Haunted Mansion: Should be repossessed

Haunted Mansion (2023) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for scary images and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang 

Disney really needs to stop trying to transform this theme park attraction into anything resembling a coherent film.

 

The best that can be said about this second effort, is that it’s not quite as dreadful as its 2003 predecessor … but that’s damning with very faint praise.

 

Our reluctant heroes — from left, Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), Ben (LaKeith Stanfield),
Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and Bruce (Danny DeVito) — have just discovered a trunk
in the mansion attic, which contains a book of incantations that'll prove useful.

If director Justin Simien and scripter Katie Dippold set out to make a movie for 5-year-olds, they definitely succeeded; I can’t imagine anybody else having the patience for this interminable dollop of random nonsense.

Indeed, one of the 2003 film’s major problems is equally true here, and the relevant paragraph from my two-decades-gone review can be repeated verbatim, updating only the name of the guilty party:

 

Rather than imaginatively spinning a wholly original yarn, Dippold instead includes everything from the namesake theme park attraction, while trying to cobble up a story after the fact: the ghostly hitchhikers, the dancing ballroom ghosts, the graveyard specters mixing it up with each other, the busts that watch as somebody turns a corner, the paintings that turn skeletal with a burst of lightning, and pretty much everything else.

 

The result isn’t anything approaching an actual story; it’s merely a two-hour commercial for Disneyland. Judging by the dreary manner in which Simien orchestrates this mess, and the lackluster performances by the entire cast, nobody even tried to turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

 

Needless to say, this is no way to make a movie.

 

The story, such as it is:

 

Single mom Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her 9-year-old son Travis (Chase Dillon), looking to make a fresh start, move to New Orleans and purchase an oddly affordable antebellum-style spread on the bayou, just outside the city. They don’t even make it through the first night, thanks to an unexpectedly ambulatory suit of armor.

 

“And … we’re out,” Gabbie quite reasonably says, with Travis right behind her.

 

Ah, but this mansion’s 999 ghosts don’t want them to leave. No matter where Gabbie and Travis go — hotel, B&B, whatever — they’re pursued by haints that emerge each evening, demanding their return. Which, eventually, they reluctantly do.

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.

Masterminds: Wishful thinking

Masterminds (2016) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for crude humor, cartoonish violence and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

On the evening of October 4, 1997, the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office of Loomis Fargo & Co. lost $17.3 million during a slapdash scheme orchestrated by vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his girlfriend Kelly Campbell, her friend Steve Chambers and his wife, Michelle, and four other participants.

After David (Zach Galifianakis, foreground left) fills the getaway van with countless stacks
of money, his confederates in crime — from left, Eric (Ross Kimball), Steve (Owen Wilson),
Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and Runny (David Ratray) — stare at the haul in utter disbelief.
Enduring this misbegotten comedy prompts an entirely different kind of disbelief.

In early March of 1998, all eight were arrested by the FBI, in large part because Steve and Michelle Chambers had spent so much of the loot quite brazenly. Subsequent prison sentences ranged from eight to 11 years, and the entire affair became known as the “hillbilly heist,” because of the blindingly stupid behavior of almost everybody involved.

Now, close to two decades later, what was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil — at the time — has “inspired” a new comedy by director Jared Hess, best known for overly broad farces such as Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre and an episode of the TV series The Last Man on Earth. Not to mention additional big-screen flops such as Gentlemen Broncos and Don Verdean.

It’s further telling that the scripting credits for this new film — which cite Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey — make absolutely no mention of the 2002 book Heist: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft, written by Charlotte Observer investigative journalist Jeff Diamant. Why bother sourcing the official record of what obviously was an incredulously juicy saga to begin with, when hack film writers can deliver an inferior script instead?

Better still, why bother with the script, when Hess willingly tolerates a free-wheeling shoot that feels as if 90 percent of the dialog was ad-libbed?

After all, isn’t that why one hires comedic personalities such as Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis?

Ah, but here’s the rub: Not one of those stars is anywhere near as spontaneously sharp, fast or funny as s/he seems to think. Every line in this film feels stiff, forced and tin-eared; very few earn laughter. Worse yet, Hess holds his camera far too long on each dialog exchange, exposing the noticeable pauses that occur when actors haven’t yet figured out their next line.

Or, alternatively, can’t remember a legitimately scripted riposte.

We also endure the usual flatulence jokes and exposed butt cracks that pass for humor these days, along with — the height of humor — a bout of diarrhea in a swimming pool. Seems awfully easy to write moron comedy movies.

