An end to this artifice

SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally viewed on January 27th, 2001)

 
"Shadow of the Vampire" has such an inventive, original idea that I am almost  willing to recommend it based on its premise. Unfortunately, like most great  ideas, it does not fully exploit it for all its worth, and seems to skim past  some missed opportunities resulting in a fairly emotionally void movie that may please  some movie buffs, yet will mostly annoy everyone else.

"Shadow of the Vampire" is a fictional behind-the-scenes look at the making of one of the greatest, most realistic vampire films ever made, "Nosferatu," which was released back in 1922. John Malkovich stars as F.W. Murnau, the madly eccentric, madly obsessed film director of "Nosferatu," itself based on the famed Bram Stoker novel though changes were made to avoid being sued by Stoker's widow. As the film begins, Murnau has just completed studio shots for his latest endeavor ("Thank God, an end to this artifice!"), and is ready to shoot outdoor night shots in the countryside and on an island to capture the necessary realism for the tale. All they need is a vampire and Murnau has found one, an actor named Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) who lives in an abandoned monastery. Murnau claims the actor studied under Stanislavsky from the Max Reindhardt troupe. The crew is afraid of this gauntlike, bald creature who fits the role all too well, and needs no makeup! Gradually, we discover that Schreck is not an actor at all, he is a real vampire and has his eye on the lead actress Greta Schroeder (Catherine McCormack), who will have herself sacrificed to the vampire in the final scene of the script!

Murnau knows Schreck is a vampire and their unusual contract stipulates that Schreck continue his feeding habits until after the shoot (a bottle of blood and small animals are used as alternative food items). Naturally, Schreck is too hungry for blood and ends up devouring not only bats but the neck of a cinematographer. He also has a desperate need to acquire the neck of Greta. The contract is unheeded but it doesn't seem to matter - Murnau has become so obsessed with his opus that he hardly cares about anyone and appears as monstrous as the creature himself.

The pacing is off in "Shadow of the Vampire" as the transitions between scenes seem choppy at best (the opening credits take an eternity to get through). This makes the overall film rather monotonous until Dafoe shows up, and he does bring the film out of its drunken stupor with his vibrantly alive performance. It is still not enough as the visual style of the film seems unimaginative with grainy colors and several darkly lit scenes. Some of the black-and-white scenes of the actual filming of the film-within-the-film are wonderful yet brief.

As written by newcomer Steven Katz, "Shadow of the Vampire" has scant evidence of insight into Murnau's crew members and Murnau's private life - we just see that he is a morphine addict who envisions cinema as "everlasting life." Malkovich mostly yells but there is not much more to his performance (his intoxicatingly emotional final scene is exceptionally well done). It also doesn't help that the film makes a case for the similarity between vampires and filmmakers - they are out to sell their souls to bring life into their own encapsulated world, or as Murnau exclaims, "It does not exist unless it is in the lens." I just don't see the overall connection as being fully realized as it should have been.

The rest of the cast is perfunctory at best. Eddie Izzard as the Jonathan Harker character barely has much screen time and mysteriously disappears from the film. Catherine McCormack has a few breathtaking moments as Greta and we understand that her character chooses the theatre over cinema, but that is it. Cary Elwes is unmemorable as the substitute cinematographer (he also appeared in Coppola's "Dracula"), and Udo Kier (a former Warhol regular and star of the late artist's own "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" flicks) merely glides by the screen as the financially obsessed producer. Kier does have a funny scene where he describes having once seen someone pull ectoplasm out of their mouth.

That leaves Dafoe who gives a tour-de-force performance as the enigmatic Schreck. He gyrates, frowns, smiles, has arch-like eyebrows, long fingernails, and a general frailty that lends sympathy to the "rat-like bastard," as Murnau excitedly claims while shooting a scene. Dafoe projects such a chilling, eerie demeanor that you can't help but be both frightened and fascinated by him. It is such a superb performance that one must see it just to believe it. The film, though, is a mere shadowy reflection of what made "Nosferatu" the silent classic it is today.

Alex, Beethoven, murder, the Ninth

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 
(In Jerry's List of Greatest Films Ever Made)

"'A Clockwork Orange' is one of the few perfect movies I have seen in my lifetime."
                                                                                                           - Rex Reed


"'A Clockwork Orange' is an ideological mess. A paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning." 
                                                                                                           - Roger Ebert

"A Clockwork Orange" has created more diverse reactions in audiences and critics alike than any other Stanley Kubrick film. Even Kubrick himself was outraged at how the film induced copycat incidents in Great Britain, forcing him to ban the film until his death (it has been re-released in the U.K. since Stanley's death in March of 1999). Despite how others feel about the film, in my estimation, this is the greatest film ever made about the nature of violence, and the nature of behavior and moral choice in a clockwork society. It is as relevant and awe-inspiring and as intellectually charged today as any other film since on the subject.

Alex, the punk, the Droog, remains the most ironic, complex, and sympathetic antihero in the history of the cinema. As played by Malcolm McDowell, he is vicious, murderous, but also a lover of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He also has nude paintings in his bedroom, and has masturbatory fantasies to the tune of Beethoven with images from the movies (and himself as Dracula). Alex loves his working-class parents, his boa constrictor, and supposedly goes to school (he is younger in the novel) - he seems like a delightful lad you would see in your neighborhood on an "azure sky of deepest summer." There is only one difference - Alex has a knack, a love, for sex and violence. He has a creative imagination but it is fueled by his violent-prone rages - he seems to take delight in killing people.

At the beginning of the film, in stunning close-up, we see Alex at the Korova Milkbar with his fellow Droogs drinking some milk substance that can "sharpen you up and get you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence." The Droogs' nightly activities consist of beating up old winos in dark alleys, attacking people in their homes, driving like madmen on the roads, having sex with women they pick up in record stores, and it is all to the tune of Beethoven's lovely Ninth. These Droogs dress in white, have ripped-out eyeball ornamentations on their cuffs, and often wear masks with phallic, Pinocchio noses. Kubrick shows us quite a bit of violence in the first half-hour but he has more up his sleeve as the film continues.

