Pledge your love or die

 CHRISTINE (1983)

Remembering that darling '58 Plymouth Fury 

by Jerry Saravia

"Christine" is a wild gorilla of a movie. I compare it to a gorilla because it looks harmless yet, provoke it or make it jealous, it can turn fearsome and kill you. Based on Stephen King's supernatural novel, "Christine" unfolds with a leisurely pace and the brief excursions into supernatural horror tropes occurs in spades. The movie is a master class in making a horror film palatable to the audience, to reveal itself first and foremost through its characters and then scare us.

Set in late 1970's, nerdy, clumsy high school senior Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham (Keith Gordon who is exceptionally good) is threatened by bullies during shop class with a switchblade on his first day of school. Arnie's best friend, Dennis, a sweet-natured jock (John Stockwell), intervenes and is always there for his buddy no matter what. While driving through a deserted road, Arnie spots a dirty, seemingly broken-down 1958 Plymouth Fury car on someone's lawn and is instantly smitten. Arnie buys the car, despite Dennis's objections, and at a garage owned by a most repugnant man, Darnell (Robert Prosky, making us smell the oil and grease just by his mere appearance), the Plymouth Fury is worked on becomes a pristine car. It is in such pristine condition that you feel just grazing the classic car or touching it might kill you (and you would be right). The car has a supernatural bent to it and it feels emotions - jealousy may cause Christine to disrupt the ignition. Drop some cigarette ash on the seat or, in the film's most grueling moment, have the car's entire body frame, hood and headlights get smashed by those bullies and Christine will find you on those lonely city streets at night. Beware. 

Christine has an adverse effect on Arnie who changes his attitude, loses the glasses, wears fashionable clothes, struts like no one's business with confidence, and threatens his parents with obscene language. Arnie begins dating Leigh (Alexandra Paul), the new beguiling student at school, but their drive-in date turns into a disaster involving her getting locked in the car and almost choking to death. The romance soon turns sour and Arnie also stops seeing his best buddy, Dennis. Christine also begins her nightly rampage of chasing down those who hate her and Arnie. Comical moments develop before the violence erupts when Christine starts playing 1950's rock and roll tunes like "Pledging My Love" and "Little Bitty Pretty One." 

I've seen "Christine" many times and it is always been a mesmerizing, sometimes terrifying treat of a movie. From director John Carpenter, it is extra special for not containing an abundance of gore (the kills are practically off-screen including a scary gas station explosion scene). This could have been a slasher film with a car killing someone every few minutes. "Christine" plays by different rules and has a stylish veneer to it. "Christine" is beautiful, really, now please let me start the ignition.  

Wile E. Coyote becomes an ominous sign

 THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A cross-country trip with an escaped convict and a ditzy girlfriend, along with a naive cop in tow, has been a formula recipe for action-driven scripts for years since the 1970's. The remarkable thing about "The Sugarland Express" is that it is a fun, raucous ride despite needing an infusion of deeper character interplay. Also, this trip is mostly through the state of Texas. 

William Atherton is the slightly dim Clovis who is incarcerated and will be released in four months. Goldie Hawn is Lou Jean, Clovis's wife, and she is visiting him after a long journey only to tell him the marriage is over. Their own son is in foster care and there's nothing Jean can do about it. End of movie? No, this is just the beginning of an endless chase film when Jean decides that Clovis needs to leave with her and get their young son. They escape in an older couple's car though the old man can't speed up. Finally, after a cop pulls them over for slowing down traffic, Clovis and Jean take the wheel and leave like a bat out of hell. A initially nervous patrolman Slide (Michael Sacks) chases them, is held hostage and forced to drive the couple in his squad car. You would think a less obvious vehicle would be more beneficial, but then you would be lying. In what seems like a whole squadron of police cars, the chase is on...in slow motion! That's right, they are on all their tail but the felons and the patrolman are not exactly traveling at high speeds. At one point, they pull over to get gas while the other officers also get gas! 

"The Sugarland Express" benefits greatly from the appearance of Ben Johnson as Captain Tanner, who realizes the felons are just a couple of kids. Yes, they are, and contextually they are not quite the imminent threat of the murderous felons from "Badlands" - they just don't know better. Goldie Hawn shows Jean as giddy and carefree, concerned over what type of bed to get for their boy. Jean puts on lipstick provided by locals (the threesome have become celebrities) and they receive odd gifts like a pig! There are just as many police cars on the chase as shown in "The Blues Brothers" with a few crashes along the way.  

There are few interactive moments between Clovis and Jean who love each other completely, though I wish there were more. One scene has them breaking in and staying in an RV at an auto lot. They manage to see through their window a Wile E. Coyote cartoon at a drive-in across the way. Clovis provides the soundtrack for the cartoon and, after a while, he turns silent and stares at the screen. Jean keeps giggling. It is a transcendental moment and an ominous sign for Clovis without much explanation or words. "The Sugarland Express" is an expertly made chase picture but it is the quieter moments that really resonate. 

Live your life

 ALL OF US STRANGERS (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If a man can't admit to being gay to his parents, then can he move on in life without such acceptance? Well, Adam (Andrew Scott) knows he is gay and accepts it. His parents might accept it or have trouble with his sexual orientation. As the film rolls with this oft-told tale of a single gay male coming to grips with his family possibly disowning him, my heart sank a little. I have seen many films about gay men and women who have had no trouble letting others know - think how in the 1990's, several independent films like "Go Fish" or "The Living End" explored LGBTQ lives without having to exploit the theme of "coming out." "All of Us Strangers" thankfully turns into some sort of quasi-metaphysical, dreamy and melancholic exploration of a man seeking solace from his parents. Without them, he can't move forward.

Adam is a forty-something TV/film writer living in a high-rise London apartment with only one other neighbor in the building. His life seems mundane as he watches TV, writes in his computer about his family that may or may not turn into a green-lit script, sleeps a lot and almost never leave his digs unless there is a fire drill. Adam's life seems empty, almost unrewarding. Never fear the excessive isolation when his drunken neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), arrives with liquor at Adam's apartment. Adam declines having Harry as a guest in his own home but then Adam warms up to Harry when they steadily develop a hot and heavy relationship - Harry is even able to bring Adam to a noisy dance club. Adam wants experiences but he can't let go of his parents.

Adam is confronting the realities of his lost family. His parents died in a car crash thirty years earlier and all that remains are the ghosts. Jamie Bell is Adam's father, who loves listening to Ink Spots records, and Claire Foy (in the film's most remarkable and nuanced performance) is Adam's loving mother. When she asks Adam if he has a girlfriend, his response is to come out of the closet. The nagging issue with the mother is that she is thinking in a 1990's lens about gays before they later became accepted. She is uncertain about the news yet she also has an unconditional love for Adam. So does the father. 

