The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and other Roald Dahl Tales: Sadly uneven

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and other Roald Dahl Tales (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, and much too generously, for creepy images and concepts

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

I cannot imagine a more perfect artistic collaboration, and blend of sensibilities, than Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl.

 

The fact that this joint effort by filmmaker and author has long been posthumous — Dahl died in 1990 — matters not a jot.

 

While Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) relates part of his tale to a policeman
(Ralph Fiennes), both men briefly "break the fourth wall" and stare at the viewer, in
order to emphasize a point.

Dahl certainly has been well-loved on the big screen, with adaptations — sometimes more than once — of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda. Anderson also delivered a terrific stop-motion version of Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009.

Dahl was a highly visible presence of television during his lifetime, mostly due to the UK’s Tales of the Unexpected. This series adapted 26 of his short stories over the course of its nine-season run from 1979 to ’87; these morbid little tales — patently adult, and often with twist endings — blended dark humor with murder, infidelity, blackmail and all manner of other beastly behavior.

 

Few people remember the first TV series Dahl hosted, the U.S.-produced Way Out, which ran a mere half-season in 1961, following Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone in CBS’ 10 p.m. Friday slot. Dahl’s unapologetically macabre horror series was far too gruesome for that era’s viewers, and was canceled shortly after airing its 13th episode, “Soft Focus,” the notorious climax of which scared the hell out of everybody (and still packs a punch to this day).

 

The current quartet of adaptations — “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” “The Swan,” “The Rat Catcher” and “Poison” — debuted on Netflix one per day, late last week. They also draw from Dahl’s adult-oriented short stories.

 

As is Anderson’s habit, his approach is — shall we say — unusual.

 

Recognizing that Dahl’s precise and marvelous prose style is responsible for much of the atmospheric magic in his stories, Anderson has these stories narrated — retaining as much text as possible — by Dahl himself (played with appropriate eccentricity by Ralph Fiennes), and also by the characters within the tale.

 

Fiennes’ surroundings are impressively authentic: seated within a nook of Dahl’s re-created “Gipsy House,” his desk laden with many of the totems and ephemera that were part of the author’s actual working environment. (One must marvel at Anderson’s rigorous attention to detail.)

 

“Henry Sugar,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, is the longest of these pieces, at 37 minutes. It concerns a bored and self-centered aristocrat who, as a result of a book he steals, painstakingly develops the talent to see through objects. What he ultimately does with this gift proves unexpected.

 

Soul: It has serious chops!

Soul (2020) • View trailer

Five stars. Rated PG, for mild thematic elements

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.20

This isn’t the first time I’ve observed that some of the sharpest, wittiest and most perceptive scripts belong to animated films.

 

An impressive percentage of them come from Pixar.

 

Joe Gardner's soul, right, tirelessly tries to find something that might inspire the cynical,
world-weary — and yet oddly childlike — Soul 22.

Pete Docter has been one of Hollywood’s most innovative writer/directors for well over a decade; he’s also one of the most savvy collaborators. Although he shared scripting credits on WALL•E, Up and Inside Out, all three possess an inventive point of view — a shrewd analysis of the human condition — that bespeaks Docter’s guiding influence.

 

This is even more obvious, given that he directed — and won well-deserved Academy Awards — for the latter two.

 

I figured Inside Out would remain his career masterpiece. I should’ve known better.

 

Soul — directed and co-written by Docter, with scripting assistance from Mike Jones and Kemp Powers — is another animated tour de force that ingeniously blends humor, pathos and social commentary with a wildly imaginative take on what makes us who we are.

 

Whereas Inside Out cheekily proposed how our workaday behavior varies according to the influence of (primarily) joy, sadness, fear and anger, Soul — available (ahem) solely via Disney+ — offers a fascinating theory for how our personalities are shaped, and the unalterable degree to which that influences who and what we become.

 

But the film doesn’t initially seem that way, and that’s another clever touch: An equally strong secondary story beats at its heart.

 

Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a gifted pianist with wicked jazz chops, has tirelessly gigged in an effort to get the one big break that might ignite a career. He’s a constant disappointment to his mother (Libba Gardner), who wishes he’d abandon such dreams and be content as a middle-school music teacher … particularly since he’s just been offered full-time employment.

 

Ah, but Joe lucks into an audition for world-renowned sax legend Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) … and nails it. She makes him a member of her quartet, currently headlining at the Half Note (the absolute epitome, as visualized, of an intimate New York basement jazz club).

 

Giddy with delight, oblivious to his surroundings, Joe has an accident … and winds up — now a much smaller, ghostlike presence that represents his soul — on a moving sidewalk leading heavenward into The Great Beyond.

 

(This whiplash assault on our emotions and expectations — giddy with joy, sharing Joe’s success, to sudden whattheheck??? — is typical of Docter’s films.)

The Watch: You definitely don't want to

The Watch (2012) • View trailer
One star. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity, vulgar sexual content, violence and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

This misbegotten train wreck represents the triumph of a pithy high-concept pitch over common sense, plot logic and artistic integrity.

Having learned that a newly discovered silver sphere is a powerful
alien weapon, our numbnuts heroes — from left, Jamarcus (Richard
Ayoade), Bob (Vince Vaughn), Evan (Ben Stiller) and Franklin (Jonah
Hill) — proceed to blow up all sorts of stuff, accompanied by much
raucous laughter. Sadly, they can't laugh hard enough to make us
viewers believe that any of this dreck is the slightest bit amusing.

The Watch may not wind up as the worst big-studio effort of 2012, but it’ll do until that one comes along.

Words simply fail me. I can’t believe this mess ever started as an actual script; it feels like so-called writers Jared Stern, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg got stoned one evening, jotted wild ’n’ crazy ideas onto pieces of paper, threw them in the air, assembled them randomly and then handed the stack to director Akiva Schaffer, who apparently saw no reason to argue.

Schaffer, it should be noted, was a longtime writer and director — of digital shorts — on TV’s Saturday Night Live. He paused long enough, during that tenure, to direct Andy Samberg in one of 2007’s limpest comedies, Hot Rod. Haven’t ever heard of it? That’s to your advantage; don’t go looking.

At the risk of repeating an old cliché, on the basis of that film and his “work” here on The Watch, Schaffer ain’t fit to direct traffic. Nor would I let him direct me to a market half a block away; he’d undoubtedly get it wrong.

Failed comedies can be egregiously awful, and this one certainly qualifies. The dialogue sounds under-rehearsed; the characters lack continuity or credibility; the plot sorta/kinda stumbles from one scene to the next. As is typical of too many numbnuts “doofus projects” these days, profanity and vulgarity are tossed about like spent condoms — actually one of the many running gags — in the vain hope that such elements can draw laughter. Not because any of the lines are actually funny, but ... just because.

Random dialogue exchanges are reflexively homophobic, racist, sexist and all other –ists that come to mind; about the best that can be said, is that these guys are equal-opportunity offenders.

And as bad as the limp-noodle efforts at slapstick humor are, things get even worse when Christophe Beck’s soundtrack swells with what’s intended to be feigned emotion, for a scene Schaffer apparently hopes will be heartwarming. Gaaahhh...