Jerry and Marge Go Large: Hugely entertaining

Jerry and Marge Go Large (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity

Available via: Paramount+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.24.22

On an otherwise ordinary day in 2003, 64-year-old Jerry Selbee, a recent retiree living in the tiny Michigan town of Evart, drove to a small store in Mesick, roughly an hour away, and bought some lottery tickets.

 

Twenty-two hundred of them.

 

Convenience store owner Bill (Rainn Wilson, right) reacts with understandable surprise
when Jerry (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Marge (Annette Bening) explain how many
lottery tickets they wish to purchase.

His subsequent winnings totaled $2,150, for a slight loss on his $2,200 investment.

Quickly realizing that his statistical sample had been too small, the next time around he purchased 3,400 tickets … and won $6,300.

 

Jerry, whose varied professional career had included a lengthy stint as a materials analyst for Kellogg’s — yes, the cereal company — had discovered a mathematical flaw in Michigan’s Winfall state lottery game.

 

What happened next is depicted with cheeky merriment by director David Frankel and screenwriter Brad Copeland, adapted from Jason Fagone’s fascinating 2018 article in the Huffington Post (which absolutely is worth a read).

 

Bryan Cranston is perfectly cast as the quietly unassuming, buttoned-down Jerry: one of those mysterious mathematical savants capable of spotting patterns, where the rest of us would see only numbers (assuming we even looked in the first place). Cranston is ably supported by Annette Bening, as Jerry’s pragmatic wife Marge; the two actors are wholly persuasive as this adorably devoted couple.

 

Copeland’s screenplay condenses Jerry’s peripatetic working life to just a lengthy career at Kellogg’s: a forgivable shift from actual fact, since the only important detail is that the story begins as Jerry retires, and — not the type to feel comfortable without some project to occupy his whirlwind mind — frets about what to do next.

 

It certainly won’t have anything to do with the fishing boat that his family and friends surprise him with.

 

Nor is Jerry interested in any of the many suggestions — travel, buy a flash car — that come from their amiable friend and accountant, Steve (Larry Wilmore).

 

But Jerry does become intrigued, after picking up a brochure for the state’s new Winfall lottery game. A scan of the rules, and odds, quickly reveals a defect in one aspect of the game. (This involves a “roll down,” which is too mathematically complicated to describe in this review. Fagone’s lengthy article explains it.)

 

Cranston’s blend of disbelief, dawning awareness and excitement, is priceless.

Cha Cha Real Smooth: Lamentably wrinkled

Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

“Failure to launch” films tend to be whiny and self-indulgent, so it’s refreshing to see writer/director Cooper Raiff move in a different direction. Cha Cha Real Smooth bubbles with exuberance and thoughtful, likable performances.

 

Family dinners are a bit uncomfortable for Andrew (Cooper Raiff, left), who gets
defensive about his lack of career resolve. But this doesn't bother David (Evan Assante),
who worships the ground on which his older brother walks.

Unfortunately, much the way its main character wanders aimlessly through this snapshot of his early 20s, having not the slightest idea what to make of his life, Raiff’s film suffers a similar degree of messy uncertainty. One cannot fault a filmmaker’s ambition, but it’s disappointing when his reach exceeds his grasp.

Raiff also stars as Andrew, freshly post-college and truly, madly, deeply in love with girlfriend Maya (Amara Pedroso). Unfortunately, she has relocated to Barcelona to finish her studies, and he lacks the funds to follow. With no other options, he moves back in with his mother Lisa (Leslie Mann) and stepfather Greg (Brad Garrett), where he shares a bedroom with his much younger brother David (Evan Assante).

 

David is invited to a Bar Mitzvah a few days later; he encourages Andrew to tag along. The evening proves transformative: Andrew meets the coy, sexy and mildly mysterious Domino (Dakota Johnson), attending with her autistic teenage daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). 

 

His enthusiastic flair for encouraging the kids — and their parents — to the dance floor, also makes him the go-to “party starter” for the neighborhood’s many upcoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs: a far better gig than his soulless part-time job at a mall fast-food joint called Meat Sticks. Anything that’ll help get him to Barcelona faster.

