Warm as a cup of hot milk

 A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There have been three different sequels to 1983's perennial Yuletide classic, "A Christmas Story," and only one seen by me - 1994's "It Runs in the Family" which was originally titled "A Summer Story." It was not half as charming or as funny as the original but it did give it the good old college try. "A Christmas Story Christmas" is the exception in sequels since it just about matches the original for charm, nostalgia and laughs even though it may not be quite as terrific overall, but how many movies are?

Peter Billingsley is an older Ralphie who still has vivid daydreams though they thankfully have nothing to do with a Red Ryder BB gun. He is not a man-child (thank God!) - Ralph is a married Chicagoan with dreams of making it as a novelist. His literary aspirations are of the sci-fi realm and his story deals with Neptune. His wife finds the 2000-page novel a bit talky and the umpteenth publisher he's met with denies interest in his work. It is also Christmas time and Ralph and Sandy, his wife (the vastly underrated Erinn Hayes), have two children who are definitely in the Christmas spirit. Ralph, unfortunately, finds out from his dear old mother that his father has passed on. Nevertheless, it is Ralph and family off to Hohman, Indiana to visit his mom (Julie Hagerty, perfectly cast replacing the late Melinda Dillon) and the childhood home he lived in.

The old childhood gang from 33 years earlier are all back and they include a boisterous Flick (Scott Schwartz) who runs a bar; unlucky Schwartz (R. D. Robb), who has run an extensive tab at Flick's bar, and the bully whom Ralphie beat up back in the day, Farkus with those mean yellow eyes (Zack Ward), who is now a police officer! Meanwhile, money is tight in the Parker family yet Ralphie is able to buy Christmas presents at Higbee's while the kids visit Santa ("Make sure you don't get kicked in the face!") Still, some minor disasters occur and none are as innocent as finding out Little Orphan Annie's secret code. Ralph's daughter, Julie (Julianna Layne), gets an eye injury when her father inadvertently hits her in the face with a snowball. His son, Mark (River Drosche), breaks his arm while sledding. While the Parkers are at the hospital, the presents are stolen from the trunk! Ralphie keeps waiting for a phone call from a publisher about his manuscript to no avail, plus there is the stress of writing an obituary for his old man. With no presents and a broken star that was to adorn the top of the Christmas tree, what is Ralphie going to do?

"A Christmas Story Christmas" finds it own groove in simple moments of humanity and a couple of hysterically funny scenes, such as Schwartz sliding down an old military ramp to settle his tab. I also love the bits about spouses calling the bar asking for their husbands; Ralphie's daydreams about winning the Pulitzer and beating out Isaac Asimov; the nextdoor Bumpusses and their various dogs, and much more.What is engaging about all this is the captivating presence of Peter Billingsley who also narrates the story (the bit about the egg in the radiator is illuminating) and he reminds us of the world he lived in as a parent, specifically 1973. It is a different world than the 1940's setting of the original but it still proves to be nostalgic without wallowing in it. There is still a timelessness to this Christmas tale, just like the original, and that is due to the writers having faith in relatable situations and proficient director Clay Kaytis ("The Christmas Chronicles"). Neither too wacky and never mean-spirited or gross (staples of most comedy sequels in the last forty years), "A Christmas Story Christmas" is delightful, engaging and witty. It also, by the end, reconnects to the original in a meaningful and inventive way. Old Man Parker would be proud. 

It'll Change Your Life

 THE GAME (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 1997

David Fincher's "The Game" is quite a mind-bending trip to endure, and it is fitfully labyrinthian and complex enough to give Kafka nightmares. It is manipulative, thrilling, exciting, nerve-wracking nonsense designed to give you a volatile charge every few minutes, and it certainly succeeds.

Actor Michael Douglas gives us a solemn portrait of a wealthy investment banker, Nicholas Van Orton, who lives in a luxurious mansion complete with a forgiving maid (Carroll Baker) and little else. Nicholas lives in solitude with just a television and a remote to occupy his time when he isn't working. One day, he meets his smart-aleck brother, Conrad (Sean Penn) who gives him a pass to CRS (Consumer Recreation Services) for his 48th birthday. This company offers grand entertainment and big thrills - "It'll change your life," says the grinning Conrad.

It certainly does. Nicholas is initially reluctant for excitement but goes along with it anyway. He undergoes an extensive, all-day application process answering feeble-minded questions, enduring various psychological tests, fitness exercises, etc. Eventually, though, his application is rejected but by
then it is too late, the game has already started.

This is an intriguing premise for a movie because the "game" itself depends on unpredictable surprises, and sometimes Nicholas is unaware when the game is real and when it isn't. A waitress (Deborah Kara Unger) accidentally spills a tray of drinks on him, but was it really accidental? Could there be a plot
against Nicholas perpetrated by a rival (Armin Mueller-Stahl) to take away his fortune? Is Conrad behind all this considering he was a former CRS player? Are people trying to kill him or is this just a game gone too far? Without the right actor in the lead role, the movie's double twists and red
herrings would have been hard to swallow. Douglas is, however, perfectly (and credibly) cast - he brings pathos to this cold, emotionless Gekko-type who we learn to care about, and whom we believe may be in danger. This threatening, terrifying game slowly brings Nicholas out of his repressed shell to confront his feelings, his emotions and his desires. Douglas, a veteran of shattered male egos from "Fatal Attraction" to "Basic Instinct," fully encompasses Nicholas's fears, flaws, and horrible memories specifically his father's suicide that we see in flashbacks.

The rest of the cast does as well as they can with such a mentally puzzling screenplay. Deborah Kara Unger (the siren from "Crash") is the obligatory femme fatale - an enigmatic, voluptuous woman who is fired from her waitress job and accompanies Nicholas to determine the extent of the game he's playing - she is, of course, not what she seems. Nobody in the movie is. Sean Penn has a brief, electrifying cameo as the tense (what else?) Conrad, and veteran actor James Rebhorn is the sly CRS executive who vaguely explains the nature of the "game." There's also a nice bit by Carroll Baker ("Baby Doll") as the maid who tells Nicholas stories about his father's past.

The movie "The Game" is not a complete success due to a cop-out finale that renders the rest of the film as a tad insubstantial - let's just say that Kafka was never accused of being a sentimentalist. Still, director David Fincher ("Seven") imbues the screen with his shadowy angles and low-key colors making the "game" as mysterious and frightening as possible. Michael Douglas makes the
film his own inhabiting every single shot of the film - we, in effect, are playing the game along with him. "The Game" is not as daring or as original as Welles's "The Trial" or Lynch's far more enigmatic "Lost Highway," or as much fun as the Kafkaesque "U-Turn," but it is a finely acted, occasionally
thrilling diversion.

Time of your life, kid

 RISKY BUSINESS (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

1983's king of teenage sex comedies, "Risky Business," is more than just a teen sex comedy - it is a sophisticated, slightly sardonic though always humanistic teen sex comedy (I can't think of any other during this period that fits that bill). It was also part of the 1980's youth-movies trend where wealth is everything and all that matters. Writer-director Paul Brickman might have had a tougher ending than what we got but the message remains the same. Time of your life, huh kid? Sure, "isn't life grand" (the presumably darker ending has this voice over line) isn't a line that occupies the lively comedy I saw 

Looking back at "Risky Business," it is amazing how mature these high-school teenagers are. Sure, they have their childish games yet they also play poker, drink, and wonder about their future ("Future Enterprisers" as it were). Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) is one of those white rich kids in a Chicago suburb, specifically the Chicago North Shore area of Glencoe. His strict parents are going out of town and are especially adamant about the house being in pristine condition, which includes dad's stereo ("Do you hear a preponderance of bass?") and mom's precious glass egg ("an artsy fartsy thing.") Joel sends them off at the airport, promises to use mom's station wagon instead of dad's Porsche and also to use "good judgment" when inviting friends over. Well, he followed all those rules dutifully, oh, please, we go to movies like "Risky Business" to see kids defy their parents, not respect their wishes. In the 1980's, teen comedies always had kids outsmarting their parents and, in some cases, the parents were always dolts. The parents here are not dolts although Joel's SAT scores were pretty damn great, close to perfect score of 1600, yet his mother asks if he can take them again. I got less 700 when I took them, so please don't tell anyone. 

