The First Avenger in full patriotic swing

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When remembering my favorite Marvel heroes as a kid, I always had a soft spot for Captain America. He is the one who came from a patriotic time where it was okay to fight a war you believed in. In the case of the Cap Man, it was World War II and he fought Nazis and the legendary villain, Red Skull. In terms of cinematic and television adaptations, Captain America has suffered. A 1990 flick with Matt Salinger was disappointingly mediocre with a bland hero. The Reb Brown TV series doesn't merit any worthwhile mentions. And though I have not seen the Republic 1940's serials, I am told that version has Captain America using a gun instead of a shield! Sacrilege! So it is a blast to see that they got it right this time. "Captain America: The First Avenger" is a solid knockout of a movie, a first-rate superhero movie that leisurely spends time with its central protagonist and lets us get to know him.

A 90-pound weakling, Brooklyn-born Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, a splendid choice) is trying to get to enlist in the Army and help fight the good fight. His chronic ailments, including asthma, and his small build gets him a "4F" (meaning, no admittance to the rest of you). He gets a chance to re-enlist thanks to a German scientist named Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who sees potential in a super-soldier experiment. The tough, hard-shelled Col. Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, looking more grizzled than ever) is skeptical of the kid despite Steve Rogers' demonstrations of guts and bravery. In one scene, Rogers has an exercise where he is willing to sacrifice himself to save his fellow men. All this from a Brooklyn kid who never gives up. He might have if he had to endure "Full Metal Jacket's" drill sergeant, but that is a different story.

Before the swooning women can say "nice abs," Steve Rogers is thrust into action as the super-soldier he was destined to be. First, he has to perform a service for the Army, which includes hitting an actor made up to look like Hitler in the face before a dance troupe in a patriotic attempt to sell war bonds (back when the U.S. did that sort of thing. Interestingly enough, the first comic-book issue cover of the Cap Man had him punching Adolf Hitler in the face). But when he is adorned with his true red, blue and white costume and packs some heat and throws his circular vibranium shield that can knock anyone off within a hundred yards, we are in full swing. It is the movie I've been waiting for any studio to do right for years. They have created a colorful, nostalgic kick in the pants for anyone who loves the Cap Man and 1940's iconography.

But there is more. The evil Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), aka Johann Schmidt (a Nazi commandant) is ready to destroy America with his super sonic plane and its loaded missiles headed to incinerate designated states. Surely Captain America and his newly elected team of commandos will have a few things to say about that. There is also time for love with the luscious British agent, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), whose crimson red lips would be enough to drive any man to a dinner date.

Director Joe Johnston capably serves this material, as he should considering twenty years ago he directed the wondrously entertaining "The Rocketeer," also a 1940's hero movie of another brand. "Captain America" is a rip-roaring, rousing comic-book movie come to life with actors who breathe life into their parts, coloring them with just enough eccentricity to make them palatable. Though Hugo Weaving drips with menace, he also hints at something more sublime - he appreciates Captain America for never quitting. I think, deep down, Red Skull knows he will have to quit before his madness consumes him, literally.

"Captain America: The First Avenger" is not as thunderously epic as "Thor" and it doesn't contain the ironic wisecracks of "Iron Man." It is more scaled-down, more down to earth, more intimate, more soulful. This is largely due to Chris Evans (who was the best thing in "Fantastic Four") who brings integrity and dignity to Captain America in spades. The movie wisely chooses not to poke fun at the period it is set in. It envelops it, contains it and brings us a world that no longer exists (and for the youth today, never knew it existed). Its also got its tongue firmly planted in its patriotic cheek, and has the level of "Indiana Jones" innocence and escapism that it needs. But don't be surprised if you get a little teary-eyed by the end, and don't be further surprised if you want to get up off the couch and join Captain America. 

