The Fighting Ortegas

PRICE OF GLORY (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally written in 2001)

In the last five years, independent films have become more and more like Hollywood films in terms of genre, formulas, and general sappiness. Consider "The Tao of Steve," a low-budget film that resembles a corny Hollywood romance with a neat and tidy happy ending. "Price of Glory" falls under the same category: a boxing film full of cliches and a wishy-washy ending. The big difference is that "Price of Glory" aims to be something more, and heads for a wrongheaded climax with no payoff.

Jimmy Smits is Arturo Ortega, a former boxer who wants his children to become boxers. He wants them to have the life he never had. In the opening black-and-white flashback, we see a young Arturo beaten to a bloody pulp in what was ultimately a fixed fight. Since then, he lost the passion and nerve to continue boxing - he knew when to quit.

The problem is that Arturo doesn't know when to quit when it comes to his sons. Nevertheless, as the boys grow older, Sonny (Jon Seda), Jimmy (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Johnny (Ernesto Hernandez) become the "Fighting Ortegas" yet it is Johnny, the youngest and meanest of the bunch, who becomes the likely prizefighter to become heavyweight champion. This means a lot to his father, and naturally to the Latino community in their hometown of New Mexico. But when opportunity knocks, family squabbles take over. Arturo is their trainer and their promoter, but an outside fight promoter, Nick Everson (Ron Perlman), wants to represent the promising Johnny and the other boys. Will Arturo let go, or will the sons follow the glitz from Nick's promotion?

"Price of Glory" has one major flaw and that is the character of Arturo - he is a man trying to live his dream through his sons. The sons know this but it takes Arturo a long time to come to this realization. And when tragedy comes between them, Arturo continues to be naive and hurtful. Even his wife, Rita (Maria del Mar), can't reason with him. Arturo's personality is enough to cause the audience to lose their patience.

"Price of Glory" benefits from the fine, truthful performance by Jimmy Smits but the screenplay avoids dealing with some larger issues. Since Arturo refuses to sell out his sons, which is really for their own benefit, and since he feels he can redeem himself through their success, then why does he feel he can still bond with them and make them forget his harmful emotions after the tragedy that takes place prior to the climax? In fact, it is no surprise that the climax is headed for a "Rocky" finish, but why deny Smits' the expected payoff scene where his character can learn the error of his ways? The drama and tension peter out to some heavy melodrama that would seem at home in any daytime soap opera than in a real film about real people. Even the villainous promoter, Nick, seems more sympathetic and understanding than Arturo.

"Price of Glory" has some wonderful flavor to it in its cinematography and scenery, and I liked the sporadic depiction of a Latino family trying to come to terms with their troubles. The boxing fights are also well-directed but they do lack the thrust of "Raging Bull," which set the standard for all boxing movies. Still, "Price of Glory" is the kind of film that tastes good on the surface yet leaves a bitter after taste once you consider how the ingredients were mixed.

League has an Invisible Story

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally reviewed in 2004

Sean Connery reportedly turned down roles in "The Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings." Apparently, he did not understand them (what is so blindingly complex about "Lord of the Rings"?) So instead of turning down "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," which he also did not understand, he takes on the coveted role of Alan Quatermain. That's understandable since Connery is perfect for that role, but the movie is a lumbering bore with the most infrequent sparks of excitement.

Now for a slight digression: a friend of mine liked "LXG" (a suitable abbreviation used in ads for this movie) but he hated "Highlander 2: The Quickening." I liked "Highlander 2" for its witty exchanges courtesy of Sean Connery. But there is nothing to take away from "LXG." The characters are filled with no inner life or distinctive personality. For example, we have Connery as Alan Quatermain, the aging adventurer who will do anything for the British Empire (as he proclaims early on, "Long Live the Queen!") But he still has reservations because he lost his son to the Empire. Nevertheless, Quatermain joins a league of gentlemen that includes former pirate Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah); the Invisible Man aka Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng); the sophisticated Dorian Gray (Stuart Townshend); a mature Tom Sawyer (Shane West), who fires a gun like an American (thank you, Mr. Quatermain); and vampire Mina Harker (Peta Wilson). Wait a doggone minute! Mina is no gentleman!

