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.

Death on the Nile: Waterlogged

Death on the Nile (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for violence, bloody images and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.11.22

Vanity, thy name is Kenneth Branagh.

 

Bad enough that he dishonors Agatha Christie by turning her shrewdly stoic, sharp-as-a-tack Hercule Poirot, he of the “little gray cells,” into a despondent, uncertain, weeping snowflake with no emotional control: somebody to be scorned, not admired.

 

Newlyweds Simon (Armie Hammer) and Linnet (Gal Gadot) happily tour an Egyptian
bazaar, little realizing that the stalker they've hoped to elude, isn't very far away...

Worse yet, Michael Green’s laughably overcooked and overwrought script makes absolutely hash of Christie’s celebrated 1937 novel, and his efforts at dialogue are remarkably unpersuasive.

At one point, having just acknowledged dropping a massive chunk of stone onto an unwary victim below, one suspect then wails “But I never would have killed her,” despite having just admitted attempting to do that very thing: a statement that goes unchallenged by Poirot and everybody else, which makes them look like fools.

 

That’s probably the worst howler in this egregiously stupid script, but it has plenty of company.

 

And as if all this isn’t enough, Branagh — who also directs — tolerates (encourages?) overacting to such a ludicrous degree, that he telegraphs the plot’s most surprising twist.

 

This may well be the worst big-screen Christie adaptation ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public … and I’m quite mindful of 1965’s dreadful Alphabet Murders — Tony Randall being an equally appalling Poirot — while making this claim.

 

Dame Agatha must be spinning in her grave.

 

This brings us to the issue of assigning early 21st century attitudes on characters who inhabit the 1930s: an “enhancement” that must be handled with care, lest the disconnect become distracting. There certainly isn’t anything wrong — as a positive example — with making two of these suspects lesbian lovers; even if Christie never specifically addressed such a relationship, they certainly existed.

 

But completely changing numerous supporting characters — in name and behavior — is both unnecessary and irritating. 

 

This film also opens with a nightclub display of Miley Cyrus-style “dirty dancing” that is impressively salacious by today’s standards, let alone those of nearly a century ago: a sequence that Branagh allows to go on, and on — and on — long past the point of … well … having made its point.

 

And that’s far from the only sequence that feels wholly out of place.

 

Clearly, since 2017’s similarly “modified” Murder on the Orient Express was such a box office success — grossing more than $350 million worldwide — Branagh’s reprisal of Poirot was inevitable.

 

But good grief … couldn’t all concerned have tried a little harder?

 

Sigh.

Captain Marvel: Well titled!

Captain Marvel (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.8.19

Carol Danvers has endured more trauma, conflicting origin stories, alternate identities and just plain mean-spirited punishment than any other Marvel Comics character, likely because several generations’ worth of (mostly male) writers didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with a heroine who’d been created in the mid-1970s, as little more than a sop to the feminist movement.

Having traveled to Louisiana in search of Maria (Lashana Lynch, left), the friend who believed
her long dead, Vers (Brie Larson) finally begins to stitch jumbled memories into a coherent past.

All that finally changed in 2012, with the arrival of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, who alongside artist Dexter Soy orchestrated a new series that firmly established Danvers’ Captain Marvel as a worthy figure in the Marvel universe.

And as an individual who can hold her own against heavyweight colleagues such as Thor and the Hulk.

That Carol Danvers has been granted similar respect by co-writer/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck in the newest — and thoroughly enjoyable — entry in the meticulously crafted Marvel film universe. Captain Marvel manages the delicate balance of interpersonal angst, kick-ass action and whimsical snark, without succumbing to either slapstick self-parody or tedious cataclysmic excess (the latter a serious problem in many superhero films).

Credit also goes to Brie Larson, for her thoroughly engaging portrayal of a character who is equal parts pluck, resolve, intelligence, humor and (so it would seem) reckless stubbornness.

