Invictus: Fate's master

Invictus (2009) • View trailer for Invictus
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and quite needlessly, for fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.11.09
Buy DVD: Invictus• Buy Blu-Ray: Invictus [Blu-ray]

Although it eventually builds a full head of steam by the exciting third act, director Clint Eastwood's Invictus may be remembered more for its earlier, quieter moments:

• The pitch-dark 4 a.m. walks taken by newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), in the company of two bodyguards who fret about the ritualistic regularity of this practice, and how easily an ambush could be mounted;

When Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman, left) arranges to meet rugby team
captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), their first conversation takes place
over afternoon tea: one of the greatest traditions brought to South Africa by
the British, in Mandela's view.

• The suspicion that characterizes interactions between the white and black members of Mandela's security team, and the oh-so-gradual thaw that eventually bonds these men through mutual respect;

• A shanty-town rugby session involving dirt-poor black children and the privileged members of the Springbok rugby team — fielding only one black player — when they're ordered to reach out to these young sports fans; and

• All interactions between Mandela and his feisty chief of staff, Brenda Mazibuko (Adjoa Andoh), who cannot understand why her boss devotes so much time and attention to something as "insignificant" as sports matches.

Ah, but that's the core of Anthony Peckham's carefully modulated screenplay — adapted from John Carlin's book, Playing the Enemy — which Eastwood has transformed into an uplifting underdog sports saga.

And one based on actual, history-making and life-changing events.

Invictus gets its name from the title of a poem by William Ernest Henley, which brought Mandela solace during the 27 years he spent in prison for his efforts to overthrow apartheid. Although the entire poem is deeply moving, its final two lines are key:

I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

The film begins on May 10, 1994, the day that Mandela takes office. He arrives to general chaos, as the previous administration's white staff members, having assumed their services no longer will be needed, pack hastily and try to leave inconspicuously. Mandela immediately puts a stop to such assumptions, and Freeman nails this short speech with just the right blend of surprise, sincerity and morale-building passion.

Pirate Radio: Rock on!

Pirate Radio (2009) • View trailer for Pirate Radio
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, fleeting nudity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.4.09
Buy DVD: Pirate Radio• Buy Blu-Ray: Pirate Radio [Blu-ray]

Richard Curtis apparently invades my thoughts.

The writer-turned-filmmaker responsible for co-creating BlackAdder and Mr. Bean, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and who placed his directorial debut (Love, Actually) on my list of all-time best holiday movies, has the magic touch with respect to what I find most enjoyable about cinema.

"The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman, with bottle) and Dave (Nick Frost,
right) enthusiastically participate in a round of verbal characes: a regular
evening activity that's about to turn very strange once the unseen "Thick Kevin"
starts giving the clues.

Sharp dialogue. Clever plotlines. Ensemble casts well laced with eccentric characters. And a wry, slightly arch tone that shows Curtis' unerring understanding of what Americans find amusing about the British ... while, at the same time (one assumes), similarly pleasing UK viewers.

John Cleese recognizes this technique as well, and he even discussed it during his recent appearance at the UC Davis Mondavi Center: The British know they're mildly stuffy and oddly constipated when it comes to art, food and simply enjoying life, which is why — as a nation — they so marvelously, scandalously bust loose every so often. And then, such desires temporarily quelled, they again retreat behind a bland mask of genteel conservatism.

All stuff and nonsense, of course. But our British cousins do so love to cultivate such an image.

Pirate Radio, only Curtis' second film as writer and director, is a delightful Robert Altman-esque riff on an actual cultural phenomenon that both cheered and scandalized England during the latter 1960s.

You may recall, on a side note, that some American criminal entrepreneurs skirted gambling and drinking restrictions during Prohibition by running casinos on ships anchored just outside jurisdictional limits. Well-heeled customers were ferried from shore to these well-appointed salons of sin, and law enforcement couldn't do much about it. For a time.

Well, believe it or not, England — land of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, not to mention scores of other seminal 1960s bands, and birth of the British wave of rock 'n' roll — did not cater, at the time, to its own young (or old and hip) music fans. Not a single legitimate British radio station played rock in the '60s; the music was, in effect, banned by silent decree from government-controlled BBC radio. The "old guard" fuddy-duddies in Parliament simply didn't allow it.

As a result, a few enterprising rebels anchored ships in the North Sea, beyond the range of government control, with the sole purpose of broadcasting "demon rock" to a nation hungry for its own emerging sound. And the obvious irony, of course, is that well over half the nation — young and old, men and women — tuned in to these stations, in effect silently breaking an unspoken law every time they turned on a radio.

