80 for Brady: Score!

80 for Brady (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for suggestive references, drug content and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.3.23 

This is a nice surprise.

 

Although director Kyle Marvin’s cheerful romp is the silly little comedy one would expect from its premise and publicity, it’s also a delightful showcase for its Hollywood veterans.

 

Four rabid football fans "of a certain age" — from left, Trish (Jane Fonda), Betty
(Sally Field), Lou (Lily Tomlin) and Maura (Rita Moreno) — can't believe they've actually
made it to the Super Bowl.

Scripters Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins shrewdly play to their stars’ strengths, and you’ll likely be surprised by the degree to which you become invested in this story’s outcome.

Add the fact that these events are set against the historic Super Bowl LI, and the result is a “silly comedy” that builds to an exhilarating climax.

 

The setting is Massachusetts in 2017, where longtime friends Lou (Lily Tomlin), Trish (Jane Fonda), Maura (Rita Moreno) and Betty (Sally Field) gather in front of the TV every game day to don team jerseys and watch their beloved Patriots … and, most particularly, quarterback Tom Brady. 

 

This routine has continued for years, ever since getting involved with football helped Lou defeat a bout with cancer. In a nod to sports voodoo — as with baseball players who never change their socks once a streak is established — these four gals diligently mimic their actions prior to a long-ago upset victory: where they were sitting or standing, and what they were saying and doing, down to spilling a bowl of potato chips at a precise moment.

 

Lou is the gutsy ringleader, who insists on the replication of all these details. Trish is glam and feisty; Maura is adventurous and tireless. Betty is smart and down-to-earth: the gang’s pragmatic conscience.

 

Each woman comes with a bit of emotional baggage. Maura hasn’t recovered from the loss of her husband, and — rather than live alone in their home — she has sorta-kinda moved into an assisted living facility, in order to be surrounded by other people.

 

Trish falls in love too quickly, and repeatedly gets her heart broken; Lou constantly worries that her cancer might recur. The precise and practical Betty, although a whiz with math and stats, can’t figure out what to do with her hapless husband (Bob Balaban, as Mark), whose absent-mindedness has become a trial. 

 

Once the game concludes, on this particular afternoon, Lou impulsively decides that they all should attend the upcoming Super Bowl, at Houston’s NRG Stadium.

 

But that’s an impossible proposition. They all live (albeit comfortably) on fixed incomes; obtaining tickets is prohibitively expensive, to say nothing of travel and lodging. 

Luck: It could use more

Luck (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated G, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

It has been said — of some poor souls — that if they didn’t have bad luck, they’d have no luck at all.

 

Sam Greenfield (voiced by Eva Noblezada) falls into that category. Toasters malfunction, door knobs fall apart, bicycle tires go flat and pump handles break. Sadly, she also has spent her entire life at the Summerland Home for Girls, as an orphan never lucky enough to find new parents who would offer her a “forever home.”

 

Although Bob the cat regards the Land of Luck's workings as "just another day at the
office," Sam — a human in a realm where she doesn't belong — is amazed by all of
its wonders.

Now, having just turned 18, she has “aged out” and must make her own way in the big, bad world.

Director Peggy Holmes’ Luck is the newest release from Skydance Animation, and the first to emerge since former Pixar guru John Lasseter came on board in early 2019. Although Lasseter is credited solely as co-producer, this film definitely has familiar, Pixar-esque elements that suggest he had a guiding hand in shaping the script: not least of which is the aforementioned first act, as the characters of Sam and her adolescent best friend Hazel (Adelynn Spoon) are established.

 

You’ll detect the mildly retro, heart-tugging pathos that was so important to films such as Toy Story, Up and Inside Out.

 

Hazel, poised to meet an adoptive couple who might become her “forever family,” has stacked the deck as only a child could: with a cigar box filled with good-luck tokens. She needs only a “lucky penny” to complete what she believes will be her can’t-miss shot at happiness.

 

Sam, although desperate to oblige, has enough trouble coping with her own newly acquired adult responsibilities … starting with a darling studio apartment that conspires to make her late for her first day as a clerk at an arts and crafts big box store. This emporium is run by the cheerful Marvin (Lil Rel Howery), who — upon seeing how Sam makes utter hash of even simple assignments — wisely sends her outside on “cart patrol.”

 

At the end of this long, accident-prone day, a dejected Sam sits on the curb and impulsively shares her panini with a stoic black cat. After it departs, she spots — could it be? — a lucky penny.

 

Sam’s subsequent investigation of this coin’s power is a riot, particularly with respect to its control over the jelly-side-down principle. But this applies only when the penny is in her possession; she guards it carefully, intending to pass it along to Hazel.

 

Alas, not carefully enough.

Book Club: A good read

Book Club (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for considerable sexual candor and some profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.18.18

Blend four accomplished actresses with a sharp script — particularly if laden with plenty of arch one-liners — and the results can’t help being delightful.

Sharon (Candice Bergen, left) is reluctant to take the "go for it" encouragement coming
from best friends Carol (Mary Steenbergen, center) and Vivian (Jane Fonda). At the same
time, all three are concerned about the romantic progress — or lack thereof — their
mutual friend Diane might be experiencing.

Such is the case with Book Club, a thoroughly entertaining showcase for stars Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. The ribald premise invites — and delivers — a relentless stream of mischievously bawdy dialogue and clever double entendres, all courtesy of co-writers Erin Simms and Bill Holderman, the latter also making an accomplished directorial debut.

This film also is a game-changer for Simms, a once-busy actress making an equally noteworthy shift to writer/producer. (She shared behind-the-scenes credit with Holderman on 2015’s adaptation of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. This new film is much better.)

