One Night Only: A delightfully sexy romp

One Night Only (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for frequent profanity, sexual candor and surprisingly little nudity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Although one first must accept this film’s ridiculously unlikely premise, what follows is an unexpectedly delightful romantic comedy, highlighted by Travis Braun’s continuously cheeky script and two stars who share a Periodic Table’s worth of chemistry.

 

Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) bump into each other — not for the
first time — when they independently find the only bodega in all of New York City
that still has one precious condom for sale.

Think of this as a gentler, (somewhat) kinder response to the one-night-of-legal-crime franchise that began with 2013’s The Purge.

The setting is New York City, the time some point is the very near future. Thanks to the efforts of an ultra-conservative D.C. faction, three years earlier the “Mandate” became law, which outlawed premarital sex. Enforcement was established via the mandatory placement of biometric tattoos on everybody’s wrist, which signal authorities when unsanctioned canoodling takes place.

 

The ban is lifted for just 12 hours, one night each year ... and these events begin shortly before the kick-off.

 

Braun and director Will Gluck employ this gimmick as an ingenious means of overcoming the most persistent challenge in romantic comedies: how to credibly keep separating two people obviously destined for each others, without relying on clichés such as miscommunication or missed connections.

 

It’s a cheeky step up from the suspenseful “ball drop” on New Year’s Eve: Who will you kiss?

 

Throw in The Big Apple as a bustling, effervescent backdrop, and the result —unexpectedly — is delightful.

 

Owen (Callum Turner) is a hardworking pizza shop owner and hopeless, old-school romantic who has planned — down to the tiniest detail — how to spend this night with longtime fiancée Malika (Maya Hawke). Alas, their “favorite restaurant” preamble self-destructs when she abruptly confesses that she wants to take advantage of the moment ... by sleeping with somebody else.

 

Allie (Monica Barbaro), a talented singer whose stage fright has relegated her to the anonymity of studio work, has made a career of turning familiar pop songs into jingles for glossy pharmaceutical medications with impossible-to-pronounce names (a very funny touch). She’s a hopeless romantic with a vivid fantasy life, ready to Embrace The Moment with encouragement from best friend Arya (Quintessa Swindell) and “wing woman” Jacinta (King Princess).

 

Their goal: a genuine connection with a “quality” guy, and true love.

Inside Out 2: A wild emotional rollercoaster

Inside Out 2 (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.16.24

Nobody could have expected this film to live up to its brilliant 2015 predecessor, which earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination for its ingenious script.

 

While Joy (yellow), Disgust (green) and Anger (red) watch with horror, Envy (turquoise)
and Anxiety (orange) seize control of their beloved Riley's behavior, with disastrous results.

But this sequel comes darn close, thanks to an equally clever narrative touch that establishes a solid reason to revisit these characters.

Recall, from the first film, that young Riley’s life was upended when her parents (voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) moved them from the Midwest to San Francisco. This shattering adjustment taxed the skills of the emotional avatars in Riley’s noggin, who collaborate to keep her every thought and action (somewhat) under control: Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale, taking over here for Bill Hader) and Disgust (Liza Lapira, similarly replacing Mindy Kaling).

 

Several years have passed, and Riley (Kensington Tallman) has become a well-adjusted middle-schooler: intelligent, kind-hearted, generous and blessed with a pair of inseparable besties: Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). They do everything together; they’re also members of the school hockey team, where Riley is a shining star who — as the academic year concludes — has attracted the attention of talent scout Coach Roberts (Yvette Nicole Brown).

 

It has been smooth sailing for the emotions, and Joy — their de facto leader — is delighted by the way they’ve molded Riley into a “good person” via careful manipulation of their complex control panel.

 

Even so, the first hint of trouble concerns the means by which Joy has brought everyone to this happy moment: a classic case of good intentions destined to go awry.

 

But that comes later. Far more seriously, these five emotions are aroused one night from their slumber — Riley being similarly asleep — by the relentless soft beep-beep of a previously unnoticed red monitor light ... which suddenly erupts into a shrieking klaxon.

 

As it happens, Riley had just celebrated her 13th birthday. And that red button?

 

Puberty.

Maestro: Rhapsodic

Maestro (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.5.24

This film’s title suggests that it’s about a man: acclaimed composer/conductor Leonard “Lenny” Bernstein.

 

But that’s not entirely true. Director Bradley Cooper’s thoughtful, lovingly crafted tone poem actually focuses on the lengthy, loving and tempestuous relationship between Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn.

 

When Felicia (Carey Mulligan) wants Lenny (Bradley Cooper) to slow down and truly
pay attention to her, they sit in a field, back to back: a sweet tableau laden with
quiet intimacy.

The result certainly is one of the year’s most visually sumptuous and imaginatively staged dramas. Cooper and cinematographer Matthew Libatique collaborated meticulously, almost intimately, in a manner rarely seen in today’s films; every setting, every frame, is a work of art.

Cooper and Libatique also worked together on 2018’s A Star Is Born, which earned the latter a well-deserved Academy Award nomination.

 

As was the case with that earlier film, Cooper again wears three hats: director, co-scripter — with Josh Singer — and star. Thanks to the finely crafted work of prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro, Cooper’s transformation is uncanny: particularly during the onset of Bernstein’s career, in the 1940s. 

 

The performance goes much deeper than mere appearance. Cooper also nails the cadence of Lenny’s stiff, formal manner of speaking — adding emphasis with frequent pauses, as if ensuring his listeners are hanging onto every word — along with the man’s charismatic presence. He wasn’t merely the most interesting person in a given room; he consumed the very atmosphere.

 

He talks — and smokes — constantly. His running commentary is as relentless as the chained cigarettes.

 

Lenny also was his own, fiercest taskmaster. We get a sense that he rarely slowed down — perhaps didn’t even know how to do so — because he wanted to maximize the potential of each moment: whether composing, conducting, teaching, partying or indulging in a liberated sexual lifestyle that occasionally threatened his career.

 

The latter is a running undercurrent in Cooper and Singer’s script, which is drawn heavily from archival video footage, documentaries and interviews — notably those by TV newsman Edward R. Murrow and journalist John Gruen, briefly depicted in this film — and daughter Jamie Bernstein’s 2018 memoir, Famous Father Girl.

 

Following a brief color prologue that catches an aging Lenny during a solemn, meditative moment, the film stock shifts to monochrome as we bounce back to the World War II era, and the fortuitous event that launched his career. After having spent a few preceding years in Manhattan teaching piano and coaching singers, Lenny was appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

 

His lucky break came on November 14, 1943, when guest conductor Bruno Walter called in sick at the last moment. Lenny made his debut on short notice, without any rehearsal, facing an ambitious program that included works by Richard Strauss, Miklôs Rózsa and Richard Wagner.

 

Between the live national CBS Radio broadcast and the following day’s celebratory front-page story in The New York Times, Lenny became famous overnight.