Everything that can go wrong goes very wrong - merrily wrong - in Joel's life. Joel's friend Miles (Curtis Armstrong) calls the escort service to come to Joel's house. Joel plays up all the bass levels on his dad's stereo when dancing to and mimicking Bob Seger's classic song, "That Old Time Rock N' Roll" (one of the definitive tracks for a classic, fantastically energetic sing-along that you will ever see). Getting back to the escort service, Joel decides to call for himself for a one-night rendezvous with mysterious Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) and, slowly but surely, things get heated and out-of-control. Miles' advice to Joel prior to all this is "sometimes you gotta say, what the heck...make your move." Oh, Joel sure does but he has his regrets. In order to pay Lana for her services, he has to cash some of his bonds. Then there is the matter of the sleazy, though smart and aggressive pimp (Joe Pantoliano) who might be a little too dangerous. And can this possibly future Princeton student who has aligned himself with Future Enterprisers have the savvy business sense to make it big, particularly when he has to make some dough to pay for his father's nearly damaged Porsche that fell into Lake Michigan? 

Making it big means inviting a bunch of young males to his house for sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile, Joel has to simultaneously conduct an interview with a Princeton admissions interviewer (wonderfully played by Richard Masur) while Lana keeps interrupting by trying to make every room available for hanky-panky with a fold-out mattress. Joel has become an entrepreneur and, by the final scene, he is Lana's pimp. Whether that was planned or it just, pardon the pun, fell on his lap is not certain. Will Lana join him at Princeton and make big bucks in prostitution? Will the Princeton University students go for it? That remains ambiguous regardless of which ending you see, the original ending being available as a DVD extra. And yet, as the film's credits came up, I had one thought I recalled when I first saw it multiple times on cable in the 1980s - forget "Dirty Dancing," I had the time of my life with this raucous, almost poetic and romantic teen movie. 

You can kiss my furry butt

 MEN IN BLACK (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM 1997

Do we really need more movies about aliens? Since the success of the mediocre "Independence Day," the multiplex has been full of them. Television has "The famous black-and-white footage of a supposed alien autopsy. We have also had the marvelously witty and wicked satire "Mars Attacks!" but seriously folks, the thrill is gone. "Men in Black" is an entertainingly engaging comedy, and is full of whiz-bang effects galore, but it doesn't come close to the level of "Mars Attacks!"

During the opening sequence, we see Will Smith as a cop chasing a remarkably fast and superhuman killer who leaps from a high-rise building and disappears. It turns out the killer is an alien, and the Man in Black (Tommy Lee Jones) arrives on the scene and blasts Will's face with some kind of flashlight stick called a "neuralizer." Pretty soon, Smith hesitantly joins Jones in a secret organization called M.I.B., led by a big boss played by Rip Torn who "works 27 hours a day." Their job is to monitor the 1,500 extraterrestrials who disguise themselves as humans and are mostly residing in Manhattan. Any human memory of aliens is zapped by the M.I.B's neuralyzers. The aliens themselves are not
really evil or monstrous, they are really annoying! One of them even disguises himself as a dog.

One evil visitor lands in a farmer's backyard. The bug-like alien kills the farmer and assumes human form as played by Vincent D'Onofrio - he becomes a decomposing zombie with an obvious limp. This becomes a sly, amusing joke and it as wacky and overdone as you can imagine. Still, director Barry Sonnenfeld ("Get Shorty") has a commonplace flaw - he tends to take the spontaneity out of
all the numerous gags and jokes by presenting them one after another and compressing them, and then giving us some dead space until the truly funny climax. This become more overbearing than exhilarating, and you might forget most of the jokes since they slip by so quickly. "Men in Black" runs by at a full-throttle speed of 98 minutes, but it never truly takes off.

The performances hit all the right notes. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith have great comic chemistry and seem to be having a great time. D'Onofrio is a real riot to watch, although Linda Fiorentino is underutilized, as most female leads are nowadays, as a doctor who is constantly neuralized. The biggest scene stealer is an alien disguised as a dog ("You can kiss my furry little butt") that provides the biggest laugh in the entire movie.

The visual effects are impressive, especially the final shot of an alien holding the entire universe on the palm of his hand, and Sonnenfeld has a quick directorial eye (his visual inventiveness since "The Addams Family," though, has diminished). The movie is definitely fun yet somewhat dispiriting, and is
not half as clever as the original "Ghostbusters." Another flaw is that it starts and stops frequently after a bright, rhythmic half-hour - a problem that conflicts most box-office bonanzas. It's decent fun but, frankly, I've had it with aliens and would prefer more dinosaurs any day.

What does KGB stand for?

 SPIES LIKE US (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

If Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd team up in a movie, make it one worthy of their comic talents. As such, "Spies Like Us" is fitfully amusing with a few chuckles strewn through the last half of the picture. The first half is often uproarious but I still feel, after close to 40 years when I first saw it, that the potential was not fully realized. 

The opening half-hour has plenty of laughs as we have a legacy government employee, a womanizing diplomat's son named Emmett Fitz-Hume (Chevy Chase), who doesn't disclose much to the press by pretending his mike is getting cut off (very funny stuff). Then there's the smart Austin Millbarge (Dan Aykroyd), a code-breaker who is relegated to working in the basement of the Pentagon and never allowed much advancement. Both of them have less than 24 hours to take a Foreign Service Exam which Emmett tries to cheat by use of a false arm sling and an eyepatch and asks Austin, "What does KGB stand for?" Neither passes the exam of more than 500 questions and yet they are promoted as spies! Say what? Well, they are actually decoys since the Defense Intelligence Agency doesn't expect them to complete their mission; they are meant as a distraction from the real spies. There's also the launching of a Soviet ICBM nuclear missile that is part of a laser guidance system in space and...everything goes wrong. 

Chevy Chase is at his best when sizing up a situation by minimizing it, particularly during a G-Force training scene where he glibly says, "Piece of cake." He is fantastically funny when he cheats on the exam in an extended sequence that stands out as flat-out comedy magic. Less funny is the Pakistan desert footage with an excruciating moment where everyone addresses themselves as doctors when, in fact, there are no actual doctors. Ha! Bob Hope, by the way, pops into frame playing golf and I had wished the movie had more of that kind of lunacy. Director John Landis is known for his in-joke cameos and this movie could've used more of them. When Chase and Aykroyd arrive at the Soviet border in below freezing temperatures, the movie packs up a little more heat with the doofus pair dressed as extraterrestrials as they try to fool the Russians. 

I will say Aykroyd is naturally adept at delivering nuclear jargon like an automaton and he is as always immensely likable. Chase, though, seems to walk away with this movie yet I wished the writers (including co-writer Aykroyd) tried to make the twosome more compatible. Still, on director's John Landis comedy meter, not as good as his "Animal House" or "Trading Places" though miles ahead of most other nuclear comedies such as the excruciatingly unfunny "Deal of the Century." And I still don't remember what KGB stands for.