Alex is eventually caught by the police after being betrayed by his fellow Droogs (he is hit in the nose with a milk bottle). Once in prison, he gets wind of a "Ludovico technique" where a prisoner is subjected to a rehabilitative process that results in getting out of prison in no time at all. Alex wants to do good or he says, "one act of goodness." The "burly bastard" of a prison chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) tells Alex that the dangerous technique has not been tested much. As the chaplain explains, "Goodness comes from within - goodness, is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." Alex doesn't comprehend such ideas, and decides to take part in the technique at all costs. He gets his chance when the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp), who is looking for criminals to participate in such a technique, chooses Alex whom he considers ruthless, smart, and enterprising.

In what remains surely the most perfectly realized scenes in the film, Alex is strapped to a chair with clamps that keeps his eyelids pried open as he is forced to watch violent film footage consisting of Droog-like killers beating a man relentless, a little bit of the old "in and out" and Holocaust footage (not to mention a few Nazi marches lifted from "Triumph of the Will"). At first, Alex enjoys it but slowly he becomes nauseous and sickly. Alex is becoming conditioned not just against violence but against everything else he enjoys, including Beethoven's Ninth. Nausea and getting sick are healthy reactions to violence, but don't tell that to the teenage audiences who just see Alex as someone rebelling against the system and yet, ironically, becoming systematically part of it.


'A Clockwork Orange' is my current favorite. I was very predisposed against the film. After seeing it, I realized it is the only movie about what the modern world really means." 
                                                                                                          - Luis Bunuel

So what is Kubrick trying to say? That in a clockwork, mechanized society, we have no rights - we must remain aligned with what is expected? All people who rebel, including leftist writers, must be put away, while Alex is to be championed for changing his evil ways. Alex does not fit into society, he is in fact a rebel, allowing himself to choose violence over nonviolence because that is what makes him tick. Removing his instinctive behavior is not human - it is the result of a dehumanizing society and Alex is as human, direct and joyous as anyone else in the film, including the victims who are show as caricatured loons.

Even in today's jaded world of ubiquitous sex and violence, "A Clockwork Orange" is still potent stuff - as disturbing now as it was in 1971. The reason is threefold: we, the audience, can't help but like Alex because he is so charming and ruthless despite his murderous ways. He enjoys kicking, punching, raping, almost anything violent gives him a kick, and he turns it into a balletic performance. He enjoys the violence. We are also asked to identify with him because we feel he is wronged by society and by the higher-ups who are abusing him and using him for political ambition. And yet Alex is not really cured since we sense he will go back to his violent self. Thus, the film is not explicitly bloody or gratuitously violent at all and that is why it stands and towers above any other film that critiques violence in society. Kubrick doesn't get off on the violence (unlike what Quentin Tarantino and the late film critic, Pauline Kael, had said), he merely shows Alex getting off on it.

The violence is both stylized and realistic. When Alex kills his victims, it is shown at a remove, an emotional distance from which we become observers particularly the attack on Frank, the Leftist writer (Patrick Magee, giving the most understandably over-the-top performance in the film), and his wife (Adrienne Corri), to the tune of "Singin' in the Rain." The Alex murders, beatings and rapes are shown in slow-motion, time-lapse motion, and sometimes "viddied with the red, red vino on tap." When Alex is attacked by his own Droogs (who ironically become policemen) or by other higher-ups, it is realistic and bloody with none of the enjoyment of performance that Alex feels when he inflicts pain or kills.

Lastly, the film suggests that Alex cannot be changed by the Ludovico technique - his survival instinct is violence, it is what makes him a person. A moral choice cannot be made, as the prison chaplain says, because you cannot change a person's behavior. I can't say if this is a liberal view or not but it is a justifiable view nonetheless.

"A Clockwork Orange" is terrifying, scary, witty, exciting, funny, satirical and exhausting. Based on Anthony Burgess's novel, it is Kubrick's most cinematic odyssey: beautifully shot and choreographed with almost monochromatic tones and the occasional burst of crimson red colors (though the most beautiful Kubrick film ever made is still "Barry Lyndon"). Malcolm McDowell gives what may be the seminal performance of any Kubrick film - exuding charm, arrogance and cleverness in the face of a callow, youthful killer. What's disturbing and provoking even today about the film is that Alex wants to retain, as Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers once indicated, his moral right to be bad. And we can't help but feel he is right.

Kubrick's Mickey Mouse War

FULL METAL JACKET (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are Vietnam films and then there is Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." Imagine a war seen as a phenomenon that threatens our world, and the fear of the enemy that make us into killers to fight such a threat. That is Stanley Kubrick's film. "Full Metal Jacket" is not really about Vietnam. It is about war, purely as a strategy, as a game of violent free will where no one is safe from using such violence. This is not coming from the same world of Oliver Stone ("Platoon") or Francis Ford Coppola ("Apocalypse Now"), both of whom made great Vietnam war epics. Kubrick's has a God-like perspective on war, something akin to what the director has attempted before in his canon of great films.

"Full Metal Jacket" begins with a montage of young soldiers getting haircuts to the tune of "Hello, Vietnam." The stripping of self and individuality begins, as well as their own humanity. Their drill sergeant is Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), a steadfastly serious, strict, impatient man whose measure of importance is turning these young men into Marines, and also into dehumanized killers of war. This is not my interpretation, mind you, since the drill instructor clearly states that these young men are not human beings. What we are in for is a 40-minute look at the arduous, physical demands of basic training on Parris Island. We are talking pull-ups, push-ups, rope-climbing, combat with arms and with sticks, unifying the rifle with sex (since the men won't get any on this course), and spotlessly cleaning latrines so that the Virgin Mary would be proud to take a dump in one. Most of these soldiers are quite adept at what they do, except for the fat, smiling Leonard (Vincent D'Onofrio), nicknamed Private Gomer Pyle, as he endures the most abuse for being so clumsy and inept. Hartman pushes him to the limits but Pyle is unable to do one pull-up or to climb a wooden fence or to run without exhaustion. Whenever Pyle screws up, he is either punished by being forced to thumb-suck or his Corps trainees have to suffer by doing push-ups (particularly when Pyle is found with a donut in his locker!)

