Speaking for the common man

 BARTON FINK (1991)

A Writer's Writer's Movie By Jerry Saravia

When I saw "Barton Fink" back in 1992, I knew I was not a capable writer, let alone a writer at all. Who makes the assessment of who can actually write if not other writers? Thirty years later, I realize I write not with conviction but with purpose - writing film reviews is for leisure and not for any other reason. It is self-fulfilling. That is something that I think Barton Fink, a playwright, realizes. He is happy to make a buck and garner some applause but he does it because he wants his audience to see themselves in his characters; the common man as it were. If it makes him some money, great, and if not, that is fine too.   

"Barton Fink" has World War II on the brink, set in the days of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Only Barton (a phenomenally strange and memorable performance by John Turturro) is not concerned with the war or politics. He has been recruited to work for Capitol Pictures and its studio chief, Lipnick (the boisterous, Oscar-nominated Michael Lerner), who wants him to write a wrestling picture with Wallace Beery and inject it with that Fink feeling. What is that Fink feeling? I am not sure even Lipnick knows ("the poetry of the street") - he wants a studio picture with the requisite expectations of any wrestling picture "with a little of the character wrestling with his soul for the critics." Except Barton is unable to write in his standard issue typewriter and can only muster an opening reference to the East Side tenements of New York. He may think that a run-down hotel with thin walls and wallpaper that doesn't stick, not to mention a seemingly creepy hotel bellboy named Chet (Steve Buscemi), will do the trick. The claustrophobic nature of the single room with a spring bed and mosquitos is not conducive to writing, only to some form of madness. Then there's Barton's next-door neighbor, Charlie (John Goodman), a traveling salesman, who may not know much but he "has plenty of stories" presumably about the common man.

"Barton Fink" has two worlds to explore - the unkempt fictitious L.A. hotel known as the Earle and the glamorous side of L.A. with bright swimming pools and sunlit offices where writers spend their time churning out scripts. What is fascinating about "Barton Fink" is that it makes casual mention of holding up writers in L.A. who want to share personal stories or make "personal" genre pieces yet they will never get made unless "they grow up." Barton could've stayed at a more expensive hotel but he prefers a place where the "common man" might stay. There is a hell of a demonic B-movie thriller he could write about based on what he endures in the last third of the movie but, instead, he figures out how to write this wrestling picture and give the studio "something beautiful." It doesn't work and he finds himself sitting in the beach with a box holding unknown contents and sees a beautiful girl in a bikini who could be in pictures. And there's Charlie, who is not at all what you might think he is - another creepily memorable character delivered with sting by John Goodman.

"Barton Fink" is my absolute favorite Coen Brothers film because it is about the writing process and how life experiences itself can shape a writer. Other than brief passages heard at the beginning and towards the end, we don't know if Barton is a good writer, a decent original playwright (despite being lauded as one in Broadway) or merely a serviceable writer who can't do much with mediocre material. Does he require the help of Audrey, the "secretary" of a famous writer who might be writing his stories (played by Judy Davis in another odd performance and her second one in the same year with "The Naked Lunch" which is also about a writer). Barton may be writing for the common man but he himself is anything but common. By the end of the film, I hope he decides to talk to that bikini girl. It is the only hope Barton has left out of his "common" existence.

It's All About You

 RED EYE (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Cillian Murphy, one of the leading stars of "Red Eye," called it a good B movie, not a good movie. Well, in my experience of reviewing movies, a good B movie is a good movie ("King Kong," anyone?) "Red Eye" is an exceedingly effective thriller that has equal amounts of tension and thrills right from the start. It may be a stretch from director Wes Craven's usual supernatural chillers but I did not mind that one bit. 

Unease settles in during "Red Eye's" opening moments where an uppity hotel manager, Lisa (a sheerly perfect Rachel McAdams), has discovered that her flight has been delayed. She is waiting on line while one irate male passenger is ready to blow a fuse. A meek-looking guy (Cillian Murphy) settles the customer and this guy's eyes usher in malice, not kindness. Lisa is impressed and sort of charmed by him, enough to have a drink at the bar with him. You know right away that this guy is trouble and you are well aware that he is more than likely going to sit next to Lisa on that flight. What happens next? After some personal questions about Lisa's father and her recently deceased grandmother, we learn that Jackson Rippner (who on earth has a name like that?) has a flight plan that involves something vaguely terroristic and a potential political assassination. To reveal more would be foolish. 