"All of Us Strangers" is a smoothly paced and hallucinatory film with no full disclosure of what is real or mere hallucination. The family discussions that Adam and his ghostly parents have together is often reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's acute merging of reality and fantasy. Adam's love for his parents hasn't withered and, though they died when he was 12, he can't let them go so he merely sees as them living in the same Croydon home he grew up in.Writer-director Andrew Haigh invests wisely on the emotional toll it takes for Adam to come to grips with some form of reality - to be able to move on to that plateau called life. Though I wished there was a deeper connection between Adam and Harry that took place on that plateau, "All of Us Strangers" is a very moving, sad and practically unforgettable tale of a lonely man. What started off as a potential cliche turns into a dramatic tour-de-force for all involved. This film is to be treasured. 

Heartbreak is life just educating us

 MEN DON'T LEAVE (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally seen in 1991)

It is nothing but heartbreak and relentless heartache in "Men Don't Leave," a rather offbeat domestic drama about a widow learning to cope with loss, with everything she thought she knew but has no idea how to deal with it going forward. What is so terrific about the film is that Jessica Lange plays the widowed mother of two sons who leaves her home for an apartment in Baltimore City. Lange conveys everything you want and need to know about this woman and how much suffering she's going through, even if it isn't always apparent. 

Lange is Beth MacAuley and she finds a job as an assistant manager at a gourmet food place called Lisa, run by a very finicky Lisa of course (memorably played by Kathy Bates). Beth has her two boys, the rebellious teenager Chris Macauley (Chris O’Donnell) and 9-year-old Matt Macauley (Charlie Korsmo). Chris simply wants to do what he wants, especially dating an older woman named Jody (Joan Cusack) who lives in the same apartment building. Matt won't cry about his father's accidental death and starts stealing VCR's with a classmate, just so that he can have enough money to return his family home. Home is where the heart is in his old house. 

Meanwhile, Beth meets a "weird" musician (Arliss Howard) during a food delivery and a relationship strikes where he makes it clear that bowling is as physical as they will get. Beth clearly is not ready for her new life and when he loses her job, everything becomes a shambles. She loves to bake to relax yet, one night, she throws her oversized muffins out the window! She can't get out of bed and it takes Jody to get her out of the slump and in a hot air balloon ride! 

None of this may read as extraordinarily believable, especially on paper, but it is Jessica Lange who makes everything seem possible. The lonely Beth is trying to move on and the hardships and emotional toll follow with a great deal of emotional sensibility. Arliss Howard seems like a contrivance as the musician who loves Beth unconditionally yet he also takes great pains to make him credible as a human being. Joan Cusack is not nearly as over-the-top as she can get in some movies and she also shows sensitivity as Jody, and wants to make a better life for everyone. A new family unit emerges. 

"Men Don't Leave" is a tearjerker but it is so life-affirming, so moving without jerking tears so obviously that I found myself weeping by the end. Sure, there are some cliches and foreseeable moments but the movie still works because it never feels false. A most unusual family film from Paul Brickman, the writer-director of "Risky Business." 

Crime doesn't pay and nor does stupidity

 BADLANDS (1973)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Badlands" is infrequently an insufferable chore to sit through yet it is also a stunningly poetic film about something that shouldn't be so beautifully portrayed - aimless young people on a crime spree. For its 1970's context, think "Bonnie and Clyde" yet more brutal and less engaging in emotions. This young couple could care less, roaming through the Dakotas and Montana on the run without a thought in their heads. 

Naturally with first-time director Terrence Malick, the young couple are not romanticized nor are they colorfully or cartoonishly portrayed - they are just boring. Martin Sheen is 25-year-old Kit who can't hold a job as a garbage collector yet he is handy with a gun - when he aims to shoot, he never seems to miss his human target. As he rolls through town, he spots an innocent fifteen-year-old girl named Holly (Sissy Spacek) and all he wants to do is walk with her and speak his mind. Truth is Kit has nothing to say and has little to no regard for anyone except himself. Holly sees him as a James Dean-type which was enough to make want to vomit. There is a nonchalant void in these two from the start so when Kit shoots Holly's stern father (Warren Oates), I wasn't surprised yet I still felt a sudden shock. The twosome burn the house down, leave an audio recording where they claim to have killed themselves, briefly live in the woods in their own little ramshackle wooden shack and pack up and leave after they kill some passerby (bounty hunters, Kit seems to think). 

"Badlands" is a road movie about two nihilistic nitwits who are as stupid and shallow as you can imagine. Kit fancies himself as James Dean yet he possesses no intelligence. When Holly approaches potential shooting victims, she just says "Hi!" Kit whirls his gun and kills without much hesitation, though he at least issues a warning. A scene involving an innocent couple who inadvertently show up at Kit's co-worker's house is one of the more shocking because we do not see anything - shots are fired plainly as the couple is forced into a storm cellar but no blood is shown. What is striking is one sequence where Kit forces himself into a rich man's home and doesn't kill the rich man or the maid. Why? Who can say except that maybe the rich man did not yell or act aggressive or retaliate? When we get to the eventual capture of Kit and Holly after an exhaustive manhunt, Kit thanks the police for capturing him and knows he has become some sort of mini-celebrity.  

Based on the infamous 1950's crime spree perpetrated by Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate (the similar incidents as depicted in the film were much worse in reality), Malick has made an intelligent, psychological observation of stupid kids. Crime doesn't pay and nor does stupidity.  

Breaking of a Hard Heart

 THE DOCTOR (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 1991

William Hurt makes every movie he's in intrinsically watchable. No matter the range of subjects or characters he's played, next to "The Accidental Tourist," the sarcastic doctor who shuns emotion to his patients in "The Doctor" is a tour-de-force. Hurt stands out because he underplays so beautifully that every variation of his doctor character coming to grips with his profession truly makes its mark.

Dr. Jack McKee (Hurt) is a brain and lung surgeon who sings along to Jimmy Buffett songs while doing open-heart surgery. The doctor is hardly stoic - he is lively in his manner, encouraging everyone to sing especially one of the reluctant nurses. Jack is married to Anne (Christine Lahti, also nicely underplaying) and they have a son who never sees much of his father. Jack is forgetful of his son's PTA meetings and Anne tries her best to be understanding - their love is genuine with the only real crisis being the renovation of a kitchen that Jack desires. Jack and Anne can laugh together yet Jack is resists engaging in honest talk without cracking a joke. The same is true of his several patients, one of whom is concerned over surgical scars and all he can say is, "Tell your husband you look like a Playboy centerfold, and you have the staples to prove it." He is not callous exactly, he just has to feign callousness through sharp-tongued humor that is not always appreciated.

But then sickness enters McKee's life when a malignant tumor is found in his throat. An ENT specialist (Wendy Crewson), Dr. Abbott (who shows complete indifference), diagnoses him and McKee starts to notice what he never noticed before. He is now a patient in his own hospital and is seeing how doctors are not always present, paperwork is not always ready to be filled out, there is some red tape around test results, and so on. Doctors don't show much emotion to him despite being a surgeon in his own hospital - his job status doesn't entitle to him to any privileges including not using a wheelchair which every other patient must use. 

