Hackman and Romano in tight mayoral race

WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

This may be one of those guilty pleasure movies for me but "Welcome to Mooseport" is an affable, pleasant and thoroughly disarming comedy that works. The critics hated it but I liked it well enough. It is not a political satire nor is it the funniest political comedy. Its charms are simple and small, much like the small town it depicts.

Gene Hackman is the former President of the United States who wants to settle down in the small town of Mooseport. The town welcomes him with great open arms, though the President is not very keen on small town meetings and speeches and wanting to mingle with the innocent townsfolk. Some members of the town council, however, want the President to run for Mayor of Mooseport. His competition is Handy (Ray Romano), a soft-spoken younger man who knows how to fix toilets. Handy is unaware that he is in the mayoral running and drops out until he catches the President eyeing Handy's own girlfriend (thanklessly yet wonderfully played by Maura Tierney). Guess who asks Handy's girlfriend out for dinner? It is then that Handy decides to run for Mayor and it turns out that Handy can solve problems and beat the President in golf like no one's business.

Don't think for a moment that this movie is on the level of Frank Capra with its small-town witticisms and genial citizens. Yes, "Welcome to Mooseport" is too good to be true but I enjoyed the picture for not trying to be a cynical, savagely satirical take on small-town politics. It is simple and pure with a great cast that imbues the film with more nostalgia for a bygone era than sentimentality. Ray Romano is quirky and diverting enough to separate himself from his "Everybody Loves Raymond" character. Gene Hackman is a consummate actor who knows all the tricks to bring his guile President to boisterous life. Ditto Tierney as the tired girlfriend who wants to settle down, Marcia Gay Harden as one of the President's aides who feels the leader of the free world has lost some of his noble virtues, Fred Savage as another aide who tries to stay out of the President's eyeline, and the always engaging Rip Torn as the campaign manager.

"Welcome to Mooseport" is a lively, upbeat comedy that doesn't try too hard to be anything else. I would have liked more debates between Handy and the President and more direct punches at certain targets of humor (the Tiger Woods jokes are not as funny as Clinton's Presidential Library being bigger than Hackman's). Still, we sometimes need movies like this as a much-needed break from reality and cynicism. 

Brickman is lost in translation

LOVESICK (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Marshall Brickman has done some brilliant work in the past. He did of course write the impeccable "Annie Hall" with Woody Allen, but "Lovesick" (which he wrote and directed) is curiously remote and unbelievable for a man who channels the soul and heartbreak in relationships between men and women.

Dr. Saul Benjamin (Dudley Moore) is a New York City analyst who is bored with his regular patients. One talks about a potential sex partner, another about daily, frivolous problems, and one says absolutely nothing. Saul's life is unspectacular. His life seems empty. Even his wife pays him little mind. Another analyst (Wallace Shawn) tells Saul of his longing for a young female patient (an ethical dilemna known as "counter-transference"). Before you know it, the analyst dies of a heart attack, but not before disclosing the name of the patient. Saul is intrigued and happily discovers that this young patient, Chloe (Elizabeth McGovern), is referred to him. She talks about writing plays for a famous actor in the New York Theatre world, and admits she wishes Saul would kiss her. Love is in the air, and now Saul gets romantically involved with Chloe which means she will have to stop being his patient.

For the first half of "Lovesick," Marshall Brickman does an exemplary job of bringing wit and truth to this romantic relationship and never goes for cheap, easy gags. There is comedy but it is nicely restrained, and the romance sparkles with a touch of class and elegance. Both Moore and McGovern make it convincing enough despite being such opposites in age and size. But something happens. The film shifts from an engaging romantic comedy to an off-centered, off-kilter drama about Saul's lack of ethics and good standing in his community for getting involved with Chloe (since she is no longer his patient, why should all the budding analysts care?) Also, Saul's relationship to his wife is handled with a resolution so unbelievable that I got somewhat fed up seeing Brickman go for broke in scenes that should have been handled with more depth.

Brickman is a great writer and director and has proven so post-"Lovesick" with "The Manhattan Project" and his alliance with Woody Allen in "Manhattan Murder Mystery." "Lovesick" aims high on potential and falls low on expected payoffs. A wonderful cast to be sure (it is a hoot to watch Sir Alec Guinness as Sigmund Freud, and Ron Silver as an Al Pacino-like actor), a few genuine laughs, but it fails to measure up to the genuine comic truths Brickman was aiming for.

