Navy has seen better days

 THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT (1984)

Endured by Jerry Saravia (again)

In the annals of urban legends, there is one legend that persists from the 1940's and entered popular culture. The supposed story of the so-called Philadelphia Experiment is from 1943 where the US Navy experimented with making the USS Eldridge (a Navy destroyer) undetectable by radar, rendering it invisible on radar only (though it never docked in Philadelphia). The story took many shapes and twists and turns over the years where it was alleged that the ship did actually become invisible and thus appeared two days later in Norfolk, Virginia (UFO's being the culprit with dubious scientific theories presented in a non-fiction book called "The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility"). Many of these accounts have not been substantiated, and time travel was never an integral part of this legend. 

In the cinematic world of "The Philadelphia Experiment," the year is the same yet time travel is sort of the twist to the legend. There are two Navy sailors, David and Jim (Michael Pare, Bobby Di Cicco), affected by a warp or wormhole of some sort on the ship that sends them from 1943 to 1984! Culture shock hits them like a super-duper sonar of inexplicable waves, as in seeing a young man with a mohawk! Or a television at some anonymous desert cafe showing the movie "Humanoids from the Deep"! Video games are being played, and there are Coke cans that the sailors are unable to open! Then there is the token young woman (Nancy Allen, always a bewitching, perky presence) who learns that her new job is not tenable! Guess what happens when Jim's body is surging with electricity and accidentally destroys the video game unit causing a ruckus - the cafe owner asks for money to fix what is broken until David threatens the owner and its patrons with a gun. Jim and David force the young woman (Allen) to drive them out of Nevada (!) to Philadelphia while a wormhole in the sky is causing heavy wind storms across the entire West and East coasts. It is about that point that I gave up on the movie, as I had when I originally saw it years back and did not recall much of it. I still can't recall much after seeing it again.

"The Philadelphia Experiment" is mostly dull and bereft of any fun. Michael Pare barely makes enough of an impression and Bobby Di Cicco is mostly writhing and screaming in pain from all those electrical charges. Nancy Allen is always a plus in any movie but she is relegated to being the standard girlfriend. There is no sense of wonder or mystery to any of this - the movie just sits there and leaves you feeling numb. A documentary on this hoax might be a better alternative. 

Love is Love

 ELECTRIC DREAMS (1984)

A LOOK BACK by Jerry Saravia

A computer in love with a woman yet it can't kiss her, can't wrap any arms around her and it is jealous of its human owner who can touch her and hold her. This is part of the charm of the wonderful, sweetly vivacious romantic movie "Electric Dreams." I had my cinematic crushes back in the 1980's and one of them was that orange-reddish-haired Molly Ringwald, and the other was Virginia Madsen. She is the intelligent girlfriend in "Electric Dreams," a cellist who yearns for that ideal romance and music helps complement that yearning. Same is true of her clumsy romantic lead, Miles (Lenny Von Dohlen), who deeply loves the cellist and still feels he can't compete with a jealous computer.

The computer in "Electric Dreams" works like most fantasy computers at that time - it can control the lock mechanism on the front door, make calls to a radio station, watch endless TV and, most importantly, compose a love song that sounds suspiciously like a song by Culture Club. Miles, an architect in the making, is trying to conceive of an "earthquake brick" that will help preserve buildings during an earthquake. He is always late to work and keeps running into things or people despite wearing glasses (what a stereotype straight out of the Harold Lloyd school). Miles moves into a duplex and right above him is the talented, curly-blonde neighbor, Madeline (Madsen) and though he finds her alluring, his concentration is on his computer. He hopes it can develop the design of the earthquake brick and when he tries to connect to the main database at his work, the computer starts to amass more memory than its CPU can handle. After remote-controlling every in his apartment, the love song it composes helps Miles with his developing relationship with Madeline. 

The jealousy begins when the computer, known as Edgar (effectively and creepily voiced by Bud Cort), wants to kiss Madeline and is sure she would love him. Miles laughs off Edgar's romantic delusions yet Madeline thinks that Miles has a keen interest in music (he doesn't, of course). Miles can't bring himself to tell her sooner than later that he can't compose songs, and the movie becomes a slight variant on the "Cyrano de Bergerac" theme. Still, Edgar has a hold on Miles' life and it can even sense his footsteps outside the apartment's staircase (no computer in 1984 could do half of the things Edgar does in this movie).

