16 Blocks of Die Hardishness

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

"Live Free or Die Hard" is a hackneyed, preposterous and thoroughly entertaining techno thriller. It is a fun ride but it does not carry some of the hallmarks of the first two films in the "Die Hard" franchise, and it has a "been there, done that" quality. But what sequel doesn't? Suffice to say, if you enjoyed the earlier films, you'll find enough to enjoy here.

Bruce Willis is a bald, older John McClane, ordered to bring in a computer hacker, Matt (Justin Long), to the feds because some nut who formerly worked for the government, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), wants to bring "America to its knees." Before long, there are elongated shootouts, glass breakage, various car chases, de rigueur explosions and some truly improbable stunts (my favorite is using a car as a weapon against a helicopter!) In other words, this is a high- octane techno thriller in every sense of the word. The exceptions to the usual pyrotechnics on display here is that this is the first "Die Hard" sequel set in a post-9/11 world. But there are no Arabs nor anyone vaguely resembling Al-Qaida or the Taliban as the villains here. No, we just get an old-fashioned angry and unemployed white government worker. The rule of thumb in movies post-9/11 is that the terrorists are either savvy computer geniuses or cold-blooded British types or both, so as to not offend anyone.

This is interesting because some may recall that Willis dismissed doing a fourth "Die Hard" flick shortly after 9/11. In recent years, his best work has been as a weary, downtrodden cop in the underrated "16 Blocks," which coincidentally has a similar plot involving taking a prisoner to a courthouse rather than the feds. But anything vaguely terroristic has been left out of Willis's action milieu for quite some time. In this "Die Hard" sequel, a few keystrokes are all that is needed to bring America to its knees by controlling traffic lights, air traffic, breaking in to the Pentagon and military computer systems, and perpetrating a simulation of the Capitol in ruins just to get everyone rattled! These cyber terrorists are so sophisticated that they apparently have cameras everywhere recording everything Mr. McClane and company are doing.

"Live Free or Die Hard" is highly implausible featuring more implausibly elaborate action sequences than ever before, including a fighter jet tearing down an entire freeway while McClane slides up and down ramps. Still, a chillingly suspenseful scene where McClane is hanging on to a SUV inside an elevator shaft while fighting Mai (Maggie Cheung), a martial-artist, is one for the action history books.

This new "Die Hard" gets the job done and is far more entertaining than the third limp entry, "Die Hard: With a Vengeance." However, the emotional, humanistic core of John McClane that we have seen before, the troubled, vulnerable married man, is virtually gone. Mostly McClane fights with his estranged daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and that is hardly on the same wavelength as Willis's rapport with Bonnie Bedelia from the first film. I even miss scenes like McClane taking a bottle full of aspirin after a full night of getting soused in the third film, or the key relationship between McClane and the cop communicating by walkie-talkie in the original. And yet, I like the rapport between Willis and Justin Long, the latter who hates 20th century music like CCR (how dare he!). It drives the film and serves as an anchor for the wall-to-wall action.

So here it is: Willis is in fine form and has a few canny one-liners, Long is occasionally funny in a nervous, chatty kind of way, Maggie Cheung should've been the real villain of the film (not the somewhat anemic Olyphant), and it is a real pleasure to see Kevin Smith as a geeky, Star Wars-loving computer hacker with his own command center. A fun time at the movies overall yet it lacks some of the action hero's vulnerability that gave added spark to the earlier films. Or maybe McClane's bitterness is his vulnerability.

Short Jarmusch skits

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I've seen skits like Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes" before but never as messily funny or as abrasive. Granted, "Coffee and Cigarettes" is a mess but it is often as engaging in its tomfoolery as almost any comedy from the Hollywood gates.

The film is divided into skits or, more appropriately, sketches and each sketch is a rumination on coffee and cigarettes. Most of the sketches take place in coffeehouses or outside cafes. The participants include real-life celebrities and as varied as one can imagine. We have Joie Lee, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Jack White, and so on. You get the idea. In a Jarmusch film, almost anything can happen. And you guessed it: each segment deals with coffee and cigarettes and assorted subjects.

My favorites include Jack White's ruminations to Meg White on the Nikolas Tesla coil (which he keeps handy), Cate Blanchett as herself and as her envious cousin as their differences become readily apparent, Alfred Molina's discussion on how Steve Coogan is related to him thanks to some genealogical research, and Iggy Pop and Tom Waits who convince themselves to smoke again since they both quit (the Pop-Waits skit was originally a short film that won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1993).