 

What follows is built primarily on relationships, several of which are captivating. Andrew has an amiably devoted bond with his mother, who cheerfully tolerates her elder son’s directionless indecision. (“Do you really want to go to Barcelona?” she perceptively asks, at one point, and then smiles indulgently when he insists that yes, he does.)

 

Raiff and Mann work well together during such moments, and Raiff’s many scenes with Assante are equally captivating; the fraternal bond feels authentic. David is desperate to get his first kiss from a girl he has long crushed over; Andrew offers insightful encouragement. There’s no sense that David minds suddenly sharing his bedroom; indeed, he clearly worships Andrew (who, to his credit, does not abuse that trust).

 

Even the mostly silent Greg, played by Garrett as a stoic, imposing presence, is intriguing. Andrew can’t figure out what his mother sees in the guy, as they seem to have nothing in common. “He makes me happy,” she explains, during a key moment, and Mann earnestly sells the emotion of those four words.

 

Lightyear: Not quite a shooting star

Lightyear (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theater

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.17.22

The opening text screen is quite clever:

 

In 1995, Andy got a Buzz Lightyear action figure after seeing his favorite movie.

 

This is that movie.

 

Things seem calm at the moment, but that's deceptive; Buzz, far right, and his new
companions — from left, Izzy, SOX the cat, Mo and Darby — are about to encounter
another bunch of Zurg's malevolent robots.

This explanation thus out of the way, director/co-scripter Angus MacLane — assisted by writers Matthew Aldrich and Jason Headley — plunge pell-mell into an exciting and suspenseful blend of every sci-fi franchise from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, to Star Trek, Star Wars and even a touch of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

To infinity and beyond, indeed.

 

That said, this definitely is a case where action and momentum cover an increasing number of plot holes and unanswered questions. Considerable care is required, when concocting stories that involve time travel and alternate time streams; let’s just say things get a bit sloppy.

 

But that comes later.

 

The story begins quietly, as a massive spherical S.C.0.1 exploration vessel — dubbed “the Turnip” — heads home via automatic pilot, its 1,000-strong complement of crew, scientists and technicians in cryo-sleep during the lengthy journey. Roughly 4.2 million light-years from Earth, sensors detect T’Kani Prime, an uncharted but potentially resource-rich planet.

 

The ship wakens Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans, taking over from Tim Allen), commander Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) and a rookie named Featheringhamstan (Bill Hader). They land the Turnip; Buzz and his companions reconnoiter and quickly discover that this swampy world is laden with giant swarming bugs and subterranean vines that burst through the surface, latch onto anything foreign, and drag it below ground.

 

Anything … including the Turnip.

 

Buzz, Alisha and the rookie battle bugs and vines during their frantic dash back to the Turnip. They board; Buzz takes the helm, and tries to defy physics in a heroic effort to get the massive ship free of the vines, and off this inhospitable planet.

 

He fails.

 

Worse yet, the resulting crash destroys one of the Turnip’s fuel cells and its essential hyperspeed crystal, without which the journey home cannot be made. The entire crew settles in for a long stay on T’Kani Prime, as it’ll take years to fabricate a replacement fuel cell and crystal that’ll hold up to a test flight.

 

(It seems unlikely that all of these folks would cheerfully forgive Buzz for the error in judgment that has stranded them, but that’s something we cannot dwell upon.)

 

(One also wonders how the Turnip could possibly have contained enough raw materials and infrastructure to construct the mini-city that soon houses all of these folks, but that’s something else we cannot dwell upon.)

 

The Phantom of the Open: Cheekily spirited

The Phantom of the Open (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Not quite two months ago, The Duke treated us to the delightfully dramatized account of disabled pensioner Kempton Bunton, and 1961’s “mysterious” theft of a famed Goya painting from London’s National Gallery.

 

Maurice Flitcroft may have been even more eccentric.

 

With son Gene (Christian Lees) bringing up the rear as caddy, Maurice Flitcroft
(Mark Rylance) blithely trudges to the next tee, oblivious to the catastophic score
that he's racking up.

