Arthur: Poor little rich remake

Arthur (2011) • View trailer for Arthur
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for sensuality, profanity, drug references and relentless alcohol abuse
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.8.11


Director Jason Winer's most impressive accomplishment, in his remake of 1981's Arthur, is keeping a lid on his star's aggressively flamboyant tendencies.

A little bit of Russell Brand goes a very long way.

Breakfast time in the Bach household often is conducted well after the noon
hour, as Hobson (Helen Mirren) patiently prepares a meal for the utterly
helpless Arthur (Russell Brand), who couldn't boil water without destroying
half the kitchen.

Indeed, I'd argue that Brand is best used as a supporting player, where his shenanigans can provide an ostentatious counterpoint to calmer leading players; in just such a capacity, he was one of the brighter spots in the mostly forgettable Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Alternatively, Brand completely overwhelmed last year's Get Him to the Greek ... which, I've no doubt, delighted both his fans and anybody who enjoys the similarly overplayed antics of, say, Will Ferrell or Steve Coogan. Larger-than-life comic personalities rarely "act" in their films, as opposed to simply playing unvarying versions of their successful stage personas.

In which case, let the viewer beware.

But Brand manages to be occasionally endearing here, as Arthur Bach: a spoiled-rotten, super-rich, arrested adolescent who never refuses an opportunity to make headlines while concocting new ways to embarrass his mother. Vivienne (Geraldine James) runs the family corporate empire, her husband — Arthur's father — having (wisely?) passed on when his only son was 3. Subsequently raised in a sheltered environment by an absentee single parent too frequently in the boardroom, Arthur has turned unrestrained hedonism into an Olympic-caliber sport, believing that one cannot have too much wine, too many women (often simultaneously) or too much song.

All this is a constant source of irritation to Hobson (Helen Mirren), Arthur's patient, long-suffering but mordantly prickly nanny. Hobson tirelessly cleans up after her charge, having done so for decades. And if this is motivated at least in part by affection, as opposed to a regular paycheck, that's difficult to discern ... initially, anyway.

Oh, yes: Arthur also drinks. Constantly. Excessively. With the intention of humorous effect.

Therein lies a problem.

The original Arthur, brilliantly written and directed by Steve Gordon — who died, tragically, just after the release of this, his big-screen debut — was designed as an homage to 1930s Hollywood screwball comedies, which existed in the same sort of rarefied, fantasyland atmosphere populated by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance flicks. This was an era of archetypes rarely seen in our more cynical, obnoxiously politically correct 21st century: dumb blondes, honorable cowboys, hookers with a heart of gold, and — most crucially, for our purposes — lovable drunks. Gordon's "Arthur" was a hit not just because of star Dudley Moore's spot-on performance, but also because the entire film so perfectly imitated this bygone era, while ostensibly being set in the present day.

Even as Arthur fell in love with the plain, working-class woman who taught him about the value of self-reliance — an improbably cast Liza Minnelli, but hey, she made it work — Gordon was careful not to slide too far into the real world. The bubble would have burst.

Winer and screenwriter Peter Baynham, in their remake, exercise no such caution ... and more's the pity.

Win Win: Quiet triumph

Win Win (2011) • View trailer for Win Win
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity and teenage smoking
By Derrick Bang


Actor turned writer/director Tom McCarthy concocts marvelous little ensemble pieces that are populated by disparate characters trying to connect with each other. They might be lonely, frustrated or somehow incomplete, but they’re always familiar and engaging: the sort of folks who could live next door, possibly as good friends in need of an emotional lift.

With bills piling up and his career circling the drain, Mike (Paul Giamatti, left)
yields to an ill-advised impulse ... and suddenly, weirdly, finds that things
start to go right in his life. But the knowledge of his misdeed eats away at his
soul, threatening all the new joy in his daily routine ... including a delicate
but genuinely loving bond with a lonely teenager, Kyle (Alex Shaffer).

McCarthy came to our attention back in 2003, with The Station Agent, a whimsical saga about a man (Peter Dinklage) who moves to rural New Jersey to mourn the loss of a friend, and winds up having to deal with an equally lonely woman (Patricia Clarkson) and an uncommonly chatty hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale). You can’t watch this charming film without smiling repeatedly; at the same time, McCarthy demonstrates an unerring sense of the way people reach out for each other, even while insisting they’re doing no such thing.

