Palm Springs: A cheeky nightmare

Palm Springs (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for sexual content, brief violence, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.20

Some films shouldn’t be discussed ahead of time, because so much of the joy comes from being caught off-guard by the unexpected twists, turns and sidebar surprises orchestrated by an audaciously clever writer and director.

With nothing to do until the wedding ceremony begins in a few hours, Sarah (Cristin Milioti)
and Nyles (Andy Samberg) enjoy some quality time ... in a pool belonging to folks who
are out of town.

That’s definitely the case with this snarky rom-com, available via Hulu. Director Max Barbakow and writer Andy Siara play us like a fiddle. Considering this is the feature debut for both, that result is even more impressive.

So I’m inclined to simply say, Check it out; you’ll have a lot of fun — allowing for a tad too many F-bombs — and leave it at that. Because I can’t really say anything else, without giving too much away.

Still with me?

Okay then: On your head be it.

Barbakow and Siara open on a goat. Somewhere in the desert. 

It’ll be an important goat.

Elsewhere, Nyles (Andy Samberg) wakens to the petulant whine of Misty (Meredith Hagner), his self-centered Girlfriend From Hell. They’re in Palm Springs for the destination wedding of friends Tala and Abe (Camila Mendes and Tyler Hoechlin), taking place later this day at a fancy desert resort.

Nyles seems to subsist on beer and burritos; he has the scruffy, apathetic attitude of a failure-to-launch. Even so, his casual indifference — as the day proceeds — seems unnecessarily boorish. Couple this behavior with considerable vulgarity and profanity, and it feels like we’ve wandered into an aggressively crude Seth Rogen comedy.

Not so; just be patient.

Evening falls; the ceremony concludes; the microphone is passed around. Misty’s toast is absolutely ghastly and tone-deaf. The bride’s parents — Howard and Pia (Peter Gallagher and Jacquiline Obradors) — pass the baton to Tala’s older sister Sarah (Cristin Milioti), maid of honor and, one would expect, next to speak. But Sarah, tongue-tied and terrified — having consumed perhaps a few too many glasses of wine — stands silently, like a deer in headlights.

Enter Nyles, who snatches the microphone and saves the moment with a truly terrific speech. (Who’d have thought?)

The Secret: Dare to Dream — Rather overstuffed

The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.20

I’m always wary of films that open in the celestial heavens, somewhere above Earth, and slowly swoop down through clouds to finally hover above the intended setting; it’s invariably a cue that the filmmakers want us to think what follows will be Significant.

Even for somebody (apparently) accustomed to doing good deeds for total strangers,
Bray's (Josh Lucas) ongoing willingness to help Miranda (Katie Holmes) begins to feel
a bit strange ... as if he has some ulterior motive. (Surprise: He does.)

Instead, what we usually get is cloying, affected and ponderously melodramatic: guaranteed to induce skeptical raised eyebrows and long-suffering sighs.

Director Andy Tennant’s handling of The Secret: Dare to Dream — available via Apple TV and other streaming platforms — skirts the ragged edge of such syrupy twaddle; there’s a definitely sense that we’ve been dumped into an excessively mawkish Nicholas Sparks novel. Happily, this film is saved by warmly earnest performances from Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas … even if the latter gets stuck with some wincingly corny dialogue.

Widowed single mother Miranda Wells (Holmes) works as a manager/food buyer for a family-friendly New Orleans restaurant run by Tucker (Jerry O’Connell), who clearly loves her. Alas, Miranda’s competence on the job isn’t matched by similar care given to her personal life, which is in shambles. She’s short of cash and forever late with bills; she dropped her dental insurance and now can’t afford to get a necessary root canal; and the roof leaks in her crumbling home, also badly in need of countless other minor repairs.

She endures this with the resignation of one who, to quote Marilyn Monroe, always winds up with the fuzzy end of the lollypop. Miranda is one of those people who, if she didn’t have bad luck, would have no luck at all.

