel has been a high point in the MCU since her debut in 2019’s Captain Marvel.

 

Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau debuted as a little girl (Akira Akbar), niece of Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel), in the 2019 film; Monica reappeared as an adult in 2021’s WandaVision miniseries, during which she gained the powers she’s still learning to control, in this new film.

 

DaCosta & Co.’s core plot builds on events from Captain Marvel’s 2019 debut, when she rejected her role as a ruthless member of the tyrannical Kree empire, and — wanting to ensure that the Kree never would threaten another world — later destroyed their home planet Hala’s Supreme Intelligence (AI writ very bad).

 

Alas, that supposedly righteous deed had dire consequences. Hala lost its oceans and breathable atmosphere, and its sun died, leaving the planet in perpetual darkness.

 

(Why taking out a super-computer would cause such celestial havoc is left unaddressed: merely the first of this script’s woefully under-explained details.)

 

This Kree therefore vowed revenge on Captain Marvel, whom they dubbed “The Annihilator”; their increasingly dire plight also exacerbated a long-festering war with the shape-shifting Skrulls, whom she helped find a new home world.

 

The story begins as Kree ruler Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) — known as the Supremor, wielder of a nasty-looking war hammer — finds a long-sought cosmic bracelet that further enhances her powers. A quick cut to Kamala — at home with parents Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) and Yusuf (Mohan Kapur), and older brother Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) — reminds us that this is the twin of the bracelet that gave her powers as Ms. Marvel.

The Persian Version: Such a joy!

The Persian Version (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.3.23

Mothers and daughters, families and secrets.

 

The seemingly impossible divide between cultural tradition and liberated self-expression.

 

To her considerable surprise, Leila (Layla Mohammadi, left) discovers that her
(apparently) uptight mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor) is quite capable of busting a move
during a celebratory dance.

Writer/director Maryam Keshavarz’s sparkling dramedy covers all of that territory, and does so with wit, humor, poignance and the occasional — never unwelcome — buoyant dance number. The degree to which this mélange so intimately feels like somebody’s actual life is no accident; Keshavarz personally experienced most of what we see on the screen.

Storytellers are best when they write what they know, and the result here is a crowd-pleaser with several underlying morals that are even more relevant in today’s hyper-partisan society. No surprise, Keshavarz won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and her film took the Audience Award, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

 

At first blush, the story seems to focus on rebellious, late-twenty-something Iranian-American Leila (Layla Mohammadi), introduced rushing through New York’s streets wearing a burka-tini — which must be seen to be believed — en route to a rowdy Halloween party. She concludes the evening by impulsively throwing herself into a one-nighter with Maximillian (Tom Byrne), garbed as the cross-dressing  Hedwig, from the 1998’s gender-queer stage musical (and later film), “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

 

We learn that this impulsive act is in response to a catastrophic break-up with her wife, Elena (Mia Foo), who apparently bailed because Leila is, well, difficult to be around. All of this is thrown at us in an explosive burst of exposition, some of it explained to us viewers directly, when Leila breaks the fourth wall and chats as though we’re in the same room.

 

That gimmick is disorienting the first time, but it totally works, particularly when — upon meeting her large and boisterous clan — we begin to understand why Leila has embarked on a personal campaign to become the official family screw-up.

 

And, no question, she’s a mess. But Mohammadi plays the role with such conviction, sincerity and breathtaking candor, that we can’t help adoring her. Leila unashamedly makes and owns every embarrassing personal mistake possible, and honestly believes that she’s doing a good job at living beyond the reach of her family.

 

Until her father, Ali (Bijan Daneshmand), suddenly needs a heart transplant.

The Holdovers: Acting, 10; story, 3

The Holdovers (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, drug use and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The last time writer/director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti worked together, in 2004’s Sideways, the result was five Oscar nominations — including Best Picture — and a win for the film’s captivating script.

 

That won’t happen this time.

 

Angus (Dominic Sessa, left) and Professor Hunham (Paul Giamatti) are surprised to
discover that the school head cook, Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) has prepared a
full-blown Christmas dinner.

