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 some 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. 

God gave me ears to hear

 SARAH'S OIL (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I was afraid Amazon Studios might release an earnest, noble film that would sugarcoat the real true story of Sarah Rector, the first black child to inherit oil wealth. Let's be honest - many films of its ilk tend to soften the realities of the time, specifically in the early 1900's when kindness and empathy were in short supply towards black people and the few white people who supported them. Thankfully, director Cyrus Nowrasteh aims to reveal the racism of the Jim Crow South and balance it with the hope and faith required to make that leap forward. This Sarah is no Disney-fied smart aleck - she is also self-aware and good with numbers. 

Sarah Rector (an astonishing debut by Naya Desir-Johnson), an 11-year-old Oklahoma girl, hears the roar, the humming sound of oil rattling beneath her feet in land considered barren (anyone who has read or seen "Killers of the Flower Moon," another Oklahoma true story, knows what is coming next). Sarah is elated and enthusiastic about this discovery despite not seeing a drop of oil - she tells her parents that her God-given ears know it is true. It is 159 acres of land and, thanks to the Treaty of 1866, she is the owner of such land thanks to her Creek Indian ancestry. She convinces her father to venture to oil companies to determine the land's value. Most are reluctant to participate except for one, a seemingly courteous Jim Devnan (Garret Dillahunt), an oil company executive. Jim has his team drill and they find nothing (of course, they do. It turns out they want the land for themselves regardless of the signed deed to Sarah).

Along the way she meets friendly wildcatter Bert (Zachary Levi) at an all-white diner where he buys her a lemonade. A friendship grows between them when she insists that he helps her cultivate that oil along with Bert's trusty Mexican friend/partner, Mace (Mel Rodriguez). These two wildcatters seem too good to be true yet they turn out to be the good guys - they really want to aid Sarah in drilling that oil and making her wealthy. Naturally, the other oil prospectors led by Jim has them threatening Sarah and her family with guns. And Bert has lost money in his past prospecting missions, and no doubt that the oil execs will make a sweet financial deal with Bert while he becomes Sarah's guardian in order to protect her wealth.

"Sarah's Oil" could have been rougher in its depiction of the hardships of a young smart girl obtaining the mineral rights to the land. This is a simplified tale yet I was quite moved by it. Naya Desir-Johnson brings such vibrancy and hope to this Sarah Rector that you are swept along by her - you want her to succeed. Money is the name of the game and there is no way on God's green earth that these white businessmen and swindlers/con men will not get their greedy hands on the oil. You have to admire Sarah's tenacity and strength - she seems older than her years suggest. That is the beauty of "Sarah's Oil" - it is Sarah's story through and through and, despite the presence of the fictitious Bert and Mace, they are refreshingly not white saviors. Sarah is determined and proud and her religious parents, Joe and Rose (sincerely played by Kenric Green and Sonequa Martin-Green), are ready to support her daughter in her cause despite initial doubts by Pops (property tax alone of 30 dollars is tough on an impoverished family). As far as biographical tales go (we get too few about black pioneers in early 20th century America), this is that rare movie that feels inspired and inspiring.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

 SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

George Romero's "Season of the Witch" is not a misleading title and far more memorable than its original titles such as "Jack's Wife" or "Hungry Wives" (the latter could have been a Living Dead sequel). It shows the unmistakable urge for Romero to make a dramatic film about feminism and, since this was the 1970's, it makes perfect sense and it is an honorable effort.

A bored, stiff housewife, Joan (Jan White), is practically doing nothing except laying in bed. Her husband, Jack (Bill Thunhurst), wakes up early before she does and makes no effort in kissing her goodbye before heading to work. She has nightmares about her husband paying no attention to her as they go for walks in the woods where she sees a baby crawling on the ground, a woman on a swing, etc (Etcetera, etcetera is something uttered in a hallucination she has at one point). Joan also gets scratched on her forehead and her hands as she tries to push through twigs and branches while trying to approach her husband. These scenes, which contains fast cuts and odd sounds in the soundtrack, demonstrate Joan as a woman unable to cope and her willingness for something, some meaning in her life yet she feels trapped. When Joan meets with her friends, they all talk about a woman practicing witchcraft who believes in it fully as a way of life. Intrigue leads to Joan buying all the tools of the witchcraft trade and includes scenes where she pierces her skin with pins and draws spells with the hope of conjuring a demon.