She has three doting children, who nonetheless are a bit of a handful. Adolescent Greg (Aidan Pierce Brennan) shares his late father’s fascination with building gadgets; young Bess (Chloe Lee) really, really, really wants a pony. Teenage Missy (Sarah Hoffmeister) pouts constantly, knowing that her upcoming 16th birthday party will be ruined by a more popular girl hosting a party on the same day.

Enter amiable Bray Johnson (Lucas) who drives into town on a mission: to deliver the contents of a large manila envelope to Miranda, a woman he’s never met. Fate arranges a spontaneous introduction, when she accidentally rear-ends his truck while (naturally) driving carelessly. Amazingly, he isn’t angry; the front of her car took the sole damage, which he graciously offers to repair. She accepts; he follows her home.

(I know what you’re thinking, and you have a point. How many “stranger danger” scenarios like this have we seen? But this isn’t that sort of film, so you gotta just roll with it. However ludicrously unlikely it seems.)

Sometimes Always Never: Absolutely!

Sometimes Always Never (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for occasional sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.20

Fans of droll and quirk will love this slice of British whimsy; others are apt to find it much too precious and stylized.

Peter (Sam Riley, left) and his father Alan (Bill Nighy) "forgot" how to connect years ago;
they can't even bond over a game of Scrabble ... even though they're likely to play at
any moment, and in any setting.

Director Carl Hunter and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce clearly studied at the altar of Wes Anderson; Sometimes Always Never — debuting on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — has the mildly peculiar atmosphere and character eccentricity of (for example) Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

At the same time, Hunter and Boyce uncork a deeply — at times painfully — intimate story about grief, and the necessity of finding a way to move beyond tragedy.

We meet Alan (Bill Nighy) as he solemnly waits on a deserted Merseyside beach; he has arranged to meet his adult son, Peter (Sam Riley), for a day trip with a potentially fateful conclusion. Their relationship is wary and prickly. We sense that Peter long ago gave up trying to communicate meaningfully with his father, and for good reason; Alan’s cryptic comments and responses always seem three sentences behind, and in some entirely different conversation.

It gradually becomes clear that they’ve long been trying to find Alan’s other son, Michael — Peter’s older brother — who walked out of the house years ago, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. They’re currently chasing down a faint lead: something one or both of them must’ve done many, many times before.

It proves fruitless … although, during their overnight stop at a twee B&B, they meet Margaret (Jenny Agutter) and Arthur (Tim McInnerny), a couple navigating their own, similar grief.

Back at home in Lancashire, Alan — a professional tailor who earned a comfortable living, and is the sole occupant of a well-appointed home — finds that he cannot stand to be alone. He therefore becomes an unannounced guest in Peter’s home, where he’s accepted graciously by the latter’s warm and cheerful wife, Sue (Alice Lowe). She seems to understand and accept her father-in-law’s aloofness and affectations in a way that Peter cannot.

On the other hand, Peter and Sue have given up trying to fathom their teenage son, Jack (Louis Healy), forever buried in front of his computer screen, playing an endless array of first-person shooter games. Jack gives up the bottom berth of his bunk bed, in order to accommodate Alan; what feels like an imposition blossoms into a connection bridged initially by their shared interest in games.

The Old Guard: New take on a familiar concept

The Old Guard (2020) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and graphic violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.24.20

Immortality isn’t as cool as some folks likely assume.

Popular comic book writer Greg Rucka provocatively blended that premise with conventional action-hero thrills in the 2017 series The Old Guard, with artwork by Leandro Fernandez; the graphic novel immediately attracted Hollywood’s attention, with a well-cast Charlize Theron adding another notch to her re-invention as a bad-ass mercenary type.

Although Andy (Charlize Theron, center right) does her best to explain the abilities that
she shares with the much younger Nile (KiKi Layne), the latter isn't interested in playing
nice: a rather foolish attitude, while in a transport plane being flown by a Russian
drug smuggler.

