Nailing the zeitgeist and throwing in a body count

 EDDINGTON (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Eddington" is a small-scale Western-of-sorts, a mere microcosm of the early days of COVID-19 when everyone wore surgical masks, stayed indoors and decided that working from home was the new normal. My memory of it was the value of convenience, that shutting yourself from the world and viewing it from the prism of Zoom virtual meetings and obsessing over social media was a new way of living. In a sense, we still practice that insularity - when we leave our homes, our smartphones and iPhones have become our plastic bubbles and we don't leave home without them. We have Doordashed ourselves out of existence, to some extent. "Eddington" is about the fears and anxieties of the new normal yet it also cultivates how our 24-hour news cycle is extended from our phones and that rational thought has gone out the window. That makes "Eddington" worthwhile even when it shifts gears into hyper-violent overdrive. 

The movie begins with a close-up of a homeless man's feet as he walks through the barren lands of lovely New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. As he is walking and pontificating incoherently, we see the small desert town of Eddington is being used for an upcoming A.I. data center. It is nighttime as Sheriff Joe Ross (Joaquin Phoenix, beautifully understated) is out on patrol and doesn't realize or concede that there is a geographical division between the pueblo and the town limits of Eddington. The Sheriff is berated by the pueblo cops for not wearing a mask. The fictional Eddington is like any other small town in New Mexico until nationwide news hits of the murder of George Floyd. Protests start with young white people becoming progressively ashamed of being white, of having privilege and for stealing the land from the Native Americans. All this becomes manufactured hate against whites, parroting what other protesters are doing around the country in what became known as the Black Lives Matter movement. The problem is that Sheriff Ross can only handle so much protesting since he only has two other deputies.

Meanwhile, Ross hates the mayor (Pedro Pascal) and plans to run against him! Ross also hates wearing masks and hates the government for the new laws of protecting oneself amidst a growing crisis. There are domestic issues with Ross's mentally unbalanced wife, Louise (a nearly unrecognizable Emma Stone), who has a developing interest in a cult lead by Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler, who resembles Jim Morrison). Louise's mother, a conspiracy nut job (Deirdre O'Connell), lives with the miserable married couple. Happiness is not central to anyone's existence in this town.     

"Eddington's" focus from COVID mania and individual rights and freedoms switches to almost blood-curling terror with increasing tension filling every frame. A political murder has taken place and determining the assassin(s) identity infects a town embroiled in an increasing body count. Tension is writer-director's Ari Aster's forte and despite the mortality rate stemming from characters you least expect to get offed, "Eddington" abandons political machinations for bloody killings and executions. The various themes of humanity pushed to the edge when it comes to how tragedy is perceived and dealt with rather than analyzed with a fine tooth comb gives the film a real lift and attentively channels the zeitgeist. When the killing starts, it all feels slightly uneven and off-kilter. One, two murders might have been sufficient rather than the last half-hour devoted to eruptive sniper fire and one crucially timed explosion.

"Eddington" starts as small-town chaos that boils to high temperatures. As a COVID suspense western thriller, the film technically works and makes you sweat. At 2 1/2 hours, I have to give it credit for pushing all the heated political buttons but I still could have done with less gunfire.  

Cheryl Smith's prep for appearing in the Runaways band

 LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL (1973)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Poor blonde Christian choir girl Lila Lee runs away from the town where she sings. She is living with a Reverend and decides to find her father, a gangster who killed his wife and her lover, because she forgives - it is in her nature to forgive. The townspeople seem like a wretched group of bestial, scarred, ugly, pale-looking men such as a bus ticket vendor and the bus driver! Lechery seems to be in their minds when they witness this virginal 13-year-old girl.

"Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural" is one of those ridiculous 1970's independent horror flicks that has some measure of atmosphere (shot with what looks like bluish filters and apropos day for night cinematography) and not a whole lot more to recommend it. While Lila escapes from a bus accident, dozens of monstrous vampires chase her. Lila runs for an eternity. She is housed in a cell with bars that look like they are made of papier mache. There is an old hag who brings her plates of food, and a lot of pale-faced children who giggle uncontrollably (and I think one of them wears a pirate costume). Eventually, we are introduced to the quiet, insidious nature of Lemora (Lesley Gilb), a queen vampire, who wants nothing more than to bathe and massage Lila and give her a proper bedroom environment. Obviously Lemora has more supernatural plans for Lila. Oh, yes, and the Reverend (Richard Blackburn, also the director) is on a journey to find her. And Lila escapes Lemora's mansion and runs. She runs and runs from the vampires who look like mutated zombies. There's also a clan of cloaked vampires who form inner circles holding torches. Might I also mention that Lila hides inside a coffin and then escapes and goes off running again. The late actress Cheryl Smith, who later joined the Runaways band, is clearly agile at running and has a properly serene, angelic look as Lila.

"Lemora" is not much of a movie, though, and not much fun to watch. There are one or two moments of terror that are unlikely to scare an 8-year-old kid. Lesley Gilb looks more like a horror hostess than some ancient vampire. Still, if you like watching an innocent young girl run through the woods and various rooms and abandoned buildings, I suppose you could do worse.  

Laughable slasher tendencies

 SCHIZOID (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are so many unintentionally hysterical moments in 1980's slasher "Schizoid" that I had a hard time getting bored. "Schizoid" is nothing new in the slasher film genre and it would be understandably forgotten if not for the magnetic presence of Klaus Kinski, who I expected to give a toweringly hammy performance. He is up for it yet his performance is gentler and the other actors are, surprisingly, hammy and over-the-top.

A savage killer adorning a black hat and black coat is killing women from a therapy group with a pair of scissors. Sometimes, the killer taunts them and then kills them. One such scene features a woman from the group riding her bicycle who is hit by the killer's car. She survives her fall and then runs into an abandoned house and you can guess the rest. Is it Dr. Peter Fales (Kinski) who lives in a mansion with his very troubled and near-suicidal daughter (Donna Wilkes, who later had the lead in the equally trashy and entertaining "Angel")? Dr. Fales seems creepy from the start indicated by Kinski's bulging eyes, and he stares at his daughter who disrobes and takes a shower. Whatever incestual innuendoes exist are forgotten as the film progresses.  

Newly divorced Julie Caffrey (Mariana Hill) writes an advice column dispensing romantic advice and gets threatening letters in the mail - she is our main protagonist and a member of the group. The film gets sillier when we get Julie's ex-husband (Craig Wasson) who has a thing for redecorating his office with new wallpaper, and a maintenance man (Christopher Lloyd), also a patient in the group, who is eager to fix Julie's boiler! 

"Schizoid" is straight up stupidity as a thriller and as a whodunit (my guess of the murderer's identity turned out be wrong). Its saving grace is Kinski who looks savage and cruel and has sex with his female patients! This could have been a phenomenal psychological thriller under the right hands. What we get is another anonymous slasher film.     

Gambling or smuggling needed for ping pong success

 MARTY SUPREME (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Marty Supreme" is a toy box movie with a huge, noisy rattle inside of it that lets out gunshots that will make your ears bleed. It is loud, obnoxious, rowdy, insane at its core and absolutely, without a doubt, very crudely entertaining. An audience member in the front row kept yelling at his date, "This is TOO MUCH. This is TOO MUCH!" I wanted him to leave (which he inevitably did) but I was more than willing to accept rabble-rouser Marty Mouser. As played by Timothee Chalamet, I didn't root for him exactly but I did admire his tenacity. 

Chalamet is Marty Mauser, a talented 22-year-old ping pong champion who wants to go after the big leagues and prove his worth and make millions. Easier said than done is something I have regurgitated once too often in my reviews. Heard this type of sports tale before? Of course, you have. Another film biography masquerading as truth littered with character inaccuracies to get to some possibly deeper truths? Oh, you bet, think "Bohemian Rhapsody" except only loosely inspired. Very loosely inspired, in fact so much so that the filmmakers have made it clear that this is not a biographical film based on the actual table tennis champion, Marty Reisman. 