Wenders' Existential Dream

 THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A virtually self-indulgent Wim Wenders film is not a bad thing, and self-indulgence is something to be expected from any film director looking to make their individual mark in their outlook on the world and humanity. Perhaps what I just wrote sounds self-indulgent. "The American Friend" is not a typical Wenders film - crime and noir mystery is not his usual subject - yet he makes it into a hypnotic existential dream and that usually can describe Wenders to a tee.

Set in Hamburg, Germany, Bruno Ganz plays a picture framer, Jonathan Zimmerman, who is dying of a blood disease or so he thinks. His doctor tells him that he will live for a while longer than expected and not too worry. Jonathan has a wife (Wenders regular Lisa Kreuger) who works and they are raising two kids and though they may be struggling a bit, they somehow manage. One day at an auction, a painting from a "dead" artist is sold for huge sums of money. Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper, odd casting to play Patricia Highsmith's sociopathic antihero) is at the auction and is introduced to Jonathan who sees right through him - Ripley is involved in art forgery and Jonathan knows that the painting is "too blue." Jonathan doesn't give Ripley a warm reception so Ripley lies to others that the picture framer's disease is fatal. Though Ripley is trying to be friendly with Jonathan at his place of employment, a scheme is developing involving hiring Jonathan to kill a gangster. Raoul Minot (Gérard Blain) emerges from the criminal underworld and asks Ripley to do the job and when Ripley resists, Jonathan is next in line (naturally, he has no experience as an assassin). 

I will not reveal much more to "The American Friend" because it unravels at such a leisurely, graceful pace that it proves to be a mesmerizing drama with muted thriller aspects. All the actors, including the typically hot-tempered, discombobulated Dennis Hopper, are low key in performance though the humor quotient is there in spades (major kudos to colorful cameos by Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray). There are also some suspenseful scenes at a train station, virtually comical, messy murders inside a train, and some gunfire in and around Ripley's virtually empty roundhouse. Finally, it is Bruno Ganz's Jonathan who realizes his end is near and we wait for the inevitable. Was anyone really lying about Jonathan's disease or is his doctor simply not telling the whole truth? Whatever it is, doom is around the corner in often bright daylight scenes and a serene beach with a burning ambulance - all of it is the antithesis of what we expect in a noir story involving Ripley. "The American Friend" is not a perfect film but it is certainly one of the most absorbing and beautifully made of all Ripley adaptations. 

American Prometheus had blood on his hands

 OPPENHEIMER (2023)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Christopher Nolan's 3-hour "Oppenheimer" is an emotionally draining, occasionally exasperating yet deeply haunting biopic of the "father of the atomic bomb" himself, the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. It does reach the heights of greatness and yet, for such an expansive, richly layered film, it also does have a few edges that peel off the screen revealing some flawed characterizations and an elongated section involving hearings that runs on way past the tolerable meter.  

Nolan, per his refined storytelling prowess, flashes forwards and backwards between the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) hearings on Oppenheimer's loyalty to the U.S. that includes his past Communist leanings and the possibility of a spy in Los Alamos while creating the atomic bomb, to his less than sparkling marriage to an alcoholic wife, Katherine "Kitty" Puening (Emily Blunt) who was also a Communist, to his recurring affair with a troubled Communist, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), where sex, martinis and the quoting of the Hindu verses from Bhagavad Gita result in heated sex, to the truly momentous and riveting sequences where Oppenheimer is testing math equations of Quantum Mechanics while his team of scientists build the bomb in Los Alamos, testing each separate core in a series of explosions.

Though introspective and fascinating in its own right, it is a risky move for writer-director Nolan to invest copious amounts of time to the security hearings with Oppenheimer, his associates and even his wife who handles herself better than expected - these hearings figure heavily in the last hour of the film. Only Oppenheimer is not looking for a fight and never has and Nolan details this man as singularly obsessed with the atomic bomb and nuclear fission (lots of metaphoric shots of raindrops falling on lakes) - the women in his life exist peripherally while the bomb is very real to him. These detailed hearings go on for long stretches of time, testing Oppenheimer's loyalty to the U.S. and if his Communist affiliations are enough to take away his government security clearance. They kind of tested my tolerance as well because they detract from the nature of such a historically infamous powerful bomb that changed the world and Oppie's (his nickname) views on war - no longer were men needed to fight on ground level if Fat Man and Little Boy could decimate entire cities in the blink of an eye. The man himself is depicted as slightly sorrowful and critical of the bomb and filled with some measure of remorse. There is truth to Oppei's change of heart and despite showing his slight guilt as shown by Cillian Murphy (a performance worth a thousand suns burning through your consciousness - yeah, it is a nuclear performance of enormous weight), the real Oppenheimer defended the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima until his dying day. Nolan is not invested in that as much, nor does he show much of the destructive nature of the bomb (we get glimpses from Oppie's point-of-view about what it could do to the human body and brief glimpses of charred corpses). The Trinity test merely looks like a regular explosion at first - something that is not powerful yet somehow scaled back as if everyone at Los Alamos saw it as just another explosion. Then you wait and you can see  how it becomes increasingly more dynamic and dangerous, particularly the shock wave. Keep in mind, in those days, everyone had the gravitas and imagination to create a powerful weapon but never truly considered the repercussions of such a bomb and the vast amount of radiation. Nolan fills the screen with fire but at first you don't gather the enormity of such a weapon - although I have seen my fair share of actual filmed nuclear tests, they do not compare to those who were there firsthand.

The women in Oppie's life are shown as tortured and belligerent yet they are short-shrifted in the screenplay, and this is one aspect of the film I felt needed more investment. I wanted to have a clearer view of Oppie's wife Kitty and we get mostly a dissatisfied woman who supports her husband yet takes a drink at every interval - Emily Blunt has one moment where she challenges questions at the AEC but that is as deep as her character gets. We just get quick flashes of her pregnancy, their marriage and their life in Los Alamos and she consistently yells at Oppie. Same with the Jean character, an intelligent woman with a mental illness who can't stand receiving flowers from Oppie. Their affair is strained since he is married but there is not much more divulged from their get togethers. You get more of a sense of who the antagonistic AEC chairman Lewis Strauss is (a dynamo of a performance by Robert Downey Jr.) than gleaning any real insights into the women in Oppie's life.

"Oppenheimer" is a titanic, expertly made production full of much sound and fury and some of it could be considered experimental in terms of editing - sometimes you feel you are being pummelled into believing a catastrophe awaits your eyes (again, interesting that the one atomic explosion we do see faintly resembles the magnitude and force it really had). There are times that the soundtrack fills us with thunderous, piercing sounds and feet thumping on bleachers from almost anywhere - you feel the screen is about to be ripped apart by some delayed detonation. Cillian Murphy plays Oppie as a man who doesn't fight back against AEC or anyone - he fights back tears when Jean Tatlock dies from suicide. He almost always threatens to detonate, to unleash some fury upon others and he never does. Only the bombs do the detonating for him.

Payne sketches pain with joy

 THE HOLDOVERS (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Irresistibly bittersweet describes most Alexander Payne films, at least to me (though I have yet to see "Downsizing"). At his best, and that is pretty much all the time, Payne evokes emotional clarity and deep pathos for his troubled, flawed characters. He wants us to like the people we see on screen regardless of their flaws and their often manic behavior. Such was the case with Paul Giamatti in "Sideways," one of the best road movies ever made where merlot was a plot point, and such is the case again in casting Giamatti in "The Holdovers" which is Payne's first film set in that awkward era, the 1970's. I always felt that the 1970's was a way of finding one's groove, one's own personal link to society and the world. "The Holdovers" has that in spades and it is also unequivocally a great film and one that stands proudly with his other supreme directorial efforts such as "Nebraska," "About Schmidt," "Election" and "Sideways." 