"Electric Dreams" is a vibrant, almost mellifluous musical treat of a movie. When the song "Love is Love" plays (pretty much like a music video considering the director, Steve Barron, started off making music videos) and Madeline hears the song playing as Miles stands besides his computer, it is a tender moment to make couples swoon for each other. The movie also has some horror spiked into its climax where Edgar goes nuts, practically chasing Miles with its remote access to the appliances all over the apartment. Ultimately, what is most romantic and hopeful about the movie is not just Edgar recognizing its limitations as non-human entity that can't possibly love any human, but that Madeline loves Miles unconditionally. "Electric Dreams" is a wonderfully spirited movie to treasure - it will make you feel as if you are floating on air.

Warrior to Warrior

 STAR TREK VI: 

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991)

Reassessed by Jerry Saravia

People change, times change. I was never much of a Trekkie yet, over the last thirty years, I have become more enamored with the Star Trek universe than ever before. "Star Trek VI" struck me as dead in the water back in 1991 (same with the dismal "V" which is only entertaining in spurts). "The Undiscovered Country" is closer in tone and spirit to "II" and severely underrated "III" and, I think back then, I did not think highly of Klingons being the villains yet again. Call me silly for featuring a repetitive enemy alien culture but the surprise is that "Star Trek VI" deals with how humans, such as Captain Kirk and some crew members, are bigoted towards them - the screenplay was written to reflect the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and our relationship to Russians. 

This time, there has been a promotion for Sulu (George Takei), now Captain of the USS Excelsior starship, who discovers that a Klingon moon was destroyed in some mining accident. The moon is Praxis, home planet of the Klingons, and a peace settlement is offered by the very same race that killed Kirk's son a few sequels back ("The Wrath of Khan," for those who keep notes). Starfleet, a space force organized by the United Federation of Planets, wants this peace accord but Kirk is not having it. It turns out our good old Captain (always smooth played by William Shatner) is racist towards Klingons, seeing them all as disgusting with no distinction in their appearance (a bit heavy-handed there but, hey, remember that pop movies have always had political agendas). Nevertheless, there is a dinner between Klingons and the Enterprise where even Hitler's name is mentioned, along with various Shakespearean quotes (they are strewn throughout the whole movie). Once the Klingons depart to their ship, a missile is fired from the Enterprise but nobody knows who fired the shot. So much for peace and now the Klingon General Chang (Christopher Plummer) has declared war, especially after the Klingon Chancellor (David Warner, who appeared in Sequel Number Five) has been assassinated by two uniformed and masked assailants (did they beam on board the Klingon ship from the Enterprise?)

Much of "Star Trek VI" has well-balanced moments of humor (the Enterprise crew trying to speak Klingon is uproarious) and detailed action (limited to the attack on the Klingons at the beginning and the spectacular and suspenseful finale), and a dramatic scene between logical Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and a high-ranking Vulcan, Valeris (Kim Cattrall), that is powerful stuff that will knock your socks off. Plummer does a stellar job of showing his intellectual prowess masked with malicious intentions. As for the rest of the cast, well, they perform their roles with grace and nuance as you might expect including Shatner, Nimoy, Takei, etc. Considering this is their last outing together, it is all displayed with real affection for the iconic characters and the universe that, at that time, started almost 30 years earlier. 

I did not react well to "Star Trek VI" thirty years back maybe because it was seemingly leisurely paced and I was simplistically sick of Klingons. To my surprise, this pleasurable sequel has much to recommend it with a good solid story, some stunning visuals (I love the hard-bitten wintry feel of the prison planet Rura Penthe) and a lovely and fitting send-off to the finest Enterprise crew ever. Also remarkable is how it shows that despite the differences between cultures, peace can be obtained. Only in a world we have not gone to before. 

