Rye Lane: Definitely worth a visit!

Rye Lane (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor, brief nudity and constant profanity

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.31.23

This is such a colorful, effervescent sparkler: a truly giddy cinematic romp.

 

Director Raine Allen-Miller’s accomplished feature debut, a 2023 Sundance crowd-pleaser, has been dubbed the next evolution of romantic comedies. The elements are classic, but Allen-Miller’s execution gets much of its razzle-dazzle from Victoria Boydell’s kinetic editing and cinematographer Olan Collardy’s dynamic camera placement and lens choices, which take maximum advantage of the vibrant South London settings.

 

Yas (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson) stumble their way into a relationship
against all manner of colorful and playful South London locales.

In lesser hands, the result would be a cacophonous mess, but Allen-Miller knows precisely how to structure each scene for maximum charm. The resulting film races through its economical 82 minutes, leaving us both breathless and wanting more.

(A refreshing change, that, given the bloat that afflicted so many recent high-profile Hollywood entries.)

 

Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) meet cute under awkward circumstances: in a bank of unisex toilets at his friend’s art exhibition, where he’s sobbing noisily in one stall, reeling from a recent break-up. Embarrassment prompts a rapid return to composure, of sorts, and that might have been the end of it. 

 

But Yas is buoyant, giddy and difficult to ignore; she also talks a mile a minute. Dom is transfixed: a moth hovering in her incandescent glow, and a spark ignites. They linger together long enough for him to pour out his troubles, because he’s that way: wearing his heart on his sleeve. Yas is a good listener.

 

But then he departs, reluctantly, for a final meeting with his ex, Gia (Karene Peter), to obtain closure of a sort. That’s a difficult proposition, given that she cheated with — and now is in a relationship with — his best friend, Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni). It becomes clear, as this café encounter begins, that Gia is a self-centered bee-yatch who expects Dom to be comfortable with her version of their break-up.

 

Before Dom can humiliate himself further, by agreeing with this nonsense, Yas unexpectedly crashes the gathering. Pretending to be Dom’s new main squeeze, she turns things completely upside-down, with a breathtaking few minutes’ worth of snide comments, subtle put-downs, not-so-subtle digs and pointed accusations. Gia and Eric can’t quite fathom what has hit them (Sarpong-Broni is hilariously clueless).

 

We’re on the floor, laughing so hard that it hurts.

 

What follows borrows from the giddy, 24-hour “chat structure” of 1995’s Before Sunrise, as Dom and Yas navigate various parts of South London. But the atmosphere here is different than that of Richard Linklater’s earlier genre classic; Allen-Miller goes more for the magical intensity of succumbing to love, when every hour — every minute — seems timeless, and a single day feels like it’ll never end.

Tetris: Game on!

Tetris (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

You wouldn’t think the debut and marketing of a video game could be spun into an absorbing thriller.

 

You’d be wrong.

 

Software entrepreneur Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton, left) initially believes that marketing
Tetris simply will involve securing publication rights from developer Alexey Pajitnov
(Nikita Efremov), but the latter quickly dismisses this naïve notion, pointing out that
things are handled quite differently in the Soviet Union. Translator Sasha
(Sofia Lebedeva) follows this conversation with open curiosity.

Director Jon S. Baird’s Tetris is an audacious account of the mid-1980s struggle for publishing rights for that enormously addictive game. Many of the key players here are actual people — the two most prominent individuals, still with us today, approved the project — although scripter Noah Pink employs serious dramatic license to transform what likely was a dull, grinding saga of dueling litigants into a delightfully cheeky spy flick.

Besides which, we’re dealing primarily with the Soviet Union, during the final few years before its collapse … so who’s to say that some of Pink’s imaginative embellishments don’t hew close to the truth?