Set in the 1970's at Barton Prep School in New England, Giamatti (in the most perfectly realized role he has played in quite some time) is the erudite, pipe-smoking, Jim Bean-imbibing European history teacher Paul Hunham. The students all hate him because he gives honestly deserving exam grades such as D's and F's (to be fair, his students don't seem all that bright). Mr. Hunham is blunt, perhaps too blunt, and not just with his students but also with the dean of Barton. Thanks to the faculty head, Hunham is the newly elected teacher to stay with holdovers over the Christmas break. He doesn't care that he has to stay in his usual academic environment but the few students who can't stay with their families do care. One of them is the lanky, intelligent Angus Tully (played by first-timer Dominic Sessa) who scores the higher grade in Hunham's class. Angus is angered by his mother who tells him he can't come to visit due to his stepfather and some planned honeymoon. Throughout the environs of this school, the cafeteria's head cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is also staying behind though she had hoped to see her pregnant sister. Outside of Angus, the rest of the students manage to leave after all and now it houses the sole student Angus, Hunham and Mary. Hunham can smoke his pipes and read all the books he wishes yet Angus wants to venture to Boston and Mary would like to visit her sister. 

Pain and deep sorrow informs the lives of Angus and Mary, the latter especially due to losing her son in Vietnam. Angus has issues with his mother and the purported loss of his actual father - he also feels that nobody really likes him. Hunham may have issues yet pain and sorrow are not in his desolate life - he has never been married and seems to carry no regrets although you sense that he wished he had a romantic partner in his life (Barton's administrator, Lydia, almost leads to the possibility of a romance in Hunham's mind until he discovers she's involved already). In one truly magnificent scene of self-revelation, Hunham confesses that life is bitter and complicated and "that it feels the same about me." This scene alone encapsulates what we love about Giamatti and his difficult yet slowly approachable character of Hunham - his life is not easy and he has to work harder to get people to approach him. Same with Angus, a kid who has his whole future ahead of him and seems to have a more finite understanding of it than anyone else. 

"The Holdovers" expertly deals with these three characters with such sensitivity and humanity that you almost feel like you've never seen people like them before. Astutely written by David Hemingson (though you feel Payne must have led an uncredited hand in it), every singular moment and every scene has a crackling vibrancy to it as if we are witnessing actual lives being led. Along with Giamatti, the bold newcomer Sessa and the sympathies we especially feel towards Da'Vine Joy Randolph (she was memorably cast in TV's "People of Earth"), "The Holdovers" becomes that rarity in cinema today - a first-class act of wonder all the way around. Sweetly tempered tones, richly textured characterizations, quotable dialogue particularly from Hunham's mouth, absorbing mix of academic life along with road movie aspirations and a touching and witty finale, movies just don't get much better than "The Holdovers." And they don't get much better without Alexander Payne at the helm.  

Not a care in the world

 THE KILLER (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

David Fincher's "The Killer" is methodical, cold, cynical and deeply impersonal, much like the titular protagonist himself. We are not meant to care about him, to feel any empathy or to draw any emotional stance, like the protagonist himself. That is both a risk and a detriment to the film itself.

Michael Fassbender is the Killer, an assassin who is meticulous about his habits and how he performs his job. He is staking out a wealthy target in Paris, a city that he describes as slow to awaken unlike other cities. He does yoga, listens to the distinctive sounds of "The Smiths" and is in some half-finished apartment where he can spot the target across the way. He pretends to be a German tourist-of-sorts and eats McDonald's for the protein. Unfortunately, he misfires when the target arrives and kills a dominatrix! He takes off back to his hideout in the Dominican Republic. Unfortunately for the Killer (he has no name though he uses aliases from classic TV shows in his various passports), he finds his girlfriend is in the hospital and has been violently attacked. Naturally the client that the Killer works for was ready to kill him (how the girl managed to survive such a brutal attack is one lingering question). Now the Killer wants revenge and hunts down those responsible. 

"The Killer" is absorbing in its own clinical way from start to finish and, at first, I got a kick out of the Killer's voiceover where he goes on about his lack of belief about anything - the guy is sort of an existentialist with a narrow point-of-view of humanity. This all makes sense considering he's an assassin yet much of his voiceover becomes cliched and tedious - I suppose I have heard such pronouncements frequently throughout the years and hearing them from an assassin is not always interesting. They almost serve as justification for what he does yet we learn nothing about this robotic killer, other than the fact that he has a girl. When I think back to similar films such as the extremely glum "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" or the thrilling "No Country for Old Men" or even the kinetic "Collateral," there was a sense of mystery and personality to these hitmen. Fassbender is such a quixotic presence that it didn't bother me he didn't have much to do other than appear. He is like a snake, sliding in and out of buildings, garages and restaurants without being spotted - a boring anonymous assassin. That makes sense for the movie but it leaves us with not much else.

David Fincher is a true marvel of a director and his own clinical approach to this remorseless killer's methods holds one's attention (Tilda Swinton, in a compelling cameo, also keeps you watching). Once we arrive at the end of the film where he may or may not be at peace, I just didn't care - much like the protagonist himself.        

Not for the He-Man crowd

 HEAVY METAL (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Juvenile, adolescent animated anthology of a hybrid of sci-fi/sword-and-sorcery stories from the minds of Heavy Metal, a sci-fi/fantasy magazine that I might have flipped through the pages of an issue back in the day. I am not sure I love 1981's film adaptation of the magazine, "Heavy Metal," but I was quite mesmerized by it. 

There's a powerful green orb that talks, women naked and wanting sex anxiously more than in any cartoon I've ever seen, a cab driver of the future harboring a wanted femme fatale, gratuitous violence, etc. Did I mention the naked women and their big breasts? Did I forget to mention a young kid zapped into space who manages to have Herculean strength and has sex with two women, one as a prerequisite to obtaining that green orb? That green orb has a mind of its own clearly because some unlucky people pick it up and it melts them, whereas others pick it up and it turns them into zombies.  

I have no idea what this movie is about it, and I do not care. Coherence and characters worth caring about are not the mainstay of these tales that include Harry Canyon, the aforementioned futuristic cab driver who thinks nothing of having sex with some woman on the run. When the fleeing woman has the orb (known as the Loc-Nar) in her possession, she will sell it to some gangster and split the profits; yeah, right. Meanwhile, lots of sex scenes with introductions of women always baring their breasts and that includes a fierce, silent warrior fighter named Taarna who flies around on the back of a prehistoric-looking bird! She is shown naked, gets dressed with a slim outfit yet when she's about to be tortured, she's naked all over again! If I was a 9-year-old watching this way back when (I saw the non-animated "Flesh Gordon" at that time), I might've been salivating over the nudity. At my age, this just looks like it all came from the mind of a 10-year-old in a never-maturing 30-year-old body.

I could have lived without the B-17's during World War II and less of that Captain Lincoln F. Sternn which has no tonal consistency with the rest of the film (more Harry Canyon would've been nice). "Heavy Metal" is junk food, sci-fi gobbledygook and pure fantasy mish mash with razzle-dazzle effects and plenty of breasts - sort of a pulpy, nasty, grotesquely violent movie you watch late at night and hope nobody notices. Not for the He-Man crowd.  

Mollie Burkhart: Osage Heart and Soul

 MOLLIE BURKHART: 

THE HEART AND SOUL OF KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Written by Jerry Saravia

Some film critics on Youtube and printed media have said that the depiction of Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" is unfocused. Further criticism indicates that Mollie's point-of-view is not shown and that the film would've worked better had it been her story, not the greedy white men who steal from the Osage natives and kill them for their oil headrights. Though some of this may be true in hindsight, the true story itself involves all participants, both Osage and the white Oklahomans. Make no mistake: Mollie informs Scorsese's film more so than the excellent David Grann book of which it is based on. 