McCarthy’s next film, 2007’s The Visitor, upped the ante in terms of content and dramatic heft. Richard Jenkins garnered a well-deserved Academy Award nomination as a bereft college professor who, still missing the wife who died young, discovers that his New York City apartment has been, ah, “occupied” by squatters. But this young man and woman aren’t low-lifes; they’ve been tricked into believing the apartment genuinely was available. The subsequent narrative puts a human (and refreshingly nonjudgmental) face on the plight of illegal immigrants, while demonstrating how helping others can teach us how to help ourselves.

All of which brings us to Win Win, which nestles somewhere between McCarthy’s first two films, with respect to tone. Although not as charged as illegal immigration, this story’s underlying premise — the tantalizing lure of situational ethics — still prompts us to confront our own behavior. As is so blindingly true in the real world — more so than ever these days, it seems — mistakes themselves aren’t necessarily the end of one’s relationship, career, whatever; we’re judged by what we do after the lapse in judgment.

Disheartened elder care attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) has watched his one-man business slide deeper into financial crisis for some time now. He seems genuinely drawn to his trusting clients, but lacks enough of them to make ends meet. He shares an office — actually a converted house — with Stephen Vigman (Jeffrey Tambor), a CPA similarly stressed by economic woes. Both men have been reduced to their own ill-equipped handyman repairs, whether dealing with a blocked toilet or a basement boiler/water heater that sounds like it’s auditioning for a role in Stephen King’s The Shining ... and is, in the words of a plumber, “ready to blow” at any moment.

Mike also moonlights as a high school wrestling coach; Stephen is his assistant. Their team is a hapless, listless, dispirited bunch; they’ve have to dig up to reach the cellar. In other words, Mike also derives no joy from this extra-curricular activity.

Hanna: Revenge served hot

Hanna (2011) • View trailer for Hanna
2.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too generously, for profanity, sensuality and relentless (often grim) violence
By Derrick Bang


Goodness, what a bizarre, unpalatable and clumsy mess.

I cannot imagine what drew director Joe Wright to this project.

On the run from yet another collection of vicious thugs, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan)
leads them on a merry chase through a dock yard filled with stacked containers.
It's a well-executed sequence, delivered with slick cinematography and clever
editing, but the flash merely serves to conceal this film's bankrupt script.

Wright is the talented filmmaker who delivered such sumptuous, intelligent and inventively photographed adaptations of the books Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. All three are engaging dramas, impeccably acted by superb ensemble casts; all three stir our emotions and showcase a craftsman who understands how best to use every nuanced element of the collaborative motion picture art form.

Hanna, in great, staggering contrast, is a nasty, lumbering oaf of a project: a misbegotten collection of scattered, individual scenes that barely count as a “plot” at all. Seth Lochhead’s story — given additional espionage-style juice by David Farr, a veteran of the British TV series MI5 — couldn’t ever have looked good: not on paper, and certainly not once the damage was up on the screen. It’s as if Wright suddenly forgot everything he ever knew about constructing a coherent film.

Bad scripts can be awful for all sorts of reasons, but one of the greatest sins is a failure to remain true to the rules established from the beginning. If we’re to be a real-world thriller, that demands certain levels of consistency; we don’t suddenly detour into sequences that would have felt more at home in Tim Burton’s handling of Alice in Wonderland.

I’m not certain it’s possible to describe enough of this chaotic, scattershot story in order to properly illustrate its many flaws, but here goes:

We open in a barren, snowbound forest, where Erik Heller (Eric Bana) apparently has been teaching survival skills to his teenage daughter, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan, who earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Atonement), ever since she was a little girl. As a result, Hanna has become a lean, mean fighting machine: an ambulatory weapon trained for some dire mission.

These early sequences, and the mysterious build-up behind them, feel like a real-world spin on the character of Hit-Girl in Kick Ass, who similarly was transformed into a slicing, dicing assassin by her father. Fair enough; it’s an intriguing concept.

Believing herself ready, Hanna insists that it’s time she return to civilization, in order to fulfill her mission. Thanks to a homing beacon that Erik allows the girl to trigger, they don’t need to wait long; their isolated cabin soon is surrounded by gun-toting paramilitary types. Erik already has vanished, promising to re-unite with the girl in Berlin; Hanna, meanwhile, demonstrates her skills by taking out a few soldiers before quietly allowing the rest to bring her ... elsewhere.

From the archives: October 2008

It's often hard to know, right at the moment, which films will linger over time.

Certainly this month had its share of high-profile projects: a new espionage thriller from director Ridley Scott; the third entry in Disney's enormously popular High School Musical franchise; and several impressive adaptations of books, whether historical or simply amusing.

Yet what did I wind up watching several more times? A charming, teen-oriented romantic comedy with the unlikely title of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Can't get enough of it. Go figure.

