Manson spits at Abraxas

CHARLES MANSON SUPERSTAR (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In the eyes of the media, Charles Manson remains the epitome of evil, the counterculture carbon-copy of a Hitler on the rise who never quite fulfilled his agenda. As we all know, in the dark days of August of 1969, Charles Manson led a group of followers in Death Valley, known as the Family, to murder unsuspecting people in their own homes. They were actress Sharon Tate and friends in their home. The next day, it was the LaBianca couple in another home. The killers weren't apprehended for some time, but the nature of the crimes was so bestial that homicide detectives were vomiting in the bathrooms. The Family was eventually captured, Manson's piercing eyes graced Life magazine covers, and the rest is history.
Many films and books were written about this infamous chapter in the annals of crime, but little has been examined about Manson himself. Who was this little man (professing to be a hippie) and why did he think he was Jesus, Satan and above everything and anything, and what was this talk of a racial war? "Charles Manson Superstar," a crudely and badly edited yet never less than compelling document, attempts to deal with such questions but it never really succeeds.

Writer-director Nikolas Schreck filmed Manson in an interview at San Quentin to get some answers. Manson is seen sitting at a chair, uncuffed and not wearing shackles, waving his arms, getting into karate positions and diddling with a lavalier mike. He speaks admiringly of his Family members, including "Squeaky" Fromme who once attempted to kill former President Ford. He understands "Tex" Watson's desire to be a born-again Christian, though he insists that Tex is making a mistake following the Lord, something people have been doing for 2000 years. Manson claims he has all the answers and that he no longer inhabits the human form - he is a ubiquitous spiritual manifestation. He speaks admiringly of Abraxas, the ancient Gnostic god who is the "Symbol of the Eternal Now." Manson also claims to be a "beautiful woman," a "matriarch" for all the Manson girls! Now, I am no philosopher but this is obviously more than a man in touch with his feminine side.

Schreck seems to say that Manson was wronged by society, by the media, and turned into a monster because nobody understood his philosophies. Schreck also implies that killing Hollywood celebrities is no big deal, further supported rather chillingly in a powerful cameo by James N. Mason, the leader of the Universal Order, a U.S.-based Nazi organization. The question remains, what exactly is Manson's philosophy? To be the new Jesus? The new Hitler? The one who thought he could persuade 100,000 people to do his murderous bidding? Why start a racial war and stay in a bottomless pit? Why favor death as opposed to life, stating that death was a beautiful thing? This same pseudo-revolutionary was afraid to die when he thought he was going to get the death sentence. So Manson got away scot-free and remains in prison to this day, denied parole again and again. True, he was not allowed to testify for rather ambiguous reasons - it must have helped that President Nixon famously declared Manson guilty. How could the defense team top that?

Editing is not one of Schreck's strong suits, as his audio and video transitions are haphazardly pasted together. At times, Schreck seems to cut himself off before he starts a question, and even cuts off Manson in the middle of a speech. Also, his narration and his wife's, Zeena LaVey (Anton LaVey's daughter), can get grating but the use of Manson's bootlegged songs and other obscure music bring a sense of foreboding gloom to the proceedings.

"Charles Manson Superstar" is quite compelling overall, and many will find Manson either incomprehensible or profound. Still, seeing this man professing to be one thing or another while we, the audience, know what he had done makes one feel queasy and uncomfortable. In the end, you'll be left with those piercing eyes and more questions than answers.

Icy, cold, haunting Gallo

BUFFALO '66 (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Buffalo '66" is the type of film that serves as a reminder of those small, lonely towns throughout America where you don't see or hear much, and the only excitement to be found is maybe at a third-rate bowling alley or a pool table at some tavern on a squalid street corner. In other words, a film about the kind of places you know exist but would never think of visiting - a place not unlike Buffalo. Vincent Gallo's directorial debut "Buffalo '66" focuses greatly on the squalid nature of such towns.