Here's an example of what Anthony Lane from the New Yorker wrote: "It is Ernest Burkhart whose fortunes we are invited to follow. Huh? This dumb dolt, with bran for brains? Why should he take center stage?" There is no doubt that Ernest is shown as a dumb dolt, someone who can't fathom any deep understanding of anything other than licking his lips at the prospect of money, even if you kill your wife for it, right? Ernest is the Forrest Gump of this movie, only Gump showed a smidgeon more intelligence and virtue (think about it, what does that say about Ernest?) When Ernest's youngest daughter, Little Anna, dies of a whooping cough (in the book, there's understandably suspicion of foul play amongst the Osage), he screams in almost agonizing pain in prison while his Machiavellian uncle Hale (Robert De Niro) also seems affected. Ernest's pain mirrors Mollie's scream earlier in the film after a suspicious house explosion kills yet another sister of hers. Ernest decides to turn state's evidence and tell the truth of what he did during this Reign of Terror. This does not excuse his actions and Mollie, who is one of the few survivors of this Reign of Terror, is perplexed by her husband whom she still loves. 

Mollie's story, in fact the whole Osage tribe, really informs "Killers of the Flower Moon" and the proof, as far as the tribe is concerned, is in the opening and closing sequences of the movie. The opening features a ceremonial pipe buried by the Osage elders followed by the rain of oil spurting like a fountain from the ground - Black Gold has risen and will make them rich. The film closes with the Osage tribe performing a ceremonial dance, a vibration from the ground up only it is not oil but their drums that bespeak their culture, their spirituality and it lives - the wealth that had since eroded in that part of the world no longer has value. Prior to this stunning sequence, we witness a radio program called "The Lucky Strike Hour" that ends with director Scorsese offering his briefly emotional eulogy to Mollie Burkhart. She died, forgotten by history books (until now with David Grann's 2017 book) without any mention of the murders of her family. I came away from "Killers of the Flower Moon" with Lily Gladstone's Mollie Burkhart etched in my brain, impossible to deny or forget her existence. She knows why Ernest wants to marry her and has no delusions of anything other than love of money by the "coyote." She never imagines that Ernest would try to kill her and is told by her sisters that Ernest already has wealth thanks to his uncle. This must mean that Ernest does love her. But how much money is ever enough? This theme of unbridled greed first began in Scorsese's "Casino" and continued with Wolf of Wall Street" yet, other than Sharon Stone's drunk Ginger in "Casino," we never saw how it affected the victims of the protagonists' actions. We certainly never see the victims of Jordan Belfort's greedy practices or Ace Rothstein imposing too much control on everything from his job as casino director to his long-suffering wife who falls into a deep pool of drugs and alcohol. In "Killers of the Flower Moon" though, we see how it affects the victims, the Osage members whose wealth has raised the interest of white people flocking to their land to take whatever they can get at any price. 

 

It is impossible to tell this story without the white antagonists, chiefly the insidious Hale and the woefully ignorant Ernest and, though the subjectivity shifts to them frequently, we are not asked to identify with them. DiCaprio and De Niro show the humanism of these characters through their charm, their slight humor yet we are not asked to think of them as anything but corruptible murderers. It is history, the history of this Oklahoman region in Osage County and not including Ernest or Hale would mean not telling the story. Mollie Burkhart, beautifully played by Lily Gladstone with subtle notes of grace and regret, informs the film with her presence which glows and brings some light into this dark world. Mollie is unsuspecting of foul play and murder but she sees, as the tribal council makes clear, that too many Osage members are dying and it is clearer and clearer who the culprit is. Even then, as mentioned in the book, nobody suspected that Hale who lived in the Osage county for so long would be responsible - Hale loved the Osage natives and so why take their money when he has his own wealth as a cattle rancher? Mollie knows some dark forces are at play here and her gradual sickness, fueled by Ernest who poisons her insulin that is meant to curb her diabetes, is another murder waiting to happen. When Mollie questions Ernest and asks for the truth about whether or not he poisoned her, he can't tell her yet she already knows.  

"When you are in doubt, be still, and wait; when doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward with courage. So long as mists envelop you, be still; be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists -- as it surely will. Then act with courage."

- Chief White Eagle, Ponca

What's wrong with Whiley Pritcher?

 PUBLIC ACCESS (1993)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Bryan Singer's directorial debut "Public Access" is half of a great movie. What starts off as an engrossing drama-of-sorts of enigmatic stranger entering a small town and paying to have his own TV program on Public Access soon enough left me feeling frustrated and uncertain. 

Frustration and uncertainty are not flaws if a film has a sense of purpose about itself, some measured ambiguity. The stranger in the town of Brewster is Whiley Pritcher (Ron Marquette), and he waltzes into this town with two bags and some cash. He checks in to a cheap apartment where the landlord was a former mayor. Wiley then goes to the local library and does extensive, all-day research into the town of Brewster. Why is Whiley here and why he wishes to start a TV show called "Our Town" is mystifying and intriguing. His presence on TV is solid, he's a bespectacled, eager and professional young man who clearly has been involved in similar programs in the past. When townspeople start calling, they complain about their neighbors anonymously. When Whiley receives more threatening calls after asking viewers with a signature catchphrase ("What's wrong with Brewster?"), he starts antagonizing them. 

"Public Access" offers precious little insight into Whiley. We learn he has vivid, sweat-inducing nightmares and he keeps some some black-and-white photo presumably of his father in his room. His intent in this town and with the show that makes him into a minor celebrity is never clear. This guy starts killing a couple of people in town who might interfere with the town's presumed economic progression, again assuming that is the case, and that in itself would've made for a fascinating psychological and small-town political thriller. As played by Marquette, Whiley looks like the evil cousin of Clark Kent and is well-cast and does what he can to be an imposing threat, a sort of shadowy, detached figure with an agenda. But what is the agenda? And when we learn that the current mayor has practically sold his soul for a selfish economic boost where he benefits and the town loses, Whiley feels his job is done. Huh?

Wiley is either a contract killer who jumps from town to town to correct either the need for progression or the lack of it, or just simply a serial killer who just happens to love hosting TV shows. Singer is a hell of a director ("Usual Suspects" is still his crowning achievement) and can work well with actors but, after seeing this film twice, I just throw my hands up at what it all means.

Farley good for a few chuckles

 BLACK SHEEP (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I expected the worst, most spectacularly unfunny comedy of all time when watching "Black Sheep," a movie I studiously avoided for the longest time. No particular reason for my avoiding it - I liked "Tommy Boy" and the energetic pratfalls and slapstick of Chris Farley (let's face it, he was always funnier on "Saturday Night Live"). I also liked Farley's pairing with straight man David Spade in "Tommy Boy" and, though both are not quite on par with Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, they are likable enough without grating one's nerves. "Black Sheep" misses more often than hits yet when it hits the rather tame bullseye of laughs amidst visual sight gags, I chuckled. 

A governor candidate running for the state of Washington, Al Donnelly (Tim Matheson, playing it far straighter than David Spade) has a clumsy though good natured brother, Mike (Chris Farley), who works at a rec center and does everything he can to help his brother campaign. That includes driving a political advertising truck that nearly demolishes a movie theatre's marquee where Al is on the stump. No matter where Al goes, Mike is there pushing for his brother to win the job. Most of these scenes such as an inadvertent campaign phone call are terrifically timed and Farley shows some measure of restraint. When he gets his thumbs stuck in the car trunk or his tie stuck in car window as it drives off, it is mildly funny but not nearly as boisterous as his smaller, more intimate comedy scenes. Trying to shake a bat on his head is good for a chuckle but the scene itself, set in a log cabin where he's stuck with David Spade who plays a campaign aide, runs on too long. Many scenes do. Farley's tumbling down a hill, though nowhere near a van or a river, goes on way past the tolerable meter - it has too many beats and in comedy, you don't want that. Restraint and brevity are a comedy's best friends.

