WHAM! BAM! HOLY SCHUMACHER!

BATMAN FOREVER (1995)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Tim Burton created nihilistic, nightmarish versions of "Batman." Joel Schumacher added neon and garish bright colors that give one the impression of an update of the Batman TV show, amped up with superfluous and unwatchable color schemes. "Batman Forever" is not awful, and when I first saw it, I enjoyed it well enough but it is an empty, synthetic carnival ride of a movie.

Part of the problem is the horrendous casting of Val Kilmer as Batman/Bruce Wayne. As Bruce Wayne, he looks like a nerd with glasses who looks too fragile to survive in Wayne Manor or the Batcave. As Batman, he isn't bad but somehow not as suited to the Batsuit or the Bat nipples as Michael Keaton was.
Tommy Lee Jones gives the same performance he did in "Natural Born Killers" as Two-Face, a former district attorney who becomes a freak after acid burns half his face - he decides on a violent action by flipping a coin. Jim Carrey is at his zingiest and rubbery best here as the Riddler. And it is a welcome sight to see Nicole Kidman as Dr. Chase Meridian, a psychologist who becomes Bruce Wayne's love interest and has a keen interest in Batman's duality.

The movie drives at full-throttle overload with various action-scenes and overdone special-effects, especially the absurd climax involving a brainwave-collecting device. The villains steal the show while Batman's prowess and Bruce Wayne's past is kept to a minimum. And even more distracting is the appearance of Robin, the Boy Wonder (Chris O'Donnell), the former trapeze artist who becomes Batman's ally.

"Batman Forever" is too loud, too silly, too much-ness, as if Joel Schumacher is worried about his audience falling asleep. The movie is watchable and fast-paced enough but it is not as stimulating as the original 1989 film or as dark and subterranean as "Batman Returns" (though one can be thankful that this entry is not as unappetizing either). I suppose it will do for fans of the 1960's TV show, but not for fans of the Dark Knight graphic novels.

Ed Gein is back!

DERANGED (1974)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In the 1950's, Ed Gein, a Wisconsin farmer, killed people from a nearby town and wore their skins, sometimes dressing up other corpses. He would also use human flesh to dress up furniture. Gein was rather inept at keeping his murders secret and was eventually caught by the police. Ed Gein has been the subject of many horror films ever since, including "Psycho" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." "Deranged" is another example, a low-budget shocker with a documentary feel that proves rather cumbersome.

Roberts Blossom plays Ezra Cobb, a farmer who lives with his sickly, dying mother. She dies in her bed (violently spewing blood from her mouth) after telling him to trust only one woman in town for company. Poor Ezra is all alone since his best friend has always been his mother. Dear mother is buried, and now Ezra has an empty house to live in. One day, Ezra's neighbors tell him about the wonderful world of obituaries and Ezra, who has never heard of an obit, jokes about digging up bodies and removing their limbs and heads. The neighbors laugh but Ezra is not treating this as a laughing matter. He digs up his old mother and begins to patch up her skinless body with the skins of other dead people. Then he decides to get fresher skins and, well, you guessed it. Poor old Ezra decides to go after young women, including a barmaid that the old townsfolk ogle over. There is also the woman his mother recommended for company and possibly marriage, mainly because this woman is fat! The latter is significant in that Ezra's mother has always taught him that women are evil because they are lustful creatures, and possibly because the slender-build type are the ones to watch out for. Fat women are not as desperate for sex, or so Eza thinks.

"Deranged" is so low-budget that the mother's funeral, shot very tightly so that we see lamps symmetrically composed on each side of the coffin, is obviously not inside a real funeral home. But low-budget constraints have never bothered me too much (being that I pursued similar interests in making feature-length films with zero budget). The look of "Deranged" is rather foreboding, showing a desolate town where evil hardly seems present. That is what makes some sections of the film disturbing, and Roberts Blossom's scenery-chewing role as the lonely, banal Ezra contributes to the minimalist horror (Blossoms you may recognize as the strange neighbor in "Home Alone"). I was also glad to see very few gory murders in the film, and the blood we do see is the kind of orange red color from Hammer horror films. The murder of a hardware store female clerk is especially troubling to watch, mostly because the girl is so sweet and innocent but also because Ezra shows such a detachment from pointing a rifle at her. Some other murders do not work as well, such as the murder of the barmaid which is almost too campy. Also the murder of a psychic lady who lost her husband in a car crash is too hysterical to take seriously.