Gina Prince-Bythewood was an unlikely but ultimately just-right choice as director, having previously helmed gentler fare such as Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees. As a result, her approach here is much more character-driven than the soulless slugfests that distinguish most action thrillers. We care about these folks: far more than you’d expect, given the far-fetched premise. They’re well sculpted, and equally well played.

Prince-Bythewood, editor Terilyn A. Shropshire and their stunt/fight coordinators — Brycen Counts, Adam Kirley and Danny Hernandez — also choreograph some furious skirmishes.

The film — debuting on Netflix — is quite faithful to its origins; credit for that goes to Rucka, who wrote his own script adaptation. Fans of the original series will note that he made one significant change, as we slide into the action-laden climax; this new element significantly enhances the pathos of Theron’s performance.

It’s actually a shame that all previews — and media publicity — reveal the immortality angle, because that awareness spoils the jolt of surprise unknowing viewers otherwise would receive, when this detail is revealed midway through the first act.

Andy (Theron) heads a quartet of independent mercenaries who’ve devoted their lives to righting wrongs, saving innocents, executing war-mongers and so forth. They’ve always chosen their assignments carefully; they’re definitely “good guys,” even as they act as judge, jury and executioner.

The team includes Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who liaises with entities looking to hire them; and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), passionately devoted lovers. All four are impressively capable warriors, and no wonder; they’ve been around for a long time.

Joe and Nicky met while fighting on opposite sides during the Crusades; Booker was a French soldier during the Napoleonic era.

Andy — actually Andromache of Scythia — is thousands of years old.

Nobody Knows I'm Here: Quietly powerful

Nobody Knows I'm Here (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated TV-MA, for mild dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.17.20

Chilean director/co-scripter Gaspar Antillo’s impressive first feature — debuting on Netflix — is a meditative, slowly simmering character study anchored by star Jorge Garcia’s heartbreaking lead performance.

Memo (Jorge Garcia), struggling to move beyond years of deliberate isolation from
society, yearns to find a way out of his own bitter memories. But will he succeed?

Don’t be misled by the first act’s apparent aimlessness; Antillo and co-writers Josefina Fernández and Enrique Videla build their quietly poetic saga to a deeply poignant conclusion.

It’s a rare big-screen starring role for Garcia, best known for his high-profile work in television’s Lost and the revived Hawaii Five-O. He pours heart and soul into this performance, which owes as much to body language and thoughtful pauses, as to his character’s scant dialog.

Memo Garrido (Garcia) and his Uncle Braulio (Luis Gnecco) lead a reclusive existence on an island reachable only by boat, in Southern Chili’s Lake Llanquihue. They chop wood and process sheepskin, securing just enough work to enable their Spartan lifestyle. Memo is stoic and mostly silent, participating reluctantly — and with as few words as possible — in his amiable uncle’s efforts at conversation.

But Braulio neither minds nor pushes the point; he respects Memo’s nature, while looking out for his withdrawn nephew.

When not working, Memo makes and dons elaborate costumes, putting on silent fashion shows while bathed in the glow of a red light that exists only in his imagination. (A different red light plays a key role in the story’s conclusion.) He also likes to visit neighboring homes when the occupants are away: not to steal or even touch anything, but solely to soak in the atmosphere of … finer living (?).

The reflexive assumption is that he’s a spectrum child, but a conversational aside denies that possibility; the remaining conclusion, then, is that he’s Damaged Goods. Something happened in his past: something that has left him emotionally wounded, bitter and resolutely antisocial.

Indeed.

The dynamic shifts when their regular delivery of bundled sheepskins is taken over by Marta (Millaray Lobos), a chatty, cheerful young woman who — physically — is very much the diminutive Laurel to Memo’s massive, shambling Hardy. She’s inquisitive, but not unpleasantly so: also sensitive enough to tread carefully, while trying to understand and learn more about this painfully shy man.