Darkly comic tale in Central Park

REMEDY (2005)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

Shot on a miniscule budget of a little over 100,000, "Remedy" is at times effective and downright silly. Still, considering what often passes for vague entertainment in theaters nowadays, it has its own brand of thrills to keep people from switching off and watching a dreadful reality show.

Christian Maelen (who directed the film) convincingly plays Will, an artist who sells his canvases on the street for pennies. His buddy and coke-sniffing connection, Josh (Nicholas Reiner, the film's screenwriter), needs to borrow money to pay off 15 big ones to Tom (Rick Aiello). Will refuses thanks to his pregnant wife (Candice Coke), who sniffs coke on occasion. Nobody will lend a helping hand to Joshua. One night, while Will is truly coked-up, Josh is murdered with a bullet to the abdomen. Will is the prime suspect and pretty soon the cops are interrogating all of Will's friends, determining who the culprit could be. Is it Tom, the truly abusive drug dealer who is sweetly innocent one second and psychotic the next? The dentist (Jon Doscher) who thinks he's a smoothie with the ladies? The dentist's girlfriend who agrees to a menage a trois as well as having lesbian girlfriend on the side? Or is it Will's wife who hopes he will clean up and move to a French villa?

"Remedy" is a strange amalgam of a police procedural whodunit mixed with the yuppie party scene and a dose of a mystery thriller thrown in for good measure. The police detective scenes are as realistic as they get (thought not as well-shot as TV's "Law and Order"), thanks to the authentic casting of actor Arthur J. Nascarella as Detective Lynch, himself a former New York City cop. I could've lived without a brief laughable chase to a wall facing Central Park yet, on the whole, a fair sense of realism pervades any scene with Nascarella.

The yuppie party scene is depicted in bars and bathrooms where excessive drinking and coke-sniffing occur - are we watching an 80's Bret Easton Ellis adaptation? We also get some lesbian sex scenes and a few shots of a strip club for those who like that sort of thing. And for those who like belly laughs, intentional or otherwise, there is a scene involving the dentist and an older patient that is practically cringe-worthy.

The mystery thriller section of the plot is the most compelling of the entire film, as the last half-hour dovetails into Agatha Christie whodunit mode. The filmmakers call this a "darkly comic tale" and I happen to agree. It is clear the acting is not top-notch and what passes for style is a bunch of close-ups and the most rudimentary, underutilized locations, including bars, apartments, and some outdoor locations. (In fact, whole scenes at a supposed ritzy bar are so tightly shot that it resembles someone's apartment that just happens to have a bar.) But you can't complain when you're dealing with first-timers and limited budgets (Wes Anderson's debut "Bottle Rocket" was just as tightly shot.)

Despite some uneven pacing and editing, "Remedy" has fine support from pros like Nascarella, Frank Vincent as Will's uncle, Vincent Pastore in an atypical role as an art dealer, and even former KISS band member Ace Frehley as an aging, amused drug dealer who's heard it all. And Christian Maelen's mentally tortured junkie, Will, is a like a cross between John Amplas's Martin from Romero's "Martin" and Cillian Murphy from "28 Days Later" - the fragile yuppie junkie who has given up on life. He gives "Remedy" a short injection of heart and soul.

AARP Pros put on a good show

SPACE COWBOYS (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Space Cowboys" is the antithesis to "Armageddon." Let me explain. "Armageddon" was over-the-top and mechanical, though still a fun trip into space, whereas "Space Cowboys" is primarily concerned with leisurely pacing and characters of depth and understanding. In the end, these grumpy old cowboys are action heroes at heart yet they bear the burden of old age and Medicare worries.

Clint Eastwood (who also wrote and directed) stars as Frank Corvin, a former Air Force test pilot who later designed a pragmatic guidance system for a satellite. Apparently, such satellite systems that were innovative in 1958 are no longer used in 1998, though one has apparently found its way into the hands of the Soviets. Unfortunately, this satellite is hurling towards the Earth's atmosphere and none of the latest whiz technicians know how to control it. Frank has an idea how, since he designed it in the first place, and he employs the use of his former crew of pilots to go into space and retrieve it. The former pilots include James Garner as a Reverend; Donald Sutherland as a ladies' man roller coaster expert; and Tommy Lee Jones, a hotheaded pilot who still flies planes and bears a grudge towards Frank from the old days.

"Space Cowboys" marches along with a by-the-numbers plotline that includes the obligatory training session (including a sneak peek of these geezers's butts), the usual shouting matches and confrontations with the reluctant NASA officials, such as William Devane as one gum-chewing NASA bureaucrat and James Cromwell (the tallest of the whole cast) as another, and, well, you get the drill. Once these flyboys enter space, the film picks up with some snappy, humorous dialogue and excellent special-effects.

Eastwood draws suspense in the film's action climax because he brings such vulnerability, pathos and dignity to the characters, including Tommy Lee Jones as the widower who has a passing romantic interest in a younger woman (Marcia Gay Harden). Sutherland is his quick-witted smooth old self, a sight unseen since Robert Altman's "MASH" or "Kelly's Heroes" (the latter also starred Eastwood). James Garner can draw laughs with the barest of facial expressions, though his role often feels truncated. And good old boy Eastwood may not be aging like fine wine, but he still has a commanding presence (and is far more believable than in "True Crime" as an aging reporter).

"Space Cowboys" has sparkle and is illuminated by a fine cast. The story is old-hat to say the least and far too predictable, but these old pros still know how to put on a good show.

Jumbled suburban antics

NEIGHBORS (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Neighbors" is an addle-brained and simplistically puerile black comedy. It is uninspired and hardly black enough for a satire, and it attempts to forge some semblance of reality crossed with a lunacy that never develops into anything.

John Belushi is the straight-as-an-arrow husband, Earl, married to a bored wife (Kathryn Walker). There is nothing engaging about their relationship - he watches TV (slightly disturbed by all the crime reports in the news) and she overcooks the waffles. That is until the obnoxious couple, Vic and Ramona (Dan Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarty), move next door and cause havoc, mostly to Earl. Earl's wife has no issue with the kooky couple who come over for dinner - Vic decides to buy Italian food that he himself supposedly buys with Earl's money (actually Vic whips up a standard spaghetti dinner in his house and pretends to drive to the fictitious restaurant). Ramona is the sultry wife who takes a bath in the house and tempts Earl by slipping into his bed naked. None of these events bother Earl's wife in the least, or their daughter who comes home after being expelled from college. That it is not an issue for Earl's wife or his daughter could have been explored in the script, but the movie abandons its own comic premise for something along the lines of disparate lunacy for the sake of lunacy.

Director John G. Alvidsen develops the atmosphere of a certain kind of dread right from the start. Belushi's atypical mannerisms and understated Earl character make him watchable right up until the end of the film. I also love to hear and see Cathy Moriarty any time she is on screen - her character has a few more shades than anyone else in the film. The problem is that the uneven script (hastily rewritten by Aykroyd) never mines any controlled tone or style. What starts out as a savage satire of suburban values and marital behaviors becomes a madcap cartoon of extremes. We hear nonstop cartoon music, we see the special-effects of those ominous electric towers, we get a hopped-up peroxide-wearing Dan Aykroyd, a tow-truck driver who beats up Earl, some swamp gags that did not elicit a smile from me, and on and on. Only Belushi (who is, once again, consistently watchable even when he displays only one or two notes of expression) and Cathy Moriarty hint at what might have been.

The biggest issue I have with "Neighbors" is that had it been at least funny on some level, I would have forgiven the wildly manic and overdone style of the film. But it is not funny, only in the mildest stretches, and has no balance between absurdity and lampooning itself. The ending left me disturbed for all the wrong reasons - more so that this was Belushi's last picture before he died than the failed attempt at satire.  

Shards of sympathy and glass

PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Clint Eastwood's impressive directorial debut from 1971 is a sharp, scary, provocative thriller - it does not follow what had been cheapened in the 1980's and known as the slasher film format. "Play Misty for Me" could have been an average "shocker" (as they once called it) or in the post-"Friday the 13th" era, an average slasher picture. What counts here and sets the bar is the level of suspense and the, dare I say, the occasional sensitivity of the stalker here and Eastwood's DJ character who is more than perturbed by the stalker.

The stalker here is Evelyn (Jessica Walter), a possibly scorned, lonely woman who seeks love and some pleasant company. She is her own person, and she is also an avid fan of the Carmel, California DJ, Dave (Eastwood) who plays smooth jazz sounds on his radio show. The two of them meet at a bar, have sex, and the next day she arrives with groceries to make lunch for him. Dave is miffed by her and expects a phone call to arrange a date -  he is also trying to resolve his relationship with Tobie (Donna Mills), who has a steady rotation of roomates. Both Dave and Tobie have homes in the hills of Carmel overlooking rocky formations and the sea - they seek solace and those sweet jazz sounds (one sequence is set at the famous Monterey Jazz Festival). Evelyn is a stay-at-home girl who wants candlelit dinners and Dave to love her by her bedside, while "Misty," her song, plays on the radio.

Things turn ugly when Dave wants nothing to do with Evelyn. She disrupts a business meeting, calls passerby "assholes," makes threats and attempts suicide, and even attacks Dave's cleaning lady. How on earth is Dave going to get rid of her when she keeps falsely claiming that he loves her?

"Play Misty for Me" is consistently edgy, unnerving and suspenseful from start to finish. Eastwood carries the film with complete assurance as actor and director (a musical interlude set to Roberta Flack enhances the mood of the film - such lovely sounds feel threatened by the atmosphere so that its lovemaking scenes and nature shots do not feel like some TV commercial). What really anchors the film is Jessica Walter who is a hellish psychopath on one end, conniving and manipulative on the other, and yet she conveys shards of sympathy because we know she desires love, almost at any cost. Just watch out for those shards of glass.

Pointless chit-chat with Robert Downey, Jr.

TWO GIRLS AND A GUY (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 It's painful for me to witness three outstanding actors waste themselves on slipshod material. That is the case with James Toback's "Two Girls and a Guy," a muddled comedy that pretends to be more than the sum of its parts. What it lacks is the juice and vigor it needs to transcend its relatively stagy premise.

The story begins with two women standing on a typical New York street corner waiting for their boyfriends. They are Carla (Heather Graham), a blonde, sophisticated working girl type, and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner), a brassy, streetwise brunette. It turns out that they are both waiting for the same boyfriend, Blake Allen (Robert Downey, Jr.). "You are an unemployed, short liar," as described in more obscene detail by Lou. Then why do the two women hang around him and pester him in his glorious apartment? Why he is irresistibly charming, of course. Blake, however, is a grandstanding actor...and a pathological liar. He's always lying because as an actor, he's entitled to it. Oh, really. And his other excuse is that he needs to check on his mother who may or may not be sick, and whom he restlessly calls. In the meantime, Carla and Lou try to discover what makes this guy tick, and I discovered it after the first twenty minutes - the film drones on for another eighty.

"Two Girls and a Guy" starts off quite well with some fine comic timing by Downey - he steals the show. His delivery of lines is succinctly and flawlessly executed. His body language is stunning to watch, as evidenced by his Chaplinesque work in the underrated "Chances Are" and "Chaplin." But his being questioned and pigeonholed by Carla and Lou makes for irritating viewing. They ask him crude questions of little substance that yield little discovery. As played by Downey, Blake is an arrogant S.O.B., who is full of himself and lives on being high and mighty and dishonest with women. Didn't Carla and Lou suspect such mischievous behavior from the start?

I could live without certain elements in "Two Girls and a Guy" that downplay its comical, dramatic rhythms. A gratuitous sex scene between Carla and Blake is just marking time. That Blake doesn't touch Lou, except for a little peck on the cheek, elicits discomfort at the screenwriting level since he claims to love both women passionately. And then there's Lou's suggestion for a three-way relationship that never builds to anything. Lou and Carla also turn the tables on Blake by admitting to their own sexual trysts - an uninventive method of eliciting sympathy for Blake. The final dramatic conclusion feels unnecessary and eradicates the film's central theme of deception.

Robert Downey, Jr. is still superb to watch - look at the scene where he stares at himself in the mirror and asks, "Why do you do this?" Heather Graham is also a delight playing a mature, refined woman with class (very different from her Rollergirl character in "Boogie Nights"). Only Wagner falls short despite some hysterical scenes where she's describing the sincerity of Denzel Washington and the dishonesty of Clarence Thomas. Nevertheless, she does start to grate one's nerves after a while.

"Two Girls and a Guy" is murkily photographed and unevenly scripted with brief allusions to a superior, similar work, Truffaut's "Jules and Jim." Writer-director James Toback ("The Pick-up Artist") seems afraid of dwelling on the sexual, painfully honest questions that two women would have if they were cheated on by the same boyfriend. The film careens out of control before we realize that its pointless chit-chat aims to be nothing more than pointless chit-chat.