GIVE US FREE

 AMISTAD (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Cinque is seen in extreme, sweaty, bloody close-up trying to pry a rusty nail from a rotted wooden floor. He is one of several African slaves who have been violently abused and treated like animals on board a Spanish sailing ship called La Amistad. The nail sets Cinque free from those piercing iron shackles and a revolt takes place against the Spanish crew. Judging from this justifiable insurrection, you'd think that "Amistad" is Cinque's story but it is not, only in a secondary maybe tertiary way. 

The insurrection leads Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) to be hoodwinked into thinking he'll return to Africa - he is redirected to New York with the others. They are to be tried for murder yet nobody in the courtroom can decide who these slaves really belong to and it becomes rather comical when the Spaniards lay claim as well as Navy officers. Ultimately, this whole shebang is proof that they see these slaves as nothing more than commodities, property, cargo, but not human beings. So when a real-estate lawyer gets involved, Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey, who looks like some 1960's hippie professor who smoked one too many blunts), he provides a perceived slam dunk case since the slaves were clearly kidnapped from Africa, not Cuba, and the revolt happened outside the U.S. A couple of abolitionists, Lewis Tappan (Stellan Skarsgard) and his associate Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman, standing out more as a symbol than a character), a fictional former slave, find documents and inventory sheets that can prove their case. However, under the cold hands of President Martin Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne), a new young judge takes over and he decides they should be free. Not so fast when the legal machinations face an appeal and the case has to be retried. Who better to make things right than the sleepy John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) who can stand before Supreme Court justices and deliver a preachy sermon where he names drops past U.S. Presidents and the Constitution. It is beautifully summarized in that context but it does little to provide justice for these slaves.

"Amistad" has a staggeringly powerful flashback sequence, "the Middle Passage," where we see how these slaves were treated on board that ship, from being thrown overboard in a chain link to some whipped to death and starved, etc. One woman with a child throws herself overboard. This is Cinque's subjective and troubling view of being a simple man driven to rage and murder by ruthless, money-grubbing captors. "Amistad," unfortunately, loses its primary focus on Cinque to the lawyers who are trying to prove they were captured and not born slaves. It leads to one stirring moment - the movie's best scene - where Cinque is in court and repeatedly says, "GIVE US FREE!" The courtroom is awed by this earth-shattering pronouncement and it should've been sufficient cause for seeing Cinque as a wronged man but we do not get enough of Cinque's own individualism. He is an angry slave yet he's also a man who had a family in Africa and was taken away. Seeing it more from his perspective rather than involving the two lawyers and a handy translator makes "Amistad" more of a potent courtroom drama articulating a virtuous issue than a story of a man driven to and from hell. It is a watchable picture but it could have been so much more. Spielberg should've just let Cinque be free to tell his story. 

Ephemerol is needed after watching this haywire movie

 SCANNERS (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I was about 10, I saw "Scanners" on home video and all I took away from it were the gory special-effects. Hard to forget a head blowing up or enormous veins popping out of someone's face and arms. It was all I could remember. Now, Cronenberg's intellectual horror film is a cautious warning about experimental pharmaceutical drugs and human evolution involving ESP. It may not all make sense but it is Cronenberg at his finest, using shock, scares and an unrelenting sense of gloom over the proceedings. You might still get a migraine after watching it.  

Scanners are special human beings who possess ESP and can telepathically cause someone to have headaches and nosebleeds. Others with evil intent on their minds can blow someone's head apart, including a scanner's head. One opening sequence shows a derelict-of-sorts, Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), who eats other patrons' leftovers at a mall cafeteria before scanning a woman who gives him disapproving looks. She suddenly goes into convulsions and Cameron turns away, perhaps in disgust at what he has done or unable to know what he has done, and is chased by government agents who shoots tranquilizer darts at him. Next we have am auditorium session with scanners and a demonstration is necessary with a volunteer. Of course, nobody in the audience wishes to participate except for one, a purely evil man named Revok (a perfectly cast Michael Ironside). Yes, this is where the head exploding scene occurs that became the highpoint of the film's trailer.

Cameron is eventually taken to Dr. Ruth (Patrick McGoohan, speaking with a soft, articulate tongue that may drive you bananas), an expert on scanners and on the board of ConSec who owns a pharmaceutical company that the good doctor had initiated. The mysterious doctor hopes Cameron can track down an underground scanner group that includes its supposed leader, Revok. It seems there may be various scanner groups and they can all scan in unison! We find a reclusive artist named Ben Pierce (Robert A. Silverman), a viable lead to this underground movement in a sequence that is both funny and genuinely bizarre. Pierce's laugh sounds sarcastic and fake but then I read that it was meant to evoke Alan Alda!

