Stan's the Cinematic Man

BRAKHAGE (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Viewed back in 1998)

"Brakhage" is a hypnotic, reverential documentary on one of the most experimental, purely filmic filmmakers in history. Having seen some of the short films he made including "Window Water Baby Moving," "Creation," "Dog Star Man," and others, I was surprised to find a gentle, caring man of ill health who nevertheless spoke in common sense terms about his films, and their inherent meanings. His films are purely images, either scratched, painted, or using several superimpositions, or all the above. Some are more like home movies, as is one where there are hauntingly beautiful clips of his children in slow-motion, and the images are often cut from color images to negative images.

"Brakhage" shows several clips of the man himself, and insightful commentary on his children and how they felt when they were photographed most of their lives, and how his ex-wife struggled with his idiosyncratic moods regarding his mental processes of counting, I assume, the number of frames in each of his films while editing. Brakhage also makes vivid comments on why his films have no sound, declaring that film art lost its purity when sound was introduced in the late 20's. 

Many will feel that Stan Brakhage makes beautiful use of images, and his rhythmic patterns of editing, 
at times jarring to the naked eye, are well-constructed yet what else is there? Is this man saying 
anything specific in his layered style of imagery? Perhaps, perhaps not. That is entirely up to 
the viewer to decide. I love Brakhage's works because they are purely visual, and nothing more 
which is not to say they are insubstantial or lacking in content. To pick an example, I would say that 
the controversial "Window Water Baby Moving" is one of the finest, most educational films ever 
made on childbirth though it is not for the squeamish.  

The documentary itself uses jarring, screeching sound effects that are not essential in capturing 
the man and his work, especially if most of it is silent. Also, it would have been nice to hear from 
people who perhaps developed an antipathy towards his works...some members of the audience 
screening I attended certainly did. Nevertheless, this is an exemplary, insightful documentary by 
director Jim Shedden guaranteed to fascinate and provoke many. A must-see, and one of the finest 
films of 1999.                

Deprogram the Homelanders

SPLIT IMAGE (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 

If a suburban kid is an amazing athlete and is subjugated into the world of a religious cult, can he find his way back home or is he ushered into a new way of thinking about oneself? That is part of the story of 1982's forgotten "Split Image," an intriguing and thought-provoking film by director Ted Kotcheff that dares to ask if "normal American life" is corrupting our souls, our identity.

Michael O'Keefe is Danny Stetson, a college athlete whose goal is to be in the Olympics. He has two loving parents (Brian Dennehy and Elizabeth Ashley) who want only the best for him. One day, Danny runs into a beautiful girl named Rebecca (Karen Allen, who bears a sunshine smile that could melt any man's heart) who has a staring match with him. They talk. He is sarcastic with her and hopes for sex, and she only wants to get to know him. She is a delicate flower and he obviously is willing to go wherever she goes. After a brief scuffle involving a supposed kidnapping of a university student, Danny and Rebecca and friends head off for a weekend getaway to Homeland, a commune for young people. In all actuality, it is a religious cult commune, a place where everyone loves everybody. There is no violence, they all eat organic foods that they grow, they build their own houses and there is no real privacy either. If Danny tries to masturbate while she sleeps, he is stopped by someone who says, "Don't be a prostitute!" If he tries to urinate in a bathroom, he is followed by two women (eh, that may not be so bad). When Danny has a group meeting, he tries to understand why there is no discussion of "social problems."

Peter Fonda is Neil Kirklander, the leader of Homeland, who doesn't exploit the kids ("This is not a Communist country!") and wants everyone to be loved, to be free of the ills and greed of the world and to find meaning.  Kirklander proclaims that the parents of each young member is "dead" and changes the members' names in a fiery ceremony where all vestiges and personal items are burned to a crisp. Thus Danny's brief weekend stay with Rebecca is becoming permanent - he is suckered in and changes his name to "Joshua."

Most of "Split Image" is compelling and powerful but it is the transition of Danny into Joshua that has me split (no pun intended). Danny is an individual who may have found his true calling as an athlete, and who questions everything with deep sarcasm. It is hard to believe he would have stayed at Homeland longer than two seconds, let alone several months. The sermons by Kirklander are spiritual yet empty, and Danny knows it. The screenplay by Robert Kaufman and Robert Mark Kamen never quite establishes the "Jekyll and Hyde" transition where Danny turns into Joshua. In one scene, he attempts to escape Homeland and is almost killed when he jumps off a cliff into a river. Neil tells Danny he can go if he wishes, but he will go back to being lost. The irony may be that Danny is lost anyway.

"Split Image" doesn't show Homeland to be an evil place - that would be too easy. The truth is that such a place that encourages love to others is not a bad ideal to have - our own American society since this film's release in 1982 doesn't encourage us to love one another.  But the film never probes deeper questions into Kirklander himself, a man who is at peace and lives in his own house which he shares with no one. All members of Homeland share the same sleeping quarters. But who is Kirklander really, and why is a chain-smoking deprogrammer (the electric James Woods) needed to deprogram these kids in a place that is truly not threatening at all since all they do is promote "love." You can love yourself but save some love for others. The "self" matters less.

"Split Image" was financed by the now defunct Polygram Pictures and distributed by the bankrupt Orion Pictures. Clearly neither had much faith in the film since it was released in 129 screens and was quickly dispatched to home video and cable. It is a shame because, despite faults with the screenplay's depiction of two main characters, the film does ask tough questions about our place in a world where greed and capitalism take over any semblance of "love." Danny and Rebecca eventually find they are in love and lust with each other, two aspects of human relationships that are somehow outlawed in Homeland's cult. Even the deprogrammer can't truly bring Danny back from Joshua dreamland, and he knows it. Danny has been changed, he has been split. The most probing question the film asks is: if you escape from Homeland, what are you escaping to?

Alexander's doors of perception need expanding

ALEXANDER (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Alexander" is a bloated, beautiful, muddled mess of an epic. There are images and performances of searing power, and there is just enough melodrama to make fans of lavish epics puke.

Blonde-haired Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell) was one of the greatest of all conquerors, a visionary whose initial principal focus was to conquer Persia. Yep, he conquers and fight the Persians in the battle of Gaugamela but his sights go elsewhere - he wants the entire Persian empire. He intends on conquering every land leading to India in a journey and several battles that end up dividing his troops and losing many lives for the sake of...well, nothing. Almost everyone turns against Alexander and conspire to kill him by poisoning him.

Alexander's father is the one-eyed Philip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer), a drunk who had strong aspirations to overtake the Persians but was also killed. Most of the blame is attributed to Alexander's seductive mother, Queen Olympias (Angelina Jolie), who has an affinity for snakes and claims Alexander's real father is Zeus (Huh?) It is clear from the start that Olympias hates Philip and wants Alexander to be king, but to what end? Political ambition or just pure hatred of Philip? Seems like those scenes were on the cutting room floor, like most of the movie.

Oliver Stone throws everything into this epic except the kitchen sink. There are battle scenes with war elephants tearing apart crowds of soldiers, hundreds of arrows fired into the air (a cliché by now), and an eagle eye's perspective of these widescreen battles. Some blood and gore here and there, though relatively restrained judging from the blood-soaked standards set by "Gladiator."