If there is one thing Pyle can do, it is to shoot a rifle with the proficiency of a real marksman. When Hartman lectures his soldiers about great marksmen of the past, like Charles Whitman or Lee Harvey Oswald, we feel a chill in our spines - he may as well include Pyle in the same list. All hell eventually turns loose as Pyle loses his smile and jocose nature slowly but surely. He gets extra help from Private Joker (Matthew Modine), but it doesn't help Pyle in the least - he talks to his rifle, his new best friend. The violence in him is ready to explode.

And then, after a horrific climax, Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" becomes a different movie. It is noticeably a two-act structure that typically climaxes with a brief third act and epilogue. No mention is ever made again of Pyle or Hartman or the rigors of basic training. We begin to see the Vietnam Movie develop. There are conference room chats with journalists (Joker among them) about the state of war and Ann-Margret; brief attacks from the enemy including the Tet Offensive; corpses covered with lime; prostitutes looking for the Vietnam in the American soldiers; generals delivering war jargon ad infinitum; and soldiers keeping their dead "gooks" looking good for the camera while other soldiers emit catchphrases and slogans from John Wayne movies (also one of Joker's tactics). We may have seen all this before, but Kubrick maintains his cool distance as an observer of war where everyone remains passive while the world goes mad. There is a very disturbing sequence, rarely discussed, where a soldier kills several Vietnamese farmers from inside a helicopter while Joker's partner is ready to vomit. This could be construed as an anti-war moment, unlike anything to be seen in Kubrick's "Paths of Glory," but it is more than that - it fits in with the director's associations of the state of dehumanized beings in our world. These soldiers are robot-killing machines - shoot first, ask questions later.

"Full Metal Jacket" climaxes in a setting unlike any Vietnam War movie prior - in the ruins of civilization. It is as if the soldiers have entered Ancient Greece where bullets rip them apart like flypaper. A sniper is hidden in one of the defaced buildings, and Kubrick shows us the sniper's point-of-view by zooming in quickly as if the sniper is zeroing on the intended target. The soldiers die one by one, blown apart to bloody shreds in slow-motion (one is caught in a rabbit boobytrap). The sniper kills quickly without much provocation, while the American soldiers decide to get the sniper. And when Joker confronts the sniper, he is forced to do something he hasn't quite done - to get his first confirmed kill, as he says earlier in a faux interview.

Of all the characters in "Full Metal Jacket," the most humane and the most sympathetic is actually Matthew Modine's tantalizing portrayal of Joker. He is the one we care the most by the end of this War Odyssey, though at first, viewers may be more taken in by the undesirable Pyle (a nice indirect throwback to Timothy Carey's sobbing character in "Paths of Glory"). Modine, a frequently pallid actor, gives his best performance ever as Joker, and shows an acute sense of comic timing as well. When he is joking with Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, his humor gets him in trouble, and we scoff at it at first. But when he is mimicking Bruce Lee, making financial arrangements with a prostitute, joking with his "Stars and Stripes" boss or letting a colonel know he is making a Jungian statement with his peace symbol, Modine embodies the weak kid in Joker, the one who can "talk the talk" but who doesn't have the "thousand-yard stare." He can beat up the helpless Pyle, but he also comforts him and takes care of him, teaching him to handle a rifle and to climb a fence - his sympathy and patience is what Hartman has no time for.

When "Full Metal Jacket" was released, most critics found it was too little and too late, especially after following the coattails of Oliver Stone's powerful "Platoon." But Kubrick's film is not a typical war film - it is an apolitical war film. It shows war in all its guts and glory, a flag-waving debacle where catchphrases, movie quotations, sexual metaphors and dead enemies littering the countryside are all that counts. It is despairing, pathetic and senseless - as long as you have sex and kill the bad guys, you get ahead. It is as sad a commentary on war as I have seen. "Full Metal Jacket" is not better than "Platoon," it is simply more chaotic and jumpy (and, no doubt, one of Spielberg's inspirations for "Saving Private Ryan"). And it is in all the chaos of dehumanized men fighting men that Kubrick finds the roots of why we fight wars, and why we sometimes lose.

Man or Muppet?

THE MUPPETS (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I was a huge fan of the Muppets in the 70's through the early 80's. 1979's "The Muppet Movie" was a breezy, fun romp that made me smile. I was not a big fan of "The Great Muppet Caper" nor "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and, as a result, chose to ignore the other installments. Now comes Jason Segel and company revitalizing the Muppets, and they have done a bravura job. Not only is the new film a fun ride for kids, it is also very funny and full of some memorable songs for kids and adults.

In the town of Smalltown, Gary (Jason Segel) lives with his Muppet brother, Walter. Gary and Walter are inseparable and Walter has always hoped for a chance to be on "The Muppet Show." A chance arrives when Gary is travelling to L.A. with his girlfriend, a schoolteacher (Amy Adams), to celebrate their tenth anniversary - Walter tags along so he can visit the Muppet Theater. Unfortunately, the Muppet Theater is a cobwebbed, dusty old building with very little interior lighting. What's worse is that it is about to be demolished so that greedy Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) with the "maniacal laugh" can drill for oil! This is an odd place to drill since so many other buildings surround the Muppet Theater on what looks like a busy L.A. street, but we are not searching for logic here. The old geezer Muppets Statler and Waldorf are selling the theatre to Tex. Walter decides to recruit the old Muppets including Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy (who lives in France), Gonzo and others to perform a telethon show on TV and hope they can raise the money to save the theater. Only problem is that most TV execs feel the Muppets are has-beens.