The problem is the film's narrator (identifying himself as Tom Sims, a newspaper columnist, and played by actor Leslie Carlson), who is often present in the scenes where he tells us what Ezra is thinking. The approach is to show that the story is real but the narrator also claims to be have been a reporter of the story (which is obviously not true). Occasionally, we see freeze-frames, a stylistic docudrama trick ever since 1960's "Murder, Inc.," but these devices often prove more distracting than necessary. The subject alone is grisly enough.

"Deranged" is not bad at all and worthwile for all horror film completists, or those who have an unending fascination with Ed Gein (count me among them). Though this is not as disturbing as later documents of sick and diseased minds of serial killers, it is finally Roberts Blossom's performance that will stay with you long after the film is over.

Cusack's anarchic, bewildered, off-kilter comic spirit

BETTER OFF DEAD (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is no easy way to describe or digest "Better Off Dead" except to say it is a low-key, highly outrageous cartoon that has no specific antecedents. In other words, there is nothing to compare it to, except maybe Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude" and even that is a mute, debatable comparison at best.

John Cusack is Lane Meyer, a high-school student who is dumped by his girlfriend (Amanda Wyss) after trying out for a ski competition. Lane is so depressed that his clumsy suicide attempts make him feel even lower, or maybe they help him see the light. His parents do not listen to his problems. Lane's mother (Kim Darby) is in her own world of making food recipes that would make anyone gag, whereas his father (David Ogden Stiers) is concerned about the black Camaro on their front lawn that hasn't been driven in months. To make matters worse, Lane's little brother (Scooter Stevens) is very likely an evil genius with his wooing older, Playboy-like women, and creating a space shuttle (!) out of spare appliance parts. I also cannot forget to mention the Asian kids who mimic Howard Cosell and entice Lane to race them on the road, or the next-door neighbors with their French foreign-exchange student (Diane Franklin) who keeps her eye on Lane. Ah, and the merciless paper boy who wants his two dollars.

"Better Off Dead" is based on the actual experiences of the film's writer-director Savage Steve Holland. Savage Steve Holland has claimed in an interview that he did go through a bad breakup, and that there was an attempt at hanging himself in the garage only to be interrupted by his mother, not to mention a kid demanding his two dollars for his paper route. The movie, though, is mostly a fragmented series of comical skits that are repeated and delivered with the expected payoff each time, such as Lane's suicidal attempts or the dreaded snowy hill which Lane is trying to vainly succeed at skiing without falling. There are two claymation sequences with burgers that is so loony, it will make you laugh. Kim Darby's raisin-sludge might make some vomit.

The movie has a randomness and anarchic, off-kilter comic spirit that is far removed from any of the practically homogenized 80's teen comedies. Not all of "Better Off Dead" works but it proves that John Cusack, when not propped up as a romantic leading man, lends to the chaos with his uncertainty and discomfort in an absurd, strange universe. Makes one wonder why nobody considered casting him as Holden Caulfield. That is okay because "Better Off Dead," in its themes of alienation and not fitting in to his environment, is Cusack's Holden Caulfield.

The real metalstorm was Iron Maiden

METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I hope Kelly Preston got a decent paycheck

"Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn" is not a movie - it is constructed out of leftover mechanical parts from "Star Wars" and leftover dusty vehicles that were deemed unacceptable in "The Road Warrior." This film was released during the heyday of the rebirth of 3-D in the early 80's. This film and "Spacehunter" and the abominable "Jaws 3-D" and the equally ludicrous "Amityville 3-D" gave 3-D a bad name.

"Metalstorm" is concerned with dusty sand buggies, characters walking for an eternity from one sandy hill to another, and endless shots of slightly low-angle dusty roads (a rule of thumb in car chases, the less you see of the road without the vehicle in the shot, the better). There is a hero known as Dogen, a Ranger without the slightest hint of personality; an early performance by Kelly Preston who is more animated than anyone else in the cast; Richard Moll (yep, the guard from TV's "Night Court") as some sort of 7-foot-tall warrior and, to boot with the Road Warrior comparisons, Michael Preston who was terrific in "The Road Warrior" and here plays the villainous Jared-Syn. Added to this incoherent mess are vehicles that explode when they flip over sand dunes, cheesy special-effects featuring flying motorbikes and nothing approaching anywhere near the level of sense. This is supposedly a post-apocalyptic future but little explanation is given as to what sort of pre-post-apocalyptic world this was, aside from the visual look of a western that was filmed in a backlot somewhere in La-La land. Jared-Syn's purpose is also senseless - he is interested in crystals and in entering another dimension, and uses nomads wearing gas masks to do his bidding to do....WHAT????? The 3-D effects are a non-issue since I never had the pleasure to watch this zero-dimensional crap in three dimensions.

