Dude, this pot is toast

BONGWATER (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

You could call "Bongwater" a precursor to the "Tenacious D" movie considering the level of pot smoked and the few trippy montages in it, and the fact that Jack Black and his partner, Kyle Gass, appear in this movie. Other than that, despite some level of inspired new form of trippiness, "Bongwater" fails to rise as any sort of comedy-drama.

Luke Wilson, one of my favorite modern unsung actors, is a Portland, Oregon pot dealer who spends his time smoking his bong, sleeping, hanging out with friends, smoking some more and taking calls for selling the proverbial weed. In his life enters Alicia Witt, who becomes entranced by Wilson's paintings and introduces him to an art dealer (Brittany Murphy) who wants nothing more than giddy sex. Then we shift to Witt leaving Wilson for the Big Apple, just after inadvertently burning down Wilson's house, and her encounters with a paranoid sociopath (Jamie Kennedy), some guy who lives underground (Scott Caan), and the ugly world of cocaine parties!

Somehow, this middle section with Alicia Witt doesn't gel with Wilson's lonely life in Portland, Oregon, amongst his gay friends. It seems the film is more about Witt's search for her identity than Wilson's, though Wilson's character is the one I was drawn to. We also get a nearly unwatchable sequence with Jack Black as a jolly pot farmer and some trippy points-of-view shots, not to mention Patricia Wettig as Wilson's dead mother. Although Black brings a jolt of energy to the proceedings, this section is bogged down by nothingness, an empty void no less, and Brittany Murphy's grating smile (sorry, it does get on my nerves). Maybe the movie's own inertness is its point but an inert state of being was handled with far more savviness in Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise."

The movie finds its spirit in those early Portland scenes, especially a tender moment where Wilson plays footsie with Witt. Witt is also a believer in UFO's and other paranormal activities, though the movie short-shrifts through all the delectable dialogue in the beginning for a bigger message, but what is the message?

"Bongwater" never quite finds the identities of its characters and thus prove to be unengaging. Turns out Wilson doesn't care about his burned down house or much of anything else except for the darling Alicia Witt who treats him horribly from the start. All we are left with is a marijuana haze, a UFO, a gay party where Andy Dick gets to strut his stuff, and nothing more.

Don't go back in time

TIMERIDER: THE ADVENTURE OF LYLE SWANN (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The name Timerider refers to a time-travel device in the middle of the desert. It is put to use but unfortunately, a motorcycle rider from the Baja 100 race has inadvertently crossed its path and been sent back to the Old West, circa 1870's. Great idea, horrible execution of the material.

Fred Ward is Lyle Swann (not the catchiest of names), the motorcycle rider who has no idea he is in the Old West. Outside of a pack of cowboys led by the scenery-chewing Peter Coyote (in what may be his sole villain role), the lack of phones, a buxom Belinda Bauer who doesn't take too long before she removes her clothes, it all looks the same as the present. Add to the cast a listless, taciturn L.Q. Jones, himself a veteran of westerns, and Ed Lauter as a priest and we got the makings of a cinematic disaster. Fred Ward looks too out of place as the clueless hero, Bauer is there to show some flesh and look helpless as she is tied to a bed and little else, and Coyote and most of the cast overact to the hilt.

After Lyle finds himself in the Old West, we get a love scene and numerous shootouts that are badly staged and edited - they take over the last three-quarters of the movie and add nothing to the story outside of reminding us that the Old West was a stomping ground for wild and crazy trigger-happy cowboys.

There is one good scene where Peter Coyote wants that motorcycle, referred to as the "machine," and he finally gets a hold of it. Coyote tries to start it up and rides it, only to fall on his bum. Other than that, "Timerider" is a snore-inducing and highly indifferent picture that bears some of the nifty ideas of time travel without realizing them. There is no fun to be had here and with a less than engaging hero and cumbersome acting by all involved, no one to root for either. A twist of fate at the end of the film lends some gravitas but you'll forget about it the next day.

Accommodate the Lone Ranger with silver

THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The Lone Ranger tale carries a charge of excitement and adventure. When Clayton Moore played the quintessential western hero, he added a sense of fun to it - he was as engaged as we were. 1981's big-screen adaptation of the Lone Ranger is mystifyingly mediocre and carries no sense of fun at all, thanks to a stoic lead actor.