To put it bluntly, Masterminds is a train wreck of near epic proportions: a 94-minute slog that absolutely butchers what could, should and would have been a great heist comedy in better, less narcissistic hands.

Inherent Vice: A very bad trip

Inherent Vice (2014) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, graphic nudity, sexual content, constant drug use and occasional violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.23.15

This deranged flick is best imagined as an unholy love child spawned by Chinatown and every Sam Spade novel Dashiell Hammett never wrote.

Glimpsed through a peyote haze.

Private detective Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix, left) and maritime lawyer Sauncho
Smilax (Benicio Del Toro) watch from an oceanside restaurant as a suspicious
schooner — recently re-christened the Golden Fang — makes its way into port,
its purpose certain to be illicit.

Thomas Pynchon is challenging under the best of circumstances, which also can be said of director/scripter Paul Thomas Anderson, whose oeuvre features aggressively peculiar films such as Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master. Put these two eclectic minds together, and the results are far from the best of circumstances.

At its better moments, Anderson’s take on Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is a funny pastiche of 1940s film noir atmosphere and attitude, filtered through the drug-hazed cheesecloth of 1970s hippiefied Los Angeles. The characters are manic, the dialog heightened far beyond stratospheric visibility, and the unfolding plot a crazy-quilt conspiracy that gets more flamboyantly, hilariously preposterous by the minute.

You can’t help admiring the self-indulgent audacity ... except, well, too much rapidly becomes way too much. The stoner somnambulance through which every character delivers his lines becomes trés tedious, and a tedious film wears out its welcome long before the clock winds down on its 148-minute running time.

Anderson, it should be noted, never makes short films. He should consider doing so.

Pynchon’s 2009 novel exists in the same seemingly random, psychedelic fever that was typical of Richard Brautigan’s work in the 1960s and ’70s. If so-called “free jazz” is music without melody, then Brautigan’s prose was words without context: sentences strung together solely to befuddle and amuse. Brautigan was adored by the counter-counter set, who no doubt found his books far more compelling when read aloud under the influence of LSD.

Inherent Vice is similarly haphazard, with bizarre characters wandering into our protagonist’s landscape like the pink elephants that haunt somebody enduring delirium tremens. We must consider Pynchon’s history: As we’re reminded in a delightful December analysis in the Los Angeles Times, Pynchon’s third novel, 1973’s Gravity’s Rainbow, won the National Book Award ... “and caused the Pulitzer Committee to cancel that year’s fiction prize after it found the book ‘unreadable’ and ‘obscene.’ ”

Inherent Vice is somewhat more coherent, but that’s not saying much. Indeed, it could be argued that the entire story is a marijuana-induced nightmare experienced by main character Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix): In other words, nothing that we see is real. The film dares us to imagine this from the very first scene, as Doc views the unexpected arrival of former girlfriend Shasta Fay (Katherine Wilson) with surprise, and she murmurs, almost to herself, “Thinks he’s hallucinating.”

That notion likely will make the film work better for some viewers, but it’s too easy an explanation. More complicated is the possibility that some of what we see is real ... and some isn’t.

I’ve serious doubts, for example, about the actual existence of Sortilège (Joanna Newsom), who both narrates this saga — providing indispensable linking commentary that helps us over the rough spots — and serves as Doc’s sounding board. Eventually, it seems odd that nobody else seems to interact with Sortilège, suggesting that she’s the personification of Doc arguing with himself.

Perhaps.

The Internship: Not worth hiring

The Internship (2013) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and somewhat generously, for profanity, sexual content and considerable crude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.7.13

Fans hoping that a reunion with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson means another hilarious raunch-fest — along the lines of Wedding Crashers — are in for a major disappointment.

Having forsaken IQ-busting challenges for one evening, Billy and Nick (Vince Vaughn
and Owen Wilson, far right) take their young colleagues — from left, Yo-Yo (Tobit
Raphael), Stuart (Dylan O'Brien), Lyle (Josh Brener) and Marielena (Jessica Szohr) —
out for an evening of merriment at (where else?) a local strip club. But because this
is a PG-13 film, nobody actually strips...

The Internship is a sweet, gooey, insubstantial and totally forgettable little fairy tale ... with just enough coarse humor to stretch the boundaries of its PG-13 rating, while also compromising the story’s otherwise fluffy tone. Director Shawn Levy clearly doesn’t know how to approach this project; he’s obviously much more comfortable with overly broad slapstick such as Night at the Museum and Date Night.

