Lumet's canny, crafty lenses

SIDNEY LUMET (1924-2011)

The former Dead-End kid who created some indelible films

By Jerry Saravia

Sidney Lumet passed away at the age of 86 on Saturday, April 9th, 2011. One of the great film directors of all time, Sidney Lumet was an accomplished craftsman and an actor's director. He wanted the performances to be the attention-getters, not the visual style or the camera movements. He has been called a director with no signature style but I beg to differ. His style may have been invisible but it is a style. He didn't simply set up a camera and record actors in front of it in a stagy, non-confrontational manner. Not so, in fact, Lumet was all about the lenses. The relationship between the spaces confined to the actors and the spaces surrounding them, especially in tighter and tighter corners as in his amazing film debut, "12 Angry Men," is accomplished by the choice of lenses to tell the story. "Different lenses tell different stories," as he remarked to host James Lipton on the "Inside the Actor's Studio" show.

That brings us to his seminal film, the best damn media satire ever written, "Network" from 1976, which is cold and abrasive, spectacularly funny and darkly serious, and about as prescient a film as it was when it first burst onto to the cinema screens. "Network" is about how the television news organizations have become sullied and demoralized by executives looking for a fast buck - to show the old network geezers that it can make money and be a ratings climber if it just became a "whorehouse." It is not about peddling news, it is about peddling trash or turning something genuine into a freak show minus integrity. The fact that a veteran anchorman, Howard Beale (brilliantly played by the late Peter Finch) has a meltdown on the air in his last show ferments and necessitates a talk show of his own, where he can speak about the truth and tell everyone what they are already thinking -  "I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take it anymore." The reason he gets the show is because a soulless programming director (Faye Dunaway) foresees a ratings hit, considering that Howard Beale's own supposed meltdown became the top story in all the newspapers, easily eclipsing world events (sound familiar?)

Lumet's color and lighting palette in "Network" is subtle, so subtle that it is virtually unseen. As Lumet describes it, the opening scene is virtually shot with very little light when it begins with William Holden as a news producer and Finch joking about an old news story. As the film progresses, more and more lighting patterns emerge - as Lumet had put it, he corrupts the camera ("The movie camera is the fourth star.") By the end of the film, when a decision is made to (*spoiler alert*) assassinate Howard Beale on his own show (still one of the most shocking endings ever seen in a film, no matter how jaded you are), it is all lit as if it were a Ford commercial complete with Robert Duvall slicking his hair back.

Sidney Lumet is known for many other films, all of them primarily set in New York City, yet he has often deviated from police dramas and robbery flicks set in the thick grit of the Empire state. His sole musical, "The Wiz," is a dazzling, entertaining take on "The Wizard of Oz" with just as many memorable songs as the Judy Garland classic. He also crafted a sweet love story called "Lovin' Molly" with Anthony Perkins and Beau Bridges; "The Group" which was a feminist satire saddled with controversial issues from the late 60's; the Eugene O'Neill play that has some of the strongest acting turns in recent history in "Long Day's Journey Into Night"; the highly suspenseful "Deathtrap" with Christopher Reeve in possibly the only performance I've seen of his where he played an insincere manipulator; the tricky and enlightening Agatha Christie melodrama "Murder on the Orient Express"; a 1970 documentary on Martin Luther King, Jr. called "King: A Filmed Record...", among others.

My favorite Lumet pictures would have to be "Network," "Prince of the City," "Murder on the Orient Express," "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Verdict," one of the best courtroom dramas ever made with the stellar Paul Newman, "Running on Empty," which is certainly Lumet's most overpoweringly emotional film, and certainly "The Anderson Tapes" which features a spectacular debut by a young Christopher Walken. I admire "Serpico" but it is not nearly as revelatory as it was in 1973, if for no other reason than the fact that police corruption has grown more complicated than the film shows. "Q & A" has an awful soundtrack (songs by Ruben Blades whom I don't think much of) and is far less enticing than Lumet's other police dramas, including the improbable yet diverting "Night Falls on Manhattan." "Family Business" is simply improbable all around with an even worse soundtrack by Cyle Coleman, though the film is saved by the memorable performances of Sean Connery (a frequent Lumet collaborator), Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick. "The Morning After" and "A Stranger Among Us" are simply bad pictures with none of the magic of Lumet - his remake of John Cassevetes' "Gloria" is a horrendously and unintentionally campy joke of a movie and worth seeing for that reason alone (nothing wrong with watching Sharon Stone running around the NYC streets in high heels).

