Young @ Heart: Sing loud!

Young @ Heart (2007) • View trailer for Young @ Heart
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for absolutely no reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.08
Buy DVD: Young @ Heart


This film's indomitable spirit is palpable.

No matter how overwhelmed you are about world events, no matter how bad your day, no matter how dismayed you might be — and this is the important one — about any element of encroaching old age, Young @ Heart will make you feel better. Director Stephen Walker's documentary should be bottled and prescribed: Watch once each week before bed. Pleasant dreams guaranteed.

Having learned only hours earlier that one of their members has died, the Young
@ Heart chorus nonetheless rallies for a performance in front on an unusual
audience: the hardened inmates at the local Hampshire County Jail. But as this
film demonstrates time and again, even convicts are no match for the
irrepressible joy that blazes from these two dozen singers.

It's that inspirational.

The previews seen for the past month give an ample glimpse of the giddy enjoyment to be found in this profile of the soon-to-be-even- more-famous Young @ Heart Chorus of Northampton, Mass., but the film in its totality is even more unexpectedly delightful.

I've no idea how many hours of footage Walker and editor Chris King condensed in order to produce this heartwarming gem, but they did a masterful job.

They shot for seven straight weeks while the chorus rehearsed for a one-night-only performance in its home town, splicing this footage with more personal interviews and several music videos — producer Sally George directed these — that are drop-dead hilarious (The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," David Bowie's "Golden Years" and The BeeGees' "Stayin' Alive").

To borrow that hyperbolic phrase from Hollywood's youth, the results will make you laugh, cry and experience every emotion in between. You'll also be breathless, and more than once.

Young @ Heart isn't merely entertaining, poignant and unforgettable; most of all, it's important. Aside from reminding our offensively snobbish, youth-obsessed culture that life does too begin at 70, and that seniors bring a wealth of experience and pragmatic savvy to everything they do, Walker's film humanizes its subjects to the degree that their outer physical appearance melts away, and we see only a fresh-faced, incandescent inner glow.

At one point, as one of these elderly gentlemen endures a good-natured birthday greeting, we're told that he looks and behaves more like a 10-year-old boy.

Indeed, this could be said of every member of the chorus. They're all childlike, in the most positive sense: curious, fearless, open to new experiences and quite willing to show the world a thing or two.

So far, we could be discussing any chorus of seniors. This one is unique because these 70-, 80- and 90-somethings have become famous for their eye-opening renditions of rock, punk and R&B hits ... the more unexpected the material, the better.

Made of Honor: Nuptial follies

Made of Honor (2008) • View trailer for Made of Honor
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for sexual content and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.8.08
Buy DVD: Made of Honor • Buy Blu-Ray: Made of Honor (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

For an insubstantial trifle, Made of Honor is reasonably entertaining.

Continuing the respectable jump to big-screen leading man that he established with Enchanted, Patrick Dempsey works his charm to impressive effect in this gender-reversing twist on My Best Friend's Wedding.

After badly missing his best gal pal while she's away on a lengthy business
trip, Tom (Patrick Dempsey, right) eagerly anticipates telling her that he'd like
to turn their long-standing friendship into something much deeper. Imagine
his chagrin, then, when Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) returns from Scotland
with both a ring and a fiancé (Kevin McKidd) in tow.

And that's no mean feat, considering the degree to which Dempsey's self-centered character could be considered unpalatable. I can't imagine why any woman would remain interested in a confirmed bachelor with more one-night stands than Baskin-Robbins has flavors — not to mention a series of asinine rules to keep these willing cuties in their place, such as no "back-to-back" date on consecutive nights — but, hey, that's Hollywood.

In stories like these, there's never any shortage of nubile, half-dressed lovelies willing to throw themselves at the leading man.

But OK, once we get past the fact that Dempsey's Tom is an unrepentant horndog, he's rather adorable. And yes, he's cute, and Dempsey certainly makes the most of the God-given good looks that help keep his star alive on TV's Grey's Anatomy.

Tom's less desirable qualities are kept in check by longtime gal pal Hannah (Michelle Monaghan, Mission: Impossible III and Gone Baby Gone), who refused to sleep with him at a crucial moment and, as a result, has remained his best friend ever since. Tom actually has the perfect life: He's rich — this film makes him the inventor of the "coffee cup jacket," which prevents people from burning their fingers — and sleeps around to his heart's content, and then spends actual quality time with Hannah.