The performances run hot and cold. Angelina Jolie easily gives the best performance, reigning in her almost Transylvanian accent and her seductive presence ten fold (you almost expect her to bare fangs at some point). Colin Farrell screams and hollers, but he never truly inhabits the character. I hate to say it but Farrell humanizes the character so much that he comes off as more wimpy than a commanding, persuasive conqueror. Anthony Hopkins as the narrator Ptolemy seems ready to keel over, whereas Christopher Plummer handles his Aristotle role with exceptional clarity. Other actors such as Rosario Dawson, who is criminally wasted as Roxane, Alexander's Persian wife, and Jared Leto as Alexander's close friend, Hephaistion are thrust into the film's jumbled, flashback-driven narrative without much conviction or need. Vangelis's beautiful score alleviates some of the film's faults and lack of cohesion but not by much.

I appreciate what Oliver Stone has attempted here - an intellectual epic far removed from the cartoonish theatrics of "Gladiator" or "Troy." Some scenes are awesomely staged, but just as many are flat and monotonous. Stone hasn't placed much faith on the character of Alexander or his bisexuality - he is more spirited and engaged with Angelina's Olympias character than anyone else in the entire movie. Whether it was studio intervention or not, Stone doesn't make this the risky venture we expect from him, and that is a shame.

Triple Dog Dare you to laugh and cry

A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)

A reminiscence by Jerry Saravia

 I first saw the late Bob Clark's "A Christmas Story" in theaters in late November 1983. I remember it was cold and snowing outside the theater in Queens, New York. I got excited about seeing the film from a clip I saw on the Siskel and Ebert show and thought I should check it out. I was entranced by the film from the first frame to last because it took me to a world that seemed so innocent, so sweet, so childlike and so warm and embracing. I had seen the film a few more times since, recalling how my high school peers commented on the leg lamp and laughed (the film got a new life after its debut on video and cable). But no one really discussed the sweetness and lightness of the film, the sureness in its mixture of laughs and memories of being a kid and wishing for the one truly remarkable Christmas gift.

 

The film is chock of full of memorable lines and evocative scenes - everyone knows what they are and it would be counterproductive to list them (you can't miss the film on Christmas since it runs for 24-hours on TBS). Most memorable to me would be seeing Darren McGavin's collected sigh and slight merriment at seeing his son, Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) get the gift he most craves, that darn Red Ryder BB gun. Or when Ralphie lets out that four-letter word (the Queen Mother of dirty words) he ain't supposed to utter - we have all been through that. Or Ralphie's hilarious daydream about receiving an A+++++ on his paper from his teacher Miss Shields (Tedde Moore). And I can't get over Scott Schwartz's Flick who gets his tongue stuck on an icy pole - it is at once funny, spirited in its crassness and realism, and emotional enough to make you cry at the same time. It is that kind of movie and one owes a huge debt to the late, remarkable Jean Shepherd, who not only voiced the narration of an older Ralphie but who also wrote the stories and co-wrote the screenplay. Melinda Dillon as the loving yet no-nonsense mother is just the icing on the cake.

What "A Christmas Story" does for me is it takes me back to an era almost alien to me and yet so familiar, and it reminds one of the jollies, the festiveness, the idiosyncrasies and the love of a family trying to celebrate a time of the year that brings everyone together. What is comforting about the film is that it assumes this family loves each other throughout the year, regardless of the foibles, the troubles with the Bumpusses and their numerous dogs, the unworkable furnace, Ralphie's young brother unable to eat his mashed potatoes, or Dad's delight in having a leg lamp seen by the whole neighborhood. The film works as a warm cup of hot chocolate served and layered with nostalgia, and cuts deeper with Ralphie's wild imaginations and some slightly mean, unsavory characters (like the store Santa or Zack Ward's sneaky and devilish Farkus) who are never depicted as too unlikable. The movie serves as a memory of a time long gone but it also reminds us to cherish the future as much as the past. So if you have Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant because Mom's turkey was ruined, not all is lost when it is a family that sticks together like glue. I don't know how else to put it except to say that "A Christmas Story" is not just a Christmas movie, it is Christmas.

The Brilliant and Unfinished works of Orson Welles

ORSON WELLES: THE ONE-MAN BAND (1995)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are directors who never get noticed, and there are those who have one major hit only to have a slew of flops follow them. Then there are directors who have one major masterpiece and a host of films that follow, never quite matching the brilliance of their initial masterwork. Orson Welles falls in this category, though I have found that "Touch of Evil," "The Trial" and "F For Fake" are brilliant films that arguably surpass his most famous film, "Citizen Kane." This wonderful documentary, "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band," traces Welles' last twenty years of his life where he desperately tried to find financing to complete his films only to be turned down again and again.

Most people think that there was not much to Welles beyond "Citizen Kane" and some other studio efforts, not to mention his slew of acting jobs left and right. After "Chimes at Midnight" and "F For Fake," it is assumed that Welles was a has-been who had acted in any and every film, narrating documentaries, and performing in wine commercials. He was a genius who was no longer the shining star of the past. This is, of course, not true at all. Welles was very busy and never got dismayed from lack of funds. He would finance some of his projects with money he obtained from acting. According to his partner and collaborator, Oja Kodar, Welles would travel everywhere with his 16mm camera and an editing table. He was filled with ideas and wanted to explore them all.

Some of his projects include the unfinished Hollywood satire, "The Other Side of the Wind," "The Merchant of Venice," "The Deep" and "The Dreamers." In some cases, the incomplete status of some of these films was a result of either poor business entanglements or financiers who feared Welles's lack of wanting to finish anything, thus based on his reputation. In the case of "Other Side of the Wind," a relative of the Shah of Iran helped to finance the project and then pulled out holding the footage of Welles's 3 hour opus hostage. "The Merchant of Venice" was to be made for television and the film was actually completed but the negative was stolen! "The Deep" is based on a novel by Charles Williams III, which later became the basis for "Dead Calm" starring Nicole Kidman. Film was almost completed until the main lead, Laurence Harvey, died. "The Dreamers" was a project that began in the early 1980's and was shot in his own L.A. home, but financing was harder to come by at that point. A "King Lear" project was planned but no one was interested.

Some other footage shown is interesting though whether the films themselves were ever completed remains a mystery. A short clip about tailors measuring Welles's girth is good for a few laughs. An even funnier clip is shown of Welles playing a lord of the manor interviewed by a bearded Welles! There is also a seven-minute long trailer for "F For Fake" that makes most trailers today look positively unimaginative in comparison. Powerful film fragments of Welles performing a one-man take of "Moby Dick" sans makeup or costuming show what a grand, majestic actor he was, and what an enthralling voice he had! There is also a clip from "Swinging London" which shows typical Welles impersonations of a Chinese ticket-taker, a housewife, a police inspector and a one-man band player.