Riding Out Morrison's Storm

WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I think of the leather-clad, raging soul of Jim Morrison, I think of the range of powerful soothing chords of "Riders of the Storm" (the perfect song to hear on a slow New Mexico ride to Taos), the soulful strains of "Unknown Soldier," and the expressively upbeat "L.A. Woman." Interestingly, as in Oliver Stone's hyperkinetic film bio, the new documentary, "When You're Strange" operates with these songs in the same order. Though there is not much new to glean from "When You're Strange," there are some oddities and interesting trivia (The Who opened for The Doors once) that will keep Morrison fans riveted for an hour and a half.

"When You're Strange" charts the rise of a poet who hated his father (a Navy admiral in charge of his fleet during the Gulf of Tonkin debacle) and claimed his parents were dead, to his start and eventual drop-out from NYU film school to the Venice Beach days of living on a rooftop and cavorting with Ray Manzarek, a keyboard player, whom he sang his lyrics to, to forming a band with Robby Krieger (who never used picks) on guitar and the drummer John Densmore. Jim ingests copious drugs, drinks heavily, becomes bloated and a media superstar and we get the gradual picture that it isn't about the band - it is about Jim taking the spotlight. One gets the impression that director Tom DiCillo is more critical of the Lizard King than Oliver Stone ever was.

New, spectacular footage shows a bearded Jim Morrison on the desert road - singing, laughing and screaming, observing a nearly dead dog on the road (some of these moments play like outtakes from Oliver Stone's own Doors film or "U-Turn"). But most of the film, except for some candid shots of a smiling Lizard King, is focused on the downward spiral of a man who allegedly exposed himself on stage and was more soused than the average drunk. It is deduced that such drunken rages and falling asleep on the concert stage were an act of garnering media attention since the band stopped getting any (heck, they could barely play their music during the outrage). Then Jim, deeply in love with his girlfriend, Pam, and somehow renewed in his sense of purpose, finds himself dead at the age of 27 in Paris. And it seems, perhaps, that his disapproving father finally admits his son had talent.

"When You're Strange" is sort of a distant echo of Oliver Stone's controversial film (a montage of Robert Kennedy's assassination and images of Charles Manson also figure in Stone's film) yet this film (with added narration by Johnny Depp) adds immeasurably more mystery and a measure of depth to Morrison than ever before. It is one of those "regretful" rock documentaries, the kind that makes you wonder, what if Jim had lived on past his 27th birthday. It also shows the tortured poet who chose music as his vessel of opening the doors of his perception. He wrote books of poetry but they required solace to write them. Jim needed the stage to exhibit his demons, his passions, his life - he desperately needed an audience. "When You're Strange" exemplifies that and gives us a Jim Morrison that perhaps we didn't know.

A Stepfather of dubious interest

STEPFATHER III (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The worse thing than a horror movie sequel is a horror movie sequel made for TV. "Stepfather 3: Father's Day" is the latest example of turgid horror that aims for the gore thus eradicating any of the thrills and suspense that count. It reduces everything that the original "Stepfather" had to the status of a below-average slasher film.

Though I thought he was finally dead in "Part 2," Mr. Bad Daddy is back again with a new face thanks to plastic surgery, which means that Terry O'Quinn does not return for a third go-round (he was initially offered the chance to write and direct it but turned it down, alluding to the fact that he did not want to be typecast as a psycho). Instead we have Robert Wightman ("Living in Oblivion") who is the poorest replacement imaginable - how about a more fitting replacement like character actor Kurtwood Smith (remember the strict dad in "Dead Poet's Society?") Nevertheless, Bad Daddy travels to a new town and meets and falls in love with not one but two single mothers (one of them fetchingly played by Priscilla Barnes). There is also the terminally whining new kid (a computer whiz in a wheelchair) who suspects that something is askew about his new stepdad. So we have the standard body count, stepdad in a bunny suit (!), the usual "oh, they are disappointing me" looks and grimaces, and an unbelievable opening sequence set in a sullied underground plastic surgery room where stepdad refuses to be anesthetized while being operated on! Who is this guy, a gluttonous Rambo for punishment?

