Hotel Artemis: Make a reservation!

Hotel Artemis (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, sexual references and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Back in the era of double features — when dinosaurs roamed the earth — a prestige “A-picture” frequently was accompanied by a low-budget companion pejoratively known as the “B-picture.”

The Nurse (Jodie Foster) and her newest patient — the local crime lord known as
Wolfking (a bloody Jeff Goldblum) — argue "politely" over chain of command, while the
latter's hair-trigger son (Zachary Quinto, center) watches with mounting impatience.

But a studio’s more modest units often were a training ground for gifted, up-and-coming talents, and it wasn’t at all unusual for a B-film to be more entertaining than the bloated, top-of-the-bill “spectacular” that brought folks into the theater.

Given Hollywood’s current obsession with over-hyped franchises and brain-dead popcorn fare, we’ve once again entered a time when unpretentious indie productions can be far more interesting than their mega-budget cousins. We simply don’t call ’em B-films anymore.

Case in point: Hotel Artemis, which marks an impressive directorial debut by writer/producer Drew Pearce, best known — up to this point — as part of the scripting teams on Iron Man 3 and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Pearce’s first solo effort as writer/director is a smart, savvy “what if” thriller set in the near future, with an intriguing premise that makes excellent use of ornately moody surroundings and a solid ensemble cast.

The setting is downtown Los Angeles, late on an average evening in the year 2028. (“It’s a Wednesday,” one of our primary characters wearily repeats on occasion, shaking her head each time.) The most violent riot in L.A. history has entered its third night, with the privatized police force pummeling blue-painted protestors whose only demand is clean water ... because the city’s water supply also has been privatized. Those who don’t pay get their bills cut off.

(As has been noted on numerous occasions, the best science-fiction is that which takes place in a near future that doesn’t seem far removed from reality. Frankly — given the degree to which today’s privileged one percent works so aggressively to disenfranchise the rest of us — I find Pearce’s notion disturbingly prophetic.)

One outwardly decrepit building stands undisturbed amidst a chaos that includes police helicopters being blasted out of the sky by weaponized drones: the imposing Hotel Artemis, seemingly a dilapidated relic of a long-ago past, when it might have been filled with movie stars, high-rollers and local aristocrats.

Snowden: A man adrift

Snowden (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for brief nudity and frequent profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.16.16

Oliver Stone’s films have polarized viewers for three decades — ever since 1986’s Platoon — and this one won’t be any different.

Indeed, it’s difficult to find a recent public figure who has divided opinion as much as Edward Snowden (although a current presidential candidate comes close).

Having assembled their information into a series of revelatory articles ready for publication,
the team of unlikely conspirators — from left, documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo),
Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and Guardian journalists Glenn Greenwald
(Zachary Quinto) and Ewan MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson) — discuss, via teleconference,
how best to release the stories.

Stone’s dip into these tempestuous waters — he also co-wrote the script, with Kieran Fitzgerald, based on material gathered from books by Luke Harding and Anatoly Kucherena — isn’t likely to change any minds. Neither will this film’s slant surprise anybody familiar with Stone’s über-liberal proclivities. No question: This is a sympathetic, strawberry-lensed portrait of  — depending on your point of view — one of our country’s most heinous traitors, or one of its most conscientious whistle-blowers.

The issue itself also frustrates fence-sitters. Civil liberties types, with a healthy respect for George Orwell, fear the totalitarian potential of an unchecked government Big Brother. Those favoring security — at any cost — argue that such a position is naïve, at a time when headlines are dominated by the grotesque behavior of terrorists who operate outside of national boundaries.

In fairness, Stone’s film carefully takes no position in that particular argument. The primary goal of any mainstream drama, even one drawn from actual events, is to give a (hopefully) talented cast the opportunity to inhabit engaging characters involved in a compelling storyline.

In this respect, Snowden succeeds, in great part because of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s thoroughly convincing portrayal of the title character. Viewers exiting the theater may not agree with Snowden’s actions, but the emotional and philosophical journey that gets him there is presented thoughtfully and persuasively (assuming, of course, that we accept Harding and Kucherena’s vision of the man).

Thematically, this film echoes Stone’s depiction of Ron Kovic, in 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July. In both cases, we’re introduced to young, true-blue American patriots — believers in baseball, motherhood and apple pie — who shed their idealism slowly, reluctantly, but then completely ... and only after coming to the conclusion that People In Authority have lied to them, and to everybody, for too long.

Stone opens his film in a plush Hong Kong hotel in the spring of 2013, as Snowden takes his first meeting with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto); they’re soon joined by the Guardian’s defense and intelligence correspondent, Ewan MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson). They’ve assembled to help Snowden “finesse” the disclosure of his stolen classified documents, in a very public manner that will prevent the U.S. government from spinning the revelations into something insignificant.

And, not incidentally, to minimize the chances that Snowden might get kidnapped and/or killed.