Oja Kodar

Oja Kodar held all these fragments and incompleted films in a storage room until one day she decided to release them as part of this documentary. What we witness is a fallen giant who had gone from a Hollywood director to an independent film artist who never got the financing he so desired and deserved (his last Hollywood film as a director was 1958's "Touch of Evil"). Director Vassili Silovic, however, fails to make us understand why Welles had so much trouble. One possible reason is that Welles languished for an eternity making his films. According to author Joseph McBride's book on Welles, "The Other Side of the Wind" was a project that lasted from 1970 to 1976. In this film, there is a scene where Welles is interviewed by a college class. He tells them that his dormant project from the 50's, "Don Quixote," will be finished in his own time, just like an author works on an unfinished novel. But why was the negative of "Merchant of Venice" stolen? Did Welles perhaps forget to pay the lab bill, as did Ed Wood with "Bride of the Monster"? Or was he overextending his finances? And how does one explain "F For Fake" and "Filming Othello," both from the 70's and both of them completed?

The main treat of "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band" is watching what the master was up to in that 20-year stretch. Clips from "Other Side of the Wind" prove to be extraordinary and way ahead of its time. One scene shows John Huston as a film director greeted by the press and there are dozens of fast cuts and jump cuts from different angles that anticipate MTV by more than a decade! Another clip shown from "Wind" is a sex scene in a car with Oja Kodar that is as erotic as anything I've ever seen. Curiously, clips from "The Deep" are shown minus a soundtrack. We only hear Welles's booming voice explaining the action that is occurring on screen. There are also clips of his magic shows with the Muppets, his crowd-pleasing acceptance of his Lifetime Achievement Award from the very industry that shunned him, and so much more.

"One-Man Band" is plain evidence of a man who had unfulfilled his legacy of a legendary film director - for his detractors, this film will prove to be quite illuminating. It is sad and upsetting to watch what might have been. I heartily recommend Frank Brady's book, "Citizen Welles," which covers Welles's whole career, including his last few years where he could not get financial help from Steven Spielberg nor procure a Hollywood star like Jack Nicholson for his completed screenplay, "The Big Brass Ring." It will serve to amplify the sadness of a man who remained obsessive and forthright, determined to keep making films at any cost.

Lee slams Tarantino's 'Django'

Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino: A war with words

By Jerry Saravia

Filmmaker Spike Lee has done it again - he has attacked filmmaker Quentin Tarantino over his controversial new film, "Django Unchained," a "southern" (not a western) about slavery - a controversial subject that hardly elicits any cinematic interest in Hollywood. Lee has called out on the film and states the following: "I cant speak on it cause I'm not gonna see it," Lee said in an interview with VIBETV. "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else." On twitter he further stated "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves.Stolen From Africa.I Will Honor Them."

Lee had previously berated Tarantino for the 39 or more uses of that dreaded N-word in 1997's "Jackie Brown." Here is the interesting factor: back in 1996, I had the pleasure of attending a Spike Lee talk at Trenton State College (now renamed the College of New Jersey) and he mentioned Tarantino's brief role as a filmmaker in Lee's "Girl 6." Lee said that Quentin wanted to make the N-word a less potent word, a word that could be said without causing a riot. To sum up, Lee certified that after talking to the "Pulp Fiction" filmmaker, Tarantino would no longer be using that racial epithet in his films. Clearly Tarantino did not listen and the word was not only used repeatedly within the first half-hour of "Jackie Brown," it has apparently been used ad nauseam in "Django Unchained."

My issue with Spike Lee is that you can't call a movie disrespectful, regardless of subject matter, unless you have seen it. And you certainly can't call it a Sergio Leone version of slavery if you only heard about it through the critics. From the reviews I've read, it sounds like it has some rough and savage scenes of slaves beaten to a pulp, either by slave masters or fighting among themselves. Perhaps the issue Spike has is that a white Italian filmmaker is using slavery as a subject in revenge fantasy mode (just like Tarantino had in using Nazis for the revisionist "Inglorious Basterds"). Or maybe he wished a black filmmaker had taken charge of the material (Lee had expressed opposition to Steven Spielberg as the choice for adapting Alice Walker's "Color Purple," and had expressed dismay over Norman Jewison's name floating around to direct "Malcom X" which of course Lee directed instead). There is also a curious statement made by Lee to "Django" star Jamie Foxx that could be construed as a blessing for having worked on "Django" where Lee said, "It looks like y'all are getting it." (This is stated in the new issue of "Vibe" magaze with three of the film's stars on the front cover).

I can't say if Spike Lee would ever tackle slavery on screen but my gut feeling is no. I just think that such a film like "Django Unchained" would merit a viewing first before decrying it. It's not like we are talking about a new sequel to "Deuce Bigelow." For better or worse, a new Tarantino film demands our attention. If Lee used to watch the execrable "Temptation Island" on TV a few years back, I think he can make time for Tarantino's new film and then tell us what he really thinks.

Sean Penn is no monkey f*ck rat

SEAN PENN RANT ON HOLLYWOOD

By Jerry Saravia

Sean Penn, one of the finest actors of the last thirty years, has spoken out against his fellow thespians for indulging in commercial endorsements and agreeing to shoot films that he clearly believes are "below acceptable quality levels." Penn, in an interview with Esquire, stated: "I just did this picture that I enjoyed doing 'Gangster Squad' (where he plays Mickey Cohen). But I do think that in general the standard of aspiration is low," he told the magazine. "Very low. And mostly they're just doing a bunch of monkey-f*ck-rat movies, most actors and actresses. And I blame them just as much as I do the business. I know everybody wants to make some money, everybody's got a modelling contract, everybody's selling jewellery and perfume."

Hmmm, whoever could he mean? Brad Pitt posing for Chanel No. 5 in one of the oddest (though not as confounding as people pretend) commercials I've ever seen? Or how about respected actors like Mark Ruffalo appearing in movies like "The Avengers" or "Shutter Island"? Robert Downey, Jr. in the "Iron Man" trilogy or the "Sherlock Holmes" movies? Nicolas Cage who appears in more tripe (albeit watchable tripe because of Cage's presence) than anyone else of Penn's generation? (Cage has been the target of ridicule in Penn's radar before). Would Penn dare to offend his one-time costar, Robert De Niro, who has appeared in the Fockers trilogy? Did I just say "trilogy"?

Sean Penn has appeared in three of my favorite films of the last thirty years: the exquisitely thrilling and sweat-inducing "The Falcon and the Snowman"; the highly intense "Mystic River"; and the beautifully understated and powerful "Milk." He has also done a fine job directing films like "The Indian Runner," "The Crossing Guard" and the highly underrated "The Pledge." What he has not done is star in the commercially-oriented tentpole superhero movies or sci-fi or fantasy films. It is not his thing to do a straight, cookie-cutter, formulaic entertainment for the masses. Penn once said on a televised Actor's Studio special that if people want entertainment, they can get a couple of hookers and an 8-ball. Film, as he had stated, was too powerful a medium to be just entertainment. In the Esquire interview, Penn went on to state the following: "When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event," he said. "Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate. But when people start using themselves as instruments of a kind of consumerist mosh pit, they're helping that take over. I mean, you are a soldier for it or you're a soldier against it."

I do not disagree with Sean Penn but the reason that American cinema has changed or been shortchanged in favor of blockbuster Hollywood epic pictures is because the audiences respond to it - they want it. The world is going through so many seismic changes in population, economy, job losses, environment, wars, incessant pool of politicking, school shootings, massacres and exorbitant health care costs that the audience needs a reprieve, an escape. The 2010 audience wants what the 1940's generation post-Pearl Harbor wanted - pure entertainment with nothing to think about except to escape from harsh reality. For example, in 1941, as an escape from the Pearl Harbor attack, audiences flocked to Universal's "The Wolf Man." Today, superhero movies, fantasy epics based on Tolkien, vampires, horror remakes and such dominate the cinema screens and sell tickets. Some are fairly good, and others are pure garbage. The independent films are still out there but they are not guaranteed to rake in the big bucks and do not have budgets in the triple million figures or play in thousands of screens, nor are they meant to. The demographic for most big-budgeted pictures is everyone - it must appeal to all. However, not all films can appeal to everyone. But if you love cinema, you can love "The Avengers" and "Milk." Neither should be mutually exclusive but they are.

Wenders' Brave New World

UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in 1992)

Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World" is a fascinating, fractured, disconnected mess of a movie. Watching it recently for the second time, I found it less enthralling than I had initially. It is like watching a trailer for a film that is not quite complete.

It is the year 1999 and an Indian nuclear satellite has spun out of control causing great alarm around the world. Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), an adventurous partygoer, could care less about a potential nuclear crisis. She loves to sleep endlessly and listen to rock and roll music, especially Elvis's "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" (also sung in the film by David Lynch regular Julee Cruise). While traveling back home, Claire finds herself iadvertently involved with two bank robbers, a traveler wearing a fedora hat named Trevor Mcphee (William Hurt) who is being hunted by the government, a bounty hunter, and so on. This all takes them to a spiritual habitat in the Australian Outback where Farber's father, a crotchety scientist (Max Von Sydow), lives with his blind wife (Jeanne Moreau).

I do not wish to reveal much more of the film except to say that the first half is brilliant moviemaking, exploring a world inhabited by videophones, digital video cameras, headsets that can record images, tracking devices, all fashioned in an almost noirish, Godardian landscape (in fact, both Dommartin and Hurt seem to be doing variations on the characters in Godard's "Breathless" and "Pierrot le Fou.") Most of what the film shows has become a reality today in the year 2000, though videophones never took off. The ability to trace anyone anywhere is also a real possibility, even on the Internet.

Once the characters settle in Australia, the film loses its urgency and potency. Basically, we are left with endless shots of people strapped to chairs while enduring dream hypnosis and other sleep-inducing phenomena so that a new kind of camera can record and visualize people's dreams. The characters in this section of the film become less interesting as well. Why the hell does Claire follow the listless Farber all around the world? Does she truly love him or does she want the money he stole from her? I think it may have been a mistake to show a femme fatale with a compassionate, sweet aura - the transition is simply not there and thus not believable. Dommartin seems to be playing the same angelic, melancholy character she played in Wenders' "Wings of Desire." Characters such as the devious bounty hunter, the sloppy government agent, the whimsical bank robbers, and Claire's boring boyfriend, an author (Sam Neill, who also narrates the film), all become ciphers literally kept in the background.

Every sequence set in Australia feels disconnected and rushed, though the soundtrack and the sight of seeing the towering presences of Max Von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau keeps one glued as to what happens next. It all sort of feels choppy and not edited with smooth transitions from one scene to the next. The reason may be that Wim Wenders initially had a longer cut, reportedly five hours long and shown briefly at a university in 1996. I wait for the day when this cut becomes available and shown in cinema screens. Heck, if they did it for "Das Boot" and "The Last Emperor," they can do it for Wenders' film.

Despite the flaws and narrative inconsistencies, "Until the End of the World" is brave, original, risky, full of ambitious ideas, and often a sight to behold (including the innovative use, at the time, of high-definition television). It is often compelling and moving enough to make one wish it were better. I am sure the longer, director's cut is the great film that this truncated version aspires to be.

Give me back my wife!

 FRANTIC (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Viewed back in theaters in 1988)

Despite its stirring title, "Frantic" is not a highly tense thriller with high-tech thrills every second. This is an absorbing, slower-paced thriller where the thrills come out of the situations rather than replacing them. Released back in 1988, it was also evidence that Roman Polanski was back at his claustrophobic best.

Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Walker who is in Paris for a medical convention with his wife, Sondra (Betty Buckley) - they are in the city where they spent their honeymoon. Richard and Walker stay at a luxurious hotel. They plan a romantic time together. Problems arise when Sondra discovers she picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport. While Richard takes a shower, Sondra disappears. Nobody has seen her except the hotel clerk who claims she left with a Middle-Eastern gentleman. This leads Richard to the underworld of Paris which includes gangsters, drug dealers, drug couriers, nightclubs, murder and a nuclear device! Of course, Richard could care less about any of this - he just wants his wife back. His guide through this mess is a leather-jacketed drug courier named Michelle (Emanuelle Seigner) who loves the music of Grace Jones. Walker prefers old music. Nevertheless, they develop a mutual need to help each other though one feels that Michelle is only interested in her fee of 10,000 francs for the missing suitcase.

"Frantic" develops slowly with a sure hand in every scene. Polanski tightens the suspense wires ever so delicately and he gets enormous help from Harrison Ford. Ford is in every scene and gives us a character we can identify with, the Everyman in a world he can't understand or has refused to acknowledge. Just because he is an apolitical American doctor doesn't mean he can find his wife with the dubious help of the police and the French Embassy. The frantic, unpredictable search is due to Polanski and Gerald Brach's devious screenplay which plays tricks with the audience - they do not give away too much so that we only know as much as Ford does from moment to moment. But Polanski shares a trait with another Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, in his ability to concentrate on characters and their motivations regardless of the plot. The nuclear device is the MacGuffin of the plot, which means it is the object the characters are interested in yet the audience could care less about.

"Frantic" is an unusual kind of thriller. It is chock full of suspense, it has some slapstick, plenty of black humor and the typical Polanski changes in his characters who are slowly coming apart. Consider the sequence where Ford's Walker arrives sans shoes at the hotel. Also consider a later scene where Richard and embassy officials are sprayed with some mace by Michelle, resulting in a comical sequence that Charlie Chaplin would have been proud of. The briefly suspenseful sequences of seeing Richard walking on the Paris rooftops reminds one of Hitch's "To Catch A Thief" but it also works because we care what happens to Richard Walker. Ford has no bullwhip or revolver this time, just his smarts and his bewilderment knowing his own life could be in danger.

"Frantic" is not a great Polanski film but it is a great example of how to make a thriller. Polanski's European feel for Paris and for its surroundings exude the kind of claustrophobia you can only feel in the hands of a real master. And Ford proves once again he is not just an action star. 