"Scanners" starts off with potent scenes of violence and Revok being able to scan agents and force them to kill themselves. Once you get past those gory moments, the movie settles down a tad and becomes a frenetic chase picture with a soundtrack that sounds like it was designed by a scanner. Cameron runs along towards the last half of the picture with another scanner, Kim (Jennifer O'Neill), as they try to evade assassins, agents and guards before discovering the truth of ephemerol (a drug meant to tranquilize a scanner's abilities that also might be used to create a new army of newborn scanners). Unbelievably, in what seems like a last-minute plot contrivance, Cameron scans the ConSec computers by using a payphone. Still, despite its often ludicrous nature, Cronenberg plays the film straight and keeps you riveted even if you occasionally laugh at yourself for taking it seriously. I will say there are powerful moments that caused me to have some nausea, a couple of stomach cramps but no nosebleeds. Maybe I was feeling under the weather when I watched it twice again recently. Or maybe Cronenberg just has that effect on his audience. 

I can't stand Americans fighting Americans

 1941 (1979)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

I am all for pure chaos in any movie. Throw in the kitchen sink while you are at it! A wild World War II movie with pure comic chaos is a great idea. Throw in the kitchen sink, a few tanks, a Ferris Wheel, a Japanese sub, out-of-control war planes and general havoc. Steven Spielberg's "1941" is all that but it is not comical - it is just an expensive dumpster fire with unbridled chaos and nothing else. 

The anarchic script by Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis and John Milius doesn't seem written at all - they must have screamed the lines to each other and expected the actors to deliver in an over-the-top mode by screaming as well. The story takes place in the days following the tragic Pearl Harbor event of December 7th where an Imperial Japanese Navy sub is spotted in the Pacific Ocean. It is commandeered by no less than the titanic presence of Toshiro Mifune! Christopher Lee plays a Nazi officer on board the sub for reasons only clear to the writers of this unfunny mess. Since there are fears of another brazen attack by the Japanese (there is an interest in bombing Hollywood), every American is scared and they run around in a frantic pace. The military is preparing for this but their leader in command, General Stilwell (Robert Stack playing a real-life general), would rather cry at a theatrical showing of "Dumbo." You do have the lone swimmer from the opening of "Jaws" gracing the opening of this movie where she is almost impaled by a...Japanese sub. Darn. Then there is Slim Pickens as Hollis P. Wood, a lumberjack who tries to chop down Christmas trees inhabited by Japanese officers. Yeah, real funny stuff for about a second. 

I enjoyed Ned Beatty as someone defending his home turf with an anti-aircraft arsenal that ends up destroying his own family home. Other than that and the zaniness of John Belushi (in a mostly extended cameo) as Wild Bill Kelso chomping on a cigar and flying through the streets of L.A. causing general mayhem, "1941" is needlessly overlong and overbaked and ultimately a "nothing" movie. A great cast flounders in this movie because they have zilch to do. There are no memorable characters or situations - Spielberg is directing traffic and reaction shots and not much else. I came away bored, not exhausted, and many of the film's racial jokes do not work and will cause mostly eye-rolling looks.The USO dance sequence is fun for a while but it is overextended (you'll forget Treat Williams is in this movie playing a character with an aversion to eggs). This movie is about endless destruction, fist fights and not much else - chaos is not by definition funny. Maybe it is about director Steven Spielberg's attempt to show America at war when it entered World War II. It feels more like Spielberg at war with himself.  

Older Gentleman robber in a new century

 THE GREY FOX (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A gentlemanly stagecoach robber, who never shot anyone during any hold up, went to jail and was released into a new century in 1901, and is trying to figure out his place in the world. Will it be as an oyster picker while staying with his sister and her disapproving husband? Probably not for long because if robbing people is all you know, then that is all there is. It is the excitement and thrill of being such a thief that encompasses the obstinate Bill Miner, a real-life train robber who became something of a folk hero. "The Grey Fox" is his story and it is one of the more elegant films about old-timers who should settle down; this Mr. Miner will do no such thing.