"Network," though, is the film of Sidney Lumet's career, showcasing him at the height of his directorial powers with a fantastic script by the late Paddy Chayefsky. It is a masterful film, bleak and funny, with William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway giving the performances of their lives. More than that, it is a scary, angry picture about how the news became corrupted and transformed into trashy entertainment, for the sake of ratings. The film itself is the very definition of satire, and I think Lumet was the only director that could've made it. Sidney Lumet - an accomplished craftsman, an actor's director and, yes, he had a signature style. The former Dead End Kid had a style all his own after all. 

A Room with a Greenscreen View

THE ROOM (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"You can cry, you can express yourself, but please don’t hurt each other. And that’s basically the theme of the movie. It’s a lesson to do better. Because we are better. We are much more intelligent." - Tommy Wiseau

I cannot give "The Room" a rating of any kind. Reasons are aplenty but the most singularly good reason I can think of is that this is not a movie. It has no real story, no narrative structure, no sense of style or semblance of anything resembling something you would pop in your DVD player or run through a projector. I've seen the late Stan Brakhage's own experimental, non-narrative films that confound many, but they seem to take place on Planet Earth and they are about something! "The Room" is nothing - a vacuum of nothingness. A Hoover vacuum cleaner has more to say. Throwing out the trash is an actual action a human being commits."The Room" is inactive, and inexcusably nothing. And yet it is so damn watchable, like a guy wearing rags, dragging a shopping cart and screaming about socialism! (Thank you, Woody Allen).

Tommy Wiseau is the actor-writer-director of this thing we call a movie. He looks vaguely Eastern European and speaks or rather warbles lines of dialogue like "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!," only with less conviction than Bugs Bunny. Tommy plays Johnny, a successful banker who lives in a condo of the "Red Shoes Diaries" variety with his fiancee, Lisa (18-year-old Juliette Danielle). He buys her roses and they have lots of sex. Sometimes a kid next door named Denny (Philip Haldiman) wants to get in bed with them...so they can all throw pillows at each other! When Johnny doesn't get his promotion at the bank, things go awry with Lisa and the movie. Lisa has relations with Johnny's best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero), and she occasionally sweeps the floor when she isn't having a romp in the hay. Johnny gets wind of what is happening and records Lisa's phone conversations. Then we have endless scenes on the roof of the condo that looks like a studio; more soft-core sex scenes; inarticulate and unintentionally funny lines of dialogue; some football passes; an elongated party sequence and a shocking finale. This is the "kind" of movie where someone gets shot in the head and all a character can exclaim is, "are you okay?" This is also the "kind" of movie where a psychologist is almost thrown out of the roof of a building and the person who attempts the murder says, "I'm sorry."

Wiseau is the unusual case in most independently financed features - he spent close to 6 million to finance this picture, including buying two cameras (one 35mm, and the other a high-definition camera) and his own studio (Most indie filmmakers would dream of such an opportunity). However, Wiseau still shoots scenes on a mock-up of a San Francisco apartment rooftop with greenscreen! Amazingly, "The Room" first sought life as a play and a novel (neither of which became a reality) culminating in a screenplay that Wiseau spent five years writing. I am surprised it didn't take him five minutes.

I'd almost rate "The Room" as a good-bad movie but I can't. I don't know what it is. To me, it is the equivalent of an artist, from a while ago, who crafted a blank canvas and called it "The Rose." He may as well have called it "The Room."

The Raging Bull of cinema

SCORSESE - The Ultimate Raging Bull of Soul-Searching:

 A BRIEF REVIEW OF MARTIN SCORSESE'S FILMS from 1968-1989

By Jerry Saravia

WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? (1968) - Martin Scorsese's film debut (as well as Harvey Keitel's) is an astounding piece of work, shot in black-and-white, and as gritty as Mean Streets. Keitel plays J.R., an Italian-American youth who fools around with his buddies, goes to Church occasionally, and dates a young, seemingly virginal woman (Zina Bethune).
The film contains themes of Catholic guilt, the Madonna whore complex, and men treating women as whores that became further developed in Marty's later works. One heck of a debut for a man who clearly had a vision, just as his mentor John Cassavetes did in his debut, Shadows. 

