The Luckiest Man in America: A quirky, fact-based morality tale

The Luckiest Man in America (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

This is an excellent thematic companion to 1994’s Quiz Show.

 

But while that earlier game show scandal drama is a handsomely mounted major studio production, this new film from director/co-scripter Samir Oliveros is cheekily retro and unapologetically low-budget ... which adds to its sense of period authenticity.

 

While fellow contestant Ed Long (Brian Geraghty, left) watches attentively, Michael Larson
(Paul Walter Hauser) prepares for his firt spin of the "Big Board" on the TV game show
Press Your Luck.

Modest production values aside, Oliveros nonetheless gets the most from a strong cast, as this jaw-dropping saga unfolds. And although he and co-writers Mattie Briggs and Amanda Freedman carefully insist that some details have been “massaged” for dramatic intensity, much of what unfolds here — including the names of all key participants — goes down just as it happened.

Following a brief first act, events take place during a single day of taping for Press Your Luck, a CBS game show that ran from 1983 to 1986 ... and likely would be entirely forgotten today, were it not for what happened on May 19, 1984.

 

Shy, withdrawn, down-on-his-luck ice cream truck driver Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser), a hapless social misfit, sneaks into Press Your Luck auditions. He cheekily claims somebody else’s appointment slot, gets caught and ejected ... but not before winning over executive producer Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn), who suspects the guy would make “good television.”

 

Michael has a great back-story. He admits driving across the entire country in his ice cream truck, and hopes to win enough cash to impress his estranged wife and young daughter.

 

Casting director Chuck (Shamier Anderson) is dubious. Something doesn’t seem right about the guy.

 

Carruthers nonetheless books Michael for the next day’s taping. As requested, he arrives wearing a suit jacket and tie ... making him even more comical, atop baggy shorts (which won’t be visible during taping). The obviously nervous and twitchy Michael is ushered onto the set by Sylvia (Maisie Williams), a kind-hearted production assistant who nonetheless eyes him warily.

 

Michael takes the middle “hot seat” between co-contestants Ed Long (Brian Geraghty) and Janie Litras (Patti Harrison): the former a minister, the latter a dental assistant.

 

Walton Goggins is note-perfect as smarmy show host Peter Tomarken, whose occasional off-color jokes — sometimes at the expense of contestants — delight the studio audience.

 

(Tomarken is a product of that still less-enlightened time. Remember how Richard Dawson always kissed every female contestants on Family Feud? Yuck!)

Theater Camp: Concept, 8; laughs, 10

Theater Camp (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity and drug references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.23

This is one of the most sarcastic — yet affectionate — films I’ve ever seen.

 

Also one of the funniest.

 

Whilte the young cast members stare in nervous astonishment, Amos (Ben Platt) and
Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) interrupt a rehearsal to indulge in another of their
many artistic arguments.

Granted, theater people are an easy target, with all their quirks and ostentatiously sincere eccentricities. Co-directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman clearly know their way backstage, and their script — co-written with Noah Galvin — explores territory that’ll instantly be familiar to any parent whose adolescent child has been bitten by the stage bug (along with all the other adults who’ve politely endured community theater productions).

Gordon and Lieberman’s mockumentary was a smash hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and took home the coveted U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award.

 

So … let the curtain rise!

 

With summer approaching, AdirondACTS founder Joan (Amy Sedaris) and general manager Rita (Caroline Aaron) once again scout local school theater productions, in order to entice kids to attend — and their parents to help fund — their scrappy upstate New York theater camp. Alas, this undertaking proves calamitous; the strobe effects during a production of Bye, Bye Birdie send Joan into a shock coma.

 

(The fact that this crisis is milked for humor, gives a sense of how edgy the script will be.)

 

Responsibility for overseeing the summer’s activities therefore falls to Joan’s oblivious “crypto bro” son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a clueless failure-to-launch who probably didn’t graduate junior high school. His arrival coincides with busloads of eager young thespians, which horrifies Rita and the rest of the staff, notably drama instructors Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Their goal: to keep Troy the hell away from day-to-day activities.

 

Alas, Troy is so dense that he can’t take even sledge-hammer hints. His effort to introduce himself to the assembled children, on the first morning, totally fails to quell the eager chatter of reuniting friends and eager newcomers.

 

Then Amos grabs the microphone and croons “Oh, what a beautiful…”

 

…at which point, all the kids snap to attention and sing, in unison, “morning!”

 

Right then, the film becomes can’t-miss captivating.

The Lost City: Don't bother finding it

The Lost City (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for violence, profanity, sexual candor and partial nudity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

After catching up with several dour, dreary and downright discombobulated films in anticipation of the Oscars, I looked forward to something light and larkish.