Based on a graphic novel, "LXG" begins with a hint of promise. After a while, all promise is thrown to the winds when Quatermain fights with his bare fists and a rifle against machine-gun-toting villains! Now this tale is set in 1899 so where do these machine guns come from? But what really bothered me is that the gunfight is right at the beginning of the movie - it is saying something when 1985's "King Solomon's Mines" (featuring Richard Chamberlain as Quatermain) had more pizzazz and subtlety than what transpires in all of "LXG." For action, we get the requisite explosions (including a series of dirigibles exploding in unison), a futuristic looking "automobile" that looks more like Connery's limo, a humongous looking ship called the Nautilus that seems to occupy more space than it should (especially when traveling through the canals of Venice), and one too many whizzing bullets.

To make matters worse, we have some unintended laughs from the humongous Mr. Hyde, seen at first galloping through the rooftops of the Rue Morgue with his tuxedo ripped apart and hat intact. Ha! Then Mr. Hyde fights a bigger hulk at the climax! Then the curious Mr. Gray is apparently immortal (or dead, take your pick) because bullets pass through him like flypaper! I am sure some of you know that the literary Mr. Gray made a deal with the devil where he would stay young forever while his portrait would age. Okay, but where is it written that it also makes Gray impervious to bullets? Perhaps readers of the comic can enlighten me. And Mina Harker has a knack for biting necks - does that mean she is also powerless like the literary Dracula during daylight? And why the rambunctious Tom Sawyer comes to the rescue of this league when he is uninvited still vexes me.

Of course, none of this would matter if the movie was fun on some escapist level. What we get are a series of unrelated action setpieces with no sense of urgency or level of adventure. Since the adventure is ambiguous at best (we never know what is really at stake outside of the destruction of Venice) and the characters are thinner than paint thinner, we are left with a whole lot of nothing. It is the League of The Invisible Story.

The Messiah might be back, to warn us

BROTHER JOHN (1971)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Brother John" is such an intriguing, fascinating film of such ambiguity that its running time of an hour and a half seems too short. It is another of Sidney Poitier's racially charged films but it has less to do with race than with its warning of impending doom by its main protagonist.

Poitier is Brother John who returns to his hometown of Hackley, Alabama after learning of his sister's death. Nobody has communicated with John so how he learns of her death is a mystery. Will Greer is the kind town doctor who helped give birth to John, and senses something at odds about him. So does the town sheriff and the doctor's own son, a suspicious prosecutor (Bradford Dillman). Suspicion grows when it is assumed that Brother John may be trying to help union organizers during a strike, but that is not the case. John's childhood girlfriend, Louisa (Beverly Todd), senses the aloofness yet she is ready to rekindle what they once had. But when some of the racist cops and a former suitor of Luisa's (Paul Winfield) try to strong-arm him, John is more than capable of fighting and weakening them in ways they can't fathom.

"Brother John" never makes it clear who John is, or why he is able to enter any country without question such as Cuba. Is he a politician, a Communist sympathizer, or maybe the Messiah? Why does he keep journals with empty pages? Why is he so aloof to the town that needs him desperately? What is his mission? Is he there to warn the town doctor of the Second Coming in the form of hazardous winds, or is just bad weather heading their way? Hard to say and the film never bothers to give us a clue. He is a mysterious stranger who only visits when a family member dies.

"Brother John" is not a great film nor does it have a tenth of the grit or racist allegorical tones that "The Defiant Ones" or "In the Heat of the Night" had and yet, for all its peculiarities and ambiguities, it is often powerful and compelling and Poitier has an unmatched screen presence that is intoxicating. It is a good film, exceptionally well-acted, but I can't say for sure what the heck it is all about.