Romero doesn't exactly balance all these ideas perfectly but give him credit for trying. "Season of the Witch" has a nerve-wracking pot-smoking scene with a nervous older woman that doesn't involve pot at all - a teacher puts this woman under a spell by making her believe she's ingesting something she wished she didn't (it is just a crunched up cigarette). The rest of the film has unnerving hallucinations that include a masked man outside Joan's house; Joan getting a major orgasm after hearing her daughter's moans in her bedroom; an extra-marital affair with that teacher, and some lengthy discussions about witches. One very telling scene that pretty much sets up the film is Joan having a hallucination about what her middle-class home will be like, including introductions to her social circle, her daughter, who to reach for emergencies, etc. This is the Etcetera hallucination sequence.

"Season of the Witch" is not a horror film though it contains brief woman-in-danger-inside-her-home moments that later became staples of slasher horror. It is ultimately a film about a woman trying to find an escape from her boredom. Intriguing, fascinating and, purposely, emotionally distant. A true non-horror find for Romero fans.

Mia is the heart and soul of this Stuckmannized horror flick

 SHELBY OAKS (2024)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I only wish the best for anyone debuting as a film director in this climate of repetitive remakes and endless comic-book movies. Of course, that is not all there is because recent horror films have raised the stakes for imbuing some originality and thought rather than just mindless remaking. Some of the best horror output is from Neon Pictures and A24 and kudos to them for seeking out fresher material. You Tube Movie Reviewer Chris Stuckmann has accomplished his lifelong goal of making a movie (and he still reviews movies except only the ones he likes). "Shelby Oaks" is not the most inspired horror film (it feels like the third or fourth sequel in a series) and hardly one that will scare many out of their wits. It does, however, bear the stamp of something personal that never ventures as deeply as it could have. Still, got to give credit to Stuckmann for giving it a go and succeeding only partially.

The opening of this movie features some found footage in news segments detailing the disappearance of the Paranormal Paranoids, a group of five YouTubers that have a vested interest in finding ghosts or paranormal activity in abandoned buildings or haunted homes. Almost immediately we are entering "Grave Encounters" territory and any number of other ghostly encounter TV shows or YouTube streaming channels that you've seen millions of times. This is not a found footage film - it is actually about finding the clues in found footage in the rarest of mediums nowadays - a mini-DV cassette. Camille Sullivan is Mia who becomes obsessed with her sister's disappearance and somehow knows she's not dead (the other members of the Paranormal Paranoids were murdered). This leads to numerous scenes with typical flashlight searches inside a closed "Shawshank" prison, the dark forbidden woodsy areas, an abandoned amusement park, and finally some log cabin with a mysterious, unhealthy-looking woman whose home is filled with moldy walls. Oh, yes, and we shan't forget the ravenous dogs with glowing eyes. Mia's sister, Riley (Sarah Durn), might have encountered foul play with that other horror trope - an occult group.

"Shelby Oaks" builds itself on atmosphere and many scenes inside these dreadful, underlit locations do rivet the attention and cause one to occasionally shake their shoulders. Stuckmann might also have a gift for personal matters including Mia's fondness and despair over her sister and dark forces that always seem to surround them in their upbringing. The found footage of the forlorn Riley sensing something ominous in daylight shots in some corner of an amusement park, or in some room where something nasty and unseen this way comes, can also shock the system. Stuckmann doesn't quite the nail the depth that Mia needs on this personal journey, and her relationship with her unemotional husband (Brendan Sexton III) is lacking a pulse. 

"Shelby Oaks" needed to be deeper and more entrenched in Mia's relentless pursuit of clues to her sister's disappearance. Camille Sullivan gives it her every ounce of regret and passion she can muster and the scene of the unveiling of a photo scrapbook had me on edge. Ravenous dogs? Not so much. Cracks on the window had me on the edge of my seat. It is doubly wonderful to see veteran actors like the charismatic Keith David as a prison warden and Michael Beach as a by-the-book detective, though I did miss them as soon as they were gone. Ultimately, Camille Sullivan is the heart and soul of this movie and you kinda wish there was more of each to really give this film a jolt.       