Klinton Spilsbury plays John Reid, an attorney (a major change in the Lone Ranger canon) who arrives at a dusty Western town called Del Rio to help his brother, a Texas Ranger (John Bennett Perry), deal with the evil, notorious Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd). Cavendish had killed the brothers' parents when they were kids (John had saved the life of young Tonto back then as well). The memory of this event lingers no doubt as it leads to John and his brother joining a posse to stop Butch. A massacre ensues where John is the sole survivor. Tonto finds him, nurses him back to health, teaches him how to fire a gun (apparently using silver bullets makes someone into an expert marksman), and gets him a horse named Silver (a wild horse John learns to ride fairly quickly, albeit in slow-motion). John makes a pledge for revenge and suddenly he's got the iconic mask and we all go in unison, "Hi Yo, Silver." Well, maybe not all of us will cheer.

This was Spilsbury's only film role yet I can't fathom the casting of such an unremarkable actor - having your voice dubbed by James Keach must not help either. Spilsbury carries no real charisma or presence so when he puts the mask on, we can only giggle despite the always effective use of the William Tell Overture. Michael Horse does look the part as Tonto but he is almost as bland as Spilsbury. Added to the mix is the always reliable Jason Robards as President Ulysses S. Grant whose role is severly limited. "Back to the Future" fans might be tickled with laughter when Christopher Lloyd's one-dimensional Butch presents a mock-up of a train track route where he hopes to kidnap the President - it looks suspiciously like the same mock-up we see in "Back to the Future Part III," also set in the Old West and starring Lloyd. Hmmm, I wonder if Lloyd did some time-traveling in his dusty old Delorean.

I am not a stickler for having complete fidelity to the legend of the Lone Ranger as it was told back in the days of radio and TV serials. All I ask is that a film of the Lone Ranger have the spirit and the sense of adventure that we associate with the character. The makers of this film don't exactly have the right attitude and squander the film with far too much exposition and too little of everything else. The cinematography by Laslo Kovacs is stunning and some of the shootouts have a tinge of excitement. Still, with all due respect to a friend of mine from many years ago in New Mexico, editor Thomas Stanford (who won an Oscar for editing "West Side Story"), the film's pacing is off and rather clunky. Let's hope someday the Lone Ranger returns to the screen screaming "Hi Yo Silver" with a bang than with a whimper.

Romero's Limp Walking Dead

DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Day of the Dead" is considered the least of the "Night of the Living Dead" series and, though it is no great shakes, it has its fill of claustrophobic zombie thrills that have made the first two "Dead" film hallmarks of the genre. Yes, it does lose its marbles and has no real human interest in its characters but the feeling of claustrophobia, a major component of these pictures, is omnipresent.

This time, the zombies have taken over America, parading throughout every town. An underground facility, housed by military men and scientists, have captured some of these zombies. The intention of the scientists is to discover what makes these zombies tick - why do they feel the craving to eat humans? One doctor (always covered in blood-splattered lab coats) is particularly intrigued by one zombie, whom he names Bub (Howard Sherman). Bub learns to look at the pages of a Stephen King book and put on headphones so he can listen to a Sony walkman! Although this subplot merits some interest, director George Romero seems less interested in the ironies present with a human using a zombie as a guinea pig.

Instead Romero focuses on some truly dull stereotypes who simply mark time. The head of the decreasing military group is tough-guy Rhodes (Joseph Pilato), who feels it is a waste of time to experiment with these zombies - just shoot them all in the head. He also wishes to kill Sarah (Lori Cardille), a female scientist, if she does not comply with his orders. Sarah hopes that they can discover some cure, especially with any human that gets bitten, but it is a hopeless cause. And so most of "Day of the Dead" focuses on the strategies between the doctors and the macho military types until we get our money's worth with a typically gory last half-hour where all the zombies chomp their way through most of the cast.

