Fly Like a Girl: Truly soars

Fly Like a Girl (2019) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, and absolutely suited for all ages

By Derrick Bang

“The airplane can’t tell if you’re a man or a woman.”

 

Let it be said: We need more documentaries like this one.

 

Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu, far left — one of three surviving WWII WASPs — watches
as President Obama signs the proclamation that awards the Congressional Medal
of Honor for their services.

Katie McEntire Wiatt’s bravura, inspirational film — available via Hulu — isn’t merely a profile of today’s accomplished women in all modes of flight; it’s also a tribute to the long-ago female aviators who paved the way for them.

On top of which, this saga is a timely reminder of the perniciously subtle ways in which young women still are discouraged from STEM fields, because “it’s not something girls do well.”

 

Wiatt cross-cuts between three focal points: archival footage of the historical pioneers; interviews with 13 of today’s (frankly remarkable) pilots and astronauts; and intimate moments with 11-year-old Afton Kinkade, who has yearned to become a pilot pretty much since she could walk.

 

Afton divides her time between the roosting chickens at her family’s home in Tampa, Fla. — all of which she has named — and the scores of Lego creations, model planes and other items she has built and displayed in a bedroom also laden with aviation books and magazines.

 

She’s beguiling, calmly earnest and undeterred, even when among friends who don’t understand this passion. Why shouldn’t I become a pilot, Afton insists. (Answer, of course: No reason at all.)

 

The archival footage includes segments on (among others) Amelia Earhart; Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the world; and Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman and Native-American to hold a pilot’s license … although not obtained in the United States, where this option was denied.

 

She therefore learned French at Chicago’s Berlitz Language Schools, traveled to Paris, and earned her pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921. (So there, USA!)

 

Bernice “Bee” S. Falk Haydu bridges the gap between those trailblazers and the modern era, while relating her experiences as a WWII Women Air force Service Pilot (WASP). She’s a perky, cheerfully composed on-camera subject, while recalling the blatant discrimination and misogyny that she and her fellow WASPS endured.

 

(Excerpts from one training film of that era, detailing “the trouble with women in the military,” is positively cringe-worthy.)

The Personal History of David Copperfield: A Dickens of a treat

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG, for occasional dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.9.21

I haven’t had this much fun with Charles Dickens, since 1982’s miniseries adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

 

Mind you, “fun” isn’t easy to pull off, when it comes to Dickens. He does love to make his protagonists suffer.

 

As a clever means of helping his friend Mr. Dick (Hugh Laurie, right) exorcise the
"thoughts of King Charles I" that constantly haunt him, David (Dev Patel) suggests
that these snatches be written onto scraps of paper, to then be attached to a large
kite, so they can be blown away and "erased" by a strong wind.

Even so, director/co-scripter Armando Iannucci’s Personal History of David Copperfield — available via HBO Max — is a high-spirited romp: enlivened by marvelous performances, a cheeky interpretation of Dickens’ semi-autobiographical novel — co-scripted with Simon Blackwell — breathless pacing, and occasionally dazzling bursts of Terry Gilliam-style special effects.

The mere fact that this film cleverly covers so much of Dickens’ dense novel — 877 pages (!), in the Oxford edition — is astonishing all by itself. Granted, this cinematic experience is akin to a 119-minute sprint, but it’s hard to complain when the result is so entertaining.

 

David Copperfield boasts two of Dickens’ best-known supporting characters: the melodramatic, nobly flustered and penniless Wilkins Micawber, steadfastly retaining his dignity while forever one short step ahead of legions of debt collectors (and based on Dickens’ father); and the smarmy, sneakily loathsome Uriah Heep, one of the most creepily detestable villains ever concocted. They’re brought to glorious life by, respectively, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw.

