Happiest Season: Romantic holiday angst

Happiest Season (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.24.20

Some people approach the holidays with far too much emphasis on expectation — everything must be just so, and God forbid any little detail goes awry — rather than simply basking in the comforting glow of seasonal spirit.

 

When Harper (Mackenzie Davis, left) and her family decide to hit the
local ice-skating rink, she doesn't think to ask if her lover, Abby
(Kristen Stewart) knows how to skate.

Add a supplementary “important” reason for gathering, and the pressure becomes enormous.

 

(And the stuff of countless Christmas movies.)

 

Abby Holland (Kristen Stewart) has suffered the Christmas blahs ever since losing her parents a few years back. Hoping to cure this, her lover Harper Caldwell (Mackenzie Davis) impulsively insists that Abby come along for a family celebration in her home town. Warming to this suggestion, Abby decides it’ll be the perfect time to meet Harper’s folks, and then propose to her on Christmas morning.

 

Ted Caldwell (Victor Garber), in turn, wants his entire family present during the few days leading up to Christmas, as a picture-perfect “showcase” to help fuel his run for town mayor.

 

Except …

 

Ted’s family is far from perfect. Harper’s younger sister Jane (Mary Holland) is an aggressively giddy nerd with no concept of social boundaries, who constantly babbles about the epic fantasy novel she has been writing for the past 10 years. Perfectionist mother Tipper (Mary Steenburgen), although polite to a fault, insists on recording everything for her new social media presence.

 

Snooty elder sister Sloane (Alison Brie) and her husband Eric (Burl Moseley) abandoned their law careers in order to craft custom-made gift baskets. (Correction: Sloane archly calls then “curated gift experiences inside of handmade reclaimed wood vessels.”)

 

On top of which … little problem … Harper confesses, during the drive from Pittsburgh to her family’s upstate Pennsylvania town, that she hasn’t yet come out to her parents.

 

Despite having told Abby that she did so, quite a few months back.

 

And, well, y’know, now probably isn’t the best time, given Dad’s mayoral run, and their community’s conservative values. So how ’bout you just pretend to be my straight roommate?

 

At which point, a gal with even an ounce of common sense and self-esteem would bolt from the car, and hitch a ride back to Pittsburgh. (But then we’d have no movie.)

Charlie's Angels: Clip their wings. Please.

Charlie's Angels (2019) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, profanity and suggestive content
By Derrick Bang

Director/co-scripter Elizabeth Banks deserves congratulations, of a sort: She has appropriately honored this franchise.

Which is to say, this film is every bit as dumb, dull and contrived as the late 1970s TV series on which it’s based.

Having tracked the bad guys to an industrial rock quarry, the resourceful Angel
operatives ‚ from left, Jane (Ella Balinska), Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Elena (Naomi
Scott) — ponder their next move.

Oh, sure; the insufferable sexism has been upgraded (somewhat) to bad-ass gal power, but that’s not much of an improvement … particularly since this updated Charlie’s Angels still finds ample opportunity to pour its three stars into skin-tight outfits. (A third-act dance sequence is particularly eye-rolling.) Costume designer Kym Barrett certainly is kept busy, particularly with glitzy tube dresses.

Mostly, though, Banks has simply proven that she can deliver an action thriller every bit as mindless as those featuring male stars in equally ludicrous predicaments. Although her story — co-written with Evan Spiliotopoulos and David Auburn — ostensibly is fueled by the desperate effort to Keep A Nasty Device Out Of The Wrong Hands, it’s little more than an excuse for an increasingly tiresome series of chases, melees, absurdly drawn-out smackdowns and the usual physics-defying stunt work.

Most of the performances rarely rise above the smug and smirk that too frequently passes for “acting” in live-action comic books of this sort, and occasional efforts at more serious emoting — as when we lose a good guy, early on — are wincingly awful. The one exception is Kristen Stewart, whose sass and snark are a breath of fresh air. I can’t say she carries the film — that would be impossible — but she certainly makes it more bearable.

