Knives Out: A cutting romp

Knives Out (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for brief violence, profanity, sexual candor and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.6.19

I haven’t had this much fun since 2001’s Gosford Park.

From the opening scene — as two large dogs charge ominously across the grounds of a massive secluded estate, accompanied by an unsettling warble of violins from soundtrack composer Nathan Johnson — we’re obviously in good hands.

While Marta (Ana de Armas) watches uncomfortably, private investigator Benoit Blanc
(Daniel Craig) puzzles his way through one of the many inconsistencies in the
"suicide" that he increasingly believes was staged.

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is a droll, clever riff on classic, Agatha Christie-style drawing room murder mysteries. It’s not quite a spoof — the plot is powered by a devilishly twisty whodunit — but one nonetheless senses that all concerned had a great time in the process.

The top-flight cast is headed by Daniel Craig, resolutely solemn as debonair Benoit Blanc, a Southern-friend private investigator who channels Christie’s Hercule Poirot by way of Colonel Sanders. (Once again, British actors are surprisingly convincing with their Deep South accents.) Craig almost never cracks a smile — it wouldn’t suit Benoit’s character — but the more gravely earnest he remains, the funnier the performance.

And Benoit certainly has a puzzler for his little gray cells.

As the film opens, world-famous and wealthy mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) has been dead for a week, his passing written off as suicide: not an unusual a call, given that he was found with the knife that slashed his throat, his fingerprints all over the handle.

As far as local cops Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) are concerned, the case is closed. They’re therefore baffled when Benoit shows up, claiming to have been hired to investigate the “suspicious circumstances” of Harlan’s death; the gumshoe requests re-interviews with the entire Thrombey clan.

At first blush, they seem united in genuine grief … but after even minimal probing, they turn out to be quite the collection of grasping, spiteful, self-centered, back-biting misfits.

All the Money in the World ... can't guarantee a perfect film

All the Money in the World (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, violence and drug use
By Derrick Bang

This film’s Christmas Day release couldn’t be more appropriate: Rarely has a real-world individual been depicted in a manner so reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.

Invitation to catastrophe: Gail (Michelle Williams) and her husband John (Andrew Buchan,
right) assume that being embraced by his father, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer)
will be the best possible thing for their family, and particularly for their eldest child Paul
(Charlie Shotwell). How wrong they are...

Although All the Money in the World draws its stomach-clenching suspense from the uncertain fate endured by its young victim, director Ridley Scott’s film gets most of its juice from Christopher Plummer’s mesmerizing portrayal of billionaire J. Paul Getty: an avaricious, repugnant monster whose breathtakingly awful behavior knows no bounds.

Indeed, each example of cruelty is topped by one that’s much worse. We’re frequently inclined to believe that scripter David Scarpa fabricated this or that jaw-droppingly ludicrous detail ... but no. Getty really was that stingy and parsimonious, particularly with family members, and Plummer’s performance oozes heartless contempt. (How artistically fitting that Plummer recently played Scrooge in The Man Who Invented Christmas.)

Scarpa’s script is drawn from the relevant portion of John Pearson’s 1995 book, Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. One can’t help feeling that it ain’t easy to be wealthy (although everybody would love to try).

I also can’t help wondering if Scott, Scarpa and Plummer intend this performance as a thinly veiled indictment of the similarly callous behavior currently emanating from the unfeeling über-rich in Washington, D.C.

Plummer is so perfect — so contemptibly vile — that it’s difficult to imagine anybody else in the role. And yet he was a last-minute replacement for the publicly disgraced Kevin Spacey, who had completed work on the film. Assuming Scott and Sony are willing to release that footage, it’ll be fascinating to compare the two performances, once this drama hits home video.

(Actually, 88-year-old Plummer seems a better choice than 68-year-old Spacey, given that Getty was 81 when these events went down.)

All the Money in the World concerns one of history’s most unusual — and protracted — crimes: the 1973 kidnapping of Getty’s 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III, affectionately known as Paul. He endured half a year of imprisonment, from mid-July through mid-December, while his captors’ demands encountered a brick wall of refusal from the old man.

The Man Who Invented Christmas: Clever take on a holiday chesnut

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

This is a droll bit of seasonal mischief.

Les Standiford’s scholarly, quasi-biography of Charles Dickens — 2008’s The Man Who Invented Christmas — seems an unlikely source for a mainstream, holiday-themed film; scripter Susan Coyne deserves credit for an unusual (if hardly original) approach.

As Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens, seated) struggles to work his way through the five
"staves" of his new book, he's helped — and hindered — by his imagined personification
of Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer).