The result is just as entertaining as 2017’s Wonder Woman, which proves anew how much more satisfying the result can be — dare I say it? — with a woman playing a key role in the filmmaking process.

(Boden and Fleck have worked together since the turn of this century, initially on short subjects and documentaries, and later on features such as Half Nelson and Sugar.)

Panicked viewers who choked on their popcorn, while watching so many of their beloved heroes vanish in puffs of smoke at the conclusion of last year’s Avengers: Infinity War, may have wondered about that gadget Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury activated before he, too, faded away. This film answers that question, while also bringing two long-established sets of Marvel’s cosmic players — the Kree and Skrulls — into the film franchise.

This is an origin story with multiple interwoven layers, thanks to a cleverly structured plot by Boden, Fleck and co-writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider) and Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy). They keep us guessing during a complicated narrative that never becomes hard to follow, despite several unexpected twists.

Life Itself: Should be put out of its misery

Life Itself (2018) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, relentless heartbreak and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

This is the most relentlessly, manipulatively, cruelly depressing film I’ve ever had the displeasure to endure.

Abby (Olivia Wilde) and Will (Oscar Isaac) linger in bed with their beloved little pooch,
convinced that every morning — every day — will be as giddily, lovingly happy as this
one. Obviously, they haven't read the next page in this unspeakable film's script.

Writer/director Dan Fogelman obviously had some serious demons to exorcise, but that’s no excuse; he could have poured his heart into a journal, and spared the rest of us this soul-numbing slog of gloom and despair.

It’s also counter to what we’ve come to expect from the writer who brought us droll, sharply observed ensemble dramedies such as Crazy Stupid Love, Danny Collins (which he also directed) and the ongoing TV series This Is Us, not to mention Tangled, his clever animated take on the fairy tale Rapunzel. This has been a go-to guy for guaranteed entertainment for more than a decade.

What the hell happened?

And what in the world made Amazon Studios think people would want to watch this?

As becomes clear immediately, Life Itself also suffers from obnoxiously contrived structural and presentation tics, any one of which seasoned filmgoers generally recognize as a signal of Bad Things To Come: 1) tedious, said-bookism narration; 2) cutesy “chapter titles”; and 3) far too much time spent in a psychiatrist’s office.

At times, this is a deliberate deconstruction of cinema’s traditional storytelling process, in service of a running subtext concerning a fictional device known as the “unreliable narrator.” Hitchcock employs this quite notoriously in Stage Fright, when the “flashbacks” related by Richard Todd’s character turn out to be lies. More recently, The Usual Suspects tricked us grandly with an unreliable narrator.

But Fogelman’s use of this gimmick isn’t clever; it’s simply mean-spirited, as if he derives some sort of sadistic pleasure from shattering not only our expectations, but the investment we have in a blossoming series of captivating characters. By the end of the first “chapter,” the message becomes clear: Neither Fogelman, nor this film, can — or should — be trusted.

His apparent point: Life, itself, is the ultimate unreliable narrator, because just when things seem to be going wonderfully, true happiness can be shattered by tragedy.

Okay, fine … but must that happen over, and over, and over again, in the same dreary slice of rancid cinematic pie?

Rules Don't Apply: Chaos reigns

Rules Don't Apply (2016) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Oh, my.

This may not be Warren Beatty’s worst film — Ishtar and Town & Country still arm-wrestle for that distinction — but it runs a close third.

Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), hoping to become a Hollywood star, finds herself spending
lots of time with driver Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who seems a poor substitute
for potential mentor Howard Huges. Initially, anyway...

Much has been made about the “sudden” appearance of this new Beatty project: the first time he has appeared on screen since 2001 (in the aforementioned Town & Country), and the first film he has written, directed, produced and starred in, since 1998’s Bulworth (also far from a classic).

Warren, you shoulda stayed retired.

Alas, too many artists cannot resist the itch to create, long after common sense should have removed them from the stage.