Having moved further into the 21st century, the Townsend Agency has expanded from its Southern California roots, with clandestine pockets of high-tech Angels now operating world-wide. A prologue escapade introduces the resourceful and athletic talents of Sabina (Stewart) and Jane (Ella Balinska), as they take down wealthy international criminal Johnny Smith (Chris Pang, suitably smarmy).

Meanwhile, back at the Townsend Agency, veteran Bosley (Patrick Stewart) is feted with a retirement party, having been instrumental in taking the Angels global during the past decades. He’s congratulated by his replacement Bosley (Banks) — the name being more of a company rank, like lieutenant — with other Bosleys wishing him well via international video links.

Café Society: Order off the menu

Café Society (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for suggestive content, occasional violence and a fleeting drug reference
By Derrick Bang

Once or twice each year, I come across a film whose mere existence is baffling.

They’re not bad, at least not overtly; they’re simply bewildering. We endure them for somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes, and then the lights come up, and we frown at each other with the same unspoken question: Is that it? Seriously?

It's love at first sight, at least for Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg), when Vonnie (Kristen Stewart)
agrees to show him all the wonders of Hollywood's film colony. Alas, the course of true
love never is steady in a Woody Allen film.

And why, precisely? What was the point?

Woody Allen’s newest is just such a film.

The package is attractively wrapped: Production designer Santo Loquasto transports us back to 1930s New York and Hollywood with an opulent level of verisimilitude. The actors are luxuriously garbed by costume designer Suzy Benzinger, every member of the large ensemble cast well selected for each part.

Allen supplies narration throughout the film, often with the same passionate, poetic devotion that he displayed for the Big Apple in 1979’s Manhattan. The various characters seem reasonably interesting, the story’s unusual romantic triangle an intriguing hook on which to hang what we expect will be an homage to Golden Age cinematic classics.

Doesn’t work out that way.

Café Society is a textbook case of a movie being all dressed up, with nowhere to go. I’ve no idea what Allen intended us to gather from his bizarrely random script, unless it’s the oft-stated cliché that people are remarkably adept at screwing up their own lives. But even that doesn’t seem quite right, because several of these characters do get their heart’s desire.

With an oeuvre as lengthy and varied as Allen’s, we tend to categorize each new film on the basis of its many predecessors; this one feels like a clumsy blend of Crime and Misdemeanors and Radio Days, if the latter’s young protagonist were half a generation older. That’s a rather unholy mash-up, to say the least, and Allen doesn’t do anything remotely interesting with it.

Café Society also is burdened with far too many sidebar characters, many of whom don’t get the attention they deserve. Their various side issues don’t integrate well with the core narrative, leaving us to wonder why they were included in the first place.

The storyline, more or less:

Bronx-born Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), not satisfied with joining his father’s jewelry business, decamps for the much more exciting life he imagines awaits on the opposite coast, in Hollywood. Bobby has an entry of sorts: his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a high-powered agent who drops famous names, like adjectives, into every spoken sentence.

At first blush, Phil seems a superficial, puffed-up phony who merely talks a great show, but no; turns out he really does know and represent everybody from Errol Flynn to Judy Garland. Even so, he’s too self-obsessed to waste much time with a nephew, and so hires Bobby as a glorified gopher and assigns his secretary/assistant, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), to look after the kid.

American Ultra: In their dreams

American Ultra (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and strong bloody violence
By Derrick Bang

I knew we were in trouble, before this movie even started.

Allow me to explain:

After an unfortunate encounter with some homicidal maniacs, Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) and
Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) are apprehended by the local law. Sadly, small-town cops won't
be much good in the melees that are about to follow...

Frequent filmgoers will have noticed, since time immemorial, that the studio logo always is the first thing on the screen. Some of the former titans have vanished over the years, but the familiar logos for 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures — to cite just a few — remain ubiquitous.

During the past few decades, however, we’ve been subjected to pre-movie “logo creep,” first due to an ever-expanding roster of so-called mini-studios — Roadside Attractions, Lionsgate, Focus Features and A24 leap to mind, among many others — and, not to be outdone, director/actor production companies (Tom Hanks’ Playtone, James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott’s Scott Free, Chris Columbus’ 1492 Pictures and Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison, to cite just a few).