There are lot of big laughs and a few sunny nostalgic smiles. Jason Segel is as animated as any Muppet - he looks like a giant human Muppet who can happily sing away to his heart's content. Amy Adams has ample time to sing a song in a restaurant and study the Thesaurus (though she not as engaging as she was in "Enchanted"). The most important element is the Muppets themselves, and they don't disappoint. Fozzie still tells bad jokes; Kermit the Frog tries to hold the group together and reunite with his long-time love, Miss Piggy (who is as sassy as ever); Rowlf the Dog is also along, perturbed he was not included in an early montage; Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem cue up their cool tunes, and the hardly contained Animal on drums is also back, and he is attending anger-management classes with Jack Black (makes perfect sense). Since this is mostly a musical comedy, I should mention that my favorite song is the one that won the Academy Award - "Man or Muppet." It is so inspired and so hilarious that I'd call it an absolute classic (it also helps that "Big Bang Theory's" Jim Parsons appears).

"The Muppets" is a pure and breezy entertainment, not to be taken as anything other than a colorful fantasy with our dear old friends back for more genuine laughs and hearfelt moments. We all know how it is all going to turn out for the Muppets but we can't help but root for them anyway. This time, you really do feel the felt. 

Oh, now do you care! No, we don't.

THE FAN (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed on video in 1997)

I thought I have seen Robert De Niro take the role of the psychopathic killer far enough already. He has played them convincingly in the past, especially 1991's "Cape Fear." Throughout his career, De Niro has played all sorts of loner characters with distinguished characteristics. One in a great while, he will let his commanding presence shine through as he underplays beautifully in films like "Stanley and Iris," "Mad Dog and Glory," or "Guilty By Suspicion." But "The Fan" is not a film that will be remembered (as of 2012, few ever mention it in the De Niro canon of mildly decent performances). "The Fan" is an overwrought, headache-inducing, ill-written and purely sickening trashy wannabe thriller by one of our worst directors, Mr. Tony Scott ("Top Gun"), the director of using every conceivable angle to cut to in ten seconds of film time (and you thought Michael Bay was bad).

Let's consider the plot for a moment. De Niro is an EXTREMELY strange knife salesman who is fired from his job and makes the grave error of leaving his son stranded at a baseball game. He also berates and violently attacks his ex-wife and her boyfriend, and frequently calls a radio talk-show host (played by Ellen Barkin) who one day interviews a popular baseball player (Wesley Snipes). De Niro's character is Snipes' player's number-one fan and will do anything for him, as long as Snipes hits some home-runs. If Snipes doesn't unwittingly comply to this psycho, De Niro will kill a rival baseball player (played by a goateed Benicio Del Toro) and kidnap Snipes' son. Did I miss something? Where is the transition of De Niro going mad to becoming a psychopathic madman? Maybe it is his obsessiveness over his brand of knives.

Robert De Niro gives his character no depth, no humanity and not a shred of decency - he's about as animated as Michael Myers and his frequent mugging doesn't help matters. Wesley Snipes is mostly there for reaction shots and extreme close-ups, nothing more. The screenplay is littered with obscenities and mean-spiritedness; could it have been written by the former king of bad language, Mr. Joe Esterzhas of "Basic Instinct" fame? The frantic cutting, De Niro's Dolby-ized yelling and the ear-shattering, overcrowded music montages (including a bizarre use of the Stones' "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?") will give you a migraine the size of Niagara Falls. Let's put it his way - the film's raison d'etre is Mr. De Niro and it is a shameful use of his name and prestige for sickeningly blood-soaked, exploitative garbage like "The Fan."

A three-fingered salute to Katniss Everdeen

The Hunger Games (2012): Militant Edition teaser

THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I speak so highly of the "Twilight" series, I get double-takes from people. So I was a little wary of a new built-in franchise like "The Hunger Games" but my wife became a big fan after reading all three books. I read only a portion of the book thus far (I am a slow reader) but I found it riveting and chilling. Gary Ross' adaptation of Suzanne Collins' first book in the series is exactly how I envisioned it - chilling, riveting, and a thrust of emotional chaos and doom that pervades and stays with you. They call the book a young adult novel but this is something that even the "Twilight" haters can definitely get a handle on, and adults can enjoy it as well.

Jennifer Lawrence is Katniss Everdeen, the rough, no-holds-barred heroine who lives in District 12 with her mother and younger sister. What is District 12? Well, we are in the future where North America is known as Panem, and 12 districts separate the poor and downtrodden from the rich and powerful Capitol. The Capitol is ruled by President Snow (Donald Sutherland) who has a disdain for the poor and, especially, the underdog. Every year, 2 young people ranging in age from 12 to 17 from each district (Tributes) are chosen at random to participate in a vicious reality game show where they fight and kill to survive, and only one victor can be left standing (it doesn't sound like a fair game but that is our bleak future). These games are known as the Hunger Games and the event of picking the unfortunate tributes is known as the Reaping. Katniss's sister, Prim (Willow Sheels), is picked so Katniss volunteers for this most dangerous game in her place. The other pick is the reluctant Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a baker's son who can throw heavy bags of dough like no one's business. There are the expected training sequences that involve bow and arrows, climbing, throwing knives, etc. Katniss scores the highest in her training capabilities and in her demeanor, as in shooting an apple in a roasted pig's mouth rather than her target practice.

When the games begin, the movie becomes a sweat-inducing, heavy throttle thrill-ride involving some minor slicing and dicing, a burning forest, fireballs, a deadly nest of insects worse than hornets, hallucinations, rocky creeks, booby-trapped mines and much more. Most of the other teen tributes are shown as cold-blooded murderers yet Katniss and Peeta give one the impression they would rather not be in such a deadly reality show. And the mentoring by the soused Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) is reduced to simplicities about how to gain sponsors, not how to survive in the thick of the forest.

Jennifer Lawrence is an incredible actress, showcasing Katniss with vulnerability, toughness, sincerity and a sweet smile. We feel she might lose and that is what makes the character click (and no doubt with the voracious reader fans of the novels). Kudos to Josh Hutcherson for his sympathetic portrayal of Peeta, who is simply very smitten with Katniss. Woody Harrelson can knock any character out of the park and he is definitely in his element here, bringing a nice dose of humor to the dire proceedings. Wes Bentley is positively devilish as the game designer, Seneca, and we can't leave out the candy-colored Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) who wears garish costumes that would make even Helena Bonham Carter vomit.