Feel the Beat: Dance 7, Script 3

Feel the Beat (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated TV-G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.17.20

For the most part, this is a Hallmark TV movie with delusions of grandeur, having debuted instead on Netflix.

When April (Sofia Carson, left) agrees to coach her small town's young dancers, the
girls in question don't realize they're about to face a prima donna drill sergeant tackling
this challenge for her own selfish reasons.

It’s saved from sentimentality overload solely due to its feisty kid supporting cast, and a few nice touches in the otherwise formulaic and wholly predictable script from Michael Armbruster and Shawn Ku.

Director Elissa Down brings nothing to the party; her approach is unremarkably bland from the first frame to the last. Even during the rare moments of something approaching dramatic conflict, the atmosphere is relentlessly bubbly and cheerful.

Many of the adults here don’t feel like real people; they’re closer to TV sitcom constructs. Notable exceptions include the always dependable Enrico Colantoni, best remembered as Veronica Mars’ gumshoe father, and similarly cast here as our protagonist’s father; and Brandon Kyle Goodman, who displays solid comic timing as a flamboyant Broadway costume designer.

The kids, happily, are a different story. They’re a lively mix of sizes, appearances and attitudes, ranging from 7 to 13 years of age; they credibly inhabit characters who, if not granted much depth, are sketched deftly enough to be distinctive; we have no trouble telling them apart, and each gets numerous opportunities to shine.

Star Sofia Carson, an appealing Disney Channel discovery looking to expand her horizons, delivers what little the script demands of her; she can’t be blamed for a director and writers who don’t show much imagination. (I’ve long felt that scripts which don’t give their characters last names — as is the case here — tend to lack depth.)

The story begins in New York, where talented but self-centered dancer April (Carson) rudely steals a cab en route to an audition; naturally, the person left behind turns out to be the director for whom she’s auditioning. Said individual, justifiably furious, has the power to blackball April. And uses it.

Days later, with no other options, April returns to her small Wisconsin hometown of New Hope, with her metaphorical tail between her legs. Her sympathetic father says all the right things, with the mildly acerbic edge that Colantoni delivers with such eye-twinkling élan. 

My Spy: License to amuse

My Spy (2020) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.20

A curious cinema sub-genre finds macho action stars slotted into comedies with children.

Vin Diesel turned babysitter in 2005’s The Pacifier. Dwayne Johnson discovered a surprise daughter in 2007’s The Game Plan, and donned a tutu in 2010’s Tooth Fairy. That latter year, Jackie Chan looked after his girlfriend’s three kids, in The Spy Next Door.

Although it breaks every known level of CIA protocol, JJ (Dave Bautista) reluctantly
accepts a dinner invitation from Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley) ... in great part because her
daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman) threatens to blow his cover if he refuses.

It therefore was inevitable Dave Bautista would follow in their footsteps.

These films rise or fall on the personality of the child(ren) involved; if they’re insufferable, ill-behaved little brats who exist solely to make their adult chaperones look like idiots, the results can be dire. And knowing that director Peter Segal was responsible for Tommy Boy, Nutty Professor II and a gaggle of overly broad Adam Sandler comedies, did not exactly inspire confidence.

But the Erich Hoeber/Jon Hoeber script is smarter than usual, for such projects, and Segal (mostly) eschews wretched excess. More crucially, young Chloe Coleman is genuinely endearing as Bautista’s pint-sized foil, and she can actually act … as opposed to many of the youngsters who turn up in films like this.

The result is far more entertaining than I expected. Heck, at times even mildly poignant.

Bautista has made the most of his post-Guardians of the Galaxy notoriety, and the WWE veteran has the same gruff, brooding charm that helped Arnold Schwarzenegger achieve fame, back in the day. He also has an imposing physical presence that contrasts amusingly with a storyline that demands his character “get in touch with his inner feelings.”