Tarantino's Pulpy, Poppy, Ironic Fiction

TARANTINO'S THE MAN

By Jerry Saravia 

(Essay originally written in 2004)

When "Pulp Fiction" was released in the fall of 1994, it pointed to a renaissance that has been unequaled since. "Pulp Fiction" rewrote the rules of the crime genre, the thriller genre and film noir. An independent production from Miramax that cost 10 million to make, it resurrected the fading careers of Bruce Willis and John Travolta, showing them to be truly fine actors, if they were ever given half the chance. It reignited the malice and fury of Samuel L. Jackson, the actor who fueled the rage of "Menace II Society," "Jungle Fever" and who was often cast in drivel like "Amos and Andrew" and "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I." As for "Pulp's" conceit, it had a narrative that jumped from the normal linear lines of time and space but not for show - the fractured timeline was necessary to show the redemptive end of one character, the hit-man Jules (Samuel L. Jackson). More importantly, "Pulp" established the talents of the writer-director Quentin Tarantino to the front lines of the mainstream, already armed with his gory and ferociously funny directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs" and the screenplays to "True Romance" and "Natural Born Killers" (the latter was completely rewritten by Oliver Stone). "Pulp Fiction" and the director became phenomenal sensations to the world of cinema, even lending the film the prized Golden Palm award at Cannes and a Best Original Screenplay award at the Oscars. 

 
When a film and a director become phenomenons the world over, detractors swing in full force. Tarantino is only partly to blame for the negative buzz. The film-loving, big-chinned geek appeared in cameos for truly unwatchable films like "Destiny Turns on the Radio," "Sleep With Me," "Desperado," etc. He had also appeared on TV talk shows and sitcoms (one being a Margaret Cho sitcom that died quickly). Occasionally, Tarantino would come in and add flashes of pop-culture on something like "Crimson Tide."
 
As for directing, he did chores on an "E.R." episode, which ironically involved a sliced-off ear. In December 1995, Tarantino finally returned to direct for the big screen when he helmed one of the episodes of "Four Rooms," an anthology of stories taking place in a hotel room with Tim Roth as its bellboy. The last segment is directed by Tarantino and it involves movie producers and actors engaged in a game over a lighter and a finger. But the story didn't have much surprise or pizazz - it was merely an echo of what Q.T. could do. As it rolled to an unexpected denouement, the whole affair was about as fun as a boozy late-night party.
 
Spring of 1996 brought "From Dusk Till Dawn," a road movie that transforms into a vampire movie, starring Tarantino and George Clooney as the Seth brothers who rob and kill at banks and convenience stores. The screenplay was by Tarantino but the directing reins were handed to Robert Rodriguez. After that pop carnival of a movie, there was Tarantino's much-needed return to a bigger picture, directing the Elmore Leonard novel "Rum Punch" which was retitled "Jackie Brown." Pam Grier was cast in the title role as the airline stewardess, Jackie. Robert Forster was cast as the bail bondsman, Max Cherry, who forges a relationship with Jackie to screw an arms dealer, Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), out of a half million dollars. The film was met with mixed reviews, mostly centering on the fact that it was an uninspired Tarantino flick. I found that the dialogue was the real star, and it was expertly delivered by a game cast. What followed was Tarantino's acting debut on Broadway in "Wait Until Dark." And then he disappeared for almost six years until he delivered his socko, over-the-top, bloody Kill Bill volumes with Uma Thurman at her kinetic best as an avenging former assassin who wants, quite simply, to kill Bill (David Carradine), her boss. Since then, Tarantino has continued to make films based on grindhouse pictures that he loved such as "Death Proof" (the second half of a three-hour picture called "Grindhouse"), the spectacularly fun and demented war games of "Inglorious Basterds" and a revenge fantasy using the Civil War-era slavery as its backdrop, "Django Unchained."


TARANTINOESQUE ruminations  
Since "Pulp," Tarantino has been unable to get away from his own Citizen Kane of neo-noir, nor has he tried to top it (nor should he). Innumerable young directors started to make their own pulp fiction stories. They thought the movie glorified violence in such a way that the violence was the subject. Those very same filmmakers forgot that Tarantino infused humanity into his characters, even if they were shallowly conceived. He also imbued his stories with a precariously clever balance between comedy and violence, to the point that you were not aware if you should laugh or cringe.
 
After "Pulp Fiction," we were littered with dreck like "Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead," "Truth or Consequences, N.M.," "Thursday," "Suicide Kings," and even a spoof called "Plump Fiction," the latter being the latest example of how you can't spoof a spoof. The trademark violent scenes in most of these films would usually feature an asynchronous song playing in the background, as typified by Tarantino's own "Reservoir Dogs" where Michael Madsen's Mr. Blonde slices a cop's ear off to the tune of Steeler Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle With You." An example of songs used as counterpoint to the bloody violence would be "Truth or Consequences, N.M.," where Martin Sheen's big boss character severs a victim's finger to the tune of Lesley Gore's "It's My Party." "Thursday" has no asynchronous songs I can recall but the emphasis is on cold-blooded murders, including one where a woman (Paulina Porizkova) is shot while raping the main antihero! Even Oliver Stone's deliriously cartoonish and drug-fueled noir trip,"U-Turn." had more bloodshed than Stone's own "Platoon." Of all these, Stone's "U-Turn" is the best but it is based on a source closer to the tone of "Red Rock West" than Tarantino.
 
Granted many of these filmmakers defended their own films, indicating they thought of their stories long before they ever heard of Tarantino. But Tarantino just happened to come along and set a new standard for language and interwoven stories - you couldn't look away from dialogue in general and not say that it lacked the Tarantino feel, post-"Pulp." Hell, even David Mamet had to compete with Tarantino's rapid-fire dialogue, and Mamet used to be the king of poetic, fast-paced, staccato foul language (see "Glengarry Glen Ross" as an example, released in tandem with "Reservoir Dogs"). Sometimes a brief scene in a movie post-"Pulp" alluded to Tarantino in some way, no matter how unintentional. For example, Sidney Lumet's "Night Falls on Manhattan" has an opening scene where two cops discuss the virtues of decaf coffee over caffeinated. Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" has a brief opening moment where the merits of Marvel Comic Fantastic Four are discussed, mostly in familial terms (a scene not to be found in Rick Moody's novel). "Amateur," the most sedate crime thriller I've ever seen, even from the typically sedate director Hal Hartley, has scenes where the hit men discuss the subject of cell phones. Even "Donnie Brasco" has a bar sequence where Lincolns and Cadillacs are discussed - probably no accident that "Reservoir Dogs" own Michael Madsen is seen at the same table. And a more obvious example is the "Scream" trilogy, which began in 1996, and which poked gruesome fun at slasher films and had the characters behave as encyclopedic fanatics of horror movies. Had it not been for Tarantino, "Scream" might never have happened, pure and simple. The difference is that "Scream" did not rewrite the rules of horror movies, it just brought back the intensity and a deep level of irony.


