Raising Killer Kane

NEW YORK DOLL (2005)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

If you were caught unawares by the New York Dolls in their prime, you could be forgiven after seeing the morose, tragic and highly illuminating documentary, "New York Doll." This film is really the story of a genuine talent who lost what he had and is aiming and hoping to get it back.

Arthur "Killer" Kane was the New York Dolls' bass player and shortly after the group broke up, his career went downhill. Kane played in one band after another but never got the attention he deserved and desired. The film alludes to the fact that the New York Dolls singer, David Johansen, was partly responsible. Johansen's career track was far different as he chose an alias, Buster Poindexter (heaven help us and the song "Hot, Hot, Hot"), and had some supporting roles in films like "Scrooged" and "Car 54, Where Are You?" By contrast, Kane only managed to be an extra in "Innerspace." When Kane saw Johansen on his television screen in a scene from "Scrooged," he became a raving maniac and nearly committed suicide.

In later years and through the 2000's, Kane became a Mormon and worked at the church's Family History Center in L.A. In a truly riveting and touching scene, Kane reveals that he discovered his father's death by checking his name at the Center. But this film does not purport to sentimentalize Kane's suffering - it is the story of his determination to play, at least once, as the bassist for the New York Dolls (never mind that there are only two other survivors of the former band). And when Kane actually manages to rehearse with the band, thanks to singer Morrissey, we wait in anticipation for the arrival of David Johansen. Will Johansen and Kane continue their bitter feud, or was it really ever a feud in the first place?

"New York Doll" is only 75 minutes long yet it is an engrossing documentary, fully embodying Kane's trials and tribulations with the essence of a tragedy, thanks to some priceless interviews with the surviving Dolls; Morrissey; Blondie drummer Clem Burke, and even some affiliates of the Mormon church (including a funny scene with Kane's new "groupies"). Despite Kane's mental disorders and failures with relationships, this is nevertheless that rare optimistic documentary of a man whose passion and steadfast determination to communicate with music far outweighed everything else. It is nothing less than inspiring.

This hotel has no vacancies

NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Although I am a big fan of labyrinthian, inconclusive puzzles, I was completely confounded by Abel Ferrara's barely released bore "New Rose Hotel," a silly, brainless, counterproductive film that barely makes a lick of sense. A thrilling start is undone by an artless camouflage over its thin premise.

Based on a short story by William Gibson ("Necromancer") that was published in Omni magazine a few years back, the film stars Christopher Walken as Fox and Willem Dafoe as X, two industrial spies who specialize in industrial espionage. Their newest target is a millionaire geneticist named Hiroshi whose research has yielded some outstanding breakthroughs in the field. This new groundbreaking project, known as AMAAS, has something to do with the defection of research scientists from one Japanese mega corporation to another, and I am assuming that Fox and X are trying to prevent this defection from happening. So they hire a prostitute named Sandii (Asia Argento) to seduce Hiroshi and, in short, deviate his attention from his work and his family. The only problem is that X is in love with Sandii, especially when they play act their roles where X pretends to be Hiroshi. X teaches Sandii how to make love to Hiroshi, and so on. Naturally, X threatens the whole operation and Fox, for one reason or another, feels compelled to make Hiroshi's life insufferable, even after the seduction works.

In another director's hands, such as Peter Greenaway or David Lynch, this might have been at least an extraordinarily visual film, showing parallels between digital video technology and alternate realities where one can't decipher what is real and what is not (hence, there are numerous grainy video shots of Hiroshi's activities, though we never actually see the central seduction). But under the gritty ruling hand of Abel Ferrara, this is dreary filmmaking, often badly photographed to the point where we can't fathom what is happening on screen (especially the noirish club scenes). Ferrara is at his best showing the streets of New York where he deals with soulful, spiritual protagonists questioning their spiritual existence as in "Bad Lieutenant" (his finest film) and "The Addiction." Here, he is left languishing with nary a script or a theme - it is all style with no substance. And to make matters worse, the final half-hour is a virtual recap of the first forty minutes, thereby reinforcing the preceding events from Dafoe's recollection. But it tells us...nothing, and there are simply no revelations or clues.