New Jersey Wedding Called off

 NOW YOU KNOW (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Jeff Anderson's writing and directing debut goes south and I mean below south of the border almost immediately. An alleged romantic comedy about a cancelled wedding results in some young bespectacled child masturbating (unseen by the way); a chihuahua run over by a lawnmower while a young idiot named Biscuit salivates over the boobilicious customer (don't worry, I am not 12 and the dog's death is mercifully unseen); the lawnmower employees deciding to rearrange someone's furniture by breaking in without stealing anything, and some shenanigans at a lesbian bar that is too unfunny at best. Oh, sure, and there is a bar scene where Biscuit has to prove he's not gay. It makes you wonder how old the director of this movie is.

But then, somewhere around the 40 minute mark, "No You Know" steadily improves. Jeff Anderson finds the sweet spot by focusing on the fractured relationship between Jeremy (Jeremy Sisto) and the wannabe bride, Kerri, who called the whole thing off (a younger Rashida Jones). There's also Marty (Heather Paige Kent), Kerri's best friend, who is pregnant and hasn't told the father yet (she has a heartbreaking scene where she confides in Kerri that shows this movie has adult moments). You'll also guess pretty quickly who the mysterious sperm donor is. Biscuit is played by Trevor Fehrman, who later appeared in Kevin Smith's work, and at first his role is cringe-inducing but then he gets funnier. Same with Jeff Anderson, playing a relatively similar role to his Randal from "Clerks," and he gets more animated as the film rolls along. I love seeing Sisto and Jones in any scenes together - there is some definite chemistry there. By the way, during the opening Vegas bachelor party sequence, Kevin Smith has a hysterical cameo discussing the merits of a marriage and maintaining it until...he decides to have sex with a hooker.

"Now You Know" could easily pass for a Kevin Smith flick and you wouldn't notice the difference. It starts badly but when it hones in on the relationships, there is a degree of honesty to it and I ended up enjoying the flick overall. This is a rarity - a seemingly bad movie that becomes decent. 

New Man in Disorder

 SEVEN BEAUTIES (1975)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A Sicilian thug who defends honor in his family of sisters and finds politics boring is already a prime candidate for survival in Lina Wertmuller's "Seven Beauties," a tragicomic Holocaust parable where one man's loss of scruples somehow becomes his own survival instincts. 

The fabulously debonair Giancarlo Giannini is Pasqualino Frafuso, a low-level thug who prides himself on having an immaculate appearance. His family is huge - he has seven sisters and a mother. Pasqualino is the cock of the walk, tipping his hat to the women who all smile at him and moving about the city with grace. Wertmuller presents him in the opening scenes as a Hollywood noir-type, his profile encased in deliberate shadows like some Humphrey Bogart detective. He is far from being a smooth criminal, and far too impulsive. When he defends the family honor that has been sullied by his sister Concettina's flirtations while dancing at a club, he accidentally shoots the pimp she is willing to marry - her reasoning being that she will not end up as a spinster (Concettina is memorably played by Elena Fiore). For some reason, Pasqualino sees himself as repulsive yet he's anything but and, when he's captured by the police for the murder, he acts out and repeats Mussolini's speeches like a madman. The insane asylum is where Pasqualino is headed but his impulses do get him in trouble - he has sex with a woman strapped to a bed who tries to bite him! I have little sympathy for this "Monster of Naples" (who also cuts up the body of the pimp and has the body parts mailed to different parts of Sicily) yet I did find myself slowly empathizing with him. 

"Seven Beauties" is not chronological and thank goodness for that - it is about Pasqualino ending up in a concentration camp after serving in the Italian Army. The camp houses Jews and some Italian prisoners who are used as manual labor in a quarry. Ashen-faced, bloodshot-eyed Pasqualino knows he might be executed and every day, the Nazi officers under the leadership of the main commandant (Shirley Stoler, in a truly unforgettable performance of sheer, calculated evil), randomly shoot a bunch of prisoners. Pasqualino decides to woo the commandant by whistling and singing in Italian. It turns out Stoler's commandant speaks Italian fluently and, in the most effectively scary scenes in the entire film, she asks him to have sex with her after he eats a hearty meal. If he can't maintain an erection, he will be killed. Erotic it is most decidedly not.

