No Mercy, No Laughs

SCARY MOVIE 2 (2001)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally written in 2002

No Mercy. No Shame. No Sequel. Well, I felt shameful watching it and it was as merciless an assault on the senses as "Requiem For A Dream" was (how ironic that both movies star Marlon Wayans). Is Miramax so eager for the easy buck that they will forge the money to produce a sequel so cheaply and quickly to diminishing returns? How can Miramax see no fault in including endless bodily fluid jokes without censoring any yet be compelled to cut the violence in Martin Scorsese's long-awaited "Gangs of New York"? Okay, back to the movie.

"Scary Movie 2" is the sequel to 2000's inexplicable hit "Scary Movie," a movie that did not deserve a sequel. Someone with far more imagination and inspiration than director Keenan Ivory Wayans should have taken a shot at all those slasher movies that were rejuvenated by 1996's "Scream." The irony was that "Scream" managed to do that already and Mr. Wayans knew it. Instead, he opted for endless sexual jokes and puns with such alarming crudity that I lost all sense I was watching a slasher film parody. "Scary Movie 2" offers more of the same in even more crude taste. I left the movie with a sour taste in my mouth, and hardly ever laughed as a result.

This time, the characters from the last film are college students invited to some haunted mansion by a devilishly witty professor (Tim Curry, always a pleasure). The mansion is haunted by extremely horny spirits so of course this is an excuse for more bodily fluid jokes. Some are more crass than others and almost all are not funny. There is one exception. Kathleen Robertson plays one student with plenty of cleavage who uses it "Erin Brockovich"-style to get keys from a wheelchaired-nerd to the mansion to escape. It is funny until it ends with a masturbatory joke that ruins it.

"Scary Movie 2" spoofs horror films such as the awful remake of "The Haunting", "Hannibal,"  and non-horror oddities like "Charlie's Angels." The best scene involves a very funny poke at the oft-imitated "The Exorcist," and it casts James Woods as an exorcist. The jokes get repetitive and involve flatulence and vomiting but it has better gags than the rest of the movie. What a shame it is at the beginning. 

Crick's Life Literally Reads Like a Book

STRANGER THAN FICTION (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Stranger Than Fiction" is a fascinating film, and its fascination stems from a screenplay that aims with a delectable charge to remind us of what movies can be. It is a sparkling, imaginative delight from start to finish with enough humor, chaos, light sentiment, big laughs and a tightly woven screenplay of supreme intelligence to remind us that films need not always cater to the dumb and dumber set.

Ferrell is Harold Crick, an orderly, lonely IRS agent whose domicile seems not unlike the one that Edward Norton occupied in "Fight Club." It is a bland apartment with all the cosmetic appliances one might expect - it may as well be a model apartment. He is finicky with his wristwatch, which is used as his alarm and his basis for punctuality. Nothing wrong with being punctual but Crick even estimates the time it takes to get from his bus to crossing the street, to the actual office

building he works in, etc. Now that is punctuality (we even see horizontal and vertical lines drawn with estimation of time and space, not to mention number of meters between spaces). At his workplace, every time he passes colleagues who ask him a multiplication problem, he answers correctly without missing a beat. Yes, people of the planet Earth, I am discussing a Will Ferrell flick.

One day, Crick hears a voice in the bathroom while brushing his teeth. The voice describes Crick's actions in explicit detail. Crick thinks the voice is coming from his toothbrush. When he is at work, he hears the voice. When he is at a bus stop, he hears the voice. When he performs a tax audit for a tattooed bakery shop owner, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) whom he is smitten with, he hears the voice. Is Crick going insane or is there a feminine, British-accented voice he can only hear? Is this a ghost who thinks she is an author? The mind boggles.

It turns out the voice belongs to a living, successful author, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Every book of hers ends with the lead character dead. She is trying to think of how Crick can meet the Grim

Reaper. It is driving her crazy, and naturally it is driving Crick crazy.