Even so, there’s much to admire in this new film, which is based loosely on a 1935 French comedy called Merlusse. The always watchable Giamatti is well supported by co-stars Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa, the latter a newcomer making an impressive acting debut. The chilly New England setting, time-capsuled in the early winter of 1970, is granted impeccable authenticity by cinematographer Eigil Bryld and production designer Ryan Warren Smith; it genuinely feels like we’ve stepped back half a century.

Indeed, the film even feels like a product of the early 1970s, in terms of tone and appearance.

 

The weak link is David Hemingson’s script.

 

Payne usually writes or co-writes his films, with memorable results that have included — in addition to Sideways — 2002’s About Schmidt and 2011’s The Descendants.

 

He should have done so this time.

 

The premise here, lifted mostly intact from Merlusse, is fine; the execution (alas!) is contrived, clumsy, lethargic and ultimately dull. The result does not deserve its protracted 133-minute length.

 

The setting is Barton Academy, a venerable boarding prep school that reeks of wealth and boorish entitlement. Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, a veteran adjunct professor of ancient history. To call him misanthropic is the worst of understatements; Hunham regards his students with undisguised contempt. He isn’t merely stern; he’s downright nasty, routinely belittling his charges as philistines, reprobates, snarling Visigoths and (my favorite) “fetid layabouts” unfit to uphold Barton’s longstanding dedication to tradition and academic rigor.

 

That such descriptions are entirely accurate, with respect to many of the privileged little snots, is entirely beside the point. Hunham’s unceasing torrent of verbal abuse — delivered by Giamatti, it must be admitted, with considerable flourish — is an immediately insurmountable barrier that makes it impossible to sympathize with the man, as the story proceeds.

 

More to the point, although Hunham knows his field inside and out — and loves to hold forth with needlessly highbrow language — he apparently can’t communicate it. If everybody save one member of his class receives a grade of D or F on the semester final exam, then clearly Hunham is a terrible teacher. Bearing that in mind — as an adjunct professor lacking tenure, who can be fired at will — enraged wealthy parents would have demanded his departure long ago.

 

And they’d certainly have gained the support of Barton’s snootily officious headmaster (Andrew Garman, appropriately smarmy), who loathes Hunham.

Killers of the Flower Moon: Unforgettable

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence, grisly images and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.27.23

This is a masterpiece. 

 

It’s the pinnacle of director Martin Scorsese’s career … which, obviously, needed no further burnishing. But there you go: 81 years old, and more visionary than ever.

 

William Hale (Robert De Niro, center) beams on the day his nephew, Ernest Burkhart
(Leonardo DiCaprio) marries Osage woman Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) ... but
Hale's delight has very little to do with genuine affection.

I was reminded, while thoroughly engaged during this film’s (admittedly intimidating) 206-minute running time, of Roger Ebert’s Second Law of Motion Pictures: “No good movie is too long.”

True that. (But an intermission would have been nice.)

 

In adapting journalist David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book of the same title, Scorsese and co-scripter Eric Roth have aimed a much-needed spotlight — particularly during these tempestuous times of revisionist classroom instruction — on a mostly forgotten slice of American history every bit as heinous as the two-day 1921 race massacre in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla. (which this film briefly references).

 

Scorsese’s film is bookended by Osage cultural rituals, the first a melancholy “pipe ceremony” as the elders mourn the forced assimilation of their children into white American society. It’s the early 20th century, and a sudden silver lining erupts against this sad tableau: Oil is discovered on the Oklahoma reservation, located northwest of Tulsa. (Yep, Tulsa. Again.)

 

Within half a generation, members of the Osage community are, per capita, the world’s wealthiest individuals. They have automobiles, fancy clothes, plenty of glam … and servants. White servants. (Imagine how well that goes down.)

 

Even so, as per U.S. government-mandated reservation law, white “guardians” must manage each individual’s money. (Imagine how well that goes down.)

 

The story proper begins in 1919, as Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from WWI service, where he’s reunited with his brother Byron (Scott Shepherd) and uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro). The latter has an extensive cattle ranch on reservation land — no oil operations — and has, over time, been embraced as a staunch friend and benefactor to the Osage, speaking their language and participating in all important rituals.