Only in England, right?

Precious: Flawless gem

Precious (2009) • View trailer for Precious
Five stars (out of five). Rating: R, for rape, child abuse, drug use, dramatic intensity and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.3.09
Buy DVD: Precious • Buy Blu-Ray: Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire [Blu-ray]

Some dramas are so persuasively powerful that they become more "real" than documentaries.

Director Lee Daniels' mesmerizing handling of Precious is just such a film.

I was so caught up in the story — so thoroughly immersed in Gabourey Sidibe's powerful lead performance — that at one point, late in the film, as Claireece "Precious" Jones gets out of a car in the midst of a brutal Harlem snowfall, I was immediately concerned that she'd better get inside quickly, lest she get cold.

Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe, left) sees her mother, Mary
(Mo'Nique), smile only when a social worker visits; the facade crumbles the
moment the interloper leaves the slum apartment, at which point Mary reverts
to her usual level of toxicity. Mo'Nique's performance is a horror story of
poisonous motherhood: a benchmark that stands alongside other memorable
monster parents such as Shelley Winters ("A Patch of Blue") and Angela
Lansbury ("The Manchurian Candidate").

The notion that this was a film — fiction — was long gone. I may as well have been watching this narrative through a window; it was genuinely happening, at that moment.

Although tremendously difficult to watch -— the story is unapologetically frank, and frequently brutal — Precious is a work of art in the truest sense: a film put together with unerring care, blending superlative performances with a storytelling style that both suits its environment, and respects its characters (those who deserve respect, I hasten to add).

Geoffrey Fletcher's gripping script is based on the book Push, a Novel by Sapphire, and it's as harrowing a slice of inner-city despair as ever has been conveyed on film. And yet, despite its bleak environment and frequently disturbing content, it emerges as a most unlikely empowerment saga: proof that the human spirit, no matter how beaten down and degraded, can flicker into unlikely glory if granted encouragement.

And love. Most importantly, love.

After experiencing a story such as this, one is inclined to believe that love is more crucial to human survival than breathing.

Sidibe's presence dominates this film — she's in nearly every scene -— and not simply because of her breathtaking size. She's a huge young woman of 16: tragically overweight thanks to a foul diet and a tendency to overeat as compensation for her miserable life. (You'll not regard fried chicken and McDonald's fast food quite the same way, after this film.)

We're riveted to her misery: an eternal expression of vacant despair that flows from her eyes — which miss nothing — and the grim set of her mouth. I'm grateful to the recent talk-show appearances that have revealed Sidibe to be a vivacious young woman with a ready smile; it's both nice to see her capable of such gaiety, and to be reminded that her work in this film is "only" acting.

But what acting. "Heartache" isn't a strong enough word to describe our reaction to Precious.

Ho-ho-ho: The best Christmas movies of all time (plus some turkeys!)

By Derrick Bang

Next to Thanksgiving, Christmas remains the most popular time to gather friends and family members, surround yourself with food and enjoy a holiday-themed movie or two ... or three or six, depending on your level of commitment.

Far too often, though, the roster of movies for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day suffers from an acute lack of imagination. Everybody can rattle off It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story and Home Alone, but where do we go from there?

While you'll find all three of those films cited below, I worked hard not to simply state the obvious.

To a degree, the challenge becomes harder every year, because — with a few exceptions — most of the best Christmas-themed films are decades and decades old. Many are in black-and-white, but try to be patient; I promise, the absence of color won't kill you. After all, story rules everything else; you might be surprised, halfway through one or more of these selections, that you're so wrapped up in the characters that you've completed forgotten about trivialities such as film stock.

As is true of any potentially significant historical event, one cannot truly judge a film's impact until it has been given a chance to stand the test of time. Hence, you won't find anything on the "classics" list newer than 1993.

That said, I still wonder where our modern holiday classics-in-the-making are hiding. Has Hollywood lost its ability to produce a poignant, well-made Christmas movie? Is trash such as Surviving Christmas, Fred Claus and Four Christmases really the best they can do?

The following lists are divided into four categories:

The Road: Futile journey

The Road (2009) • View trailer for The Road
Two stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, torture, cannibalism, nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.27.09
Buy DVD: The Road • Buy Blu-Ray: The Road [Blu-ray]

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a story for folks who felt that his No Country for Old Men was too cheerful and uplifting.

Director John Hillcoat's film adaptation is designed for viewers seeking a reason to return home and slit their wrists.

The man (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) must keep
a wary eye on their surroundings while traveling by day; encounters with other
human beings are likely to be deadly ... or worse.

I cannot, in good conscience, imagine any set of circumstances that would prompt me to recommend this movie. To anybody.