I-I-I-I am so sad and lonely, sad and lonely

 MAD DOG AND GLORY (1993)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"Mad Dog and Glory" is a smoothly made piece of entertainment with nicely textured performances and oodles of charm. Those are not words that usually describe a film about a Chicago crime scene photographer/cop faced with having a temporary spirited girl as a roommate who is indebted to a mobster. Or maybe it does. Either way, do not expect melodramatic fireworks from what could been a high-tech crime film or a police action thriller. You won't find any car chases here, not much violence either. This is a film about manhood, proving yourself in the streets as the guy with macho threats without moving too many muscles. There is also an unbelievable fight scene that I'll get back to.

Robert De Niro is Wayne (also known as Mad Dog), the crime scene photographer who works the dreaded graveyard shift. He hasn't fired his pistol in years and is reluctant to when he confronts a crackhead killer at a grocery store. Wayne hilariously allows the killer to take candy and cash from the register in exchange for a man's life who is caught up in this robbery (Bill Murray). It turns out the man Wayne saved is no ordinary Chicagoan - he's a mobster named Frank Milo who is "the expediter of your dreams." And get this: Frank is a comedian at the Comic-Cazie comedy club, a club he owns of course. What comedy club would ever have a mobster do stand-up? More importantly, why would he do it? 

In some extended and frank discussions on marriage, loyalty, stand-up jokes, Frank and Wayne seem to hit it off despite being quite drunk. Frank issues a stern warning to Wayne: Treat him with respect or Frank's life becomes a raging sea. Ouch! It isn't often that we see a comedy about a mobster and a cop having an unlikely relationship. 

Then there's the matter of the klutzy bartender at the Comic Cazie, Glory (Uma Thurman), who owes a debt to Frank concerning her brother. Glory is positioned to live with Wayne for a week - a girl to keep Wayne "happy." What a trouper this Frank is. Still, things go awry when the crackhead killer who threatened Frank and Wayne shows up dead in a drum covered with a net! To make matters complicated, Wayne falls in love with Glory and won't let her go back to Frank. This eventually leads to a street bare knuckle fight that is impossible to believe. Wayne yells and points a gun at Frank, "Fight me for her!" Frank responds, "That's schoolyard, Wayne." The fight ensues where there is no clear victor and both of them are surrounded by cops and mobsters cheering on whoever lands a direct punch. "Raging Bull****" was one headline for a review I remember reading back in 1993. It seems this scene could have been dramatized with more conviction and dialogue than simply slamming fists.

"Mad Dog and Glory" is a comedic character study rather than a strict comedy (directed by John McNaughton in an unhurried fashion and written with street flavor by Richard Price). Everything is about as unobtrusive as you can imagine. No single actor is looking to make more of an impression than anybody else. De Niro in particular is at his most subdued playing a cop, and continued to downplay and minimize facial expressions in later roles. Equally unflashy is David Caruso playing a tough cop and Wayne's partner who sizes up to anyone he feels needs sizing up. Bill Murray oozes and relishes villainy without trying and does it with a refreshing laid-back style (I should try a pineapple cake slice and sour cream, only because Frank finds it so appetizing). And there's Uma Thurman, the object of affection for Wayne and just merely an object for Frank. She is able to show Glory as a young woman who wants and needs love yet she will not be bought and doesn't have a docile bone in her body. The last scene shows how much she loves Wayne that she will go back to Frank to resolve the friction between the two men - she can stand up to these men who may have guts but no glory. An unusual, quirky, underappreciated film that is not defined by genre - it plays by its own rules. If only more Hollywood films were like this.  

Great Pretender

 PAPER MASK 

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A case of mistaken identity or assuming an identity are always choice topics for psychologically driven character studies and/or psychological thrillers. "Paper Mask" is about a certain kind of young British man who pushes himself to assume an identity, though we never understand why or what he is truly getting out of it. Think of the amoral main protagonist, Matthew Harris, as a Tom Ripley-type.

From the start, something feels askew about Matthew (Paul McGann), a hospital orderly with bigger aspirations. Matthew hangs with his other orderly friends at pubs and sees a world where doctors have the women and are more economically secure. Matthew wants a piece of that and when a certain Dr. Hennessy is with Matthew's ex and they get into a car accident, chance seems to present itself. Hennessy dies, the girl lives, and Matthew decides to assume Hennessy's identity (he doesn't get the girl back). He applies for a job as a doctor in a hospital in Bristol, specifically the casualty (emergency) department, where he diagnoses and administers care to patients with injuries and medical issues that go beyond his limited knowledge. Matthew may have been studying medical books in his spare time, prior to Hennessy's death, but he is no doctor and he knows it. His first day is a disaster, and so is his second. Casualty nurses like the sympathetic Christine (Amanda Donohoe) know that doctors hitting the books without the hands-on practice are a dime a dozen (no one is aware that Matthew is not a doctor). Somehow the deceit continues and he improves while learning on the job (he practices doing stitches on a piece of clothing).

"Paper Mask" is about that level of deceit and how long Matthew can keep fooling them all. He eventually admits the truth to Christine of whom he has a romantic relationship with. Matthew keeps his past hidden (he throws a parental gift, a watch, down the toilet) and Christine keeps pursuing him for some semblance of emotion and insight. The truth is that Matthew is a cipher, a man of no special ability other than using his charm to deceive, but to what end? The senior Dr. Thorn (the always exceptional Tom Wilkinson) is skeptical of Hennessy and was not keen with his other colleagues who unanimously hired him. Thorn rightfully deduces that Hennessy doesn't have the necessary empathy and patience to be a doctor.

The movie runs into some potboiler-ish thriller elements when one of Matthew's orderly friends (Jimmy Yuill) gets a position at the same hospital - the last thing Matthew needs is for his own cover to be blown. A psychological character study would allow fate to come in and crush Matthew, his lies and the world around him. As it develops, "Paper Mask" aims to be a Ripley tale of murderous impulses whereas the deceit itself would've been ample. As written by John Collee, the author of the book this is based on, my heart sank a tad when it went into this thriller terrain. I don't exactly mind the thriller mechanics but since the character is a cipher and has no real inner life, the result is the depiction is nothing more than some charismatic guy who wants to be a doctor (at one point, he almost leaves the hospital because he can't handle it). Fascinating and occasionally horrifying nonetheless with expert performances by all (Donohoe truly shines as always), "Paper Mask" is one of those films where an expanded running time would've helped. I think I now trust doctors even less.

Nexus is no Genesis

 STAR TREK GENERATIONS (1994)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Generations" is one of the black sheep of the Trek cinematic and TV universes, the other being the very much maligned "Star Trek V." "Generations" is silly and some of its story is incomprehensible and defies logic. Truthfully, I never look for logic in science-fiction unless the movie is so inert and badly-paced that asking logical questions becomes part of the fun. This is a fun, diverting movie but, boy, do questions abound after it is over. 

From the start, I felt I was in Star Trek heaven, a sort of nirvana of excitement, after a champagne bottle (a Dom Perignon, vintage 2265) is floating in space and is smashed on the newly minted Enterprise ship. Captain Kirk (the delightful William Shatner) is retired and merely there for a photo-op and as a casual observer! He is joined by reliable old Scottish engineer Scotty (James Doohan) and Chekov (Walter Koenig), whom are both presumably retired. Something goes ballistic immediately with the Enterprise when it is near a deadly energy ribbon (known as the Nexus) that destroys two El-Aurian ships (the El-Aurians are a Race of Listeners). The new captain from the Starfleet Academy (Alan Ruck, what weird casting) is unprepared for this maiden voyage since the ship has no torpedoes but they can simulate a torpedo to drive them away from the ribbon! The Enterprise gets bruised and reliable Kirk is killed, or at least floating in Nexus. 

Cue to 78 years later to the Next Generation cast having a ball celebrating Worf (Michael Dorn) as lieutenant commander, a celebration aboard a holographic 17th century ship where this Klingon is brought out with shackles and has to step into the plank.. Before long Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) has the tragic news that some of his family members died, thus causing much grief as he pores over photo albums. There are some truly intimate scenes between Picard and counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) where he breaks down crying over the loss - a humanity that anchors the best that Star Trek has to offer. Speaking of humanity and emotion, android Data (Brent Spiner) is implanted with an emotion chip that causes him to laugh at jokes from several years back. Levar Burton is back as Geordi La Forge, the engineer with a visor that allows him to see, and he is perplexed by Data's emotions. So is the whole Enterprise crew when Data starts singing about lifeforms as he's looking for any in other planets. 