I was amused throughout "Black Sheep" and laughed three or four times but I'd just as soon see "Tommy Boy" again before deciding to see this one again. Still, for less than an hour and a half of mining humor from every situation, Chris Farley excels enough to make one wish he had more time on this earth to make better movies.     

Smartly Immature

ACCEPTED (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Now this was something of a genial surprise in a time when "American
Pie" still spawns sequels. "Accepted" is a grand blast of small
pleasures and heady laughs at a concise 90 minute timeframe. It is so
good-natured, so pleasing, so damn funny that I was shocked I had seen
a comedy about teenagers that didn't involve gross-out bathroom humor. I would
not say "Accepted" is the most sophisticated comedy ever, but it is as
smart and sneakily hilarious as any teen comedy I've seen in quite
some time.

Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) is a high-school graduate who has yet to
be admitted to a college. His parents fear he will never go to
college, as does Bartleby's no-nonsense and perceptive sister (Hannah
Marks). So Bartleby makes up a college, has his friends design a
clever website promoting it, reconfigures an abandoned mental facility
into a pristine college campus, and has an acceptance letter sent to
his home to make it all seem legit. His parents buy it, his sister not
so much. Bartleby doesn't realize that the website has no way of
denying anyone to its fictional campus, South Harmon as it were, and

before you know it all college rejects from all walks of life sign up
and show up for classes. Uh, oh.

What is unique about "Accepted" is that it feels like an 80's comedy,
bordering on the sexual innuendos of "Fraternity High" with the smart
characters of "Risky Business," though perhaps funnier. What could've
resulted in too many sexual shenanigans and the gross factor of
everything post-"American Pie" instead aims for one dramatic
situation built on top of another. When Bartleby's parents visit, the
mother wants to use the bathroom (unfortunately, there is nothing in
there except coils and garbage). When a local, prestigious college
called Harmon University wonders why they've never heard of this
competing school, an investigation ensues. And guess which school has
the better kickass party? And the better classes, such as Doing
Nothing 101 and Daydreaming 307?

Justin Long ("Idiocracy," "Jeepers Creepers") keeps the comedy afloat
with his easygoing personality and nervous titter as Bartleby - you
just hope he can get away with such madness. Also worth noting is
Jonah Hill as Sherman, Bartleby's childhood rotund friend who is
attending Harmon U. despite not fitting in to the preppiness. He is
good for a few laughs, especially when he dresses as a wiener and
says, "Ask me about wiener!" And there is the priceless Lewis Black as
the fake dean who tells it like it is. Not all the supporting
characters are memorable and some barely register in the cabeza,
especially the pleasing face of Blake Lively (a carbon copy of Helen
Hunt if that can be imagined) as the blonde Bartleby dreams about (she
was also the weakest element of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants").

Okay, so it is an immature comedy, but it is also smartly immature
about itself. And when we get to the final scene where acceptance and
accreditation should go to the school least likely, we know "Accepted"
is more than the sum of its parts. Some may see it as preachy and
serious-minded - I see it as an alternative idea for schooling that
should be approached.

Deplorables on both sides

 THE HUNT (2020)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Hunt" was almost released in theaters until there were a couple of tragic mass shooting sprees in America that brought it to a halt. Then COVID hit and it hampered any chances of the film finding an audience. "The Hunt" is a movie that seems to aim high as political satire and ends up as pure sludge with copious pools of blood. Its intelligence is only hinted for an alleged satire that could've shifted the Earth's axis and shook things up. 

The movie revs up its carnage-fueled engine almost immediately, so immediate in fact that there is no time to figure out what is happening. A cargo plane is full of young lefties joking back and forth and drinking champagne until someone approaches them from a deep sleep and can't speak. The guy is killed with a stab in the neck and his eyeball plucked! Then we get to some wilderness area where people wake up and have mouth guards on. A wooden crate in the middle of an open space houses a dressed pig and several weapons including assault rifles and knives ("Hunger Games," anyone? No, actually a sly update of Orwell's "Animal Farm").  But before we have a chance to know the unsuspecting lot of hunted victims, shots ring out and kill almost all of them including such uses of not just a hidden impalement trap but also grenades blowing people apart, etc. This whole movie is on kill or be killed overdrive.

Two survivors find each other, and one of them is Crystal (Betty Gilpin), a woman who worked at a car rental agency and was kidnapped and sent to Arkansas. Oh, wait a minute, it is actually Croatia and a gas station owned by none other than Amy Madigan and Reed Birney is anything but. The other survivor is a right wing podcaster (Ethan Suplee, who is always good for a few laughs) and they have no idea what fresh Croatian hell this is except no one can be trusted. Crystal has military experience in Afghanistan and is quite handy with a gun and hand-to-hand combat. 

"The Hunt" aims to be political and uses relatively colorful stereotypes but everything is really on the surface and nothing more. There are right-wing nuts who elicit nothing more than one-dimensional thoughts about illegal immigration, crisis actors (that gave me a big laugh, courtesy of Suplee) and not a heck of a lot more than that. The leftists are spearheaded into this wild murderous spree by a CEO of some unnamed company, Athena (Hilary Swank, a truly cold-blooded villain with a touch of elegance), and it is about simply killing the "deplorables" and frankly there is not much more substance than that. The movie suggests that "Manorgate" is a social media conspiracy theory whose origin was based on a group joke text. This means these guys, sorry these men and women, are not really interested in killing deplorables yet go through with it anyway. If the idea of murder was just a joke yet they go ahead and kill, maim and destroy the deplorables, then "The Hunt" is really saying that these leftists are truly deplorable and far more violent than any right-wing nut. It's nihilism and gory executions passing itself off as satire with Betty Gilpin's apolitical Crystal as some sort of relentless fighting machine that would've made Uma Thurman's Beatrix Kiddo a little scared. 

"The Hunt" is watchable and commands attention though the overdone, grisly cartoonishness of its murders becomes a tad tedious. This movie has a definite visceral charge but not an intellectual one. Call it pseudo-intellectual politicking with only a high body count on its mind.   

Charlie Brown's an ass*&$%!

 TRICK 'R TREAT (2007)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Trick 'r Treat" is goofy, tongue-in-cheek, excitingly-paced horror comedy that all snaps together after you finish watching it. It has a purposely non-linear narrative and resembles a horror anthology like "Tales From the Darkside" only the tales are not told individually but rather as episodes that flow in and out of each other. There are many scary, gross and nasty nails-in-your-tongue moments, enough to titillate most jaded horror fans. The aim is to make you jump from your seat and to provide goosebumps in that time-honored horror tradition. Don't see it expecting anything else.

It is Halloween night in Ohio and boy do the town residents love to celebrate this day of the dead. The active celebrating includes the wicked school principal Wilkins (Dylan Baker, exuding some "Happiness" attributes) who not only poisons, buries and decapitates children, he also pretends to be a vampire dressed in a shadowy black-masked costume who goes around town killing women! Then there are four flirtatious women who dress in coy costumes such as Snow White and the Little Red Riding Hood and plan to attend a party in the woods, asking random men to be their dates. One of the women is a "virgin" (Anna Paquin) and the shock is they are anything but normal and I'll leave it at that. Then there are a group of curious young kids who collect jack o'lanterns and proceed to place them at a rock quarry - the graveyard of a horrific school bus massacre from years back. They try to prank a special-needs girl and let's say it all goes horribly wrong. We can't leave out Brian Cox as a socially inept neighbor who harbors some dark secrets. 