THE BIG SHAVE (1968): One of Scorsese's bloodiest parables, and all done in the space of six minutes. The short film concerns a young man who enters a bathroom and proceeds to shave. Each time he picks up the razor, he cuts himself, and continues to until his face becomes full of cuts. Then he cuts his throat, and we see blood filling up the sink.
Tough to withstand, this film may seem pointless until you realize the man cannot stop cutting himself - what makes it tougher to watch is that it is set in a brightly lit white bathroom. All this is accompanied by the music of Bunny Berigan's big-band rendition of "I Can't Get Started." Scorsese ends the film with a title card that reads, "Viet 67." Obviously, this was intended to be an anti-Vietnam war statement...and on that level, it succeeds. It is as frighteningly compelling as anything Scorsese has ever done. A must-see.
Note: The film was first screened at the New York Film Festival in 1968. 


BOXCAR BERTHA (1972) -  Based on the book Sister of the Road by Boxcar Bertha Thomson, this was Scorsese's only exploitation picture, from the Roger Corman studios, and it shows. David Carradine and Barbara Hershey play Depression-era bank robbers in the Bonnie and Clyde style mode, leading to the inevitable violent showdown where Carradine is crucified (Christ-like) on a boxcar! And that was in the original script, not an invention by Marty.
An interesting curio with decent performances and good production values, though it contains little of Scorsese's thematic concerns. Cassavetes apparently hated the film, calling it a piece of garbage, thus leading Scorsese to do something more personal - "Mean Streets."
Choice cameos by Scorsese, as one of Bertha's dates, and the always grand John Carradine.  

MEAN STREETS (1973) - The first of Scorsese's gangster pictures, focusing on New York small-time hoods led by the sympathetic Charlie (Harvey Keitel) and his fraternal relationship with the loose cannon, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), who is causing all kinds of trouble in the neighborhood, including blowing up mailboxes. And there's Charlie's complex relationship with Johnny's cousin (Amy Robinson, who later became a full-time producer).
A superb, groundbreaking film with enough grit and noirish atmosphere to have influenced a whole new generation of filmmakers, which it did. Its noirish roots can be felt in the need for the characters to break out of the city, unable to since there is no real escape. An excellent soundtrack full of oldies and Rolling Stone tunes, including "Jumpin' Jack Flash." In terms of mixing music to image perfectly, no one can listen to "Be My Baby" and not think of the scene where Keitel's head rests on a pillow.
Note: Thanks to Scorsese's amazing direction, most of it was shot in Los Angeles.
Mean Streets full-length review 

ITALIANAMERICAN (1974): One of Scorsese's best-known documentaries - a poignant, revealing look at his parents, Charles and Martin Scorsese, as they outline their roots all the way back to Italy. Charles speaks mostly of the clothing business, and how he was brought up by his parents to take care of the family. Catherine speaks of recipes for delicious Italian foods and family squabbling (at the end of the film, a complete recipe for one of her dishes is given). And both Charles and Catherine have a little problem with sitting close to another. The squabble over how wine was made, by the way, is truly funny.
Martin stays behind the scenes but he does share a few scenes with his parents at the dinner table and on the couch. "Italianamerican" is one hell of a documentary with moments of truth, humor, insight and sadness about New York City from the point-of-view of Italians searching for a better life in America. An exceptional treat for Scorsese fans. 

ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974) - Ellen Burstyn is Alice, a married woman in Tucson who has an abusive, lonely husband (Billy Green Bush) and a precocious, inquisitive son (Alfred Lutter III). After the husband dies in a truck accident, Alice and her son leave for Monterey, making some other stops along the way, including working at a diner. There she meets and falls in love with a rancher (Kris Kristofferson), who may not be any less abusive.
A road movie and a realistic drama about a woman's feminist attitudes, considered controversial for its time. Burstyn deservedly won an Oscar for Best Actress. Still, an even better feminist statement was made with AN UNMARRIED WOMAN with Jill Clayburgh.
Note: Look for a young Laura Dern sitting at the diner, a stoned Jodie Foster, and a scary, Max Cady-like Harvey Keitel as one of Alice's suitors.