The scrawny Gallo stars as Billy Brown, a young man released from prison after six years for a crime he didn't commit. And what's the first thing Billy does after exiting the prison's front gate? He asks the guard if he can use the bathroom. This is something Billy tries to do for the first fifteen minutes of the film, but he can't seem to find one. Finally, he relieves himself at a tap-dance studio where he abruptly kidnaps a blonde, Lolita-like teenage student named Layla (Christina Ricci), and threatens her with words like "Don't wash the front windshield of the car like that!"

Billy's motive for kidnapping Layla is to make her pretend she is his wife so he can present her to his parents as a sign of maturity and responsibility. She calmly agrees, but wonders if his parents will cook meat since she's a vegetarian. When they arrive at his parents' house, they are greeted with indifference and the cheerless dinner scene, an absolute riot to watch, is beset by past humiliations, particularly when Billy is reminded that as a kid he was allergic to chocolate doughnuts though his mother didn't care.

"Buffalo '66" captures the seediness and icy coldness of Buffalo better than any other film could, but it's deficient in the screenwriting department. Gallo does a marvelous job of developing the hirsute antihero Billy, who is really just a lost soul in search of something. I also liked the way he wrote and shot the dinner table scenes, emphasizing the pain and dysfunction between Billy and his parents by composing a wide spatial distance in the reverse angle shots (the parents are superbly played by Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston). But the film suffers by not divulging much information about Layla - who is this girl? Is she a sexpot, a hooker, a forlorn dance student, an angel, or none of the above? The cherub-like Ricci plays her with great sex appeal and perfect comic timing, but she is much too enigmatic a character for my tastes - a nobody who is still a nobody by the end. And the feel-good ending negates most of what preceded it.

Still, in an era of bland blockbuster phenomenons and clever post-modernist horror flicks, "Buffalo '66" is surely different and it has an edge. It betrays its own edginess and sense of anxiety, but it holds your interest right from the opening black-and-white title credits to Gallo's imposing presence. He has one of the more hauntingly expressive faces I've seen in a long time, and it suggests anything but peace.

Revisiting Malick's War

THE THIN RED LINE (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

(Original review written in January '99)

It took director Terrence Malick twenty years to make a film, which is about a decade longer than it would take Stanley Kubrick. Did he run out of ideas or was he sick of Hollywood? It is an inconsequential matter because Malick has crafted one of the most poetic, life-affirming statements on war that has ever been produced by a Hollywood studio. "The Thin Red Line" is a masterpiece - a quiet, powerful observation of men in war, their lingering thoughts on what war means to them, and how violent human behaviors affect nature.

The film's opening shot is not of bullets grazing and imploding on the beach of Omaha, but of a crocodile entering a lake. The next few shots centers on Private Witt (James Caviezel) cavorting among the natives on an island off the coast, but where are we? Why are we here? Isn't this a war film? Later, an American patrol ship spots Witt and another soldier, and it is up to First Sgt. Edward Welsh (Sean Penn) to remind Witt what their God-like mission is. Their mission, as Lieut. Col. Tall (Nick Nolte) explains, is to ascend upon a certain hill on the Guadalcanal island to infiltrate a Japanese bunker. This is the conventional section of the film - the war itself to find the bunker, and the risk of being shot down like flies by the Japanese. With its sweeping grandeur, artfully shot and edited battles and incongruous points-of-view, this long sequence caught me off guard and is thus tinged with more emotion and heartbreak than anything in "Saving Private Ryan." I think the reason it works so well is that we are aware how unfair and unpredictable war is - bullets and gunfire can come from anywhere. One soldier (played by Woody Harrelson) accidentally pulls the pin on a grenade thus literally blowing himself apart!

Malick also invests time on how his characters think of war in the context of their lives, and their loved ones back home. One particular soldier, Private Bell (Ben Chaplin), is always reminiscing of his days with his wife whom we see in short shrift during flashbacks. He wants to be with her, but knows that he may meet her "in the dark waters." Nolte's ferocious lieutenant wonders why he's fighting, then he realizes that war is what he's been working up to for twenty years. His fierce attitude is upheld by his notion that war makes a man virile - "My son is a bait salesman." When he speaks eloquently about his tough career to Captain Gaff (John Cusack), he says to him: "You are my son."