"Trick r' Treat" is semi-grisly, macabre, goose-pimply fun that has the joy of discovery in every scene - nothing in it is really telegraphed and you can't guess where it is going from start to finish. There is also a creepy kid wearing a burlap mask that evokes some real terror in the climax and is more than miffed if a jack o'lantern is blown out before midnight - you know he is anything but human. My only real complaint is the runtime which is only 1 hour and 17 minutes (not including opening and closing credits) and that seems too preciously short. But that is minor and what we get during its tight running time is ample (with thankfully not much blood and gore). I have seen it twice in the last couple of years and I think it will be my annual Halloween treat. Just remember not to blow out those jack o'lantern lights before midnight. 

Black Gold and Death Rising

 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (2023)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

America has always been the place where one could accumulate wealth and riches beyond their wildest dreams. When the Osage nation found oil on their Oklahoma tribal land spewing from the ground, they inherited wealth and became the richest people in America per capita in the 1920's. So rich that the greediest of all white men had to come and collect because, you know, how dare these Native Americans mine their land for their own livelihood. But this is not the story of sharing the wealth, which would have been irksome enough, but rather killing the natives to collect it all and, most troubling, within their inner circle. "Killers of the Flower Moon" is a riveting, disquieting, indignant film about a forgotten historical event that deserves full attention and introspection. 

Right from the powerful and moving opening sequence of the ceremonial burial of a peace pipe, a thunderous sound emerges from under the ground. It is oil as it springs like a fountain and the Osage members, who witness this, dance around it in one of Scorsese's most poetic scenes ever. Of course such celebration will come to a standstill. A WWI vet named Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio, playing the most weak-willed character of his career) arrives in Oklahoma to live and work for his uncle, cattle rancher William Hale (Robert De Niro). Hale tells Ernest about the wealth of the region he lives in, that money has come to their land and the "Reds" have become wealthy. Meanwhile, Ernest takes a job as a driver for an Osage tribe member, Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), who lives with her largely silent and ill mother (Tantoo Cardinal). Mollie's three sisters live nearby, married to white men and all of them have become wealthy thanks to oil. But there is more than oil brewing in the settlement Oklahoma town of Gray Horse. Practically all the women suffer from a "wasting illness" known of course as sugar diabetes. They need insulin which they don't have immediate access to. Money is not accessible unless managed by white guardians. When Mollie decides at one point to go on a train trip to D.C., she needs to ask for travel money from a white guardian.  

Ernest falls in love with Mollie and their love scenes are some of the loveliest Scorsese has ever filmed - these two lovebirds go at it in a car like teenagers. Hale wants Ernest to marry an Osage, and Mollie is something of a jackpot. Unfortunately, the murder rate has been rising fast in this land as Osage natives are killed left and right. Some are declared suicides, others are poisoned. Hale is orchestrating a Murder Inc. in this town, 30 murders and counting. That also includes Mollie's sisters such as the drunk and blunt as a whistle Anna (Cara Jade Myers) who is shot in the head. The other sister, Reta, dies in a house explosion! Why are these murders committed? The murders are committed for Hale and company to acquire the headrights to the oil earnings and become fabulously wealthy themselves. This is greed on a scale almost unheard of in as far as Native American history is concerned.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" flows like a fluid tone poem with peaks and valleys, though there is a somber undercurrent that is further magnified by the incessant slow drum beat of a score by the late Robbie Robertson. It is a feeling of not just inevitability yet also bearing witness to a massacre that has no end in sight. Both the cold manipulations of Hale and the struggling conscience of Ernest Burkhart form the immoral fabric of greedy, powerful white men who more than likely would be jailed for killing a dog than an Osage. Punitive measures lead to limited jail sentences that make you want to scream. Based on the excellent non-fiction book by David Grann, I wanted to scream with every page I read prior to seeing this adaptation. Though the book mainly focuses on the FBI's investigations of these murders (FBI was known, at the time, as simply the Bureau of Investigation spearheaded by J. Edgar Hoover) and Grann's own intuitive investigations as well, the movie instead circles in on Ernest's relationship to Mollie and Hale. Seeing this intimacy between these three characters brings us as close as anybody would want to be to this Reign of Terror.   

"Killers of the Flower Moon" runs at 3.5 hours yet I never felt the length as it could have run on longer. What I did feel was the momentous desperation of watching this Reign of Terror unfold helplessly. Not unlike Scorsese's depiction of cold-blooded executions in "The Irishman," murder has no meaning in these blood-soaked prairie lands and, in this chilling case, these white men think nothing of killing since their only passion is money. Hale is the most frigid villain I have seen in some time whereas Ernest is a weasel who feels love for Mollie and their children yet also a love for that money. Lily Gladstone (a surefire winner for an Oscar) shows us a Mollie who wants to believe that her husband is a good man yet knows that darkness envelops and corrupts everyone. She doesn't easily forgive and, judging by the last scene of this amazing, surreal epic, neither does Scorsese. 

Brilliant Junk Food Double Feature

 GRINDHOUSE (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 2008

"Grindhouse" is a reminder of the low-budget flicks of the late 60's
and early to mid-late 70's - the kind of genre pictures that had an
anything goes mentality. From everything like "Mondo Trasho" and its
infinite kin of bizarre "Mondo" titles to those Pam Grier
blaxploitation flicks to everything else in between, "Grindhouse" aims
to remind us of those double features, that is two features for the
price of one. In 1978, I recall seeing a martial-arts double feature
with Bruce Lee in "Enter the Dragon" preceded by "Five Fingers From
Death." There were the usual trailers followed by those colorful,
rainbowesque signs that read "Coming Attractions" or "Your Feature
Presentation." And naturally, these movies were delivered from one
theatre to another without much care, thus bad splices, hair scratches on the frame

or bad sound were a part of the experience. Not only is "Grindhouse" a fitting
reminder of all that, it is also far more entertaining than most
recent, supposed grade-Z material that is given the A or B treatment.

The first feature is "Planet Terror," directed by Robert Rodriguez, a
truly nasty, disgusting pile of drivel that is as dirty and violent as
one might expect, in addition to dementedly funny and frantically
deranged. Rose McGowan is a stripper named Cherry Darling, who quits
her job since she gets too emotional on stage and really wants to be a
comedian! Before you can say Elizabeth Berkley in "Showgirls"-mode, 

there are flesh-eating zombies running amok in this movie, thanks to some military
experiment gone wrong, presumably. Oh, who cares about a plot when you
have an evil doctor (Josh Brolin, who acts and sounds just like his
father) who has a way with thermometers; his wife who has a way with
syringes; Tarantino as a serial rapist who gets one of the best
comeuppances in movie history; Bruce Willis as some colonel or
sergeant who holds a secret about Bin Laden; a crazy chemist who has a
fixation on collecting severed testicles; Jeff Fahey as J.T., with the
best barbecue sauce in town (this actor has improved with age), and
Michael Biehn as a sheriff who has almost seen it all. Oh, yes, and
let's not forget the deliberately drawn-out syllables of Michael Parks

in his recurring role as Sheriff Earl McGraw, future Texas Ranger.