To be fair, I enjoyed Walken's performance as always, walking with a cane and ruminating on his thoughts regarding Hiroshi and his research. I even like his brief tap dances and flirtations with Sandii. There are also some choice cameos by Gretchen Mol and Annabella Sciorra. But these minute virtues hardly make for a suitable recommendation to this endlessly repetitive film. It is a trip to nowheresville, where nothing of consequence or significance occurs. Do not visit this hotel.

Hazy sequel with no Wolfman Jack

MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1979)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 Making a sequel to "American Graffiti" may be a ballsy move, but it doesn't mean it is a necessary move. George Lucas served as executive producer for the 1979 sequel, titled "More American Graffiti," and a largely unknown director, B.W.L. Norton, took over as writer and director. Ballsy, indeed.

The film starts off with a bang when we hear Martha Reeves and the Vandellas belting the song "Love is Like a 'Heatwave'" as we see helicopters hovering over the countryside in Vietnam. Then we are treated to individual vignettes, all set on New Year's Eve from 1964 to 1967. We see John Milner (Paul LeMat) as a professional dragstrip racer who is trying to date a Swedish girl, yet she barely speaks any English. Then we see an older, more mature Steve (Ron Howard), now an insurance agent, and Laurie (Cindy Williams), the unhappy housewife who just wants to work. There is also Teddy (Charles Martin Smith), the nerd from back home who is now fighting the Vietcong in good old Vietnam. He is haplessly trying to injure himself so he can go back home to his girlfriend, Debbie (Candy Clark). Some of these scenes are funny and recall moments from "M.A.S.H." Speaking of Debbie, she is seen cavorting with the hippies in another vignette where she bails out her stoned boyfriend who only thinks of getting his next hit of acid. And did I see Mackenzie Philips playing two different roles?

As I said, the film starts out with a bang, showing situations with humor and pungent wit to spare. But after a while, the whole film becomes rather repetitive. You can only watch so many scenes of John Milner trying to woo a girl or fix his car before a race. Candy Clark is hardly believable as a hippie, and her scenes with Scott Glenn as a musician from a band called "Electric Haze" reek of complete embarrassment. Even sometimes reliable Cindy Williams is saddled with a tired bit about her revolutionary brother burning his draft card and getting arrested by cops in what looks like a re-enactment of the tragic Kent State University incident in 1971! The staging of this event is flat with no emotion whatsoever. Only scenes involving Teddy's plight in Vietnam are stirring and involving, if only because Charles Martin Smith is the only actor who seems alive and kicking. Though the film has an inventive method of showing different film stocks and aspect ratios of each vignette (a technique unusual in 1979 whereas today, it has become du jour), it only serves to distance us from the characters. Only Robert Altman can sway from one vignette to another with the ease and flow of a real magician, and still show he cares about his characters. B.W.L. Norton is no Altman.

"American Graffiti" is a rock and roll pop classic that evoked a time and place in history with warmth, genial humor and understated emotions - it is one of George Lucas's finest achievements. "More American Graffiti" is not exactly more of the same.

Footnote: Look quickly for Harrison Ford as Bob Falfa, a patrolman, and Delroy Lindo as an Army Sergeant.

Spielberg's Napoleon?

SPIELBERG'S NAPOLEON?

By Jerry Saravia

Steven Spielberg is one of the most phenomenally entertaining and wondrous directors of our time. His films speaks for themselves: he did extraordinary popcorn pictures like the "Indiana Jones" series and "Minority Report", and historical pictures like "Lincoln" and "Saving Private Ryan." He also managed to sneak in a delicious caper comedy-drama like "Catch Me If You Can" and the hilarious and sweet comedy "The Terminal." Spielberg also made something truly unnerving in his career - he picked up the pieces left over by Stanley Kubrick and made the film, "A.I." "A.I" was Kubrick's long-planned adaptation of Brian Aldiss's short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," a project Kubrick put behind for many years so as to catch up with the revolutionary CGI effects that were just being put on the map (cue Spielberg's own revolutionary dinosaur effects in 1993's "Jurassic Park"). According to Spielberg, Kubrick decided to produce "A.I." only and have Spielberg direct it since Kube felt Spielman's sensibility matched the sad story of a robot who thinks he is Pinocchio. I admire "A.I." - it is a terrific film - and it has Kubrick's icy physical presence (which generally was not as emotionally distancing as critics might lead you to believe). It is a towering achievement in Spielberg's career and one of the best films of the 2000 decade.