 

Acknowledging the joy and phenomenal success that Dickens experienced giving public performances of his works — less staid readings, and more acting tours de force (one of the author’s friends noted that “Dickens was like an entire theater company … under one hat”) — Iannucci opens his film as the adult David Copperfield (Dev Patel) stands on the stage of a theater crowded with fans, holding a stack of pages, and intones one of Dickens’ most famous introductions:

 

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

 

Young David (Ranveer Jaiswal, cute as a button) spends his happy early years without a father, raised more by a doting housekeeper, Clara Peggotty (Daisy May Cooper), than his loving but waiflike mother (Morfydd Clark), who mourns the loss of her husband. Alas, when David is 7, she re-marries the cruel and abusive Edward Murdstone (Darren Boyd, suitably imperious), who beats the boy for falling behind in his studies. 

 

Murdstone is accompanied by his equally nasty spinster sister, Jane (the imposing Gwendoline Christie, well remembered as Brienne of Tarth, in HBO’s Game of Thrones).

Pinocchio: Enchanting chip off a magical block

Pinocchio (2019) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for disturbing images and fantasy peril

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.7.21

Disney has a lot to answer for.

 

Any knowledge of Pinocchio that American viewers possess is based entirely on Uncle Walt’s 1940 animated version, which — while admittedly a family-friendly classic —  took serious liberties with Italian author Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel (a book which, alas, I’m sure very few members of the previous several generations have read).

 

Much to the amusement of the Blue Fairy (Alida Baldari Calabria), every lie told by
Pinocchio (Federico Ielapi) — each one a desperate attempt to undo a previous fib —
makes his nose grow even longer.

Granted, Disney’s writers retained the essential plot beats, but the major shift concerns tone and atmosphere; 1940’s Pinocchio is a cheerful, song-laden frolic, which is wholly at odds with the darker, moodier and subtly subversive elements of Collodi’s novel.

 

Director/co-scripter Matteo Garrone’s new live-action adaptation is much closer to its source. That’s merely one (massive) point in its favor; Garrone’s film also is gorgeously lensed by cinematographer Nicolai Brüel, and further blessed with truly astonishing work by makeup artist Dalia Colli, prosthetic makeup designer Mark Coulier, and hair designer Francesco Pegoretti.

 

The latter trio absolutely deserve their Academy Award nomination, and — if they don’t win — there is no justice in the world.

 

It’s almost impossible to distinguish where human characters yield to animals and puppet work; the blend is flawless. And breathtaking.

 

Don’t for a moment assume that their cinematic magic solely concerns the stringless wooden puppet carved by Geppetto (Roberto Benigni) from a magical chunk of wood. This saga is laden with all manner of human-size creatures: a canine coachman resplendent in regal white; a quartet of grim, black-clad rabbit undertakers; a brooding, cranky gorilla judge; bickering owl and crow doctors; and a green-skinned grasshopper.

 

And a snail. With a massive shell, and a tendency to leave a truly disgusting trail of slime in her wake.

 

Garrone and his makeup team painstakingly based all these individuals on Enrico Mazzanti’s illustrations in Collodi’s book, and the accuracy is stunning. The result is a film that displays a dazzling sense of wonder: movie magic in the true sense of the term.

 

To be sure, the story focuses on — and is driven by — 9-year-old Federico Ielapi’s performance as the title character, his dazzling, oak-grained makeup meticulous applied by hand. As Pinocchio’s saga proceeds, his face and limbs begin to look worn, even chipped in spots. Indeed, we tend to forget that he is being played by a human boy, so persuasive is his (deliberately) clumsy and lopsided movements, as if he’s never quite able to manage limbs joined by pins at knees, elbows and shoulders.

 

With very few exceptions, most of what we watch is produced “in camera,” as opposed to CGI trickery. That’s also quite impressive, particularly these days.

The Booksellers: A novel delight

The Booksellers (2019) • View trailer 

Four stars. Not rated, and suitable for all ages

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.18.20

An average person’s notion of a book collector, we’re told in director D.W. Young’s delightful documentary — available via Amazon Prime — is a middle-aged (or older) man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, and a pipe. And a glass of sherry.

 

Argosy Books — co-owned by, from left, Adina Cohen, Naomi Hample and Judith
Lowry — is one of the few original bookstores remaining in New York City, from a
time when dozens of similar outlets, on Fourth Avenue alone, prompted a section of
that street to be called "Book Row."