Levy flails amid this film’s mostly gentle tone, and he further exacerbates the clumsy pacing by s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g this minor giggle far beyond what the material can support. Seriously, two hours? Since when do lightweight comedies need anything beyond 95 minutes?

Yes, Vaughn and Wilson riff each other reasonably well, although I frequently had the impression — glancing at their eyes, and how their lips seemed primed to twitch — that they desperately wanted more profane dialogue. They deliver well-timed rat-a-tat exchanges, although the script — credited to Vaughn and Jared Stern — is both unimaginative and quite redundant.

Indeed, this story delivers at least two “Let’s win this one, kids!” speeches too many.

Additionally — and this is a major problem with many such films — Levy & Co. beat their thin material into submission, vainly trying to turn minor chuckles (at best) into major belly-laughs. All concerned seem to believe that if a scene lingers another minute, or two, or three, that we dense audience members finally will “get” the joke and laugh harder.

Doesn’t work that way. As the old saying goes, Levy and his cast repeatedly flog a dead horse. And, frequently, one that’s already smelling very, very bad.

We meet Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) — glib, silver-tongued salesmen who could offload sand on desert sheikhs — just as they learn that their company has folded. Out of work, and for some reason unable (unwilling?) to investigate other sales jobs, they ponder their fate as dinosaurs in an environment where even whip-smart college grads aren’t guaranteed employment.

Nick gets minor sympathy from his sister; Billy gets none from a wife/girlfriend who lingers onscreen only long enough to dump him. Neither actress is seen again, leading us to wonder why we met them at all.

The Big Year: For the birders

The Big Year (2011) • View trailer for The Big Year
3.5 stars. Rating: PG, for mild profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.14.11


The combined billing of Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black immediately suggests wild ’n’ crazy one-upsmanship, but — happily — The Big Year is rather sweet, leaning more toward mild whimsy than unrestrained slapstick.

The battle lines are drawn quickly, when three dedicated birders — from left,
Kenny (Owen Wilson), Stu (Steve Martin) and Brad (Jack Black) — decide to
try for a "Big Year," by spotting more bird species in 365 days than anybody
else. But will the result be worth the necessary sacrifices?

Credit director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me), who clearly understands the importance of reasonably grounded characters. Then, too, Frankel also has a can’t-miss premise in Howard Franklin’s screenplay, which is “inspired by” Mark Obmascik’s 2004 book.

Obmascik was a journalist with the Denver Post when he wrote this more-or-less factual account of a rather bizarre “extreme sport” among birders, known as the North American Big Year. Participants spend 365 days chasing across the continental United States and Canada, compiling bird sightings and hoping to spot more species than anybody else. There is no prize, beyond the thrill of the hunt and the glory of peer acknowledgment.

Obmascik followed three top contenders in the 1998 challenge; these men, in turn, have been brought to life — more or less — by Martin, Wilson and Black.

The reigning Big Year champion, with an all-time high score of 732 sightings, is Kenny Bostick (Wilson), a contractor by trade who is looking to defend his title ... much to the dismay of his wife, Jessica (Rosamund Pike), who’s looking to start a family. Bostick is simultaneously the object of admiration and scorn among birders; they love to hear his stories, and they grudgingly admire his success.

But they also loathe his smug, know-it-all attitude. Everybody would love to see Kenny lose his crown; at the same time, there’s no question that he displays a level of single-minded dedication that deserves to be recognized.

Stu Preissler is a wealthy industrialist who, thus far, has let work interfere with family life and personal dreams. He has twice retired from the company he founded and built into a corporate titan; he hopes, this time, to walk away clean and make a serious bid for Big Year fame. Stu’s wife, Edith (JoBeth Williams), couldn’t be more supportive.

Last — and, in his own mind, least — is Brad Harris (Black), a nuclear plant software coder who hates his dead-end job and pines for some way to make a more significant mark. Brad looks back at a failed marriage and earlier failed careers; he lives at home with a mother who adores him (Dianne Wiest, as Brenda) and a father (Brian Dennehy, as Raymond) who regards him as a no-account doofus unable to see anything through.

Trouble is, Brad secretly fears that his father may be right.

Cars 2: Quite road-worthy

Cars 2 (2011) • View trailer for Cars 2
Four stars. Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.24.11


I never cared that much for 2006’s Cars, which lacked the Pixar spark (plugs) present in the animation studio’s other big-screen features.

