Halloween Kills: Send it to an early grave

Halloween Kills (2021) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated R, for strong gory violence, grisly images, profanity and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

What. A. Stinker.

 

Unless I’m missing one, this is the 12th entry in the undead franchise that began with 1978’s Halloween, a modest little shocker that still out-performs all of its descendants.

 

Having barely survived what they felt was their final encounter with the murderous
Michael Myers (hah!), Karen (Judy Greer, left) and Allyson (Andi Matichak, right)
rush a badly wounded Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) to the hospital.

The series has been wholly re-invented at least twice, and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode has been killed the same number of times … only to be resurrected by subsequent filmmakers anxious for her dwindling fan cred, who explained this away by insisting, “Oh, that one (or those several) didn’t count.”

Even by such increasingly contrived standards, in a textbook case of rapidly diminishing returns, director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills is an insufferable waste of time.

 

For starters, Curtis’ top-billed credit is a bait-and-switch; her Laurie Strode is present for only five, perhaps 10 minutes … and she spends the majority of that time moaning in a hospital bed.

 

Instead, our nominal “heroes” are Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), returning from 2018’s Halloween, the most recent re-boot, which kicked off a trilogy that’ll conclude (yeah, right) with next year’s Halloween Ends.

 

And while it’s nice that Green — along with co-writers Scott Teems and Danny McBride — have name-checked characters and events from John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, it would have been even better if they’d written a coherent script. Seriously, nothing that happens in this misbegotten flick makes any sense — except as a means to set up another welter of gory deaths — and every character’s dialogue is random, hysterical gibberish.

 

So okay: It’s fun to see the now-adult Kyle Richards, reprising her role as Lindsey Wallace, one of the kids Laurie babysat back in 1978; and Nancy Stephens, as Marion Chambers, the nurse accompanying Donald Pleasance’s Samuel Loomis (also glimpsed in fleeting flashbacks); and Charles Cyphers, as Haddonfield’s former Sheriff Leigh Brackett, who lost his daughter during the masked Michael Myers’ initial rampage.

 

But it would have been even more fun, if this new film gave them something intelligent to do.

 

Sigh.

 

By way of quick recap, the 2018 film concluded as Laurie, Karen and Allyson cleverly trapped Michael in a long-planned basement dungeon, and then set the entire house on fire. At long last, the demise of Michael Myers, right?

 

Of course not.

Best Sellers: A whimsical read

Best Sellers (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Unrated, with R-level profanity and vulgarity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang

This seems to be “veteran Hollywood royalty” season, with both Michael Caine and Clint Eastwood starring in new films, at the respective ages of 88 and 91 years young.

 

Lucy (Aubrey Plaza) suspiciously regards her client, Harris Shaw (Michael Caine),
when — totally out of character — he offers her some early-morning coffee as she
awakens after a horrific evening of binge-drinking.

Caine’s entry is the lighter, frothier option, and director Lina Roessler’s arch handling of Best Sellers is right in his wheelhouse. Caine’s Harris Shaw could be Educating Rita’s Frank Bryant gone even further to crankier seed … much, much further.

Anthony Grieco’s original script is a cheeky dissection of the tumultuous — and highly uncertain — role of traditional publishing houses in this era of paper-less social media millennials. Book people will love it, as they’re given plenty of opportunities to snicker at the vacuousness of tweets and “likes” … but Grieco is sly enough to suggest that (as always) collaboration may offer advantages to both sides. 

 

Aubrey Plaza co-stars as the bright and personable Lucy Stanbridge, who has assumed control of the boutique Manhattan publishing house founded by her father. Alas, issuing far too many mediocre young adult titles has pushed the firm to near-insolvency, which makes a buyout bid from the smirking Jack Sinclair (Scott Speedman, appropriately smarmy) increasingly tempting.

 

The fact that he’s also a former lover is salt in the wound.

 

Lucy becomes desperate. She and her sole loyal assistant, Rachel (Ellen Wong), comb the files of past glories, hoping for a miracle … and they find one. Half a century earlier, Shaw’s debut novel, Atomic Autumn, helped put Stanbridge Books on the map. Subsequent to that auspicious splash, he accepted a $25,000 advance for a second book … which he never delivered.