Least favorites are Steve Buscemi's wisecracks about Elvis's twin brother to Joie and Cinque Lee, and an annoyingly cumbersome segment with Wu-Tang-Clan stars RZA and GZA and a spectacularly unfunny Bill Murray (seen drinking straight from a pot of coffee). The sketches that fall somewhere in the middle include one about African-American friends getting together for coffee for the sake of it, not because there are personal problems to justify such a meeting, an existentially beautiful Mahler bit with Taylor Mead that is a bit too short for its own good and, well, Roberto Benigni is always good for a laugh or two as he nervously handles one espresso cup after another.

"Coffee and Cigarettes" is a film that Jim Jarmusch has been working on for almost twenty years. There is no plot and no real story, but what do you expect from the filmmaker who dealt brilliantly with anomie in American society as in "Stranger Than Paradise"? "Coffee and Cigarettes" is a healthy reminder of how movies don't always have to revolve around extensive plots or complicated storylines - hence, the narrative-based medium we are all used to. Nope, this is a movie about talk, about people talking over coffee and cigarettes (or in some cases, not talking at all as in the Renee French sketch). And yet, there are moments of surprising heft and drama, as in the truthful denouement between Molina and Coogan. This is the kind of film that one can enjoy on its own merits - it is slight but it is entertaining with the occasional truism.

Bruce Lee by way of Ed Wood

GAME OF DEATH (1978)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In 1978, word leaked out that 100 minutes of footage existed from an uncompleted Bruce Lee film. Fans were excited. So were the studios, including producer Raymond Chow and his Golden Harvest company. And so Lee's final film, "Game of Death," was released in 1978. Talk about false advertising. Not only were 100 minutes of footage not shown, but Bruce Lee barely appears in the film at all. There are frequent cutaways to Lee from his legendary work in his first three kung-fu films, but they are so awkwardly pasted together that it comes across more as a joke on the audience. Meanwhile, we have Bruce Lee doubles to make up for transitional scenes until the finale. And the anticipated footage of Lee is just short of 10 minutes of fight footage.

The story begins with Billy Lo (played by both Ti Chung Kim and Biao Yuen), a martial-arts fighter who is also an international film star, not unlike Lee. He is something of a whiny, depressed individual with an American singer as a girlfriend (Colleen Camp). For some reason, Lo confides his personal problems to a dry-witted journalist (Gig Young). Anyways, a mob circuit headed by Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) want to invest in Lo's future and get a cut of the profits in return. Lo refuses, and is later supposedly assassinated on the set of his newest film (foreshadowing echoes of Lee's own son, Brandon Lee, killed on the set of "The Crow"). Lo is presumed dead yet he survives the assassination, and wants revenge and intends to kill all the members and minions of the Mafia's outfit.They include Mr. Wyatt Earp himself, Hugh O'Brian, and Mel Novak as Stick who has a way with a toothpick. This is the same kind of plot that pervaded most of the Bruce Lee rip-offs and pseudo-biographies (including Bruce Li, remember him?) of the 1970's, and it hardly feels inspired or surprising.

After witnessing interminable action scenes and fistfights and motorcycles imploding and exploding, we finally get the real Bruce Lee in a yellow tracking suit dueling a nunchaku expert, a Japanese fighter and, lastly, engaging in hand-to-hand combat in an incredible showdown with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! These scenes have the electricity and flair of Bruce Lee at his best. Then we get one final action scene with Hugh O'Brian that again uses a Lee double! Initially, "Game of Death" was a story written by Bruce Lee about a kung-fu fighter who would enter a pagoda and fight three different opponents on three levels with unique styles of their own. Footage was shot before Lee had to cancel production and shoot "Enter the Dragon." The problem is simple: where is all that great footage? (Check out "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" for a different cut of the footage.) How come we only see 10 minutes of it? According to the late director Robert Clouse ("Enter the Dragon"), the footage was not so great. Anything is better than what Clouse shot, which is nothing more than a by-the-numbers underworld thriller at best with slipshod action and threadbare characters.

"Game of Death" looks and feels like a production helmed by Ed Wood (who is known for using Lugosi doubles in "Plan Nine From Outer Space"). It is inert and terminally boring, amazing considering the late Robert Clouse was known for fast-paced action (look at "Enter the Dragon" and "Golden Needles" for proof). The villains are non-perilous, the hero is adrift in La-La Land, the story has no thrust and the action has no consequence. Excepting the brief Bruce Lee footage and John Barry's exciting, James Bond-like film score, "Game of Death" thrashes the memory of the legendary Bruce Lee.

JAWS in a whirling tornado

SHARKNADO (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Sharknado" is a disaster, but that should be no surprise. The best bad films are those that possess unintentional humor or give themselves a lift by taking themselves seriously despite all the silly shenanigans and still manage to entertain us. "Sharknado" is not the newest entry in the good-bad movies list - it is simply a snoozer and a bad film overall.