In fairness, even at its worst — and there’s plenty of “worst” to go around — Beatty’s new film reveals traces of the idiosyncratic sparkle that bloomed to perfection in classics such as Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait. And, at 79 years young, Beatty himself remains a master of the roguish twinkle and droll double-takes that made him such a memorable screen presence, back in the day.

But Rules Don’t Apply remains a mess.

It’s the worst sort of self-indulgent vanity project: a bloated, bewildering, pointless excuse to shovel several dozen high-profile guest stars into meaningless, ill-defined and under-developed parts. The so-called story is a muddle — Beatty sharing scripting credit with Bo Goldman — and the limply executed result commits the entertainment world’s most unpardonable sin: It’s boring.

Turgid, mind-numbingly dull, I’d-rather-endure-root-canal-surgery tedious.

It’s also superfluous. While Beatty is the right age to deliver his interpretation of Howard Hughes’ tragic final years, there’s no reason to do so. This film’s script offers no information, no character analysis, that wasn’t covered far better by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, in 2004’s The Aviator.

On top of which, the whole Howard Hughes riff apparently is intended as mere framing device for a stuttering courtship between two young lovers caught in the eccentric industrialist’s disintegrating orbit. It’s a clumsy narrative device, and it fails utterly. Those who grimly slog through this film’s interminable 126 minutes still won’t care a whit about any of these characters.

I’m surprised that Goldman returned to this particular well, having won an Academy Award for writing 1980’s far more successful Hughes project, Melvin and Howard. Now, that was a clever, precocious, charming and thoroughly entertaining lark.

All of which are qualities sorely lacking in Beatty’s newest — and undoubtedly final — misfire.

Danny Collins: A truly delightful tune

Danny Collins (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity and drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.10.15

You have to admire a fact-based film that’s candid about not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Danny Collins opens with a disclaimer that reads “Kind of based on a true story a little bit.” Gotta love it.

Disgusted by the sell-out, media-hungry clown he has become, Danny (Al Pacino, left)
seriously contemplates ending it all ... little realizing that a most unusual birthday present
from manager and longtime friend Frank (Christopher Plummer) is about to change his life.

As it happens, writer/director Dan Fogelman’s charming dramedy merely “borrows” a minor incident as a jumping-off point for the wholly fictitious saga of an aging rock/pop star who undergoes a life-changing epiphany.

Or so he hopes...

Fogelman has sharp writing sensibilities: an eye for engaging character dynamics, and an ear for the sort of intelligent, witty badinage that we don’t get often enough in today’s movies. After script assists on animated fare such as Cars and Tangled, and an endearing solo turn on the under-appreciated TV movie Lipshitz Saves the World, Fogelman made an impressive big-screen writing splash with 2011’s delightful Crazy, Stupid, Love.

His immediate follow-ups — The Guilt Trip and Last Vegas — were somewhat disappointing, in comparison, but Fogelman has kicked back into high gear with Danny Collins, on which he also makes a respectable directing debut. The result is a thoroughly entertaining, character-driven melodrama that grants Al Pacino his best role since his turn as TV journalist Lowell Bergman, in 1999’s The Insider.

He stars here as Danny Collins, a one-time rock wunderkind whose debut album, way back in the day, demonstrated the poetic grace of a Bob Dylan ... but who, during the intervening four decades, has succumbed to the drugs, alcohol and circus-style pomp of his rock-god image, up to and including his hilariously overdone, George Hamilton-style tan.

I hope Neil Diamond has a good sense of humor, because the typical Danny Collins concert extravaganza with which Fogelman opens his film — during which the star belts out his signature anthem, “Hey, Baby Doll,” to enthusiastic audience participation — looks and sounds just like the love-fest that occurs whenever Diamond does “Sweet Caroline” during his shows.

Backstage, the ennui has taken its toll, the years of identically vacuous performances deeply etched into lines of discouragement on Danny’s face. And while he may have more money than God, and all the trappings that wealth can buy — including a sexpot girlfriend half his age (Katarina Cas, as the rarely dressed Sophie) — Danny has become cynical, miserable, bored ... and desperate.