 

A brief real-world introduction:

 

In 1984, early-gen hardware and software engineer Alexey Pajitnov — then working for the Soviet Academy of Sciences — developed a puzzle game on the institute’s Electronika 60 computer. Pajitnov titled his “falling blocks” creation Tetris, from a blend of “tetra” (four) and his favorite sport, tennis.

 

The Electronika 60 lacked a graphical interface, so Pajitnov’s first-gen version used simple spaces and brackets. The game caught on like wildfire once he shared it, and soon migrated to every scientific colleague with a computer. With the help of Vadim Gerasimov, a 16-year-old student with mad programming skills, Tetris was adapted for IBM personal computers.

 

But Pajitnov didn’t “own” his creation; the Soviet government did. He therefore couldn’t sell, license or market it. The game nonetheless um, ah, “traveled” to Hungary and Poland, where it came to the attention of international software salesman Robert Stein; he shopped it around the 1987 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

 

What happened next was somewhat fishy, because Stein ultimately licensed a game that he didn’t actually own. Soon thereafter, it was spotted by Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born, American-raised entrepreneur living in Japan with his family; he smelled opportunity.

 

Baird’s film begins as Rogers (Taron Egerton), seeking a hit that might save his failing company, Bullet-Proof Software, stumbles across Tetris at a computer expo. He’s transfixed, and immediately sets out to obtain the right to license the game in Japan. Stein (Toby Jones) already has — questionably — sold American rights to video game developer/publisher Spectrum HoloByte, and European rights to Mirrorsoft; Japan remains an open market.

 

But Rogers soon learns that — Stein’s existing deals notwithstanding — the game’s ownership is murky at best, utterly bizarre at worst. The complexity of additional licensing involves not only nation-state rights, but also the proliferation of platforms — at the time, Atari, Commodore 64 and Amiga, among others — and their parent companies.

 

Ergo Rogers, with no shortage of brashness, becomes “the guy who goes to Russia.”

A Good Person: Dramatic irony

A Good Person (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.24.23

I cannot imagine the mental and emotional anguish of survivor’s guilt.

 

But Florence Pugh certainly conveys it persuasively, in this three-hanky melodrama.

 

Allie (Florence Pugh) is genuinely touched when Daniel (Morgan Freeman) shares his
model railroad depiction of their New Jersey community.

Writer/director Zach Braff’s film runs a bit too long, and he arguably lards the third act with one reckless transgression too many. That said, viewers may be inclined to forgive that excess, given the strong performances which take us to that point.

Following a quiet overview of a marvelously detailed basement toy train layout, accompanied by Morgan Freeman’s thoughtful voice-over, the story opens on a cheerfully rowdy pre-wedding gathering. Everybody has had a bit too much to drink — or smoke — while singer/songwriter Allison (Pugh) gamely performs one of her tunes on piano.

 

After the guests disperse, she and fiancé Nathan (Chinaza Uche) enjoy some quality quiet time, displaying the flirty, playfully sexy nature of their relationship.

 

(At which point, I glanced at Constant Companion — both of us having watched far too many movies, and therefore feeling that we’re being set up for some sort of catastrophe — and muttered, “Okay, when’s the penny gonna drop?”)

 

The following morning, Allie — as she prefers to be called — Nathan’s sister Molly (Nichelle Hines) and her husband leave their New Jersey neighborhood, intending to spend the day in Manhattan: trying on dresses, then taking in a play. As it’s a school day, their teenage daughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor), has been left behind with her grandfather, Daniel (Freeman).

 

The car chatter is lively; Allie’s eyes — she’s driving — keep straying from the freeway. She then worsens the situation by pulling out her phone, to check a map reference.

 

What happens next occurs very quickly. Braff, bless him, cuts to sharp black.

 

Our first glimpse of Braff’s delicate touch with deeply emotional scenes — and dialogue — comes next. Daniel, in the process of dropping Ryan off at school, gets The Phone Call. Freeman plays the scene wholly by the reaction in his gaze; we don’t hear the other end of the conversation. Then, the call concluded — sinking further into shock by the second — Daniel encourages Ryan to have a good day at school.