Hokeying Pokeying all over Harford Road

A DIRTY SHAME (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

John Waters is one of our more peculiar directors. He made some of the naughtiest, nastiest movies in the 70's, such as the ultimate bad taste in your mouth, "Pink Flamingos." When his potty, obscene and downright degrading humor caught up with him in the 90's, Waters seemed like a distant memory. For every "Hairspray" and "Serial Mom" that appeared, there were unwatchable atrocities like "Cry Baby," "Pecker" and "Cecil B. Demented." To my surprise, "A Dirty Shame" is far better than any Waters comedy in over a decade and that is high praise indeed.

Tracey Ullman is the sexless Sylvia, a married woman who is disgusted when her husband (Chris Issak) masturbates in the toilet seat. Their daughter is Caprice aka Ursula Udders (Selma Blair), whom they keep in a padlocked upstairs bedroom because of her indulgent go-go dancing. Ursula also has inhumanly gargantuan knockers and has had one too many indecent charges. In the midst of all this, Sylvia is uptight about sex for reasons never made clear, her husband wants to bang her, and their daughter wants to get out of house arrest and go-go some more (though one scene indicates she is merely playing a role for her parents.) Is all this the makings of pure filth from the self-professed Pube King?

On a sunny day in Harford Road in Baltimore, Sylvia accidentally bumps her head during a traffic stop and morphs into a sexual addict. She is discovered by some sex guru (Johnny Knoxville) who leads some sort of sexual underground where the lead motto is "Let's go sexin'!" This is hardly the world of David Cronenberg's "Crash." Sylvia's noggin had induced a sexual liberation where she tries to bang anyone or anything she sees, including a scene involving a dance and a plastic water bottle set to the tune of "The Hokey Pokey" song that will long be remembered by Waters cinephiles as a classic (consider it on the same wavelength as the singing butthole from "Pink Flamingos.")

So what can you expect from the shameful mind of John Waters this time around? There is a group of burly gay men who calls themselves the Bears and hover over each other. There is also a mechanic who loves to lick car wheels, dirt, etc. Johnny Knoxville flicks his tongue at anything in close-up. A grown man who gets off on defecating in women's purses. And let's not forget the Neuters, led by Sylvia's mother (Suzanne Shepherd), who is appalled by the public display of sexual shenanigans. When you see Mink Stole, another Waters regular, decrying sex then you know you are not in any typical movie.

There's not much point or purpose in "A Dirty Shame" except to shock you into laughter and most of the time it works (Even Waters regular Patty Hearst will make you crack a smile when she glibly uses the f word). It is a movie overwrought with animated sexual references and pervasive use of old songs like "Sylvia," "Baby Let me Bang Your Box," and the aptly titled "Let's Go Sexin'!" by George Clinton. It is an outrageous, cartoonish sexual fantasy that is difficult to pinpoint as anything except the world of John Waters mind set on a hyperbolic spin. Or you can consider it a gleeful shockoroma of naughtiness that will leave you waiting to see what new outrage is around the corner (you haven't lived until you've seen Knoxville dry humping an excited tree). For Waters fans, it will work wonders and be seen as a return to form. For others, well, your memory of his work might've been sullied by "Pink Flamingos." That's a shame.

Cops Reality Show squashed by action

SHOWTIME (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

My best argument about a formulaic confection treat like "Showtime" is to say the following: it could've been worse. As it stands, the movie is neither as good or as bad as reported. It simply exists and works as time-filler but, dammit, if the critic inside me doesn't think that with high-powered, charismatic acting leads at its core, it should've been so much more.

I'll put it simply: the concept works. Eddie Murphy is a mediocre cop who can't pass his detective exams, yet he is content with pretending to be a cop on a TV show he's vying to star in. Robert De Niro is a real cop who can't stand TV cameramen and definitely can't stand Eddie. So, naturally, after De Niro busts a ring of thieves and shoots a cameraman's camera, he is obligated to star in a reality show about being a cop! And guess who his new partner is? That is a rhetorical question. Add in William Shatner playing himself as he coaches De Niro (!) on how to play a cop on TV thanks to Shat-tastic's days as T.J. Hooker.

