The Phantom of the Open: Cheekily spirited

The Phantom of the Open (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Not quite two months ago, The Duke treated us to the delightfully dramatized account of disabled pensioner Kempton Bunton, and 1961’s “mysterious” theft of a famed Goya painting from London’s National Gallery.

 

Maurice Flitcroft may have been even more eccentric.

 

With son Gene (Christian Lees) bringing up the rear as caddy, Maurice Flitcroft
(Mark Rylance) blithely trudges to the next tee, oblivious to the catastophic score
that he's racking up.

In 1976, with no golfing experience, Maurice — by claiming to be a professional — audaciously conned his way into the qualifying competition for that year’s British Open Championship. After all, the event was “open” … right?

His resulting score was — and remains — historic.

 

And, just as Bunton’s eventual court case prompted British law to clarify the distinction between “theft” and “borrowing,” Flitcroft’s escapade thoroughly annoyed the snooty aristocrats who ran the British Open; they quickly changed the rules, in an effort to prevent any further “incursions” by undeserving members of the lay public.

 

Not that that stopped Maurice, during subsequent years.

 

His unlikely saga has been made into a cheeky dramedy — in the irreverent style that British filmmakers do so well — by director Craig Roberts and screenwriter Simon Farnaby, the latter adapting sports journalist Scott Murray’s 2010 non-fiction book of the same title.

 

Their film is highlighted by yet another richly nuanced performance from Mark Rylance, whose impersonation of Flitcroft is flat-out astonishing. 

 

Rylance is, without question, one of today’s finest, most artfully accomplished actors. I’ve no doubt that watching him in everyday mundane tasks — such as purchasing groceries — would be just as captivating as what he does on screen.

 

Roberts and Farnaby begin their film with a prologue that sketches Maurice’s earlier days. He meets and marries Jean (Sally Hawkins), and adopts her son Michael; they subsequently augment the family with twin sons Gene and James. 

 

Years pass. Michael (Jake Davies) has grown up to become the mature, business-minded “sensible” son — read: buttoned-down twit with a stick up his fundament — while Gene and James (twins Christian and Jonah Lees), clearly more in tune with their father’s Walter Mitty nature, have become limber disco dancers.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters: Gawd-awful

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (2019) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for relentless monster carnage and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sigh.

I’ve seen a lot of stupid over the years, but this one takes every cake in the bakery.

Not yet having realized that she's standing alongside a deranged sociopath, young
Madison (Millie Bobby Brown, right) watches while her mother, Emma (Vera Farmiga),
activates a whatzit in order to unleash a whozit.

Rarely has a big-studio blockbuster been directed this clumsily, written this poorly, and acted this atrociously. Doctoral theses could be written, about everything wrong with this misbegotten mess.

It’s a $200 million embarrassment.

When a film is this bad, every minute wasted with it — and we’re looking at 131 minutes here — is an exercise in put-me-out-of-my-misery tedium. Root canal surgery would be preferable.

This second entry in the modern Godzilla series once again demonstrates the folly of pleasing too many international masters, given that this is a co-production by Warner Bros. and China’s Legendary Entertainment. In theory, that should be a good thing, since it assures international casting; in practice, it has been the death of quality cinema.

Recent exhibits of shame include Skyscraper, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Man of Steel and, yes, the previous Godzilla. Among many others.

Each one is characterized by noisy, cataclysmic, landscape-leveling mayhem that goes on and on and on and on. Along with atrociously dumb dialogue, and performances so wooden they could warp.

And — worse yet in this case, with respect to emotional resonance — people who mostly stand around, slack-jawed, impotently staring at screens, or out windows. It’s difficult, nay impossible, to get involved with characters in a thriller of this sort, unless they’re pro-active and do something to make a difference.

One of this film’s major stars checks out so quickly, we scarcely have time to register the individual’s presence.

Three-quarters of the way into this debacle, somebody finally does something heroic. And then there’s an act of noble self-sacrifice, and for a moment — just a fleeting moment, but still — we actually care. A teeny-weeny bit.

Prior to that…

The Shape of Water: Flows exquisitely

The Shape of Water (2017) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for nudity, strong sexual content, profanity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.29.17

Truly adult fairy tales may be the rarest of movie treasures, given how almost everything these days — particularly what emanates from corporate Hollywood — is designed for all-ages audiences.

When things start to go awry in the top-secret facility where they all work, paranoid
government agent Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) interrogates everybody, including
cleaning women Elisa (Sally Hawkins, center) and Zelda (Octavia Spencer, center right).

We need look elsewhere for thoughtful, intelligent and provocative alternative fare: the cinematic equivalent of, say, Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane (far more disturbingly graphic — but just as imaginative — as his Coraline or The Graveyard Book).