I do object to the early hand-held, extreme close-up scenes where we witness the Reaping - sometimes, it can get a little headache-inducing to see shots wobbling all over the place when we are trying to focus on the most important and emotional scene - the random pickings from a fish bowl by Effie that results in Katniss sacrificing herself to the game. But that is such a minor picking because everything else is extraordinary to watch. "The Hunger Games" is an intense, relentless film showing us a future that is not exactly unlike our own. The novelist was inspired by the War in Iraq and reality shows but, nowadays, the movie could be speaking about our unemployment and the poor who represent the 98% in the U.S. We have the Occupiers but, in a sense, the movie is implying that people like Katniss show more courage and determination to change our world than President Snow. And the fact that a deadly reality show only means getting good sponsors and good ratings for the sake of violence and death, well, nothing new in the cinematic future worlds but I have a sinking feeling we are not far from that in the real world. This first film in the series may be the first step in Katniss's evolution as someone other than a young woman who is adept at hunting, thus provoking a political detriment, but I am getting ahead of myself. 

"The Hunger Games" has turned into such a supersonic phenomenon that it will be tempting for people to review the phenomenon, not the film. This has happened with everything from "The Dark Knight" to "Twilight" to "Titanic" and many other megablockbusters. "The Hunger Games" is far more intimate than most other recent blockbusters and, for that reason, I give it a three-fingered salute.

Review of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Sly, inventive horror parody

POPCORN (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"It was a great experience, tons of fun and adventure. Jill was great, although I didn't get to know her as much as I would have liked."

           - Derek Rydall (who played Mark in "Popcorn") on working on the film and with Jill Schoelen


Time is a major factor in how a film is received. The first time I saw "Popcorn" in 1991, I was less than enthused by it. Perhaps I had missed the point or perhaps I had expected a scary horror film. The truth is that "Popcorn" precedes "Scream" by a few years, and its intention was to be a sly wink at the horror genre. On second viewing, I can say it is a far greater success than I had thought, maintaining a breezy, upbeat tone through most of its 90-minute running time. Perhaps the film was ahead of its time.

Jill Schoelen as Maggie

Jill Schoelen ("The Stepfather") plays Maggie, a film student who is having strange dreams of some hirsute hippie engaging in strange rituals. These dreams convince her that she has a screenplay in her hands, and she avidly records her dreams in a tape recorder. Her mother (Dee Wallace) is not too fond of Maggie's dreams or her inability to eat breakfast. Nevertheless, Maggie's college film class at the University of California lacks the funds to continue as a course (it seems they are constantly being shafted). So Maggie's teacher (Tony Roberts) and other film classmates decide to host an all-night horror-thon of old B monster movies at a condemned theatre. This will help raise funds for the classmates to make their own independent films. A bunch of people attend the premiere night of the horror-thon, including that hirsute hippie who may be after Maggie. The hippie in question was the director of some avante-garde film called "The Possessor," which he never completed. When it was shown in the very same theatre, it was missing the last scene which he performed live on stage. This last scene involved the actual murder of his whole family!

"Popcorn" is not a standard issue horror flick and no ordinary slasher flick by any means - this is meant to be a parody. It is fun watching the audience watching these gimmicky 3-D monster flicks, where gimmicky tricks such as electric shocks and aroma gases are employed for the appropriate scenes. In fact, these scenes occupy most of the movie's final thirty minutes (my favorite of these recreated 50's horror flicks is "Electrified Man" with Bruce Glover, Crispin's father). There are also clever puns on everything from Ingmar Bergman to the content of avante-garde films, to the dubious virtues of the "Police Academy" series. A reggae band also appears on stage, which is a hint that this film was shot on location in Jamaica!

The backstory on Maggie and her relationship to her mother, not to mention the possibility that the hippie could be her father, is not gripping stuff but it holds the movie somewhat. It helps that Jill Schoelen adds a touch of class, sincerity and vulnerability here, far exceeding the emaciated, bloodless scream queens post-"Scream." Also worth noting are priceless moments by Tony Roberts (he could read the phone book and I would listen) and the engaging Ray Walston as a film memorabilia owner with his own steady supply of William Castle gimmicks (Film critic Leonard Maltin sarcastically suggested that these actors appeared to have shot their scenes in a day when in fact, according to Ms. Schoelen, they had been on set for close to a month). The late Tom Villard (who unfortunately passed from AIDS) is the most memorable of the classmates because he is the nuttiest and most unpredictable. Kudos to Malcolm Danare as the wheelchair-bound classmate who operates the electronic gimmicks. I could live without Maggie's on-and-off again boyfriend (a bland Derek Rydall), especially the blonde date he brings to the premiere that is simply marking time. And maybe someone can explain to me if Dee Wallace's entrance to the theater is a dream or a supernatural occurrence. Hmmm.

"Popcorn" is terrific fun because it does not take itself seriously, and all the endless and inventive in-jokes and cinematic puns make it more than worthwhile. I do prefer this film over the blood-soaked "Scream" and its sequels because it is far more jokey and self-parodic towards slashers, and it embraces the B-movies of the past. The underrated Jill Schoelen and the vastly underrated Dee Wallace give the film a helping of humanity. Grab a box of popcorn and enjoy.

Footnote: "Popcorn" was not given the typical first-run release that any new theatrical release would normally receive. It was shown in bargain theatres. What a crime!

Foxy Brown and Elmer Gantry? Nay, nay.

How can anyone deny Foxy Brown a kiss with Burt?

By Jerry Saravia

While fiddling through Pam Grier's autobiography, "Foxy," I came across something rather disturbing. It turns out Pam Grier had been cast as the late Burt Lancaster's girlfriend in 1988's "Rocket Gibraltar." Unfortunately, her scenes were cut out completely, thanks to the film's director Daniel Petrie who "feared repercussions from the interracial love scenes," according to Pam. Daniel Petrie had cast her as a prostitute in 1981's "Fort Apache: The Bronx." I suppose a black prostitute is okay as long as she is not engaged in a relationship with a white man, especially if 7 years later she appears with Burt Lancaster.

