The Vast of Night: Only mildly cosmic

The Vast of Night (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.29.20

In many ways, first-time director Andrew Patterson’s sci-fi homage is impressive.

He delivered remarkable results despite a micro-budget that recalls similar guerilla productions such as 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, 1981’s The Evil Dead and 1992’s El Mariachi. 

To her surprise and mounting concern, each time Fay (Sierra McCormick) attempts to
seek help in identifying a bizarre radio signal that has invaded her telephone
switchboard, the call abruptly drops out.

Patterson and his writers, James Montague and Craig W. Sanger, also evoke a strong sense of the 1950s small town New Mexico setting — the fictitious community of Cayuga — during the shoot in Whitney, Texas, where it appears the streets, businesses and inhabitants are time-locked. (I’m sure that isn’t really the case, but the verisimilitude is uncanny.)

Cinematographer Miguel Ioann Littin Menz employs the heavier grain of 1950s-era film stock, further enhancing the strong sense of time and place.

That said … allowances must be made.

This definitely looks like one of the best student films ever made. But Montague and Sanger’s narrative is best appreciated as homage, and Patterson’s directorial tics and twitches don’t always do his subtle thriller any favors. The Vast of Night — an Amazon Prime original — will be appreciated most by genre geeks who enjoy spotting the clever nods to War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and television’s original Twilight Zone.

Mainstream viewers will have trouble enduring the insufferably talky first act, and they’ll likely find such references a cute contrivance at best, atop a basic storyline that takes too long to get where it’s going.

The three earlier films cited above overcame their budgetary limitations, in great part, via momentum and tension. Patterson tries to do the same solely via mood and mild suspense; that’s much harder to pull off, and he’s not entirely successful.

Events take place during a single evening, which begins as most of the townsfolk head to the high school gym, to cheer the home-town lads during a basketball match against a tougher rival. Twentysomething Everett (Jake Horowitz), a charismatic and well-liked radio DJ at the town’s local station WOTW (get it?), makes final checks on the system that’ll record the game events for later re-broadcast.

Driveways: Park yourself in front of this one!

Driveways (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Not rated, but with some blunt profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.22.20

There are movie stars, and there are actors.

And, rarely, there are actors: the wielders of true magic. The ones who slide into a role with such smoothness — such casual subtlety — that you’re not even aware of the craft on display. You simply spend time with that character.

When Del (Brian Dennehy) realizes that a friend has failed to provide a promised ride,
Kathy (Hong Chau) grudgingly agrees to drive him ... in part because her son,
Cody (Lucas Jaye), insists that it's the right thing to do.

I first clocked Brian Dennehy in 1978’s Foul Play, when his small supporting role — jostling for attention among scene-stealers Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Dudley Moore — nonetheless registered. Considerably, in fact; he was the one authentic human being among exaggerated burlesques. It was a clever move by writer/director Colin Higgins, because it allowed Dennehy to stand out.

He probably caught the attention of most moviegoers as the overzealous, hard-ass sheriff in 1982’s First Blood, which kick-started Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo franchise. Dennehy’s CV since then has been far too impressive to cite here: always engaging, always enjoyable. Even when he was just larking about — as in the two F/X films he made with Bryan Brown — the work was solid. He became that guy.

His film work was eclipsed by a stage career that netted two Tony Awards, for Death of a Salesman and Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Dennehy died on April 20 — 81 years old, and still too young — but he left us with one final sterling performance, in director Andrew Ahn’s sensitive indie drama, Driveways.

The achingly poignant Hannah Bos/Paul Thureen script is buoyed further by co-stars Hong Chau and Lucas Jaye. Although additional characters briefly drift in and out, this is essentially a three-hander: a delicate, intimate study of loneliness and regret, and the healing power of simply reaching out.

Ahn wastes no time in back-story. Single parent Kathy (Chau) and her young son Cody (Jaye), after a long drive, pull into the driveway of her long-estranged and recently deceased older sister. Night has fallen, and Kathy’s body language is reluctant, resigned but grimly resolute; Cody has the morose face of an adult who hasn’t experienced enough joy.

The long-retired Del (Dennehy), living along next door, notes their arrival.