 

Trouble is, Shaw hasn’t been heard of since then; he pulled a Harper Lee and withdrew into total seclusion. “Is he even alive?” Rachel quite reasonably wonders.

 

He is, and — in fact — has just completed a massive magnum opus dubbed The Future Is X-Rated: a coffee- and scotch-stained manuscript that could serve as a doorstop. Unfortunately, the crotchety Shaw — whose only companion is an adorably attentive cat — has a tendency to greet visitors with a rifle. As Lucy and Rachel soon discover.

 

No Time to Die: A gilt-edged Bond

No Time to Die (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence, disturbing images and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters (where it belongs!)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.08.21

It’s bloody well about time.

 

Back in 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was jeered by critics and the public because a) George Lazenby wasn’t Sean Connery; and b) the script had the audacity to present a James Bond with genuine feelings for the woman with whom he’d fallen in love.

 

While James Bond (Daniel Craig, left) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) nervously
wait, Q (Ben Whishaw) struggles to crack the security on a computer network that may
reveal crucial information about the mysterious "Heracles" project.

History has validated what some of us knew all along: Lazenby held his own just fine, and those very story elements — the injection of authentic emotion — cemented its status as one of the all-time best Bonds.

Over the course of Daniel Craig’s five-film arc, his Bond has been defined by loss: the loss of Vesper, in Casino Royale, and M, in Skyfall; and the dismissal of his profession, in Spectre. He has endured along the way, battered and bruised, becoming as recognizably human as one could hope for, in such an action franchise.

 

It’s certainly no accident, mere minutes into this new epic, when Hans Zimmer’s score injects an echo of “We Have All the Time in the World,” the poignant anthem from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One has to smile.

 

Indeed, No Time to Die is laden with similar echoes of the past: from a title credits sequence that opens with the colored polka dots employed in the credits of Dr. No, to Vic Flick’s unmistakable heavy guitar twang — elsewhere in this film’s score — in John Barry’s classic arrangement of “The James Bond Theme.”

 

The impressively ambitious script — by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and director Cary Joji Fukunaga — even works in a hitherto-untapped bit of Ian Fleming: Dr. Guntram Shatterhand’s “Garden of Death,” from the novel You Only Live Twice.

 

But that comes later. No Time to Die — a much harsher affair than most Bonds — opens on a flashback involving a terrified adolescent girl and a kabuki-masked assassin. The encounter proceeds in several surprising directions, concluding as a shuddery memory for Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), emerging from the sea as an astute Bond notices her uneasy mood.

 

They’re enjoying the carefree life chosen when they walked away from Bond’s career, at the previous film’s conclusion. But despite their mutual devotion, these are two people with secrets; we know Bond’s, from previous adventures, and we’re about to discover Madeleine’s.

 

It proves … complicated.

 

But that, too, comes later. We’re first blown away by the longest pre-credits sequence in the entire series, which climaxes with an audacious car chase through the tight corners and narrow, labyrinthine streets of Matera, in Southern Italy. Although plenty more action is yet to come, this opener is the film’s most audacious, edge-of-the-seat sequence.

The Many Saints of Newark: Far from celestial

The Many Saints of Newark (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: HBO Max and movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I’ve never before seen a bait-and-switch movie.

 

Fans approaching this film anticipating the origin and molding of Tony Soprano — a quite reasonable expectation, given the way The Many Saints of Newark has been marketed — are certain to be disappointed.

 

When his father returns home after a four-year prison stretch, teenage Tony
(Michael Gandolfini, left) — uncertain what to say or do — must be encouraged by
his "uncle" Dickie (Alessandro Nivola) to go with his heart.

This is, instead, a years-long study of a slowly building turf war between New Jersey’s Italian Mafiosi — which, yes, includes numerous individuals who will, in time, become the running characters on the six-season HBO series — and competitors spawned by the rising Black power movement. The young Tony Soprano is, at best, a very minor character in these events … and, more crucially, the David Chase/Lawrence Konner script gives absolutely no indication of what will trigger the kid’s eventual rise to power.