With a bevy of bad cars in hot pursuit, our vehicular heroes — foreground, from
left, Lightning McQueen, Mater and Finn McMissile — race to save London
from a nefarious villain who is determined to prove that alternative fuels
are no alternative at all.

I simply couldn’t identify emotionally with the vehicular characters: a rather ironic confession, coming from somebody who had no trouble falling in love with bickering children’s toys, culinary rats and lonely robots. It felt like Pixar guru John Lasseter was letting his own boyhood fixation with cars — his father was a parts manager at a Chevy dealership in the late 1960s and early ’70s — interfere with his guiding mantra regarding the importance of a good story.

Besides, the characters in Cars looked and behaved far too much like the claymation creations Aardman (Wallace and Gromit) had developed for a highly successful series of TV commercials for Chevron: a campaign that had begun a decade earlier. For once, Lasseter was imitating an established archetype, rather than creating fresh ones.

Advance reports regarding the impending arrival of Cars 2 also weren’t encouraging, with suggestions that this sequel was greenlighted because the merchandising tail was wagging the artistic dog: Cars, among all Pixar films, had generated one of the most financially successful toy lines. Again, not a happy possibility for those of us who’ve appreciated Pixar’s customary narrative magic.

I should have had more faith.

While still not among Pixar’s best efforts, Cars 2 is miles ahead of its predecessor: better character development, a more engaging premise and a vastly superior storyline. The “vehicular community” gags, no matter how whimsical, seemed stifled in the enclosed environment of Radiator Springs; this time out, writers Ben Queen, Brad Lewis, Dan Fogelman and Lasseter have broadened their tapestry to span the globe.

And, ingeniously, to send up spy movies.

Midnight in Paris: Enchanted dream

Midnight in Paris (2011) • View trailer for Midnight in Paris
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.17.11


Back in 1979, Woody Allen opened his film Manhattan with the following rhapsodic voice-over:

He adored New York City. He romanticized it all out of proportion. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles. No matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black-and-white, and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.

The displaced Gil (Owen Wilson), already enchanted by his unexpected
surroundings, is further mesmerized by the coquettish Adriana (Marion
Cotillard), who guides him through a side of Paris that offers fresh surprises
from one moment to the next.

A bit more than three decades later, three minor swaps — the city so named, luxurious color for black-and-white, Cole Porter for George Gershwin — could have allowed the same soliloquy to apply to the deliriously romantic montage of images that kicks off Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

This is an idealized vision of Paris, much the way Manhattan was an idealized vision of New York: cinematic love letters to iconic cities with palpable heartbeats. The Paris of Allen’s new film doesn’t — can’t — really exist, any more than the similarly strawberry-lensed Paris of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 masterpiece, Amélie.

Although Allen remains an astonishingly prolific filmmaker — 42 big-screen features to his credit, going back to 1966, with an even more impressive one per year, without fail, since 1982 — he hasn’t had a no-argument-about-it critical and popular hit since 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters. That’s not to say he hasn’t done fine work since then — Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Mighty Aphrodite and Vicky Cristina Barcelona immediately come to mind — but merely that such films aren’t likely to stand alongside his best.

Well, add another title to Allen’s list of classics, because Midnight in Paris is grand, glorious, witty fun ... and extremely sharp and savvy filmmaking.

Although the delectable conceit that fuels this story has echoes of Brigadoon and even Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Allen’s shrewdly clever script moves in an entirely different direction and takes a playful poke at folks who tediously — or naively — insist that things were much better “in the good ol’ days.” Indeed, Allen eats his cake and has it, too, by waxing poetically about the charms of times past ... while cautioning those who’d try to take up residence.

Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams) are vacationing in Paris while planning their upcoming wedding: an impending union of remarkably dissimilar sensibilities. Although a wildly successful Hollywood screenwriter, Gil chafes at the soulless emptiness of this career, and thus is trying to write a novel; he rather vaguely hopes that Paris will prove a proper environment for this effort. Inez, perfectly content with the largess that Gil’s income provides, wastes no opportunity to belittle or bluntly dismiss this new artistic goal. Gil tolerates her put-downs with good-natured calm, in part because he secretly worries that she may be right.

Hall Pass: Automatic detention

Hall Pass (2011) • View trailer for Hall Pass
One star (out of five). Rating: R, and rather generously, for nudity, sexual candor, drug use, profanity and an endless stream of potty humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.25.11

In an amusing scene from 1980's Caddyshack, panic erupts in a crowded country club swimming pool when a suspicious brown UFO (unidentified floating object) is seen on the water; anticipation is built, prior to its discovery, with some riffs from John Williams' theme from Jaws. Following a shriek of "Doodie!" from one kid, everybody hops outta the pool, which then is drained and scrubbed.