Malick also makes vivid points about nature, and how the brutal inhumanity of war affects it. This is where his artistry truly lies - his films, "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven," are inherently about nature. This time, along with the help of cinematographer John Toll, he shows us the raping of the earth by men of war. Although nature is a process of violence, war rapes the blades of grass and the soil by its incessant violence upon it, including explosions. This is a theme that the mass audience will not care to understand - close-ups of colorful parrots, bats, rattlesnakes, and crocodiles do not a war film make, do they? Yet these innocent animal species did not ask to be part of it, nor did the natives who walk among the pastures or the soldiers who are killed arbitrarily. That close symmetry between man and animal is repeatedly and intelligently paralleled by Malick.

"The Thin Red Line" is not the type of film that is character-driven but rather character-oriented. In other words, this is a film about faces within the confines of nature, and the chaos that surrounds them. The interior monologues are told through voice-overs (originally voiced by Billy Bob Thornton) of individual men and their perceptions of what war entails.

The actors who make the strongest impression are James Caveziel's divine Private Witt (the dreamy, poignant hero of the film), Nick Nolte's memorably furious Colonel, Elias Koteas's straight-arrow Captain Staros who refuses to send his men to death, Sean Penn's amazingly watchable Sgt. Welsh, Ben Chaplin's courageous Private Bell, and the stoic, eccentric quality of John Savage's McCron. Other actors (John Travolta, George Clooney, John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody) are left in the dust (there was extensive recutting), but Malick's astute direction always rivets our attention.

Malick has crafted a beautiful film full of some potent, sublime images. I'll never forget the shots of the tortured Japanese soldiers and their cries of pain; Caveziel's beatific face and the moment he's confronted by the enemy; the deployed cargoes crashing on the water; the sunlight peering through the trees. Overall, "The Thin Red Line's" overt, lingering lyricism indicates that nature should be restored and not ignored, in light of virile fighters on the terrain. Rarely has such a war film made the point that our surroundings, and what we make of them, is infinitely more important than the evil that men do. 

Pam Grier is FOXY!

JACKIE BROWN (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(original review from Dec. 1997)

Aside from "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," Quentin Tarantino has not exactly grabbed audiences with some of his later work. Anyone care to remember his minute directing bit for the awful anthology "Four Rooms"? Except for the over-the-top vampire activity of "From Dusk Till Dawn," Tarantino was in danger of overexposure since he appeared in dozens of less-than-wonderful supporting roles in other directors' movies. Now, at last, comes Tarantino's first major film as writer and director since "Pulp Fiction," and what a joy it is to see him back. "Jackie Brown" is Tarantino at the top of his game - foul-mouthed, wickedly funny writing with ball-of-fire performances by the whole cast.

The titled character is played by glamorous, former blaxploitation star Pam Grier as a 44-year-old airline stewardess who's carrying smuggled money from Mexico to a suave arms dealer, Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Jackie, however, is eventually apprehended and arrested by two ATF agents (Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen) as she arrives in California. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her days in jail so she cuts a deal with the agents to double-cross Ordell (and, naturally, the agents) out of his remaining half-million dollar stash. The switchover is to take place in a less conspicuous rendezvous - a mall.

Ordell's own life is always on the fringe. He has to contend with his beach bunny, pot-smoking girlfriend Melanie (Bridget Fonda) who reluctantly answers his business calls, and his sedate partner Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) who continually smokes pot with Melanie. Ordell bails out Jackie by talking to the taciturn, sensible bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster), who has been in the business for far too long. When Max escorts Jackie out of jail, he becomes deeply smitten by her. She loves the Delfonics, particularly on vinyl. He goes out and buys the album on cassette, not understanding why she hasn't succumbed to the "CD revolution." What develops is a sweet, subtle love story that is quite unusual for Tarantino, but he handles it with grace and vigor.