TAXI DRIVER (1976) - As far as I am concerned, "Taxi Driver" is the best American film ever made, a haunting, poetic, harsh look at a dangerous man sick of the cities and the people who inhabit them. De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a lonely cab driver who seeks solace in porno theatres and watching TV soap operas. He tries to befriend a lovely WASP (Cybill Shepherd), but his idea of a date is to take her to one of those porn theatres and watch The Swedish Marriage Manual.

Travis can't sleep and gets constant headaches. He tries to protect a 12-year-old prostitute (Jodie Foster) from Sport (Harvey Keitel), "the scum of the earth," and he's slowly consumed by the idea of killing a presidential candidate.

Expertly performed, powerfully written by Paul Schrader (who later collaborated on other Scorsese projects), and brilliantly scored by the late Bernard Hermann (his last score). The film is genuinely disturbing, provocative, challenging and violent, offering little solutions yet probed with many questions. It's also the most evocative portrait of loneliness in a big city ever made (so much that it persuaded an obsessed John Hinckley to attempt to assassinate President Reagan). And the most important line in the film is not "Are you talking to me?" It's the line that follows: "I'm the only one here." As prophetic today as it was in 1976, and it was a minor hit back then too.

Look for a cameo by Scorsese as one of Travis's psychotic fares, and he can be spotted fleetingly when Cybill arrives at her office in slow-motion.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977) - One of Marty's least successful efforts, a downbeat "noir" musical starring De Niro as a saxophonist, and the sparkling Liza Minnelli as the torch singer whom he falls in love with.
A dry, dull film with some exciting production numbers and artificial sets, yet the performances are listless and the story numbing (Barry Primus and Dick Miller are the only ones who seems alive). De Niro seems to be doing riffs on his Travis Bickle character. The whole mess smells of a largely improvised film that partly helped to put the nail in the coffin of experimenting with big-budget flicks that didn't financially break even ("Star Wars" came out the same year and it was a phenomenal success). Still, it is always a pleasure to hear Liza singing the title number and I appreciate the fact that Scorsese intended on doing a noir musical. 

AMERICAN BOY: A PROFILE OF: STEVEN PRINCE (1978) -

 Full-length review

THE LAST WALTZ (1978) - The Band's last concert is thrillingly realized by Scorsese, full of whiz-bang songs performed by numerous singers and groups, including the coked-up Neil Diamond, the dazzling Staples, Dr. John, Muddy Waters, etc. There's also much back room intrigue and personal stories told by the members of the group about life on the road. A great concert film, as joyous and uplifting as any other made since. 

RAGING BULL (1980) - A genuine Scorsese/De Niro masterpiece featuring one of the most brutally honest behavioral portraits ever made. De Niro is Jake La Motta, a fierce boxer, who fights his own demons at home with his blonde, angelic wife (Cathy Moriarty), the Madonna-whore, and his repugnant brother (a curly-haired Joe Pesci), who serves as his manager.
A sad, unredeeming portrait of macho and masochistic behavior, its chief aim being an anti-macho and anti-masochistic portrait. Film is complemented with stark black-and-white cinematography (La Motta pictured his life in black-and-white), incredibly vivid boxing scenes, and some beautifully composed dramatic scenes (the swimming pool scene with Moriarty is exquisite). De Niro gives one of his greatest performances, and looks unrecognizable in the second half as he gained weight to portray the fat, unfunny comic La Motta later became. De Niro won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance, and Thelma Schoonmaker won for Best Film Editing. Scorsese still didn't pick up an Oscar for his direction, losing to Robert Redford's debut, Ordinary People.
Look for a young John Turturro in one of the first club scenes. 