Book Club is another welcome entry in the Life Doesn’t End At 50 sub-genre of gentle romantic comedies, following in the recent footsteps of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Meddler. Simms and Holderman’s sweet and saucy script takes a perceptive poke at ill-advised expectations, unwarranted social conventions, and the silent resignation with which far too many people accept less than their fair slice of the romantic pie.

Diane (Keaton), recently widowed after 40 years of marriage, is regarded as just this side of a doddering invalid by her two well-meaning but insufferably condescending daughters (Alicia Silverstone and Katie Aselton). Vivian (Fonda), an enormously successful and wealthy hotel owner, has spent her life limiting male contact to short-term affairs with no strings attached.

Sharon (Bergen), a federal court judge, still hasn’t recovered from a decades-old divorce from ex-husband Tom (Ed Begley Jr.), who — twisting the knife even further — has just gotten engaged to a hotsy-totsy babe (Mircea Monroe, as Cheryl) who could be his granddaughter.

Carol (Steenburgen) hasn’t been able to rekindle the incandescent sexual spark that highlighted her 35-year marriage to Bruce (Craig T. Nelson), who has become withdrawn and aimless after his recent retirement.

Youth: Ponderous claptrap

Youth (2015) • View trailer 
1.5 stars. Rated R, for graphic nudity, sexuality and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Goodness.

I haven’t seen a film this obtuse and pretentiously arty since Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books, back in 1991.

Mick (Harvey Keitel, left), Lena (Rachel Weisz) and Fred (Michael Caine) spend their
evenings watching the various singers, musicians and dancers hired to amuse the
guests of this opulent spa: performances that are far more entertaining than this film.

And it has been a good quarter-century, being spared that sort of self-indulgent twaddle.

Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s newest effort, Youth, has all the hallmarks of a Greenaway head trip: the same casually nude people, randomly draped like living room décor from one moment to the next; the same slow takes on still lifes, whether spacious, cow-laden fields or abandoned lawn chairs; the same jarring application of frequently discordant music.

The same droning soliloquies and dry-as-toast conversations by top-flight actors who appear to have been coached not to show emotion, or react in a manner that might be recognized by ordinary people.

In a word — no, in three words — boring, boring and boring.

Retired composer and conductor Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and defiantly vigorous film director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), friends for decades, are vacationing at an opulent hotel/spa at the foot of the Swiss Alps. It’s the sort of Art Nouveau establishment — complete with oddly detached and/or just plain weird staff members — that Wes Anderson lampooned so deliciously in last year’s Grand Budapest Hotel.

(In fact, it’s the Berghotel Schatzalp, a former luxury sanatorium built in 1900 for tuberculosis patients. Make of that what you will, given how Sorrentino has chosen to use this setting.)

Fred and Mick have reached their twilight years: the point at which each has too many yesterdays to remember with any accuracy, and too few tomorrows to anticipate with any degree of pleasure. Casual conversation sticks to “good things,” which is to say they tend to avoid topics that might get prickly, or that invade the other’s deeply private space.

“Good things” also apparently includes sharing their respective urinary accomplishments — or lack thereof — and a series of ongoing bets over whether the couple at an adjacent dining table, oddly silent evening after evening, ever will actually speak to each other.

This Is Where I Leave You: Too much left behind

This Is Where I Leave You (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for sexual candor, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Family dynamics can be messy, even disastrous ... which undoubtedly explains the popularity of stories with dysfunctional kinfolk.

It’s comforting to think that we’re not the only ones with a loser younger sibling, or a daft uncle, or a waspish parent.

When Hilary (Jane Fonda, center) reveals that her just-departed husband's final wish was
for his entire family to sit Shiva for a week, this comes as ghastly news to her estranged
children: from left, Wendy (Tina Fey), Paul (Corey Stoll), Judd (Jason Bateman) and
Phillip (Adam Driver).

Even more comforting, after a moment’s reflection, to realize that such situations must be quite common, if they wind up as popular books and movies that feel familiar to so many different people.

Novelist Jonathan Tropper has made a career of scathingly hilarious novels about hapless protagonists buffeted by crises involving careers, parents, siblings, spouses and other elements forever beyond their ability to control. Indeed, “control” — or the lack thereof — is Tropper’s go-to plotline: His classic protagonist is a guy who assumes he's got his act together, only to discover that catastrophe waits just around the corner.

No surprise, then, that one of Tropper’s books — This Is Where I Leave You — has migrated to the big screen, albeit with mixed results. Tropper adapted the novel himself, so we can assume he made a point of retaining key character arcs, comedic encounters and snarky one-liners. He also has the benefit of a large and talented ensemble cast: a collection of potential scene-stealers forever in danger of upstaging each other, much the way large and boisterous families frequently spin out of control.

But I’m not sure Shawn Levy’s overly broad, slapstick sensibilities make him the best director for this project. Subtlety isn’t in Levy’s vocabulary, as proven by uneven, overblown farces such as Date Night, the Steve Martin Pink Panther remake, and the ongoing Night at the Museum franchise. Tropper’s books resonate because of their unerring blend of comedy, pathos and redemptive self-awareness; Levy’s shrill, shrieking approach to humor tends to overwhelm everything else.

Which is a shame, because a dozen richly flawed characters wander throughout this often chaotic narrative, and we can’t help feeling that some of their best interactions got left behind. Instead, we’re treated far too often to (for example) a toddler who drags his potty chair from room to room, plunking onto the seat whenever the urge strikes, and then proudly displaying the results to everybody at hand. Us included.

Which, naturally, includes an episode of poop flung onto an unprepared adult.

When that sort of material emerges within the first 10 minutes of a film, we can't help expecting an overall tone that will undercut the gentler, redemptive moments to be found within Tropper’s script.