Richard Farnsworth, a gentlemanly actor in his own right with his trademark thick white mustache (who never cussed in a single film of his), is the old robber Bill Miner who is no codger or eccentric, and certainly not a grumpy man. He is a kind man who had a criminal past and can tell a stranger on a train that he is between jobs or, more accurately, that he used to rob stagecoaches. He doesn't flinch when telling the truth - he has a gleam in his eye and is merely trying to work through a revolutionary time in history. Stagecoaches have been replaced by steam trains and there are some new inventions out there like the motorcar and gizmos for peeling fruit. Horses still dominate small towns and when Bill heads for Canada, it seems the frontier west hasn't completely abandoned him - there are the aforementioned horses, mines, and general stores. There's also the nickelodeon which particularly excites him when he sees the silent film "The Great Train Robbery." Now, more than ever, he knows the rest of his days will involve train robbing. 

What is really wonderful about "The Grey Fox" (directed with complete confidence by Canadian director Philip Borsos) is that the film is as spirited about Miner's exploits as much as Miner is. This is not an elegiac look back at a criminal life nor is it a moralistic fable. It is a relaxed story told with simplicity, a leisurely pace and with a completely believable performance by Farnsworth who really looks he is from that era. Kudos to Jackie Burroughs as a feminist photographer who has an interest in opera and falls for Miner - one of the rare sweet adult relationships that feels completely genuine. Sean Sullivan provides solid support as a newspaper editor who has a certain history with Miner. It is really Farnsworth's movie all the way and he makes it poignant and sweet-natured. Every move, every sentence he utters, every twinkled smile he emits, and his recognition that he might head back to the slammer (but not for long), shows a history of the late 19th century and early 20th encapsulated in one person. An exceptional, exquisite classic.

Riffing on Pretty in Pink

 FRESH HORSES (1988)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

Just when you thought it was safe to see a cheesy romantic drama, or seemingly safe, we get one of those 1980's Ringwald movies post-"Pretty in Pink." Let's be honest: how awful could a film starring Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald and Ben Stiller be? Answer: EXTREMELY. "Fresh Horses" is not unwatchable but it is tonally and visually insufferable. It is also much ado about absolutely nothing. 

Andrew McCarthy is Matt, an engineering Ohio college student who has an interest in roller coasters. I would like to have learned more about it but all we get are a couple of scenes of him in front of a tiny desktop computer. He lives with his parents and is ready to marry his sweetheart (Chiara Peacock). Of course, we only sense this will be a problem because we have seen enough movies to know this guy envisions something other than this pre-planned existence. Ben Stiller is his best friend who takes him to some house in a backwoods area of Kentucky where an older guy plays pool and the woman who owns the house (Patti D'Arbanville) is just an owner, I guess, who likes to have people come around so she's not lonely? One of them is blonde-haired Jewel (Molly Ringwald) who says she is 20 years-old but she might actually be 16 and married to a scuzzbucket (Viggo Mortensen, believe it or not). 

Matt comes back to this house to see Jewel and they have sex. He loves her but you can't tell from McCarthy's minimal facial expressions (you could tell in "Pretty in Pink" in which he was in love with Ringwald). Matt cancels any future with his rich fiancee for a woman living, can we say it, on the wrong side of the tracks (this movie is practically a "Pretty in Pink" remake except it poorly mines Tennessee Williams' territory.) Southern Gothic it is not.

"Fresh Horses" is based on a two-act off-Broadway play by Larry Ketron (who wrote the screenplay), which definitely establishes Jewel as underage. In this movie, nothing is ever clear. She might be 16 but she says she's not, though friends of Jewel's husband suggests otherwise. The Kentucky house almost feels like a brothel and D'Arbanville could be a madam but it is not actually not that kind of house. When an older guy tells Matt he wants to bed Jewel, there is a fight and D'Arbanville is insulted by the mere suggestion. Hmmm, okay. The play was focused on the class system, the rich and the poor, yet all that evaporates in this movie ("Pretty in Pink" actually managed simple, perhaps archaic observations on the class system amidst its teen comedy-drama outline). Mostly we are saddled with Matt kissing those big Ringwald lips, sleeping with her in an abandoned railway station (part of the play's setting), arguing and bickering with Jewel back and forth, back and forth, and one major slap across the face. Not one moment is believable and the soundtrack has jazz saxophone music that so overwhelms every scene and every moment that all I could do was laugh. 

There was an elegance to the opening scenes of "Fresh Horses" with Stiller and McCarthy on a speedboat, and the mini-dissolves inside a house hosting an engagement party. Such elegance gives way to histrionic acting and pointless scenes of tossing marshmallows, White Castle dining and endless bickering all the way through - there are no simple conversations in this movie. I'll say this much for Ringwald's cinematic track record - it is not as mind-numbingly awful as "P.K. and the Kid."  