PULP FICTION - The Age of Irony
Vincent Vega: "You know what they call a quarter pound of cheese in Paris?"  
For better or worse, "Pulp Fiction" signaled the growing amorality of the times. I recall a 1993 issue of Newsweek with a front cover that read "No Shame." Basically, the article discussed the fact that pubescent kids and teenagers (and adults, to some degree) were no longer the scapegoats of their own actions, criminal or otherwise. You had to find fault with anyone but the kids - parents were often considered the culprit since they no longer paid attention and were fed up. Thus, the under-18 crowd could get away with anything. Morality in itself was no longer an issue. In a strange way, "Pulp" focused on the lack of morals in a universe guided by moral principles ("Natural Born Killers" is another example, especially when 20-year-olds and under blamed the movie for their homicidal actions). Even though most of the characters in "Pulp" pay for their actions and some are even forgiven - the innate feeling is that one can get away with anything, as long as they focus on a solution as a getaway. In other words, no consequences and no sense of guilt (the antithesis to Martin Scorsese's own moralistic work). For example, the scene where Jules and Vincent escape death when a college-age kid (Alexis Arquette) attempts to shoot them is followed by a "theological discussion" on the matter. Jules and Vincent should be dead. Jules sees this as a sign from God whereas Vincent shrugs it off and compares the incident to an episode from Cops. This is followed by a further discussion in a car ride, along with their informant, Marvin (Phil LaMarr), as Jules persists with the notion they had been saved. This leads to Jules' final decision to quit the life of a hit man. When Vincent asks Marvin for his opinion, aiming his gun in Marvin's direction, the gun fires. It was accidental yet Marvin is dead, and the window in the backseat is covered with blood. They argue and bicker over what to do. Jules decides to take Marvin's dead body to his friend Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino). 
 
Now, at the first screening I attended of "Pulp," this singular moment was met with howls of laughter. It is a funny scene in a blackly comical way, but let's not forget the point Tarantino is making. Jules and Vincent can escape death and point to salvation as justification, yet an innocent man is accidentally shot by a bullet to the brain and no one thinks that this man had been saved. His life was taken away and God did not "get involved." Amazingly, Jules and Vincent never mention the irony of Marvin's death - it is forgotten and it results in guiltless chatter about other subjects such as "Green Acres" and English Bob (a character from Eastwood's "Unforgiven") at a local diner. Jules' main concern is his own welfare, focusing on quitting the life and walking the earth like "Caine in Kung-Fu." Vincent objects to all this, and we know that his objection to God's supposed intervention results in his own death by Bruce Willis's Butch character. If Vincent followed suit and quit the life, he might still be alive. It is an inescapable assumption to make of Vincent's future since the film unfolds in a non-linear narrative. Vincent dies midway through the film, then miraculously comes back in the third act. 
 
"Pulp Fiction" remains, oddly, a far more spiritual journey than 1994's own "Forrest Gump," which won a multitude of awards including Best Picture. Most of my friends walked out of "Pulp" before getting near the climactic subplot of Jules's redemption, accusing the film of being too violent and unredemptive. If they only stayed through the closing credits. As for more proof of the film's spiritual and moral concerns, Jules is confronted by amateur robbers in the diner - Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). Jules is asked by Pumpkin to give up his briefcase and wallet. But Jules disarms Pumpkin and gives him his wallet as collateral for Pumpkin's life. Instead of a random shoot-out sequence, the scene plays with threatening dialogue and pop-culture references to deliver the epitome of Jules's turning point - he has been saved and chooses to abolish Biblical rants and executions in favor of saving someone else. The irony of the film (the 1990's being the Age of Irony) was that Jules and Vincent became heroes - they saved the diner's customers yet Pumpkin and Honey Bunny still stole all the customers' money and valuables. 
 
Paul Schrader, the writer of "The Last Temptation of Christ," "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull," said in a 1996 New York article that he was surprised Tarantino considered "Taxi Driver" one of his favorite films. The Taxi Driver himself, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), was the existential antihero, the one who felt guilt over his sinful actions, the one who abhorred the Madonna whore, and so on. Tarantino's films created the ironic antihero, the one who simply doesn't care. The attitude is, "So what?" or "Whatever." Tarantino has been accused of not making films about life but about the depiction of life through the prism of movies. Spielberg and Scorsese also faced such accusations. I think Tarantino is more interested in facets of life as seen through his deliriously wacky and pop culture universe where anything can happen.

TARANTINO - THE SCENE-STEALER 
Quentin Tarantino has been accused of stealing scenes from his favorite films and using them as a template for his own scripts. Most notably is Quentin's cribbing of scenes from Ringo Lam's "City on Fire," a mediocre and sporadically exciting crime picture with Chow Yun-Fat as an undercover cop who tries to infiltrate a ring of thieves. Some scenes are obviously lifted from here and used in "Reservoir Dogs," especially the final fifteen minutes where Yun-Fat's cop suffers from a gunshot wound and the leader of the pack knows he is the snitch. They hide in a decrepit warehouse where three characters point guns at each other's faces. The difference is that "City on Fire" is exclusively about the cop, his own haphazard attempts to marry his bitter girlfriend, as well as his criminal activity involving the exporting of guns. What "City on Fire" doesn't do is show the blazing personalities of its ring of thieves nor does it contain any pop-culture references. "Reservoir Dogs" benefits from superior direction and tighter editing, not to mention time-twisting moments and a strange bathroom sequence imagined by its own cop character (played by Tim Roth). "Dogs" has imagination and style and feels alive. "City on Fire" is merely a cursory footnote but worthwhile for those who want to speculate and discuss Quentin's influences.

  Beatrix Kiddo: "It's mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality."  
As for Quentin's "Kill Bill" epics, the first volume is designed as an homage to the kung-fu, martial-arts epics that starred Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba and many others. In fact, the opening features the old Shaw Brothers logo (for those who watched these movies after school, you'll feel a certain giddiness when you see that logo). The focus in the first "Kill Bill" volume is clearly the violence, as we witness Uma Thurman's assassin seeking bloodthirsty revenge on those who tried to kill her (it is no accident that the movie opens with the Klingon phrase, "Revenge is a dish best served cold.") Thurman carries a powerful steel blade and cuts her way through the screen with intense ferocity. We see gallons of blood (a staple of kung-fu epics) when male and female victims are impaled, dismembered, punched and kicked into oblivion. Whereas Tarantino would often show much less blood, the movie becomes an endless blood-splattered trip through excess - of course, he still knows when to cut away when it feels right. It is easily Quentin's most violent film yet, but don't be easily fooled - he borrows heavily from everywhere. Still, like Quentin said in the "Kill Bill" DVD interview, he aimed to pay homage to movies he grew up with, just like Spielberg and Lucas did with "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Homage it certainly is, but he also brings a high level of intensity that makes for a truly entertaining viewing. 
 
The second volume follows the calmer, gentler tone of "Jackie Brown," the latter being one of the few recent movies to focus exclusively on dialogue. "Kill Bill Vol. 2" opens with a hysterical homage to black-and-white noir where our deadly assassin (Uma Thurman) describes her dying need for bloody satisfaction - in two words, kill Bill. As it turns out, the movie opts to lengthen small moments into whole sequences with Tarantino stretching our own ADD attitude to unique heights. One example is the opening sequence where the killer pimp/big boss Bill (David Carradine) surprises bride-clad Thurman at the wedding chapel. If you have seen the first volume, you'll recall what happens at that chapel, and the intensity builds and builds as we wait for the climactic moment. Even moments between Michael Madsen's Budd Sidewinder, Bill's brother, and eyepatch-wearing Elle Driver (played by Daryl Hannah) also stretch time and space - you'll feel you are watching a Michelangelo Antonioni film. What Tarantino accomplishes this time is to pay more attention to character behavior, languishing in each character's own trials and tribulations. And nothing beats Uma's underground coffin sequence (no doubt inspired by the Dutch cult thriller "The Vanishing") - it is as powerful as Jesus's crucifixion in "The Passion of the Christ." "Kill Bill Vol. 2" is like an extended update of the spaghetti western with moments of punctuated violence crossed with Sam Raimi's occasional comical overtones.