There are ways this film could fail. It could either turn sappy where Crick pleads with the author to save his life, since he starts a relationship with Ana, and it could all end with a neat, sunny

resolution. Or it could exploit the idea of an author exploiting its lead character with a darker, bleaker resolution (well, she does want the guy to die). Strangely enough, "Stranger Than Fiction" goes with

the former narrative choice, and it does it with lots of surprises and a clear sense of humanity without resorting to cliches or sappiness.

Ferrell has proven himself comic gold in "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights," yet here he invests a restrained approach to the character and builds it with nuance and complication. We are never sure what to think about Harold Crick except that his life could be livelier and less attuned to punctuality. He is a boring individual at first, but his eyes sparkle when he first meets Ana (as we know from Eiffel's voice). And when the relationship is at first rickety and then blossoms, you wonder if the author is taking the approach of developing the character her way, or is Crick developing himself!

Then there is a sidelined character, a literature professor (excellent work by Dustin Hoffman), whom Crick turns to in the hopes of principally finding the author. Hoffman finds that Crick's life is

more comedic than dramatic until...but hey, you have to see the film to find out.

This cast is almost uniformly excellent. Maggie Gyllenhaal conveys a wistfulness and a roughness with a touch of sincerity that is unusual in films in this day and age - she knocked everyone's socks off with "Secretary" and with her small, vivid role in "Donnie Darko." There is a no-nonsense sensibility about her and the character, Ana, that is reassuring and urgent. There is one remarkable scene that is handled with admirable restraint by Gyllenhaal, among many. It is when she

bakes cookies for Crick without him realizing they were meant for him after he keeps resisting them. When he realizes his mistake and we observe the hurt look in her face - there is a tangible sense of

regret that romantic comedies could use more of.

Also worth noting is Emma Thompson as the weary author who is in despair of not discovering the appropriate death scene for Crick. Thompson shows the author's fragility and deepens it with an emotional sensitivity - of course, Thompson is known for making us care about her characters every time. Her final scene is quite a revelation, in a movie full of them.

The only flaw, and it is a minor one, is Queen Latifah as the author's assistant - there is not much need for her and her character doesn't really have much purpose.

"Stranger Than Fiction" is a stunning, marvelous, hysterical and truly profound work of art, well-directed by Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball"). Yep, I will say there is a happy ending and for once, in a

world gone mad with despair and cynicism, it is earned and a keeper. A wonderful film.

Ferrell Makes Love to the Crowd

BLADES OF GLORY (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I don't think I'll ever grow tired of Will Ferrell. Even in junk like "Old School" and "A Night at the Roxbury," Ferrell was not boring or unwatchable. Fortunately, he graduated to riotous fare with "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights," and fueled his dramatic abilities

in "Stranger than Fiction" and "Melinda and Melinda." Add "Blades of Glory" to his riotous, wickedly funny palette.

Will Ferrell is Chazz Michael Michaels, the sex god of the figure skaters who can lure women with his prowess and presence on the

skating rink ("He wants to make love to the crowd," as one of the

announcers states). He has no coach yet his moves are legendary. His

competition is Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder), a disciplined skater who

lacks the presence of Chazz. They both tie for the gold medal, and

then practically beat each other to a pulp resulting in getting

knocked off the podium (and setting a poor mascot on fire). Both

figure skaters are banned for line. That is until Jimmy's former coach

(Craig T. Nelson) is convinced by Jimmy (and a delirious superfan)

that he and Chazz can skate due to a loophole in the rules: they will

skate as partners! Since males have never skated as partners before,

this is seen as historic in the annals of figure skating.

A sibling figure skating pair, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg

(the hilarious Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), see Jimmy and Chazz as a

threat so they get little sister, Katie (Jenna Fischer, the secretary

from TV's "The Office) to woo Jimmy and Chazz! Naturally, Katie

develops feelings for Jimmy. You need not know anything about the

Olympics or figure skating to see where this is going.