Desperate enough, that the notion of another birthday is giving him thoughts of ending it all.

Ruby Sparks: Fantasy with a whimsical glow

Ruby Sparks (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.17.12

Fresh, provocative concepts are one of cinema’s great treasures: unexpected delights — often in quiet, unassuming packages — that catch our fancy because they deserve to.

Initially, Harry (Chris Messina, right) assumes that his brother Calvin's
(Paul Dano) new girlfriend is nothing more than a figment of his
unbalanced imagination. But when Harry finally agrees to meet Ruby
(Zoe Kazan) — and realizes that she's a genuine, flesh-and-blood
woman — he's both captivated and genuinely amazed ... because he
knows that she first existed only as a character in Calvin's new novel.

They’re usually script-driven, sometimes a debut screenplay by a young actor flying beneath the radar ... but not for long. Think of Sylvester Stallone, stubbornly shepherding 1976’s Rocky to the big screen as a starring vehicle for himself. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and 1997’s Good Will Hunting. Sofia Coppola, and 2003’s Lost in Translation (not her first script, but certainly the Academy Award-winning effort that made her career). Michael Arndt, and 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine.

The latter also marked the directorial debut of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a filmmaking team who cut their teeth on music videos and the MTV series The Cutting Edge before turning their deliciously quirky sensibilities to full-length features. They’re obviously selective, having waited six years before embarking on their sophomore effort.

And while Ruby Sparks certainly benefits from their capable guidance, this wonderfully idiosyncratic charmer will be immortalized as the film that transformed Zoe Kazan from a little-known young actress — you might remember her from supporting roles in 2008’s Revolutionary Road and 2009’s It’s Complicated — to a multi-hyphenate: star, writer and producer.

Until a few short months ago, Kazan probably was most famous simply because of her family name: She’s the granddaughter of celebrated director Elia Kazan (Gentlemen’s Agreement, On the Waterfront, East of Eden and many more), and the daughter of Academy Award-nominated screenwriters Nicholas Kazan (Reversal of Fortune and Bicentennial Man, among others) and Robin Swicord (The Jane Austen Book Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, among others).

Clearly, talent runs in the family. By the end of summer, we’ll hear the name Kazan and think of Zoe, not her parents or grandfather. And deservedly so.

Ruby Sparks is Zoe Kazan’s tart, unapologetically preposterous update of the ancient Greek Pygmalion myth, which concerned a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he created, after it came to life. George Bernard Shaw turned this concept into a 1912 play that eventually begat the acclaimed 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady, which has remained famous — as a film and stage production — ever since.

In Kazan’s hands, the sculptor becomes novelist Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano), a former literary wunderkind who sold his acclaimed first novel while still a teenager. But like other first-time author celebrities before him — Margaret Mitchell, J.D. Salinger and Harper Lee come to mind — the subsequent fame has proved stifling and artistically crippling. Now, a full decade later, Calvin still rides on the fame of his debut book, but he hasn’t been able to write anything new.

The Kids Are All Right: Balancing Act

The Kids Are All Right (2010) • View trailer for The Kids Are All Right
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, nudity, sexual candor and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.30.10
Buy DVD: The Kids Are All Right • Buy Blu-Ray: The Kids Are All Right [Blu-ray]


Some relationship dramedies derive their humor neither from one-liners nor slapstick merriment, but what could be termed the "squirm factor."

Our chuckles are genuine but nervous; we find somebody's flustered behavior both amusing and embarrassing ... and wincingly familiar. We're constantly waiting for some ax to fall, and that also turns into jittery laughter. The closer the script cuts to the bone — the more these characters become persuasively real to us — the more we laugh at their foolish conduct.

Paul (Mark Ruffalo, right) isn't sure what to expect when he's invited to share a
meal with Nic (Annette Bening, left) and Jules (Julianne Moore), whose children
 he fathered, years ago, thanks to sperm donation. He has only just met the teens
in question -- Laser (Josh Hutcherson) and Joni (Mia Wasikowska) -- and shares
their desire that he become more involved with their lives. But long-established
family dynamics are tricky, and the guarded undercurrent present during
this dinner is bound to erupt, sooner or later. 