What is odd about this story is that she was cast and her scenes were shot for "Rocket Gibraltar," and then the director got cold feet (though I wonder if he would've had second thoughts if he had seen 1987's "Fatal Beauty" where there is one or more intimate scenes between Whoopi Goldberg and Sam Elliott.) Still, this was a shaky period for interracial relationships in Hollywood pictures (Denzel Washington never had a romantic relationship with Julia Roberts's character in 1993's "The Pelican Brief," though he did kiss a white woman in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X"), and the 1970's was a more adventurous period where such things weren't questioned as much. Take for example the fact that James Earl Jones plays a heavyweight fighter and Jane Alexander is his white mistress in 1970's powerful "The Great White Hope." Why is it then that eighteen years later, Pam Grier as Burt's mistress is questioned? Maybe because race was not an issue as much as Pam's super-hot, foxy charisma? Who knows, but Pam Grier was disappointed when told by the director that her scenes were excised.

Still, in 1997's "Jackie Brown," Pam is Jackie Brown and she has a few intimate scenes with the very white Robert Forster, including sharing a kiss in the film's finale where, in movie theatres, you could hear a pin drop. Whether it is 1988 or 2012, this shouldn't be a big deal anymore in mainstream Hollywood movies but, for some reason, it still is. Hollywood hasn't quite caught up to reality, and it proves that they are not as liberal as people might think.

McCain-Palin Politics as Kabuki Theatre

GAME CHANGE (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Whatever political beliefs one has towards Sarah Palin, one can't help but feel a smidgeon of sympathy for her in "Game Change," an HBO film that is pungent, extraordinarily acted and written and is as enveloping and fascinating about the political process as almost anything else I've seen in a while.

The superlative Julianne Moore is the Alaskan governor who is picked at the last minute to be Republican John McCain's vice-presidential nominee in a run to the White House against the Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. Although she doesn't agree with all of McCain's ideology (stem-cell research, abortion), she feels it is God's way of telling her to run so she goes for it, unhinged and fearless. Woody Harrelson is Steve Schmidt, the campaign strategist who helps with an iron and sympathetic fist. Sarah Paulson is Nicole Wallace, the senior advisor to the campaign who tries and repeatedly fails to prep Palin. One awfully cringe-worthy scene shows Sarah Palin getting a history lesson in foreign affairs, particularly with Afghanistan and Iraq (she runs with the false notion that Saddam Hussein started the 9/11 attacks). I do not doubt that this scene happened in real life but it is hard to figure a woman running for Vice President who has no idea that North and South Korea are in fact separate countries.

Ed Harris is brilliant as John McCain, and the Arizona senator is shown as a strong, idealistic man who doesn't like negative campaign ads nor does he seem very pleased to have a naive woman running side-by-side. The implication seems to be that Palin is getting all the press, all the glory, and McCain is shut out by the voters and the press. What McCain may or may not have thought about all this is left to the imagination, and we never really see the two sharing more than the occasional photo-op at conventions.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has trouble following the nuances of foreign policy; is texting more often than listening to Sarah Paulson, who tries her damnedest to prep the Alaskan governor; is forced to memorize answers to her Vice-Presidential debate (ah, so that is why she did so well); fouls up the infamous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric, and so on.

The impression left from "Game Change" is that McCain's advisers and strategists threw this "moose-hunting" woman to the wolves when she came close to having a nervous breakdown. Her only success was the Vice-Presidential debate but it did little to stir voters and was a muted success at best. She is seen as naive and uninformed and unsuitable to run for office, which can hardly be debated. Her "Troopergate" controversy, the Bridge to Nowhere, her daughter's pregnancy and the expensive suits she wore are given minimal exposure, and rightfully so (the relationship with her husband, Todd, could've used more screen time). Julianne Moore doesn't try to outdo Tina Fey's comical mimicry of Sarah Palin nor does she turn her into a clown. Moore invests humanity and compassion into a woman who truly did seem to care about people - Sarah Palin never struck me as artificial or heedlessly kowtowing to beliefs she did not actually feel. She is a celebrity and she has a strong personality and remarkable composure - love her or hate her, her star shines.

Based on the controversial book "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime" by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the movie has already been accused of having a "false  narrative" by Sarah Palin (who lavished the same charges on the book in 2010). Every non-fiction film plays with truth since it is intended as a dramatization of events. But as a behind-the-scenes 21st-century look at the political process by which a candidate is selected in this media-saturated age, it is deeply absorbing and also very troubling. Deep down, I think Sarah knows it too.

A Cinematic Trip to the Georges Melies Moon

HUGO (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Silent films received a much needed shot of adrenaline in 2011. "The Artist," the first silent film since 1989's "Sidewalks of New York," won Best Picture at the Academy Awards and reintroduced a form that has not had many antecedents since the early days of cinema. "Hugo" is also a celebration of that very same time that has been long forgotten, and it is infused with humor, heart and pathos. It will make you swoon with the power of silent cinema.

Based on the inventive multi-media book by Brian Selznick, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," the film "Hugo" places us squarely in a world that seems ancient and yet so inviting. Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan living in a Parisian train station (the Gare Montparnasse) who is trying to find a secret to an automaton he keeps inside his living quarters. Hugo is good at fixing mechanisms, having learned the art of it all from his late father, a clockmaker (Jude Law) who dies in an unfortunate fire. After being cared for by a mean drunk of an uncle (Ray Winstone), a watchmaker who disappears, Hugo is left to his own devices and has to do his uncle's job of maintaining the train station's clocks. Hugo keeps a notepad that has a litany of descriptive drawings of all the intricate mechanisms that make the automaton work. All he needs is a heart-shaped key that winds it up.

Meanwhile, Hugo tries to evade capture from the relentless Station Inspector (a daffy Sacha Baron Cohen) and steals tools and other devices from Papa Georges (a solid Ben Kingsley), a toy shop owner at the train station who is actually the film director Georges Melies. Papas Georges wants to be left alone but he is taken with Hugo and his knack and grasp of mechanisms and rotors and such.