"Jackie Brown" is an unusual crime picture - it is slow, stately and handled with refreshing restraint. There are no car chases, no heads are blown up and there's not much gunfire. There are only four murders in the entire film and they are handled discreetly. Did I say this was a crime picture? You bet. If you're expecting the loud, pumped up volume of Quentin's earlier work, you'll be sorely disappointed. Based on Elmore Leonard's solidly good crime novel "Rum Punch," Tarantino's colorful, fast-talking writing is the movie's main star and his rhythmic dialogue has not failed him.

Another major plus is the star-studded performances. Samuel L. Jackson is terrifically engaging as the murderous, long-haired Ordell who is simultaneously trying to support three different girlfriends and run a business. He has a great scene, one of several, where he tries to coax "former employee" Beaumont (Chris Tucker) into going in the trunk of his car. Robert De Niro does a great job playing the unbelievably stupid, oily Louis who has a brief fling with Melanie. De Niro goes ballistic towards the end (during the switchover) in one of the most riotous scenes in the movie. Bridget Fonda is also cast against type as the flirty, naive Melanie who claims to "know as much about guns as Ordell does."

Pam Grier and Robert Forster, however, are the main attractions of this film. They both imbue the screen with a certain maturity and level of growing old with grace that is both sweet and regaling. Grier exudes sex appeal, toughness, charm and intelligence in various stages of distress and romantic interludes - she has no qualms about sticking a gun at Ordell's privates. Forster gives a beautifully modulated performance of understated humor and panache; it is one of his best character roles since "Medium Cool." Academy Award nominations are certainly in order here.

"Jackie Brown" is longish and suffers somewhat from Michael Keaton's mannered performance, but it is always entertaining and involving. It brims with many pleasures and surprises, and there are the trademark pop-culture references and sudden shocks of violence that are a major part of Tarantino terrain. Chock full of snappy 70's tunes, "Jackie Brown" is Quentin's most accomplished work by far - a twisty, exhilarating, revisionist take on film noir crossed with pulp fiction.

A pyramid scheme of kindness

PAY IT FORWARD (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

You have heard the concept before. You receive an e-mail or a letter in the mail regarding a great new opportunity - you send one dollar to seven addresses and they will send one dollar to seven others, and so on. Before you know it, you will make thousands of dollars a month. The idea forms a chain or a pyramid strategy, hence, chain letters. The reason the idea does not work is because it feels like a rip-off, plus whose to say that people will follow through and pay it forward? The film "Pay it Forward" wants us to believe that people repaying acts of kindness for kindness done upon them can work if a kid makes them believe in the idea. But how many people are genuinely kind enough to follow through with such a plan? Do we want to be forced to act kindly?

Consider the opening sequence of the film set in an elementary school. Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment), a seventh grader, listens attentively in class as his social-studies teacher, Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey), gives an extra-credit assignment for the semester. The class is to come up with a plan of action to make the world a better place and follow through by performing said action. Trevor devises an original plan: one person does an act of kindness for someone and that person will pay it forward by helping three other people. A chain reaction is expected as numbers will grow and, before you know it, the world will be at peace again. But there are flaws with such a plan, aren't there? Could such a chain reaction occur with no money involved? There may be benefits if the acts are reciprocated but what if they aren't? This movie never dares to consider that certain people do not want to be helped or even want to act kindly.

For example, there is the homeless drug addict, Jerry (Jim Caviezel), who is taken home by Trevor. We sense that Jerry is only interested in his next fix, which he is, but he also claims that this kid has helped him to see the light and get another chance at life. There is the homeless alcoholic (Angie Dickinson), her own alcoholic daughter, Arlene, Trevor's mother (Helen Hunt), who always keep a bottle stashed in her washer. There is also another drug addict and a couple of school bullies. And then there is Mr. Simonet, who has burn scars all over his body, uses "a lot of big words" and whom Trevor tries to fix up with his mother, Arlene. Trevor hopes to at least help his mother and Mr. Simonet, as well as his friend who is beaten up by bullies. He is trying to pay it forward. Suddenly, a movement is born, or so it seems.