But would Kubrick want Spielberg to direct his long-abandoned "Napoleon" script? I think not and I am not sure Kube would give his blessing on the matter either. Spielberg has just announced he is considering developing the 1961 script that had gone through revision after revision for more than a decade. In the early 1970's, Kube was ready to make the film with Jack Nicholson as Napoleon but historical battle epics were financial losers at the box-office (cue "Waterloo" with Rod Steiger). I have a feeling that if Kubrick had lived past 1999, he would have made it his next directorial effort after "Eyes Wide Shut." Spielberg said it would develop into a TV miniseries (it is not clear yet if Spielberg will direct). Television, however, can be a great disservice to a grand tale like Napoleon - this screams for a big-screen treatment (cue Abel Gance's incredible 1927 film of "Napoleon").

I'll just pose the question - should Spielberg helm this "Napoleon" tale or should he leave Kubrick's script alone? I won't say no because at least it is a more worthwhile endeavor than producing yet another "Transformers" or "Jurassic Park" sequel.

Something Evil Dead-ish This Way Comes

MY NAME IS BRUCE (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is very possible that my brain has the capacity to enjoy silly nonsense like "My Name is Bruce" without giving it a second thought. It's technically not a good movie but it is fun and, perhaps, could've been much improved upon. Let me put it this way - if anyone else had been cast in the lead role other than cult B-movie icon Bruce Campbell (and who in the name of Evil Dead could that be), I might have liked it a lot less.

Bruce Campbell plays an egotistical, drunk dullard version of the real Bruce Campbell (or so we hope). He makes brain-dead, grade Z sci-fi garbage movies, he pays alimony (the real Bruce had been married twice) and he lives in a trailer in the middle of the woods (doubtful the real Bruce lives in one). His mailbox (not the Internet kind) is always stuffed with movie scripts, his dog only gets hard liquor in his bowl, and his agent (Ted Raimi) would rather work with anyone else but Bruce Campbell. Lo and behold, something Ash-like and Evil Dead-ish this way comes. It turns that a small Oregon mining town called Gold Lick (not a real town but in fact Mr. Campbell's own real-life property) is cursed with an ancient Chinese monster known as Guan-di. This monster has glowing eyes and wields a kick-ass sword which he uses to decapitate most of the town's denizens. It seems to stop dead in its tracks when it sees a Chinese proverb or the translation of the words "bean curd" on some Chinese fast-food. A major fan of Bruce Campbell's (who lives in Gold Lick) finds Bruce's address (how did he manage that?) and kidnaps the big- chinned star who is then forced to fight this monster. Naturally, Bruce thinks his agent is pushing him to do this "Evil Dead" reenactment.

The only reason I enjoyed "My Name is Bruce" is because of Bruce Campbell. Most film fans, or Campbell fans, are aware of his larger-than-life, cartoonish persona who seems to immerse himself in any project with the greatest ease. What is interesting is how Campbell (who directs the film) makes himself into a conceited drunk who would rather make something else other than the fictitious "Cave Alien 2" (and parts 3 or 4).
The movie is not meant to be an accurate portrayal of Bruce Campbell, or an accurate assessment of his fans and the lengths they will go to remind him of his famous Ash character. Any fan will get a kick of seeing the references to his past work, including Campbell's own admission that if he can work in Bulgaria, he can fight a monster (his directorial debut "Man with the Screaming Brain" was filmed in Bulgaria). And you might spot Ellen Sandweiss as Bruce's ex-wife - she was in the first "Evil Dead."

It is a fun, cheerful little B-movie this "My Name is Bruce" - it is not meant to be anything else. Campbell clearly had fun making it and you might get a nice nostalgia kick out of it. The townspeople welcome the alleged hero by misspelling his name and greeting him with his own table...at a greasy spoon restaurant! It is that type of movie, and it left me with a silly grin on my face. Those who are not fans of Bruce Campbell or "Evil Dead" are advised to stay away from the big-chinned star.

Ash Williams and the King of the Dead

EVIL DEAD TRILOGY: A Study of Cabin-Fever Extremes

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

It has been twenty years since Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness" first arrived in theaters to very mild box-office. The third in the "Evil Dead" series failed to attract any real mainstream attention and it was thought that Mr. Ash and his chainsaw arm battling demons from an unearthed portal came to an end. However, the series has since been highly regarded as a cult series and it made Bruce Campbell a B-movie household name (he can be seen in Raimi's new "Oz" film, and in the "Burn Notice" TV series, and has served as producer of the "Evil Dead" remake). The series inspired several video games and rumors surfaced of a "Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash" flick that now exists in comic book form. But will there be a fourth entry in the series? The latest news is that writer-director Sam Raimi and his brother will be penning the new installment this summer. For purists, the theatrical version is the happier ending with Ash back at S-Mart and offing one more demon before falling into the arms of a woman (not Bridget Fonda). The alternate ending had Ash in a future nuclear apocalypse screaming "No!" I would assume Raimi will go with his theatrical ending which can lead to all possibilities. Of course, he is also credited as a director for a possible "Poltergeist" remake! I hope the latter is not 100% true.

So let's go back to the beginning. In 1982, Sam Raimi's first tongue-in-cheek horror film, "The Evil Dead", was released in theaters and proved notable in receiving a rave review from Stephen King after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The concept behind the film was that a hidden force was unleashed in the woods, ready to devour anything in its path, including a group of young people staying in a remote cabin. The film was successful enough as a low-budget sleeper to spawn two sequels, each with a bigger budget than the next and all directed by Sam Raimi. What we have is a trilogy of horror, growing more tongue-in-cheek and goofy with each sequel. Below is a brief look at each film.

The Evil Dead (1981) - I will not say that "The Evil Dead" is one of the best horror films ever made - it is not - but it is often repulsive, humorous and full of enough major shocks to the system to make any true horror fan happy.

Bruce Campbell plays Ash, one of the group of college students who travel on an Oldsmobile to some remote cabin in the desolate woods of Michigan. In the opening sequence, a whirlwind force travels through lakes, swamps, and trees ready to attack the Oldsmobile. Things careen out of control briefly yet the students manage to make it to the cabin, even going through a decrepit bridge. But nightfall comes, and one of them makes the mistake of reading from an old copy of the Book of the Dead (entitled "Necronomicon," a nod to H.P. Lovecraft) and before you know it, evil spirits are unleashed and zombies manifest. The only way to kill these things is by dismembering and decapitating these ugly, evil spirits that possess everyone in the group. Naturally, Ash is the one that makes it out alive.

There is plenty of blood and gore, and there is an inventive use of a pencil as a weapon. The film certainly is cheap-looking and barely audible in certain scenes, and some of the makeup and special-effects are practically garden variety. The strength of "The Evil Dead" is in the straightforward directing by Raimi and the astoundingly good cinematography by Tom Philo - the latter makes every shot eerie and menacing. There is a sense of claustrophobia to the film, a sort of latter-day "Night of the Living Dead" where hiding in an isolated cabin can prevent one from dealing with unseen forces. Naturally, these forces find their way in the cabin.

"The Evil Dead" also has some superb moments of horror and humor, particularly the scene where one girl stares into a window (we only see the back of her head) as she is able to read all the cards that her group is playing before turning around and screaming...well, you get the idea. I also like the vines attacking one girl in the forest and being dragged across thousands of twigs, while one of the "shemps" inserts itself in an area...well, you know the scene, need I repeat it? Some of the sexual connotations I could have lived without but still there is enough going on here to make anyone squeamish about going into the woods again. "The Evil Dead" is goofy horror to be sure, but fun masterfully tongue-in-cheek horror nonetheless.

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987) - Here is an example of not so much a sequel as much as a semi-remake of the original. With a bigger budget and even better special-effects, Raimi continues where the original left off, and brings us even more gore and humor.