"Blades of Glory" has many funny pratfalls and sexual innuendoes, and

clearly there are a few digs at the Olympic figure skating world (not

to mention a joke on the Tonya Harding scandal). Every actor basically

overacts except for Will Ferrell, who plays it so straight that he is

practically believable, and Jenna Fischer who exudes as much sweetness

and sympathy as she does on "The Office." Will Arnett occasionally

dials it down yet his demented smile is awakened every time he shares

a scene with Amy Poehler. And Jon Heder will still seem unrecognizable

to those who loved his geeky, iconic Napoleon Dynamite - he is so

placid, even when he shouts, yet he holds his own with Ferrell. And if

you have to give high marks for an inspired moment where Jimmy speaks

Japanese to a Japanese journalist perfectly (Jon Heder really knows

how to speak it, too).

I must add how impressed I am by Will Ferrell. He is loose, engaging,

energetic and has priceless reaction shots. I don't care how many

variations on sports comedies he makes - as long as he is allowed to

be so loose and not overplay his part, I will be there watching.

"Blades of Glory" is a cartoon of wild comic implausibilities and, if

admired on that scale, it works. The ending is slightly longer than it

needs to be, but there are so many choice moments that deliver belly

laughs (including a truly original chase scene involving skates) and

so many insane song choices (such as Queen's "Flash Theme") and so

much tomfoolery that I was left smiling and in high spirits. For truly

wacky, wild, boisterous humor, you can't go wrong with "Blades of

Glory." And if any of you out ever want to be figure skaters, watch

out for the Iron Lotus routine!

120% effort with love

FILMWORKER (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If I could spend the rest of my life watching actors, associates, personal assistants and writers talk about working with one of the few masters (or taskmasters to some) of cinema, Stanley Kubrick, I would be more than satisfied. Kubrick was not just any movie director, he held the medium in high esteem, cultivating it for the maximum potential best he could get out of it. "Filmworker" is about Leon Vitali, a notable presence in any Kubrick film after his stellar performance in "Barry Lyndon," who devoted his life to do anything he could to uphold Kubrick's vision. It is a tremendous accomplishment and one that finally gets the attention Leon deserves.

Leon Vitali first came to prominence as an actor in various British TV dramas and movies. When he landed the role of Barry Lyndon's angry stepson Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," Vitali's acting career could've skyrocketed. Perhaps that was the perception by the media and the Hollywood industry yet Vitali had other ideas - he wanted to work behind-the-scenes for Kubrick. Vitali became the personal assistant to the perfectionist director, keeping a close eye (along with the director) on film prints from the labs, color correction and timing of prints, overseeing film trailers and packaging of home video from around the world, sending memos to actors who have been reassigned to different roles, and so on. Everyone was scared of Kubrick and had faced intense pressure on the set of all of his films ("Full Metal Jacket" was apparently a tougher film to work than most). Leon seemed to be the one who could face ungodly, 24 hour pressure without losing his own temper - the stress might have killed Leon but he loved Stanley as a friend and perhaps that is what carried him through. Clearly more than just an assistant - he was a "filmworker." That and he also helped with menial, non-film related tasks such as cleaning rooms at the Kubrick Estate or keeping track of the cat compound!

"Filmworker" is smoothly edited and structured by director Tony Zierra, establishing an intimate rhythm with Leon Vitali's skills as a storyteller - most of this documentary focuses on him and Leon's tremendous presence and lion-like voice keeps interest afloat. Though the film shies away a bit from Leon's life as a family man and those lengthy periods where Kubrick was not shooting a movie (though Leon was involved in other jobs such as locating all known Kubrick film prints and categorizing production details on the never-filmed "Wartime Lies"), it is established that his rigid work ethic was his life. "Filmworker" is also about a devoted friendship and loyalty between two hard-working men who did their best to make sure that the artistic vision remained true to the artist. It was not just giving 110% - it was giving 120% effort with love. And the cat compound.

Why can't you say I look nice?

LADY BIRD (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Lady Bird" is an example of a near-great film that could've been expanded and fleshed out closer to a 2 hour feature than the 1 hour and thirty-five minutes we get. But why carp when you got redhead Saoirse Ronan as a misunderstood Catholic schoolgirl who can't seem to find her footing in her world - her character is one of the more unforgettable teenagers we have seen in movies in a while.

