September 5: Impressively powerful

September 5 (2024) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.26.25 

Ingenuity under pressure is fascinating.

 

Director Tim Fehlbaum’s fact-based depiction of what occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics — and how those events were broadcast to the entire world — is a suspenseful and riveting docudrama: a true, edge-of-the-seat nail-biter.

 

Members of the ABC News sports team — from left, standing, Jacques Lesgardes
(Zinedine Soualem), Geoff Mason (John Magaro) and Carter Jeffrey (Marcus
Rutherford) — surround translator Marianne Gebhard (Leonie Benesch) as she 
dictates an update from the Munich police radio frequency.

The suspense derives not from the terrorist attack itself — the details of which are well known, and remain seared into history — but the resourceful, behind-the-scenes scrambling by the ABC News sports broadcasting team, which allowed 900 million global viewers to witness this incident, in real time.

The key phrase in that previous sentence is “sports broadcasting team” ... as opposed to seasoned television news journalists. That distinction heightens this story’s drama.

 

Events begin quietly, following coverage of events taking place during Day 10 of the Olympics. Newbie coordinating producer Geoffrey Mason (played by John Magaro) is granted the opportunity to helm the next day’s coverage, thanks to a recommendation by Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), then vice-president of ABC-TV’s Olympic Operations. They both answer to Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), then president of ABC Sports (and later president of ABC News, from 1977 to ’98).

 

World-wide broadcast of the Games has been made possible, for the first time, thanks to new satellite technology.

 

The “thrill of victory and agony of defeat” sporting events aside, these summer Olympics are hugely important for political reasons: the first Games hosted by a German city since Adolf Hitler’s notorious 1936 Berlin travesty. The 1972 invitation was extended, in part, as a means of giving West Germany an opportunity to showcase its reborn democratic virtues.

 

This is tremendously important to the ABC team’s German translator, Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), who wants the world to see her “new and improved” country.

 

(Unlike the aforementioned individuals, and a few others, Gebhardt is a fictitious character based on a composite of several translators.)

 

Everything goes pear-shaped at 4:30 a.m. September 5, when gun shots are heard from within the Olympic Village. They’re followed quickly by reports on the local police radio frequency — which Gebhardt translates — that armed individuals have invaded the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team.

Jackie: A fascinating character portrait undone by directorial excess

Jackie (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and brief strong violence
By Derrick Bang

A few iconic women have become popular staples in Hollywood dramas; consider the number of actresses, over the years, who’ve portrayed Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe.

Having decided upon a lavish funeral procession that she feels will suitably honor her
late husband, Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) suddenly has last-minute doubts,
which she shares with brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard).

And, more recently, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

Previous Jackies have been played by Blair Brown, Jacqueline Bisset and Katie Holmes, none of whom comes close to the ferocious intensity and shattered vulnerability depicted here by Natalie Portman. Her performance is so painfully raw that, more than once, we feel like uncomfortable voyeurs, intruding on a grief-stricken woman’s privacy during the worst few days of her life.

Portman’s starring role is by far the best part of Jackie, which marks the mainstream American debut of famed Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. His approach is known to be uncompromising, with a grim, take-no-prisoners approach certain to raise eyebrows ... or, in some cases, unapologetically offend.

Many viewers will feel that he has done the latter here.

Noah Oppenheim’s script is unusual, even challenging, in its depiction of Jackie Kennedy during the turbulent few days immediately following her husband’s death: specifically, from the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, to the massive funeral and procession that took place the following Monday morning. The details in between unfold in a blur of flashbacks and cross-cutting, Larraín and Oppenheim deftly conveying the confusion and shock that followed this national tragedy.

Jackie essentially tells her own story via a series of narrative devices: during a lengthy — and at times quite brittle — interview with a never-named journalist (Billy Crudup), who does his best to suss out the “real” Jackie; during a confessional conversation with a priest (John Hurt) just prior to the state funeral; and during anguished conversations with the only two people she trusts, U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) and White House social secretary Nancy Tuckerman (Greta Gerwig).

These revelatory exchanges are blended further with re-created clips from the TV special A Tour of the White House, with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, hosted by CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood, and broadcast on Feb. 14, 1962: the first-ever First Lady-led, televised tour of the White House — Jackie recently having renovated and restored the mansion — which was seen by 80 million viewers in 50 countries.

The latter sequences — given fuzzy, black-and-white authenticity by cinematographer Stépane Fontaine — show an entirely different Jackie: nervous, stiff, camera shy but determined to share (and justify) the $2 million spent to bring this presidential palace back to its original luster.

It’s also the narrative touch that establishes the film’s theme. Jackie clearly viewed that TV special as emblematic of her legacy as First Lady, just as she obsesses over details — immediately following the President’s assassination — in order to  properly preserve his legacy.