"Day of the Dead" is not much fun to sit through nor are the characters very appealing. Yet the movie has the claustrophobic atmosphere of the original film, essentially an enclosed setting where there is no escape. In the original "Dead" film, it was an abandoned house in the middle of the countryside. In the numbing "Dawn of the Dead," it was a huge shopping mall. Here, the underground caverns enhance the creep factor. It's just that I barely cared for any of the people occupying those caverns.

A MEAN Sevauri

DAY OF THE DEAD (2008)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Before anyone questions my positive rating of the remake of a George Romero zombie spectacle, let me clarify my view on zombies. I love Romero's early "Dead" series, including "Night of the Living Dead," the granddaddy of all zombie films and the scariest. I also enjoyed Zac Snyder's fast-paced and quite scary remake of "Dawn of the Dead," which means that, yes, I do find zombies running after your brains quite scary and nightmarish. The slow, snail pace that early zombies carried on, meaning walking and not running, is still frightening. Having said all that, this alleged remake of Romero's "Day of the Dead" is a better film all around, tighter and scarier and filled with a doomsday scenario that will seem dated to some but is no less relevant. Sacrilege, I know, but I was never a big fan of Romero's "Day of the Dead."

The movie begins with a mysterious flu-like virus (not the H1N1 type, I am afraid) that causes the military to quarantine the town where it has started. Yeah, it is a flu alright, the kind that kills you and then turns you into a zombie with truly ravaged, bubbly skin! Mena Sevauri may as well be called Meana Sevauri as a soldier who runs over her zombiefied mother without caring in the slightest! Ving Rhames appears briefly, sadly, as a soldier, I think, who becomes zombiefied (and does not do a reprise of the character he played in "Dawn of the Dead," probably because he was killed in the end credits). That leaves us with the host of "America's Got Talent," Nick Cannon, as a tough soldier who is eager to kill all the zombies as if they were playing a video game! Eventually, this all leads to a military base and a silo that echoes Romero's original. And I forgot to mention the unlikable radio host who is holed up in his control room, smoking his life away and babbling about how the government covers up such quarantines.

"Day of the Dead" has less than memorable characters overall, though I like Cannon and Sevauri who are appealing enough on screen that they won't make you gag. There is also the vegetarian soldier that becomes a zombie and Sevauri tries to protect him because he is a "good" zombie. Ick! But this movie doesn't get mired with the talkiness of Romero's film that featured characters I cared far less about than in this film. There are occasional pauses before the zombies get revved up and start attacking. It is a rollicking, sweat-inducing, intensely gory ride of a movie, much like its remake counterpart, "Dawn of the Dead." On that level, check it out. It won't resonate like Romero's films but this film can stand on its own for modern apocalyptic fervor.

It is a Maxi-Pad Drag

DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Drag me out of this movie. Sam Raimi's horror-comedy "Drag Me to Hell" puts more spin into horror than the comedy, which would be acceptable had the horror been something more than a vomitous creature and a bland, real-estate heroine with lots of fire and brimstone special- effects. And for comedy, well, we have vomit, worms and a mean goat! These are traditional Raimi touches but they are not very hellishly funny.

Alison Lohman is Christine Brown, a bank loan officer who denies an old Gypsy woman an extension on her house (timely topic indeed). Needless to say, the old Gypsy woman doesn't take this very well after she tries to bite her and beat her to a pulp in a parking garage! (Hey, don't shame a Gypsy who begs on her knees.) Unfortunately, Christine has been cursed by this ravaged, cretinous woman with the help of a coat button! How apropos yet Christine is not prepared for the torment and physical pain she will endure. We are talking about demonic shadows that creep around during the day and at night, violent dreams that involve the Gypsy woman vomiting ungodly things into Christine's mouth, flies that try to penetrate her skin, nosebleeds that lead to spraying people with blood, and an assortment of other tortures from Raimi's Evil Dead arsenal.