We then get some deliciously funny trailers after "Planet Terror" is
over, which are better seen than described. The second feature begins
as Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" (also known as "Thunderbolt" if
you look closely), a less deranged and far more talky exploitation
picture that exceeds anything anyone might have expected. Kurt Russell
is the "Stroker Ace" former stunt car driver, Stuntman Mike, who has
an obsession with women, their feet, and killing them with his deadly
car that comes emblazoned with a skull on its hood. I have reviewed
the film "Death Proof" in its extended cut, so what we miss in this
slightly abbreviated version is a hell-on-fire, hypnotic lapdance that
is almost as good as the one in "Femme Fatale" and perhaps more
refined than the laughable one in "Showgirls" (the latter, a favorite
of Tarantino's).

The rest of the film is a demonic ride chock full of the usual
Tarantino flourishes, including pop-culture referential talk about
"Vanishing Point," lapdances, the TV series "The Virginian," foreign
fashion magazines, relationships, etc. All this builds some tension
before Stuntman Mike pounces on his latest female victims, including a
celebrity hairdresser (Rosario Dawson); two stuntwomen (Zoe Bell,
playing herself, and Tracie Thoms, from TV's "Cold Case") who speak
adoringly of the cult classic "Vanishing Point"; and an actress (Mary
Elizabeth Winstead) who loves John Hughes movies. Rose McGowan also
appears, albeit as a different character, a blonde who takes a liking
to the daredevil stuntman. Big mistake.

Some critics have lashed out at Tarantino's film for having too much
dialogue and little of the pleasures that one might expect from
"Planet Terror." I see "Planet Terror" as a more conscious,
straightforward homage to exploitation pictures and zombie classics
like "Dawn of the Dead," whereas "Death Proof" is closer to what some
horror/serial killer movies such as "Deranged" and even "Last House
on the Left" offered - dialogue and some character exposition before
settling in to the violence and a slasher mentality. Though Tarantino
and Rodriguez have done their conscious homages to their favorite
movies of the 60's and 70's for well over decade now, this is the
first time they have truly approximated the look of those films. If I
nitpick at all, it is that this double feature movie-movie, over three
hours long, might prove to be exhausting but it is clever and it will
give you a major adrenalized high that you don't get from a lot of

Hollywood product.

Some audiences have never lived through the grindhouse experience to
know what it felt like to watch such movies on a double bill in a run-
down theatre, with audiences hooting and hollering. "Grindhouse" may
be the first and last time we get to experience it in retro-style. The
audience didn't turn out for this pure entertainment in theatres, but
I have a feeling it will be a cult classic.

Claustrophobic up to a point

PANIC ROOM (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed on April 1st, 2002

David Fincher's "Panic Room" is an intense, sweat-inducing, claustrophobic
thriller. It moves with the ease of a craftsman who ably pulls one visual
stunt after another, keeping us on the edge of our seats as the situations
grow more and more haywire. Like last year's "Joyride," it is remarkably
tense but it is also dramatically hollow at its core.

Jodie Foster plays Meg, a rich divorcee who has just bought a three-floor
brownstone with her teenage daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), in New York City. It
is a remarkable apartment, spacious yet eerie in its openness. It even has a
secure safe room, or panic room, in one bedroom. This safe room is secure
indeed, designed to make rich people safe from harm in case intruders break
in. It also has a surveillance system that keeps track of every single room
in the house. Meg likes it but suffers from claustrophobia, and chooses not
to finish securing it with its passcodes and installed phone line.

Meg does not have a cheery life and keeps mum with her daughter about her
ex-husband, an owner of a pharmaceutical company. She drinks wine swiftly in
major gulps, and cries in her bathtub. She is definitely not a happy camper.
Even her daughter, Sarah, a hypoglycemic, seems adrift and aloof.
One night, three intruders break into the house. They include Burnham (Forest
Whitaker), a builder of safe rooms; Junior (Jared Leto), a slow-witted guy
with dreadlocks, and the psychopathic Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) who has brought
a gun to a situation that is a simple robbery. They are looking for a safe
that contains millions in bonds, and it is of course located in the panic
room. When Meg discovers her house is being invaded, she hides in the panic
room with her daughter. The room is impossible to penetrate unless it is
opened by the occupants in the room.

"Panic Room" takes place entirely in the house, that is its only setting.
These are usually my favorite kinds of films - think of the enclosed settings
of films like "Assault on Precinct 13" or "Reservoir Dogs" and you will get
an idea of what this film is like. Fincher keeps the pace swinging at a
swift, bloodcurling speed involving us with Meg's plight and with the three
intruders who conspire, bicker, argue and finally come apart in their endless
attempts to get the money. It is all about survival, and Fincher is brilliant
at keeping us scared as well as exploring the house itself through crevices,
phone wiring, outlets, keyholes, etc. In other words, everything we take for
granted is used as a means of survival, on both sides of this cat and mouse
game.

As thrilling as all of this is, "Panic Room" never stops to make observations
on who these people are. For one, Meg is barely given much character
development at all, and her scene in the bathtub ilustrates a side of her
that is never tapped into again. We must also not forget she is
claustrophobic, yet the movie carelessly avoids making that point again since
she is after all in the confined panic room through the whole film. I
expected more from her character than merely reactions and physical activity,
especially since she is played by Jodie Foster who turned down "Hannibal"
because the Clarice Starling role was severely truncated and she did not
agree with the character's behavior. Meg is no doubt the most physically
demanding role Foster has ever played, but it is a two-dimensional character
or did Jodie not notice.

The three burglars have interesting personalities, and the movies spends its
time studying their interaction. Forest Whitaker is the ambiguous antihero,
Jared Leto is the overcaffeinated, extremely dumb wise ass, and Dwight Yoakam
is the chillingly laconic psycho ready to kill anyone.

"Panic Room" is quite a wild ride and, on that basis, I give it high marks.
It is a well-oiled thrill machine, expertly directed and acted. I just
expected something more of a psychological thriller than a standard issue one
coming from the combined forces of David Fincher and Jodie Foster.

Nobody has improved the 1973 classic

 THE POPE'S EXORCIST (2023)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Pope's Exorcist" is hardly an original piece of work and nothing, not one iota or drop of narrative thread, is new or exciting or remotely scary about this movie. It is also unintentionally funny and essentially rips-off all the iconic imagery and some William Peter Blatty lines of dialogue from "The Exorcist" - of course, demonic possession movies have done this forever in the last 50 years. This one is just louder than most.

This is based on a true story of the late Father Amorth, a chief exorcist who may have believed in exorcisms and the presence of evil yet also knew mental illness and trauma could be contributing factors in any alleged possession. Such thoughts from Amorth are quickly abandoned when a young male child is the latest possession case. The bony, sickly looking child is Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) and is the son of Julia Vasquez (Alex Essoe - looking merely distraught through all this). There is the also the terminally annoyed older sister (Laurel Marsden) who flips her mother the bird! Incidentally, both kids listen to their walkmans and have no interest in moving in to a creepy, inhospitable Spanish abbey passed on to them by their late father. Naturally all the action is inside the abbey and literally fireworks go off rather prematurely in this movie when a fireball nearly consumes two construction workers! I would say in the fine, disreputable tradition of creepy houses, abbeys or apartments in the "Amityville Horror" vein, "GET OUT!"   

Russell Crowe plays the bearded Father Amorth in pretty much the way you expect - humorous, wicked and completely over-the-top. He's the saving grace of this overwrought, overdone and hysterical movie that bears little resemblance to the Father Amorth as seen in William Friedkin's chilling documentary, "The Devil and Father Amorth." This movie may as well be about any priest and the family in crisis demon mode lack any measurable depth or identity - they are in trouble before we have had any time to get to know them. As a late-night potboiler horror/possession movie, "The Pope's Exorcist" will satisfy anyone who loves twisting necks, kids hurling obscenities, blood gushing out of mouths, levitations and pigs blown away by shotguns with a slight touch of theology. In 50 years, though, nobody has yet to improve on that 1973 classic.