Jack also sees how his tumor can cause changes in his own life, including seeing how others suffer. He has kept his eyes and his emotions shut off for too long, using humor as his tonic. June (a dazzling Elizabeth Perkins) has a brain tumor and is put off by Jack's consistent arguing with the hospital staff. Eventually Jack clings to June since they both don't know when is their potential expiration date. June's prognosis is more severe and Jack connects with her - her anger where it almost lead to her jumping off a roof when discovering she had cancer until she saw a pigeon strangely looking at her is quite the revelation. 

Superlatively directed with care and sensitivity by Randa Haines ("Children of a Lesser God"), "The Doctor" also shows Jack's seemingly rocky marriage to Anne and he hides when he could talk to her, or he hides through angry tirades and cracking jokes (the latter is true with his patients). When his tumor is removed and part of his vocal chords, there is a tremendously overpowering scene where Jack sees only love around him, indulging in it, and embraces Anne who is in tears and is reminded of his tenderness. The moment reminds Jack of the glorious dance he had with June in the desert. This is one of those glorious sentimental films where every emotion is earned and felt through your body. It further establishes William Hurt as one of the premier actors of this or any generation.

Quiet regret in William Hurt's finest hour

 THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (1988)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

The stiff-lipped and emotionally withdrawn Macon Leary (William Hurt) writes travel guide books. He is known as the Accidental Tourist and writes about how to travel to other places without ever feeling homesick, specifically for the traveling businessman. Macon writes with organizing skill about all the do's and don'ts of travel such as taking a carry-on bag, small envelopes of laundry detergent, where to find American food in foreign countries, etc. He is detailed and organized, stating in his books the decent hotel plumbing in some European cities. Other than scoffing at the idea of bringing private mementos that could be lost in a trip, you wouldn't suspect that Macon is a hurting, despondent man who lost his young son years ago and has an unhappy home with his wife who is seeking a divorce.

"The Accidental Tourist" almost reads like an adaptation of a Russell Banks novel though it is not as despairing. Anne Tyler's very masterfully delicate and emotional novel is beautifully adapted by writer-director Lawrence Kasdan and neither handles this material as simply a family tragedy. The depressing notion of losing a child in a senseless act of violence is not treated as an afterthought but as a prism for this married couple who have been unable to cope with each other. Kathleen Turner as Sarah Leary, Macon's soon-to-be-divorced wife, has been unable to live another day without feeling morose. Macon has been suffering yet it is suffering in muted fashion - he keeps going on but has not provided comfort for his wife during this agonizing ordeal. When Sarah reveals she is leaving him, his feelings slowly come to the surface though he still keeps them confined through his own anger at her. Quick moments of harshness and anger inform Macon - he is not an easy man to love or to hate. Macon has the self-knowledge of his loneliness and misery yet he wishes not to articulate his feelings.

What is deeply trenchant about the film are not just the complex emotions but also the humorous touches. Macon lives in good old Baltimore and stays with his siblings briefly after breaking his leg (Sarah can't take care of him since she lives in an apartment, so it is up to Macon's matronly sister, Rose). The Learys are just as organized in their habits as Macon is. Sincere Rose (Amy Wright) places food items in the cabinet in alphabetical order. The two brothers, Porter and Charles (the perfectly cast Daniel Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley, Jr.), are orderly to some degree and play card games every night after supper. I love that Kasdan spends a little time with these brothers and the spirited sister, to show that Macon's indifference to emotions comes from somewhere. There is relentless telephone ringing in their house which they never answer, even if Porter might be calling since he gets lost frequenting to the hardware store. 

Just as beguiling is the introduction of Muriel Pritchett (a gloriously kooky and sympathetic performance by Geena Davis) who works at an animal hospital and knows how to make dogs obey commands. Since Macon's dog, a corgi, has recently bit him, he takes up Muriel's offer to train the dog. This, of course, develops into a romance but not immediately. Macon turns down Muriel's dinner invite and, in a very powerful scene, tells her about the loss of his son and his inability to move past it. William Hurt conveys everything about Macon's inability to socialize, to have friends, resisting intimacy, etc. It is a performance showing such quiet regret that it is easily my favorite Hurt performance.

"The Accidental Tourist" always stayed with me and felt genuine with its bottled emotions from the Learys, and Davis's Oscar winning performance as a woman who wishes to help others. She is the real article, a woman who knows who she is and what she wants. Macon eventually comes out of his shell. It is a revelation in every way and, yes, a superbly revealing film that is very closely connected with the Anne Tyler novel (a smooth, mesmerizing read for book lovers). "The Accidental Tourist" is something I needed to unknowingly revisit now in my fifties and I am glad I did.  

Nailing the zeitgeist and throwing in a body count

 EDDINGTON (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Eddington" is a small-scale Western-of-sorts, a mere microcosm of the early days of COVID-19 when everyone wore surgical masks, stayed indoors and decided that working from home was the new normal. My memory of it was the value of convenience, that shutting yourself from the world and viewing it from the prism of Zoom virtual meetings and obsessing over social media was a new way of living. In a sense, we still practice that insularity - when we leave our homes, our smartphones and iPhones have become our plastic bubbles and we don't leave home without them. We have Doordashed ourselves out of existence, to some extent. "Eddington" is about the fears and anxieties of the new normal yet it also cultivates how our 24-hour news cycle is extended from our phones and that rational thought has gone out the window. That makes "Eddington" worthwhile even when it shifts gears into hyper-violent overdrive. 

The movie begins with a close-up of a homeless man's feet as he walks through the barren lands of lovely New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. As he is walking and pontificating incoherently, we see the small desert town of Eddington is being used for an upcoming A.I. data center. It is nighttime as Sheriff Joe Ross (Joaquin Phoenix, beautifully understated) is out on patrol and doesn't realize or concede that there is a geographical division between the pueblo and the town limits of Eddington. The Sheriff is berated by the pueblo cops for not wearing a mask. The fictional Eddington is like any other small town in New Mexico until nationwide news hits of the murder of George Floyd. Protests start with young white people becoming progressively ashamed of being white, of having privilege and for stealing the land from the Native Americans. All this becomes manufactured hate against whites, parroting what other protesters are doing around the country in what became known as the Black Lives Matter movement. The problem is that Sheriff Ross can only handle so much protesting since he only has two other deputies.

Meanwhile, Ross hates the mayor (Pedro Pascal) and plans to run against him! Ross also hates wearing masks and hates the government for the new laws of protecting oneself amidst a growing crisis. There are domestic issues with Ross's mentally unbalanced wife, Louise (a nearly unrecognizable Emma Stone), who has a developing interest in a cult lead by Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler, who resembles Jim Morrison). Louise's mother, a conspiracy nut job (Deirdre O'Connell), lives with the miserable married couple. Happiness is not central to anyone's existence in this town.     