The result proceeds briskly under the capable guidance of British film and TV director Bharat Nalluri, perhaps best known on these shores for 2008’s charming Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Nalluri and Coyne similarly concentrate on whimsical character dynamics here, presenting us with a 31-year-old Dickens — played with agreeably feverish anxiety by Dan Stevens — beset by all manner of troubles.

The film begins with a brief prologue in 1842, with Dickens celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic, his stage readings standing-room-only sell-outs in the wake of his wildly popular novels Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop. Flash-forward a year and change, and Dickens is in dire financial straits after three published flops, including — most particularly — the unloved Martin Chuzzlewit.

Dickens is at wit’s end: unable to pay the craftsmen appointing his luxurious new home; forever harried by his spendthrift father (Jonathan Pryce, as John Dickens); and newly panicked by the news that his wife Kate (Morfydd Clark) is expecting their fifth child. Worse yet, he’s months into a ferocious case of writer’s block, the public disdain for his recent output having paralyzed his creative juices.

Best friend and sorta-kinda agent John Forster (Justin Edwards) isn’t much help, his advice limited to little beyond “Well, just write another book.” Dickens’ publishers — Chapman (Ian McNeice) and Hall (David McSavage) — are similarly useless: actually worse than useless, when they reject the pitch for his next book.

They hardly can be blamed, as it’s a crazed notion: a vaguely defined story about Christmas. Nobody writes about Christmas; nobody cares about Christmas. As the boorish husband of one of Dickens’ aristocratic readers sniffs, Christmas is “just an excuse to pick a man’s pocket once a year.”

If that line sounds familiar, you’ve recognized one key element in Coyne’s script.

The narrative conceit here is that Dickens overhears and jots down names, comments and possible plot contrivances from family, friends and random strangers. (Young Irish housemaid Tara — winningly played by Anna Murphy — helps him come up with the name “Scrooge.”) It’s a delightful notion, particularly for those well-versed in A Christmas Carol’s characters and quotable lines.

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.

The Oscar Follies: Indulging once again in the predictive arts

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.12


The Golden Globes may be more free-wheeling and snarky; the People’s Choice Awards may be more populist. For prestige and historical significance, though, nothing compares to the Academy Awards.

True, the show can be creaky, overlong and sycophantic. I sometimes worry that the folks onstage will break their arms, from patting each other — and themselves — on the back so much.

But the Oscar ceremony is what it is, and producers should stop trying to “improve” it with silly little adjustments. Last year’s attempt to attract younger viewers did nothing but embarrass co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, and the gushing, on-stage tributes to the acting nominees have got to stop.

On the other hand, a few of the Academy nominating branches really do need to get their acts together. How, for starters, could The Adventures of Tintin have been overlooked in the animated feature category?

One suspects that the voters regarded its motion-capture technology “suspect” in some manner, but that’s ludicrous. Way back in the day, Max and Dave Fleischer’s first Superman short cartoon garnered a 1941 Oscar nomination; its rotoscoped animation style is a direct forerunner of motion-capture.

Besides, if Andy Serkis can’t get an acting nomination — despite heavy lobbying — for his nuanced performance as the ape Caesar, in last year’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then clearly the motion-capture technique involved is regarded as CGI animation, rather than live action. And if it’s animation, then Tintin was robbed.

Although irritating, that hiccup pales in comparison to the behavior of the Academy’s music branch, which this year deemed only two (!) tunes worthy of a best song nomination. That’s absolutely daft, not to mention a gross insult to the many talented songwriters who fielded the 39 submissions initially considered.

Blame a 2009 voting rules change, which since then has required songs to score at least 8.25 (on a scale from 6 to 10) to earn a nomination. If fewer than five songs do that well, we get fewer than five nominees. If no song gets at least 8.25, then the category is eliminated.

Say what?!?!?

That’s clearly brainless, and it gets worse: Music branch members only watch clips that include the eligible songs, as opposed to viewing each entire film. How, then, are these voters able to evaluate — and now I’m quoting the actual music branch rules — a given song’s “effectiveness, craftsmanship, creative substance and relevance to the dramatic whole”?

I added the italics. Couldn’t help myself.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Not tough enough

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for brutal violent content, rape, torture, strong sexuality, nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.23.11


David Fincher exhausts all his creative juices on this film’s opening credits.

The director who disturbed us so effectively during Se7en and Zodiac delivers a truly creepy set of credits for his handling of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. They unspool like some rancid afterbirth of classic James Bond credits, with oil- and rubber-covered figures, barely human, punctured by various sharp-bladed instruments.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) should be unhappy when he learns
that Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) has been eavesdropping on his laptop
activity; indeed, he could have her arrested. But Blomkvist recognizes
investigative talent, and instead asks Lisbeth to help him solve a
40-year-old murder mystery.

Fincher certainly establishes a mood.