"Pay it Forward's" structure is all over the place, as it jumps backwards and forwards in time. We see a reporter (Jay Mohr) at a crime scene where his car is nearly demolished. A lawyer sees him, and offers his Jaguar as compensation for the reporter's loss. The lawyer is paying it forward, and thus begins the reporter's quest to discover the origins of this movement. "Four Months Earlier" is the title reminding us of where we are in time yet throughout the film, Jay Mohr's character seems to occupy the same timeline as Trevor's, particularly during the genesis of his plan.

Time shifting is not this film's problem. A bigger flaw is the lack of time spent on this ingenious plan, its pros and cons and so on. Too much time is devoted to the silly romance between Mr. Simonet and Trevor's mother to the point of nausea. Helen Hunt is astoundingly good as the trashy waitress but her alcoholic mood swings seem too abrupt to really believe, or as abrupt as it should be. She undergoes such a quick recovery that it hardly seems plausible she was ever an alcoholic to begin with. Kevin Spacey is adequately restrained as the scarred Mr. Simonet, and has all the best dialogue scenes. But hardly much of this matters as much as Trevor's plan of action. We see samples of it but not enough is balanced with the film's increasingly tepid romance, not to mention the inclusion of Trevor's own father (Jon Bon Jovi) who appears and disappears so fast that you'll forget he ever existed. I would also have liked to have seen more of Dickinson's character or even Caviezel's.

Some have called "Pay it Forward" shamelessly manipulative and overly sentimental. Some have called it touching. I just found the Spacey and Hunt characters real and engaging yet they are mostly saddled with unrealistic dialogue and shameless cliches, and the rest of the characters are mere stereotypes. The film is strangely watchable but also devoid of real human emotion, and plus there is a tragic, unbelievable coda that negates most of the film's two hour running time. All in all, not terrible but too thin and cliche-ridden to recommend to anyone, let alone three people.

Hey, there, heartbreaker

SHANNA COLLINS: A HEARTBREAKING STARLET IN THE MAKING

By Jerry Saravia

Shanna Collins in "Cinema Verite"

Shanna Collins in "Swingtown"

I am shocked that actress Shanna Collins hasn't taken Hollywood or the independent scene or both by storm yet. Who is Shanna Collins you might ask? For those few who have seen the 2008 short-lived TV series, "Swingtown," she was Laurie Miller, the young daughter of Bruce and Susan Miller who was something of a free spirit. She was so free that she had an affair with a college professor! It is a show that was barely given enough of a chance and it died after 13 episodes, but her character was the most memorable for me. She exhibited the spirited young 1970's woman who was more mature than even the adults in her life, hence the relationship with the professor, and she looked the part with such conviction that really any American story from that era should feature Shanna.


As a matter of fact, Shanna Collins also appeared in the excellent TV movie "Cinema Verite" playing a member of the television crew who are filming the first reality show ever, PBS's "An American Family." Although Shanna doesn't have many lines, her presence enlivens the film and she projects a certain emotional understanding and, perhaps, regret about filming a family's private moments - it is all in her looks and gestures. And the film of course takes place during the 1970's.

Shanna Collins in CSI:NY

Aside from roles in "The Haunting of Molly Hartley" and Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," Shanna has done her share of television including episodes of "Veronica Mars," "Malcolm in the Middle," "Without a Trace," "Medium," "Criminal Minds" and, most recently, a special Valentine's episode of "CSI: NY" entitled "Blood Actually." In the popular forensic procedural show, she plays Wendy, a woman going through a divorce with a wealthy husband who wants to kill her. Shanna shows sensitivity and vulnerability in true splendor as Wendy - she is like a wallflower or a dark red rose that you need to take care of before it splits open and dies (Imagine her for a moment as Audrey Hepburn). These are Shanna Collins' main strengths. She also has such a tiny part as a bartender in the 2012 short film "Americans" that stars Sean Penn and Kid Rock that you kinda wished her part had been switched with Kid Rock (who is not much of an actor). She needs a leading role - a breakthrough part that can and should make actresses in her age group envious. Her screen presence haunts me, and I hope it does the same for others.