"Eddington's" focus from COVID mania and individual rights and freedoms switches to almost blood-curling terror with increasing tension filling every frame. A political murder has taken place and determining the assassin(s) identity infects a town embroiled in an increasing body count. Tension is writer-director's Ari Aster's forte and despite the mortality rate stemming from characters you least expect to get offed, "Eddington" abandons political machinations for bloody killings and executions. The various themes of humanity pushed to the edge when it comes to how tragedy is perceived and dealt with rather than analyzed with a fine tooth comb gives the film a real lift and attentively channels the zeitgeist. When the killing starts, it all feels slightly uneven and off-kilter. One, two murders might have been sufficient rather than the last half-hour devoted to eruptive sniper fire and one crucially timed explosion.

"Eddington" starts as small-town chaos that boils to high temperatures. As a COVID suspense western thriller, the film technically works and makes you sweat. At 2 1/2 hours, I have to give it credit for pushing all the heated political buttons but I still could have done with less gunfire.  

Cheryl Smith's prep for appearing in the Runaways band

 LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL (1973)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Poor blonde Christian choir girl Lila Lee runs away from the town where she sings. She is living with a Reverend and decides to find her father, a gangster who killed his wife and her lover, because she forgives - it is in her nature to forgive. The townspeople seem like a wretched group of bestial, scarred, ugly, pale-looking men such as a bus ticket vendor and the bus driver! Lechery seems to be in their minds when they witness this virginal 13-year-old girl.

"Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural" is one of those ridiculous 1970's independent horror flicks that has some measure of atmosphere (shot with what looks like bluish filters and apropos day for night cinematography) and not a whole lot more to recommend it. While Lila escapes from a bus accident, dozens of monstrous vampires chase her. Lila runs for an eternity. She is housed in a cell with bars that look like they are made of papier mache. There is an old hag who brings her plates of food, and a lot of pale-faced children who giggle uncontrollably (and I think one of them wears a pirate costume). Eventually, we are introduced to the quiet, insidious nature of Lemora (Lesley Gilb), a queen vampire, who wants nothing more than to bathe and massage Lila and give her a proper bedroom environment. Obviously Lemora has more supernatural plans for Lila. Oh, yes, and the Reverend (Richard Blackburn, also the director) is on a journey to find her. And Lila escapes Lemora's mansion and runs. She runs and runs from the vampires who look like mutated zombies. There's also a clan of cloaked vampires who form inner circles holding torches. Might I also mention that Lila hides inside a coffin and then escapes and goes off running again. The late actress Cheryl Smith, who later joined the Runaways band, is clearly agile at running and has a properly serene, angelic look as Lila.

"Lemora" is not much of a movie, though, and not much fun to watch. There are one or two moments of terror that are unlikely to scare an 8-year-old kid. Lesley Gilb looks more like a horror hostess than some ancient vampire. Still, if you like watching an innocent young girl run through the woods and various rooms and abandoned buildings, I suppose you could do worse.  

Laughable slasher tendencies

 SCHIZOID (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are so many unintentionally hysterical moments in 1980's slasher "Schizoid" that I had a hard time getting bored. "Schizoid" is nothing new in the slasher film genre and it would be understandably forgotten if not for the magnetic presence of Klaus Kinski, who I expected to give a toweringly hammy performance. He is up for it yet his performance is gentler and the other actors are, surprisingly, hammy and over-the-top.

A savage killer adorning a black hat and black coat is killing women from a therapy group with a pair of scissors. Sometimes, the killer taunts them and then kills them. One such scene features a woman from the group riding her bicycle who is hit by the killer's car. She survives her fall and then runs into an abandoned house and you can guess the rest. Is it Dr. Peter Fales (Kinski) who lives in a mansion with his very troubled and near-suicidal daughter (Donna Wilkes, who later had the lead in the equally trashy and entertaining "Angel")? Dr. Fales seems creepy from the start indicated by Kinski's bulging eyes, and he stares at his daughter who disrobes and takes a shower. Whatever incestual innuendoes exist are forgotten as the film progresses.  

Newly divorced Julie Caffrey (Mariana Hill) writes an advice column dispensing romantic advice and gets threatening letters in the mail - she is our main protagonist and a member of the group. The film gets sillier when we get Julie's ex-husband (Craig Wasson) who has a thing for redecorating his office with new wallpaper, and a maintenance man (Christopher Lloyd), also a patient in the group, who is eager to fix Julie's boiler! 

"Schizoid" is straight up stupidity as a thriller and as a whodunit (my guess of the murderer's identity turned out be wrong). Its saving grace is Kinski who looks savage and cruel and has sex with his female patients! This could have been a phenomenal psychological thriller under the right hands. What we get is another anonymous slasher film.     

Gambling or smuggling needed for ping pong success

 MARTY SUPREME (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Marty Supreme" is a toy box movie with a huge, noisy rattle inside of it that lets out gunshots that will make your ears bleed. It is loud, obnoxious, rowdy, insane at its core and absolutely, without a doubt, very crudely entertaining. An audience member in the front row kept yelling at his date, "This is TOO MUCH. This is TOO MUCH!" I wanted him to leave (which he inevitably did) but I was more than willing to accept rabble-rouser Marty Mouser. As played by Timothee Chalamet, I didn't root for him exactly but I did admire his tenacity. 

Chalamet is Marty Mauser, a talented 22-year-old ping pong champion who wants to go after the big leagues and prove his worth and make millions. Easier said than done is something I have regurgitated once too often in my reviews. Heard this type of sports tale before? Of course, you have. Another film biography masquerading as truth littered with character inaccuracies to get to some possibly deeper truths? Oh, you bet, think "Bohemian Rhapsody" except only loosely inspired. Very loosely inspired, in fact so much so that the filmmakers have made it clear that this is not a biographical film based on the actual table tennis champion, Marty Reisman. 

What we have in "Marty Supreme" is an arrogant 1950's prick who knows how to climb high yet obstructions fill his life. At the start, Marty is a great shoe salesman working at his uncle's shoe store in the Lower East Side, New York, but his aspirations are to be a competitive table tennis star. His ping-pong skills are extraordinary yet real-life often interferes with his plans - of course, that won't stop him. When he can't get his 700 dollar paycheck he's owed from his uncle, he forces another shoe salesman at gunpoint to retrieve the money for airfare to the British Open! He makes it and wins big, and feels his talent should include a room at the Ritz and not some low-down hotel room! Then he successfully woos a married American actress, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow, in one of her finest roles in years). Kay is taken by this kid despite her reluctance to get intimately involved. Marty is unstoppable, however, as he relentlessly pursues, ridicules, offends and yet offers mea culpas to Kay's husband, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary) a wealthy ink-pen tycoon unaware of this affair. Milton wants Marty to participate in an exhibition ping pong game with the deaf Japanese opponent, Koto Endo (played by an actual deaf table tennis player, Koto Kawaguchi), who beat Marty. The exhibition is a purposeful sham and Marty decides to play against Endo without purposely losing.

