Wolfs: Crime served wry

Wolfs (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and frequent profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.6.24

This quietly sardonic crime thriller demonstrates anew the captivating power of star wattage.

 

Because — to be blunt — writer/director Jon Watts’ film wouldn’t be such a much, absent George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

 

Despite competitive wariness, two professional "fixers" — Brad Pitt, left, and George
Clooney — reluctantly admit that they'll need to work together, in order to clean up
what has become an increasingly troublesome mess.

They make it sparkle.

Watts clearly designed this project with them in mind, playing to their unruffled charisma, and the fact that both — along with their characters — gamely make the most of being in their early 60s. You’ll also detect a strong echo of the Danny & Rusty vibe from Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels, including some familiar bits of dialogue: “What’s the play here?” (Clooney) and “I don’t work that way” (Pitt).

 

Or, for those with longer memories, the similarly well-bonded banter between Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

 

But it doesn’t begin that way here.

 

Watts opens his story with a bang, as ambitious New York politician Margaret (Amy Ryan), blood splattered all over her dress, finds herself in a fancy hotel suite with the body of a young stud. Panicked, knowing full well that this could destroy her career, she dials a number listed in her phone solely as a pair of brackets.

 

That reaches Clooney’s anonymous character — known solely, from this point forward, as “Margaret’s Man” — who shows up sporting a fashionable black turtleneck, leather coat ... and latex gloves, along with assorted other, um, tools of his trade. That would be “cleaner,” or “fixer,” or “calmly methodical fellow who makes problems go away.”

 

He has barely begun to work when his apparent twin (Pitt) shows up: similarly dressed, clearly in the same line of work, and equally irritated to discover that he has competition. He has been summoned by hotel owner Pam (Frances McDormand, making the most of her brief voice-only phone performance). She has all her rooms bugged and on camera, and wants this mess cleaned up for the same reason: to avoid bad publicity.

 

Pitt’s character, equally anonymous, is subsequently known as “Pam’s Man.” (Or perhaps we should just call them George and Brad, since Watts clearly wants us to identify with their signature screen presence.)

 

Clooney and Pitt make the most of the wry squabble over the “best way” to deal with this problem, how best to clean up the room and dispose of the body, and so forth ... while poor Margaret frets, gasps and blinks in wide-eyed helplessness.

 

(I suspect an actual seasoned politician would be more calm and self-assured, but Ryan had to play the cards that she was dealt.)

Women Talking: A grim yet crucial conversation

Women Talking (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too generously, despite considerable dramatic intensity, sexual assault, bloody images and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

A dozen women, of all ages, gather in the upper loft of a massive barn.

 

This feels like a small farming community, and they’re dressed plainly; there’s no sign of modern conveniences. It could be one, two, even three centuries ago.

 

Forced into an impossible decision, the women from two families — from left, Mejal
(Michelle McLeod), Greta (Sheila McCarthy), Neitje (Liv McNeil), Mariche (Jessie Buckley),
Salome (Claire Foy), Autje (Kate Hallett), Ona (Rooney Mara) and Agata (Judith Ivy) —
contemplate a pair of equally life-changing options.

The meeting is prompted by some sort of crisis. But that’s only a catalyst; unhappiness, frustration and even fury have been brewing for a long time. The men in this community have been intolerable for too long, and the women have convened to consider their options: do nothing, leave … or stay and fight back.

A vote is taken, with every female community member weighing in. Because they’re all illiterate, they merely mark an X beneath one of three pencil drawings depicting each option. Their “schooling” has been solely Biblical and heavily evangelical, their compliance dictated by verses burned into their brains.

 

The vote proves a tie, between leaving or fighting back.

 

This small subset of women — from three families — has been tasked with weighing the options, considering consequences, and breaking the tie.

 

Director/scripter Sarah Polley’s moody, expressionistic adaptation of Miriam Toews’ critically hailed 2018 novel is a quietly somber affair that leans toward fable or allegory, but in fact is an explosive shot across the bow of all predatory male behavior.

 

As soon becomes clear, as the ensuing discussion unfolds, this community’s men have — for generations — been cruelly abusing these women physically, emotionally and spiritually. They’ve been raped in the dead of night, regardless of age, after being rendered unconscious by a livestock anesthetic spray.

 

Confronted, the following morning, by the bruised and often bloody results of these late-night assaults, their subsequent anguish has been dismissed — by the men — as the work of Satan, ghosts or “wild female imagination.”

 

This has continued for generations, the women often giving birth to boys who grow up to become men groomed to subsequently rape their own younger sisters.

 

The immediate emergency has been prompted by a failed assault attempt; the attacker was witnessed by potential adolescent victims Autje (Kate Hallett) and Neitje (Liv McNeil). They’re mostly silent during these proceedings, braiding each other’s hair into an intertwined bond, and — unexpectedly — occasionally supplying remarkably perceptive observations.

 

The perpetrator was caught and arrested; all of the community’s men have left to post bail in the nearby town. When they return with the accused, it has been made clear that the women will be expected to forgive him, according to “God’s way.”

 

Hence, the dilemma.

The Tragedy of Macbeth: Terrific style, flawed substance

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

Shakespeare’s plays have been modified, mutated and mangled in all manner of wild, wonderful and wacky ways, on the stage and screen: modern settings, cross-gender casting, larkish animation and much, much more.

 

Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble: Macbeth (Denzel
Washington) is about to learn that an apparently promising prophecy carries
nasty consequences.

(It sometimes seems unusual when a faithful adaptation arrives, although 1996’s Twelfth Night and several sumptuous Kenneth Branagh entries come to mind.)

Even by the unusual standards of some that have come before, director/scripter Joel Coen’s Tragedy of Macbeth is quite outré.

 

The film’s look is simultaneously gorgeous and disorienting. Stefan Dechant’s eye-popping production design is an opulent blend of 1920s German Expressionism and imposing Gothic sensibilities, saturated with a 1950s film noir atmosphere courtesy of Bruno Delbonnel’s gorgeous monochrome cinematography. Buildings and individual rooms have impossibly distant ceilings, with quirkily geometric windows that cast striking lights and shadows.

 

The result is unsettling and even hallucinatory: quite apt, given the nature of this grim, blood-drenched story.

 

Carter Burwell’s moody, often ominous orchestral score similarly adds much to the film’s macabre tone.

 

Casting is intriguing; Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand are much too old for the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, although their advanced years do further emphasize their characters’ frustration over having failed to produce an heir.

 

There’s also the matter of Coen’s bold decision to considerably enhance the role of Ross, generally a minor supporting character, but — as superbly played here by Alex Hassell — transformed into a Satanic key player, trickster figure and master manipulator. He frankly blows Washington and McDormand off the screen.

 

The story begins as Scottish generals Macbeth, his good friend Banquo (Bertie Carvel) and their army have successfully defeated the allied forces of Ireland and Norway. En route to rejoining King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson), Macbeth and Banquo wander onto an ominous heath and encounter three witches.

 

All three of these supernatural beings do — or sometimes don’t — inhabit the single body of actress Kathryn Hunter, whose contortionist abilities and feral malevolence are extremely unsettling. She may be the creepiest witch ever brought to the screen, and her varying appearances are quite creative: most strikingly, a single body with two reflections in a pool of water, thus becoming three “selves.”

The French Dispatch: Impenetrable language barrier

The French Dispatch (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.29.21

Although one can only marvel, gape-jawed, at the feverish, coordinated complexity of set and backdrop movement, carefully composed and choreographed actor placement, traveling camerawork and integrated miniatures — relentlessly, as this aggressively bizarre film proceeds — all this visual razzmatazz rapidly wears out its welcome.

 

Magazine editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray, left) listens while star journalist
Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright, right) defends his turn of phrase; both are ignored
by another staffer who serves more as background decoration, given that he never
has written a word.

A classic case of the tail wagging the dog.