Shanna Collins and Sean Penn in 2010's "Americans"

George Valentin SPEAKS...one word!

THE ARTIST (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Any time I see a silent film, it is like looking back at an earlier century of a world that no longer exists. In fact, black-and-white film stock barely exists anymore. Actors mugging for the camera in heavy eyeliner (excepting Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean" mode) in single takes with no zooms and no sound or talking (orchestras at theaters provided the music score) no longer exists - the silents are artifacts of another time. The good news is that many have been restored and saved for future posterity. The great news is that "The Artist" is a genuine sweet treat - a movie for movie lovers and a reminder of the power of silent films.

In the late 1920's, the fictitious actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) was the toast of the Hollywood town. His films were major successes and, yes novice film lovers who never heard of the early 20th century, they were silent. Valentin is often cast as the dashing man of films like "A Russian Affair," along with his cute Jack Russell terrier, Uggy. As long as the box-office receipts are high, studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman, perfectly cast in a role that mirrors his 50's producer/director from 1993's "Matinee") is happy.

Valentin catches the eye of an amorous fan, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo, the only actor who added any luster to "A Knight's Tale"), who is an able dancer and a hell of a sparkling screen presence herself as she proves to land her foot on the door. Just as she is matriculating in the film business, the talkies take over the silents. The fact is that audiences want to hear the actors "talk" thanks to the advent of sound. Pretty soon Valentin, who scoffs at the idea of talkies, finances his own silent adventure epic and loses a bundle (also thanks to the Stock Market Crash of 1929) and faces imminent divorce from his wife (Penelope Ann Miller). Meanwhile, Peppy becomes a box-office attraction.

"The Artist" is written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius who has crafted an indelible portrait of a time long lost to us, but not forgotten. I first heard about the film at Cannes and wondered how such a film would fare in this day and age. The answer may be that those who watch the TCM channel and/or have an adoration for the silent era that began in 1895 may not be such a small audience after all. I am one of them, as is my wife, and we both love silent films in general. That is not to say that all of them are great and wonderful but there are many that reign supreme ("Napoleon," "Sunrise," Nosferatu," which all have a heavy heart) and there are some that make you laugh and some that leave one in awe at their sheer inventiveness (anything by Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Méliès for starters). "The Artist" is almost a medley of films from the 1920's crossed with early 1930's musicals ("Top Hat" and "Singin' In the Rain" appear to be films that these filmmakers have looked at time and again for inspiration).

Dujardin impressively expresses an array of emotions just by his body language and gestures. He also looks like an actor from the 1920's - a mixture of a dramatic John Gilbert crossed with the romantic charms of Rudolph Valentino. Argentine-born Bérénice Bejo is a dazzling charmer herself and conveys a joy of being in a town that once prided itself on the art and imagination of moviemaking. Moreover, both Dujardin and Bejo express a joy of living because their movie stardom and their movies bring joy to others.

I simply could not find a false note in "The Artist." It is as good as any silent film from the same era except that it has something the other silents don't - a melancholy expression of the actors who couldn't and wouldn't make the transition to the talkies. I don't want to sound like the paid movie critics who scream pointless exclamations about a movie's strengths in advertisements but I can't help myself. You'll LAUGH! You'll CRY! There is ADVENTURE! ROMANCE! A CUTE DOG! STIRRING MUSIC! A FITTING REMINDER AND HOMAGE TO THE SILENT ERA! A MUST-SEE! THEY DO MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO!