Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Directors ~ John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein

Writers ~ Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Michael Gilio

2023, United States-Canada-United Kingdom-Iceland-Ireland-Australia

Stars ~ Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis

 

That this feels like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: fantasy version’ only goes to show the James Gunn template is now the one everyone tries to follow: it’s easy to forget how fresh Gunn’s original ‘Guardians’ felt at the time. But actually ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ was a property long in development and the witty-banter ensemble dynamic is already embedded in the D&D gameplay, so it’s perhaps unfair to relegate its essence as bandwagon-jumping.

The narrative ~ script by Goldstein, Francis Daley and Michale Gilio ~ apes the more improvisational We Need A Plan! progression of the game. BrianTallerico sees this as a chief failing, but improvisation is the crux of the source material, and demands for more nuanced artistry surely shouldn’t get in the way of something so good-natured. Embraking on a quest and being dumped into chaos is a standard and familiar narrative ~ after all, the game drew upon and generated many archetypes and tropes ~ so much so that it won’t alienate non-D&D audiences, and there’s Easter Eggs here for the fans.

It's just plain enjoyable without the sense of neediness that most films of this trend have. Pine can do this in his sleep (solid, charming without being overbearing), Michelle Rodriguez offers some substance to her archetype of a Barbarian Amazon. With Regé-Jean Page as the saintly but humourless good guy, the film pokes fun at the po-facedness of many fantasy films. Playfulness is the watchword, not earnestness. Hugh Grant enjoys himself and surely has charming-slimy-selfish-articulate-plotting villainy down pat by now (that accent goes a long way). In fact, everyone appears to be having a good time and it is never left limping with seriousness. Oh sure, we get lessons on self-confidence, working together, accepting yourself and your mistakes, etc, but mostly these are fleeting character-colouring rather than doorstopper performative.

Fun is the agenda here, and it offers it with fat but formidable dragons, some crunchy fight scenes that follow the contemporary accent on choreography rather than brute-force, and (my favourite) questioning revived corpses. Initial word-of-mouth was that it was better than expected, as general anticipation was low, but it’s surely one whose reputation will grow. A film that is fun without being stupid.

 

Songs of Pals

Here are some of my favourite tracks from pals & people I know. I am lucky enough to have many talented people to call friends, as I am sure we all do, but here are tunes by mine that I favour. You should follow them - I'm using BandCamp for this.

 

Here is a track that is just a gorgeous, gorgeous wave of guitars telling you to take it easy. James and I have worked for decades together and I am still a sucker for his guitar.

 

And here is a track that I consider to be the best Depeche Mode that Depeche Mode never wrote. The first couple of times I saw Leg Puppy, he was masked and I was scared. But behind the mask, he proved the bestest of electronic pals.

Here's a song describing political ignorance and deliberate deprivation of the arts. I have done a dance for Jimmy a few times and he is the best example of that spoken word political beat poetry heritage... or whatever. This one, I find unexpectedly moving.

 

Mortality made pretty. I have seen Miodes silence a whole pub with her intelligent and heartfelt lyrics & strumming.

 

 More musings on the mystery of living. This one by Martin Christie just cuts right through, and it's not the only track where he does this.

 

 And lastly, just a feel-good groover to dance to. The mysterious Manu may not do so much, but this one is pure retro-future joy.

Yannick

Yannick

Writer & Director ~ Quentin Dupieux

2023, France

Stars ~ Raphaël Quenard, Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin

 

Right from his absurdist ‘Rubber’ Quentin Dupieux has always been existentially worried about audiences (an audience watches the progress of a killer tyre (!) from afar). Even ‘Smoking Causes Coughing’ starts with a kid almost willing up a bunch of superheroes out of boredom. ‘Yannick’ continues this investigation with an audience member interrupting a performance of a play to tell the actors that he isn’t enjoying it.

 

Yannick’s (Raphaël Quenard) disturbance of the play ‘Le Cocu’ is hilarious in his simple outrage of just not liking it ~ although we only see a fragment, it does seems dull (and we shall never know what’s in the fridge). It seems relevant that no one else in the audience has such objections. As this grievance goes on and on, it emerges that Yannick is willing to use the threat of violence to get the art he wants. After all, he’s made sacrifices to be there. Yannick’s demand of entertainment is that it makes up for his routine working life and he’s not happy that it doesn’t meet his taste. In a delusion of privilege, he genuinely concludes that entertainment should pander to him.

 

Not that the situation doesn’t bring out some odd behaviour in the cast – the stand-off between actor and Yannick is the other highlight. Quenard’s performance of Yannick is a quirky passive-aggressive delight. He may be articulate enough to argue with the cast and to almost convince audience members to fondle each other (he was just joking), but he’s a little out of his depth when confronted with a laptop. Somewhere between eloquent and incapable. So, Yannick spends a night criticising and rewriting the entertainment on stage, and it turns out that his alternative is an audience winner. But it’s worse than ‘Le Cocu’.

 

It’s funny, brief, odd and the aftertaste is just a little slippery, giving Yannick what he wants as armed police come to free the audience. The audience just want to be artists, but they’re also held hostage by opinionated non-artists. Dupieux films always stow a love/hate relationship with the audience, and this continues to investigate that conflict. Deceptively light, ‘Yannick’ is less irreverent than usual Dupieux in that his discussion about audience and art is upfront here, that it gathers increasing depth upon reflection and don’t be fooled by its apparent wafer-thin premise.

Soft & Quiet

 

Soft & Quiet

Writer & Director ~ Beth de Araújo

2023, US

Stars ~ Stefanie Estes, Olivia Luccardi, Dana Millican

 

I went in blind, so the pie reveal got me just as it should. I had already decided I didn’t trust or like the lady we were following and the smug passive-aggressiveness vibe she projected. And I didn’t know it was going to be a One Take Wonder, which is always my favourite gimmick.

But as easily impressed as I may be about the choreography, discipline, concentration and acting demanded of a film achieved in one take – and this doesn’t lack in any department – the one take here (apparently actually comprised of four) serves a germane purpose, even a political observation: see how quickly aggrieved talk and collective prejudice turns into violence and home invasion? Whether you buy into the timeframe, it’s a credible argument that the single take reinforces. That, and the and performances of the ensemble cast, making credible and scary these bilious and manipulative women, fuelled by their self-righteousness. Not that the men are blameless, but it is obviously the women here, enabling, demanding, bullying, and manipulating. The film cannily pulls these women from a variety of backgrounds so that most bases are covered. Different classes of "Karens" encouraging one another to up the ante from complaining to increasingly violent action. 

Inspired by the Central ParkBirdwatching Incident, ‘Soft & Quiet’ offers a slightly different spin on the Home Invasion subgenre. Whereas the villains in this subgenre are ordinarily motivated by sadism or crime, here it is fuelled by the antagonists’ outrage that the world doesn’t pander to their prejudices. These ladies are different personalities but united in their privilege as self-appointed aggrieved white women. Early on, the alt-right woman that has gathered them all together says how they must be soft and quiet on the outside to get things done, implying that their men are the foot soldiers while they wield the true power. As C.H. Newell writes, “- it’s a disturbing indication of how white women play a big part in supporting white supremacy, raising clueless boys into racist men.” Using adult Mama-power to encourage a child to complain about a worker; passive-aggressive matchmaking discussions reinforcing gender roles; sisterly manipulations: there is a toxicity to this particular enclave of alt-feminism.

One of those Tough Watches that seems more popular with critics than audiences, undoubtedly because it’s too close to home, too well made, and unrelenting, and concerned with the ugliest of truths about, say, the dark side of everyday soccer moms and store owners, etc. It’s polemical rather than entertaining. It’s a proper horror film. A Focused, chilling a disturbing watch because it feels of the moment and more than credible.