The movie is too silly, too overbaked and too unbelievable. Stepdad is more of a loose cannon this time, killing anyone in his path including the surgeon whom Stepdad paid for a new face! Falling for two women would seem antithetical to the O'Quinn psychopath and his core family values. And a scene that must be seen to be believed has Stepdaddy trying to get the wheelchair-bound kid to get out of his wheelchair ("Come on, you can do it") - it is a moment of shocking stupidity. Also, devotees of "Stepfather II" will notice that Stepdad was put back in the very same Puget Sound mental hospital he was in at the beginning of "II" and escapes again in "III" (mentioned only in a convenient TV broadcast)...couldn't the writers have thought of some other solution that didn't seem so recycled?

The first film was a classic suburban shocker - a movie I would compare without hesitation to Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." The second film was mostly a black comedy. This film simply trashes whatever redeeming value the first two films had. Mr. Terry O'Quinn and Mrs. Jill Schoelen, you are both missed!

I am Don Juan Triumphant!

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1989)

 Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 The 1989 version of "Phantom of the Opera" is the most uneven adaptation of the Gaston Leroux Gothic novel and perhaps the strangest. It is allegedly a love story but it is also a slasher horror picture, with a dose of Freddy Krueger mixed in with a Roger Corman Gothic-redux of "The Pit and the Pendulum." It has the right atmosphere that can give you goose pimples and a great musical score but it hardly compares to most other film versions of this oft-told tale.

Robert Englund is the composer Erik Destler, the Phantom who lives in the sewers below the London Opera House (the novel's setting was actually in Paris). Instead of a mask, he sews dead skin on his charred, rotting face every night before getting his own seat at the Opera to hear for the umpteenth time, Gounod's "Faust." The story goes that Erik sold his soul to the Devil (played by the late John Ghavan, a dwarf with an alarming, echoing voice that must have been dubbed) so that his music would become immortalized - part of the bargain dictates that no one will ever love Erik himself and so the Devil burns his face. I actually enjoy this revisionist take on Leroux's novel - Brian De Palma's electric, rock and roll version called "Phantom of the Paradise" also aimed for a Faustian subtext. I do object to the movie's bastardization of the Phantom, making him a newly supernatural character - he can materialize anywhere, he decapitates people, he hangs them with rope traps, he utters Freddy Krueger lines ("You're...suspended!"), but he does love the new opera singer in town. That would be Christine Day (Jill Schoelen), who can sing like no one's business provided she is guided by Erik himself.

The movie's bookends feature Christine in modern-day New York City, finding the lost musical notes of a forgotten opera called "Don Juan Triumphant." She is ready to perform the piece for an audition but is hit on the head by a sandbag. Then we travel back to London in the 1880's. The movie never makes it clear if Christine is having a fever dream from being hit on the noggin' or if she in fact does time travel back to the 1800's. Who needs a Delorean or H.G. Well's time machine when all you require is a sandbag? It is hinted in a line of dialogue that the Phantom had been around for centuries but a tinge more backstory would've been beneficial.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is often mesmerizing and visually stunning, especially the candlelit sewers, but its core themes of romantic love and passionate longing for music are disrupted by gratuitously gory violence and bookends that deter from its original source. A sequel was planned but never actually made, which explains the bookends that feature the return of the Phantom. Englund overacts as expected, and Schoelen is laid-back and a pleasing presence as always (her singing voice had been dubbed, which is odd since she knows how to sing but maybe opera was a little out of her range). The original novel did deal with the possibility of the Phantom finding love when he had never even been kissed, let alone loved by anyone except Christine. That would fit the long-running Broadway version that later became a 2004 Joel Schumacher flick, and the creepy classic 1925 Lon Chaney picture. This "Phantom" hints at love but it is really a grisly horror flick for the "Nightmare on Elm Street" crowd. Odd hybrid, and no falling chandelier either.

Footnote: This was the only Jill Schoelen film I saw in theaters, after becoming a fan of hers when I saw "The Stepfather." 