Each one has its own logo, all of which get displayed — in some contractually determined hierarchy — before a movie begins. And then, just to stroke egos even further, the same companies are cited at the top of the opening credits. (Warner Bros. and Roadside Attractions present ... a BBC Films production ... of a Happy Madison film ... or whatever.)

All of which has led sage filmgoers to two observations:

1) The quality of a film often is inversely related to the number of pre-credits logos; and

2) The quality of said logos absolutely determines the merit of the film in question.

In other words, crappy logos = crappy film.

American Ultra is preceded by four logos, two for companies I’d never before encountered, both of said logos apparently created by 4-year-olds. At which point I turned to Constant Companion and muttered, sotto voce, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Actually, this film’s entire attribution chain is much, much worse, and worth repeating, in sum:

“Lionsgate presents / Palmstar Media Capital and Kevin Frankers present / in association with FilmNation Entertainment, a Likely Story / PalmStar Entertainment / Circle of Confusion production in association with Merced Media Partners / Tadmore Entertainment / The Bridge Finance Company AG, a Nima Nourizadeh film.”

Circle of confusion, indeed.

Still Alice: Profoundly moving

Still Alice (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Rare performances transcend acting; we cease being aware of the celebrity star, or the idiosyncrasies of craft and talent, and instead unreservedly accept the character being portrayed.

As her mother (Julianne Moore, right) slides ever further into the helplessness of
Alzheimer's, Lydia (Kristen Stewart) finds that the minor issues that prompted a partial
estrangement no longer matter, and she subsequently becomes her Mom's constant
companion and most sympathetic friend.

Such is the case with Julianne Moore’s riveting, persuasive and heartbreaking work in Still Alice, directed and scripted by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, from neuroscientist Lisa Genova’s 2009 debut novel of the same title. Calling the film a vital document of our time seems both pretentious and insufficient, and yet the label is accurate; thoughtful, gracefully constructed dramas of this nature do more to enhance the national (perhaps global?) consciousness than a wealth of news stories or TV documentaries.

And if Moore wins the Academy Award for Best Actress — which she certainly deserves — then this little indie film may get the additional exposure that it also deserves.

She stars here as Alice Howland, a respected university linguistics professor who enjoys a loving and comfortable life with her husband, John (Alec Baldwin). They’re at the peak of their respective careers, and have raised three children: Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish) and Lydia (Kristen Stewart). Life seems ideal.

And then, gradually, Alice realizes that she’s misplacing things to a degree that feels somewhere north of “normal.”

Her mild concern erupts into full-blown terror when, during a routine morning jog across campus, she suddenly doesn’t know where she is, and has no idea where she’s going.

She immediately seeks medical consultation; the eventual diagnosis is Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Knowing full well what that involves, Alice faces the certainty of slowly losing all her memories and perception: everything revolving around her professional work, and ultimately even the basic recognition of best friends and family members.

What follows is not easy to watch, to say the least. Glatzer and Westmoreland carefully (and wisely) eschew any sort of “movie-making” technique, preferring instead to depict Alice’s increasing disorientation in a quiet, cinema-verité manner that is shattering, even as she fights heroically to salvage ever-smaller pieces of herself.

The title is significant, because it speaks to this struggle: More than anything else, Alice wants her family, friends and colleagues to understand that she’s still herself. But there can be no last-minute reprieves: no deus ex machina medical miracles that will pull her back from the brink. Although Glatzer and Westmoreland conclude their film with what could be termed one of Alice’s “last best days,” we understand what is to come.

Twilight Eclipse: Bloodless

Twilight: Eclipse (2010) • View trailer for Twilight: Eclipse
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for swooning teenage angst and quite a lot of violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.2.10
Buy DVD: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Two-Disc Special Edition) • Buy Blu-Ray: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)


Thank goodness for Taylor Lautner. 

At the risk of succumbing to the obvious pun, this film would be utterly lifeless without his easy presence, quick grin and dry sense of humor. 