"Red Eye" stays on board the flight for almost the whole movie. It is impressive that no shot aboard the plane is ever really repeated (other than extreme close-ups of McAdams and Murphy, some cutaways to Murphy from reverse angles reveal a vaguely demonic look with his slight parted hair) and so the movie builds with its exemplary set-up knowing we are willing to go anywhere the plot goes. Once Lisa is aware of what's happening, she is trapped in her seat and has failed attempts at warning an elderly passenger holding a Dr. Phil book or using soap in the bathroom mirror to alert others. Jackson will not let Lisa out of his crosshairs. 

I would have liked a little more character interaction, especially Lisa and her worrywart of a father (Brian Cox, a slight role for him). Still, "Red Eye" has confidently persuasive performances by Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy in a truly high-stakes, pulse-pounding thriller. At just one hour and nineteen minutes (that is not including the credits), Craven and his writers Carl Ellsworth and Dan Foos pack in a lot for its tight, clockwork narrative. You will come out of this movie with the feeling that your heart skipped a couple of beats."Red Eye" is proof that Wes Craven can make a lean machine of a B-movie better than anyone.

Inert werewolf hysterics

 THE FURY OF THE WOLFMAN (1972)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

"The Fury of the Wolfman" seems to have been cobbled together on a single weekend. It is a horror film about a werewolf yet nothing in it screams horror - it is more of a study in how to make a werewolf film seem as inert and incoherent as possible. 

Paul Naschy (who has played a werewolf in several films) is Waldermar Daninsky, a professor bitten by a Yeti in Tibet. Right there, you lost me, a Yeti in Tibet? Waldermar divulges this information to a colleague, the mysterious Dr. Illona Ellman (Perla Cristal), who should tell this man to seek professional help. It turns out she is a nutty high priestess involved in Dr. Moreau-like experiments using humans as guinea pigs inside a castle. Adding more trouble than it is worth to Daninsky, he finds out through a written note that his wife is having an affair (and the two lovers have messed with Daninsky's car brakes)! As the wolfman, he finds the couple and chews out their necks! Then we are back to the castle where it seems to be populated by 1960's hippies who are feeling free to have sex on concrete tables! One guy wears a pale mask and a cape, seemingly a "Phantom of the Opera"-type and we get guys dressed in suits of armor pretending to be still and attacking women doctors. This might be the first werewolf film I've also seen where the hairy guy is accidentally electrocuted.

Naschy has probably more charisma than anyone else in this movie but he can barely exploit it. I started to lose interest when he and another pretty female doctor roam around the castle for an eternity - they can't find a way out so they have sex in an isolated room (sex scenes were incongruously added later). "The Fury of the Wolfman" is a good movie if you are trying to catch up on your sleep. 

Bloody Desert Massacres

 THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977) and

 THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II (1985)

Two horror films that couldn't be further apart by Jerry Saravia

There is a fundamental rawness and ferocity to Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" that few other 1970's grungy, 16mm horror flicks don't quite match (the exception being "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"). It is in-your-face and not much fun, but it is not supposed to be a joyful romp through the desert area where weapons testing occurs. Follow the road directions and don't go astray. Boy, nobody ever listens to the gas station attendant. 

"The Hills Have Eyes" has a tight-knit family stranded in the middle of the desert with a broken-down station wagon and a camper. The patriarch of this family is retired policeman, Bob Carter (Russ Grieve), his dutiful wife (Virginia Vincent), and their daughters, one a little wild (Susan Lanier) and the other somewhat quiet (Dee Wallace), with their corresponding husbands. There also two endlessly barking German Shepherds, one named appropriately Beast and the other is named Beauty. The slim plot has Bob wanting to visit a silver mine he inherited but why it is so close to a government-sanctioned site with flyover Air Force jets, I can't say. Before you know it, the hills have a disgusting cannibal family who soon begin to prey on and attack the family. 

"The Hills Have Eyes" is unnerving throughout with the unsuspecting family members getting picked off, one by one. The assault in the camper approaches the brutality of Wes Craven's earlier "Last House on the Left" and you just can't wait for these demonic savages to get their just deserts (one of them includes the iconic Michael Berryman with a face and brow sure to produce chills on any viewer). Beast becomes something of a heroic dog and the ending with its crimson-colored freeze frame suggests that sometimes the evil is inside all of us when it comes to savage violence.