The problem may stem from underutilizing its concept. They take it far but not far enough. The screenwriters decide to throw a subplot in about an arms dealer and some business revolving around a super machine gun that can destroy police cars and armored trucks with ease. Some of it rings hollow and eradicates the film's humor potential. Rather than sticking with the idea of a reality show with the whip-smart Rene Russo running the behind-the-scenes shenanigans, "Showtime" thinks it needs to spice things up by adding remotely watchable action scenes and explosions galore and glass breakage, and you know the rest. I did like the truck bit and the swimming-pool-above-the-office- floor climax, but it doesn't compare with Russo and company making De Niro's apartment more audience-friendly or Shatner's acting coach lessons.

On the scale of recent De Niro cinematic turds and Eddie Murphy's wholesome family pictures, "Showtime" is better than most recent De Niro flicks but not a tenth as good as Eddie's rollicking Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Still, for a mediocre movie, it is sort of fun and engaging enough to make one wish somebody rewrote the screenplay and exploited its premise for all its worth.

Enervated 20's

HARLEM NIGHTS (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally seen in 1989)

"Harlem Nights" never knows what it wants to be. A misguided vanity production by Eddie Murphy, it either wants to be a gangster comedy or a serious semi-homage to gangster films from the 30's and 40's. There is plenty of violence and profanity but not much to laugh at, despite clearly comic innuendoes.

Eddie plays Quick, a hotheaded partial owner of a swanky nightclub in Harlem called the Club Sugar Ray. Quick's father figure is Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor), the main owner who is charming and a smooth operator. This club is seen as a threat to the Big Boss, Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner), who wants Sugar Ray out of town because he has his own club to operate. So Bugsy commissions help from the crookedest of cops, Cantone (Danny Aiello), to remind Sugar Ray that his boss wants a cut of the profits.

Meanwhile, there is some business involving the club madam (Della Reese) whom Quick shoots in the foot! There is a deadly mistress (Jasmine Guy, of all people), a stuttering boxer (Stan Shaw), a seductive tease like no tease I've seen in the movies in quite some time (Lela Rochon), and a crying hood (hilariously played by Arsenio Hall).

"Harlem Nights" is almost film noir done in lush tones and dark colors that rob the movie of any comic potential. But that is just it: what is "Harlem Nights" supposed to be? The movie never finds the appropriate tone and gets downright nasty and misogynistic beyond belief. For example, poor Della Reese as the madam is not only shot in the foot but she is almost crushed by a garbage can (I say crushed because the movie's sound effects involving punches and kicks are louder than the explosions and gunfire). There is also a scene of a woman shot in the head after being made love to. Nope, nothing funny about that either. But the movie is either not quite noirish enough or not comedic enough - in short, it is a beautifully lit mess.

There are pluses to "Harlem Nights." Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor prove what suave leading men they can be. Redd Foxx is simply there to be there but he did manage to make me smile with his character's semi-blindness. The score by Herbie Hancock is never obtrusive. But the movie is enervated, slow to a crawl, uneven, and shapeless. Though Eddie Murphy has had his share of follies but as actor, director and writer, I can blame him squarely for making me pass out on this one.

Searching for Eddie Murphy Laughs

NORBIT (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Norbit" is a gargantually unfunny piece of garbage - a movie of confoundingly rampant staged gags of cartoonish excess that perpetuates ugly stereotypes and uglier characters of little or no humanity. Most of the blame can be flung at Eddie Murphy and his brother, Charles Murphy, who co-wrote this atrocity.