 

Old saying: Be careful what you wish for.

 

Sporting the least-practical onesie in cinema history, Loretta (Sandra Bullock) suddenly
realizes that she and Alan (Channing Tatum) have stumbled upon key secrets
regarding the "Lost City of D."

The Lost City is impressively dumb, even by the loose standards of such star-driven adventure flicks. The lack of continuity in this script — by co-directors Aaron and Adam Nee, along with three other hands — is matched only by plot holes large enough to drive this story’s MRAP vehicle through.

Mostly, though, all the actors try much too hard: as if adding overwrought emphasis to their line readings will transform a given scene into something meaningful. Or even slightly credible.

 

One wonders why The Brothers Nee were entrusted with such a large project. Nothing in their résumé suggests the slightest affinity for this genre.

 

And goodness; they certainly didn’t rise to the occasion.

 

In fairness, the premise has promise: Insufferably erudite romance novelist Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) owes much of her popularity to hunky cover model Alan (Channing Tatum), who has dedicated his career to embodying her heroic character, “Dash.” Personal tragedy has made Loretta a recluse; a rising awareness of how Alan’s tail is wagging her dog, has made her jealous and unwilling to meet fans.

 

How droll, then, that Loretta and Alan should wind up in the midst of an actual exotic and perilous adventure, much like the swooningly melodramatic escapades in her novels.

 

Matters kick off when Loretta is kidnapped, following the first disastrous stop of a book tour, by eccentric billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe). Possessing just enough archeological knowledge to make him dangerous, Fairfax has long pursued the legendary “Lost City of D,” where he hopes to find a rare diamond necklace supposedly hidden within.

 

Loretta and her late husband, both well-versed in archaeology, once explored the region; her newest novel includes some of its ancient pictograph language symbols … hence Fairfax’s determination that she can help him find the treasure. And her unwilling abduction to a remote, jungle-laden volcanic island.

 

So far, so good. 

 

Back in the States, Alan tracks her movements via her Smart watch; he recalls an association with former Navy SEAL Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), who dabbles in yoga and hostage retrieval.

 

Pitt’s brief involvement with this saga is — by far — the film’s high point: a well choreographed and audaciously skilled bit of Bondian derring-do.

 

After which, the script turns bone-stupid, and The Brothers Nee completely lose control of their film.

Together Together: Delightful delightful

Together Together (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated R, for explicit sexual candor and occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang

We open on an interview.

 

Matt (Ed Helms), 45 and single, is the San Francisco-based developer of an app dubbed Loner, which allows users to amass photos of random strangers: much the way kids used to collect baseball cards. It proved enormously popular (and, honestly, I can see that happening in real life), and made Matt financially secure. Now he wants a family.

 

Matt (Ed Helms) and Anna (Patti Harrison), having a baby together in a rather
unconventional manner — both mindful of each other's feelings — struggle to
find common emotional ground.

Not a wife or a girlfriend. Just a baby.

And not the, ah, usual way. No, with his sperm, a donor egg and a gestational surrogate.

 

Anna (Patti Harrison), 26 and single, is a coffee shop barista, and a loner by nature. She fields Matt’s eccentric and somewhat invasive questions reasonably well, and finds his sweet-natured excitement at the prospect of fatherhood rather endearing. 

 

They decide to make a go of it.

 

Writer/director Nikole Beckwith’s Together Together — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming outlets — takes us through the subsequent nine months, with distinct emotional chapters divided by trimester. To a degree, the Matt & Anna dynamic evolves the way we’d expect: initially wary and uncertain, with an increasing chance of thaw and bonding.

 

On the other hand, Beckwith isn’t that obvious. The relationship actually moves in some surprising — and unexpectedly poignant — directions, primarily because these two people have absolutely nothing in common, and therefore no easy path to comfortable familiarity.

 

Helms, still channeling the well-meaning nebbish he perfected on television’s The Office, makes Matt the ultimate obsessive/compulsive micro-manager. Once he and Anna metaphorically shake hands, he makes her sign a contract the size of a congressional bill … and, even at that, he overlooks a detail that later haunts him (in an amusing way).

 

It’s tempting to view Matt as a control freak, just this side of a stalker — surprising Anna at work with a thermos of pregnancy tea, turning up at her apartment at inopportune moments — but we know he’s harmless, and that his heart is in the right place.

 

She knows, as well. We quickly admire her benevolence, and forgiving nature.

 

Harrison makes Anna plain-spoken, mildly earthy, unafraid of setting boundaries … and insistent that Matt respect them. Her candor often catches him off-guard; Beckwith’s dialogue frequently is intimately and sexually explicit to a degree that’s both hilarious and cringe-worthy. We chuckle and wince simultaneously.