All those one-night stands apparently satisfy only a physical itch; when it comes to actually bonding with a woman, Tom always turns to Hannah. He knows her desires, habits and idiosyncrasies inside-out, and she knows him just as well.

Obviously, they're meant for each other.

Just as obviously, Tom's never gonna do anything about it ... and we can tell, from Hannah's occasionally melancholy glance, that she wishes otherwise.

Business takes Hannah to Scotland for six weeks, during which Tom — never having been without her company for so long — misses her terribly. The penny having dropped, he decides to do something about it. But the opportunity seems to have passed, because when Hannah returns to New York, she's wearing an engagement ring and accompanied by a gallant and ruggedly handsome Scotsman named Colin (Kevin McKidd), who couldn't be more perfect if he'd been created by a Harlequin Romance novelist.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- Sharp-edged sequel

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) • View trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, and far too gently, due to a very grim tone and considerable violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.16.08
Buy DVD: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian • Buy Blu-Ray: Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [Blu-ray]

Given Radio Disney's involvement with this film's Tuesday evening preview in Sacramento, and the impressive Mouse House publicity machine at work as these words are typed, one can't help assuming that The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is designed as a family-friendly follow-up to its lavishly produced and enthusiastically received 2005 predecessor.

The Pevensie children — from left, Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Peter (William
Moseley), Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell) — follow their
new friend, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), into an underground crypt, where
they're saddened to find the final resting place of Aslan, the wise and kindly
lion who helped so much during their previous adventures in Narnia.

The misleading PG rating also supports that belief.

But while this adventure saga delivers a smashing good time (literally!), parents need to exercise caution: Director/co-scripter Andrew Adamson's second run at C.S. Lewis is very grim stuff, with a mercilessly bleak atmosphere and a body count comparable to that found in Shakespeare's Hamlet or Macbeth. The battle scenes are impressively staged — one intimate, two monumental — but the presentation is comparable to the PG-13 hacking and slashing of all three Lord of the Rings entries.

Bad things happen to good characters in this sequel, and impressionable youngsters are apt to get rather upset when some of their favorite supporting characters don't make it to the final act.

Yes, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had its share of dire doings, but most concerned the supernatural machinations of Tilda Swinton's White Witch. Although she makes a brief return appearance here, the (ahem) lion's share of battlefield mayhem is of the man-made, sword-wielding variety.

Watching scores (hundreds?) of foot-soldiers on both sides get sliced and diced is a bit more unsettling than seeing folks turned into statues.

I also wonder whether contemporary filmmakers have any sense of the attention span of today's children. Prince Caspian runs an impressive 138 minutes — rather a lot of movie for such a short book! — and while Adamson maintains a lively pace that moves the story right along, that's still asking a lot of the restless youngsters at whom this picture seems aimed.

The slightly older Harry Potter crowd, on the other hand, should have a great time.

After an all-too brief prologue in Blitz-ravaged London, our four young protagonists — Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (the still irresistible Georgie Henley) — are summoned back to Narnia by the blast of a magical horn. But they arrive to find that centuries have passed during their single year in London: Everything they remember of Narnia, and all the friendly characters with whom they bonded, are nothing but distant memories.

Indeed, the very magic has been leached from the land: Trees no longer sing or gambol, and most forest animals have reverted to their more primal Earthlike counterparts.

Aslan, the wonderfully wise lion so beloved by young Lucy, hasn't been seen for a millennium.

Speed Racer: Spinning its wheels, nowhere to go

Speed Racer (2008) • View trailer for Speed Racer
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for cartoon action
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.15.08
Buy DVD: Speed Racer • Buy Blu-Ray: Speed Racer [Blu-ray]

This isn't a movie; it's a pinball machine.

Same garish colors. Same cacophonous sound effects. Same mindlessly repetitive action.

Utterly soulless.

The family that races also embraces: As Speed (Emile Hirsch) brings his
thundering Mach 5 home after a successful test run, he's greeted by adoring
girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), his parents (Susan Sarandon and John
Goodman) and loyal mechanic Sparky (Kick Gurry).

Even at a time when Hollywood has embraced dozens of superhero movie projects, the notion of turning a 1960s cartoon series into a live-action film seems quite daft ... particularly when the show in question didn't have that much to recommend it in the first place.

Larry and Andy Wachowski certainly tackled this problem head-on, even if their efforts are misguided. Speed Racer is both a throwback and a wholly fabricated, computer-enhanced effort to make a live-action cartoon. As with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and 300, only the human performers (I refuse to ennoble their efforts by calling them "actors") are real; all the backgrounds, settings, gadgets and vehicles are CGI constructs.