What we have in "Marty Supreme" is an arrogant 1950's prick who knows how to climb high yet obstructions fill his life. At the start, Marty is a great shoe salesman working at his uncle's shoe store in the Lower East Side, New York, but his aspirations are to be a competitive table tennis star. His ping-pong skills are extraordinary yet real-life often interferes with his plans - of course, that won't stop him. When he can't get his 700 dollar paycheck he's owed from his uncle, he forces another shoe salesman at gunpoint to retrieve the money for airfare to the British Open! He makes it and wins big, and feels his talent should include a room at the Ritz and not some low-down hotel room! Then he successfully woos a married American actress, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow, in one of her finest roles in years). Kay is taken by this kid despite her reluctance to get intimately involved. Marty is unstoppable, however, as he relentlessly pursues, ridicules, offends and yet offers mea culpas to Kay's husband, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary) a wealthy ink-pen tycoon unaware of this affair. Milton wants Marty to participate in an exhibition ping pong game with the deaf Japanese opponent, Koto Endo (played by an actual deaf table tennis player, Koto Kawaguchi), who beat Marty. The exhibition is a purposeful sham and Marty decides to play against Endo without purposely losing.

"Marty Supreme" is chock full of haywire incidents that all stem from Marty's cheating, gambling, swindling, adulterous ways that are all part of his ambitious nature. Only his ambitions, though proven to be successful, involve less-than-savory attempts that are nothing to write home about. Marty Mauser is not a virtuous man and has no morals. He never tries to do the right thing because he can't, or he doesn't give it much thought. A chaotic sequence involving challenging other ping-pong players at a bowling alley leads to a gas station explosion that had me on the edge of my reclining seat. There's also the matter of the police hunting Mauser who has defied his uncle involving those 700 dollars, which leads to a hilarious scene where the motel room bathtub he's in crashes through the floor and traps an older motel occupant (creepily played by cult film director, Abel Ferrara) in his bathtub with his dog, Moses. There's also the matter of Marty's pregnant girlfriend (Odessa A'zion) who is married to someone else! She feigns having a black eye which leads Marty to striking her husband on the head with a trophy! Another brief fling with Kay leads to Marty almost getting arrested for having sex in Central Park at night. Then he runs into Milton again, and the movie never stops, never allows much time to breathe with 80's songs bridging scenes together and electronic music by composer Daniel Lopatin. This amoral kid is always on the run and so are we. 

"Marty Supreme" is the first figurative horror film biography I've seen that is as excessive as Oliver Stone's "The Doors." Timothee is so darn charismatic and so blazingly funny at times that you can't help but wonder how far the director Josh Safdie will go to dramatize these intense exploits. The film is performing well at the box-office as of this writing, but expect many audiences to scream "THIS IS TOO MUCH!"     

Sex, Drugs and rock and roll document

 COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If you want to see an out-of-control orgy in an airplane, watch this film. If you want to see the Rolling Stones engage in coke-sniffing, watch this film. If you want to see Stones' groupies injecting heroin in their veins, albeit in black-and-white, watch this film.  

"Cocksucker Blues" exists as an occasionally sluggish yet often compelling fly-on-the-wall approach  on the Stones 1972 tour (though the band allegedly stated that some of the scenes were staged). The band didn't want this film screened at all, though what did they expect unless they had no memory of such hedonistic, practically sexualzed moments. Banal also comes to mind when I see Keith Richard slumped over and laying on a woman's lap after ingesting heroin. Banal are Mick Jagger's comments about Southern diners - it is nothing too memorable to chew on other than their diners' superiority to British food. In fact, not much goes on in "Cocksucker Blues" which is likely the point of its own sluggishness - the life of a rock star band is all it is purported to be. Maybe the late director Robert Frank (a photographer noted for his work in "The Americans," not to mention the famous photo album collage on the Stones' own "Exile on Main St." album) is making the point that rock bands may indulge in excesses that result in nothing but stages of endless, perpetual boredom. Their lives are spent in hotel rooms where they watch the political shenanigans of the day, such as George Wallace running for office. 