Granted, McCarthy's harrowing novel took the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for literature; the author's mesmerizing prose — and much richer characterizations — are spellbinding in their intensity. Although driven by a ghastly premise and heartbreaking plot, McCarthy is too skilled a writer — too adept a wordsmith — for his book to be ignored, should one pick it up.

But that doesn't make the experience worthwhile.

I've long been a fan of Dan Simmons' works, which as yet haven't been adapted to the large or small screen. Simmons is well known in the fantasy and sci-fi community, where his long and dense books are deservedly celebrated. I eagerly anticipated diving into The Terror, one of his recent historical novels, which blends chilling fantasy with the fact-based account of a doomed 19th century attempt to find the mythical ocean passage just below the North Pole.

Simmons' blend of gripping prose and meticulous research made the 992-page book a compelling read. But the story's conclusion proved so infuriating that I deeply resented what I now regard as utterly wasted time. I wanted — still want, nearly a year later — those many, many hours of my life back.

Viewers of Hillcoat's adaptation of The Road are apt to feel the same way, and it's only 113 minutes long.

Readers who were able to extract weighty philosophical issues and great moral truths from McCarthy's novel won't find them in this unrelentingly bleak and soul-deadening film adaptation. McCarthy's view of mankind never has been that optimistic to begin with, and his indictment of human behavior is particularly stern in The Road.

Screenwriter Joe Penhall gets that much right, but he overlooks the essential inner musings that McCarthy employed to make his primary characters at least somewhat palatable. Penhall and Hillcoat have done nothing but prove that some books simply defy visual translation; The Road cannot work as a movie, because the form demands that it become no more than an interminably depressing trivialization of its source.

The Blind Side: Touchdown!

The Blind Side (2009) • View trailer for The Blind Side
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for one brief scene involving drugs, violence and sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.19.09
Buy DVD: The Blind Side • Buy Blu-Ray: The Blind Side [Blu-ray]

Some true stories are so wonderful, they simply beg to be made into films.

The saga of All-American football star Michael Oher is just such a story.

And the fact that The Blind Side represents the second half of the one-two punch re-igniting Sandra Bullock's career — following this summer's The Proposal — is the icing on the cake.

Young S.J. (Jae Head) takes it upon himself to crack the whip as personal
trainer and coach for his "big brother," Michael (Quinton Aaron); the result is
but one of many wonderfully uplifting scenes in this film.

Bullock must've gotten a better agent, or perhaps improved her own industry savvy. After a string of ill-conceived comedies and laughably overwrought melodramas — encompassing junk such as 28 Days, Miss Congeniality 2, The Lake House and Premonition — Bullock's career seemed on a slow swirl into the toilet.

Frankly, I couldn't understand why she kept getting hired.

But she has rebounded with pizazz, and then some. Her comic timing was perfect in The Proposal, and her work in The Blind Side stands with the finest of her career. Her performance as the aristocratic Leigh Anne Tuohy, who finds her soft spot after sheltering a homeless teen, is an engaging blend of tart one-liners, feisty compassion, grim determination and quite persuasive vulnerability.

Bullock makes Leigh Anne the original unstoppable force: a mama bear who'd do anything to protect her cubs ... even if one of them outsizes her by ridiculous extremes.

And Bullock is just one of this film's well-crafted elements. Director/scripter John Lee Hancock knows his way around an underdog sports saga, having similarly charmed us with 2002's The Rookie, and its uplifting tale of miracle pitcher Jim Morris. Hancock blends just the right amounts of poignance, suspense and gentle humor; The Blind Side — adapted from Michael Lewis' book — has plenty of chuckles, but never at the expense of its characters. We feel for them and laugh with them, never at them.

The story begins as the massive Michael — invariably dubbed "Big Mike" — is accepted, with considerable reluctance, into the high-tone (and very white) Wingate Christian School in Memphis, Tenn. The teenager is championed by coach Burt Cotton (Ray McKinnon, in a small but nicely modulated part), who sees potential gridiron glory. The trouble, alas, is that Michael's grades — barely north of rock-bottom zero — prohibit any sports activities.

And so the unusually quiet boy sits in class after class, not even trying to participate, while most of Wingate's teachers wonder why they're putting up with him.

The situation is even worse as Michael leaves school each day. Having grown up virtually abandoned in the poverty-stricken Memphis projects — cruelly called Hurt Village — the boy has no real home. But his peaceful, oddly regal nature is sensed by 10-year-old S.J. Tuohy (Jae Head, marvelously engaging and cute as a button), who makes an effort to befriend his much larger school mate.