In 1976, with no golfing experience, Maurice — by claiming to be a professional — audaciously conned his way into the qualifying competition for that year’s British Open Championship. After all, the event was “open” … right?

His resulting score was — and remains — historic.

 

And, just as Bunton’s eventual court case prompted British law to clarify the distinction between “theft” and “borrowing,” Flitcroft’s escapade thoroughly annoyed the snooty aristocrats who ran the British Open; they quickly changed the rules, in an effort to prevent any further “incursions” by undeserving members of the lay public.

 

Not that that stopped Maurice, during subsequent years.

 

His unlikely saga has been made into a cheeky dramedy — in the irreverent style that British filmmakers do so well — by director Craig Roberts and screenwriter Simon Farnaby, the latter adapting sports journalist Scott Murray’s 2010 non-fiction book of the same title.

 

Their film is highlighted by yet another richly nuanced performance from Mark Rylance, whose impersonation of Flitcroft is flat-out astonishing. 

 

Rylance is, without question, one of today’s finest, most artfully accomplished actors. I’ve no doubt that watching him in everyday mundane tasks — such as purchasing groceries — would be just as captivating as what he does on screen.

 

Roberts and Farnaby begin their film with a prologue that sketches Maurice’s earlier days. He meets and marries Jean (Sally Hawkins), and adopts her son Michael; they subsequently augment the family with twin sons Gene and James. 

 

Years pass. Michael (Jake Davies) has grown up to become the mature, business-minded “sensible” son — read: buttoned-down twit with a stick up his fundament — while Gene and James (twins Christian and Jonah Lees), clearly more in tune with their father’s Walter Mitty nature, have become limber disco dancers.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: A close encounter with captivating strangers

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor, profanity and explicity nudity

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang

This film is most emphatically adults-only.

 

(In fact, you kids shouldn’t even read this review. Check out my comments about Lightyear instead.)

 

Getting Nancy (Emma Thompson) into bed requires considerable patience and gentle
persuasion by sex worker Leo (Daryl McCormack). But, once there, will she succumb
to the moment?

Director Sophie Hyde’s approach to Katy Brand’s script is the perfect Covid shoot: a two-hander which — aside from a brief prologue and epilogue — takes place solely within a hotel room.

I was surprised to learn that Leo Grande didn’t originate as a play, as it would have been perfect on a minimal stage. Regardless, this intimate 97-minute drama never is boring; stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack make the most of Brand’s thoughtful, tender, sweetly sensitive and frequently amusing dialogue.

 

The premise is simple: Retired teacher and recent widow Nancy Stokes (Thompson), attempting to compensate for a sexually dull marriage, arranges a hotel room session with sex worker Leo (McCormack). She thinks she wants to experience the sort of all-stops-out libidinous pleasure that her husband never deigned to provide.

 

But when Nancy answers the soft knock and allows Leo into the room … well, best intentions and a lifetime of fantasies aren’t nearly the same as being confronted by this attractive, well-muscled and instinctively sensitive stranger.

 

What follows is thoroughly charming … and, as time passes, increasingly verbally explicit.

 

Thompson excels at poor Nancy’s initial blend of shyness, flustered embarrassment and second thoughts. (Heck, third, fourth and fifth thoughts!) Thompson plays it perfectly, her wary, closed-off body language matched by Nancy’s nervous non-sequiturs and an absolutely inability to look Leo directly in the eye.

 

Her stream-of-consciousness comments often are funny: gently amusing at the very least, and possibly hilarious (depending upon the sexual awareness of the individual viewer). Much of what Nancy eventually reveals likely will sound and feel familiar to many women; Brand clearly knows her way around the (often unfulfilled) female sexual experience.

 

As a means of keeping her barriers up, Nancy also wants to know more about Leo as a person … which is to say, what his life is like when he isn’t, um, on call. Leo adeptly deflects such inquiries, always with a warm smile; such inquiries would destroy what is, in effect, role play with rigid, unspoken rules.