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.

Blue Jasmine: Superb study in self-delusion

Blue Jasmine (2013) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, mature thematic material and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.9.13

From the first scene, we can’t take our eyes off her: an unholy cross between Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara and Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond, layered with the bland contempt that comes only from Manhattan socialites.

During a visit to New York, working-class Ginger (Sally Hawkins, right) encourages her
husband, Augie (Andrew Dice Clay, center right) to seek investment advice from the
wealthy and privileged Hal (Alec Baldwin), an aggressive Wall Street shark married to
Jasmine (Cate Blanchett). Ginger figures there's no downside; after all, Jasmine is her
sister, and nothing is more important than family ... right?

Cate Blanchett’s title character in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine is a frightening creature: a woman so accustomed to aristocratic excess that she cannot fathom existence among the 99 percent. Yet she’s also a figure to be pitied, and that’s the hypnotic magic of Blanchett’s performance: We simultaneously loathe and feel sorry for her, wondering how somebody who once was an ordinary little girl, could have grown into an adult so cut off from her humanity.

She’s Marie Antoinette or Eva Braun: a woman who can’t precisely be described as evil, because she really don’t know any better. Morality, integrity, loyalty, simple kindness ... these are qualities suited only for the common herd. Jasmine swans above such flawed behavior; she lives only for her own tightly compartmentalized pleasures, and for the attention lavished upon her by a doting and über-wealthy husband.

Allen has written really close to the bone this time, with an unflinching dissection of the privileged, often vacuous wives who proudly stand alongside the Bernie Madoffs, as they blithely screw the rest of us. Do these women even perceive, let alone understand, the monsters they take to their beds each night?

Allen has resurrected his career, phoenix-like, more times than I can count, and he’s once again on a roll: perhaps the best thus far. Midnight in Paris was both clever and delightful: an adult fantasy that brought him another well-deserved Academy Award. Blue Jasmine, in turn, will do the same for Blanchett. I don’t care what comes out between now and Dec. 31; nobody will top her bravura performance in this film.

She’s nothing short of amazing, and Blue Jasmine stands among Allen’s finest works.

We meet Jasmine during a plane flight from New York to San Francisco, where she has arranged to live with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), while attempting to pull her life back together. Jasmine’s personality is revealed during this airborne prologue, for she has trapped a seat mate — an elderly woman too polite to object — into enduring a litany of self-centered justification.

We don’t get many pertinent details, merely enough to understand the sheer torture that the oblivious Jasmine is inflicting on her temporary companion.

Robot & Frank: Unconventional buddy saga

Robot & Frank (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather needlessly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.7.12

Science fiction isn’t solely devoted to opulent spaceship battles and grim post-apocalyptic survival sagas, despite Hollywood’s best efforts to suggest as much.

At first, Frank (Frank Langella) can't stand having to share his home
with a mechanical "nurse" that monitors what times he gets up each
morning, in addition to dozens of other intrusive edicts. But Frank's
new companion has other, far more intriguing talents ... and
friendships have been built on much less.

Some of our best cinema sci-fi has been much quieter and more deeply moving: gentle parables that employ only modest futuristic touches in order to confront universal truths — often uncomfortable ones — about the human condition.

These days, as aging baby boomers contemplate the frightening implications of mental and/or physical deterioration, we’re seeing a corresponding focus on gerontology issues. Science fiction has responded in kind.

Robot & Frank is a whimsical, charming and poignant character study: a film school short expanded into a full-length feature that enchanted this year’s Sundance Film Festival audience and went home with the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. The tone of Christopher D. Ford’s original script — his first big-screen effort — feels very much like that of a Ray Bradbury story: thoughtful, occasionally poetic and willing to tackle unsettling topics.

But this slice of elder life is disarmingly cloaked in the trappings of a mild-mannered comedy, and the story’s more serious elements sneak up on us. Director Jake Schreier, also making an impressive feature film debut, paces the narrative quite skillfully; he also draws persuasive performances from his cast members, most notably star Frank Langella.

The result, at times, feels like an intimate stage play. The action is confined mostly to two locations, with a resulting, subtle sense of claustrophobia that echoes our main character’s confusion over the way memory loss is shrinking his world.

The setting is “the near future” in the upstate New York community of Cold Spring. Frank (Langella) lives alone in an increasingly cluttered home that is nestled in the woods, a comfortable walk from town. Frank’s grown children, Hunter (James Marsden) and Madison (Liv Tyler), have grown worried about his apparent inability to care for himself; his fading memory also plays tricks on him, such as an ongoing desire to dine at a long-absent local restaurant.

He’s also a kleptomaniac, occasionally pocketing trinkets from a gift shop and then squirreling them away in his home wall safe.