The central plot has Dr. Soran (wickedly bulging-eyed Malcolm McDowell), an El-Aurian, who wants to be on Nexus, an energy ribbon that takes you to a state-of-mind place where you feel joy and time doesn't exist (think of it as memory implants that create a fake environment you can revisit over and over). However, Soran believes that by destroying the planets near Nexus, he can have a proper alignment on an iron bridge in the planet Veridian III where he can be immersed in the Nexus. Also on Nexus is Captain Kirk who is at his original domicile before leaving for the Starfleet (his wife is shown on a horse in a blurry long shot), but his memories can also shift based on his mood, I gather.

A more clearly defined plot would've been welcome, just as it was for the planet Genesis from the earlier Star Trek films. Here, it seems Nexus can be anything and though its limitless possibilities are entrancing, they still confuse me with Soran's plan to destroy planets when Kirk and Picard do not have to engage in such evil acts to gain entrance. Or something like that. I am sure Trekkies have studied this ridiculous plot and made some sense of it.

"Generations" is still fun and engaging with the Next Generation cast (though many have abbreviated roles though it is a treat to see Whoopi Goldberg as the bartender Guinan) and it is a hoot to see Stewart and Shatner team up. It all comes down to a fistfight on that iron bridge with Soran and the two captains and, I suppose, I would not have it any other way when it comes to Star Trek.  

The More You Drive, the Less Intelligent You are

 REPO MAN (1984)
Reassessed by Jerry Saravia

"Repo Man" is a junkyard fight of a movie, a rambling cuckoo clock of low and high extremes. It is somehow the story of repo men, you know, those in the dangerous business of repossessing cars from owners who don't make their payments. We learn rich people never make their payments because they don't care. We learn regular, normal people are assholes. We learn repo men dress in business suits so they can look like private detectives. And there is some business about a stolen 1964 Chevy Malibu that has something "hot" in its trunk. Not "hot" as in a stolen car, just literally hot. So hot that no one dares open the trunk or else, well, it will be "Kiss Me Deadly" time. 

Emilio Estevez is Otto, a hotheaded 19-year-old kid trying to pass for 21 who wears a crucifix earring (in 1984, this was a big deal but, nowadays, many males wears earrings). He does not have a legitimate girlfriend, loses his supermarket job by cursing out the manager, and tries to get money from his pot-smoking hippie parents to no avail. One day, Otto walks around the streets of L.A. and ends up repossessing a car, unbeknownst to him, while helping out Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) who claims his wife has to go to the hospital. It is all a ruse and Otto reluctantly becomes a repo man. Bud teaches him the tricks of the trade, including how most repo men stay alert by taking speed. Bud teaches Otto that life of a repo man is intense and he doesn't like commies or Christians in his car.  

Meanwhile, that Chevy Malibu is stolen repeatedly, including by a punk gang that loves "to do some crimes" including eating sushi for free! Government agents are also interested in that Malibu that is fetching for twenty grand if found, and you can bet those repo men want to get their hands on it. A lot of this can get repetitious, and the inclusion of some wild crazy scientist who initially drives the Malibu can irritate after a while. When Estevez and Stanton are on screen, the movie's kinetic energy is back on and is often crudely entertaining. 

Alex Cox's freewheeling direction is everywhere and anywhere - there is a restlessness to the film that continually stops and gets revved up all over again like some sputtering car engine. I don't think there is any sense to be made from "Repo Man" and there are no concrete ideas or any focused themes - it is simply a cartoon movie, a cult comic come to life, with quotable lines delivered with an idiosyncratic tone. I have to say that I admire that - we sometimes needs movies that just exist in their own vacuum and invite us on unusual journeys. Other than Stanton's memorably raggy repo man Bud and the hilarious Sy Richardson as a fearless repo man who carries a gun with blanks, Estevez's Otto is the one I gravitate to - an animated character who doesn't care about anything except for Bud. Bud and Otto develop a mutual understanding without the philosophizing of a sullied mechanic (Tracey Walter) who believes in aliens and time-travel. When the film is over, there is nothing to take away from it other than you want to revisit the whole experience. 