THE KING OF COMEDY (1983) - This unnerving black comedy was the biggest flop of the year in the U.S. It became, however, as prophetic about American celebrities as you can imagine. De Niro, this time, plays a comic named Rupert Pupkin ("Is it Pumpnick or Pumpkin?") who desperately wants to be a guest on the Jerry Langford show (a take-off on The Johnny Carson Show). Jerry (a wonderfully restrained Jerry Lewis) tells him to just call the office. Rupert calls, and calls, and calls, and Jerry doesn't return any of his messages. He gets so frustrated that he kidnaps Jerry Langford! That's one way to get a spot. And the irony is that Rupert becomes a celebrity!
The movie wavers between comedy and black humor with ease, and it is shrewdly written by former film critic/Newsweek writer, Paul Zimmermann. Although the film is sometimes uneven, it is brilliantly performed by De Niro, Sandra Bernhard, and Jerry Lewis. An underrated classic, and the first Scorsese film I ever saw. So bizarre and offbeat that I saw it countless times ever since...and it made me into the Scorsese fanatic I am today.
Note: Besides playing a television director, Scorsese appears ever so fleetingly as he sits in a van, just before Langford is verbally abused by a woman at a phone booth. 


AFTER HOURS (1985) - The quintessential New York nightmare - a lonely computer programmer (perfectly cast Griffin Dunne) meets a date (Rosanna Arquette) in SOHO that turns into more than just the date from hell. He encounters jealous boyfriends, S&M freaks, Cheech and Chong, irate cab drivers, untrustworthy ice cream vendors, vigilante mobs, and loses his money thus making it difficult for him to pay train fare.
"After Hours" is the first of many rewarding collaborations with gifted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (he also shot films for Fassbinder), and it is full of bizarre zooms and quick tracking shots (you'll never see a pair of keys falling from a second-story window the same way again). Add to that, a strong, empathetic, believable performance by Dunne (who has been treading the same innocent leading man waters ever since), and one delirious haphazard situation after another (a precursor to the maddening, repetitive situations in "Bringing Out the Dead"). Anxiety is what drives the narrative forward. If you live in New York, you'll understand.
Note: Scorsese appears at a punk night club as he adjusts a spotlight aimed at Griffin Dunne while Bad Brains' frenzied song  "Pay to Cum" is heard.


MIRROR, MIRROR (1985)- Scorsese's only television film, an episode from Steven Spielberg's short-lived series Amazing Stories. "Mirror, Mirror" stars Sam Waterston as Jordan, a highly popular Stephen King-like novelist who begins seeing visions of a horribly scarred monster wearing a black hat and cape (played by Tim Robbins). The monster is visible only when Jordan looks at mirror surfaces, specifically mirrors in his own apartment. Is he paranoid, or is his horrific visions from his stories coming to haunt him? Jordan seeks solace from his ex-wife (beautifully played by Helen Shaver, who also appeared in "Color of Money").
All the classic elements of Scorsese are in place here, and most evocatively portrayed is the sense of loneliness. Jordan's apartment looks just as cold and sterile as Jerry Langford's in "The King of Comedy," and he also lives alone to boot. In fact, there is one scene of a fan, a supposedly aspiring writer, who waits for Jordan at his doorstep and is angrily asked to leave - shades of "King of Comedy" once again. "Mirror, Mirror" is a classic short film, utilizing all the tricks up Scorsese's sleeve to make a terrific paranoia tale. The ending is shockingly abrupt and appropriately ambiguous.
Note: Look for Harry Northup as the security guard - he also appeared in "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver." You will also notice that dutch close-ups of locking windows and doors were also used in "Cape Fear." 

THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986)- A thrilling sequel to Robert Rossen's bleak The Hustler, set 20 years later with an older, wiser Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), a liquor salesman whose knack for pool-playing is reignited by a young, hot-headed pool player, Vincent (Tom Cruise). Under Felson's tutelage, Vincent plays the big pool tournament, learning that sometimes losing is winning.
Scorsese's only sequel in his repertoire is flashy and elegant, and smartly written by Richard Price (Clockers). Major drawback: an unsatisfying, Rocky-like ending with no payoff and a thinly layered Oscar-nominated role for Mary Elizabeth Manstrantonio as Vince's smart girlfriend. 


THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)- A satisfyingly religious experience and the mostly deeply personal of Scorsese's works. Based on Nikos Kazantzakis's novel, Willem Dafoe stars as Jesus Christ, who begins to doubt and question his place on earth as the son of God. He also develops amorous feelings for Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey), and fantasizes a married life with her.
The most controversial of St. Marty's films (there were picket lines denouncing the film) - deeply spiritual and moving. The crucifixion sequence is a stunner, and it is miles ahead of Mel Gibson's amazingly popular THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

 
NEW YORK STORIES: LIFE LESSONS (1989) - An anthology of the Big Apple, told through three different stories. The first one is the best, directed by Scorsese, about an arrogant artist, Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte), faced with finished his latest masterpiece, and the complicated relationship that ensues with his assistant (Rosanna Arquette) whom he pines for. She also fuels his work, and his ego.
"Life Lessons" is a striking example of how to make a short film: Scorsese uses odd camera angles, an extensive number of dolly shots, and freeze frames to demonstrate the artistic side of Lionel. Every artist I've talked to loves this film because it is about them. Nowhere is this made more evident than when Lionel says, "You make art because you have to. So it isn't about talent, it is about no choice but to do it. You give it up. If you give it up, then you weren't a real artist to begin with."
Memorable cameos by Steve Buscemi and Blondie, and if you're quick, you can spot Scorsese and his mentor, the late Michael Powell! 

MORE ON SCORSESE at http://jerrysaravia.blogspot.com/2011/08/raging-of-bull-of-cinema-part-2.html

The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it

THE INVENTION OF LYING (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Ricky Gervais's comic act is abrasive and confrontational - he takes no prisoners. What he is not, whether it is in his standup, his Golden Globes hosting duties or his podcasts with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington, is sweet. Along with "Ghost Town," "The Invention of Lying" is an unusual and delightful comedy that wins your heart and soul. I know, sounds like one of those tag lines from film critics trying to curry favor with the studio's pockets, but I do mean it. For originality, wit and almost, if not fully, exploiting its imaginative ideas, it scores many points with me - no lie.

Ricky Gervais is Mark Bellison, a screenwriter considered to be a loser by his co-workers and secretary. He has written a script on the Black Death that is considered a downer by his boss (Jeffrey Tambor) and Mark's handsome rival, Brad (Rob Lowe). This can only mean that he will be fired and he won't be able to afford his rent, or please his first date with the woman of his dreams, Anna (Jennifer Garner). All this is not surprising except that Mark lives in a world where everyone tells the truth. There are no lies, no attempts at facetiousness or implication or subtext - everyone tells the naked truth about everything. When Mark meets Jennifer, she tells him that she was masturbating before he came to the door. When they go on a date, she admits that she is not attracted to him and that the evening will not go well (this actually does happen in our world, but never mind that). The waiter is honest about their relationship, and he also hates his job.

The next day, Mark is informed by his landlord that he will be evicted. So what does Mark do? He goes to his bank, and asks to withdraw 800 dollars from his account when he actually has only 300. He lies! And the teller tells him that it is probably a clerical error and gives him the extra money! This makes Mark into the most powerful man in the universe! He can lie to anyone, including his buddies about how he invented the bicycle. They will believe him because nobody lies. He manages to win over Jennifer, which takes time and effort since she doesn't want her kids to look like him. Mark also convinces the world that he knows what happens when people die - they each get the most fabulous mansion in Heaven. This comes down to a moment where Mark writes down the rules about who goes to Heaven or Hell on the back of two pizza boxes!

My most nagging question of what would've been a rewarding "Twilight Zone" episode is how does Mark tap in to the idea of lying when no one else can. Interesting question since he might be termed the smartest person on the planet. The movie assumes everyone is an idiot, except for Mark. How else to explain the crazy scenario he tells his former boss that a coffee-stained script inside a chest emerged from the sea and perched itself on the sand next to him and that it will be the biggest box-office hit of all time! The boss buys it because no one lies, no matter how extreme or unbelievable the fabrication is. Mark is also the only one who tells outrageous stories and masses of people believe every word of it (this may seem prescient since quite a few people believe every word Glenn Beck utters). The words "lie" or "truth" do not exist in this world, but hate and love do seem to coexist. If the movie started to turn on its wheels a little and started to show people picking up on Mark's fabrications and thus learn to lie themselves, it would've made for a unique twist. It doesn't turn out that way.