What is miraculous is that Martin Scorsese made this film. Many critics have declared it his most personal work and it might be (he has said his fantastic documentary, "Italianamerican," is his best and most personal work). Scorsese makes it a flight of fancy and wonder, injecting the film with touches of slapstick and providing Hugo with a great deal of subjectivity as in his observation of little vignettes, such as one man who is smitten with a woman despite a snarling dog. The movie also makes us feel Hugo's insular pain and his sweet relationship with another orphan, the adventurous Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who happens to be Georges' goddaughter. But what really makes the film a work of wonder is seeing the early days of Melies making his own films, such as "A Trip to the Moon," in a glass castle to allow sunlight to peer in. You definitely sense the man's ability to create magic on film and not just on the stage with his parlor tricks (Melies was initially a magician before making films).

This is an extraordinary cast at work here. Asa Butterfield resembles a cross between a young Malcolm McDowell and Daniel Radcliffe (I can only imagine what this kid might have done with the Harry Potter role), exuding all the qualities of a tough, determined urchin who discovers the truth about Papas' identity. Chloe Moretz is an affable personality on screen, a girl who is transfixed by the sight of Harold Lloyd at the movies (well, who wouldn't be) and transfixed by Hugo's situation. Ben Kingsley is one of our national treasures, an actor who delivers every nuance of regret and remorse as you might expect as the elderly Papa Georges. And adding a layer of towering presences is the one and only Christopher Lee as a book shop owner who can't help but elicit a smile when he gives Hugo a French translation of "Robin Hood." Plus there is the small and significant role of fictitious film historian and author Rene Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg, who currently plays a smooth gambling operator in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire"), who wrote a book about Melies believing that he had died in World War I.
  
"Hugo" is a movie steeped in the magic of movies (the art design of the station itself is amazing) and in the process of discovery. Between the station inspector's mannered politeness and the choice vignettes of discovered love, the movie is in love with love and with the cinema. It restores in good faith what cinema ultimately was and what it can still be - a place of dreams that can still make you go, "Wow!" Scorsese is at the top of his directorial powers and makes "Hugo" a valentine for the most impassioned filmgoer and cineaste, and it is a masterstroke in the director's inarguably varied career. You'll come away smiling and in a cheery, heartfelt mood, something I never quite expected from Martin Scorsese. Bravo!

Greatest Transparency Ever

THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Did you ever wonder what was really going on with Bill Cosby's smile as he held a Coke can in "Leonard Part 6"? Morgan Spurlock's "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" will give you hints, fashioning itself mostly on the ubiquitous advertising in films, TV, 42nd St, etc. I always thought that the high ratings of "CSI" in its current network, for example, helped keep local news on the same channel alive. Well, it does, but advertising is the real impetus, the nucleus of almost all programming and of just about everything else.  

Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me") has come up with a way of using sponsors on his latest film without losing his integrity. He decides to make a film about Morgan trying to get sponsors for the very film you are watching. Coke and Pepsi opt out, apparently because they do not consider documentary films to be on the same wavelength as feature films! He goes to several meetings, presenting his own unique storyboards on how he can get the sponsors shown in his film (he comes up with inventive and funny commercial ideas). POM Wonderful agrees to be used in the film, as well as Solstice Sunglass Boutique, Old Navy, Sheetz (a gas station), Movietickets.com, Merrell shoes, Jet Blue, Ban deodorant, and so on. There are of course stipulations like with any contract: the movie must make 10 million at the box office, sell a half-million downloads and DVDs, and generate 600 million media impressions (The movie as of August 2011 generated 638,476 dollars at the box-office).

So what is the point of "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold?" Merely that it doesn't take much to get sponsors to appear in a film since Spurlock allows full transparency. Advertising is advertising, and if it pays the bills and helps provide a budget for even a documentary, then why not do it. Ads appear everywhere in the United States (including at high schools with limited funds) yet in Sao Paulo, Brazil, advertising has been banned and been termed "visual pollution" (a shock to me since I used to live there back in the late 70's and recall a giant billboard for "Star Wars"). TV commercials are never enough since their brands appear in TV shows in glaringly obvious ways, and sponsors advertise in scrolls while a program plays. The point is that ads are in your face, everywhere you go (Internet has ads in just about any website you visit. Again, it pays the bills). Is there a limit? According to some professors interviewed in the film, yes, there should be a limit. Ads make you want to have a certain product with the belief that it makes you happy. But since it rarely does, then it is not about truth in advertising, it is about the subliminal message.

As snappily funny and sharp as "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is, it is also oddly not as transparent about itself. The movie seems to be a critique on sponsors but Spurlock can only go so far since the film itself has sponsors whom he does not want to offend - their products are featured in the film and the sponsors are initially wary of being associated with a controversial filmmaker. I am usually not prone to being affected by ads but this film did make me want to try POM juice. It tastes good and has powerful antioxidants and it is 100% pomegranate juice, so what does that say about me, the consumer? I guess that is partially the point.

Willis adrift in forced whimsy

DISNEY'S THE KID (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Bruce Willis is an admirable and occasional risk-taker, choosing roles that range from comedy to drama to action-adventure vehicles. But maybe an overly cute and highly overdone movie like "Disney's The Kid" is not what I would expect from him or any actor. It is what I call "forced whimsy."

I am a sucker for whimsical fantasies but this one is extremely demanding on my whimsy tolerance meter. Willis is Russell Duritz (see if you can remember that name), a 40-year-old image consultant who has no wife, no family and no dog. Oh, what a shame. He is cold, cynical and only gets three hours of sleep a night. Russell is rude to his overworked assistant (Lily Tomlin, shrewdly cast), calling her at obsessively late night hours to complain about his house's supposedly faulty security system! The reason is because some kid has been in his house. Who is this kid? None other than Russell as a young eight-year-old Rusty (overplayed by Spencer Breslin, and that includes his crying fits).

The question remains: why does the kid chase him in the opening scenes of the film in a cargo plane? No idea, but I went along with the movie's concept. Can Russell really see the kid or is all this in his mind? Paging the Sixth Sense. All I can say is that the movie boils it down to one odd conceit: if the young Russell had taken charge and won in a schoolyard fistfight, he might have grown up to be a well-rounded family man and settled with Emily Mortimer, who plays his on/off again girlfriend. The eight-year-old Rusty calls his future adult self a loser. How dare he?