Unfortunately for us, none of this is any bloody fun. Lohman is so fluffy and blandly inconsequential an actress that she would make white bread moldy by just looking at it. Some early scenes with her boyfriend (Justin Long, unconvincing as a professor) show promise, especially when we learn that her boyfriend's mother disapproves of her. And there is some compassion developed early on about her promised job as an assistant manager that feels genuine. Raimi (who wrote this film) abandon all hope of a strong character study for the sake of aimless bloody thrills and chills. Lohman emotes a singular gaping expression every time she is frightened or thrown around like a rag doll (only her scene at a graveyard seems to elicit more of a Bruce Campbell wickedness than anything else in the movie). Raimi amps up the soundtrack with creaky noises and a chorus of screeching sounds, but to what avail when we could care less about Christine?

"Drag Me to Hell" aims to be an "Evil Dead"-type film but it lacks thrust and purpose and a better lead. Bruce Campbell in the "Evil Dead" pictures was in on the joke but he also made us watch and recoil at everything he encountered - he and Raimi made more inspired, inventive horror films that became Three-Stooges-like cartoons. Lohman also makes one recoil but we quickly lose interest in a largely unsympathetic and witless character (I will not describe what happens to a certain pet). I am all for a Raimi horror pic that abounds with bad taste and wicked humor. This is the first time from Raimi that I was only left with a bad taste.

Heartbroken Angel in L.A.

SOME GIRL (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally written in 2000)

Sometimes I will walk into a video store and find an obscure film that never got anywhere or got much distribution, yet managed to find its way into a video store like Blockbuster. There are two major films I can think of that are not talked about much or receive any merit. There was the delightful Paul Mazursky comedy "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," and the far more obscure "Crooked Hearts." "Crooked Hearts" amazingly never attracted any attention at all, despite a cast that includes Juliette Lewis, Peter Coyote, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Noah Wyle, among others. Sure enough, I found another film on the video shelves that I never heard of called "Some Girls" (also known as "Men," 'Some Girl," and "Girl Talk"). I was immediately interested because of the cast, and of course Juliette Lewis is in it. What a surprise to discover a fitfully good film that no one ever heard of! "Men" was shown at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival where it won an Audience Award. It never actually got distribution, but it is now on video.

Marissa Ribisi in "Some Girls"

"Men" stars Marissa Ribisi as Claire, a red-haired girl who drinks heavily with her friends at singles clubs (though it mostly looks like an unpopulated bar). Claire had just got dumped and gets into a bitter mood, ignoring her brothers and family. Her friends include April (Juliette Lewis) who sleeps around and expects to be picked up by her friends the morning after, the punk rocker Jenn (Pamela Segall) who has theories on sexual practices, and the bartender Neil (Michael Rapaport), April's semi-boyfriend who is always ignored by her. There is also Claire's brother, Jason (Giovanni Ribisi), a seemingly nerdy, vivacious guy who wants a date with the reluctant Jenn.

"Men" is written by Marissa Ribisi (Giovanni's sister) and Brie Shaffer, and they pay special close attention to Claire and April. If nothing else, this film should have been called "Women," as the women are really the ones who dominate. "Some Girls" (the video title) detracts from the film's emotional moments - this is not just another twentysomething, Generation X programmer with bland stars from "Dawson's Creek." At least, these two women possess some integrity.

Claire is the focus of the film, and her distraught emotions are based on relationships with guys who find her too weird but love her curly red hair. She meets one guy at a magazine stand, Chad (Jeremy Sisto), who loves her hair and finds her "intriguing." Of course, everyone warns Claire that any guy named Chad is bound to be trouble.

April supposedly abhors men, and is drawn to Neil's kindness and compassion. Still, she feels the need to have one-night stands and hurts everyone who gets in her way.
If "Men" sounds mediocre and a time-waster based on its scantly told story and largely underdeveloped characters, then I would not recommend it. However, I must confess that I enjoyed it. Giovanni lends the film a quietly erratic energy whenever he is on screen - he gets all the best lines. I also enjoyed watching short-haired Juliette Lewis (finally a good role since "The Evening Star") and the lovely, sweet presence of Marissa Ribisi - they make their characters human and heartfelt. The sight of Ribisi wearing angel wings lends the film a certain kind of poignancy.

"Men" does not feel complete, and has too many characters who drift around without any insight into their nature (Pamela Segall's Jenn is one character I wanted to know more about). Still, "Men" is a sweet, innocent, droll film that merits a little more attention than it got.