At the end of the original "Evil Dead," Ash was pursued by that evil force in the woods. Now he is back in the cabin enduring more torture by these unseen forces. There is a moment where his right hand takes on a life of its own, and Ash chops it off with a chainsaw. Needless to say, the hand scurries, hides and makes fun of Ash in ways that are so funny that the film's haunting momentum pauses and becomes more of a kinetic horror-comedy. We see Ash's reflection in a mirror having a life of its own, dancing skeletons by the pale moonlight, giggling deer heads, heads being squashed in vises, lots of blood spilling into the screen from every direction (though nothing like the distasteful "Dead-Alive" by Peter Jackson from 1993), and ghouls and zombies yelling things like "I am going to take your soul!"

Though relentlessly inventive and often inspired, the pacing of "Evil Dead 2" begins to slack off a bit towards the end, especially with the inclusion of an archaeologist's daughter searching for her father who happened to live in the very cabin that is possessed. She thinks Ash may have killed her father, I mean, what would you think if you saw a man draped with blood and holding a chainsaw? But Raimi continues to make us feel the claustrophobia of being isolated and facing demonic forces beyond our own control. The humor and horror pays off, and the final sequence is certainly a doozy.

Army of Darkness (1993) - Ash is back again, now he is stuck in the 13th century fighting Deadites and more ghouls and zombies! Huh? Well, you see at the end of "Evil Dead 2," Ash was transported back into time before being able to finish an incantation that would have ended the evil spell. He and his beloved Oldsmobile landed in some foreign land in the 13th century, and now he is subject to the physical torture of some medieval lords. Ash does so well battling Deadites to the death that he is considered by the people to be their savior against the armies of darkness. Ash's goal, however, is to retrieve the Book of the Dead and get back home to his S-mart job where they "shop Smart!" There is also a love interest, a medieval damsel-in-distress, Sheila (Embeth Davidtz, who later appeared in "Schindler's List"), who convinces him to help her people.

"Army of Darkness" is hardly horror, it is an out-and-out campy comedy with plenty of thrills per second and less blood and gore than the previous entries. It is practically a new version of Ray Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts," albeit less sophisticated in its content if not its form. Ash is like Marty McFly in "Back to the Future," uttering such anachronistic lines as "Groovy!" or "Give me some sugar baby." There are still some moments to treasure such as the Evil Ash sequence, the evil Ash Lilliputians formed by reflective shards of glass, and Ash screwing up the simple line from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" ("Klattu Barada Nikto") while trying to choose the real Book of the Dead in a scene that echoes Indiana Jones.

It is a fun-filled 82 minutes but some of the gags are desperate and repetitive, and we start to get the feeling that Ash has had enough of battling demons, ghosts, and the vast army of skeletons. Probably Raimi has had enough as well, considering the ending has been changed radically from its more downbeat finish (though clearly that may still not be the case). Still, if nothing else, "Army of Darkness" led the way to more anachronistic, self-aware medieval stories, especially the recent TV series "Hercules" and "Xena," both winking at the audience in its complete absurdity and anachronisms.

Save one life, save the world entire

SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 

Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" remains both the most proficient and emotionally overpowering film of his career. It established Spielberg as a "serious" director, though he had already proven that with "The Color Purple" and "Empire of the Sun." Though "List" has its minute flaws, it is a frustrating, exhausting, emotionally manipulative, serene, pristinely beautiful and poetic film of the most tragic time in history, the Holocaust. It is not the definitive version but it stands as something of a raw though somewhat compromising cinematic event.

Based on the Tom Kennealy book, the film begins with Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) worming his way into the Nazi party by engaging in the munitions business. First, he integrates himself in nightclubs frequented by Nazi commandants and soldiers by paying for exquisite foods and liquor. Then he slowly builds interest in the higher elite by giving them chocolates, Cognac and shoe polish. Before you know it, Schindler has the financial backing from many supporters for a munitions plant, the kind of factory where arms and other weapons can be made with faulty mechanisms. All he needs is an accountant, and he finds one in Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), a Jew who questions Schindler's motives from the start. Nevertheless, Schindler hires many Jews to work for him, to ensure that not one manufactured weapon will fire. He also hires a bunch of women as secretaries. You see, Schindler is a ladies' man, sleeping with women he meets at clubs or restaurants. His wife, Emile Schindler (Caroline Goodall), has grown to accept Schindler's infidelities though she prefers to be called Mrs. Schindler as opposed to "miss."