Although some of the individuals profiled and quoted in this film fit that description, an equal number do not; indeed, one of the savviest next-gen rare book dealers is Rebecca Romney, a go-to expert on TV’s Pawn Stars, who has been in the trade since 2007.

 

Like everybody else here, she’s enthusiastic and impressively articulate … and perhaps just a trifle unconventional. It goes with the territory.

 

Aside from Romney and a few other geographical outliers, Young’s film spends most of its time in New York’s book world, with its assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers. The tone and atmosphere are unapologetically Big Apple, but the charm of Young’s approach is the ease with which he slips us into this scene.

 

This film was made by book people, for book people; folks who use their dictionaries as door stops probably won’t last 10 minutes. But those of us who love walking into a home with a wall of stuffed floor-to-ceiling shelves, and who always smile at the faintest whiff of that characteristic “old book smell,” are certain to enjoy this alternately fascinating and whimsical 99-minute journey.

 

Actually, anybody with a collector’s mentality likely will see themselves in many of these folks.

 

“The world is divided into people who collect things,” one dealer observes, “and people who don’t know what the hell these people are doing, collecting things. [They think] if you’re a collector, you’re just a sick, obsessive-compulsive person who would sell your grandmother to buy something you really like.”

 

(Which could be true, in a few cases.)

 

The film opens at the Park Avenue Armory’s annual Antiquarian Book Fair, the world’s largest event of its type, where more than 200 American and international dealers display a massive assortment of rare books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera in the realms of literature, art, medicine, photography, autographs, first editions and, well, honestly, I couldn’t keep track. Cinematographer Peter Bolte’s overhead view of the place is breathtaking.

 

It’s somewhat appropriate that the massive building’s large clock long ago stopped working; as with Las Vegas casinos, the Book Fair evades any acknowledgment of time’s passage.

 

7500: A pilot's worst nightmare

7500 (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.19.20

This is a nifty little thriller: great premise, taut execution and excellent use of its claustrophobic setting.

Wounded and trapped in the cockpit with an unconscious attacker, Tobias (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt) nervously watches the cabin security monitor, waiting to see what the
other two terrorists will do next.

It’s also a real-time nail-biter, and those aren’t easy to handle; tension must be sustained credibly. Director Patrick Vollrath pulls it off in his solid feature debut; he shares scripting duties with Senad Halilbasic.

A prolog montage, monitoring activity at an airport security checkpoint, telegraphs what is to come: An overhead surveillance camera lingers briefly on several dodgy men, and we know we’re in for a hijacking.

In the cockpit of a passenger aircraft, pilot Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger) and co-pilot Tobias (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) run through the pre-flight checklist for their short hop from Berlin to Paris. Friendly chatter is exchanged with Gökce (Aylin Tezel), Tobias’ flight attendant girlfriend; everything is routine.

But not for long.

Minutes after take-off, Gökce brings Michael and Tobias some snacks; she knocks and stands outside the locked security door, waiting to be noticed via the monitor screen inside the cockpit. Michael flips the switch that unlocks the door … and that’s what three Muslim extremists have waited for. They rush forward, armed with knives improvised from broken glass; one yanks her aside, as the other two charge into the cockpit.

The resulting skirmish is furious but brief. The leader, Kenan (Murathan Muslu), mortally wounds Michael, but is overpowered and knocked unconscious; despite getting a nasty slash on his left arm, Tobias forces the younger Vedat (Omid Memar) back out of the cockpit, and re-locks the door.

Michael succumbs to his injury; the distraught Tobias, acting on panic and adrenaline, pushes the body to one side, and ties Kenan to the captain’s chair. He then immediately radios the situation to Berlin air-traffic control (“Code 7500: unlawful interference”) and arranges an emergency landing in Hanover.

Ah, but the terrorists haven’t given up. When it becomes clear that pounding on the security door is useless — the third man, Daniel (Paul Wollin), is absolutely terrifying on the black-and-white monitor screen, as he goes into a berserker rage — they grab a passenger and threaten to kill him, unless Tobias opens the door.

The situation … develops from there.

Military Wives: Be sure to enlist!