While Fred (Jason Sudeikis, left) and Rick (Owen Wilson, right) watch in
astonishment, Coakley (Richard Jenkins) demonstrates how an 8 can "pass"
as a 10 by surrounding herself with less attractive friends. (Feminists, it should
be noted, are unlikely to appreciate what constitutes "humor" in this film.)

Bill Murray, perfectly cast as a deranged groundskeeper, finds the offending object at the bottom of the empty pool. He picks it up (mild consternation from all onlookers), takes a sniff and then chomps into it (fainting from some onlookers).

No big deal, of course, because he's immediately realized that it's a Baby Ruth candy bar, which we viewers also know, having earlier seen a couple of children accidentally drop it into the water. But nobody else in the movie knows this crucial piece of information, which is why the scene is so funny.

That's the difference between Harold Ramis, who made his directorial debut with Caddyshack, and the Farrelly brothers, who've returned after a four-year hiatus — sadly, not nearly long enough — to annoy, offend and repulse unsuspecting viewers, with Hall Pass. When Bobby and Peter Farrelly trade in excrement "humor," they employ actual excrement. Sometimes explosively.

This, in the interests of full disclosure, is considered the height of humor in a Farrelly brothers movie: watching a grown man squat, grunt, bare his back end and then use a golf course sand trap as a toilet. And, as an added treat, the camera then lingers on the little brown pile left behind.

This "mishap" results from the ingestion of marijuana brownies, a wheezy plot contrivance that stopped being funny decades ago.

Moments like that tend to overshadow the fitful attempts at relationship dynamics in Hall Pass, which, in better hands, might have blossomed into a halfway decent sex farce. (I'd love to have seen what a French director, such as Francois Veber, could have made of this film's premise.) Because that's the truly frustrating part: The core idea here has potential.

How Do You Know: Hard to be sure

How Do You Know (2010) • View trailer for How Do You Know
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

Sweetest movie proposal scene ever.

And no, I’m not revealing anything that has to do with our stars. One of the hallmarks of a sharp script – and well-directed film – is the degree to which attention is paid to the smallest characters. Writer/director James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets) delivers precisely those goods in How Do You Know, and we can’t help being charmed by everybody from an observant doorman (John Tormey) to a savvy psychiatrist (Tony Shalhoub, making the most of a single scene).

When Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) invites George (Paul Rudd, right) inside for a
brief visit, she's surprised to be dressed down by Matty (Owen Wilson), who
objects because she's living in "his" place ... rather than sharing digs in "their"
place. (Ergo, she should have "asked permission" before having any guests.)
Not for the first time, Lisa subsequently sees the need to re-evaluate her
relationship with Matty.

Indeed, Shalhoub’s sage advice to our heroine should be stitched onto a sampler and mounted on the wall adjacent to everybody’s kitchen.

Perhaps this also explains why How Do You Know seems to be on the losing end of the 2010 holiday films tsunami. For all its witty delights and clever repartee – Brooks’ characters always unerringly say the best possible things, at the best possible moments – the result sometimes feels a bit too slick, a bit too formulaic, a bit too clever for its own good. Much as we come to enjoy our time spent with Lisa (Reese Witherspoon), George (Paul Rudd) and Matty (Owen Wilson), the set-up is contrived and the execution rather retro: It’s not hard to imagine these lines being delivered by the likes of, say, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, back in the day.

Mind you, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does require a particular mindset: a willingness to go with the flow in order to enjoy what frequently feels more like a particularly nimble stage play.

Lisa has played ball her whole life; indeed, her entire soul is wrapped up in the game. But advancing age – a heart-stopping 31 – has robbed her of those necessary precious seconds of additional speed and swift reflexes. As this saga begins, she’s hit with the worst possible calamity: She’s cut from the USA Women’s softball team.

Cast adrift. Directionless. Without a clue what to do next.