"Marty Supreme" is chock full of haywire incidents that all stem from Marty's cheating, gambling, swindling, adulterous ways that are all part of his ambitious nature. Only his ambitions, though proven to be successful, involve less-than-savory attempts that are nothing to write home about. Marty Mauser is not a virtuous man and has no morals. He never tries to do the right thing because he can't, or he doesn't give it much thought. A chaotic sequence involving challenging other ping-pong players at a bowling alley leads to a gas station explosion that had me on the edge of my reclining seat. There's also the matter of the police hunting Mauser who has defied his uncle involving those 700 dollars, which leads to a hilarious scene where the motel room bathtub he's in crashes through the floor and traps an older motel occupant (creepily played by cult film director, Abel Ferrara) in his bathtub with his dog, Moses. There's also the matter of Marty's pregnant girlfriend (Odessa A'zion) who is married to someone else! She feigns having a black eye which leads Marty to striking her husband on the head with a trophy! Another brief fling with Kay leads to Marty almost getting arrested for having sex in Central Park at night. Then he runs into Milton again, and the movie never stops, never allows much time to breathe with 80's songs bridging scenes together and electronic music by composer Daniel Lopatin. This amoral kid is always on the run and so are we. 

"Marty Supreme" is the first figurative horror film biography I've seen that is as excessive as Oliver Stone's "The Doors." Timothee is so darn charismatic and so blazingly funny at times that you can't help but wonder how far the director Josh Safdie will go to dramatize these intense exploits. The film is performing well at the box-office as of this writing, but expect many audiences to scream "THIS IS TOO MUCH!"     

Sex, Drugs and rock and roll document

 COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If you want to see an out-of-control orgy in an airplane, watch this film. If you want to see the Rolling Stones engage in coke-sniffing, watch this film. If you want to see Stones' groupies injecting heroin in their veins, albeit in black-and-white, watch this film.  

"Cocksucker Blues" exists as an occasionally sluggish yet often compelling fly-on-the-wall approach  on the Stones 1972 tour (though the band allegedly stated that some of the scenes were staged). The band didn't want this film screened at all, though what did they expect unless they had no memory of such hedonistic, practically sexualzed moments. Banal also comes to mind when I see Keith Richard slumped over and laying on a woman's lap after ingesting heroin. Banal are Mick Jagger's comments about Southern diners - it is nothing too memorable to chew on other than their diners' superiority to British food. In fact, not much goes on in "Cocksucker Blues" which is likely the point of its own sluggishness - the life of a rock star band is all it is purported to be. Maybe the late director Robert Frank (a photographer noted for his work in "The Americans," not to mention the famous photo album collage on the Stones' own "Exile on Main St." album) is making the point that rock bands may indulge in excesses that result in nothing but stages of endless, perpetual boredom. Their lives are spent in hotel rooms where they watch the political shenanigans of the day, such as George Wallace running for office. 

Still, I was fascinated by the whole film despite finding some of it wearying. Frank does a fine job of assembling possibly hours and hours of footage into something relatively concise at 90 minutes. The director does get to show off the Stones on stage, particularly an electrifying concert with Stevie Wonder singing "Uptight, Everything's All Right" segueing to the Stone's own "Satisfaction" (a song I always prefered on their album, rather than the live recordings). Jagger on the harmonica during the "Midnight Rambler" performance is energetic and exciting. And you do get quick moments of celebrities visiting the Stones backstage such as Andy Warhol, Truman Capote and interviewer Dick Cavett. There is a far too brief moment with Tina Turner which I wish led to some concert footage of them performing. And there is a singular moment with a fan, a mother who lost custody of her children due to her being on acid, that is truly a time capsule moment of the movie and of the times.

Lastly, if you want to see Keith Richards throw a television out the window in his hotel room, watch this film. Charles Fleischer once had a quote that if you remembered the 60's, you weren't there. Keith Richards might not have remembered ever touring with the Stones in the 60's and early 70's so, perhaps, he wasn't really ever there. 

When Sequels Collide

 HOME ALONE 3 (1997)
Endured by Jerry Saravia

In-name sequels bother me (Leonard Maltin calls them follow-ups but the brand name is still used with a number attached to it). None of the characters return from the first two "Home Alone" flicks so it begs the question (other than being a financial one), why bother making a third? Why hoodwink people with a new sequel if Kevin McCallister doesn't return? No Macaulay Culkin, no reason.

There is some semblance of a story about international thieves seeking a missile cloaking microchip placed inside a racing car toy! The toy is inside a plastic bag that is mistakenly taken by an older lady at a Chicago airport! The thieves follow the lady in a taxi to a suburban part of Chicago, the kind writer John Hughes has shown us innumerable times. You know, the houses are enormous and look unaffordable but if you have two working parents... The new kid is eight-year-old Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) who has chicken pox and stays home from school alone because, you know, two working parents and two siblings (one played by Scarlet Johansson!) at school and nobody is ever home in Chicago during daylight hours. Nobody's home except for Alex and the mean old lady from the start of the film. When Alex spots one of these thieves at a nearby house, he calls 911! I'll give the movie credit for that since the first two films never showed Kevin calling the cops!

Other than a very funny bit involving a parrot on a phone's answering machine, nothing else in "Home Alone 3" elicits much of a chuckle or a smile. This Alex is just as good at developing booby traps as Kevin was, but he doesn't have much charm - he is just vanilla. So is the cast which includes Haviland Morris as Alex's mother who is too charismatic to just be a worrying mother. Comic pratfalls and multiple hits to the heads of these clumsy thieves with objects thrown at them that should kill them, "Home Alone 3" is unmemorable, unwarranted and inexplicably dull.   

Your smile and face are never in the same place, at the same time

 NIXON (1995)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"They will never love you Dick, no matter how many elections you win, they never will." - Pat Nixon

Truer words could not have been spoken in Oliver Stone's bewildering, seismic tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions, "Nixon." Who would have thought of any 20th century U.S. President evoking anything tragic worthy of our most famous playwright. Stone's "Nixon" is not a sentimental treatise nor a loving tribute but it is an empathetic and layered look at a man who was rightly condemned for his actions while in the Oval Office. Some may agree, some will disagree yet Stone points out a man who had the defects of his own virtues.

What were the virtues? Nixon was born in the poorest lemon ranch in the United States, specifically in Whittier, California. His Quaker mother was born of virtue (Mary Steenburgen), a "living saint," and his father (Tom Bower) was a hard working grocer who believed in virtue and any disobedience would lead to a trip to the woodshed. Richard Nixon had two brothers who died of TB, a heartbreaking loss which infected the rest of his life. Yet the film doesn't play out like a regular, linear biography of the rise and fall of a powerful man. The film unspools based on Nixon's private moments of listening to his reel-to-reel recordings of conversations between him and his staff that includes the publicity-seeking National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Paul Sorvino); H. R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff (James Woods), who protected the President and his decisions including odd discussions of coded phrases such as "that whole Bay of Pigs thing"; David Hyde Pierce as the White House Counsel, John Dean, who later testified in court during the Watergate hearings, and others including J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, Domestic Affairs Advisor, who can clearly see Nixon is going off the rails. Nixon was known back in the 1950's for going after Communists and yet "McCarthy never did much for him." Once he is in office for the second elected term, the war in Vietnam gets worse with more bombings than one can count. After he ends the war, the press doesn't clap for any sort of victory (though they love him for opening China during Chairman Mao's reign). 