Bella (Kristen Stewart) has trouble keeping Jacob (Taylor Lautner,
left) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) from attacking each other, since
werewolves and vampires have been natural enemies for
generations. The situation gets even stickier, because Jacob and
Edward both love Bella, and each believes that he'd be the better
boyfriend. Bella, poor dear, can't make up her mind. That makes
sense, since it's impossible to tell, from Stewart's perpetually
mopey expression, which guy she does prefer. Acting isn't a strong
suit in this film...

Honestly, would it be so difficult for all the rest of these people to smile? 

Judging by the giddy, sugar-fueled enthusiasm and shrieks of delight every time Lautner hit the screen during Monday evening's Sacramento preview of Twilight: Eclipse, this third entry in Stephenie Meyer's insufferably maudlin vampire/werewolf opus will please the faithful — they call themselves "Twihards" — just as much as the first two films. Which is to say, this installment inflexibly follows the same formula. 

I do not mean that as a compliment. 

Some stories reluctantly resort to cliches when necessary; some make at least a token effort to conceal well-worn plot contrivances. Director David Slade and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg positively wallow in the trite and overly familiar in Eclipse, as if the absence of original thought — and the lack of narrative forward progress — were virtues. 

Ah, yes: Let's talk about forward progress. 

At the end of this series' previous installment, Twilight: New Moon, Bella (Kristen Stewart) asked her vampire boyfriend, Edward (Robert Pattinson), to turn her into a vampire, so that she might remain with him for eternity. Edward countered by asking Bella to marry him. Fade to black. 

At the end of this film, Bella asks Edward to turn her into a vampire, and Edward asks Bella to marry him. Fade to black. 

No lie. 

Deja-vu never felt so oppressive. 

Similarly, I can report with complete accuracy that neither Bella nor Edward has changed a lick since these films began with 2008's Twilight. Bella still looks, in every scene, as if somebody has just run over her favorite puppy. Edward still looks, in every scene, as if he's about to burst into tears. Declarations of love eternal repeatedly flow between these two, always delivered with breathless, constricted intensity amid pauses so pregnant I keep expecting them to give birth. To triplets. 

The Runaways: Road to Ruin

The Runaways (2010) • View trailer for The Runaways
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for underage drinking, drug use and sensuality, and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.15.10
Buy DVD: The Runaways

As immaturity, frayed tempers and atrocious lifestyle choices take their toll, the other four members of the ground-breaking all-grrl punk-rock band The Runaways turn on their photogenic lead singer, objecting to the way that she repeatedly steals the spotlight.

"We're not the Cherie Currie band," one of them snarls, "we're The Runaways!"

While Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart, left) watches nervously, newcomer Cherie
Curie (Dakota Fanning, center) is humiliated into exposing her inner slut
during an "audition" that feels more like a casting-couch session for a porn
film, in a seminal moment during the creation of the all-girl band that is
destined to become The Runaways. Are these girls really having fun?

Well, here's the irony: This film may be hitting theaters as The Runaways, but that's untruth in advertising. It should be called The Cherie Currie Story.

On one level, at least, that shouldn't come as a surprise; writer/director Floria Sigismondi's screenplay is adapted from Currie's memoir, Neon Angel. Small wonder, then, that this film spends so much time on Currie, at the expense of the other four girls ... even though one of them is Joan Jett, the only member to have clawed her way into a solid and respectable career after The Runaways crashed and burned.

Small wonder, perhaps, but bad filmmaking. Dakota Fanning's Currie and Kristen Stewart's Jett are front and center for 99 percent of this picture.

The other three band members are ignored to a degree that's initially puzzling and eventually just plain silly, and one of them — Alia Shawkat's Robin — is a fictitious construct apparently intended to stand in for the various "minor" girls (Micki Steele, Peggy Foster, Jackie Fox, Vicki Blue and Laurie McAllister) who were part of the tempestuous line-up that also included Sandy West (played here by Stella Maeve) and Lita Ford (Scout Taylor Compton).

Sigismondi similarly plays fast and loose with actual Runaways history, and has a terrible sense of the passage of time.

Although the film has a firm beginning in 1975, we never really know how many years actually pass as the fledgling band builds up a following that climaxes with a tour of Japan (for the record, in 1977) that rivaled The Beatles' original arrival in the United States, for sheer demented fan adulation.