"Seven Beauties" juxtaposes colorful Italian neighborhoods with the grotesque nature of the camps and this constant segue between flashbacks and his terrifying ordeal is both mesmerizing and strangely beautiful. Pasqualino is reminded in flashbacks by his mother of how every woman has some core of goodness, a mere nugget waiting to be discovered. He does not find it in the emotionless commandant and, during a tumultuous final sequence, he finds no nuggets of goodness within himself either. Perhaps he knew all along, perhaps not. Of all the Holocaust tales that have been made in the 20th century, this one is rich in irony, black humor and in the willfulness of people. Giannini's Pasqualino is proof that not every concentration camp survivor was a saint. 

Cuing up Valentine's is this action pic's only novelty

LOVE HURTS (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Ke Huy Quan is up to the task as a credible action star - he comes on screen like gangbusters with complete assuredness. Just watch him in "Everything Everywhere All At Once" and you see the dramatic, comic, romantic qualities are all there (so much so that he won an Oscar for it). The days of the tyke from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "The Goonies" are gone as he is now a formidable grown-up action star. Now if he only picked better movies than this sad waste of his talents, "Love Hurts." This Love lands with a thud and it made my sides hurt.

Ke Huy Quan plays a successful realtor, Marvin Gable, who is about to have a hectic day at work. It is Valentine's Day and as soon as he enters his office after passing out heart-shaped cookies, he is whacked on the head. A killer named Raven (Mustafa Shakir), appearing as some purple-coated supervillain from Hell who reads poetic verses, starts beating Marvin and thrusts a knife through his hand! What gives? Marvin was formerly an assassin working for his brother, an evil crime lord known as "Knuckles" (Daniel Wu), and now Marvin, slightly rusty, must re-engage his fighting skills to take on one hitman after another. This leads to elongated fight scenes, one at Marvin's house that goes on for an eternity. He is thrown against walls, kitchen cabinets, tables and windows with such ferocious brutality that you'd think he might end up dead. How many punches and kicks to the face can anyone take? So many that, like a manic Warner Bros. cartoon, they get up and are able to run and drive without breaking a single bone. One unlucky accountant named Kippy (the always deliriously funny Rhys Darby), who works for Knuckles, loses two of his front teeth and a finger! Well, you know, you have that reality going for it.

Somewhere in this rigidly tight 83-minute madness is a thin story about Rose (Ariana DeBose), a tough lawyer who can shoot to kill and do a little combat fighting without breaking too much of a sweat (and had also severed that accountant's finger). She was supposed to be killed by Marvin in the past but he let her go because, you know, he loved her and this is a Valentine's Day picture. Everyone in this movie is capable of combat except the accountant. When you are a hired gun or minion or assassin working in a crime syndicate, combat training is apparently required because, you know, you have to fight Ke Huy Quan. This is a You Know-type of picture.

"Love Hurts" begins rather frantically and has nowhere to go except become more frantic. The only difference between this film and say "Nobody" is that at least "Nobody" had some believability and a more concentrated tone. Here, the movie wavers between unfunny black comedy, graphic violence and some romantic musings courtesy of the Raven and Marvin's depressed assistant (Lio Tipton), who falls for the Raven. Poetry will do that. "Love Hurts" is just generic, ultra-formulaic action you have seen a million times before but with no real urgency, though Ke works hard to make us care. We do, Ke, but please get more imaginative screenwriters. 

The humans are the virus

 ARCADIAN (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There isn't much time for relationships in a horror movie where nondescript creatures come out every night in the countryside, ready to wreak havoc and kill humans (whom they may see as a virus). Such is definitely the case with "Arcadian" which will seem very familiar to anyone who has seen "A Quiet Place." A remote house in the hills where, every night, the doors must be bolted down and the windows locked with several pieces of wood nailing them shut. These creatures are of mysterious purpose, arriving at night and banging on doors trying to get in. There is also the possibility of them emerging from underground. Call pest control.

"Arcadian" begins with an apocalyptic frenzy where a nervous, jumpy man (Nicolas Cage) runs through alleys while missiles are fired in the distance and people are screaming. He has a backpack and runs out of the city to a remote location where two babies are. The man is Paul and the babies are his sons. We don't know much more than that. We don't know if he was running away from a potential World War III (or another World War Z). Fifteen years have passed and his babies are teenage adults tasked with barricading their home. Paul is looking after them and they eat dinner every night while pounding is heard through their home. Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) just barely makes his curfew every night after working on a nearby farm - a young girl he is quite smitten with lives there and can describe a hypothetical apocalypse in 10 seconds. Meanwhile, the other son, the quick and attentive Joseph (Jaeden Martell), helps the father gather wood and supplies to reinforced any weakened doors or entries. 