Trouble is, he never matches it from that point forward. Yes, this is an uncomfortable, edgy thriller, with Steven Zaillian’s script reasonably faithful to the late Stieg Larsson’s iconic, best-selling novel. But Fincher brings little to the party in the way of visceral oomph; he simply goes through the motions, as if hamstrung by the heavy expectations riding on this project.

As a result, his film remains in the shadow of Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev’s far more satisfying 2009 version: the first adaptation of Larsson’s book, and clearly the superior effort.

Fincher’s remake simply doesn’t sizzle. At no time does he come close to the suspense he generated with Panic Room, particularly during that tension-laden thriller’s final half hour. The climactic confrontation in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should have the same edge-of-the-seat suspense ... but it doesn’t.

Possibly because — as most definitely wasn’t the case with Oplev’s version — the “big reveal” regarding the clandestine villain’s identity isn’t much of a surprise here.

Zaillian made several intelligent decisions with his script. He clarified the relationship between crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and his publisher/partner, Erika Berger (Robin Wright); Zaillian also dumped an unnecessary — and eyebrow-rolling — affair that Blomkvist has with Cecilia Vanger (Geraldine James), once he begins his investigation for her uncle, Henrik (Christopher Plummer).

Unfortunately, by minimizing Cecilia’s involvement and compressing the rest of the extended Vanger family — we only meet them en masse once, during a fleeting scene in a hospital waiting room — Zaillian whittles down the likely suspects to ... well, very few. After all, we can hardly worry about people the script scarcely bothers to introduce.

Oplev and his scripters, Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, did a far better job with the various members of the arrogant Vanger clan, and therefore kept us guessing.

Beginners: Poignant to the end

Beginners (2010) • View trailer for Beginners
Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for mild sensuality and occasional bursts of profanity
By Derrick Bang


Chronic grief is difficult to convey on camera.

It’s not chest-beating and wails of anguish; that may be a credible snap response to a tragedy, but it’s the stuff of extended sorrow only in afternoon soap operas and bad melodramas.

Oliver (Ewan McGregor), not quite certain whether to trust that his budding
relationship with Anna (Mélanie Laurent) will last, attempts to keep her
off-guard with unexpected gestures. But being spontaneous doesn't come
easily to Oliver; it's one of many things he needs to learn while navigating
several unexpected and life-changing events.

Long-term misery is more like a lamp on a dimmer switch; the entire bulb is present, but the inner glow is diminished. One’s aura is muted. Answers to questions are half a heartbeat late; physical movement is sluggish; the eyes never quite focus; smiles seem to appear more because they’re expected — a social convention, to mask the truth — as opposed to reflecting spontaneous delight. One simply doesn’t look or seem involved.

All this is hard to project in a film, precisely because it isn't flashy. Lesser actors try too hard, and miss the desired result entirely.

Meryl Streep caught it, in 1982’s adaptation of Sophie’s Choice. Richard Jenkins did just as well, more recently, in The Visitor. Both earned well-deserved Academy Award nominations for their efforts; Streep won hers.

Ewan McGregor belongs in their company, for his rich, quietly layered and subtly precise work in writer/director Mike Mills’ Beginners. This is a compelling, persuasively nuanced study of personal pain and the cautious attempts at recovery. Mills clearly understands the process, and his story resonates with the utter truth of personal experience. He really nails the process: It’s like learning to exist all over again, and figuring out how to re-assemble the pieces of one’s psyche, because a large chunk has been removed. Permanently.

But navigating grief is only half the equation here; the rest derives from the shock of confronting change so massive that it disrupts one’s sense of the universe ... and, to a great degree, of self.

The time is 2003; we meet Oliver (McGregor) as he embraces the ritual of sifting through another’s possessions — the books, clothes, furniture and boxed clutter that somehow shape an entire life — after having just lost his father to cancer. It’s a doleful process, made even worse by the occasional discovery that prompts an involuntary smile. Oliver shares this experience with Arthur, an expressive Jack Russell Terrier that was his father’s constant companion. Now, with his former master absent, Arthur cannot leave Oliver’s side.

This dog, it must be mentioned, is a treasure: one of the great screen canines, giving a performance every bit the equal of his two-legged co-stars. Actually named Cosmo, this pooch was trained by Mathilde de Cagny, who nurtured another famous Jack Russell — Moose, who played Eddie — during 11 seasons of the TV series Frasier.

The Last Station: Derailed

The Last Station (2010) • View trailer for The Last Station
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for nudity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.10
Buy DVD: The Last Station • Buy Blu-Ray: The Last Station [Blu-ray]


Tempestuous period clashes between husband and wife cannot help being compared to the gold standard of this cinematic micro-genre: director Anthony Harvey's sizzling 1968 adaptation of The Lion in Winter, which starred Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitane.