(Poitras actually preceded this film by two years; her 2014 documentary on Snowden, Citizenfour, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, along with a slew of other national and international honors.)

Star Trek Into Darkness: Still voyaging boldly

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.17.13

Director J.J. Abrams’ audacious 2009 re-boot of Star Trek was clever and wildly entertaining, a delight for both hard-core fans and newcomers. (Do the latter actually exist?)

This follow-up is just as successful ... and perhaps even more fun. While also being deadly serious.

Trapped on a hostile planet at the fringes of the Klingon empire, Kirk (Chris Pine, left),
Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) try to figure out whether a cloaked
and impressively powerful assassin is helping them ... or merely eliminating distractions
in order to kill them himself.

Which is an impressive balancing act.

Considerable credit goes to returning scripters Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this time joined by Damon Lindelof, who understand that it’s all right to mess with Gene Roddenberry’s original template — here and there — if such adjustments are made respectfully. And if they make sense, both dramatically and in the greater context of established Trek lore.

Thus, Spock’s home planet Vulcan was destroyed in the 2009 film, signaling that the future of these fresh-faced “Young Trek” characters wouldn’t necessarily unfold according to the Holy Writ as laid down by Roddenberry and the various show-runners who augmented the mythos during the subsequent TV shows and films.

On the other hand, blue-eyed Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk remains an unapologetic babe-hound. Some things can't change.

Star Trek Into Darkness opens on the run — literally — as Kirk and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) flee from the enraged inhabitants of Nibiru, a Class M planet (i.e. one that’s Earth-like). Kirk has “liberated” a sacred object as a diversion, while Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) take a shuttle into a massive volcano, hoping to prevent a cataclysmic eruption that could wipe out the entire civilization.

Despite their efforts to accomplish this clandestinely, Kirk and his crew clearly are violating Starfleet’s sacred Prime Directive, which prohibits any “interference” with a developing culture. (Needless to say, William Shatner’s Kirk violated that directive almost every week, back in the day.)

Regardless of this mission’s outcome — and things definitely don’t go quite as Kirk planned — the brash young Enterprise captain gets a serious dressing-down from mentor Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), once back at Starfleet Command’s San Francisco headquarters. The unhappy result: a demotion and loss of his ship, with Spock assigned elsewhere and the rest of the Enterprise crew left to wonder who they’ll salute next.

Margin Call: Grim tidings

Margin Call (2011) • View trailer for Margin Call
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Moving into the third act of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call, I was reminded of the war room discussions in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 adaptation of Dr. Strangelove, particularly when Peter Sellers’ U.S. President Merkin Muffley and George C. Scott’s Gen. Buck Turgidson argue over “collateral damage.”

Having survived a devastating company layoff, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto)
attempts to settle down for a "normal" day's work. But a financial time bomb is
ticking away in his pocket: the parting gift from a veteran risk analyst who was
escorted out of the building that same morning. Eventually, as day turns to night,
Peter will examine the files on that flash drive ... and then nothing will be the same.

“Mr. President,” Turgidson finally insists, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”

The point, of course — delivered with every possible ounce of chilling satire — is that nobody in this room, filled as it is with people responsible for the safety of the entire United States, has the faintest idea what would happen during an all-out nuclear war. And yet they still argue over “acceptable losses.”

Just as everybody in the board room of the fictitious investment firm in Margin Call debates the acceptable losses certain to arise in the wake of a proposed we’re-first-into-the-lifeboat desperation ploy.

Hell, it’s worse than that. They’re not simply commandeering the first lifeboat; they’re scuttling all the others.

I’m not sure the public is ready for this suggestion of how the 2008 financial crisis kicked off; my own interest was guarded, upon entering the theater. It’s simply too soon: The real-world wound remains too fresh, the resulting carnage still plain in every drawn and desperate face, every freshly foreclosed and empty home that once contained a family that still believed in the American dream.

I worried that Chandor would trivialize actual history, or — worse yet — attempt to build sympathy for the greedy, soulless bastards who fiddled while Wall Street burned.

But, as it turns out, Chandor is much smarter and shrewder than that. He’s also a sharp scripter and a damn fine director, and Margin Call is an extremely impressive feature debut for a fellow whose sole previous credit was a short back in 2004.

Granted, Chandor also had the good sense to assemble an impressive cast ... but a director still needs to know how to encourage excellent work. And he draws fine performances from all concerned.

Chandor’s most brilliant stroke, however, was to resist the temptation to imagine what truly occurred in the late summer of 2008. We can assume that his script evokes Lehman Brothers, and that the two days depicted here offer a guess as to what may have gone down behind closed doors, before that august firm filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008.

But it doesn’t really matter. Chandor’s build-up is absorbing, and the subsequent character interactions generate the intensity of a solid, well-acted stage play. We eventually share the horror of those who recognize a catastrophe only after it’s too late to attempt a recovery.