The Earth is an Indian Thing (An Interview with Valerie Red-Horse)

THE EARTH IS AN INDIAN THING (An Interview with Valerie Red-Horse)

By Jerry Saravia

(Note: interview is reprinted with permission from Times Beacon Record newspapers, specifically The Village Times whom I used to write for. Excerpts are from a 1998 Stony Brook Film festival article) 

I always think back to the line from Jack Kerouac's wonderful, off-balance rhythms of his iconic book, "On the Road." That line is, "the Earth is an Indian thing." Indeed it is, but you would not know it from Hollywood's treatment of Native-Americans on celluloid. There have been exceptions: Arthur Penn's powerful 1970 film "Little Big Man," for one, and the sprawling Kevin Costner western, "Dances With Wolves," which certainly brought to life Native American history and led to more films dealing with this intrinsically isolated people, sometimes told from their perspective. A few years back, "The Exiles" was a rediscovered 1960's picture that dealt with Native Americans adjusting to city life, far away from the reservations and their natural habitat.

There is also a landmark 1998 film few have heard of called "Naturally Native," the first film (at the time, aside from "The Exiles") to focus on Native American life outside of reservations. It is specifically the first film made about Native American women written, directed, produced and starring Native American women. It was written and co-directed by Valerie Red-Horse (of Cherokee-Sioux heritage) who started her own Red-Horse Native Productions, Inc., a company specializing in motion picture and television production and Native American herbal skincare and hair care products. Valerie received financing for her film through the Manshantucket Pequot tribal council in Connecticut, but she walked a rocky road before finding a financial backer. "There were the typical rejections, obstacles, and attitudes towards Native Americans," she said. "I realized then I had to go to my own people to tell a story from their perspective." The film was shot in the Los Angeles area in October and November 1997 with a total of 19 shooting days due to a modest budget, and it stars some familiar, Anglo-Saxon faces such as Max Gail (TV's "Barney Miller") and the underrrated actress Mary Kay Place, who shot her scenes in one day.

"Naturally Native" deals with three Native American sisters (Valerie Red-Horse, Irene Bedard, of Inuit heritage, and Kimberly Norris Guerrero, of Colville/Salish heritage) attempting to start their own business in cosmetics. Although they are of American Indian ancestry, they were adopted by white foster parents and, naturally, each sister has identity issues. And they must also endure obstacles to get financing for their business, as Valerie Red-Horse herself endured in trying to make this film. As Valerie explains, "Many stereotypical Native American women are shown as weak and speaking in Broken English. I want people to see this movie, feel alongside these women."

The film itself had caused people to cry at some screenings, according to Valerie, and many Native American groups called it a blessing for such a film to finally exist. I admire the picture myself and found it moving and extraordinarily introspective about the lives of these women (the film also touches on issues such as casino gambling, Native images used as sports mascots and the portrayal of Native Americans in the media). "The Exiles" is a darker picture overall, finding that these souls do not adapt to city life and resort to alcoholism. "Naturally Native" is more optimistic and just as truthful. The final shot involving the three sisters forming a union in the middle of a road will move the most jaded viewer. We need more films like this, especially about a people who are steadily being forgotten. The Native American images need to be re-casted for an entire culture that needs the education. "Naturally Native" is a wise first step.

Edgy and Androgynous: (An Interview with Eileen Dietz)

EDGY AND ANDROGYNOUS DIETZ    

(An Interview with Eileen Dietz: By Jerry Saravia)

Eileen Dietz in The Exorcist

Every time a magazine article mentions "The Exorcist" on their list of best horror flicks, there is a picture almost always of Eileen Dietz. Eileen Dietz? Yes, the actress who played the black-and-white, androgynous Pazuzu demon (Captain Howdy to some) in subliminal flashes and in certain shots as poor little Regan strapped to a bed. Dietz dribbles a little vomit here and there, smacks a doctor in the face, and is used in a fantastic superimposition of Pazuzu and Regan's dummy in close-up. If anyone has read Mark Kermode's "The Exorcist" analysis, it is Eileen Dietz who graces the book cover and not Linda Blair.