As for my own personal taste, "Pulp Fiction" is definitely Tarantino's finest work, a crime epic that rewrote the rules and yet is still, to this day, misunderstood in its intentions and its ironic pleasures. As Roger Ebert once said, "it is a comedy masquerading as hard-boiled." Some may see it as nothing more than a comic-book movie masquerading as noir. The difference between Tarantino and others of his ilk is that the QT cares about his characters and happens to inject them in stories revolving around undesirable, unsavory people without an ounce of sentimentality. Tarantino may have streaks of wickedness and cruelty in his work, but it is his humanity and compassion that propels his narratives to unusually delirious, unexpected heights. Name one other recent movie where you really cared about an assassin or a hit man or a thief. That is why Tarantino is the man. 

You're Fired, Motherfu***

HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 

If you ever felt downsized or stepped on by your boss, then "Horrible Bosses" might be the movie for you. If you felt so humiliated by your boss that you want to kill them, "Horrible Bosses" doesn't exactly fit that bill but it comes darn close. It is a comedy but it is never too blackly comic nor does it rely on gross-out humor to sell its unwieldy premise - the whole thing is meant to be fun and it has the right attitude.

Three close friends have been harassed by their bosses in one way or another. Jason Bateman is Nick, who works at a security firm for a truly abhorrent and despicable boss, David Harken (Kevin Spacey). David is so mentally and verbally abusive that he chastises Nick for not finishing a drink he offered at 8 in the morning. Even worse, David had promised a promotion for Nick that he decides to award to himself. Dale (Charlie Day), a sex offender for having merely urinated in a playground, is the dental assistant to a conniving, sexual beast of a dentist, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), who wants to have sex with Dale. If he doesn't comply, she will tell his fiancee that they did have a romp in the hay. Dr. Julia also has a habit of....ah, see the movie. The third friend of the group is the horny Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis), an accountant for a chemical company overseen by a cokehead and rampant party animal, Bobby (Colin Farell). Bobby takes stock of the company after his father dies of a heart attack (Donald Sutherland) and turns out to be a cruel, egotistical and mean bastard. At one point, he forces Kurt to fire a handicapped employee!

Such horrible bosses merit getting even, but the triad decide to hire a hitman to rub out all three bosses. They find one guy named "Motherfuckah" Jones (Jamie Foxx), who has an alleged history of hits on his belt. Jones ends up giving more advice as a "murder consultant" than committing actual murder.

There are so many belly laughs in "Horrible Bosses" that I was fine with the film not looking to get too dirty or too mean. There is a liveliness in the banter between Bateman, Day and Sudeikis - they transcend the material a little with their observations, asides and pungent comic delivery. This is virtually an old-fashioned R-rated comedy that never gets too vulgar or too raunchy. Seth Gordon ("King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters") directs with buoyancy and charm and a certain level of precariousness (one unpredictable incident involving a gun will have your stomach in knots).

In addition to the likable trio, the rest of the cast is just as tremendous. Jennifer Aniston gives one of her most animated performances in years, shielding the weight of rom-coms for some delicious, catty sex appeal. Kevin Spacey is a pure evil joy as the wickedest boss he has played since "Swimming With Sharks." Colin Farrell shows how capable he can be in playing a vile human being who is largely dim. Jamie Foxx is a hoot and a half as the one and only Motherfuckah Jones, without the "er" attached to the end of that most beautifully profane word.

"Horrible Bosses" is a breeze and a joy, completely riotous from start to finish. It makes no apologies for its humor or situations, and doesn't aim to sentimentalize the slapstick or the premise. After seeing it, you might even have a little sympathy for whoever your boss is. Or you might want to kill them.

No Direction Home in Stone's Bloody Western

U-TURN (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" is a jagged, furious, interminable assault on the senses with enough bloody violence, expletives and adulterous affairs to send any sensitive Christian out the door. It is a solid piece of unpredictable entertainment: wickedly funny and darkly comic at every turn.

Based on the book "Stray Dogs" by John Ridley (who also wrote the script), "U-Turn" stars Sean Penn as Booby Cooper, a gambler with a bag full of money who inadvertently breaks down in the strange town of Superior, Arizona. His troubles are just beginning: he brings his 1964 Mustang convertible with a broken radiator hose to a sully mechanic named Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton); his bag of money (an overdue gambling debt) is blown to bits during an unexpected convenience store robbery; he has a fling with the sexy Grace (Jennifer Lopez) before his nose is broken by her husband Jake (Nick Nolte) who in turn asks Bobby to kill his wife; he has a diner encounter with a ditsy blonde teenager (Claire Danes) before he's repeatedly challenged to a fight by her tough boyfriend (Joaquin Phoenix); and then there's the old, blind Indian (Jon Voight) who teaches him moral lessons about life such as 'Nothing is nothing. Everything is everything.'

"U-Turn" engages us and pushes our buttons right from the opening sequence with a spectacular sight of the Arizona desert where a red Mustang is headed for unwanted trouble. Bobby is not a hero, though: he's flawed, has murderous impulses and not much of a conscience. This is the world of film noir, and we know there are no heroes in such a world. Bobby has no qualms about killing Jake's wife, Grace, as long as he gets the dough. But when Grace asks him to kill Jake, split with the money and head for Hawaii, what can Bobby do? He's confused, pathetic and headed for disaster considering a loan shark is after him. At one point, since he lost his gambling money, he opts for just two-hundred dollars to pay the mechanic for the damage to the car. Nobody, however, will lend him the money. He has a little over twenty bucks left yet it is not enough for the train ticket to Juarez, Mexico. He pleads and pleads for it and finally convinces the ticket agent (Laurie Metcalf) to give him a break - the guy definitely needs it but his day isn't over yet. Before you can say existentialism, Bobby endures several beatings, tortures, backstabbings, and double-crosses to make Franz Kafka blush. This is a world he can't escape from, and his illicit affair with Grace could lead to more than he bargained for. Who can he trust?

Oliver Stone is the perfect director for this neo-noirish, blood-soaked Western that is reminiscent of the cult film "Red Rock West." Stone bludgeons the screen, courtesy of the deft cinematographer Robert Richardson, with grainy colors, strobe cuts, and black-and-white images. The bright colors (bright reds, greens, and dark blacks) lend the film a baroque, cartoonish look atypical of Stone's ouevre, and such visual and editing tropes evoke the chaos and unpredictable surprises in Bobby's world. The rapid-fire montage cutting and editing is not as wild as you might expect - this is the first Stone film I can think of since "The Doors" where you can actually breathe while all the sound and fury is exploding on screen.