Okay, so I'm a sucker for good-natured misfit romantic comedies. But they're even better when layered with ribald sensibilities, and director Peter Sollett makes the most of Lorene Scafaria's script, which is adapted from an equally engaging (if even more filthy) book. Throw in a killer soundtrack, and you've got a hit for the ages, which I expect this film to become.

On an entirely different note, the other film that resonates, all this time later, is Rachel Getting Married: as gripping a real-world horror story as I've ever seen, and one that brought star Anne Hathaway a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. Director Jonathan Demme superbly orchestrates this cinema-verité depiction of the wedding guest from hell: You can't take your eyes off the screen ... much as you desperately want to.

As for the rest, the month also brought a nifty IMAX domentary; a poignant buried treasure (The Secret Life of Bees) that shouldn't have died at the box office; and a tiresome "inside look" at Hollywood (What Just Happened) that absolutely deserved the same fate.

Step into the Wayback Machine, and check 'em out:

• Body of Lies

• The Duchess

• High School Musical 3

• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

• Pride and Glory

• Rachel Getting Married

• The Secret Life of Bees

• What Just Happened

• Wild Ocean 3D

Born to Be Wild: Sheltering the innocent

Born to Be Wild (2011) • View trailer for Born to Be Wild
Four stars (out of five). Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang


Stories about orphans are guaranteed heart-tuggers, as has been long understood by every writer from Charles Dickens to John Irving.

And when it’s a true story drawn from our contemporary world ... well, pass the hankies and prepare for the snuffling.

The rules of "elephant soccer" are sketchy to begin with, but that doesn't really
matter anyway. As narrator Morgan Freeman notes, the baby elephants always
win ... no matter what.

In short, only a troglodyte with a heart of stone could fail to be moved by director David Lickley’s new IMAX documentary, Born to Be Wild. We’re probably fortunate that the film clocks in at a mere 40 minutes; I suspect more empathetic viewers would need to be sedated, if it ran much longer.

Lickley’s film, scripted by Drew Fellman, profiles two remarkable women on similar missions of mercy: Borneo-based primatologist Biruté Mary Galdikas, and Kenyan Daphne M. Sheldrick. Both have spent their lives rescuing, raising and rehabilitating orphans: orangutans and elephants, respectively.

Merely learning how these two women find their charges is heartbreaking; in almost every case, the young animals have been orphaned after their parents have been slaughtered by poachers. Many of the youngsters remain by the maimed bodies, unable to do anything else.

One baby elephant came into Sheldrick’s care with its tail missing, because the appendage was chewed off by hyenas tearing at the butchered adult’s carcass.

We’re only told of these grim events; thankfully, we never see the actual aftermath of such an attack. The closest we get to lingering trauma is one baby elephant that initially associates all human beings with the monsters who killed its mother, and therefore charges about in a blind panic, unable to realize that these people are trying to help it.

No, the more distressing details come solely from narrator Morgan Freeman, who delivers the same blend of warmth, awe and occasional reproach — directed at us viewers — that he brought to March of the Penguins.

Watching Galdikas and Sheldrick — and their equally compassionate staffs — care for these helpless creatures, it’s simply impossible to imagine the thuggish cruelty that led to their fate.

But I don’t wish to give the impression that Born to Be Wild is a depressing experience: far from it. Aside from being a celebration of our own finer instincts — proof positive that the world is filled with more than enough good people to compensate for the random evil of their brethren — this film is filled with joyous, wondrous and incredibly cute sequences.

The Music Never Stopped: What we do for love

The Music Never Stopped (2011) • View trailer for The Music Never Stopped
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for thematic elements, mild profanity and brief drug references
By Derrick Bang


Many of our strongest memories, happy or sad, are amplified by songs: first date, first kiss, what played on the radio as some dreadful news was delivered.

Movies are all about the often crafty application of music. Sometimes only a few measures of main theme or underscore are necessary to revive scenes or even entire films: the ominous strings in Jaws; the Pink Panther theme; the opening fanfare in Star Wars; the horn blast and “heavy guitar” strum that accompanies the silhouette of James Bond, as he strolls and shoots toward the circular gun barrel. No doubt you have many of your own, and that’s the whole point; we all do.

Temporarily brought back to "himself" while listening to the music he loves,
Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) attempts to explain his passion about certain songs,
while his bemused father (J.K. Simmons) attempts to make sense of an entire
decade that he willfully ignored. Can this generational chasm be bridged?

The Music Never Stopped, a touching drama expanded from an actual case study, draws its juice from this premise: the notion that music touches us, all of us, in a manner that opens a window deeper into our souls. In most instances, this merely intensifies a relationship also built by conversation, trust, shared experience and time: the years we spend getting to know each other.