This all brings us to Anthony Hopkins who inhabits the soul, not the appearance, of the former late President (no crooked nose either, other than in pointed flashbacks to the 1950's Red Scare). Hopkins brings out the pathos, thanks to an intricate, complex and literate script by Stone, Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson. There are powerful, practically soul-searching scenes played out with subtlety and infinite grace such as Nixon's late-night visit to the Lincoln Memorial with dozens of anti-war protesters surrounding him and asking tough questions; Kissinger and Nixon praying by the fireplace after he signed his resignation letter (that scene alone will raise the hairs on your arms); Nixon regretfully (it's in his pained eyes) renouncing ever running for office again to his no-nonsense wife Pat (brilliantly played by Joan Allen), and the vivid memories of his Whittier days which are as harsh and unsentimental as anything in Tricky Dick's presidency. 

Then we get the backgroom intrigue - the alleged and some recorded conversational moments between Nixon and his aides. The increasing bombing of Cambodia is discussed, Kent State, the triangular diplomacy with communist nations like China and Russia and what works for his campaign for a second term instead of what works for the people (especially the silent majority). Watergate details are also revealed and most thrillingly with ex-CIA agent and one of the White House Plumbers, E. Howard Hunt (Ed Harris), who gives us one of the great lines of 1990's cinema, "Your graves have already been dug." 

Oliver Stone pushes the empathy and compassion he has for Nixon in heavy strokes - Hopkins himself can't help but make Nixon look and feel more human than the televised president of his day with his customary line, "I am not a crook." The film suggests that Nixon could have been a great President if people only liked him. He had great powers that could have been used for good and he misused his presidency to keep us fighting a war presumably nobody wanted. His hubris takes a hold of him since he knows he could never be a Kennedy, and he unapologetically shows no compassion for others or his enemies of enemies (Nixon never called Bobby Kennedy after his brother was assassinated, and makes no statement over the tragic Kent State killings). 

"Nixon" rises and falls in its towering treatment of this President, unfolding past and present seamlessly with amazingly potent lensing by cinematographer Bobby Richardson, stretching from black-and-white to color just like he did with "Natural Born Killers" and "JFK.". One sequence involving Nixon recording over 18 1/2 minutes of secret tapes leading to him being rushed to the hospital is some of the most tantalizing sequences Oliver Stone ever cooked up. Of course, there are conspiracy-laden moments where eyebrows will be raised when Nixon visits some businessmen in some secret meetings in the middle of nowhere (the initial meeting with these men suggests they had a hand in Kennedy's demise). It is not a perfect film (the longer Director's cut is more icing on the cake featuring a curious meeting with Edgar G. Hoover in the Oval Office, and Richard Helms who may foster deeper knowledge of Bay of Pigs) but it is one of the best Presidential biographical films of the 1990's. It may get less respect than Stone's other films but that would be in keeping with Tricky Dick himself.  

No Way Out of this Train

ZENTROPA (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I first viewed "Zentropa" in 1992 in the Jean Cocteau cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico (the same theater where I saw another black-and-white oddity, "Shadows and Fog.") "Zentropa" is both frustrating, horrific, absorbing, infrequently comical and consistently pure spectacle. It also works, as most great films do, as a slow-moving, almost death-like trance and nobody is better at putting you in that out-of-body state than Max von Sydow who does the stirring narration.

The narration is not a conventional voice-over - it is more of a set of instructions for our most peculiar protagonist (and in a way, for us, the audience). The mild-mannered, polite protagonist is Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), an American brought to Germany in 1945 after the war is over. He is assigned to work as a sleeping car conductor and is related to his Uncle Kessler, a strict, impatient, by-the-book German (Ernst-Hugo Jaregard), who nonetheless expects his nephew to follow rules. The train is named Zentropa only though this is no ordinary train - this was a doomed mode of transportation to send Jews to the deadly concentration camps. There is an alluring heiress, Katharina (Barbara Sukowa), who is riding the train and is the daughter of Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg), who owns the train. Max is no saint since his very own train company was complicit in war crimes. He's saddled with guilt to the point that he commits suicide in the bathtub after being falsely cleared by a Jew he saved. 

"Zentropa" is not for average audiences or even for, a term I loathe, "art film" enthusiasts. "Zentropa" is too strange, too melodic, too otherworldly from a narration standpoint, and far too European in its leisurely paced story though it briefly harks back to 1950's melodramatic romances with lyrical musical notes. Directed with visual brush strokes using rear-screen projection and black-and-white with splashes of occasional color, "Zentropa" is never less than mesmerizing. Almost every shot is layered with complex focal length shots that are quite unique (though not nearly as thickly layered as "Prospero's Books," released the same year), from an isolated yellow telegram with a man in the bathtub in black-and-white. It is exemplary filmmaking, especially in the opening scenes where we witness the emergence of the Zentropa train car being pulled with ropes by adults and children. 

Ultimately, the movie serves to function Leopold as some sort of powerless antihero who is given a  reluctant mission - to blow up the train! The war is never really over in Trier's "Zentropa" as the heiress turns out to be a Werwolf and an assassination even takes place on board the train involving a child shooting an older man! Perhaps Trier is saying that no matter who you were in Germany during the worst genocide of the 20th century, you were guilty by association. We are in submerged in the film's hypnotic final scenes and Leopold has no way out. Neither does the audience.

Blow by Blow with Serpico

 AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Frank Lucas is one savvy, smart businessman who clearly would've done well for himself conducting any business. The business in "American Gangster," adapted from a true story, is the illegal shipment of an illegal, highly sought after drug, heroin. Only this heroin is not the street-level type - this is high-grade, uncut heroin from Vietnam! How the heck does Lucas manage to bring in top quality heroin to the United States and cut out the middle man? Using military coffins of course.

"American Gangster" has the subdued talents of Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas who rises fast in the selling of such pure heroin. Nobody can stop this guy and all the police detectives initially have trouble finding the man responsible - they don't even know his name. How do you cut out the middle man - the Italian Mafia and the cops on the take - and keep the dough for yourself and spread it around buying real estate and a North Carolina home for your mother (Ruby Dee)? Lucas keeps a low-profile up to a point, sharing his wealth with his brothers from back home. One brother (the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor) thinks it is cool to dress like a guy the cops could easily target and nab ("You're wearing a clown suit.") Lucas corrects that situation and, of course, love finds itself in his sights in the form of a Puerto Rican woman (Lymari Nadal) who appears at one of Lucas's parties. Still, you can't keep crooked cops and the mob away forever. 