Oskar's goal is to make money, nothing more. He knows his stature will be observed by all the Nazi officers. So he achieves this goal by making a "presentation," an effort to save several Jews from dying in the concentration camps. There are obstacles. One is the deadly Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), a brutal, handsome Nazi prison commandant who has no qualms of shooting a Jew in the head for any reason, including one with a work protest. Amon is merely serving the Fuhrer in his cause and helping to liquidate the ghettos is within his reach. He is also a killing machine, shooting Jews for sport from the balcony of his villa in one of the most chilling scenes in the film. He even wants a Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz), to live with him after the war is over. It takes someone like Schindler to convince Amon that it would be crazy to do such a thing. Schindler also convinces Amon to refrain from shooting every Jew he feels justified in killing.

In one of the most amazingly elaborate sequences ever directed by Spielberg, we witness the liquidation of a ghetto, from the forceful evacuation of people and their belongings in their apartments, to the random shootings on the streets and to the survivors being led into the trains. We also see children scurrying about to find hiding places under floorboards and other passageways. Schindler observes this chaos from a hill and when he sees one girl wearing a red coat wandering about on the streets, he decides he has a moral obligation - it is not about money anymore, it is about saving lives. And save lives he does, as he uses Itzhak to draw up a list of Jews who can work in the factory and prevent them from being shot or gassed to death. Ever the clever businessman, he uses money to persuade many officials to let these selected people go. "You are giving them hope. That's cruel," says Amon as he watches Schindler use fire hoses to give the prisoners in the trains water. Why did the real Oskar Schindler risk his own life to save 1,000 Jews from imminent death? Spielberg and screenwriter Steven Zaillian do not provide us the answers and we do not need them. We can draw our own conclusion that Schindler only did what he thought was right - money and artillery shells were no longer precious commodities. "The list is life" and "If you save one person, you save the world entire" are the themes of this Holocaust film. Schindler understands those things all too well. Yes, he is a cipher but he did what he thought was the right thing to do and not because he was sympathetic to the Jews (at least that is my impression).

"Schindler's List" succeeds greatly in absorbing us with all the details - especially seeing how Schindler thinks and maneuvers himself in this hellish world. The performances by all the actors contain refreshing restraint - no single actor towers over anyone else. The black-and-white cinematography by Janusz Kaminsi is nothing short of astounding, utilizing grain, deep contrast and shadows with the ease of early films from the same period. All told, the film is excellent but I'd be remiss if I agreed with the Academy in honoring it the Best Picture Award of 1993 (that honor should have gone to Scorsese's "Age of Innocence" or James Ivory's "Remains of the Day"). Spielberg's Holocaust is unflinching to be sure and masterfully horrific when expected, but there is a sense that the major characters are only affected by the horror emotionally. In other words, the major Jew characters, including Helen Hirsch, are memorably portrayed and their lingering faces of shock stay with us - we can't help but identify with them. But their characters survive thanks to Schindler's intervention so that we see the value of human life. That's fine but, call me jaded, I would have preferred if one of the main characters were killed. This would have made the ending more powerful, though I am aware the characters depicted did in fact survive (a fictional character could've been created to be one of the lead Jew prisoners). Consider an early sequence where a one-armed Jew worker is shot by the Nazis for being inefficient and useless. We hardly get to know the character (only that he is grateful to Schindler for giving him work) so that his execution is awful to witness but it affects us only because we know what horrors await these people.

The finale of "Schindler's List" is still genuinely moving, particularly the real-life survivors who place stones on the graves of people they knew. Just prior to that sequence is Schindler's emotional breakdown in front of all the people he saved. The emotions run the risk of being too sentimental, as if Spielberg wanted to suffocate the viewers with emotion. In real life, Schindler said goodbye to all the survivors and left in a car with his wife and mistress - no emotional breakdown took place. Still, these minor tidbits can be argued about endlessly by all Spielberg detractors and certainly don't diminish what Spielberg has invested in this grand epic. Harrowing, disturbing, terrifying and exhausting, this is Spielberg at his most humanistic and most vital.