There’s never been any doubt that Wes Anderson, as a filmmaker, is obsessed with eccentricity and kitsch; his cinematic visions generally occupy a universe several steps beyond traditionally heightened reality. When he succeeds, the result can be a bravura work of genius, as with The Grand Budapest Hotel.

 

When he slides off the rails, as with this one, we’re left with nothing but contrived and relentlessly mannered weirdness for its own sake. Which doesn’t work.

 

Worse yet, despite all the marvelous eye candy, this film is boring. Crushingly boring.

 

It looks like half of Hollywood wanders through this self-indulgent vanity project, sometimes for no more than a minute or so. You could spend the entire film just trying to identify everybody (and, at times, that’s more interesting than trying to follow the outré storytelling).

 

In fairness, the premise and narrative gimmick are delectable. In a setting that seems 1950s-ish, The French Dispatch is a widely circulated American magazine based in the French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, lovingly overseen by quietly cranky, Kansas-born editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray).

 

If Anderson’s vision begins to feel like a love letter to the venerable New Yorker magazine, during its 1950s and ’60s heyday, well … that’s undoubtedly intentional.

 

As the film begins, Howitzer has just died. The staff journalists — hand-picked over the years, sometimes less for their writing chops, and more for the way they lend atmosphere to the voluminous offices — assemble to draft his obituary, and prepare the magazine’s final issue. We then watch the three primary feature stories crafted, over time, by writers who embedded themselves, and became part of their assignments.

 

The generous application of flashbacks allows Murray plenty of screen time, as he fine-tunes each piece. His traditional advice, to each scribe: “Try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose.” (You’ve gotta love that line.)

 

We open with a brief travelogue, as Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson), the “Cycling Reporter,” takes us on a guided tour of Ennui-sur-Blasé: along the way relating the city’s history, while proudly highlighting many of the seedier neighborhoods, and their often wacky inhabitants.

 

This entertaining sequence showcases the astonishing work by production designer Adam Stockhausen, supervising art director Stéphane Cressend and cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman, who (I hope) was paid by the mile, because he must’ve been run off his feet.

Nomadland: An ode to free spirits

Nomadland (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated R, for brief full nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.19.21

Some films so persuasively blur the line between fiction and reality, that the result feels less like fabricated drama, and more like a documentary.

 

Fern (Frances McDormand) and Dave (David Strathairn) enjoy a rare hearty meal while
taking in the wonders of South Dakota's Badlands National Park.

Director/scripter/editor Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland — available via Hulu — is just such a film: a deeply moving ensemble drama, and an eye-opening exploration of an expanding, off-grid social development that has become a disheartening 21st century phenomenon, in the wake of the 2007-08 economic crash.

 

Zhao’s film is adapted from Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book of the same title: itself a sly blend of character study and undercover journalism. Although this cinematic translation is anchored by Academy Award winner Frances McDormand — as a fictitious character — most of the supporting players are true nomads with no prior acting experience.

 

Which makes the performances that Zhao coaxes from them, all the more stunning. It’s damn near impossible to capture true authenticity on camera, because novices tend to be too self-conscious, too aware of “posing.” What Zhao and cinematographer Joshua James Richards have done here, is nothing short of remarkable.

 

The story opens on an actual event: the sad fate of Empire, Nevada, a tiny mining community run by U.S. Gypsum since 1948. In the wake of the recession, the company closed its gypsum plant in January 2011, eliminating all jobs for the local residents. By the end of that year, Empire had become a modern-day ghost town, having lost even its Zip Code (89405).

 

Fern (McDormand) is hit harder than most, her husband having died from a lingering disease. In a heartbeat, then, she has lost her entire world: her job, her soul mate, her neighbors, her very community.

 

Dismayed by how the “stuff” of a failed American dream has lost its significance, Fern limits her world to whatever can be stuffed into her white Ford Econoline van, which then becomes her home. She’s reasonably resourceful, fabricating and adding all manner of cupboards, compartments and folding counters that are both cleverly functional and somewhat cozy.