Mostly because it ain't us making such a blindingly idiotic mess of our lives.

Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right cuts very close to the bone. It's therefore quite funny at times, and also heartbreaking at other moments. Cholodenko's script, co-written with Stuart Blumberg, is achingly, painfully credible; the set-up is reasonable, the dialogue and human responses pretty much as we'd expect from the folks next door, or down the street ... or in our own bedroom.

The film also is anchored by powerful, Academy Award-worthy performances, particularly those from stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. They truly inhabit their characters, to the degree that I frankly forgot I was watching actresses in a movie. As happens only rarely, the actresses completely vanish into their roles.

Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) have been together for years, and have fallen into patterns that'll be recognized by couples enduring middle-age ennui. They take each other for granted a bit too much, then over-compensate with ostentatious displays of affection ... often while others can watch and therefore validate the gesture.

Nic's the bread-winner: a control freak, somewhat hyper-critical and certainly hyper-sensitive, and prone to a few too many glasses of wine. Jules is loosie-goosie, more inclined to ride the shifting winds of fickle impulse. She probably absorbs more snarky remarks — delivered with waspish precision by Bening — than she dishes out.

The Women: Chick shtick

The Women (2008) • View trailer for The Women
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, sexual candor and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.18.08
Buy DVD: The Women • Buy Blu-Ray: The Women [Blu-ray]

Sometimes, even with top-quality talent, everything goes wrong.

Bad casting decisions. Inconsistent tone. Inexperienced and tin-eared directorial decisions.

Having just learned that her husband is having a rather public affair, Mary
Haines (Meg Ryan, center) flees with her daughter (India Ennenga, left) to her
mother's (Candice Bergen) "summer cabin," while trying to determine her next
move. Sadly, the one thing Mary won't get is good advice or rock-solid support
from her three best friends, because they're too frequently AWOL in writer/
director Diane English's clumsy modern remake of The Women.

Let's begin with the first mistake: the extremely ill-advised decision to remake a play that first hit the big screen in 1939, when director George Cukor guided Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine and Paulette Goddard — among others — in his snarky film adaptation of Clare Booth Luce's The Women.

Luce's play emerged at a time when women — even rich society women — had far fewer options. This isn't mere historical observation; it's crucial to the nature of Luce's play, because a woman of that era risked everything if she chose to divorce her husband, even if the philandering swine deserved it.

Arguing for calm reflection — insisting that the betrayed wife carefully weigh her options, and give serious consideration to forgiving the cad — might have made more sense on the eve of World War II.

In today's world, however, we cannot for a second imagine why all her friends — and even her mother! — would keep insisting that Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) grant a second chance to the off-camera lout who has stepped out on her with a tarted-up perfume counter babe employed at Saks.

Or why Mary would seriously consider such advice.

It's particularly difficult because we never meet her husband, and therefore have no emotional investment in his point of view. That's the gimmick here, as it was in Cukor's film: The cast is entirely female. Whether at home, at work or striding down New York City sidewalks, these characters never encounter — nor do we ever see — any men.

The word "contrived" leaps to mind, which also pretty well covers writer/director Diane English's script.

Cukor, even though he did operate at a time when the central storyline "read" well, had the good sense to retain Luce's wonderfully nasty tone. Her play is a verbal slugfest, with even the central core friends behaving quite badly at times; all her characters deliver caustic, often barbed comments with the skill of a Jane Austen heroine.

Even today, Cukor's film remains a howl, its rarefied cattiness just as deliciously arch as the rat-a-tat tough guy (and gal) talk in the best 1940s and '50s noir thrillers. Point being, we're not intended to take anything all that seriously; Luce's women are deliberated exaggerated archetypes who take merciless glee while chewing up the scenery ... and each other.