Defending the freedom to not snitch

 GUILTY BY SUSPICION (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

Other than Martin Ritt's brilliantly intoxicating "The Front" with Woody Allen, the 1950's McCarthyism era doesn't get much cinematic treatment at all, largely because it was such a dark period in American history and there were no happy endings, no happy results and people's lives were ruined. Debuting director (and sometime producer) Irwin Winkler doesn't sugarcoat or sentimentalize this turbulent period at all and that is one of the strengths of the watchable and fascinating "Guilty By Suspicion" that succeeds at finding the heart and freedom of any American citizen - to practice the idea of independent thought on any principle or system outside of a democratic, capitalist one. It is also about the right to not snitch on anyone based on such principles. Ethics, imagine that.

That doesn't describe the restrained, workaholic Hollywood movie director David Merrill (Robert De Niro) who has come back from a European vacation to an America where a Communist witch hunt has commenced. David sees his friends have either named those affiliated with Communism or they have fled the country to escape their subpoenas. The bitter screenwriter Larry Nolan (Chris Cooper) names names for the committee, the dreaded HUAC, and this affects his alcoholic wife, Dorothy (Patricia Wettig), whom he names as well. It is not clear from the start if David is keenly aware of what is happening around him until his boss, producer Darryl Zanuck (Ben Piazza), tells him to meet with a lawyer (Zanuck is the only actual real producer/Hollywood affiliate in this movie; everyone else is a fictionalized combination of actual people). David has been named as someone with Communist leanings from having attended a couple of past meetings, and maybe he can name those he associates with or is friends with. One gregarious film director flees to England (magnificently played by the fast-talking Martin Scorsese, who shaved his beard to play this role) and now David is faced with an unenviable task - should he snitch in the name of alleged patriotism or will he be blacklisted? David chooses the latter, though one wishes director Winkler let the blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky keep the original idea of David as a strict Communist intact (Winkler took over the writing duties). As the movie stands, David is simply a guy who attended a couple of meetings.

"Guilty By Suspicion" doesn't let anyone off the hook when it comes to the clutches of McCarthyism. It wasn't just that you couldn't get a job anywhere if accused - your dignity and your freedoms were being oppressed. David moves to New York to get a job and can't stay long enough at any job (including one at a camera store) with the Hoover boys watching his every move. Consequently, Ruth, his ex-wife (a woefully underused Annette Bening), moves out of her house with their son to an apartment and David ends up moving in with her. Ruth resumes teaching and you feel that the FBI can also ensnare her since she attended radical anti-nuclear bomb protests. Nobody is safe, not even a writer named Bunny Baxter (George Wendt), David's best friend, who feels the pressure of giving up David's name so much that he even asks him for permission!

"Guilty By Suspicion" moves along at an adequate pace with tensions filling the air of discontent. It is not a movie about the thrill of moviemaking or the victory lap of doing the right thing and showing McCarthyism in and of itself was on the wrong side of history. It is about ratting out your friends in the name of political freedom from anything un-American. If you are an American, you bear witness to Communism as an evil threat and it shan't be practiced on the streets or in the comfort of some secluded place for a meeting. The truth is that many Communists saw value in such a system, or at least a new way of looking at our system of democratic values. "Guilty By Suspicion" is not invested in that complexity but it is a film of dread, pessimism and unhappiness where one character would rather commit suicide than keep living through this pressurized nightmare.  

Divinely Absurd Days of Rage

 ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

P.T. Anderson has held my interest since 1997's "Boogie Nights" and, after seeing his terrifically sharp 1996 directorial debut "Hard Eight," he has grown on me rapidly like fern moss. None of his films seem like anyone else's and we can be grateful for that (although "Magnolia" is his most Altmanesque). "One Battle After Another" is quixotic, highly flammable filmmaking where I could feel the edges of the screen getting tighter and practically burning and peeling away. The movie operates on pure adrenaline, clocking in at an acidic 2 hours and 42 minutes replete with kinetic action and a completely absurdist momentum of surprises that never lets up. It is one of the few exciting movies I have seen in recent years. 