Russell Crowe is the honest-to-the-bone, Serpico-like police detective, Richie Roberts, who is vying to catch criminals and pass the bar. Roberts also has complications with his ex-wife (Carla Gugino) and custody of his son. This guy think nothing of boinking his fetching lawyer and other women entering in an out of his apartment. Meanwhile, there is Roberts' partner, Javy (John Ortiz, who looks exactly like a late 60's early 70's detective), who OD's on heroin. Roberts is ready to make arrests and sets up a task force to combat this heroin through the big-time suppliers, distributors and the big honcho.  

"American Gangster" is at its best when evoking the brutally difficult detective work Roberts has to contend with. The details of finding the merchandise and discovering how it is imported into the U.S. are almost staggering to witness - you wonder just how he will nab Lucas. It is also fascinating to see Lucas at work and Denzel does a fabulous job of evoking much without dialogue - it is his silence and his observation of supposedly trivial touches (like placing a coaster for a rival's drink) that show a man who doesn't leave anything to chance. He wants to be in charge of this product and it comes at the expense of almost everything else, including his wife and even his chinchilla coat. There are too many forces to be reckoned including a crooked cop with a hint of slime in his mustache played with scary precision by Josh Brolin. Still, the movie doesn't sugarcoat Lucas - this guy is prone to killing someone without much provocation.

"American Gangster" does find a subtle nod of nobility in Frank Lucas which is largely due to Denzel Washington's casting - the real gangster himself doesn't seem to hint at anything noble. The relationships Roberts and Lucas have with the women in their lives do lack depth and one wishes that Lymari Nadal had been given more to do than the customary packing-suitcases-and-splitting scene. It is only the forthright Lucas and the righteous Roberts who seem to find common ground in naming names of rotten cops on the take. Regardless of its flaws, Ridley Scott has fashioned an entertaining and sometimes thrilling look at cops and criminals. It may seem like business as usual with gangsters but rarely is it this compelling. 

Smooth cop, smooth criminal

 HEAT (1995)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

I have looked at Michael Mann's "Heat" several times throughout the years and there is plenty to wade through in its 2 hour and 50 minute run time. It has an amazing bank heist scene followed by an incredible shootout in the streets, it has a dank look at the underworld that exists in nightclubs and fenced-in areas off the beaten path where few tread except criminals, and even the occasional green screen effects of L.A. at night is dreamy and noirish in ways we had not seen again till David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." More significantly, "Heat" is not content to be solely a high-stakes action thriller - it focuses on the personal lives of the professional thieves and the one police lieutenant who needs the chase to fuel his mojo.

Al Pacino is the high-strung yet completely in control lieutenant Hanna. This guy lives to root out scores and find and possibly kill crews if they kill innocent lives. One particularly brutal crew is masterminded by McCauley (Robert De Niro), an icy thief who is unwilling to have a woman in his life since he lives by a ruthless code - as soon as the heat is around the corner, he's disciplined enough to know to walk away from any woman no matter what. It is the only true code he lives by. Lieutenant Hanna lives by finding and arresting crews - it raises his temperature and keeps him focused. Hanna is married (again) and can't seem to hold down a relationship with his neglected wife, Justine (Diane Venora), or his troubled stepdaughter (Natalie Portman, in what appears to be a heavily truncated role). Hanna is always on the move and "where he needs to be" but that doesn't include being home or partaking in cleaning dirty dishes. In contrast, McCauley lives in a lonely Malibu home where you hear the waves of the ocean in the background - he has no furniture, only a phone and a coffee maker. In one of many tantalizing scenes, McCauley visits his usual bookshop looking for a book on metals and is questioned what he is reading by a graphic designer, Eady (Amy Brenneman). McCauley feels threatened and then slowly asks various questions about Eady's life, thus eliminating any need to reveal anything about himself. This sequence alone leads to intimacy at her apartment and is almost as revealing and powerful as Hanna and McCauley's impromptu visit to a coffee shop.

Nothing in "Heat" is truly original other than its focus on complicated relationships and complicated high-tech heists. This is what makes "Heat" rise above most other heist movies and its cat-and-mouse game between cops and criminals - its very influence is felt in "Infernal Affairs," another dynamic thriller. Here, we also venture into Val Kilmer as Chris Shiherlis, a McCauley crew member who can bulldoze through security alarms. Chris's wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd), is well aware of Chris's criminal activities, often goading him for more cash for his work. Chris gets temperamental, in fact most of the males in this movie holler and get physical with the women. Worst offender is the serial rapist and murderous Waingro (Kevin Gage) who is along for the opening scene's armored truck heist where he spontaneously kills a guard without much provocation. Kevin Gage's chilling performance showcases a dangerous man with an increasingly volatile nature that is scary to watch. Other actors appear in "Heat" as restrained, cool and controlling such as Jon Voight as McCauley's business contractor, Henry Rollins (!), Dennis Haysbert as a paroled convict and Tom Noonan as an expert with inside information on banks. Even Bud Cort is along for the ride as a rigid diner manager. Danny Trejo and the colorful character actor Tom Sizemore appear as crew members and they seem less threatening than the others, which is saying a lot.

"Heat" still falls a little short of developing the three central female characters, Eady, Justine and Charlene. They just barely appear as nothing more than troubling pawns - trophies for the insecure men. True, Charlene has her way with Chris and McCauley who catches her having an affair but she is inconsolable. Same with Eady who eventually finds out McCauley's true nature as a career criminal and decides to go along with it, though we can't imagine why when she feels cheated and betrayed. Brenneman's final scene where she realizes that McCauley will not be part of her life is this actress's strongest moment in the film, other than the original meeting. And there's Justine who has an affair without blinking an eye, leading to a hilarious verbal assault by Hanna.

"Heat" is smooth in its jazzy rhythms that are director Michael Mann's trademark - his movies are textured with a coolness that is intensely watchable. The characters speak with a clarity and a slight detachment that seem utterly real and authentic. Along with Mann's "Thief" and "Manhunter," few action thrillers can deliver such ample style and strong characters and it puts most other similar flicks to shame. The whole movie is an unusual crime picture in retrospect - it is as smooth as silk.

Marlon Brando's light comic touch is gold

 THE FRESHMAN (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in the summer of 1990)

"The Freshman" is a delicate souffle of a movie, a tasty treat and the sweetest kind of cinematic confection. It is a harmless comedy of manners and it utilizes our memories of "The Godfather" movies to its fullest extent while delivering a fresh, original comedy. It will warm your heart and make you laugh at the same time.

Matthew Broderick is Clark Kellogg, an ingenuous Vermont college freshman starting his new year at NYU. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong from the second he arrives via Amtrak at Grand Central Station. Kellogg's belongings are stolen by a shady Victor Ray (an energetically hilarious Bruno Kirby), who happens to be the nephew of a very shady importer of goods named Sabatini (Marlon Brando, who savors every Don Corleone-marble-sounding syllable). Sabatini's latest import is a Komodo Dragon, an endangered species that is going be served as a meal at some gourmet club for $350,000 a plate! Animal lovers, do not worry, this caper plot does not result in any animal cruelty.