Hardened CIA operative Jason “JJ” Jones (Bautista), ex-Special Forces, is introduced while “handling” a weapons-grade plutonium trade between the Russian Mafia and a Middle Eastern terrorist. The resulting mayhem appears to conclude successfully, but appearances are deceiving; JJ’s cowboy heroics allow one of the key villains to escape.

Back at Langley, JJ’s boss (Ken Jeong, suitably condescending) is extremely displeased; the terrorist in the wind has half the means to threaten the world with a miniaturized nuclear bomb. While a rival agent gets the plum assignment of tracking the most likely action in Paris, JJ is banished to a nondescript Chicago apartment. His job: to surveil a single mother, Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley), and her 9-year-old daughter, Sophie (Coleman).

Kate’s deceased husband was connected to the terrorists, so there’s an unlikely chance that she knows something. In other words, it’s a tedious, likely useless monitoring gig.

Scoob: A doggone hoot

Scoob (2020) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild suggestive humor and fantasy peril
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.20

Scooby-Doo, the nervous Great Dane with a nose for supernatural-style trouble — and a manner of “speaking” borrowed from Astro, on The Jetsons — has covered an amazing amount of territory since solving his first cast back on Sept. 13, 1969.

Our young heroes — from left, Velma, Fred, Shaggy, Daphne and Scooby-Doo — don't
know it yet, but they're about to solve their first mystery.

The character and his human sidekicks have never notbeen ubiquitous on television, thanks to well over a dozen variations on their initial 17-episode run … not to mention numerous direct-to-video films and several (mostly) live-action entries.

It’s safe to say that Scooby-Doo has eclipsed Rin Tin Tin and Lassie as the world’s most famous canine screen hero. (No accident, these days, that we refer to a crime-solving detective’s posse as a “Scooby gang.”)

Director Tony Cervone’s Scoob, debuting on HBO Max and other video-on-demand platforms, is guaranteed to keep the lovable pooch vibrant for additional years to come.

Cervone’s pacing frequently has the frantic intensity of classic Warner Bros. cartoons, and the script — credited to no fewer than six hands — definitely captures the original Scooby vibe, while inserting snarky asides and droll one-liners that’ll keep adults equally entertained. The voice talent is solid, and longtime Saturday morning cartoon fans will have fun spotting all the supporting characters borrowed from other Hanna-Barbera shows.

The film is littered with additional Hanna-Barbera “Easter eggs”; you’ll want to pay careful attention to billboards and street signs.

Scoob also serves as an origin story, of sorts, with a lengthy prolog that shows how a clumsy puppy with hilariously oversized paws chances to meet 10-year-old Shaggy Rogers at California’s Venice Beach. Of course, they bond over a shared sandwich, and thereafter become inseparable best buds.

Halloween arrives shortly thereafter, at which point Shaggy and Scoob meet up with Daphne, Velma and Fred. During a pell-mell attempt to retrieve Shaggy’s bag of Halloween candy from a supposedly haunted house — with Scoob hindering as much as helping — the quintet exposes the actual culprit behind these faux scary doings.

(That’s key; classic Scooby-Doo adventures always seemed to involve dire supernatural events, ultimately revealed — after all manner of pratfalls and red herrings — to be the work of decidedly Earthbound human baddies.)

Spelling the Dream: True word power

Spelling the Dream (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.3.20

Spellbound was one of the hits of 2002’s film season: an engaging documentary that profiled some of the young competitors vying for the championship in the annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.

Shourav spends several hours each day studying the computer database of "challenging"
words likely to surface during the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Thanks to that film and other hits — such as 2005’s March of the Penguins and Mad Hot Ballroom — we’ve since enjoyed a welcome Renaissance in cinematic documentaries, which shows no sign of letting up.