New recruits needed at Police Squad

 THE NAKED GUN (2025)

Or How I Wished They Dropped This Movie and did something else 

by Jerry Saravia

Heightened comic lunacy and chaos defines "The Naked Gun" movies. Hell, it defines the ZAZ (Zucker, Abraham, Zucker) comedy team who knew how to write endless jokes and visual puns based off of their knowledge of bad cinema, B movies and pop culture. The series was also defined by jokes coming at you left and right, from the foreground and the background. Sure, they were largely stupid jokes but there were also smart, clever ones that you didn't see coming. Whether it was the late Leslie Nielsen as the stupid Lt. Frank Drebin finding himself in an unrecognizable area of L.A. as he is narrating, or doing flips all around his apartment thinking someone broke in, or laughing outside a theater showing "Platoon", or mistaking a security officer for Robert De Niro, you knew that there was a sense of fun to it and you had to be fast to catch every gag. If you have seen the movies, then you know.

My main problem with the new "Naked Gun" is the casting of Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin's son - it doesn't register. Neeson can play it straight but he seems adrift in all this, and not in a justifiable, comically surefire way. He is too tall and imposing a presence. Years ago when this reboot was first floating around for a green light, the name Ed Helms came up and he would've been perfect. I certainly have no issue with Pamela Anderson being cast - she's a natural for this franchise - but she's not given enough to do. Underexposed is putting it politely. Still, I give credit where it's due and the winter log cabin getaway sequence that includes a homicidal Frosty the Snowman whom Anderson decapitates is the best joke in the film. 

Co-written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and Akiva Schaffer, this "Naked Gun" reboot has a few other chuckles along the way (the O.J. Simpson photo is hilarious, the "Mission: Impossible" set-up reference inside a studio is pretty damn funny, the endless coffee cups given to the detectives including when Drebin is driving made me smile) but it doesn't have enough fun with it. Some gags and one-liners are recycled from the original but it all lacks juice, a reason for being and there's no rollicking measure of anarchy. The villain played by Danny Huston is not enough of a baddie - he should be sneakily devious, deliciously evil (have we forgotten how good Ricardo Montalban was in the original? Practically a Bond villain type.) Even worse, the pacing and timing is off so that when a joke is supposed to fly, it sort of sits there and we know it has not landed. It should be faster-paced. It is no wonder that few have topped ZAZ's anarchic, spoofy humor in 40 years. Time to find new recruits at Police Squad.

Half a monster movie on the cutting room floor

 BAD MOON (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Bad Moon" opens with severely grisly violence inside a tent where Ted and his girlfriend make love and are attacked by a werewolf. This werewolf tears her apart, killing her almost instantly, and Ted shoots it with a shotgun blowing its head off. This is terrain very far from the days of Henry Hull, Lon Chaney Jr. and it is actually closer in tone to "The Howling." Is "Bad Moon" near the quality of "The Howling" or even "An American Werewolf in London"? Most definitely not. It is a howlingly bad movie but it has undercurrents of potential that are not exploited.

Intense Michael Pare is Ted, more appropriately Uncle Ted, and he is living out of his Silver Bullet camper in the middle of the Pacific Northwest. Quick question: can anyone just live out of a camper anywhere in the woods without paying rent? Never mind. Ted calls his sister, Janet, an allegedly high-profile attorney (Mariel Hemingway), who loves her brother and invites him to stay at her home. Ted has a nephew (Mason Gamble) who loves werewolf movies! There is also a smart, alert German Shepherd named Thor (easily the best performer in the movie) who senses something animalistic in Ted. Ted had been bitten in the opening sequence and transforms into a werewolf whenever a full moon approaches. People are killed and torn apart and the blame goes to, are you ready for it, the German Shepherd. As the town sheriff says to Janet, when a dog has a taste for human blood, all bets are off and it is time to head to the pound.

The issues are tenfold with "Bad Moon." The atmosphere is almost right (though nocturnal scenes in the forest and at Janet's home are too brightly lit) and Pare and Hemingway are game for some character exploration. There's none. Our sympathies are aligned with the family and Ted yet Ted grows increasingly unsympathetic especially towards his main adversary, the dog. It is hard to fathom why Ted becomes somewhat mean - he doesn't quite relish becoming a werewolf and has handcuffs in the hopes of restraining himself. I just found it impossible to be on his side at all - his attitude becomes one of a serial killer. I almost gave up on the film when he waves at the dog who is taken to the pound.

"Bad Moon" is like a test reel of a movie, never fully fleshed out or shaped into anything resembling a movie. The sole werewolf transformation scene starts out well with practical makeup effects and then becomes silly with poor CGI effects. It is a monster movie that feels like half of it ended up on the cutting room floor.