Eileen as Jillia in Planet of the Apes TV series

But "The Exorcist" is not the only film she starred in. There is a slew of other credits including the TV movie "Helter Skelter," "David Holzman's Diary," the cancelled, long-running soap "Guiding Light," "The Clonus Horror," "You Light Up My Life," the TV-series "Trapper John, M.D.," "Planet of the Apes" TV series (in one episode, she played Jillia), to name but a few. I have not even mentioned the numerous independent horror and thriller films she has appeared in, including 2010's "Freeway Killer," thanks to her agent whom she has told, "I love being in front of the camera so much that I will choose mostly any role as long as its not politically incorrect for me or involves salacious scenes."

Eileen as Family Girl in Helter Skelter

Prior to making her film debut in 1966's noirish "Teenage Gang Debs" (where she is credited as Eileen Scott) and taped shows for children with actress Jean Stapleton ("All in the Family") in Hershey, PA., Eileen Dietz had a "one-line scene" in the NBC daytime soap, "The Doctors." She later appeared in 1967's "David Holzman's Diary," a stunning mockumentary directed by Jim McBride about a filmmaker who epitomizes the phrase from Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" - "All this filmmaking isn't healthy." Dietz plays the role of Penny, Holzman's girlfriend, who is filmed while she is sleeping in the nude. "I didn't want to do the nude scene," explains Dietz. "But I figured nobody will ever see the film." The film never got distribution despite having Dietz's nude scene featured in Life Magazine's photo spread and in the book of the film. She didn't recall if she auditioned for the role of Penny but she added, "it was a fun shoot." A recent celebration screening of the film in New York was a letdown for her since she was not invited due to the event organizers inability to locate her. 

Eileen Dietz in the photograph held by Holzman in David Holzman's Diary

Dietz did appear as Young Girl with Anthony Perkins in a 1970 production of a play (which Perkins also directed) called "Steambath," where she had another brief nude scene in a shower (the play deals with a steambath standing in for the afterlife). In addition to "The Exorcist," she became typecast as an androgynous, edgy character in everything from "Happy Days" ("I was someone on the edge with a 175 I.Q.") to a cameo as Family Girl in the terrifying TV movie "Helter Skelter," where she blurts out the film's last line, "Death is what you're going to get!" She also played a mental patient named Sarah Abbott in another long-running soap, "General Hospital." In "Guiding Light," Dietz actually went to the Bahamas to learn scuba diving for a role that lasted six months. She was so flabbergasted by the preparation for the role, especially going to the Bahamas, that all she could say was "You've got to be kidding? I am getting paid for this?"

Eileen has had some regrets. She reluctantly moved from New York to L.A. to get away from the "Exorcist" controversy. For newbies to this aspect of her life, "Exorcist" director William Friedkin (a director noted for his relentless and tough demands to accentuate reality on screen) had told the press at the time that all physical actions performed by Regan in the film were performed by Linda Blair, the film's star, including performing the demon's voice (you can actually hear the preliminary sound recordings done by Linda Blair herself in the Exorcist DVD). The truth was that Eileen Dietz performed some shots involving the possessed Regan ("Don't ever call me a double for Linda!"). The voice of the demon was attributed to the late Mercedes McCambridge, who almost received no credit and sued to get it. Eileen did not receive credit for her work in "The Exorcist."

Eileen Dietz continues to have a very active career on television and in films (and attends many horror conventions to meet her fans). She has been typecast as the androgynous, strange, edgy type, and has also played her share of demons, evil nurses, zombies, homeless women, junkies, etc. She has written a book that will be out in stores in September, 2012, titled "Exorcising My Demon: An Actress' Journey to the Exorcist and Beyond." It will focus on her life and "it reads like a novel. It is written as a fictionalized version of my life." Naturally, a chapter on Captain Howdy will be featured. Edgy, indeed.

For the fans of Eileen Dietz: She will be at the Con X as a guest to their horror, sci-fi and pop culture convention on September 14-16, 2012 in Kansas City.