But whereas the filmmakers behind Sky Captain and 300 put serious effort into creating worlds that we'd find similar to our actual workaday universe, this new "Speed Racer" deliberately mimics the vibrantly op art cartoon environment of Mach Go Go Go, as the TV show was known in native Japan.

Not a terribly lofty goal, when we consider how limiting that animation was, all those years ago.

The writing wasn't much better, and the Wachowski brothers' script is no improvement.

OK, fine; in theory, nothing is wrong with making a feature-length cartoon, even one populated by live human characters. But I can't figure out this film's target audience. It's too contrived, juvenile and boring for anybody over the age of, say, 8 ... but, at 135 mind-numbing minutes, it's too damn long for the small fry who'd identify most with this cast's youngest character, Spritle, who comes complete with a chimpanzee sidekick. (Yep, this is that kind of movie.)

Based on the behavior observed during last week's Sacramento preview screening, the youngest viewers were quite restless before we even hit the halfway point ... which was a good half-hour after I felt my brain cells shriveling from lack of stimulation.

Iron Man: Plenty of mettle

Iron Man (2008) • View trailer for Iron Man
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.2.08
Buy DVD: Iron Man • Buy Blu-Ray: Iron Man (Ultimate Two-Disc Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray]

On his deathbed, British actor and director Donald Wolfit is said to have joked, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard."

I'd have to add that superhero movies are harder still.

Trapped somewhere in Afghanistan by gun-toting insurgents who've ordered him
to build them a super-missile system, the badly wounded Tony Stark (Robert
Downey Jr., left), assisted by fellow prisoner Yinsen (Shaun Toub), tries to fool
their captors long enough to design something entirely different ... something
that might help them escape.

Achieving the crucial balance of elements frequently eludes filmmakers. Too dour and grim, and you wind up with a Daredevil that isn't much fun to watch. Overcompensate in the other direction, by allowing the material to become a parody of itself, and you wind up with the stupidity of The Fantastic Four. In both cases, the mainstream public couldn't care less, while genre fans get cranky.

Spider-Man 2 gets the mix right; its predecessor is almost as good. Batman Begins comes close. All three of the X-Men films navigate the territory pretty well. Back in the day, the first bit of Christopher Reeve's first Superman film really caught it.

Iron Man belongs in their company.

Director Jon Favreau achieves just the proper tone, and the script — credited to Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, but no doubt sweetened by diverse other hands — is surprisingly intelligent, while allowing its characters to loosen up and unleash an occasional well-timed one- liner. Indeed, some scenes are genuinely funny ... but never at the expense of the material.

Mostly, though, the credit goes to Robert Downey Jr., a serious and extremely talented actor who knows precisely how to play the role of multi-gazillionaire industrialist and electronic/engineering whiz kid Tony Stark, who falls into the hero gig out of necessity and conscience, rather than accident or freakish biology.

Although never one of Marvel Comics' front-line stars, Iron Man always has been one of the most interesting. Like Bruce Wayne, Stark is a regular guy — admittedly, a very smart one — who utilizes technology to become a champion of the oppressed. Such characters more easily satisfy wish fulfillment: We can imagine, granted access to the same gadgets, that we, too, could right wrongs with a clandestine alter-ego.

And because this script is savvy enough to exploit contemporary real-world issues, Stark's epiphany — and his unorthodox solution to a problem of his own creation — plays quite successfully to our desire for good-guy closure to ghastly events in hot spots such as Afghanistan.

We're introduced to Stark at his worst, which is to say his most venal, self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Unrepentant playboy by night and the ruthlessly amoral face of Stark Industries by day, Tony has just unveiled his Jericho missile — capable of leveling small mountains — to appreciative members of the U.S. military. This nasty little toy follows various amped-up automatic weapons, not to mention a few cloak-and-dagger-style gadgets undoubtedly not permitted by the Geneva Convention.

My Blueberry Nights: Sweet dreams

My Blueberry Nights (2007) • View trailer for My Blueberry Nights
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.08
Buy DVD: My Blueberry Nights • Buy Blu-Ray: My Blueberry Nights [Blu-ray]


Some films luxuriate in their display of technique and mood, the characters' actions sometimes shunted aside so we can reflect upon what brought them to this point, and (more crucially) what might be necessary to propel them anew.