Ian Ziering is appropriately named Fin, who runs a waterfront beach bar where John Heard (his character lives in Beverly Hills) is a recurring customer who is consistently drunk and flirts with a waitress, who has her eye on Ziering and not the creepy grandpa (never thought I would call John Heard a creepy grandpa character). Sharks arrive on the beach and start chomping away at surfers and swimmers. The sharks can also fling themselves on land, break through doors and cause massive damage from the sky! Huh? Well, you see, there are several tornados that carries these sharks to land, all this due to a freaky hurricane. It is the kind of hurricane that can splash water on certain characters causing them to get wet in one shot, and completely dry in the next shot. Of course, nobody dies in this movie from the hurricane - it is the sharks that kill! Those carnivores even attack people in their own houses!

There is one terrifically absurd scene that would be at home in a parody of this movie. Ziering sees a shark falling from the sky. He takes out a chainsaw and as the great white makes impact with his chainsaw, he is supposedly eaten by the shark. Everyone thinks he is dead, including his ex-wife (very thanklessly played by Tara Reid). Suddenly, the chainsaw cuts through the shark's belly and out comes Ziering and, if you can believe it, a survivor whom we thought was dead earlier.

"Sharknado" is unfortunately not absurd enough nor does it push the limits of camp - it assumes its campy idea is enough. There is some awkward pacing and frantic cuts that suggest something is happening, when in fact nothing is really happening (cue the endless scenes inside a car with windows that show no background whatsoever except for "hot windows," as if they were driving in the sky). The movie is a listless bore and a chore to sit through, so let's hope the sequel amps up the absurdity beyond containing a funny title. 

McClane and Zeus in dismal sequel

DIE HARD: WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 1995, updated)

The first few moments of "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" set a pulsating mood. We hear "Summer in the City" in the soundtrack as we see glimpses of the hustle and bustle of New York City before a loud explosion rocks the city streets. And it is not long before Bruce Willis's third incarnation as John McClane is recruited to battle a new terrorist. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is a lifeless affair.

McClane chases a terrorist who plays a game of Simon Says - he has explosives at numerous locations in Manhattan and it is up to McClane to solve a riddle before the next explosion. Samuel L. Jackson is a junk shop clerk named Zeus who is inadvertently taken for a ride by McClane and, alas, what we have is yet another variation on the buddy-buddy movie genre. So expect the traditional quips, some tiresome racist tirades, lots of explosions, lots of gunfire and, I am afraid, not much else.

I admired the first two "Die Hard" films but this third entry (aimlessly directed by John McTiernan who helmed the original) exudes none of the bravura wit of the previous films, and even less of McClane's human side. And get a load of the villain! Jeremy Irons is Simon Gruber, the terrorist who is mad as hell that his brother was formerly killed by McClane (Yes, Hans Gruber from the original film). But it turns out that Simon, like all pre-9/11 terrorists, is not interested in revenge but in money, specifically the gold at the Federal Reserve Bank! How audacious! How incendiary! Since Simon's reasons are never clear as to why he wants gold or why he even drags McClane into this whole mess, we are left with one extremely convoluted and unnecessary sequel.

There are some pluses. Willis is still a commanding presence as is Sam Jackson, though their banter grows old. I like the addition of McClane's boss (mentioned in passing in the original film). There is a hair-raising Central Park chase scene and a claustrophobic, nailbitingly suspenseful elevator scene. But there are far too many lapses in logic and credibility (is it possible to fall fifty feet from a bride onto a ship, on your head no less, without getting killed?) And the measuring water jugs just about made me laugh at the insane stupidity of it all, not to mention a truly inane and protracted climax (reshot after a dismal preview). This (hopefully) last "Die Hard" should be the final nail on the coffin for this series.

Blow up the dam!

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE (1978)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Let's make something sparklingly clear: "Force 10 From Navarone" has absolutely nothing to do with "The Guns of Navarone." Its link to the original is merely tenuous, limited to a brief prologue where two of the main characters are shown to have appeared in the original when in fact, they didn't. They would be Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, but that is another story. As a fast-moving, escapist WWII adventure, "Force 10" is fun and preposterous.

Robert Shaw plays Major Mallory, a man with a game leg who walks around with a cane. Edward Fox is Sgt. Miller, a bomb expert who considers himself a civilian and no longer needed for his explosive efforts. Both have been commissioned by the government to find a Yugoslavian bridge vital to the Nazis and blow it up. This requires blowing up a nearby dam so it can send thousands of gallons of water to topple over the bridge. This is not necessarily Mallory or Miller's only mission - Mallory has to find a terrorist named Captain Leskovar (Franco Nero) and execute him ("Go out there and cope.") These two men will not travel alone - they will be occupied by Force 10, a commando group led by a pre-Indiana Jones Harrison Ford as military officer, Lt. Barnsby.