France’s Marc Caro comes to mind, with Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, the latter co-directed with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, equally adept at the genre, as evidenced by Amélie and Micmacs. Spain’s Alejandro Amenábar gave us The Others.

But they all pale alongside Mexico’s Guillermo del Toro, whose intriguing early efforts in this rarefied environment — Mimic and The Devil’s Backbone — were but a prelude to the masterful Pan’s Labyrinth: by far one of the most unsettling and provocative blends of fantasy and real-world horror ever brought to the big screen.

Until now.

The Shape of Water is an entirely different sort of Del Toro masterpiece: a richly detailed parable of lonely people coping with extraordinary circumstances, while confronting the monsters in our midst. The narrative — co-written by Del Toro and Vanessa Taylor — has the lyrical quality of a gently poignant fable, which nonetheless conceals the sort of savagely ironic message beloved by Rod Serling.

It feels like one thing, upon entry: becomes something entirely different, before we’re allowed to exit.

Best of all, the film is powered by a truly stunning starring performance by Sally Hawkins, who in a few short years has emerged as one of the world’s finest and most sensitively nuanced actresses. She has enjoyed a remarkable year: This film follows her delicately crafted work in summer’s Maudie, and her unforgettable portrayal of Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis.

Nobody could have expected a second, equally transcendent performance in the same year. Her character here is similarly disenfranchised, and yet entirely different: a lonely, quietly withdrawn woman who blossoms — like a flower unveiling luminescent colors in bright sunlight — under highly unusual conditions.

The setting is Baltimore; the time is the early 1960s. On the one hand, this is recognizably our reality, as evidenced by familiar clothes, cars and (frequently intolerant) attitudes. People amuse themselves, at home after work, with soporific sitcoms such as Mr. Ed and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Lurid news reports are a daily reminder of post-atomic Cold War paranoia.

And yet other aspects quickly signal that this isn’t quite our world, but in fact a closely related parallel reality.

Maudie: Portrait of an unlikely artist

Maudie (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.14.17

Film, despite the potential of its myriad elements, rarely delivers the intensity of a powerful stage performance.

Everett (Ethan Hawke) can't understand why Maudie (Sally Hawkins) puts so much
painstaking — and painful — effort into her delicate watercolor paintings. As far as he's
concerned, they only interfere with her primary purpose: to feed him on time.

There’s something electrifying about being in the presence of a truly charismatic actor: one who slides wholly into a role with an authoritative snap that crushes any thought of looking elsewhere. Every move, gesture and sentence are riveting; we’re simply spellbound.

You don’t very often get that from a film performance.

Here’s one.

Sally Hawkins’ title role in Maudie is the stuff of cinematic legend: not merely a role that should bring her an Academy Award, but one destined to be remembered for a long, long time. It’s a delicately crafted, sensitively delivered characterization that transcends the term “acting,” and becomes something truly wondrous.

That said, this Canadian/Irish co-production doesn’t make it easy on Stateside viewers unfamiliar with Maud Lewis, a humble 20th century Nova Scotia woman who — unexpectedly, astonishingly — became one of Canada’s most famous folk artists. Director Aisling Walsh and scripter Sherry White dump us — without title credits, preamble or any sort of back-story — into the drab, day-to-day frustration of Maudie’s thirtysomething routine.

It’s the mid-1930s. Maudie lives with her Aunt Ida (Gabrielle Rose) in the tiny community of Digby: a “kept” existence arranged by her condescending brother Charles (Zachary Bennett), her only sibling. He calls her “Sister,” unwilling to grant her even the small dignity of her own name. Both their parents are dead; Charles arrives one morning to inform Maudie that he has sold the family home — without bothering to consult her — to settle outstanding debts.

He dumps her meager belongings, including a set of paintbrushes, and departs. Hastily.

He’s ashamed and embarrassed by her, and believes that she cannot care for herself. Maudie suffers the debilitating after-effects of childhood rheumatoid arthritis, which has left her body wracked with pain and twisted at odd angles.

The 2014 Oscar Shorts: Petite delights

The 2014 Oscar Shorts (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.6.15

Much as I anticipate this annual opportunity to focus on big-screen “short stories,” the 2014 Academy Award nominees — as a group — are a bit disappointing.

To be sure, both the live-action and animated categories offer several strong nominees. But others are unsatisfying, even puzzling. The respective nominating committees sometimes focus more on form than content — chiefly with animated shorts — and that’s particularly true this year.

As a result, you’re unlikely to greet the entire road-show package with the same delight and enthusiasm generated by those from previous years; the 2014 nominees are noteworthy more for isolated pockets of excellence, rather than overall superiority.