And that — again, for the sake of accuracy — essentially was it. Currie decamped after the band returned to the States, a crucial event that Sigismondi depicts of necessity ... but then "time passes" and, in something of an epilogue, we see Jett, following the smash 1979 single ("I Love Rock 'n' Roll") that put her on the solo map. Cue power anthem, roll final credits.

Well ... not quite.

Adventureland: Enjoyable ride

Adventureland (2009) • View trailer for Adventureland
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, drug use and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.09
Buy DVD: Adventureland • Buy Blu-Ray: Adventureland [Blu-ray]

In the wide spectrum of dead-end summer jobs, few could be more lifeless than getting stuck at a dive amusement park in suburban Pennsylvania.

Writer/director Greg Mottola really captures the setting's scuzzy, dispirited tone — along with an authentic 1987 vibe — in Adventureland, an unexpectedly poignant little flick that successfully rises above the "teen sex comedy" promotional campaign with which it has been saddled.

Although his daytime responsibilities are dispiriting, James (Jesse Eisenberg)
bonds with Em (Kristen Stewart), who helps make the hours pass more
enjoyably. James would love to deepen their relationship, but Em conceals a
major part of her personal life ... and our nerdish hero fears that he'll never be
able to penetrate that wall.

Although not quite as perceptively wired to the 1980s Zeitgeist as American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused were to their respective eras, Mottola's film nonetheless captures the spirit of this time and place, as filtered through the sensibilities of half a dozen young twentysomethings struggling to find their place in the world.

Most notably one twentysomething, actually: recent college grad James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), an uptight and geekily over-educated nice guy who intended to spend his summer touring Europe with a good friend. Alas, parental finances have fallen on hard times, so the overseas excursion is out.

Worse yet, Mom (Wendie Malick) and Dad (Jack Gilpin) no longer can afford to help James with tuition at the Ivy League grad school for which he already has qualified ... so successfully entering that program in the fall will depend on his own ability to cover expenses.

Trouble is, James lacks the skills for any sort of normal job; he even lacks the wherewithal to properly apply for a job. (His choice of "references" during fruitless conversations with prospective employers are a hoot.)

That leaves the woeful, can't-miss opportunities at a tawdry, peeling-paint "funtastic" amusement park dubbed Adventureland, reluctant home of those unable to find work anywhere else. This blend of rattletrap rides and creaky arcade games isn't even honest; the supposed tests of skill are classic carny cons deliberately rigged to prevent unsuspecting marks from ever winning the most delectable prize, a "giant-ass stuffed panda."

James' first clue of the bad news to come should be the fact that his own personal shadow — the lunatic Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush), who goes by his last name — is perfectly suited to the Adventureland atmosphere.

Twilight: Somewhat anemic

Twilight (2008) • View trailer for Twilight
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence and brief sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.21.08
Buy DVD: Twilight • Buy Blu-Ray: Twilight [Blu-ray]


Judging by the delighted squeals from the primarily female teenage audience at Tuesday evening's preview screening, director Catherine Hardwicke and scripter Melissa Rosenberg did right by their adaptation of Twilight, the first novel in Stephenie Meyer's insanely popular vampire series.

Having accepted the fact that Bella (Kristen Stewart) knows that he's far from an
average teenager, Edward (Robert Pattinson) confirms her suspicions by
effortlessly carrying her up to the top of a huge tree, where the two then exchange
smoldering, love-struck glances. Such is the nature of a growing relationship
between human and vampire, in this big-screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's
first novel.

Certainly the casting is spot-on, starting with Kristen Stewart as the mousy, subdued and yet stubbornly fearless Bella Swan, and Robert Pattinson as the hypnotically alluring vampire, Edward Cullen. The hesitant, fragile manner in which their star-crossed romance unfolds — so Romeo and Juliet — is this film's strongest and most appealing asset.

I'd expect that from Hardwicke, who explored the rebellious angst of young girls so superbly in 2003's Thirteen. She coaxes a persuasive performance from Stewart, who in turn makes Bella a perceptive and plucky heroine who refuses to back down after discovering that the guy she's sweet on has ... a socially unacceptable diet.