 

He gives the girl those precious few more hours of “normal,” before her life is ripped apart.

 

Allie, badly injured, wakens in a hospital bed. Nathan and her mother, Diane (Molly Shannon), are present. A police officer enters the room; chaos ensues.

 

Molly and her husband died in the crash; Allie survived.

Boston Strangler: Riveting true-crime drama

Boston Strangler (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and violent content

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.17.23

Writer/director Matt Ruskin’s new film is an excellent companion to last autumn’s She Said.

 

His fact-based account of the early 1960s serial killer is far more honest than its 1968 big-screen predecessor, with Tony Curtis in the title role; it focused exclusively on a lead detective — played by Henry Fonda — who “single-handedly” obtains the murderer’s confession.

 

After Jean Cole (Carrie Coon, left) and Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) become the
"public face" of the rapidly developing Boston Strangler story, they're soon flooded by
hundreds of letters from women who insist they've been approached by the killer.

That film is, to put it kindly, a work of fiction very loosely inspired by actual events.

It completely ignored the two newspaper journalists who — most crucially — broke the story; recognized the crucial patterns that pointed to a serial killer (a phrase not even coined, at the time); and doggedly pursued subsequent leads … much to the displeasure of the Boston police.

 

Both were women, of course: Boston Record-American journalists Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, played here by (respectively) Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon.

 

We’ve lately been enjoying a welcome surfeit of films that shine a long-overdue light on previously unsung women of major consequence, from 2016’s Queen of Katwe and Hidden Figures, to last year’s The Woman King and She Said (all of which make me wonder how many more equally inspiring stories are waiting to be told).

 

Boston Strangler definitely belongs in their company.

 

Knightley’s McLaughlin is introduced as an ambitious journalist thoroughly bored — and frustrated — by the softball society column fluff to which she has been relegated. Efforts to cover meatier material get shot down by her editor, Jack Maclaine (Chris Cooper, appropriately gruff and grizzled), who is sympathetic but unwilling to budge.

 

The message is clear: “This is simply the way of things.”

 

But McLaughlin continues to follow police reports, and becomes intrigued by the murders of three Boston women, aged 56 to 85, during the latter half of June 1962. Lacking any effective inter-departmental means to share information, and with differing jurisdictional oversight in various parts of the city, the police fail to recognize a common element that links the killings: the fact that all three were strangled with nylon stockings or a bathrobe belt.

 

Another odd detail: None of the apartments showed signs of forced entry, suggesting that the victims either knew the killer, or assumed he was a “trusted” figure such as a building maintenance man, or some other service individual. (We roll our eyes, at the thought of such naïve, innocent times.)

 

McLaughlin wants to pursue this lead; Maclaine won’t have it. But he grudgingly agrees to let her profile the three victims — on her own time — to learn if they had anything else in common.

 

Chang Can Dunk: A worthy lay-up

Chang Can Dunk (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

Being a teenager was hard enough, back in the day. Foolishly rash or lamentable behavior was seen only by a gaggle of kids in the school corridor, or perhaps everybody in a single classroom.

 

In this social media era, the entire world becomes witness. How’s that for pressure?

 

Foolish, foolish boy: Bad enough that Chang (Bloom Li, foreground right) makes a rash
bet with school basketball nemesis Matt (Chase Liefeld) ... but he does it in front of
dozens of other kids, all of whom immediately turn the moment viral.

Writer/director Jingyi Shao makes an impressive feature debut with Chang Can Dunk, an engaging coming-of-maturity saga that focuses on the title character, sensitively played by Bloom Li. He’s a 16-year-old member of his high school marching band, who allows himself to be goaded into an impossible challenge.

Shao obviously remembers his own teen years; this saga of teenage angst, peer pressure, popularity and “fitting in” is equal parts motivating, aw-shucks endearing and wincingly embarrassing.