A leftist revolutionary movement known as the French 75 have infiltrated a detention center where illegal immigrants are being held (boy, this film can't get more on the nose in terms of today's heated, divisive climate on immigration). The French 75 are all armed revolutionaries, including "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun aka Bob Ferguson (a hirsute, wacky Leonardo DiCaprio) and his tough, practical girlfriend Perfidia Beverly Hills (a truly scene-stealing role by Teyana Taylor) and they release all the immigrants. Perfidia is the one who confronts the malicious, patriotic-to-the-bone Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (a malevolently cartoonish performance by Sean Penn). She tries to embarrass the colonel (and they later have a sexual rendezvous or two) and he is drawn to her and loves her. All this is unbeknownst to Bob Ferguson as the French 75 continue on their plans to bomb politicians' offices, rob banks to finance their artillery and way of life, etc. One particular bank robbery results in Perfidia killing a security officer, where she later gets arrested and names the members of her group in exchange for witness protection.  She is too rebellious to live a cozy suburban life and runs for the hills somewhere in Mexico. Oh, I neglected to mention the fact that she's pregnant, delivers her child, and has Bob nurturing their daughter while she does her thing prior to her arrest. One strikingly bold image has Perfidia doing target practice while exposing her pregnant belly - this could be a propaganda poster for French 75's cause.

Cut to 16 years later and Bob is living with his practical teen daughter, Willa (an auspicious turn by Chase Infiniti), in some sanctuary in the middle of the woods. Bob is a paranoid wacko drug addict, sleeping late and uncertain of Willa's friends. Bigger fish to fry when word gets out of Bob and Willa's hideout with Willa running with one French 75 member to a nunnery that is anything but. Meanwhile, Bob runs from the military and makes calls to French 75 without knowing the crucial passwords. To make matters worse on this elongated chase picture is the Colonel who wishes to join a white supremacist organization called The Christmas Adventurers! I almost wanted to laugh at such an absurd name - they may as well called themselves the Polar Express. One major caveat for joining - to maintain purity, you can't date or have sex with a black woman and certainly can't impregnate one! The trouble is that Willa may not be Bob's daughter. Uh, oh, it is the Colonel's time for killing just to be a member. 

What I found fascinating about "One Battle After Another" (extremely loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland") is that some of the male characters are dumb and make stupid mistakes yet the women know how to survive in a contentious, malicious, nihilistic world. Bob Ferguson is not exactly a hero or an antihero in this movie - he is unsuited to be any meaningful revolutionary but he cares about Willa and has to save her from the Colonel's iron grasp. Even the Christmas Adventurers own hitman can't quite hit its intended target right. And what of Perfidia? We never see her again, only a letter sent to her daughter. It is a touching final scene done with elegance, much like most of "One Battle After Another."

Do I have any probing issues with the film? Sean Penn is memorably disgusting to watch in this movie and he filled me with complete revulsion - I just couldn't stand him and wished to see less of him (the Christmas Adventurers seem more normal by comparison). That is not the fault of the actor who gets to show off his arms with bulging veins but he is far more cartoonish than I expected. Still, this is an absurd film with a capital A yet it has velocity and feels startlingly alive from the start. The purposely intrusive music score by Jonny Greenwood is propulsive and guides us through one crazy sequence after another. From the rooftops at night with Bob running with ridiculous shades and a robe, to the desert sequences that truly enrapture including a final chase scene that feels just right, to Bob's hideout off the grid, to the remote nunnery where they have no wifi and, finally, the actual lair of the Christmas Adventurers which has to be seen to be believed.

"One Battle After Another" intermittently shows the pain, the fatigue and the soul of a broken family living in a chaotic world. I would not mistake this film as political or lending much of an insight into a revolutionary group akin to the real-life Weather Underground group, though it is clear that the French 75 doesn't believe in holding illegal immigrants in cages. It is all aces as an action picture yet it also has gravitas, style, absurdist humor, histrionic acting by Leonardo DiCaprio and a very capable turn by newcomer Chase Infiniti as Willa who can hold her own like nobody's business. Bordering on satire with bold strokes of dramatic conflict and suspense (the DNA test on Willa scene made me nervous), "One Battle After Another" is a cinematic marvel that kicks your butt hard. A welcome change from the norm.