There is one nifty surprise in this cobwebbed labyrinth of stupidity and that is Tim Thomerson as Rhodes, a mercenary-of-sorts who becomes Dogen's ally. He is such a gruff, wonderful presence (best known for "Trancers") that you kinda wish the filmmakers gave him the role of Dogen. The movie hints at that idea when we see a head-bandaged Rhodes offering Dogen and Miss Preston a ride back to town. It is a fun scene and it is, dammit, at the very end of this travesty.

Mr. Coffey fell out of the sky

THE GREEN MILE (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(originally written in 1999)

The Stephen King books that usually adapt well to the screen are the melodramas. Sure, in terms of horror, we have had "Carrie" and "The Dead Zone," yet often they are so ludicrous ("Maximum Overdrive") and badly shaped that they come across as pale echoes of their literary counterparts. "The Shawshank Redemption" was one major exception to the rule, as well as "Stand By Me" (both adapted from the "Different Seasons" book). "The Green Mile" is based on a six-part novel from 1996, once again focusing on a prison setting (as did "Shawshank"), and once again directed by Frank Darabont, who also helmed "Shawshank." It may not be as moving or as deeply profound as "Shawshank," but it will do.

"The Green Mile" begins with a old man at a nursing home who weeps when he watches Fred Astaire singing "Cheek to Cheek" in "Top Hat." The reason for his distress is outlined in a flashback to an Alabama prison in the 1930's where he worked as a prison guard. Tom Hanks plays death-row guard Paul Edgecomb, who has a urinary tract infection he tries to keep hidden. There are other guards in this pristine-looking yet ominous, lime-colored prison such as David Morse (once the gentle, bird-like doctor in TV's "St. Elsewhere") as the imposing second-in-command, the clean-cut kid (Barry Pepper, best remembered as the Biblical sharpshooter in "Saving Private Ryan"), and the past master guard (Jeffrey DeMunn) who's seen it all. There is also the ambitious, mean, sadistic guard, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchinson), who has no qualms about taunting the prisoners or killing mice. One mouse in particular that has the guards in awe is adopted by a prisoner named Delacroix (Michael Jeter), and the rodent is thus named Mr. Jingles.

One day, a massive bulk of a man named John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) is brought in for the crime of killing two young girls. He seems like a sweet man, afraid of the dark, and takes a liking to Mr. Jingles. Paul Edgecomb doubts the man is capable of violence, especially when John's hands glow mysteriously and heals Paul's infection. But nobody has heard of Mr. Coffey. "He fell out of the sky," says John's former lawyer (Gary Sinise, in an outstanding cameo).

"The Green Mile" spends an inordinate amount of time expounding on the daily routines of the guards - their camaraderie, how they bring in the prisoners, their respectful treatment of them, and the preparations for the inevitable executions (there are two of them in the film, and they are quite disturbing). All this is as powerfully executed, no pun intended, as anything in "The Shawshank Redemption," and the performance by Hutchinson reinforces that. His character, Percy, has a killer instinct but he can also be scared and taunted - it is a twisty, fascinating character.

The major fault with "The Green Mile" lies with the tedious bookends showing an older Edgecomb, and it feels like writer-director Darabont is vying for the same emotion as "Saving Private Ryan." No sale, and it is an unwanted distraction that detracts from the more powerful moments in the film. Another fault lies with the enormous sobbing scenes that actor Michael Clarke Duncan is required to do - every scene he's in, he's teary-eyed. Duncan could have used some moments of silence so that we would not know what to think of such a gentle giant. On the other hand, director Darabont aims to make every moment as dramatic as possible, cued with stretches of Thomas Newman's musical score, making every scene far too self-important. I've said it before and I will say it again - restraint is occasionally an admirable trait.

Though it does not match the power of Darabont's "Shawshank," "The Green Mile" has a few great scenes in what is otherwise a middling, semi-laborious film that plays it safe, and would have benefitted from some screenplay deletions. But in an era where there are so few good Stephen King films, "The Green Mile" is a step in the right direction.

This Bat signal makes me nauseous

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I've had mixed feelings towards "Batman Returns" since I first saw it in theaters in 1992. It is a nightmare fantasy of epic proportions with almost too little story, too many characters, and not much fun. Tim Burton made an extreme and freakish Burton film, not a Batman film, and that may be the underlying problem.

