Frybread Face and Me: Profoundly spiritual

Frybread Face and Me (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated; suitable for all ages

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.1.23

Discovering marvelous little gems such as this one, is the best part of my job.

 

Writer/director Billy Luther’s semi-autobiographical film is less a coming-of-age drama, and more a coming-of-identity revelation.

 

Although Benny (Keir Tallman) has nothing in common with his cousin Dawn (Charley
Hogan), they become inseperable during a summer that allows the boy to better
appreciate his cultural heritage.

The year is 1990. Eleven-year-old Benny (Keir Tallman, in a sensitive big-screen debut), raised in San Diego, barely is aware of his Diné (Navaho) roots; the only visible evidence is his luxuriously long hair. His mother, Ann (Morningstar Angeline), has instead encouraged his devotion to Fleetwood Mac and particularly Stevie Nicks; during their most carefree moments, they dress up like Nicks and dance uninhibitedly.

Benny also plays with action figures — he bridles when somebody refers to them as “dolls” — but his make-believe scenarios focus on kissing and their imagined sexual relations.

 

Perhaps due to pressure from his disapproving father, Benny is shipped off to Arizona, and the family “rez” where his Grandmother Lorraine (Sarah H. Natani, every inch a gentle, loving soul) has lived her entire life. She doesn’t speak a word of English — she refuses to learn, as it’s the “oppressor’s” language — and Benny speaks no Diné. They therefore talk past each other, although Lorraine is generous with her affection.

 

Benny has better luck with his kind, free-spirited Aunt Lucy (Kahara Hodges), a counter-culture throwback who makes and sells jewelry. His curt, quick-tempered Uncle Marvin (Martin Sensmeier), is more judgmental, believing the boy a disgrace to his Diné ancestry. Marvin fully expects him to help maintain the ramshackle pen where their sheep are kept each night, despite Benny’s total lack of experience with such things.

 

Small wonder Benny thinks solely of returning to San Diego, in order to see the Fleetwood Mac concert he’d earlier been promised. His isolation is total; even if he knew how to fit in, he’s disinclined to try.

 

The dynamic shifts with the unexpected arrival of his older cousin, Dawn (Charley Hogan), also dumped for the summer by her no-good mother (Owee Rae). Lorraine takes this in stride; we suspect Dawn frequently gets abandoned in this manner. She’s an aggressively odd duck: defiantly unkempt and somewhat overweight, which long ago prompted the unkind nickname — “Frybread Face” — by which most people call her (because that staple is “round and greasy”).

 

She’s never seen without her prized possession: a makeshift doll with a Cabbage Patch baby’s head and furry animal body, dubbed “Jeff Bridges” because the only movie she’s seen — repeatedly — is 1984’s Starman (on the rare occasions her grandmother’s generator is working).

 

The Ice Road: Thrills 'n' chills

The Ice Road (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

This is an intriguing riff on 1953’s The Wages of Fear: Instead of hauling hazardous cargo, these truckers are traveling on a hazardous highway.

 

Mike (Liam Neeson) and Tantoo (Amber Midthunder) watch in horror, as an expanding
pattern of cracking ice rips toward their trucks.

Writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh’s nail-biting thriller is another ideal vehicle (ahem) for star Liam Neeson, who continues to enjoy his late-career status as an action hero. Hensleigh’s script is completely formulaic — he leaves no cliché behind — but the crisply executed result is sufficiently entertaining.

Events begin deep underground, when part of a Northern Manitoba diamond mine collapses, trapping a couple dozen miners. Rescue requires specialized, heavy-duty wellheads that aren’t on site, and can’t be delivered via plane. Speed also is of the essence, as the miners — able to communicate topside, by rapping Morse code on an exposed pipe — have limited oxygen.

 

The sole option is to haul the equipment with big rigs, and the fastest route — the only route that’ll make it in time — is the “ice road” across frozen Lake Winnipeg.

 

In the dead of winter, that wouldn’t be a problem. But it’s early spring, and the frozen ice isn’t nearly as thick; it may not be solid enough to handle the weight.

 

Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne), the trucking operator in charge, puts out a call for seasoned drivers willing to risk their lives. By coincidence, just across the border in North Dakota, Mike (Liam Neeson) and his brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) are between jobs. Steady employment eludes them, because Mike tends to beat the crap out of anybody who teases Gurty, who suffers from PTSD impairment.

 

Goldenrod isn’t in a position to be choosy, particularly when Gurty reveals genius mechanical talents. The only other taker is Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), a feisty young Cree woman with a tendency to get arrested while participating in First Nations protests. She’s also a highly capable big rig driver, and determined to participate because her brother Cody is one of the trapped miners.

 

The plan involves triple redundancy: three trucks — Goldenrod driving the third one himself — each carrying the necessary equipment. Ergo, only one needs to make it. 

 

(One could argue that three heavily laden trucks are much more likely to break the ice than a single vehicle, but you can’t apply that sort of logic to this sort of story.)

The Magnificent Seven: Guns a'blazin'

The Magnificent Seven (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for relentless violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.23.16

This premise has been bulletproof ever since Akira Kurosawa introduced it, back in 1954.

It’s not merely a great set-up for an action epic; it also plays to our idealistic belief that everybody — no matter how bad their behavior — yearns for an opportunity to become heroic in the eyes of people not familiar with their past deeds. A chance at redemption, and generous self-sacrifice.

Having determined to transform a community of farmers and townsfolk into a defensive
army of sorts, the "Seven" grimly assess their recruits. From left, Jack Horne (Vincent
D'Onofrio), Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Goodnight
Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Faraday (Chris
Pratt) and Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee).

Can’t miss.

Nor does it, in director Antoine Fuqua’s muscular remake of 1960’s American adaptation of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. With Denzel Washington top-lining a cast of scene-stealers every bit as engaging as the characters they play, and some narrative tweaks that make their shot at moral salvation virtually impossible — or is it? — this new Magnificent Seven delivers on the promise of the adjective in its title.

That said — and acknowledging the narrative adjustments made by scripters Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk,  in keeping with 21st century sensibilities — all concerned should be ashamed of themselves, for failing to better acknowledge the core story concept by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Pizzolatto and Wenk didn’t concoct this concept out of thin air, and it’s annoying to see them claim sole screen credit during the opening titles, as if the entire inspiration were theirs, and theirs alone.

Humph.

(But I digress...)

The story begins in the tiny post-Civil War community of Rose Creek — a truly stunning set built by production designer Derek Hill and his crew — where the townsfolk have been invaded by ruthless carpetbagger Bartholomew Brogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who has established a destructive gold-mining operation only a few hundred yards from the local church.

Brogue and his hired thugs have made life unbearable, but that isn’t sufficient; he has decided to destroy the community in order to expand his mining efforts ... and he couldn’t care less that this means driving hard-working farmers off their properties. In a prologue that sets new standards for heinous behavior, Brogue and his men hijack a town meeting and make their point brutally clear.

Do we loathe Brogue, in the space of a few swift minutes? Oh my, yes; rarely will you find a villain played with such callous élan. Sarsgaard is coldly, chillingly vile: a truly memorable performance.