I will not say I hated "Disney's The Kid" (the title was changed from "The Kid" to "Disney's The Kid" to avoid confusion with the Charlie Chaplin classic) but the movie overplays its hand. The sentimental and highly manipulative music score would make even Steven Spielberg and his composer John Williams cringe. Willis is adrift and looks lost, which may be the idea, but the movie never gives us a chance to see much more than Willis having a facial tic. The kid is all wrong for the film, looking like a mature version of  Jeff Cohen's "Chunk" character from "The Goonies" (Yes, I went there). I appreciate the ideas in the film but I think it could've been a funnier and more complex picture had it focused on the insights into a 40-year-old man's emotional problems that did not exclusively center on a childhood fight and not owning a dog.  

The Academy Awards Best Picture goes to Angelina Jolie's leg!

Angelina Jolie's Leg wins Best Picture

By Jerry Saravia

The 84th Annual Academy Awards had given a host of Oscar wins to "The Artist" and "Hugo" but you wouldn't know it from all the rapt attention given to Angelina Jolie's leg. As she appeared on stage, she extended her emaciated and thinly shaped leg from her black Atelier Versace dress in a provocative pose. The next day, the Internet and the media was all over it and it even inspired its own Twitter account. Why? Because Angelina Jolie is possibly the biggest female movie star in the world and attention on her is paid inordinately. Why did she strike a pose? Nobody truly knows, and nobody should really care. Never mind the fact that a historic win was announced at the Oscars: "The Artist," the first silent film possibly since 1989's "Sidewalks of New York," won Best Picture which is the first time a silent film has won since 1927's "Wings." That should leave room for ample discussion, not the posed leg of a movie star.

The problem is that film analysis and discussion is not given mainstream attention or close scrutiny of any kind on television (hence TV's ill-fated future of "Ebert Presents At the Movies"). Most filmgoers could care less about discussing the merits of "The Artist" or "Hugo," particularly when the nominated films focus on the turn of the 20th century when cinema was still a wonder for the eyes. In many respects, the 84th Annual Academy Awards Show was singularly focused on a world of cinema that no longer exists making it the most attuned to the art form itself in quite some time (make no mistake, it is an art form). Aside from returnee Billy Crystal's hosting duties and occasional wisecracks, the show featured a mock 1939 focus group segment where the focus group (including actors Christopher Guest and Fred Willard as laypeople) give their trivial assessments of "The Wizard of Oz." One even comments that they liked the "flying monkeys." Such triviality also speaks of most actual focus groups who probably know as much about cinema as Pauly Shore does. But the Academy Awards has never been about the art of cinema but about the commerce and the little pat on the back for a job well done furnished with a shiny gold statue.

As the late Gene Siskel once said, maybe when a winner takes the gold, the host or someone in the background could give tidbits on the film itself - something concrete that would inspire intellectual discussion that didn't revolve around dollar signs. That is probably too much to ask for a show that can run almost four hours but then again, what is any of that compared to Angelina Jolie's leg?

A bloodless Cimmerian

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 The original "Conan the Barbarian" with Arnold Schwarzenegger remains something of a dusty, moody sword-and-sorcery masterpiece. It had James Earl Jones as the villainous, serpent-like Thulsa Doom, Arnold flexing his muscles and thrusting his sword with flair at anything or anyone, and the intoxicating Sandahl Bergman as Conan's lover. 2011's revamped and far bloodier "Conan" film has nothing up its sleeve except gore, disembowelments, decapitations, blood spraying from various amputations and anything of the "300" variety.

If nothing else, the opening sequence shows promise. A spectacularly bloody battle scene featuring Conan's father (vividly played with prowess by Ron Perlman) shows the birth of Conan as a Cesarean is performed (in the midst of battle, mind you) on Conan's mother whose last dying breath is to call her son "Conan." Then we get an extended sequence showing Conan as a young and adept warrior in the land of wintery Cimmeria, learning how to forge a metal sword with the use of fire and water. Conan also destroys single-handedly an entire squadron of creatures who look like the descendants from "Lord of the Rings." Conan's father is eventually killed by an evil warlord named Khalar Zym (played by an unrecognizable Stephen Lang) who wishes to obtain the missing piece of the Mask of Acheron in order to resurrect his dead wife, a sorceress, and conquer the land of Hyborea. With the help of his nasty sorceress daughter, Marique (Rose McGowan), Khalar needs a "pure-blooded" woman (a virgin to the rest of you) whom he can sacrifice while he puts the missing Mask piece(s) together. At one point, in Conan's later years as a full-fledged warrior, he captures that one "pure-blooded" woman (there is only one in these lands?) and they, spoiler alert, have sex!!! I wonder if that will make a difference.

The 1982 film is evocative for showing set pieces that seemed at home in its heavy metal quirks: the Wheel of Pain, the Tree of Woe, the palace where Thulsa Doom resides, etc. This 2011 redux is not as interested in locales of such richness - the jagged camerawork and choppy editing do not allow such scenes to breathe. There are flickers of imagination. I do love the opening scenes of Conan's youth, the fight scene with the warriors made of stone that break very easily like fine ceramic pottery but these are minute flashes in a film that runs almost two hours.

Jason Momoa looks like the Conan as interpreted by the pulp writer Robert E. Howard, with his dark mane of hair and occasional flicker of a smirk. I love his one line that defines the pulpy barbarian in all his brutality: "I live, I love, I slay, and I am content." Other than that, I prefer Schwarzenegger's take any day of the week. Arnie brought humor and seemed to dominate the screen with his physique - he made Conan the king of all warriors. As for villains, Stephen Lang is menacing enough but the implied incestuous nature of his relationship with his evil daughter may make some a little uncomfortable.

The biggest fallacy with "Conan the Barbarian" is that it is not much fun. The film thrives on bloody rampage but with little momentum other than making the next swordfight bloodier than the next. There is not much soul, human interest or personality in this film. It is an ultraviolent video game but even video games have more of an edge than this.