To the extent that we'd ever buy the notion of a young woman throwing herself into the arms of such danger, Stewart makes it work.

Pattinson, in turn, is just as believable as a deeply conflicted vampire who can't help being attracted to this new girl in town, despite his quite reasonable concern that blood lust might overpower his otherwise cautionary instincts. In Meyers' world, you see, a too-close proximity to humans can send vampires into a crazed, uncontrollable killing frenzy.

And the actual sight of human blood? Much, much worse.

It's the ultimate doomed relationship, and Hardwicke and Rosenberg take their time establishing its parameters — which is to say, torturing both Bella and Edward with uncertainty and raging mood swings — just as Meyers does in her book.

Indeed, in this respect — and I can hear the howls of indignation already, as a result of what I'm about to say — Rosenberg's script is vastly superior to Meyers' often laughably over-written novel. This film's first act unfolds quite economically, in roughly an hour, which is far more satisfying than the 150-plus pages Meyers takes to cover the same ground, often with breathlessly purple prose.

Occasionally, though, no doubt wanting to please fans desperate to hear at least some of the same dialogue, Rosenberg lifts some passages directly from the book. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don't. Even Stewart can't sell a particularly clumsy voice-over where she acknowledges three things she knows about Edward; the line prompted snickers from some of the less faithful.

What Just Happened: Nothing much

What Just Happened (2008) • View trailer for What Just Happened
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, brief (but shocking) violence, fleeting nudity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.31.08
Buy DVD: What Just Happened • Buy Blu-Ray: What Just Happened? [Blu-ray]


I'm not sure it's possible for a film to satirize Hollywood at this late date.

Back in the days of Sunset Boulevard and The Bad and the Beautiful, Tinseltown was a largely mysterious dream factory that hypnotized Midwestern ingenues, discarded most of them, but nurtured a chosen few and made them stars who truly were, at the time, much larger than life.

While Ben (Robert De Niro, center) and the nebbishy Dick (John Turturro, right)
watch apprehensively, Bruce Willis (left, playing himself) places the first spade
full of dirt on the coffin of a Hollywood agent who unexpectedly took his life.

Scathing cinema indictments about the film industry therefore were greeted with curiosity and considerable interest, particularly when such pictures cut close enough to the bone to raise the wrath of studio bigwigs who worried that a composite character looked a little too familiar.

But we now live in a media fishbowl: an era of TV gossip shows such as Entertainment Tonight, where celebrity misbehavior and studio venality are as commonplace as beer and pretzels. Nothing about the process is secret or even mysterious any more; Terry Gilliam's heroic battle with Universal Pictures, over the integrity of his script for Brazil, has become the stuff of legend. Similar tales fill every issue of magazines such as Entertainment Weekly.

Even the subtler elements of filmmaking have become tabloid fodder, as when soundtrack composer Gabriel Yared broke the code of silence and orchestrated a public meltdown when his score for Troy was summarily dismissed and replaced by hackwork from James Horner. Such musical substitutions no longer are carefully guarded studio secrets; we now know all about Henry Mancini's rejected score for Hitchcock's Frenzy, or Alex North's rejected score for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Goodness, you can buy the latter score, and compare it to what Stanley Kubrick used instead.

All of which explains why What Just Happened, despite quite engaging performances from star Robert De Niro and several key supporting players, just isn't very interesting. Despite its wholly authentic pedigree — adapted by actual Hollywood producer Art Linson (The Untouchables, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Fight Club and last year's Into the Wild, among many others) from his wonderfully salacious memoir, What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line — what emerges in director Barry Levinson's film is just a lot of been there, done that.

Let's see...

• A protagonist too married to his job to sustain any actual relationships: check.

• The obligatory poke at laughably stupid sessions with a shrink: check.

• An on-set tantrum by an overpaid star: check.

• The agent too cowed by his clients to rein in their narcissistic behavior: check.

• The nubile young cuties willing to sleep their way into a career: check.

• The devastated indie filmmaker who feels betrayed when ordered to re-cut the ending of his "challenging" film: check.

I'm actually tempted to read Linson's book, because I'm sure it's much more aggressively and hilariously outrageous than what he and Levinson have chosen to adapt here.