But what if music were the only means of establishing a new connective bridge, to replace those damaged by circumstance?

Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks’ screenplay is based on “The Last Hippie,” a case study from Dr. Oliver Sacks’ 1995 book, An Anthropologist on Mars. Sacks, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, also happens to be an accomplished storyteller; he has written numerous best-sellers, based on his work with various intriguing patients. Quite a few of these accounts have become memorable films or plays.

His 1973 book Awakenings was turned into an Academy Award-nominated film with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro; his 1985 collection, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, became a must-read title. Temple Grandin, a professor with high-functioning autism, also is profiled in An Anthropologist on Mars; her story recently was dramatized in a Golden Globe-winning HBO film starring Claire Danes. 1999’s At First Sight, starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino, also is drawn from one of Sacks’ essays.

“The Last Hippie” concerned a young man with devastating amnesia caused by a brain tumor. He could remember no new events in his life, but his recollection of music, specifically songs by the bands he adored in the 1960s, remained intact. In a very real sense, as Sacks noted, this young man had been marooned in the ’60s.

The Music Never Stopped, set in 1986, opens as Henry and Helen Sawyer (J.K. Simmons and Cara Seymour) learn that their long-estranged son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), has been found wandering the streets of New York City. He has a dangerous brain tumor; surgery removes the ongoing threat but cannot repair the damage. When Gabriel recovers, he’s still in a near-catatonic state, his mind no longer able to create long-term memories or recall short-term events. In effect, every day — every conversation, no matter how many times it’s repeated — is a fresh experience.

Source Code: Tick ... tick ... tick

Source Code (2011) • View trailer for Source Code
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.1.11


Some stories are gangbusters on the printed page, but far less successful on the big screen. The mediums are distinct, each with advantages and disadvantages; what can feel elegant, lyrical and intriguing as prose can wind up clumsy, tiresome and contrived as a film. There's no getting around the fact that we imagine certain concepts better in our minds, while reading; being confronted by a visual adaptation in real time winds up less satisfying.

Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) hasn't the faintest idea how he wound up
traveling on this particular train, nor does he understand why Christina
(Michelle Monaghan) flirtatiously chats him up with such familiarity; she's a
complete stranger to him. But she — and everybody else on this Chicago-bound
train — are about to become very important, as Stevens gradually understands
and accepts the responsibility of a most unusual mission.

Source Code is somewhat unsatisfying, which is a shame; Ben Ripley's original screenplay is fascinating — if rather derivative — and director Duncan Jones does his best to minimize its built-in weaknesses.

The premise is classic sci-fi, the setting uneasily contemporary: A man on a Chicago-bound train (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes with a start from what feels like an unsettling dream. The woman sitting opposite (Michelle Monaghan, as Christina) obviously knows him, and chats animatedly; he hasn't the faintest idea who she is. The routine stuff of travel with a large group of strangers plays out — spilled coffee, punched tickets, impatient and oblivious passengers — while our bewildered protagonist attempts to process his disorientation. They stop once, at an outlying station, then resume their journey.

Minutes later, not far from the city, a massive explosion destroys the entire train, killing everybody on board.

Our hero comes to his senses in what looks like a simulator capsule, now suffering a similar type of dislocation. Gradually, a "handler" communicating via a monitor screen (Vera Farmiga, as Goodwin) talks him back to his own self. Military training takes hold: He's Colter Stevens, apparently participating in some sort of test, or something. Goodwin is vague about details; a fussy scientist type in the background (Jeffrey Wright, as Rutledge) orders her to "send him back."

And poof! Stevens is back on the train, resuming the ride from the same waking point, re-living the same events, although experiencing them differently, because he remembers everything from the first time around. But the outcome is the same: Eight minutes later, the bomb goes off and everybody dies ... at which point, he regains consciousness back in the simulator. Or whatever it really is.

Stevens gradually learns — as do we — that he's part of a military/scientific emergency operation that has been mobilized in the wake of the aforementioned catastrophe. Somebody has blown up the train, whether terrorists or a lone loony, and has threatened to explode an even larger device in the heart of Chicago. Through means we really don't need to obsess about, Stevens' consciousness can be "projected" into one of the train passenger's minds, shortly before the catastrophe, in effect taking over that person's body and soul. Because of the nature of the explosion, deductive logic suggests that the bombmaker is within viewing range of the train, perhaps initially as one of the passengers. Stevens' assignment is to figure out who is responsible, and then convey this information back to HQ, so that the impending larger attack can be stopped.