The nocturnal Batman/Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) is back, but this time he is fighting a literal circus of freaks. There are skull masked freaks, the late Vincent Schiavelli as a leader of the circus, and they all shoot at crowds and creating havoc and anarchy but to what cost and for what purpose? It turns out the Penguin (Danny DeVito) is creating havoc from 300 feet below Gotham City. He knows a thing or two about the corrupt Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), a towering businessman who hopes to usurp Gotham's power source to build a power plant, and is trying to keep secret his leakage of toxic waste in the sewers of the city. To keep Penguin quiet, Max helps the fish man find his parents who neglected him and promises to elect him as the Mayor of Gotham.

We are also introduced to the ditsy Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is killed by Max for having discovered his dastardly plans. She is resurrected by a bunch of cats and becomes Catwoman. Best scene has her destroying her neon sign in her apartment where it reads: "Hell here."

"Batman Returns" is missing one crucial element - Batman and his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne. They both appear in the film but more as an afterthought. The disgusting Penguin and the sexual tease of Catwoman steal the show, and all of Batman's thunder. By the end of the film, you are left wondering what Batman's purpose was, aside from proving he was a freak in the world of Burtonesque freaks in Gotham.

There are a few delights in "Batman Returns." Michelle Pfeiffer is possibly the tastiest choice to play Catwoman ever, and her dual personality is evoked with wit and dramatic punch (a shame that a sole feature film with Pfeiffer's feline character never materialized). Danny DeVito is both fearsome and loathsome to watch as the Penguin - a character of pity and bad puns. As good as DeVito is in the part, it is no match for Jack Nicholson's Joker from the first Batman film.

The movie has creative production design, some stellar noirish cinematography (every shot is subterranean and nocturnal) and fantastic special-effects. But the movie is joyless, frenetic and, occasionally, a chore to sit through. For every scene that magnetizes and dazzles (Batman fighting Catwoman,Walken and DeVito discussing politics, the instrumental of "Super Freak" playing at a costumed ball), there are inert scenes of various explosions, the repetitive use of that Duck mobile (why is that in a Batman movie?) and some cruel violence that will put off even hardcore fans of The Dark Knight graphic novels (the Penguin biting a man's nose that gushes blood hardly elicits a wicked smile, just nausea). "Batman Returns" has some flashes of brilliance but it is anemic and leaves a sour taste in your mouth. As lavish a production as it is, I am not sure that is what Tim Burton intended. 

I am Ron Burgundy?

ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia (originally reviewed in 2006)

 Much like the title character, "Anchorman" is a befuddled, vapid yet thoroughly pleasing cartoon comedy. Like every other comedy nowadays, it is a movie not content with just humoring us - it pushes its reality barrier to Warner Brother cartoon extremes.

Will Ferrell is the fictitious Ron Burgundy, a fairly simple-minded San Diego anchorman who reads everything on his teleprompter without blinking twice, and I mean every punctuation mark, even if it's incorrect. At one point, someone mistakenly places a question mark after his sign off ("I am Ron Burgundy?") Ron Burgundy and his news team have the highest ratings in San Diego, and Ron is not just a preening show-off - he especially takes pride in boasting of his exploits to women who find him attractive. The last thing he wants though is for a woman to be on equal footing. Ron's boss (Fred Willard) has just hired an ambitious, attractive and steadfastly determined woman, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) to be anchorwoman. Ron and his buddies vehemently protest this new hire, to the point that they all try to sexually harass her so she'll quit. No sale. In one of the movie's funniest scenes, Ron calls Veronica's desk and pretends to be a news organization from Moscow ("Pack your bags. You're leaving tomorrow morning.")

Most of "Anchorman" deals with Ron's periodic outbursts in front of and behind the camera. There is also a tremendously funny scene where Ron's news team confronts other competing news teams in a street fight! For animal activists, they may cringe at a poor dog kicked out of a bridge like a football! Mostly, this is about Ron Burgundy with a personal crisis - he loves Veronica but he can't stand to see her as an anchorwoman. Feminists may scoff at the movie's underlying sexism - women only exist to be screwed and nothing else. But, hey, there is always true love in the end.

Will Ferrell is in wickedly bristling, restrained form as the mustachioed, romantic anchorman. For the first time in any of his films, I felt genuine pity for his character as he tries so hard to be accepted. Ferrell is no great actor but he is a breezy comic find - more roles of this stature (including "Melinda and Melinda") and he may reach the pantheon of truly great comic actors.

With cameos from Jack Black to Ben Stiller and an engaging presence like Christina Applegate, "Anchorman" scores a few direct laughs and some big howlers (and kudos to casting Steve Carell as a character far more dim-witted than Ron). It is a frenzied cartoon of a comedy, and it kept me smiling from start to finish.