Saoirse Ronan dominates every second of "Lady Bird" as Christine McPherson, a Sacramento teen who expresses doubt about most everything, and it is implied that she has doubts about God. She centers most of her doubt on her domineering mother who works double shifts as a nurse, Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf), and who is so bluntly honest that she tells Christine she will never make it to any Ivy League school because, well, she is not smart enough. Christine's rebelliousness extends mostly to her moniker - she prefers everyone call her Lady Bird. She is very close to her unemployed father (Tracy Letts) - they have their secrets such as when he helps his daughter with college applications. Lady Bird spends most of her time smoking in bathrooms, performing pranks on nuns, and has a keen interest in a charmless, humorless musician (Timothée Chalamet) who would rather go to clubs than the prom. Ladybird's best friend is Julie (Beanie Feldstein) but eventually, and regrettably, she avoids Julie for the "Heathers"-like crowd of sexually active girls who speak of their sexuality openly. What draws Ladybird to this crowd is hard to say except she is still trying to find her own place.

I cannot dispense with enough positive praise about Saoirse Ronan (who was truly divine in the excellent 2015 drama "Brooklyn") - she not only embodies Christine, she gives her soul, panache, humor, an air of vulnerability and sometimes she is not easy to warm up to. Christine is only human and wishes for acceptance and some measure of approval yet getting it from her aloof mother (who proves *SPOILER ALERT* otherwise in one stunning scene) is a heavy, laborious task. But it is also Lady Bird's ability to be compassionate and accepting of others (even someone like the loser musician, or the theatre actor who turns out to be gay) that gives her character humanity. As I said years ago about another talented actress, Jennifer Lawrence, Ronan will be one of the greats if she is choosy with her projects. After "Brooklyn" and "Lady Bird," expect my optimism to be a reality.

I am just as doubly excited by Laurie Metcalf as Lady Bird's mother, Marion - it is a tricky role yet she is able to convey her own doubts about her daughter. You sense that she loves Lady Bird yet she doesn't want to see her get hurt - perhaps Marion had many more obstacles and imagined her life would work out differently. Either way, one of Metcalf's final scenes will leave you weeping.

"Lady Bird" is a coming-of-age comedy/drama yet it is adult in its reflective look at teenagers who are anxious about their next stage of development and tough-loving mothers who want the best for their children. Director Greta Gerwig ("Nights and Weekends") bestows an immediacy, a quirkiness and an intimacy rarely seen in most films. I have a feeling that if Gerwig and Ronan make another picture together, it will be every bit as good as "Lady Bird." 

Movies and friendships, those are mysteries

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I first heard about "The Other Side of the Wind" back in 1996 when I read film critic and scholar Joseph McBride's fascinating book entitled rather appropriately, "Orson Welles." The film in question, an unfinished marvel and frustrating film-within-a-film-within-a-film was deeply surprising and confounding to read about and the most famous unseen film with a galactic cast. How could a major film by Welles starring John Huston in the lead role of a movie maverick of a director ("The Ernest Hemingway of cinema") not get proper financing from a Hollywood studio? Welles's notorious reputation, of course, was the answer - he was not trusted to direct films, only act in them. "I am subsidizing myself, in other words, I am crazy," Welles once said at the 1975 AFI film awards show that honored him. So, after more than forty years of seeking completion funds to edit and release "The Other Side of the Wind" first thru Welles and then after his death, through fellow director and actor Peter Bogdanovich and McBride and the late cinematographer Gary Graver, Netflix (that streaming giant) bought the rights to the film, had it finished and edited according to Welles' copious notes. Here we are with my review for a film I never expected would see the light of day. How is the film? It is a sensational, purposely messy, purposely confounding, unsettling and often mesmerizing work - perhaps Welles' most unusual film and one not likely to find mass appeal...at all. I am not putting that lightly because the film has a drunken, pot-hazing stupor about it - like a late-night boozy party where everyone who is everyone is discussing filmmaking and slowly finding out who their real friends are.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is mostly confined to the late-night birthday party for Jake Hannaford (John Huston), the wise, safari-shirt-wearing film director who is broke and hopes his budding friend, a hotshot film director named Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), can get a young studio boss (Geoffrey Land) to finish financing his work. Sound familiar? Of course anyone who has read about the titan of cinema, Orson Welles, knows he had a bad habit of not finishing some of his films, for one reason or another. Bogdanovich himself was a fan and friend of Orson's and it is mentioned in Josh Karp's wonderfully entertaining and distressing book, "The Making of The Other Side of the Wind: Orson Welles's Last Movie" that Orson had hoped for Peter's circle of Hollywood elitists to help with financing (this was not to be).