 

“I’m not homeless,” she insists tartly, during a chance encounter with a former neighbor. “I’m just house-less.”

 

It’s December; Fern has signed up for seasonal work at an Amazon fulfillment center, which comes with campground facilities that compensate for her van’s lack of running water and, well, anything approaching a bathroom. She befriends co-worker Linda May: Fern’s first encounter with a veteran “nomad.”

 

(Zhao’s obvious devotion to authenticity notwithstanding, it’s an eyebrow lift when Fern’s stint at the fulfillment center is depicted as pleasantly satisfying, with plenty of bonding, but not even a whiff of the exploitatively hard labor and exhaustingly long hours. Clearly, that wasn’t an element of the story Zhao wished to tell, so we must let it slide.)

 

Isle of Dogs: A tail-wagging triumph

Isle of Dogs (2018) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and some violent images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.23.18

This one is a treasure.

Wes Anderson’s films are eccentric — to say the least — but, over time, his unique brand of quirk has become ever more beguiling. Recall that 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel won four of its nine Academy Award nominations, and that Anderson has earned six nominations himself, dating back to a scripting nod for 2002’s The Royal Tennenbaums.

Twelve-year-old Atari, in an act of defiance against his guardian, the mayor of Megasaki
City, isn't about to let his beloved pet remain quarantined with all the other dogs on an
outlying "trash island."

One of the other six was earned when he helmed 2010’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, an engagingly warped adaptation of Roald Dahl’s droll little tale, presented via an insane amount of painstakingly detailed stop-motion puppet animation.

Anderson has returned to that form with Isle of Dogs, and it’s a work of even more incandescent brilliance: a thoroughly enchanting underdog fable for our time, and a similarly stunning achievement in puppet animation, and the jaw-droppingly detailed micro-sets they inhabit.

The only applicable descriptor — a term not to be used lightly — is awesome.

But the film isn’t merely fun to watch; it’s also powered by a genius storyline co-written by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Kunichi Nomura (the latter a Japanese writer, DJ, radio personality and occasional actor who made brief appearances in Lost in Translation and, yes, The Grand Budapest Hotel).

As often is the case with animated films, it’s difficult to praise the “acting” per se, since the characters aren’t flesh and blood. And yet there’s no doubt that Anderson — alongside animation director Mark Waring, and puppet master Andy Gent — has coaxed impressively sensitive performances from his many stars. Line readings perfectly match facial expressions and body language; double-takes and comic timing are delivered with the impeccable mastery of a stand-up veteran.

In short, we couldn’t be more engaged if these were “real” performers ... which would be impossible, of course, since dogs don’t talk.

But you may come away from this film thinking they do.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Signs of the Times?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for violence and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang

This one’s not for the faint of heart.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s savagely dark assault on mainstream sensibilities is both a blistering burlesque and a painfully raw depiction of despair, frustration and unchecked rage. Much of this film obviously cannot — should not — be taken seriously; unfortunately, quite a lot also feels excruciatingly real.

Although troubled by the rather drastic step that Mildred (Frances McDormand) has taken,
in an effort to achieve closure regarding her daughter's long-unsolved murder, Police
Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) checks his emotions while explaining the
frustrating circumstances behind the case.

And not all that unlikely.

The film is powered by Frances McDormand’s sensational starring performance, an acting tour-de-force even more persuasive — more believably, subtly grounded, even within exaggerated circumstances — than her Academy Award-winning work in 1996’s Fargo. And I never, ever expected to write those words.

Her Mildred Hayes is wracked with grief and unresolved anger: a single mother pushed to the edge by her teenage daughter’s gruesome rape/murder, which remains unsolved after seven months. Fed up with what she perceives as investigative apathy, Mildred purchases messages on three long-unused billboards standing alongside the quiet road leading to her home.

The three-part message is a direct and controversial challenge to local police chief William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson).

Many of the residents in bucolic Ebbings regard Mildred’s provocative act as profoundly unfair. Tellingly, Willoughby isn’t all that bothered. But second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature, racist, violence-prone mama’s boy who wouldn’t know prudence if she kissed him, gets ugly. Repeatedly.