With no other friends in whom to confide, a heartbroken Elizabeth (Norah Jones)
tentatively reaches out to compassionate café owner Jeremy (Jude Law); their
resulting friendship gives her the strength necessary to begin a journey of
self-exploration.

Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai loves the richness of atmosphere; he indulges in arty set design and inventive camerawork, always striving to convey the contemplative, troubled state of mind that he obviously believes characterizes so much of humanity. His films move slowly — some would say much too slowly — while following the actions of protagonists whose feelings smolder beneath a surface veneer usually dictated by social custom.

2000's In the Mood for Love, for example, followed the relationship of chance that develops between stars Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, when they learn that their respective spouses (whom we never meet) are having an affair. What, then, might our protagonists' next move be? A supportive friendship? Their own extra-marital fling, prompted by spite?

The decision unfolds against the gloomy hallways and darkened rooms of an apartment complex in 1960s Hong Kong: often more dream than reality.

Wong's films are an acquired taste: eclectic and temperamental for their own sake, but unfailingly generous to actors willing to conceive and then inhabit richly intriguing characters, suggesting their thoughts and desires via small gestures and minimal dialogue.

"Sometimes the tangible distance between two persons can be quite small," Wong has said, "but the emotional one can be miles."

His English-language film debut, My Blueberry Nights, is very much in this spirit: a quiet examination of a young woman who decides to find herself in the wake of a relationship gone sour. The resulting drama is pure road trip; she journeys across the United States and touches down in this city or that, pausing long enough to become a catalyst in the lives of other troubled souls.

She learns, as do we, that no matter how tragic our own experiences seem, somebody else is having a much tougher time. And, sometimes, watching others fail to cope — watching them sink for the third time — is all the prodding we need to get our own act together.

The young woman is Elizabeth (sultry jazz/folk singer Norah Jones, in a respectable acting debut), and her story begins in New York, where she has just learned that her boyfriend is cheating on her. The news is delivered almost accidentally by a compassionate café owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), who remembers his customers not by their faces, but by what they order; he recalls Elizabeth's "pork chop" companion having been in with somebody else.

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? -- Fool's quest?

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008) • View trailer for Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.25.08
Buy DVD: Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?


During World War II, the beloved Warner Bros. cartoon characters joined the propaganda effort in a series of wincingly hilarious shorts that were so caustic and racist that they tend to be repressed in these more enlightened times.

No matter how dire their circumstances, most of the people encountered by
Morgan Spurlock, far right, insist on sharing a meal while chatting about their
lives and hopes — and their view of terrorists who cite religious convictions.

Back then, though, cartoons such as Confessions of a Nutzy Spy, Tokio Jokio and (ouch) Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips served a legitimate purpose: They belittled — and therefore cut down to size — an essentially faceless enemy that had, in the minds of frightened Americans, become larger than life.

Puncture the bully's balloon, and suddenly he's not so ferocious.

Documentarian Morgan Spurlock, fresh from his impressive battle with the fast food industry in Super Size Me, now has set his sights on the world's most notorious terrorist, in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? Spurlock's intentions are good, but the results are uneven at best.

The lessons also aren't as eye-opening; it's hard to forget the striking image of all those bags of sugar, which represented Spurlock's intake of the sweet stuff during a month of binge-burgering. No single scene in this new film resonates as well.

Since the events of Super Size Me, the filmmaker has married then-girlfriend Alex, the counter-culture vegan who played such an important role during Morgan's month-long ordeal with burgers, fries and soft drinks.

Alex's developing pregnancy is just as crucial a part of Where in the World as her husband's journey of discovery about Bin Laden, which takes him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Morocco and Jordan.

His film's title notwithstanding, Spurlock hasn't any more expectation of actually finding Bin Laden than Michael Moore had of obtaining an audience with General Motors chairman Roger Smith, in 1989's Roger & Me. The point is the trip itself, and the people encountered along the way.

Spurlock also skewers U.S. arrogance, although generally with the sort of wink and nod that makes such an attitude more palatable.

"If I've learned anything from more than 30 years of movie-watching," he says, prior to embarking on his journey, "it's that if the world needs saving, it's best done by one lonely guy, willing to face danger head-on, and take it down, action-hero style."

Spurlock knows what we think of Bin Laden and al-Qaida; he wants to learn what families, journalists, rug merchants and other everyday civilians think of the terrorist in the countries that birthed, shaped and continue to nurture him and his followers.