"The Freshman" is truly a sleeper of another kind, written with wit and gobs of humanity by writer-director Andrew Bergman. Rounding out this rather eccentric, pleasing cast is Maximilian Schell as an unorthodox chef, Frank Whaley as Clark's roommate with a hairdo I do not recall anyone sporting in the late 1980's, and the great Paul Benedict as Fleeber, an NYU film professor who has "The Godfather Part II" memorized. Other than the titanic presence of Brando, the hustling bravado of Kirby and the wholesomeness of Broderick, there is the darling, angelic Penelope Ann Miller as Sabatini's only daughter, Tina, who assures Clark that the Mona Lisa in her house is the real article and that it was simply taken from the Louvre! So with the delicious chemistry between Miller and Broderick, Brando paying homage with respect to his most famous role (Corleone's name can't be uttered, a running gag), "The Freshman" unfolds like a precious restaurant meal that you can enjoy and have a few good laughs along the way during the evening. And Bert Parks appears in a mind-blowing cameo where he has the rare event of singing "Tequila" and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm." Still, there is nothing like the sight of Marlon Brando showing a delicate comic touch and a twinkle in his eye. A marvelous movie.  

Chocolate cake and men never seemed more disgusting

 KEEPER (2025)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Director Oz Perkins ("Longlegs") has described "Keeper" as a film about toxic masculinity and disgusting male behavior. There are sufficient shades of this subtext but it is more about a deeply unsettling and uncontrollable madness that may or may not be a paranoiac descent or something far more nightmarish. There is much to savor here in "Keeper" and it is Tatiana Maslany who makes the film swim to a foreseeable yet disturbing finish.

Maslany is Liz, a sweet and suspicious artist who has an uncertainty about seemingly everything. She is travelling with her boyfriend, Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), a doctor, to a log cabin in the woods and you can tell she is expressing doubts through her mannerisms. Things go awry from the start, from a delicious looking chocolate cake wrapped inside an ugly looking box presumably left by some caretaker, to Malcolm himself who is unwilling to have sex with Liz, to strange, creaky sounds above the cabin both night and day, etc. What starts as some sort of haunted cabin story surrounded by haunted woods is actually about paranoia, or so it seems. When Malcolm chooses to see a comatose patient of his and leaves her alone, we wonder if he will return. There's also Malcolm's deplorable cousin living next door (Birkett Turton) who has a European girlfriend who can't speak a lick of English yet she knows how to say that the cake "tastes like shit." The question is what is happening to Liz? She has hallucinatory visions of creatures crawling up trees or of something ominous in the creek in the woods. The log cabin itself has open windows with no curtains and the bathroom door is the only door you can lock from the inside, or is it? Forget the "Evil Dead" cabin - it seems like a creepy cabin I would not want to live in or visit on weekends. Plus, she has nightmares of children with rifles and one pointed at her head. Has she been drugged or is she going crazy or is it something else? 

"Keeper" keeps you glued in and so does the enormously sympathetic performance by Tatiana Maslany (an actress I first discovered in "Ginger Snaps 2"). Maslany gives the movie a shot of pathos and pure insight into a woman who knows her relationship with her boyfriend may end up being short-termed. Rossif Sutherland appears from the start like a guy we are gravely suspicious about. We know he is a liar when he claims to love Liz or when he leaves for his outing to the city. This guy just seems like bad news from the start in a sneaky, standoffish kind of way (not to mention the somewhat misogynistic cousin). 

As for director Perkins, he's working with the adroit rhythms of screenwriter Nick Lepard who keeps the tension running in a leisurely enough manner. Perkins is up to the task and also composes many shots with cinematographer Jeremy Cox where something always obstructs or obscures the frame. You really feel a gnawing sense of claustrophobia and it pays off handsomely. "Keeper" amps up the tension only when needed and proves to be a menacing, first-rate log cabin film of the first order. It may not be the fever pitch with more grandiose themes of "The Shining" but it is close to the eerie vibes of "Rosemary Baby." I will say that I have no desire to eat chocolate cake again after seeing it. 

Could've been Spike Lee's Empire

 HIGHEST 2 LOWEST (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Watching "Highest 2 Lowest" can feel like unequal parts of vintage Spike Lee and a semi-90's thriller vibe. I recently saw "High and Low" by Kurosawa, a pulse-pounding thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and also had strong character portrayals amidst its then groundbreaking forensic analysis. Spike Lee's lusciously filmed remake "Highest 2 Lowest" is not in the same vein and that is only because Lee has divided his movie into two halves, and some of it is flawless and some of it feels off-centered and doesn't flow evenly. 

The movie begins with Denzel Washington as David King, a record label executive whose own music label is on the wane. The opening shots of the film show his penthouse overlooking New York City and you can already feel the wealth causing your eyes to bulge - you sense that this guy has let wealth get in the way of imagination (he also has a home in Sag Harbor). Ilfenesh Hadera as Pam King, David's tender wife, senses economic trouble with David who is making a risky move: he wishes to gain majority control of his music company before any rivals attempt to buy him out. As King is trying to make deals employing a vision of focusing on the music and less on the green, his son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), is kidnapped. The vociferous kidnapper demands a ransom of $17.5 million in Swiss 1,000-franc notes or the son will not be returned. After acquiring the ransom funds (money King needs for his hopeful record deal), Trey returns yet it was actually his best friend, Kyle (Elijah Wright), who was kidnapped! The ransom still holds for the return of Kyle - Kyle is Paul Christopher's son. Paul (Jeffrey Wright) is King's driver and close friend who sees a situation spiraling out of control. The problem is that King is reluctant to pay the ransom because Kyle is not his son. If you have seen "High and Low," much of this plot will seem familiar (and it has been remade a few times since). It is no surprise that King relents and pays the ransom. 

Just when the action centers on the money bag being delivered between train stops to the anonymous caller, "Highest 2 Lowest" fails to maintain the same level of excitement it started with. The forensic and detective work is practically abandoned in this version and the class system is just casually dealt with. With a more attentive screenwriter, perhaps Lee himself, they could've taken this story and updated it to our modern-day class warfare. If you think about it, based on Spike Lee's past films dealing with the poor or working class, he would've had a field day with this material. Instead we are saddled with too much of the business practices of the music business and some of it is intriguing but it doesn't mesh with the thriller aspects. Either Lee should've made an amazing film about the cutthroat music business (something akin to TV's "Empire") and left the suspense plot out or made a full blown suspense film. 

"Highest 2 Lowest" is still curiously entertaining with charismatic performances by all, including Denzel Washington who always embodies every character he plays with the finesse of a true and honest actor. Denzel's scenes with Aubrey Joseph as his son are involving and intimately portrayed (especially the potent moment when Trey curses out his father). The musical sequences are mind-blowing and hold one's interest, especially the finale. ASAP Rocky is also a phenomenal performer and rivets our attention, plus holding his own against Denzel. The film is just not electrifying to watch, not like some of Lee's other notable films, and the whole affair feels muted and has scant emotional resonance.