Co-directed and co-written by Gervais and Matthew Robinson, "The Invention of Lying" has a musical montage sequence that had me squirming and I am not keen on the casting of Jennifer Garner - she was at her best in "13 Going on 30" but, here, she did not convince me she would've grow enamored of Mark. Still, despite not completely exploiting its premise as I had indicated and resorting to rom-com formula (like Gervais's previous "Ghost Town"), the movie is quite moving and spiritual and has a mockingly sentimental ending that ends with the shot of a church and the clouds above, as if we are supposed to buy the religious conceit that Mark himself doesn't believe in. Gervais himself is not a believer of God but I sense that, if he was, he would prefer to lie about it.

Fiery Jett, Glum Cherie

THE RUNAWAYS (2010)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have loved Joan Jett and the Blackhearts but I never listened to her first band, the Runaways. I will say that after seeing the dazzling and near-hallucinatory depiction of this underage band, I may be inclined to do so. I still clamor for the day when Joan Jett will get her own fully-rounded bio treament. As much as I like the volatile charge of the film "The Runaways," the story of Cherie Currie, the basis for the film, is less than dazzling to me. 

The genesis of the Runaways, an all-girl band, was formed by rhythm guitarist Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) under the supervision and tutelage of an arrogant, sexed-up egocentric maniac named Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon). Kim wants the girls to perform with the abandonment and free will of young ingenues looking to be screwed and blitzed, representing a basic middle finger to society and authority. In other words, rock and roll and jailbait, all in one package. Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), a 15-year-old David Bowie fan, is first eyed by Joan and then discovered by Kim - he sees her as jailbait and hires her as the lead singer, regardless of whether she has talent or not. They rehearse inside a grimy trailer in the middle of the woods. The sessions would make parents of such young girls nervous nowadays, especially with the sexual phrases that come out of Kim Fowley's mouth. But this is the 1970's, not 2010 

As written and directed by Floria Sigismondi (based on Currie's autobiography, "Neon Angel"), "The Runaways" is hardly a typical or conventional rock biography. There is also no sense of the typical "rise and fall of a band." Instead the movie gets inside the druggy and sexed-up interior feel of young girls who just want to have fun, rock and party, minus the supervision from any adults. The girls are all under the age of 19 and the baroque manner of their manager and agent, Kim (who is pilfering their finances for his own pleasure), shows he is not the right person to be guiding them. Yes, he comes up with the lyrics for "Cherry Bomb," the Runaways' first hit but their major success is mostly in Japan, not the U.S. You sense Kim didn't do enough to help their success except to exploit them, particularly Currie, as pure jailbait models. 

As I stated earlier, I suppose I didn't feel a connection to Cherie Currie as I did to Joan Jett in this film (the other girls in the band, including Lita Ford, are not given much of a spotlight). Jett is the dynamo, the rock-and-roller who wants to blast through the airwaves and provoke as much as Kim does. Cherie seems reluctant and more despondent than the others, and that makes her less riveting to me. Although we get glimpses of Cherie's home life (alcoholic father, frustrated sister, a fleeting appearance of her mother), it is hard to feel anything but a fleeting sense of remorse for her situation. Cherie seems unconnected to anyone, even Joan Jett. 

Most of "The Runaways" is startling and in-your-face and serves as a glimpse into the backstage drama of an all-girl band, much like the underappreciated "Ladies and Gentleman, The Fabulous Stains" of which this film bears more than a striking resemblance. The performances in "The Runaways" are beyond stellar, especially Kristen Stewart with her firecracker of a performance along with the eccentric Michael Shannon. They embody something fundamentally deeper about rock and roll - the need to break out and expand beyond their horizons. Dakota Fanning, who is stunning to watch, delivers a merely glum Cherie. That may be the real Cherie, but I need more Jett to get fired up over Cherie. 

The rawest of documentaries

TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

How does one react to a documentary so honest and heartbreaking that one is compelled to turn away from its tragic outlook? Well, it is tough to watch Frederick Wiseman's cinema verite documentary, "Titicut Follies," a disturbing look at a mental institution fraught with impracticalities, but it must be seen (and it has recently made it to DVD).