I’ll take that a step further: As clumsily played by Michael Gandolfini — the late James Gandolfini’s son, in a bit of stunt casting that bespeaks sentimentality rather than common sense — there’s no way this pasty, sullen, self-centered mope ever could become the adult Tony Soprano that we loved and loathed. Fuhgeddaboudit.

 

What we’re left with, instead, is a mildly absorbing, Godfather-esque crime saga centered on the complex private and professional relationships between the Soprano and Moltisanti families. Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) is the Al Pacino-esque central character who, during his more rational moments, attempts to maintain unity while tending to his end of the “family business.”

 

Sadly, Dickie — very well played by Nivola — is prone to explosive bursts of temper, with dire results.

 

This saga is occasionally narrated — in a cheeky bit of storytelling — by Michael Imperioli’s Christopher Moltisanti, speaking from beyond the grave. (We recall, from the series, that Tony Soprano ultimately killed him.) Christopher therefore establishes the groundwork for a chronicle that begins before he was born.

 

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes obvious that writers Chase and Konner have laid out far more than this single two-hour film can resolve, with any degree of satisfaction. Too many sidebar events get short shrift, or no shrift at all; this overly ambitious narrative screams for the long-form episodic treatment enjoyed by the HBO series.

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the Italians share the stage with Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), a childhood friend of Dickie’s who now — on his behalf — oversees the numbers racket in the Central Ward, Newark’s predominantly Black neighborhood. Odom’s performance is thoughtful and multi-layered; Harold is intelligent, ambitious and angered by the circumstance of skin color that thwarts a desire for his own piece of the action.

 

Frankly, Harold deserves his own separate movie.

Come from Away: May it stay forever!

Come from Away (2021) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

Oh. My. Goodness.

 

This Irene Sankoff/David Hein stage production isn’t merely an electrifying experience; it’s also a badly needed reminder that kindness still exists in this world.

 

As the reason for their unscheduled landing in Newfoundland becomes clear, four plane
passengers — Kevin J (Caesar Samayoa), Diane (Sharon Wheatley), Hannah (Q. Smith)
and Kevin T (Tony LePage) — express their anxiety and fear in a song.

Its filmed arrival was deliberately timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, given that the play illuminates a quite unique incident — 1,100 miles from New York City — that unfolded over the course of several days immediately following the terrorist attacks.

This riveting production is more than a mere musical; it’s quasi-opera, in the mold of Les Misérables or Hamilton, with only brief bits of dialogue interspersed between patter-song storytelling. Plans for an actual film adaptation were scuttled by COVID-19 — and the Broadway production was suspended after March 12, 2020, for the same reason — so the original Broadway cast gathered for a one-off performance this past May in the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater; that was filmed in place of the intended big-screen version.

 

(I figure if James Whitmore can snag an Academy Award nomination for 1975’s Give ’em Hell, Harry! — essentially just a film of his one-man stage show — then I’m entitled to treat Come from Here as a movie.

 

(Besides which, this is must-see viewing.)

 

The staging is cleverly bare-bones, with little more than chairs and tables hastily rearranged, often mid-song, to convey a café, a meeting room, the rows of seats in a plane or bus, and any number of other interiors immediately recognized via context. Everybody in the impressively versatile 12-member cast plays multiple roles, often switching in the blink of an eye, although each actor also has one “core” character.

 

Which means that the actors also switch nationalities and accents in the blink of an eye. (Think about bouncing back and forth between that adorable Newfoundland brogue and something else.)

 

The production is rigorously faithful to actual events, with many characters based on actual people, and in some cases even an actual person. One key character, Beverley Bass, truly was the first female captain of an American Airlines commercial plane.

 

Cry Macho: Lamentably thin gruel

Cry Macho (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Much as it pains me to write these words…

 

Clint, it’s time to hang up your acting spurs.

 

Although Rafo (Eduardo Minett, right) eventually agrees to accompany Mike (Clint
Eastwood) across the border and into Texas, to reunite with his long-estranged
father, the boy insists on bringing his prize rooster along.