So "Force 10 From Navarone" has lots of derring do to appeal fans of war movies and grand escapist adventures. There are tense moments inside the bowels of the dam where our heroes have to plant the explosives, parachute from a burning plane, playing dead to the partisans, engage inlots of shootings, knife fights, explosions and endless double crosses. There is Carl Weathers as the tough medic who is a fairly adroit knife thrower. There is also Richard Kiel as a partisan who calls Carl Weathers' character "blackie." There is a Nazi commandant (Michael Byrne, playing the same role he later played in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade") who has never heard of penicillin. And as for the babe factor and partial nudity, we have Barbara Bach as a "good soldier comrade." You get the picture.

"Force 10 From Navarone" is never really believable, has some anachronistic dialogue and doesn't come close to the scope, wit or punch of "The Guns of Navarone" (despite being written by the same author, Alistair MacLean). Still, it has some explosive moments of action, a game cast (it is fun seeing Harrison Ford share scenes with Carl Weathers and the late Robert Shaw), superb landscape photography and enough thrills to compensate for a somewhat threadbare plot. I enjoyed the movie when I was a kid and I still enjoy it now. Now go out there, rent the movie, and cope.

A whodunit documentary

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Imagine America back in the 1980's. For some reason, child abuse, both sexual and physical, was the hysteria of its time (and to some degree, it still is). Imagine the allegations that a science teacher may have sexually abused his young students in the basement of his house. Imagine that his son helped him. And then imagine how a town would react to the case, no doubt helped by the media's gaze. That is the subject at the heart of "Capturing the Friedmans," one of the most powerful documentaries I've seen since Terry Zwigoff's "Crumb." It is disturbing subject matter but it is so compelling, so fascinating, you'll want to see it twice.

The town is the affluent Great Neck, located on Long Island, New York. The case began in 1987 when a science teacher, Arnold Friedman, was busted by the FBI for having child pornography magazines. An FBI agent disguised himself as a mailman and busted him one hour later after delivering the magazine. But the FBI also found photos of a computer class, and the names of young students that attended the class. Right away, the FBI concluded that Arnold, due to possession of child porn, was a pedophile. The police and the FBI interviewed every one of the students and got their testimony, admitting they were indeed raped by Arnold. However, it is learned that one of Arnold's sons, Jesse, may have done the majority of sexual abuse. The media devours the story, showing Arnold and Jesse to be the culprit of these crimes against underage children. Still, there was no physical evidence to convict them, only the testimony.

"Capturing the Friedmans" tells the sad story of this case from many interview subjects. Jesse, shown in prison, insists he's innocent, saying he was forced to plead guilty by his lawyer. Arnold is mostly seen in video footage taken by his oldest son, David (who is one of New York's best-known clowns), revealing very little. Arnold's wife, Elaine, loves her husband but is forever changed by the allegations, feeling betrayed of her love and trust for him. In fact, she suffers verbal abuse from the angry David (seen wearing underwear on his head the day of his father's arrest), who is miffed that his mother is not more supportive of her husband. There is also the youngest child, Seth (who declined to be interviewed), though he mostly exists in the sidelines. The cops and the defense lawyer are convinced of Arnold and Jesse's guilt, but could the media have played a major influence on their guilt, considering they came from an affluent town where such egregious behavior presumably never happens? Or is it, as journalist Debbie Nathan suggests, a town where such a crime needs a quick scapegoat so that everyone appears more victimized than they really are?

The bulk of "Capturing the Friedmans" focuses on the endless video footage shot by David of his family's reaction to Arnold and Jesse, mostly during their house arrest. There is even a self-imposed reflection by David that may cause people to feel uneasy, especially when he says no one, not even the police, should view the tape. There is one clip of Jesse dancing around the courthouse on the day he is going to jail. Everyone has a way of dealing with despair - Jesse and his brothers have their sense of humor intact, unlike their mother.

Arnold remains a mystery, a professed pedophile who claims he never harmed any boy in Great Neck. Still, how could child pornography have convicted this man in the eyes of the FBI and police? Just because you like child porn doesn't mean you are a pedophile (although the allusion is still there). And even if he is one, it doesn't mean he harmed the boys in his class. We do hear accounts from those who claimed to have been molested, and others who claimed that no abuse ever took place. And Arnold remains elusive for details, using humor and detachedness to get through the mess. His wife is no help and all David can do is ask, "You didn't do it, did you Dad?"

"Capturing the Friedmans" finally captures the most tragic part of this story, the destruction of a family based on bias and false allegations. After the film is over, you are still not sure what is the truth and what is hearsay. To some, this may prove frustrating. To others, it will prove to be indelibly fascinating.