Military Wives (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.5.20

Director Peter Cattaneo makes adorable feel-good films that cleverly blend light, character-driven humor with social commentary that often pokes at the British class system.

Lisa (Sharon Horgan, left) can't quite believe it when, instead of just allowing their group
to sing a song, Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas) insists on beginning with high-falutin'
vocal exercises.

He put himself on the map with 1997’s The Full Monty, and if his subsequent films didn’t live up to that big-screen debut — 2001’s Lucky Break and 2008’s The Rocker — it’s only because he set the bar so high the first time.

Well, Military Wives — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — hits all the markers that made Monty so entertaining. The cherry on top is that Rosanne Flynn and Rachel Tunnard’s script is inspired by deeply moving actual events: a poignant (and well-timed) reminder that people from disparate backgrounds can accomplish marvelous things when working together.

The setting is 2010, at England’s (fictitious) Flitcroft military base. (Production actually took place at North Yorkshire’s Catterick Garrison, the world’s largest British army base.) The ongoing war in Afghanistan has just entered the “surge” phase, with increasing numbers of Allied troops being deployed overseas; this includes many of the active-duty soldiers at Flitcroft.

Their wives and girlfriends, left behind on base, have limited options for distracting themselves from worst-case fears. Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas), wife of the company commander, decides to take a more active hand in gathering the women for group activities. By doing so, she steps on the toes of Lisa (Sharon Horgan), the base’s newly appointed Social Committee chair.

They’re a classic case of oil and water, destined never to mix. Kate is a condescending, high-minded aristocrat who throws her status around; Scott Thomas delivers just the right note of smug entitlement. The earthier, working-class Lisa has long enjoyed being “just one of the girls,” and she’s not about to let her new “promotion” get in the way of that.

Kate wants to organize productive, formally structured activities; Lisa — and the rest of the women — prefer informal morning coffee klatches and wine-fueled evenings.

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.)

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.

Always Be My Maybe: No doubts here!

Always Be My Maybe (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, drug use and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.24.20

Much the way the Hallmark Channel has become (in)famous for its insufferably sweet Christmas movies, Netflix has been unleashing a steady supply of original romantic comedies.

When Marcus (Emerson Min) and Sasha (Miya Cech) treat themselves to a night on the
town, of course they have to participate in a cute photo booth session.

Many fall into the so-so category; some are positively dire. (I strongly caution against Love Wedding Repeat, which debuted a few weeks ago.)

Always Be My Maybe, on the other hand, is a cut above.

The premise and execution may be familiar, but the snarky script and sharp acting — with solid, character-rich performances even by minor players — makes this a thoroughly scrumptious experience. It’s a dream project by co-writers Ali Wong and Randall Park, both accomplished actors and comedians, who wanted to produce their own version of When Harry Met Sally…

With solid assistance from co-scripter Michael Golamco and director Nahnatchka Khan — a noteworthy feature film debut — Wong and Park succeeded.

Aside from the engaging core story, their film is laden with nonstop asides, retorts and one-liners — all delivered with impeccable comic timing — and droll bits of visual business, some so subtle that you’ll have to watch a second time, just to catch them all (a not-at-all painful experience). This may be a modest endeavor, but it’s quite entertaining.

It’s also a hilarious — and dead-on accurate — send-up of pretentious foodies, and the vacuous celebrity culture.

But that comes later. We meet Sasha and Marcus — initially played engagingly by Miya Cech and Emerson Min — as 12-year-old neighbors in a friendly San Francisco neighborhood. She’s a latchkey sole child of parents forever busy elsewhere: essentially an orphan. 

She therefore spends considerable time next door with the traditional family that Marcus is lucky enough to possess; he and parents Harry (James Saito) and Judy (Susan Park) dote on each other, and Sasha becomes a grateful surrogate daughter.

Khan and her scripters breeze through the next few years in montage, hitting all the usual “young love” cute points. Because, clearly, they’re meant for each other … although each is too nervous — shy, uncertain, whatever — to acknowledge or act upon the bond.

Until, at the verge of adulthood — now played by Wong and Park — they do.

As often is the case with childhood best friends, sex ruins everything.