Few performers have chewed up the scenery with such style, and James Goldstone's Academy Award-winning script — drawn from his own stage play — remains an exhilarating blend of historical fact, fancy and razor-edged temper tantrums.

Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) has been sent into Leo Tolstoy's
household in order to spy on the famed novelist's high-strung wife, Sofya
(Helen Mirren), and to keep a diary of all her conversations and behavior. Not
realizing this, Sofya in turn asks Valentin to spy on a man she doesn't trust,
by -- you guessed it -- keeping another diary of all his conversations and
behavior.

Director/scripter Michael Hoffman's The Last Station, in great contrast, is oddly staid and uninvolving.

To be sure, stars Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren earn their Oscar nominations, for their shrewdly shaded portrayals of Leo and his wildly melodramatic wife, Sofya. Mirren, in particular, makes Sofya a pathetic and desperate creature: a woman who has grown to despise much about a husband whose hubris has gone way overboard ... but at the same time cannot imagine living without him.

Unfortunately, Hoffman's screenplay — adapted from Jay Parini's novel — assumes rather too much of its audience. Viewers lacking a great deal of knowledge about Tolstoy, and early 20th century Russia, are apt to get lost in a narrative that feels as though we've been dumped into chapter 37 of some expansive novel, and left to work out the various back-story details on our own.

Perhaps more telling, Hoffman's directorial focus goes not to Plummer and Mirren, but instead to James McAvoy's Valentin Bulgakov, the worshipful young man hired as Tolstoy's newest assistant. Hoffman too often concentrates on Valentin's coming-of-age lessons, particularly as related to his growing relationship with the free-spirited Masha (Kerry Condon), a young woman whose sexual willingness seems a bit out of place in these surroundings.

(I don't doubt, for a moment, that some early 20th century women were sexually adventurous: probably far more than history ever will acknowledge. But Condon looks and sounds too much like a 1960s flower child.)

Frankly, Hoffman seems most interested in Valentin, and McAvoy's sensitive, carefully layered performance certainly makes his the most compassionate character in these proceedings. But he's still a secondary character, and it seems wrong for him to steal so much focus from Tolstoy and his wife, particularly when acting heavyweights such as Plummer and Mirren are involved.

The film's balance feels off, as a result, and we're never quite sure who does — or doesn't — deserve our sympathy.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: Warped reflections

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) • View trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violent images, sensuality and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.15.10
Buy DVD: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus • Buy Blu-Ray: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [Blu-ray]


Terry Gilliam's imagination is both wildly, feverishly creative and oddly grungy; one gets the impression that he views dreams and nightmares as cluttered landscapes cobbled together by people who can't be bothered to tidy up their homes, let alone put any order to their deeply buried fantasies and fears.

This somewhat messy view of humanity goes all the way back to Gilliam's days with Monty Python, when (for example) he had much to do with the filthy, muck-infested depiction of medieval England in 1975's Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Ironically, the film has since been praised for the historical verisimilitude of its setting: far more realistic than the freshly scrubbed and impeccably garbed knights and ladies of so many Hollywood costume dramas.

Although Parnassus (Christopher Plummer, left) is inclined to reflect sadly on
the mess he has made of his life, an oddly solicitous Mr. Nick (Tom Waits)
rather charitably points out that things aren't that bad ... and besides, there's
always another wager to make.

Gilliam continued to focus on mankind's scruffier elements in his best big-screen fantasies, from the bedraggled heroes of Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, to the street people of his inner-city masterpiece, The Fisher King.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is no different. We can readily believe that the ageless Parnassus, long ago granted immortality, truly has traveled the world for centuries with the same dilapidated, horse-drawn carriage-cum-circus: a deceptively rickety affair that possesses a much larger interior than its weather-worn exterior would suggest.

Once upon a time, perhaps back in the 18th century, Parnassus and his traveling troupe would have dazzled average passers-by with a blend of juggling, acrobatics, sly subterfuge and a truly magic mirror that serves as a gateway to the more embarrassing — or nastier — parts of the human soul. But the good doctor hasn't updated his schtick since then, and the smirking, condescending denizens of our 21st century lack the childlike sense of wonder that would have left their ancestors rapt whenever Parnassus' wagon rolled into town. More's the pity, because the traveling show's true nature remains just as pressing in this modern age.

Countless generations ago, Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) bargained with the Devil, dubbed Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), for the gift of immortality. The Devil cheerfully granted this wish, because Parnassus hadn't anticipated the agony of eternal life, and of watching, over and over, as people he knew and loved grew old and left him.

We also eventually realize, thanks to the delightful subtlety of Waits' performance, that Mr. Nick sensed a kindred spirit in Parnassus all those years back: a worthy opponent for an endless celestial competition over the very nature of man.