Arrangements, obviously made in haste, are incomplete; Kathy and Cody aren’t able to get inside. They back-track to a cheap motel, and return — better prepared — in the morning. Once inside, they’re greeted by a hoarder’s nightmare; the house is wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with junk and debris that completely conceals what once must’ve been a cheerful, cozy home.

Apollo 11: To infinity, and beyond!

Apollo 11 (2019) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.15.20

The images haven’t lost their power, and I’m sure they never will.

We’ve had no shortage of NASA-themed re-creations and documentaries since 1995’s Apollo 13; that drama definitely jump-started its own genre, starting with 1998’s equally compelling 12-part miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon.

Although gathering "Moon rocks" was an essential part of the mission, astronauts
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin also placed several ongoing experiments on
the lunar surface.

All manner of IMAX entries followed, from 2002’s Space Station 3D and 2010’s Hubble, to 2016’s A Beautiful Planet.

But nothing compares to the real thing.

Documentarian Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11 is a mesmerizing depiction of the off-world mission that fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s May 1961 message to Congress, when he concluded, “Then we must be bold!” (Ah, for the days when our presidents were so inspirational and unifying.)

Thanks to a newly discovered trove of previously unprocessed 65mm footage, along with more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings — and supplemented with some familiar images that we’ve seen, over the years — Miller and his team meticulously condensed the eight-day mission into a thoroughly absorbing 93-minute experience.

Indeed, at times the presentation borders on candid intimacy, given some of the light-hearted exchanges between the three astronauts and Mission Control.

Miller, who also edited his film, makes excellent use of split-screen, to depict simultaneous events (and, at times, add a bit of drama).

We’re also reminded of the era’s limitations; the notion that we accomplished this with early-gen computers makes the success even more astonishing. Heck, this is a time when engineers still used slide rules to verify — and compute (!) — performance specs.

The film opens with a jaw-dropping visual — at slightly more than three hours before takeoff — as the two ginormous “crawlers” slowly transport the Saturn V rocket to the launch site. (As well-versed as I am on the Apollo program, I don’t recall ever having seen this process so up-close-and-personal. Like, wow.)

Mary and the Witch's Flower: A disappointing bloom

Mary and the Witch's Flower (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.15.20

Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli clearly has inspired the look and narrative approach of Japanese animated cinema.

When encouraged to look around an office laden with all manner of strange artifacts
and colorful treasures, Mary discovers a mirror with a concealed compartment
behind it, which contains a book of powerful magic spells.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower comes by this influence honestly, since director/co-scripter Hiromasa Yonebayashi helmed 2010’s The Secret World of Arrietty and 2014’s When Marnie Was There for Ghibli, earning an Academy Award nomination for the latter.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower marks Yonebayashi’s directorial debut for his own recently founded Studio Ponoc. Although it has the gorgeous, hand-drawn lushness of a Ghibli production, Yonebayashi didn’t pay sufficient attention to the story and its characters; too much of the action feels random and unfocused, as if we’re watching the abbreviation of a much richer miniseries.

This is also one of those aggravating fantasies that fails to remain consistent to its own rules, and where characters, good and bad, are only as strong — or weak — as a given moment demands.

Which is sad, given that the film is adapted from Mary Stewart’s popular 1971 children’s book, The Little Broomstick. Yonebayashi and co-scripter Riko Sakaguchi have done it no favors; they’ve overloaded Stewart’s gently rural fable with a slice of steampunk that feels quite out of place.

(Yonebayashi clearly has a fondness for British children’s novels; The Secret World of Arrietty was based on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers.)

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Netflix limits us to the dubbed British voice cast, robbing us of the more story-appropriate Japanese actors.

Mary opens with a cataclysmic prologue, as a young girl attempts to escape from a conflagration that destroys some sort of immense structure; she’s pursued by slithery, gelatinous creatures out of nightmare, their grasping tentacles attempting to absorb her. She seems to get away, but then a final blast of wind knocks her and the flying broom to ground in a forest, where tiny glowing blue spheres — which she has carefully sheltered — burst and have a most unusual effect on nearby trees and animals.

The Half of It: A complete joy

The Half of It (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.8.20

Writer/director Alice Wu’s The Half of It is a charming, high school-oriented riff on Edmond Rostand’s ageless Cyrano de Bergerac.

Ellie (Leah Lewis) can't believe the embarrassingly clumsy prose that Paul (Daniel Diemer)
expects will impress a girl that he has worshipped from afar.