 

Ernest’s initial “interview” with his uncle is revealing. Under Hale’s cheerful, fatherly probing, the younger man bashfully acknowledges his primary interests in money, whiskey and women. DiCaprio is sublime here, as Ernest radiates embarrassment over his limited intelligence; he’s quite unsophisticated, lacking the worldly wisdom that should have resulted from his war service. Unable to handle heavy labor due to a war injury, he gratefully agrees to serve as a chauffeur.

 

Five Nights at Freddy's: Four nights too many

Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too generously, despite strong violent content, bloody images, gore and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Since establishing itself as a purveyor of low-budget horror films in the early 21st century, Blumhouse Productions’ occasional hits — 2017’s Get Out, 2022’s M3gan and 2007’s Paranormal Activity come to mind — have been offset by scores of tedious and downright stupid entries that rely mostly on gore to scare up two quick weeks’ worth of business.

 

Five Nights at Freddy’s definitely belongs in the latter category.

 

Looking more like the vagrants he was hired to keep out of a long-shuttered family arcade
and pizzaria, Mike (Josh Hutcherson) finds Vanessa's knowledge of the place to be ...
rather unsettling.

Films based on video games are a dubious proposition to begin with, and director Emma Tammi’s uninspired work here is well matched by the contrived and ludicrous script she cobbled together with five (!) co-writers, including original game creator Scott Cawthon.

The result is driven less by logic and more by a desire to satisfy the cult-like following that has blossomed since the (frankly boring) game’s 2014 debut, and a subsequent series of best-selling horror novels. (Seriously? The mind doth boggle.)

 

Although Tammi’s film gets points for a reasonably unsettling first act, it’s sabotaged by an increasingly stupid back-story wedged into these events. Horror films almost always fail when the writer(s) attempt to explain the unexplained; consider the power of the original Halloween’s conclusion, when the “boogeyman’s” disappearance and apparent invulnerability were left as a disturbing mystery.

 

So.

 

Following a rash act that would have put him in jail for assault and battery in the real world, woebegone Mike Schmidt (a listless Josh Hutcherson, his career sliding further into the toilet each year) once again is out of work. That’s bad timing; bills are due, and his bitchy Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson) wants him declared an unfit guardian of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio), in order to take over and collect the monthly support checks.

 

Mike has long been haunted by a childhood tragedy, when — briefly left in charge of younger brother Garrett (Lucas Grant), during a family camping trip — he failed to prevent the little boy from being kidnapped. Assisted by sleeping pills and sensory reminders of that incident, Mike keeps trying to “dream” additional details that might identify the kidnapper.

 

(Question No. 1: Abby, not yet born when the tragedy occurred, appears to be at least 20 years younger than Mike. Since Mike later explains that his mother died years ago, and that his father “split because he couldn’t handle it,” when, precisely, did the little girl come along?)

 

Abby admittedly is a troubled  and antisocial child, who eschews eating and conversation, and prefers sleeping in a makeshift floor tent rather than within the comfort of her bed. But she isn’t “impaired,” a kind social worker insists, merely trying to work her way through stuff.

 

Thanks to an unusually helpful job placement counselor — Matthew Lillard, as the oddly sinister Steve Raglan — Mike secures a new job as nighttime security officer at the decrepit remnants of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, once a popular game and pizzeria emporium in the mold of Chuck E. Cheese. The place has fallen into disrepair following its closure years ago, but — Raglan explains — the owner can’t bear to tear it down. Ergo, a security guard is needed to prevent vandals from trashing the place.

The Burial: We totally dig it!

The Burial (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.20.23

You can’t beat a well-mounted underdog saga … particularly one that boasts veteran scene-stealers such as Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx, and is based on actual events.

 

In this case, rather unusual actual events.

 

When their case takes an unexpected turn for the worst, Jeremiah O'Keefe (Tommy Lee
Jones, left) wonders if he did the right thing, even with shrewd attorney Willie Gary
(Jamie Foxx) at his side.

Biloxi-based entrepreneur Jeremiah “Jerry” O’Keefe was in the “funeral business” his entire life, continuing a family tradition that dated back to the end of the Civil War. By the time he reached comfortable old age, O’Keefe owned eight Mississippi-based funeral parlors, along with a parallel funeral insurance business.