Wiseman frames the opening and closing moments of this film with a song-and-dance routine performed annually by the institution's residents - the name of the show is "Titicut Follies." Gradually, in almost bleached-out black-and-white, we see the conditions at the Bridgewater Correctional Institution where the patients are awakened each morning, strip-searched, shaven, and then interviewed by the doctors about their personal histories. They are then escorted back to their empty cells naked, and locked in with an unerring sense of closure and solidity.

The patients are a mixed bag, some crazier than others. There are a few who babble on a variety of topics without interruption, a former math teacher who incoherently screams at the guards, and one patient who feels that he is sane and wants to go to prison after a nearly one-year stay. This particular patient insists that the doctors are wrong, and tries to prove his case.

This Massachusetts institute is like a journey through hell - one patient is forced fed with a tube through his nose while the doctor performs the procedure and smokes! Another patient is carried out in a coffin - the only one to get out of this hellhole. There is an effective scene where a group of doctors decide that increasing the dosage for one patient, who complains of sickness from the medicine, is the best solution. There is a lot more taking place, most of it disquieting in its immediacy and the atmosphere of such an environment. It is no wonder that a Massachusetts judge banned the film from being shown for many years because it invaded the privacy of the patients, housed in what looks like a prison facility. What the film really does is to show how the patients are treated - like slabs of meat, not people.

"Titicut Follies" is virtually unwatchable and all too realistic - a document of sad times when mental illness was synonymous with animal behavior. With Wiseman's hand-held camera, we feel we are there witnessing one grueling event after another, unable to help except to bear witness to the patients' behavior. And it is to the director's credit that we see the glint of humanity within these patients - they are people like anyone else. Misunderstood, and possibly quite insane, but still human. "Titicut Follies" is a tough film to put out of your mind, and it will linger longer in your mind than any fictional film dealing with similar subject matter would. Although Wiseman hates the French term, cinema verite, "Titicut Follies" is a haunting masterpiece that heralded the standard for all documentaries to come. 

Ann-Margret intermittently swings and sparkles

THE SWINGER (1966)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Ann-Margret remains one of the most vivacious, electric screen presences of the 60's and beyond. Her star turn in "Bye-Bye Birdie" lead to more serious acting roles in films such as "Carnal Knowledge." What I can't quite fathom is her role in this forgotten 1966 picture called "The Swinger," which is as pointless and boring as one can imagine. It is essentially a promo for Ann-Margret as a physical, sexy presence, nothing more.

Ann plays an ambitious writer named Kelly Ollson who is seeking to publish a profile on swingers in a Playboy-type magazine headed by the handsomely rich Ric Colby (Tony Franciosa). Of course, she is rejected by Ric since she is too innocent to be a swinger herself. At this point, I found it silly to believe that Ann-Margret would be considered remotely innocent by anyone but never mind. Kelly decides to prove she is a swinger to get the job, or so I figured. She has her body painted in an outrageous pseudo orgy and does a photo montage in various styles of dress, though there is barely any nudity to be found. She also proves to be an amoral drunk just to convince him she is a swinger! Ric is mesmerized by her and falls in love, seeing that she is sweetly innocent after all.

"The Swinger" is purpotedly a romantic sex farce but we mostly get older men chasing women in offices, endless and unfunny sexist jokes, and Ann posing lovingly before the camera not to mention acting like a complete fool when the screenplay requires her to. Oh, and there is a teaser ending that is as stupidly unconvicing as they come, and some fast-motion shots of Ann riding a motorcycle sans a helmet.

"The Swinger" is excruciating to watch from beginning to end, serving as neither entertainment nor as a pop culture curio. Directed by George Sidney, who helmed the similarly awful "Viva Las Vegas," this is as empty-headed and clueless as they come bearing little charisma and zero laughs. At least, the stunning opening sequence is a keeper in the pop culture time capsule as we see Ann singing the title song in a tight black jumpsuit while sitting on a trampoline. The brief title sequence offers more pizazz and sexual energy than the rest of this lifeless film.