The subsequent unraveling of McDonagh’s vicious narrative is laden with revelations, which is much of the fun: You simply cannot anticipate the twists and U-turns, and there’s no sense trying.

Casting is the first surprise, because Harrelson has built his career — in great measure — on a series of unbalanced and even dangerous misanthropes; we naturally expect the same here. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Willoughby is the story’s most rational, thoughtful and level-headed character: a decent man who wins our respect, because he responds to Mildred not with hostility, but kindness and sympathy.

It’s an absolutely cold case, he gently explains, after the billboards go up. No telling evidence. No DNA hits. Nada.

Harrelson exudes good-natured pragmatism and intelligence; he’s genuinely endearing. We all should be so lucky, to have such a thoughtful police chief.

Mildred is unconvinced; Willoughby acknowledges this as her right.

Hail, Caesar! — A block, a stone, a worse than senseless thing

Hail, Caesar! (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for mildly suggestive content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.16

A new Coen brothers film usually is cause for celebration.

Not this time.

Capitol Pictures studio head Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) has just learned that his
water ballet star, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), is pregnant. She's also
unmarried: a potentially juicy scandal waiting to be scooped up by hovering
Hollywood gossip columnists.

Hail, Caesar! is a classic study of wretched excess: a labored, overcooked, star-heavy production that isn’t nearly as funny as everybody seems to think.

I’m reminded of Steven Spielberg’s 1941, also a bloated period comedy made at a point when the then-young director thought he could do no wrong. It, too, is an overwrought mess that mostly wastes the talents of a cast that was impressive for its time.

Spielberg’s 1941 attempted to mine humor from a WWII-era storyline that proposed a Japanese submarine invasion off the California coast. Hail, Caesar!, set in Hollywood during the “nifty fifties” — when, terrified by the arrival of television, the motion picture industry’s glorious façade was beginning to show visible cracks — attempts to mine humor from (among other things) a Communist submarine invasion off the California coast.

A moment which, it must be mentioned, climaxes the film’s most protracted and thoroughly inane subplot.

At its core, though, the Coen brothers’ script is a day-in-the-life study of Hollywood studio chief Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), who confronts various crises — large and small — during a typical 24 hours. His soundstages are laden with sets and stars for numerous films in various stages of production, and all are typical of the time period:

• A sophisticated drawing room melodrama, where disgruntled, mildly prissy director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) has just been saddled with corn-pone singing cowboy star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) as his new young protagonist;

• A sailors-at-sea musical, with song-and-dance superstar Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) channeling Gene Kelly;

• A waterlogged, Busby Berkeley-style extravaganza, headlined by swimming sensation DeeAnna Moran (Scarlet Johansson); and, most particularly...

• A biblical epic featuring famed studio leading man Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), as a Roman centurion who undergoes a moral conversion after encountering no less than Jesus himself.

The Good Dinosaur: Jurassic lark

The Good Dinosaur (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.27.15

Time and again, the folks at Pixar have demonstrated a talent for wildly imaginative, outside-the-box storytelling.

The secret lives of toys. The source of our nightmares, and our emotions. Superheroes with family and identity crises. The fate of a tiny, semi-sentient robot left alone to clean up a polluted Earth.

Arlo (far right) and his tiny "pet," Spot, find themselves in the middle of a range war, when
a trio of cattle ranchers led by Butch (second from left) take on a pack of rustling
velociraptors.

And now, perhaps, the best and biggest “what if” of all: What if that huge asteroid hadn’t hit Earth, roughly 65 million years ago?

According to Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, at least some of the massive saurians would have established an agrarian society, homesteading and raising families much like 19th century American settlers. Indeed, this whole narrative is a playful riff on classic Western archetypes, from the aforementioned farmers to nastier aggressors lurking in outlying regions, with an actual “cattle” round-up thrown in for good measure.