As in Stone's other work, the performances are extraordinary. Sean Penn turns in one of his finest roles as the confounded, bruised Bobby with black hair, a bandaged hand, and slick clothes, and is more distraught than anyone else in the movie. Nick Nolte is all fire and brimstone as the vicious, crazed real-estate mogul Jake who has a certain obsession with Grace - his overbite and white orange crewcut reveals a strong yet weak, disturbed man who weeps during sex. Jennifer Lopez ("Selena") is quite captivating as the femme fatale Grace, an Apache woman who has an incestual past revealed in quick montages - she keeps the character cryptic to the point where we don't know if she can be trusted anymore than if Bobby can. Billy Bob Thornton is the welcome comic relief in this bizarre odyssey as he spews and spits with relish resembling a revolting court jester. Claire Danes ("Romeo and Juliet") is engagingly delirious as the girl who is attracted to Bobby - her scene in the diner where she questions him on the disappearance of Patsy Cline is a classic. Joaquin Phoenix is bitingly hilarious as her jealous boyfriend. Also worth mentioning is Powers Boothe as the sheriff of Superior who may have some ties to Grace's past, and there's also a strange cameo by Liv Tyler as a passenger at a train station. She doesn't utter a word but most film buffs will love to see her brief appearance anyway.

"U-Turn" is not a great film - there's too much time devoted to the mysterious Grace and her predictably angry husband Jake - but it is a nice change-of-pace for Stone. It's joltingly alive and incredibly funny. Other major pluses are the superb performances by all, brilliant cinematography and a terrific soundtrack full of Peggy Lee songs. "U-Turn" deserves a place in the Western noir tablets along with "Blood Simple," "Wild at Heart" and the aforementioned "Red Rock West."

Jackson's Kong sits on top of the world

KING KONG (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Of all the "King Kong" films that exist (and there are others besides the original 1933 classic and its 1976 remake), Peter Jackson's lavishly produced new Kong is clearly the best. As good as it often is, it is also an occasionally elephantine, desperately overlong tribute to what was always an adventure film with an uneven central love story (thought the love story in this one works).

The film is set during the Depression Era of the 30's, specifically 1933 in the city of New York. In an evocative montage set to Al Jolson's "I'm Sitting on Top of the World," we see police raiding buildings, destitute families living in squalor, high-angle views of New York City as everyone scuttles about their business, vaudeville shows and the construction of the Empire State Building. Jack Black is in the middle of all this as Carl Denham, an obsessive film director who is also a huckster, promoter and a bad businessman. His current leading lady has pulled out of his latest project (he has trouble procuring the talents of Myrna Loy and Fay Wray!) until he finds a forlorn beauty on the streets, a vaudeville performer named Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts). He persuades her to go on a maiden voyage to Singapore aboard the Venture ship, though they are really headed to Skull Island unbeknownst to all. Also along for the ride is Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), a playwright who has written some dialogue for Denham's latest opus. He inadvertently travels along and knows trouble is headed his way, though not the trouble he imagines when he first sees Kong. Jack has a brief fling with Ann, who adores him. But how can Jack compete with a hairy giant gorilla?

Skull Island is the uncharted land that time forgot, and you Kong fanatics know what is in store for these passengers once they arrive. We are talking red-eyed aboriginal natives with pierced tongues and eyelids who all seem possessed by the devil. We are talking skulls and carcasses that grace every inch of this island. We are also talking about a 25-foot silverback gorilla whose roar can shake even the most determined sleeper. We are also talking about giant spiders; giant T-rexes; lots of stampeding Brontosauruses chased by velociraptors; millipedes; centipedes; various other insects and giant worms, and much more.

Most of "King Kong" is an eye-popping marvel of special-effects. Particularly convincing is Kong himself, as played in a motion-capture suit by Andy Serkis ("The Lord of the Rings"), an angry, battle-scarred ape who growls but can also laugh when Ann saves her own skin by performing some vaudeville routines to amuse him. There is even a tender scene shared by Kong and Ann by sunset and a touching moment at an ice rink. But this Kong is all action as he glides and jumps with great ferocity - he is an animal after all who pounds his chest with pride when killing a vicious T-Rex. Thanks to Serkis and Jackson's own WETA effects team, Kong is the most realistic creation seen on screen in the history of cinema, and certainly the most convincing Kong ever. I can't imagine it getting any better than this.

As for the story, the first hour of the film is devoted to the main characters and the crew members on board the Venture ship. The film truly brightens every time we see Jack Black up to his conniving ways, bewildered and bewildering everyone around him. His portrait of a 30's film director who wants to make epic adventure films (not unlike Merian C. Cooper) at any cost, even at the cost of losing his crew members just to get a shot of a Brontosaurus, is spot on and sharply observed (Howard Hughes might've been scared by this guy).

Less intriguing is Adrien Brody's portrait of what appears to be a Beatnik playwright (he did play a Beatnik in "Last Time I Committed Suicide") - he is just off by twenty years. I expected to see a playwright who was as passionate as Carl but instead we are saddled with a weary writer who has not much passion for anything. Even his brief fling with Ann hardly convinces - Ann finds the big ape far more beguiling as will the audience.

Naomi Watts makes the most out of her role, which has an extra dimension or two than Fay Wray's famous incarnation. Watts invests time in her character during the first hour, and afterwards she mostly jumps, stares, screams, runs and wells up with tears. Not to begrudge Watts but this is a role that could've been filled by any actress even, god forbid, Tara Reid had it been written as a one-dimensional bimbo who is merely sexual eye candy for the big ape (Well, maybe not Reid, but you get the idea). Thankfully, Ann is not written as a sexual object of desire, more like an angelic presence who cares for Kong. I appreciate Jackson's choice of using Watts whose past screen roles have never depicted her as the typical, busty blonde beauty. No wonder Fay Wray approved shortly before her unfortunate demise.

"King Kong" is simply too long though, with far too much action at Skull Island. The stampeding brontosauruses sequence is practically unwatchable since it is all shot too tightly (a frequent criticism of mine of Jackson's previous work). Even the fight between the T-Rexes and Kong might give you motion sickness - funny how it is clearer and sharper when seen on a TV screen than on the big screen.

Despite my criticisms of length, the first hour could easily have been expanded into an extra half-hour simply because I was engaged by Carl Denham's hubris - I was willing to go wherever his character took me. Unfortunately, the film ignores his character (as well as others including an irate captain and Carl's assistant) and has Carl (SPOILER ALERT) deliver the famous last line. That is an error in character judgment that didn't work in the '33 original and doesn't work now. Carl should've said, "Hubris killed my soul, and I have killed the beast." If it wasn't for Carl's hubris and showmanship, Kong might have still been alive.

Another technical flaw is the strobing of images in slow-motion that Jackson uses far too frequently - they deter from the action. At times, the movement of the camera with a strobing effect makes it difficult to discern what is occurring on screen.

For all of the film's flaws, the love story between Kong and Ann works because they care about each other. The ape is simply exploited by Carl and the public because of his freakish size, and Ann is exploited by the natives and Carl because she is so sweet and fragile. That is at the heart of "King Kong" - it is not a soulless, mechanized blockbuster but a story of two beings who share a love greater than anything Jack Driscoll could dream up. This version of "King Kong" has its heart in the right place.