The 1985 sequel is unintentionally funny and rather toned-down from the viciousness of the original. It opens with a title crawl that reminds one of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and uses flashbacks of the original film through the eyes of Bobby Carter (one of the surviving members of the original film and played again by Robert Houston). Another flashback is, are you ready, shown from the point-of-view of the dog Beast! Now Bobby had apparently married the helpful, frightened feral girl of the cannibal family, Ruby (Janus Blythe), from the original film and here was the opportunity to have her deal with her family from the hills. The problem is that Michael Berryman returns as her knife-wielding brother, Pluto (whom I thought was dead in the original), and there is a gargantuan-sized new member known as the Reaper, and that's all folks. All families eventually break apart I guess and Ruby never gets even with either cannibal. The victims are some racing drivers and their girlfriends in a red bus, this time, and they stop but the bus never actually breaks down! So everyone decides they need gas and stupidly investigate a compound of ramshackle homes with a mine shaft and a refrigerator that looks like the gateway to Hell.

The original film is often unyieldingly sickening yet it pulsates with raw power. Craven's needless and purposeless sequel should be long forgotten. I sense that even Beast will not have a flashback to this forgettable mess.

Horror on the margins of a religious community

 DEADLY BLESSING (1981)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" appears to be about a religious community in rural Pennsylvania who have strict rules, namely they do not consort or conversate with non-religious members. In this world, the group are the Hittites who, in one hilarious dialogue bit, "make the Amish look like swingers."  The Hittites refer to women outside their group as the incubus. Ouch. Might have been better off calling this devout religious group the Hutterites who, unlike the Hittites, actually live in some U.S. states but I digress.

I had a jolly good time at first seeing Michael Berryman ("The Hills Have Eyes") appear as some man-child of the Hittites who is something of a pervert, looking into a woman's bedroom window and watching her disrobe. In fact, I wondered if this movie would become a psychological portrait of how religion bleeds in a community where some members become curious of those who do not follow any sect - people living by their rules and moral code. I digress again because, before you figure out how to pronounce Hittite, there is a murder by a John Deere tractor! The male character killed is Jim (Douglas Barr), an ex-Hittite, living with his wife Martha, in a house with an outside sign that reads "Our Blessing." When Martha finds her husband dead, she is the sole person to attend the funeral with the Hittites observing on a farm hill. Ernest Borgnine plays the patriarch and sermonizer of the Hittites who hates and demonizes anyone who leaves the group and consorts with non-members. That still leaves Berryman as the man-child who is killed not even halfway through the film, though he's not denounced but there is the matter of his missing shoe. We are saddled with Maren Jensen (in her last film role) as Martha who doesn't seem to grieve much - she invites her old pals for a week to her home. One of them is Sharon Stone, in her stunningly sultry debut, who has a sleepy gaze throughout that is rather enthralling to me because it is, well, Sharon Stone. Jeff East is also on hand as a blonde Hittite who starts to cast doubts about religion infecting his life and his potential new bride and seeking, you know, intimate relations.  

"Deadly Blessing" has a good story that is lost in translation. The film is far too inert and even in scare sequences where there is a hooded killer in a barn or elsewhere, it falls short of thrills or anything menacing. That is surprising coming from horror director Wes Craven who can rattle the nerves at his best and make you quake your boots. "Deadly Blessing's" horror is muted at best making one wish Craven made an entirely different, more dramatic movie. The religious fervor of the Hittites is personal for Craven but even the staging of said sermons and Borgnine's imposing presence are flat and insipid. The movie was shot in relatively one month and there is a studio-imposed supernatural finish that is plain dumb and counterproductive to what we have seen. It will be one more blessing in my moviegoing experiences if I never have to sit through this movie again.  

Blah, blah and blah

 DIGGER (2026)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

The first major trailer for "Digger" was exciting and brash - a neo-political comedy on the order of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." It appeared as if it had its satirical claws sharpened for the politics of the Trump era, a finite, blackly comical treatise of the current maddening zeitgeist. We still need a movie like that now, something to cause the earth to tip on its axis and wake us up. Alas, "Digger" is not that movie. Without revealing much here that may dampen one's feelings of what this movie could have been, "Digger" is an incessant bore of a movie, a slow walk to nothingness. It has a remarkable ending but the rest of the movie has crumbles of a broken narrative. 

I will give props to Tom Cruise, an actor who has appeared in a diverse set of films until he decided to return to "Mission: Impossible" and "Top Gun" franchises. Nothing wrong with that but Cruise always seemed to contain an edgy veneer that went beyond good looks and natural charisma - he was always the poster boy for sincerity. Other than his best performance in "Born on the Fourth of July," he has played up insincerity and plumbed deep into those waters with "Magnolia" and "Eyes Wide Shut" (and let's not forget his hilarious turn in "Tropic Thunder.") In "Digger," he's a billionaire oil tycoon who cares more about his dying cat than the catastrophic drilling for oil in Greenland and Alaska with the approval and help of sickly, cancer-ridden President Compson (an emaciated John Goodman who is possibly the best thing about this movie). Apparently, due to methane warnings about drilling that this mega billionaire could barely give a lick about, an explosion in the icy terrain of Greenland has caused an ice shelf the size of Maryland to break away and result in major flooding in Europe. Later on, another floating ice shelf the size of Boston is ready to strike Alaska! What can be done about this flooding? Sadly not much except that Digger's own Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed, a balanced comical performance), an environmental safety chief, is on hand to speak to Parliament about the nitty-gritty truth of this disaster. Then Digger does his bit to speak to them about the real real truth - everyone wants oil and they want him to drill. Um, sure, that is a point to be made but not a very salient one.