At the same time, traditional family values have been grafted onto dinosaurs, often with droll intent, in the time-honored fashion of countless earlier animated Disney films that have anthropomorphized everything from elephants to Dalmatians. Indeed, much about The Good Dinosaur feels less like “standard” Pixar fare — if there is such a thing — and more like the coming-of-age plot beats of traditional Disney animated storytelling.

Then there’s also the matter of the rather unusual “pet” nipping at the edges of everything else here: a narrative element likely to make ultra-conservative, man-is-the-center-of-everything types choke on their Cheerios.

If all this sounds like rather a lot for one film, well ... yes, that’s an issue. “The Good Dinosaur” feels a bit overcooked, and it lacks the tight focus that marks Pixar’s best films. I’m always wary of scripts credited to multiple authors, and this one acknowledges five writers — Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Meg LeFauve, Kelsey Mann and Bob Peterson — with Sohn also in the director’s chair.

At times, this saga doesn’t quite know how to find its legs, much like the title character.

Promised Land: Rock-solid advocacy cinema

Promised Land (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.9.13


Matt Damon hasn’t written many scripts since 1997’s Good Will Hunting, his Academy Award-winning debut effort with Ben Affleck. His prudence is understandable; where does one go, from up?

Hoping to undo the doubts raised by a local farmer who warns that fracking is anything
but a safe means of obtaining "clean" natural gas, Steve Butler (Matt Damon) takes
the microphone during a McKinley town meeting. Unfortunately, his usual smooth
patter will fail him a bit here, leading to a divided community ... and displeasure on the
part of Steve's corporate bosses.

Good Will Hunting was directed by Gus Van Sant; no surprise, then, that they collaborated on Damon’s next script, 2002’s little-seen (with good cause) Gerry.

Perhaps chastened by that experience, Damon put his word processor in the closet for a decade, while crafting an impressive acting career as both action hero — the Bourne series — and overall international film star.

But writers never quit; telling stories is in their blood. No doubt Damon was waiting for just the right property, and he certainly got it with Promised Land. Once again under Van Sant’s capable guidance, this captivating drama gets its juice from well-crafted characters, tart dialogue, a solid ensemble cast and a hot-button scenario ripped from real-world headlines.

Damon shares scripting duties with John Krasinski, a rising film star making good on the promise he has shown for so many years, on television’s The Office. Krasinski isn’t known as a writer — unless once includes 2009’s best-forgotten Brief Interviews with Hideous Men — but he certainly rises to the occasion here. He and Damon have deftly adapted a story by Dave Eggers, who burst on the scene a few years ago, with scripts for Away We Go and Where the Wild Things Are.

Good screenplays get their power from many elements. It’s not enough to craft piquant one-liners; they must be true to a well constructed plot. (They also must be delivered well by actors who understand how to maximize the impact of crisply timed dialogue, and that’s where we credit Van Sant.) The characters themselves must be interesting, efficiently sketched and cleverly integrated with all the other players on stage. We must care about them, either as good guys or bad guys.

Most of all, they must change — mature, regress, whatever — as a result of what happens to them.

A tall order all around.

Factor in a desire to be relevant — to indict a topic of the day — and most writers fail to juggle all those fragile eggs.

Damon and Krasinski, in welcome contrast, never err. Even casual exchanges of dialogue have consequences; watch for the payoff on a passing reference to a little girl selling lemonade outside a high school gymnasium. Goodness, it could be argued that she carries the moral weight of the entire film. That is sharp scripting.

Moonrise Kingdom: Casts a gentle glow

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

All kids — particularly those who read books — dream of having adventures in faraway lands, ideally with exotic companions. Adults rarely figure into such fantasies, except as vague background entities, and the imagined adventures generally exist in a heightened reality that might look familiar, but isn’t quite our workaday world.

Having ditched the adults in their lives, Suzy (Kara Hayward) and
Sam (Jared Gilman) ponder a map of tiny New Penzance island, to
work out the best route to a sheltered cove that will become their
runaway home from home. Sam, you'll notice, is properly equipped
for a long hike. Suzy ... not so much.