Cry Macho has several problems, but the most glaring is that Eastwood is visibly too old for the starring role. Yes, the part calls for the wisdom, maturity and measured assurance of a man in his dotage, but there’s such a thing as carrying that too far. Eastwood looks wan and fragile on the screen; we wince when he simply crosses a room, praying that he doesn’t fall and break a hip.

It’s also obvious — even though this is a totally calm story, by Eastwood standards — that this man, as presented, couldn’t possibly accomplish the mission he’s been given.

 

Eastwood would have been perfect for this part 10 years ago, perhaps even five. But not now.

 

It’s distracting, and rips us right out of the movie.

 

Mind you, the Nick Schenk/N. Richard Mash screenplay is nothing to write home about. It’s a deliberately old-school entry in the “bonding road trip” genre; that would be fine, if the scripters paid better attention to detail. But their uneven narrative has plot holes that would swallow a pickup, and the non-conclusion leaves far too many hanging chads.

 

The year is 1979, the setting Texas. Mike Milo (Eastwood) is a former rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder deadened by depression: unable to do the work he loves best, and also devastated by long-ago personal loss. His former employer, Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam, nicely understated), calls in a favor with a request: Cross the border into Mexico, find Polk’s long-estranged teenage son Rafo, and bring him home.

 

It won’t be easy, Polk warns. His Mexican ex-wife might know where the boy is, but they’re long past speaking terms. Even so — with one of Eastwood’s long-suffering sighs, and an expression of grim resignation — Mike accepts. It’s not as if he’s otherwise occupied.

 

Once across the border, his first stop is a chat with Leta (Fernanda Urrejola), the aforementioned ex-wife. She’s a spiteful alcoholic who apparently couldn’t care less about Rafo; Urrejola makes the woman thoroughly unpleasant. But Leta does know where her son can be found: at the local cock-fighting ring.

 

She cheerfully parts with this information because — and this is important — having appraised Mike, she doesn’t think him capable of making any headway with Rafo.

 

(People have underestimated Eastwood characters for more than half a century. It has become a Hollywood cliché.)

The Addams Family 2: Insufficiently ookie

The Addams Family 2 (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for macabre and rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters and streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.01.21

I sometimes wonder what Charles Addams would think, about how his macabre characters have been re-invented in the 21st century.

 

Morticia and Gomez, center, are horrified by what their son Pugsley has done to one
of our nation's natural wonders; daughter Wednesday is simply bored.

According to his official biographer, Linda H. Davis, he was “up and down” about the 1960s TV sitcom; he “enjoyed what it did for his earning power, but said the characters were ‘half as evil.’ ”

Bearing that in mind, regardless of his reaction to this New Age-style animation, he’d likely be unhappy over the way parents Gomez and Morticia — in particular — have been softened in this sequel. There’s scarcely an evil glance between them, let alone any sort of malevolent behavior. Indeed, Gomez (voiced by Oscar Isaac) spends the entire film fretting over the fact that daughter Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) has adopted the aloofness of teenagehood, and prefers to be left alone.

 

Morticia (Charlize Theron) insists this is just a phase, but Gomez feels that desperate measures must be taken. His solution: a road trip across the United States, so the family can wreak all manner of havoc at — in sequence — Niagara Falls, Sleepy Hollow (an apt choice), Miami, San Antonio, the Alamo, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and — of all places — Sausalito.

 

Ergo, poor Lurch (Conrad Vernon) must haul a mountain of luggage into the family’s haunted camper, and — with Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) also crammed inside — they take off to see the country.

 

Wednesday’s younger brother Pugsley (Javon Walton) still loves to blow up stuff, and his expression — at least — often radiates wicked glee. And, yes; Wednesday’s arcane experiments, stylized weapons and booby traps often are at poor Pugsley’s expense; she loves to torture him, and (of course) he enjoys it.

 

Wednesday’s stoic somberness, in both animated expression and Moretz’s voice, is the film’s best running gag; she remains impassive no matter what manner of mayhem erupts around her (which she often generates).