To cases, then, starting with the live-action nominees:

Irish director Michael Lennox’s Boogaloo and Graham is charming, thanks to Ronan Blaney’s droll script and fine performances by the film’s two young stars. Riley Hamilton and Aaron Lynch play Jamesy and Malachy, the sons of working-class parents (Martin McCann and Charlene McKenna) who maintain an uneasy co-existence with occupational British soldiers in 1978 Belfast.

The boys have little to call their own, and therefore are thrilled when their soft-hearted father surprises them with two baby chicks. The boys name their new pets Boogaloo and Graham, and soon amuse their neighbors by “leashing” the birds and taking them for walks. But as the chicks grow into chickens, their mother becomes increasingly annoyed by the bother, and eventually issues an ultimatum.

The result of which leads to a particularly ingenious conclusion.

The British actually have a tendency to stand out in this category, with A-list stars often lending their talents; I still remember how much I enjoyed Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander, in last year’s The Voorman Problem. They’re matched this year by Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent, both sensational in director Mat Kirby’s The Phone Call.

Hawkins, Oscar-nominated for 2013’s Blue Jasmine, stars as Heather, a shy young woman employed at a telephone crisis center, where she can’t work up the nerve to chat with the good-looking guy (Edward Hogg) who handles one of the other phones. But such idle thoughts are forgotten when she receives a call from a distraught old man named Stan (Jim Broadbent), who can barely speak through his misery.

To Heather’s mounting terror, Stan admits to having taken an overdose of pills, but he refuses to divulge any helpful information regarding his whereabouts. We never see Broadbent: just hear his voice on the phone, or from a point within his home where he’s not quite in view ... but he’s easy to recognize, and he’s mesmerizing.

As is Hawkins. Kirby keeps her face in tight close-up, and the actress works this scenario with heart-stopping conviction. Her emotional intensity is absolutely shattering.

Kirby co-wrote this script with James Lucas, and they build their 21-minute film to a very powerful conclusion.

Godzilla: Radioactive waste

Godzilla (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem, creature violence and civilian casualties
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.16.14

The good stuff, up front:

Fairness demands that I acknowledge visual effects supervisor Jim Rygiel and production designer Owen Paterson, who have done a superb job with this film’s monster mayhem. As also was the case with last year’s Pacific Rim, the massive sense of scale is handled quite persuasively, and Northern California audiences will get a kick out of seeing familiar San Francisco landmarks flattened like pancakes.

When Godzilla trails a winged, radiation-chomping MUTO (Massive Unidentified
Terrestrial Organism) to San Francisco, you just know the Golden Gate Bridge
will be toast!

Additionally, our dino-sized star is granted a quite distinctive personality.

However...

If mankind as a whole behaved as inanely as the cretins in this narrative, the monsters would deserve to win.

Writers Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham have concocted a truly absurd premise, and their dialogue sparks unintentional laughter at every turn. This is purple, afternoon-soap melodrama at its absolute worst, and matters aren’t helped by director Gareth Edwards’ insistence that his actors deliver all their lines with the sort of clipped, wooden stoicism we associate with stuff that routinely got skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

OK, let’s assume — for the sake of argument — that Edwards & Co. deliberately tried to imitate the hilariously grave tone of the post-atomic sci-fi flicks back in the 1950s. That would suggest we treat this update of Godzilla as high camp: the sort of romp that becomes entertaining precisely because it IS so solemnly sincere.

Except that this clearly wasn’t Edwards’ intention, given how he has insisted, in pre-publicity interviews, that Hollywood hasn’t delivered enough “serious takes on giant-monster movies.” Hate to tell you, Gareth, but you’ve not improved that situation.

So, maybe he’s so clumsy that he didn’t realize he was trying for camp. That still doesn’t work, because the aforementioned mayhem includes multitudes of civilian fatalities, with some folks perishing quite horribly. Edwards goes for the same death-by-apocalyptic spectacle that made previous doomsday popcorn flicks such as 2012 and last summer’s Man of Steel so unsettling.

Some films of this nature have begun to display a level of gleeful, kid-like callousness that evokes images of little boys pulling the wings off flies. Just as hard-core torture porn flicks such as Saw have turned complex evisceration into a spectator sport, these mainstream action flicks have upped the ante so much that (for example) the stomping of innocent bystanders becomes a pinball-style laugh line.

Which is ironic, because — for the most part — we care more about these innocent bystanders, than the tight-lipped blank slates who pose as this story’s protagonists. Not one of these so-called stars plays anything approximating a real character; they’re all one-dimensional archetypes ... and quite stupid ones, at that.

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.