Case in point: Spelling the Dream, a new Netflix original that mimics the successful Spellbound playbook, while analyzing the rather striking trend that has dominated the Scripps (no longer Howard) National Spelling Bee, during the past two decades.

Before getting to that, director Sam Rega opens his film with the staggering result of last year’s 92nd annual contest, when — after 20 exhilarating rounds — the judges acknowledged an eight-way tie for first place, after they ran out of words. Those eight kids beat the dictionary.

Simply amazing. Even before last year, this annual contest had become must-see viewing on ESPN.

The provocative detail is that an Indian-American competitor has won for the past 12 consecutive years: one of the longest streaks in sports history. The obvious question: Why? Rega and co-scripter Chris Weller decided to find out, by profiling a quartet of young Indian-American competitors, as they navigate local and regional elimination matches en route to the 2017 finale in Washington, D.C.

The answer, as we quickly discover, isn’t that complicated. These kids work for it. They’re no different than any young athlete who shoots hoops or dribbles a soccer ball for three hours every afternoon; the passion is simply cerebral, rather than physical.

Our candidates also are encouraged by loving parents and — as often seems the case — cheerfully competitive siblings who are equally talented. Rega and Weller quickly emphasize that these aren’t “tiger parents,” drilling kids at the expense of their own childhood; pursuing this dream is a truly collaborative family endeavor.

But yes, these spelling savants do have one advantage: They’re multi-lingual, having grown up in households where English sometimes is an afterthought. That helps significantly, when it comes to studying and understanding word roots.

Artemis Fowl: Quite foul

Artemis Fowl (2020) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG, for fantasy action and mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.3.20

When fantasy goes bad, it goes really bad.

I’m not surprised Disney abandoned theatrical release for this fiasco, in favor of a debut on its Disney+ streaming service.

Things are about to get much worse: Our heroes — from left, Domovoi (Nonso Anozie),
Holly (Lara McDonnell), Mulch (Josh Gad) and Artemis (Ferdia Shaw) — react with
horror as a massive troll prepares to ... well ... eat them.

But I’m frankly astonished that director Kenneth Branagh kept his name on it, because this misbegotten adventure clearly endured post-production tampering that left major chunks of key plot details on the cutting-room floor. What remains makes no sense whatsoever.

You’ll spend half the film — if you’re foolish enough to waste time with it — muttering, “But what about…?”

Matters also aren’t helped by the fact that the title character is an arrogant, thoroughly obnoxious little snot. He’s played by first-time actor Ferdia Shaw, and boy, the inexperience shows. His so-called performance is stiff as a board, and he’s constantly upstaged by everybody else in the cast … not a good thing, for the designated star.

(Seriously, Kenneth? This was the best you could get out of the boy?)

I can’t imagine fans of Eoin Colfer’s popular young adult series liking anything about this film. Scripters Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl extracted bits and bobs from the first two books — 2001’s Artemis Fowl and 2002’s Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident — but largely fabricated their own original story; calling the result a disappointment is gross understatement.

Perhaps the biggest sin is that Artemis, Colfer’s feisty “13-year-old criminal mastermind,” has been bowdlerized — in typical Disney fashion — into a “12-year-old devil-may-care genius.” Ergo, this film’s Artemis doesn’t do any thieving; indeed, he’d accomplish very little, were it not for the far more heroic efforts of his colleagues.

He has been sanitized to the point of utter blandness.

Sad, sad, sad.

Branagh opens his film with a ludicrous media throng gathered outside Northern Ireland’s imposing Fowl Manor (actually Antrim’s Dunluce Castle), in the aftermath of some Cataclysmic Event. An imposing figure — we soon learn he’s Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) — is spirited away to a remote interrogation facility, where he reveals what occurred via flashback.

Enter Artemis, who prefers surfing to the humdrum routine of school work that doesn’t begin to tax his massive intellect. (Not that the surfing has anything to do with what follows, but it did keep the six members of this film’s “Surf Unit” occupied.)