Peace by Chocolate: A tasty confection

Peace by Chocolate (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.10.22

Everybody in our bunkered, “fear the other” country should be forced to sit down and watch this Canadian charmer: as uplifting and (ahem) sweet a story — based on actual events — as I’ve seen in quite awhile.

 

Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar, left) listens politely, but with mounting dread, as his father
Issam (Hatem Ali) explains how they can work together to rebuild the family's
chocolate empire.

In the real world, Issam Hadhad began his chocolate-making business in 1986, initially working from his grandmother’s kitchen in Damascus. He soon expanded into two shops, and within a quarter-century the business had grown to 30 employees, who helped distribute Issam’s chocolates throughout the Middle East and much of Europe.

In 2012, everything was destroyed by bombs dropped during the Syrian civil war, which had begun the previous year. The war forced the entire Hadhad family to leave Syria for Lebanon, where they pondered what to do next.

 

This is where director Jonathan Keijser’s quirky little film begins. He and co-scripter Abdul Malik depict this family’s subsequent saga with warmth, respect, a whimsical tone, and (more or less) fidelity to what actually happened.

 

Their narrative focuses on Issam’s son Tareq (a delightfully nuanced performance by Ayham Abou Ammar), the first family member to be accepted as a refugee sponsored by citizens of the tiny town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He arrives in the middle of a punishing winter; the shocked, wide-eyed expression on Ammar’s face — as he surveys the snowbound surroundings — speaks volumes.

 

(“In the Middle East,” the actual Tareq recalled, during a 2021 interview with The National News, “Canada [is regarded as] the coldest country that escaped from the Ice Age.”)

 

When greeted at the airport by sponsors Frank (Mark Camacho), his wife Heather (Cary Lawrence) and their friend Zariah (Kathryn Kirkpatrick), they gift him with a woolen cap emblazoned with the word “Canada.” This random act of kindness, along with cheery greetings from everybody Tareq meets, results in a severe case of culture shock (which Ammar plays with hilarious bewilderment).

Hollywood Stargirl: The sparkle is gone

Hollywood Stargirl (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild profanity

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.3.22

Sigh.

 

All that was fresh, clever and endearing about 2020’s Stargirl, is missing in this ill-advised sequel.

 

Over twin Shirley Temples, Stargirl (Grace VanderWaal, right) tries to find out why
Roxanne Martel (Uma Thurman) abandoned the music scene so many years ago,
after the well-received release of her one and only album.

The title is apt, because Hollywood Stargirl is pure product: a cynical, coldly calculated triumph of commerce over art. Everything feels processed and artificial; the dialogue throughout is particularly contrived and false.

Sadly, this “packaging” particularly applies to Grace VanderWaal. Gone is the bubbly, fresh-faced, free-spirited and wholly natural 16-year-old who starred in the first film. She has been replaced by an overly poised and coifed runway model whose gamine look has been based on Jean Seberg’s appearance in 1960’s Breathless.

 

And, my goodness, the make-up. Way too much, particularly with the overdone Elizabeth Taylor/Cleopatra eyes. I cannot imagine what make-up supervisor Geno Freeman was thinking.

 

The result? VanderWaal has been transformed into another of the interchangeable Radio Disney bubble-gum poppettes. Her uniqueness is gone.

 

In fairness, costume designer Natalie O’Brien outfits VanderWaal in dozens of adorable and wildly colorful outfits, each cuter and more vividly imaginative than the last. (The Los Angeles Times logo T-shirt Stargirl wears, at one point, is a deliberate nod to the Herald Tribune logo shirt Seberg wore in Breathless.)

 

It must be said, though, that this young woman of modest means has a stunningly large wardrobe.

 

As for the story…

 

Absent the Jerry Spinelli novel on which the first film was based, scripters Jordan Horowitz and Julia Hart — the latter also directed — have reached back to early 1940s Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musicals, with a soupçon of 1960’s Pollyanna thrown in. But instead of “Hey kids, let’s put on a show,” this 21st century version is “Hey kids, let’s make a movie!”

 

That isn’t a bad idea, in and of itself, but Hart and Horowitz aren’t able to make their handling of said plot the slightest bit credible.