The Netflix original’s sharp script is matched by a talented young cast, with the bonus of a setting that’s far more picturesque and romantic than most: Squahamish, a small rural town in tree-laden Washington state. (That said, filming actually took place in and around numerous small communities in upstate New York.)

Ellie (Leah Lewis, a familiar presence on TV’s Nancy Drew) — shy, lonely and ferociously smart — supplements the family income by “ghosting” homework papers for classmates. They gratefully pay top dollar but otherwise ignore her.

Money is tight because Ellie’s father (Collin Chou) has been in a depressed funk since the unexpected death of his wife. They immigrated from China to take advantage of America’s greater opportunities; he became the Squahamish train station master.

But now he rarely ventures out of the house; Ellie even handles the station signals every day, when trains pass. She cares attentively for her father, and they bond while watching old movies; conversation, minimal to begin with, always ceases during his favorite “good parts.”

Ellie cherishes a childhood photo, taken alongside her mother.

One random day, while bicycling home from school, Ellie is stopped by Paul (Daniel Diemer), a jock who towers above all the other students. (He’s 6-foot-5!) He’s sweet on Aster (Alexxis Lemire), one of the school’s cutest girls, but worries that his clumsily written “introductory letter” won’t send the proper message; knowing of Ellie’s writing skill, he hopes she can give it a better spin.

Right away, props to Paul for writing an actual physical letter, rather than sending a text. As we’ll soon see — despite his hulking appearance and tongue-tied, aw-shucks manner — Paul has more emotional intelligence and maturity than anybody else in this story. Diemer is absolutely perfect in the role, exuding just the right blend of kindness, compassion and salt-of-the-earth integrity.

Extraction: Like getting a tooth pulled

Extraction (2020) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, brief drug use, and relentless strong, bloody violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.8.20

It’s always easy to identify a stunt coordinator/second unit director granted the opportunity to ascend to the big-dog throne.

Determined to keep young Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) alive, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth)
must figure out how to evade an entire city's worth of bent cops and soldiers under the
command of a ruthless drug lord.

The resulting film is little but relentless — and redundant — action, with fleeting pauses for microscopic dollops of character development and something vaguely approaching actual acting. The scripts can be written on a postage stamp.

Such is the case with the Netflix original, Extraction, which — if nothing else — certainly gave star Chris Hemsworth a lot of exercise … and very little else. Absolutely none of his twinkly charm is on display here; he plays his role as if it were a punishment.

Director Sam Hargrave and editors Ruthie Aslan and Peter B. Ellis keep things moving at a furious clip; even so, there’s only so many ways to shoot and stab people. 

One gets the impression our protagonist is on a crusade to single-handedly decimate the population of Bangladesh. As this endlessly violent saga proceeds, he appears to be succeeding.

During a brief prologue, we meet Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the young son of jailed arch-criminal Mahajan (Pankaj Tripathi); the boy lives a privileged but lonely existence, his every move monitored by gun-toting protectors. Due to Ovi’s own carelessness, he’s kidnapped by thugs belonging to rival drug lord Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), and squirreled away in a heavily guarded apartment complex in Dhaka.

Mahajan, understandably ticked off, orders his lieutenant Saju (Randeep Hooda) to rescue the boy … which is, of course, utterly impossible. Asif’s legion of well-armed goons aside, the drug lord also has the local police and military in his pocket.

So, who ya gonna call?

That would be Tyler Rake (Hemsworth), a black-market mercenary whose utter fearlessness results mostly from a death wish. This is, you see, a Man Haunted By Something. Hargrave and scripter Joe Russo tease us with occasional memory flashes, as this saga proceeds; Hemsworth’s taciturn features reveal very little.

Actually, they reveal absolutely nothing, and the same can be said of most characters in this video game disguised as a movie. Scant dialog is traded back and forth; emotional depth is conveyed (actually, it usually isn’t) by lingering takes on grim, silent expressions. We’re just supposed to understand, donchaknow.

Bad Education: Actually, it's terrific!

Bad Education (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated TV-MA, for considerable profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.20

Boy, this one couldn’t be better timed.

As we continue to be astonished by the actions of the wealthy, arrogant twits who conspired with Rick Singer to cheat their children into top-flight universities — and the additional hubris of the few parents who blithely insist that they didn’t know their actions were wrong — it’s essential to be reminded that such behavior is nothing new.

School superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and faithful colleague Pam Gluckin
(Allison Janney) always look like cats who've swallowed a particularly tasty canary. One
wonders who they might be torturing, in the high school basement.

Director Cory Finley’s Bad Education isn’t merely a marvelously scathing piece of filmmaking, anchored by top-flight performances from Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney; it’s also a crafty cautionary tale lifted from actual events. Mike Makowsky’s script is impressively faithful to what actually went down at a prestigious Long Island high school in 2002.

The HBO original film airs many times during the next few weeks, starting Sunday and Monday evenings (and also is available to stream, via HBO Go or HBO Now). 

But do yourself a favor: Don’t investigate until after watching this film. Much of its fun comes from the way Finley and Makowsky tease, hint and beguile us during their initial two acts, with a subtly snarky tone that often belies the atmosphere of impending doom — of what sort, we initially can’t imagine — that hangs over these proceedings.

Considerable credit goes to Jackman, for his (typically) charismatic portrayal of Frank Tassone, the capable, extraordinarily successful and much-revered superintendent of New York’s Roslyn school district. Finley opens the film on tight close-ups of Frank, as he primps and dresses in tailored CEO apparel for another typical day at work: at first blush, a sequence of disarming banality.

But Frank’s glance in the mirror lingers perhaps half a beat too long, his satisfied smile perhaps just a shade too narcissistic.

Jackman’s performance throughout is laden with such subtle tics, twitches and gestures, slyly suggesting that — at all times — Frank, himself, is adjusting, modulating and refining a performance.

Or maybe the man is simply vain, physically fit and fastidiously diet-conscious, forever swilling health drinks that resemble liquid charcoal. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he delivers. And Frank definitely has delivered during his tenure, building Roslyn High School into the state’s fourth-highest performer for seniors admitted to prestigious universities.

With that has come a corresponding rise in property values and community wealth, delighting realtors, the school board, and all the rest of Roslyn’s movers and shakers. As far as they’re concerned, Frank walks on water.

It’s hard to argue, particularly as Jackman radiantly portrays him.

Dolemite Is My Name: Far out, man!

Dolemite Is My Name (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, and you'd better believe it, for nudity, crude sexual content and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.20

We love to learn about unlikely Hollywood success stories; they fuel Tinseltown’s image as the land of dreams and magic.

Writer/director Robert Rodriguez made his feature film debut, 1992’s El Mariachi, on a budget of only $7,000 (!) … half of which he raised via stipends earned as a participant in experimental clinical drug trials.

If clothes truly make the impersonation, Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) must decide
whether his outfit is flashy enough to persuade a nightclub audience that he's a
streetwise pimp.

Steven Spielberg was only 17 when he began working as an unpaid clerical assistant in the Universal Studios editing department in the summer of 1964; four years later, his first professional short subject, Ambin’, impressed studio vice president Sidney Sheinberg enough to offer Spielberg a seven-year directing contract.

Rudy Ray Moore’s saga belongs in their company.

His unlikely career is profiled — more or less accurately — in Dolemite Is My Name, an unapologetically raucous and profane biographical comedy/drama from director Craig Brewer. The Netflix original boasts an impressively nuanced performance from star Eddie Murphy: an on-the-nose casting choice, given that — like Moore — he’s also an industry Comeback Kid, having risen from the ashes of his own imprudent career decisions.

Moore and his “Dolemite” persona are likely to be recognized or remembered only by cinema buffs who devoured 1970s blaxploitation flicks. As with the concurrent kung fu phase, many (most?) such films were made on microscopic budgets, and typified by shoddy special effects, clumsy scripting and atrocious acting. Fans couldn’t have cared less; such guerilla filmmaking inevitably came with an anti-establishment attitude and visceral degree of energy that made them, well, fun.

(If only in the sense of guilty pleasures.)

Scripters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski don’t shy from the eyebrow-raising coarseness of Moore’s personality, which is to be commended; there’s really no other way to depict his unlikely career with anything approaching authenticity. Murphy, in turn, radiates the charisma and unrelenting — often foolish — persistence with which Moore pursued his improbable dreams.

Murphy also isn’t afraid to embrace Moore’s physical limitations, including the pot belly that made him the world’s least likely film star.

But that comes later.