Make Room for Terry O'Quinn

STEPFATHER II (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I suppose a sequel was inevitable to the original, watertight, exciting, suspenseful "The Stepfather," a film that developed an audience when it premiered on cable and video. A thriller with a number after it and a subtitle that reads "Make Room For Daddy" is asking for trouble: read "exploitation." Therefore I was surprised that "Stepfather 2" does not take the low road, and tries to focus on the characters with an ironic sense of black humor that is likely to be missed by most.

When we last left off with the Stepfather, he was shot and stabbed on the chest by his stepdaughter (Jill Schoelen). He somehow survived his near-fatal wounds and had since been placed at the Puget Sound mental institution. But you can't keep a balding, intelligent family man down for too long. This man craves a family and will go to extreme lengths to get one in good old suburbia. He escapes the loony bin by posing as a guard and assumes a new identity as a psychiatrist in some remote suburb of California. He is now Dr. Gene Clifford (a name he picks up in the obit section) with his own private practice. His next-door neighbor, a realtor named Carol (Meg Foster), shares an interest in him, makes him dinner, introduces him to her skateboarding son, Todd (Jonathan Brandis), and before you know it, good old Stepdad is ready to throw the old pigskin around and take Polaroids of his new potential family. Dr. Clifford also shows the kid how to use a hammer and nails with precision (oh, and he teaches him how to whistle "Camptown Races.") Clifford's patients seem to trust him except for the mail carrier (Caroline Williams, fresh from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2") who has her suspicions from the start and opens his mail! Terror is slowly creeping in when mild-mannered Clifford loses his temper after Carol's ex-husband starts showing up.

"Stepfather 2" was directed by Jeff Burr, who helmed the atrocious "Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" and "The Offspring." Although suspenseful at times and tension-filled, Burr does lack the visual style and sense of community in typical American suburbia as strongly evidenced in the original film. This California community seems sparsely populated and a crucial scene in a park, shot with a long lens, diffuses any sense of community (though we hear sounds of children playing, we never see them). I almost got the impression that Clifford, Carol and other characters were the only occupants of a ghost town. Another scene in a backyard party also feels like it was shot too tightly. This is a shame because we never get the sense that the Stepfather is living the American dream - marriage, kids and a house with a white picket fence in tree-lined avenues. Close-up shots of garages and junkyards don't really cut it.

Also noteworthy is how this Stepfather manages to afford renting a home by pretending to be a shrink. I recall one Newsday reviewer commenting on this fact, stating that David Janseen's character in the TV series "The Fugitive" always had to work menial jobs to support himself. After Clifford's escape from the institution, he kills a guy with lots of money and credit cards - but is that still enough? How does Clifford initiate a practice in the first place? It would have been great if we saw how he immersed himself in this town. I can buy the Stepfather as a real estate agent or an insurance salesman, but a shrink with a private practice?

There are elements that do work. Terry O'Quinn still gives a dynamite performance showing the meek-looking, all-American Everyman with an impending threat of violence, thus switching from a smile to psychotic rage in a heartbeat. He still brings a layer of sympathy for someone who has forgotten that dysfunctional families are more common than functional ones. Clifford is a man who has grown up on television sitcoms where every problem was solved in half-an-hour. When he searches for a home, he watches Bob Eubanks on "Dream House." There is a delicious bit where he tries a video dating service and finds that not one woman interests him. But a family that can't disappoint him at all is unlikely - he is behind the times to say the least. O'Quinn makes "Stepfather 2" work - he is the movie.

Meg Foster as the divorced Carol has some moments, though her alien eyes make her appear more strange than intended - she is not as homely as Shelley Hack in the original. She does have one superb line after kissing Clifford's scars - "You are the kindest man I ever met." Jonathan Brandis has the thankless role as the typical American kid who loves skateboarding. His character is practically given nothing to do, unlike Jill Schoelen's suspicious stepdaughter in the original. Only the spunky Caroline Williams has more punch as Carol's best friend, and the scene in the park where she confronts Clifford with hardcore evidence of his true identity is quite stunning.

"Stepfather 2" is a good enough sequel with lots of black humor to make up for undernourished characters. It is a purposeless movie but for those who are fans of the original, it is a welcome return for one of the more interesting psychopaths in many years.