But the approach of the 21st century found O’Keefe in financial difficulty for reasons beyond his control. In an effort to raise funds, he agreed to sell three of his funeral homes to Canadian businessman Ray Loewen, who headed a consortium that owned an increasingly large number of Canadian and American funeral parlors.

 

Loewen’s preferred tactic: He’d purchase available funeral homes in a given region, undercut smaller competitors until they went out of business, and then scoop up their operations at fire sale prices.

 

In O’Keefe’s case, Loewen simply stalled on signing and honoring their contract, waiting for the Biloxi businessman to go bankrupt. O’Keefe, justifiably outraged, got a lawyer.

 

But not just any lawyer…

 

What subsequently went down has become a thoroughly engaging legal duel in the capable hands of director Maggie Betts, who also co-wrote the script with Doug Wright, based on journalist Jonathan Harr’s equally absorbing October 1999 New Yorker article. But this isn’t merely a depiction of courtroom theatrics; Betts and Wright spend the lengthy first act introducing and developing the primary players, all well portrayed, so that we sympathize with everybody.

 

Except for Loewen. Bill Camp makes him an arrogant, unapologetic swine: an amoral skunk we want brought to his knees. Camp is the ideal villain.

 

On the surface, Jones’ O’Keefe is an amiable fellow: a doting husband and father of 13 children (!), and grandfather to 43. (We glance in awe at his wife, Annette, played with similar devotion by Pamela Reed.) But Jones’ bearing and expression also display the steel of a long-successful businessman, decorated World War II fighter ace, and former two-term mayor of Biloxi. This isn’t a man to take lightly.

 

And, let it be said, Jones is a longtime master of the cut-them-dead withering gaze.

The Pigeon Tunnel: Too narrow

The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for occasional violence and profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

It’s difficult to imagine anybody more intelligent and erudite than author John Le Carré, whose interviews over the years — since his breakout success with 1963’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold — were as fascinating, thoughtful and densely packed as his subsequent novels.

 

John Le Carré is relaxed, candid and philosophical when discussing his life and writing
career, and how both were shaped by two key individuals during his childhood and
early espionage service.

No surprise, then, that celebrated documentarian Errol Morris would view Le Carré as a prize jewel … particularly since this film was completed very shortly before the famed espionage author died, in December 2020.

Morris’ style is unconventional, to say the least. This film is less a documentary and more a feature-length interview, with Morris’ off-camera questions and commentary guiding and prodding Le Carré into a recitation of his life … but only those portions that concern how David John Moore Cornwell — his birth name — morphed into best-selling author John Le Carré.

 

This is emphasized during the film’s opening moments, where it becomes clear that Morris and Le Carré have agreed to venture solely into specific areas of the latter’s life. Within that limitation, the author is remarkably candid … but he strays no further.

 

Morris intercuts Le Carré’s facetime — seated comfortably behind a desk — with vintage photographs and newsreel footage, clips from big-screen and television adaptations of the author’s novels, and dramatized re-creations of key moments in his younger life. (The latter are this film’s least successful elements.)

 

Unfortunately, Morris’ outré style frequently distracts. Le Carré often is pictured in only one section of a screen “shattered” into multiple frames, the others containing bizarre images that flicker in and out of focus. Although it could be argued that this symbolizes the minute-by-minute ambiguity and paranoia of a career spy — which Cornwell was, as an MI5 officer from 1958 to ’64 — it further slows the film’s already unhurried pacing.

 

The title’s significance is twofold. On an obvious note, it’s both the title of Le Carré’s 2016 autobiographical work, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life; and also the “working title” with which he started almost every novel. 

 

On a metaphorical level, it references an incident from David’s childhood, when his father took him on a business trip to France, where they stayed in a hotel that offered guests a rather unusual sport. Pigeons were bred on the hotel roof, and — at a specified time — shoved into a long dark tunnel. The birds would fly toward the lighted exit at the far end, emerging into the sky directly in front of gun-toting (and presumably well-liquored) male guests who’d blow them into bloodied feathers.

 

(One cannot help being sickened by this revolting “sport.”)