Still, I was fascinated by the whole film despite finding some of it wearying. Frank does a fine job of assembling possibly hours and hours of footage into something relatively concise at 90 minutes. The director does get to show off the Stones on stage, particularly an electrifying concert with Stevie Wonder singing "Uptight, Everything's All Right" segueing to the Stone's own "Satisfaction" (a song I always prefered on their album, rather than the live recordings). Jagger on the harmonica during the "Midnight Rambler" performance is energetic and exciting. And you do get quick moments of celebrities visiting the Stones backstage such as Andy Warhol, Truman Capote and interviewer Dick Cavett. There is a far too brief moment with Tina Turner which I wish led to some concert footage of them performing. And there is a singular moment with a fan, a mother who lost custody of her children due to her being on acid, that is truly a time capsule moment of the movie and of the times.

Lastly, if you want to see Keith Richards throw a television out the window in his hotel room, watch this film. Charles Fleischer once had a quote that if you remembered the 60's, you weren't there. Keith Richards might not have remembered ever touring with the Stones in the 60's and early 70's so, perhaps, he wasn't really ever there. 

When Sequels Collide

 HOME ALONE 3 (1997)
Endured by Jerry Saravia

In-name sequels bother me (Leonard Maltin calls them follow-ups but the brand name is still used with a number attached to it). None of the characters return from the first two "Home Alone" flicks so it begs the question (other than being a financial one), why bother making a third? Why hoodwink people with a new sequel if Kevin McCallister doesn't return? No Macaulay Culkin, no reason.

There is some semblance of a story about international thieves seeking a missile cloaking microchip placed inside a racing car toy! The toy is inside a plastic bag that is mistakenly taken by an older lady at a Chicago airport! The thieves follow the lady in a taxi to a suburban part of Chicago, the kind writer John Hughes has shown us innumerable times. You know, the houses are enormous and look unaffordable but if you have two working parents... The new kid is eight-year-old Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) who has chicken pox and stays home from school alone because, you know, two working parents and two siblings (one played by Scarlet Johansson!) at school and nobody is ever home in Chicago during daylight hours. Nobody's home except for Alex and the mean old lady from the start of the film. When Alex spots one of these thieves at a nearby house, he calls 911! I'll give the movie credit for that since the first two films never showed Kevin calling the cops!

Other than a very funny bit involving a parrot on a phone's answering machine, nothing else in "Home Alone 3" elicits much of a chuckle or a smile. This Alex is just as good at developing booby traps as Kevin was, but he doesn't have much charm - he is just vanilla. So is the cast which includes Haviland Morris as Alex's mother who is too charismatic to just be a worrying mother. Comic pratfalls and multiple hits to the heads of these clumsy thieves with objects thrown at them that should kill them, "Home Alone 3" is unmemorable, unwarranted and inexplicably dull.   

Your smile and face are never in the same place, at the same time

 NIXON (1995)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"They will never love you Dick, no matter how many elections you win, they never will." - Pat Nixon

Truer words could not have been spoken in Oliver Stone's bewildering, seismic tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions, "Nixon." Who would have thought of any 20th century U.S. President evoking anything tragic worthy of our most famous playwright. Stone's "Nixon" is not a sentimental treatise nor a loving tribute but it is an empathetic and layered look at a man who was rightly condemned for his actions while in the Oval Office. Some may agree, some will disagree yet Stone points out a man who had the defects of his own virtues.