I can't reveal too much about "Digger" and some of its surprises except that they do not add up to much. Its plot developments that enter the meta phase deter from the overall impact that I think director Alejandro Iñárritu was aiming for. The movie could have gone for broke and truly nailed the very zeitgeist we are in, to make the audience angry with serious commentary embellished by black humor. What we get is a sick cat, a one-note and wearying performance by Tom Cruise, and monotonous shaping of scenes that reiterate the same token phrases and ideas. As I mentioned before, "Digger" has a great ending but it belongs to a different, braver and more articulate movie.        

Retiring 007

 NO TIME TO DIE (2021)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The Daniel Craig James Bond-era was rougher and tougher than earlier Bonds with a very high body count. This particular era of 007 also had connecting storylines and recurring characters in more ways than one than the previous entries. Sure, we had Bond grieving for his slain wife in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" to the point that Moore's Bond visits her grave in "For Your Eyes Only." The seemingly unkillable Blofeld always showed up in key moments in different sequels since he was always so damn nefarious. In "No Time to Die," it is not just Blofeld returning but also a deepening storyline with the fabulous Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, his love interest who could change our favorite superspy's future forever (For those who are unaware, at the end of "SPECTRE," Bond almost kills Blofeld point blank and chooses not to while Madeleine is waiting on a London bridge). 

As in previous Bond films, there is always the electrifying teaser of an opening. Here, it begins ominously with some armed menacing figure in the snow approaching a house with a drunk mother and her child listening to music - it has the look and feel of some horror film. Then it segues to a somewhat mild encounter with Bond on holiday with Madeleine in an Italian hotel. Bond is about to visit the grave of Vesper Lynd (from "Casino Royale") when an explosion occurs that practically knocks Bond out. A chase ensues with various minions shooting at him on a connecting bridge and he's able to jump off with some thankfully sustaining cables. It is thoroughly intense and leads to Bond thinking that Madeleine betrayed him and we get a cold finish where he tells her they will never see each other again. Never say Never as five years pass and SPECTRE has infiltrated an MI6 lab where a pathogen has been developed that can track targets by their DNA - all of this under the supervision of M (Ralph Fiennes). Explosions galore as Project Heracles has been breached at the lab headquarters. Meanwhile, Bond is living off the grid in Jamaica and gets a visit from returnee Jeffrey Wright as reliable Felix Leiter, requiring his services for her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond can't use his 007 number since it had been retired and it is now belonging to Nomi (Lashana Lynch) who can drive fast cars, fast planes and shoot with dead accuracy. In other words, why do we need Bond? And when lovely, exquisite and sexy Ana de Armas shows up in an explosive cameo as a nervous CIA agent who does her share of firing on all cylinders, you think for a moment that James Bond's character might be on the outs. 

"No Time to Die" has a new villain with facial scarring issues named Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek, playing the role with an icy stare) who wants to kill Blofeld (once again, played in a quickie cameo by Christoph Waltz) - Safin's desire, like all Bond megalomaniacs, is to infect the world with this pathogen and kill everyone. And then what? But there I go again, questioning the logic of the illogical villains and their deathly wish to neutralize all. 

"No Time to Die" has killer car chases through vast fields of forests and countrysides, not to mention the aforementioned Italy opening which had me on the edge of my seat. My one complaint is that Bond kills so many faceless minions that you lose count, especially in the island fortress towards the end (this reminded me of the Chris Walken psycho villain Zorin from "A View to a Kill" where he gets a machine gun and kills all his workers. This is perhaps not what the new Bond filmmakers intended but it occurred to me). I also love how Safin sees that Bond is a killer and questions why Madeleine want to be with such a man, an assassin. These are questions not normally probed in a James Bond movie. That, and James's passionate love for Madeleine and her...oh, you have to see it to believe it. This movie gives Bond a bit more soul and heart than usual, though it all started with his care for Vesper in "Casino Royale." It all comes to a hellish end but, boy, what a ride. No question in my mind that Daniel Craig is the second best Bond since Sean Connery.