At this same party, we are introduced to the nosy, Pauline Kael-type film critic Juliette Riche (Susan Strasberg); an ex-alcoholic stooge of Hannaford's who has some history with him (Norman Foster), who's always eating gum drops so he won't drink; a striking Lilli Palmer as Zarah Valeska, an actress who had appeared in Hannaford's work and declares she never slept with the legend; Edmund O'Brien as another stooge and former actor of Hannaford's who uses the megaphone to announce screenings of the director's incomplete footage; Joseph McBride as Marvin Pister, the nervously awkward film critic who asks seriously misguided questions like if the camera is a phallus (what on Earth could that mean?), not to mention Mercedes McCambridge as Jake's secretary who tries her best to shield cameras away from Jake's private conversations, and actual film directors like Paul Mazursky and Henry Jaglom pretty much playing themselves. At this party, the young cineastes ask ridiculous questions to Hannaford and his "Mafia" stooges, or are overheard saying such incomprehensible remarks like, "He can make a bad film look atrocious." No doubt that Welles is poking fun at people who overanalyze a film director's work.

There is also curious, electrifying footage of Jake Hannaford's incomplete movie called "The Other Side of the Wind" with Oja Kodar consistently nude as a Native American wearing various beaded necklaces and carrying dolls with her who is either being pursued or actively pursuing a young man on a motorcycle (Bob Random, playing an actor named John Dale who split thus leaving Jake's film unfinished). Both actors never say one word throughout the film-within-the-film or when they appear as the actors at Hannaford's party.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is a powderkeg of a cinematic punch to the gut (excitingly and daringly edited with a great deal of cross-cutting, some by Welles and most by Bob Murawski, complemented with a jazzy score by Michel Legrand) and it is worth seeing for anyone who calls themselves a movie buff. For average audiences, the historic value of a 40-year-old movie may be all they see and may reject it on that basis (Social Justice Warriors have already decried the racial slurs and how women are objectified despite missing the satire of it all. We were living in an age of Existentialism, followed by Irony, then back to Existentialism to some extent post 9/11, to an age of Meta Nothingness where satire seems to have no place). This film should be a major event and will most likely be forgotten except by select movie fans and Wellesian completists. Shameful because Welles has made an autobiographical, deeply personal film about his love/hate relationship with Hollywood, the industry that shunned him after he made "Citizen Kane." As the 1970's approached, he was loved by the college crowd perhaps but he was not making the films that the new generation of Movie Brats were making (Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, Friedkin, Hopper to name but a few). Neither is Jake Hannaford, hence the tantalizing, sexually charged film he is making that is meant to either be a spoof of director Michelangelo Antonioni (who helmed "Zabriskie Point" back in the 70's) or youthful, rebellious pictures full of sex and violence that meant little or both.

"The Other Side of the Wind" is full of aloof, drunken regret encapsulated by John Huston's richly layered performance (only one of two lead roles Huston ever played). Any scene with Huston is remarkable due to his nuanced, detailed, often drunken expressions with the voice of a cigar-chomping God of Film - when has Huston ever been boring on screen really? Bogdanovich's Otterlake does his best to help Jake, just as Bogdanovich did with Welles. But the pervasive feeling in "The Other Side of the Wind" is that old Hollywood never catered to artists with knowing, admitted self-expression - they wanted directors-for-hire who knew how to complete a film on time and on budget and could make a killing at the box-office. Art existed only to serve commercial prospects in the studio-run Hollywood of the 1970s. That is Otterlake in a nutshell, as it was with Bogdanovich who later suffered the same fate as many of the Movie Brats at that time - box-office failures and fewer pictures to direct. It is only fitting that an older Bogdanovich narrates the opening scenes - he could best understand now what Welles and Jake were dealing with.