Oh, sure; Lisa knew, intellectually, that this day would come. She simply didn’t expect it to come now. Her plight – and Witherspoon’s nuanced depiction of Lisa’s reaction – will feel familiar to anybody downsized during our ongoing economic malaise. It’s like being in a relationship that one knows won’t go the distance: We always want to leave on our terms, rather than wake up one morning to discover we’ve been left.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian — Exhibits charm

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) • View trailer for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for harmless comedy violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.09
Buy DVD: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian • Buy Blu-Ray: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Three-Disc Edition + Digital Copy + DVD) [Blu-ray]


Blend a museum of natural history, an uptight night watchman and a magical tablet that brings all the exhibits to life between dusk and dawn each day, and the result was $574 million in worldwide ticket sales.

One does not ignore numbers like that.

Although guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) has his hands full, when all sorts
of chaos erupts in the Smithsonian's many galleries, he has the advantage
of resourceful assistance from the plucky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams).

Happily, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is every bit as clever, charming and harmlessly exciting as its 2006 predecessor. Indeed, this sequel is even a bit better; the new setting — the many buildings housing the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. — allows much freer rein for the already amusing premise.

And for once, all concerned have been content to more or less repeat their winning formula. This sophomore outing for Ben Stiller's high-strung Larry Daley doesn't sacrifice its heart on the altar of more mindless and destructive slapstick, a creatively bankrupt decision that plagues far too many comedy sequels.

No, this romp in the Smithsonian is just as sweet and heartfelt as its predecessor, which means it should make just as much money.

True, the gimmick is just as silly, as well; one cannot apply logic to either of these films. (I never cease to be amazed, for starters, by how many historical figures from various parts of the world return to life spouting flawless English.) You gotta just kick back and go with the flow, and Stiller and returning director Shawn Levy — along with returning scripters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon — make that pretty easy.

Larry, having survived and even profited from the events in the first film, has forsaken his unusual friends at New York's Museum of Natural History for a new career as an infomercial titan (a calling perceptively skewered in a short prologue). With a client list that's soon to include Wal-Mart, Larry hasn't found the time for those late-night visits to play fetch with the dinosaur skeleton, or observe the evolving friendship between the miniature cowboy, Jedediah (Owen Wilson), and the equally diminutive Roman centurion, Octavius (Steve Coogan).

Marley & Me: Kinda good dog

Marley & Me (2008) • View trailer for Marley & Me
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for unflinching encounters with doggy doo
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.08
Buy DVD: Marley & Me • Buy Blu-Ray: Marley & Me (Three-Disc Bad Dog Edition) [Blu-ray]


"A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things: a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty."

Among his many eccentricities, Marley turns out to be terrified of
thunderstorms ... a rather frequent phenomenon in Florida. The Grogans
discover this the hard way, after leaving their young pooch on his own in the
garage for a few hours. They return to a scene of destruction that one would
not have thought possible, from a single dog.

Newspaper columnist Josh Grogan wrote Marley & Me as a tribute to a dog cheerfully described as the worst dog in the world ... but also treasured as the best friend he ever had.

The best-selling memoir struck a familiar chord with readers across the country and even around the world, many of whom have watched warily as director David Frankel's film adaptation took shape and made its way to the big screen. While perhaps not as numerous as Harry Potter or Star Trek fans, dog lovers are no less devoted; one crosses them at one's own peril.

The casting announcement was greeted with skepticism. Although Jennifer Aniston is a reasonable choice as Grogan's wife, Jenny, Owen Wilson is more problematic as Josh. Wilson's track record has been uneven, to say the least; that aside, he's known for eccentric, goofball roles that he rarely takes seriously.

And Wilson's involvement suggested the worst of possibilities: that Marley's demolition-derby behavior, in order to better mesh with his human co-star's manner, might be escalated to the wincing absurdities of Disney's worst 1970s slapstick animal comedies.

Happily, this adaptation of Marley & Me does not fall into that trap.

Frankel, who helmed the adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, clearly understands the dividing line between enough and too much. Although Marley's destructive tendencies certainly occupy much of Grogan's book, they are by no means the meat of the story, which concerns Josh and Jenny as much as it does their canine companion.

Frankel follows that lead; Marley is one of three major characters in this film, not its overly conspicuous prime focus. Frankel also maintains the proper balance of gentle romantic comedy and canine hijinks, and scripters Scott Frank and Don Roos retain all the key events — happy, sad and funny — that made Grogan's book such a delightful read.

Even Wilson clearly strives to step into his character's earnest shoes, although that does raise a fresh problem: He lacks the acting chops for a story presented even this breezily. Although playing a real-world guy, Wilson approaches every scene with the same slightly dazed expression, as if he's waiting for some muse to show him how to properly compose his face.

And the notion of Wilson as a serious journalist? Don't even get me started.