What were the virtues? Nixon was born in the poorest lemon ranch in the United States, specifically in Whittier, California. His Quaker mother was born of virtue (Mary Steenburgen), a "living saint," and his father (Tom Bower) was a hard working grocer who believed in virtue and any disobedience would lead to a trip to the woodshed. Richard Nixon had two brothers who died of TB, a heartbreaking loss which infected the rest of his life. Yet the film doesn't play out like a regular, linear biography of the rise and fall of a powerful man. The film unspools based on Nixon's private moments of listening to his reel-to-reel recordings of conversations between him and his staff that includes the publicity-seeking National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Paul Sorvino); H. R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff (James Woods), who protected the President and his decisions including odd discussions of coded phrases such as "that whole Bay of Pigs thing"; David Hyde Pierce as the White House Counsel, John Dean, who later testified in court during the Watergate hearings, and others including J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, Domestic Affairs Advisor, who can clearly see Nixon is going off the rails. Nixon was known back in the 1950's for going after Communists and yet "McCarthy never did much for him." Once he is in office for the second elected term, the war in Vietnam gets worse with more bombings than one can count. After he ends the war, the press doesn't clap for any sort of victory (though they love him for opening China during Chairman Mao's reign). 

This all brings us to Anthony Hopkins who inhabits the soul, not the appearance, of the former late President (no crooked nose either, other than in pointed flashbacks to the 1950's Red Scare). Hopkins brings out the pathos, thanks to an intricate, complex and literate script by Stone, Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson. There are powerful, practically soul-searching scenes played out with subtlety and infinite grace such as Nixon's late-night visit to the Lincoln Memorial with dozens of anti-war protesters surrounding him and asking tough questions; Kissinger and Nixon praying by the fireplace after he signed his resignation letter (that scene alone will raise the hairs on your arms); Nixon regretfully (it's in his pained eyes) renouncing ever running for office again to his no-nonsense wife Pat (brilliantly played by Joan Allen), and the vivid memories of his Whittier days which are as harsh and unsentimental as anything in Tricky Dick's presidency. 

Then we get the backgroom intrigue - the alleged and some recorded conversational moments between Nixon and his aides. The increasing bombing of Cambodia is discussed, Kent State, the triangular diplomacy with communist nations like China and Russia and what works for his campaign for a second term instead of what works for the people (especially the silent majority). Watergate details are also revealed and most thrillingly with ex-CIA agent and one of the White House Plumbers, E. Howard Hunt (Ed Harris), who gives us one of the great lines of 1990's cinema, "Your graves have already been dug." 

Oliver Stone pushes the empathy and compassion he has for Nixon in heavy strokes - Hopkins himself can't help but make Nixon look and feel more human than the televised president of his day with his customary line, "I am not a crook." The film suggests that Nixon could have been a great President if people only liked him. He had great powers that could have been used for good and he misused his presidency to keep us fighting a war presumably nobody wanted. His hubris takes a hold of him since he knows he could never be a Kennedy, and he unapologetically shows no compassion for others or his enemies of enemies (Nixon never called Bobby Kennedy after his brother was assassinated, and makes no statement over the tragic Kent State killings). 

"Nixon" rises and falls in its towering treatment of this President, unfolding past and present seamlessly with amazingly potent lensing by cinematographer Bobby Richardson, stretching from black-and-white to color just like he did with "Natural Born Killers" and "JFK.". One sequence involving Nixon recording over 18 1/2 minutes of secret tapes leading to him being rushed to the hospital is some of the most tantalizing sequences Oliver Stone ever cooked up. Of course, there are conspiracy-laden moments where eyebrows will be raised when Nixon visits some businessmen in some secret meetings in the middle of nowhere (the initial meeting with these men suggests they had a hand in Kennedy's demise). It is not a perfect film (the longer Director's cut is more icing on the cake featuring a curious meeting with Edgar G. Hoover in the Oval Office, and Richard Helms who may foster deeper knowledge of Bay of Pigs) but it is one of the best Presidential biographical films of the 1990's. It may get less respect than Stone's other films but that would be in keeping with Tricky Dick himself.