Eddie Murphy plays Norbit, a meek-looking, bullied guy with a lisp who is unfortunately married to an obese and mean-spirited woman named Rasputia (also played by Eddie Murphy). The fact that she is obese wouldn't have bothered anyone if her weight was not the central focus of all 102 excruciating minutes of the film. Rasputia is a figure of grotesquerie mostly because she is loud, a cheater and wants to kill a neighborhood dog! Her weight is besides the point but Murphy can't help but make fun of Rasputia's weight at every given turn - the amusement park scenes are enough to make most groan when an employee reminds Rasputia that she is wearing no bottom (you get the picture). The slim plot of this overbearing pile of dung deals with Norbit's attempts to win back his childhood girlfriend, Kate (a very skinny Thandie Newton), who is engaged to Deion (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) who unbeknownst to her is planning to turn the old town orphanage into a strip joint. Liquor licenses are hard to come by. Duh!

I am an Eddie Murphy fan up to a point - I have avoided most of his family comedies though perhaps someday I may check out one of them. "Norbit" seemed to be a corrective to his family-friendly image - to present Murphy as the genuine talent he is by playing a variety of roles with the help of makeup expert Rick Baker. Murphy can inhabit an assortment of characters with ease but his writing curtails any sense of humanity - you end up caring about no one except his Norbit character (a little of him also goes a long way). The movie is crass in its staging and rhythm and barely any of it made me smile. It is especially crass in its portrait of buffoons and caricatures and exploits them for what they are in terms of personal appearance, not who they are. Even the kind and semi-racist Chinese owner of the orphanage, Mr. Wong (also played by Eddie), brings up uncomfortable reminders of Mickey Rooney's Chinese caricature from "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I just wanted to revisit "Coming to America," arguably one of Eddie's funniest, or even the juvenile antics of his "Nutty Professor." "Norbit" is missing Murphy's humanity. Oh, yeah, and some laughs. 

Shhhhhh!

SILENT MOVIE (1976)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Any movie that pays homage to silent film can't be bad. After all, silent films are a touchstone of American film history - without them, there would be no cinema. And so, as wildly uneven as some of the comic bits are in "Silent Movie," it is overall an amusing film and a genuine original.

The whole film plays exactly like a silent movie. There is some incidental music, as most silent films did have an orchestra playing (there are also plenty of sound effects). Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman are a bunch of guys who seem to be tooling around Hollywood without any real apparent purpose. They pick up a pregnant lady who causes their car to tilt on its rear wheels! It turns out Brooks is Mel Funn, an alcoholic movie director whose past consumption nearly ruined his career. His pals are helping him make this movie, a silent movie as it were, for a nearly bankrupt studio called Engulf and Devour. The head of the studio is Sid Caesar, but he hates the idea of a silent movie until Funn convinces him it can work if they cast movie stars.

So we get Paul Newman tooling around in a race car; Burt Reynolds taking a shower while other hands adorn his physique; James Caan, as he practices his boxing outside his trailer; Marcel Marceau, who speaks the only word in the entire film; Anne Bancroft; Liza Minnelli, as she is disturbed while eating at a cafeteria while the clan wears armor in disguise that causes the usual pratfalls, and so on.

"Silent Movie" has plenty of terrific gags but it did not leave me out of breath or delirious like Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" or "Blazing Saddles." There are some lulls (the introduction of Sid Caesar goes on forever) but there are just as many inspired moments. I love the moment where Marty Feldman has film reels wrapped around his body, and how they are unspooled so the film can be projected! I love the relentless battle with a Coke machine where coke bottles are thrown and explode on impact (Stephen King tried this gag somewhat to serious effect in his directorial debut, "Maximum Overdrive," and it didn't work). I also love a brief moment where an advertisement is shown for the skyline of New York City and we hear the instrumentals for "San Francisco" when, rather abruptly, it is interrupted for the more appropriate instrumentals of "I'll Take Manhattan." Then there is the fly in the soup for a patron that is none other than Henny Youngman. There is also a merry-go-round bit that shows how vulgar good old Mel can be.

As I said, there is a slight stretch of unevenness to it but "Silent Movie" is still funny, harmless and endearing enough for most anybody who loves the silent film era.