"Arcadian" is at its finest when exploring the dynamic of the family members. I also found the intimate scenes between Thomas and the girl, Charlotte (Sadie Soverall), quietly touching - it gives the movie a resonance beyond its frayed apocalyptic doom of the outside world. Nicolas Cage quietly underplays, so much so that when he's left out of the picture for the last half, you miss him terribly. I will say Jaeden Martell is solidly effective as Joseph - he is cool, calm and unemotional until the end of the film. Soverall's Charlotte is one of the more pleasing young women in movies today - she gives the movie a ray of hope.

"Arcadian" has many frightening scenes of these spiny monsters who shake their heads with more ferocity than a raptor - what they are is unclear or what caused the apocalypse. Still, I was moved by the performances and the high stakes the family has to endure to survive this ominous, violent threat. It's almost on the same wavelength as "A Quiet Place." 

Soft-boiled noir with artifice around its edges

 HAMMETT (1982)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A crime story involving "Black Mask" writer and former Pinkerton detective Dashiell Hammett is ripe for some juicy noirish twists. After all, it is not simply stories that Hammett wrote for "Black Mask" magazine - this is the creator of such definitive mystery novels such as "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man." Being a detective seems like a prime example for his writing - they are inextricably linked. Wim Wenders' "Hammett" is out to explore that dynamic and perhaps show how art imitates life, yet life is so much more cruel. Some of that survives in this unbalanced film and some of it does not.

Frederic Forrest plays the tough, chain-smoking alcoholic writer, Hammett, seen typing away at his latest story involving some business with pearls. A shootout occurs at a waterfront in his story, but maybe nobody dies. Nope, someone does, shot by a man while a femme fatale might be ruminating on double-crossing someone. It all plays out as artificial and, to honest, did not seem hard-boiled to me but what do I know. Hammett, suffering from an early onset of tuberculosis, lives alone in a San Francisco apartment. He's called back to duty as a detective by an old friend of his, Jimmy Ryan (Peter Boyle) to investigate a missing Asian prostitute named Crystal (Lydia Lei, who disappeared from movies and TV back in 1988). This investigation leads to Chinatown, stag films, photo negatives of sexual acts amongst the powerful elite and some other lurid details. 

The mystery of "Hammett" is not nearly as exciting as the stylistic flourishes - the dissolves, the fade-outs, the chiaroscuro lighting patterns, the studio-set mood and much more. My issue is that the whole film seems artificial, so much so that I half-expected this to be a parody of 1940's film noir. Some of the dialogue is not as crisp or half as clever as anything coming from Hammett's own novels (or the classic "The Maltese Falcon") - the whole film feels like Film Noir 101 with cliched lines like "Give it to me straight." The imposing style is there but the film is too obviously studio-bound - nothing seems real or realistically or naturally set. Originally, Wim Wenders shot the film on actual locations and American Zoetrope studios went nuts (yes, that includes producer Francis Ford Coppola) and the whole film was completely reshot. Knowing Wenders' penchant for actual locations (see his "The American Friend", a different sort of neo noir), everything here just smacks of appearing completely unreal. The interiors are far more imaginatively portrayed, including Hammett's messy apartment. Otherwise, we seem to be in a world imagined by Hammett, though there is no distinction between his writing and the real world other than reality is tougher to digest.  

"Hammett" does have strong solid support from Frederic Forrest, who truly looks like the actual author; Marilu Henner as the dame who loves scotch and is Hammett's neighbor; Peter Boyle, a chameleon actor, who can intimidate and project deviousness; Roy Kinnear as a Sydney Greenstreet-type; David Patrick Kelly as some sort of would-be assassin whose tip-toeing shoes can also intimidate, and finally Elisha Cook, Jr. in his last role ever as a loyal taxi driver. Along with a lush, memorable score by John Barry, "Hammett" is definitely worthwhile for mystery buffs and devotees of Hammett. I just think it is more soft-boiled than anything else.