We grow up, we get “serious” — not always a good thing — and cast aside such childhood reveries.

Clearly, filmmaker Wes Anderson escaped that fate and remains firmly in touch with his inner child. Moonrise Kingdom offers ample proof: It’s a droll, stylized, kid-oriented fable about misfits, underdogs and blossoming young love. By turns adorable and unapologetically weird, this film nonetheless charms from beginning to end.

That’s not always the case with Anderson’s eclectic oeuvre. Every engaging hit (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) has been followed by self-indulgent junk that verges on the unwatchable (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited). That’s an occupational hazard for a filmmaker so clearly obsessed with exaggerated characters who play out their anxieties in tightly enclosed little worlds that can tilt far left of center.

Greet a neighbor cheerfully on an average morning; if he regards you gravely and replies, a propos of nothing, that the howling wolves kept him awake last night — and the nearest wolf is hundreds of miles away — then you’re dealing with a Wes Anderson character.

Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) and Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), both 12 years old, live on New Penzance, a tiny island off the coast of New England. The year is 1965, as an on-camera narrator (Bob Balaban) meticulously informs us, and we’re a few days away from a cataclysmic storm that will wreak havoc along the entire coast.

Although precociously intelligent and a gifted camper and woodsman, Sam — an orphan — is dismissed as an outcast, constantly humiliated by the other kids in his foster home. Even as a Khaki Scout, in an element where he should shine, Sam is taunted by his young peers.

Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) clearly has a soft spot for Sam, but that’s not enough to prevent the boy from feeling isolated and deeply lonely.

Transformers 3: How 'bout changing into something decent?

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (2011) • View trailer for Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for prolonged action violence, mayhem and destruction, and for occasional profanity and fleeting sensuality
By Derrick Bang


Michael Bay doesn’t make movies; he assembles big-screen video games.

His characters don’t even have the depth of those found in 1960s Saturday morning cartoon shows. An average episode of Scooby-Doo generated more suspense and emotional impact.

After climbing a high-rise office building in order to get a better shot at a
complex beam-generator thingie, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and his soldier buddies
find their plan derailed when a nasty, coiling Decepticon pushes over the
entire top half of the building. Boy, the good guys just can't catch a break!

His Transformers series makes the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise look like high art.

Bay, obviously operating under the assumption that more is more, clutters his action scenes with so much stuff that it’s impossible to focus on any single person or set of characters. Impossible to separate our heroes from half a dozen nameless hangers-on who have such wafer-thin character depth that they’d vanish, if turned sideways.

A typical Michael Bay good guy is introduced simply by striking a macho pose and growling something unintelligible. Rarely do we get names or even one-note distinguishing references (the fat one, the nasty one, etc.). We’re apparently supposed to be impressed simply because cinematographer Amir M. Mokri properly centers the guy in the frame. Then this gung-ho warrior joins other similarly anonymous combatants, and we wonder: Are we supposed to care about any of these guys?

Apparently not, since Ehren Kruger’s so-called script doesn’t bother with character depth, emotional resonance or sensible narrative structure. It’s just one big battle scene after another, most involving the destruction of as much real estate as possible. (Say farewell to the entire city of Chicago.) At close to three hours, it all becomes numbing: more endurance test than vicarious thrill ride.

I keep reminding myself that Kruger had us gnawing fingernails with his slick 1999 big-screen scripting debut, Arlington Road. Now, that was a nifty flick. Heck, I even liked his script for 2000’s Reindeer Games: not as good by a long shot, but still a slickly paced B-thriller.

But then Kruger sold his soul and got sucked into the increasingly tedious American remakes of Japan’s Ring horror entries, after which he was scooped up by Bay for the Transformers series. I guess we shouldn’t expect much from a big-screen franchise stitched together from a line of toys, but still; wouldn’t a little effort be warranted?

Thirteen people — 13! — are credited as producers on this mess, from Bay and Steven Spielberg (two of the four executive producers) to “3D producer” Michelle McGonagle. Golly, with all those producers, you’d sure think they’d ... well ... produce something.