 

Band members have been branded high school nerds ever since their uniforms became de rigueur, and that hasn’t changed in the 21st century. Chang’s social circle therefore is quite small, limited primarily to best friend and fellow drummer Bo (Ben Wang).

 

The story begins on the first day of Chang’s sophomore year, which he has spent the entire summer envisioning will be far superior to the one before. He’s desperate to be liked, and considered cool; to that end, he has made himself over with a new haircut and wardrobe.

 

Bo, comfortable in his own skin, is puzzled by this transformation. He couldn’t care less if he’s viewed as a dork; he’s clearly playing the long game (and likely will wind up CEO of the company that employs some of his condescending school mates).

 

Besides which, and much to Chang’s disappointment, it quickly becomes obvious that he’s still viewed the same as before.

 

Matters are worsened when a new student, Kristy (Zoe Renee), joins the band’s drum unit. Chang’s crush is instantaneous, and the feeling initially seems mutual … until Kristy also is noticed and pursued by Matt (Chase Liefeld), the high school basketball star. Wanting to be admired for the same reason, Chang rashly bets that he can dunk a basketball by Homecoming, 11 weeks away.

 

Chang, it should be mentioned, is 5-foot-8.

 

Creed III: Punches at its weight

Creed III (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense sports action, violence and profanity-laced song lyrics

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.3.23

This spin-off boxing series finally dances on its own two feet, having outgrown its Rocky Balboa roots.

 

Nice to see.

 

The calm before the impending storm: Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) enjoys some quality
time with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their daughter Amara
(Mila Davis-Kent)

The script — from Ryan Coogler, Keegan Coogler and Zach Baylin — delivers a satisfying blend of intimate family drama and riveting pugilistic action, along with a mystery that keeps folks guessing for awhile.

Star Michael B. Jordan also makes his directorial debut here. While he deserves credit for mounting a satisfying sports drama, he also has himself frequently framed in tight close-up by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau (a frequent vanity misstep by actors-turned-first-time-directors).

 

And although this series always has threatened to drown in soggy melodrama, this newest entry again skates close to the edge, but (happily) doesn’t descend into slushy sentimentality.

 

The core plot stands on its own, but viewers unfamiliar with the two earlier films may be puzzled by some of the family dynamics, notably the (apparently) strained relationship between Adonis Creed (Jordan) and his beloved mother, Mary-Anne (Phylicia Rashad). 

 

The film opens on a flashback that expands on our hero’s origin. It’s 2002, and 15-year-old Adonis (Thaddeus J. Mixson) sneaks out of his house late on evening, in order to watch his slightly older best friend, Damian Anderson (Spence Moore II), win a key boxing match. The two bonded during the two years they lived in a juvenile center, when Damian schooled Adonis in the “sweet science.”

 

Following Damian’s victory, while stopping for snacks at a convenience store, — a suddenly enraged Adonis starts beating on an older guy who exits the place. (And we think, what the heck?)

 

Cue two sudden cuts: the first showcasing the adult Adonis winning the bout that makes him World Heavyweight Champion, and then — just as quickly — several years later, to the present day. Adonis has retired and now runs the Delphi Boxing Academy with his former cornerman, Tony “Little Duke” Burton (Wood Harris). Current champ Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez) is in residence, as Delphi’s star boxer.

 

Adonis shares his lavish Bel Air home with loving wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), whose previous life as a pop performer has blossomed into an equally successful career as a music producer. They dote on young daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent, absolutely adorable), whose deafness hasn’t harmed her spirit.

 

Jordan and Davis-Kent share marvelous chemistry, and this story’s father/daughter sequences are totally charming. Amara worships her father, and wants to learn more about boxing … to Bianca’s dismay. Particularly since the little girl tends to settle school disagreements with a punch.

 

(Davis-Kent actually is deaf, which adds a solid touch of authenticy to her performance.)