Ben Affleck as BATMAN? Rufus Sewell for your consideration

THE CAPED CRUSADER AND HIS CHASING AMY FIXATION

By Jerry Saravia

 I am so happy to now have been the only actor to play Superman and Batman

Ben Affleck never struck me as an incredibly charismatic actor, not in almost everything I've seen him do post-1990's. Affleck scored his finest performance ever in Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy," a wonderfully humanistic performance with a fine reading of regret in his eyes when he did not (SPOILER ALERT!) get the girl. He had a bouncy comical part as an actor in "Shakespeare in Love," a nicely modulated role as a fellow Bostonian pal of Will Hunting in "Good Will Hunting," and he was tremendous and energetic as he parroted Alec Baldwin's scenery-chewing part from "Glengarry Glen Ross" in the otherwise underwhelming "Boiler Room." Then came tepid disasters with even more tepid performances in films such as "Gigli,' "Daredevil," "Surviving Christmas" (if you can make it past the first 10 minutes), "Reindeer Games" and so on ("Jersey Girl", by the way, is not as bad as its reputed to be). He has since proved himself as a film director, but not as an actor (he has actorly limits unlike his writing partner from the days of "Good Will Hunting," Matt Damon).

Warner Brothers made an announcement that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the "Man of Steel" sequel, "Batman vs. Superman." Only problem is that Affleck has a similarly identical body and similar facial, suave features as Henry Cavill, who of course will return as Superman (Man of Steel review). Nobody believe me? Do people forget that Affleck played the role of the late actor George Reeves in the film "Hollywoodland" (Reeves being the actor who played Superman in the live action series of yesteryear)? Something tells me that Christian Bale (who played the best Batman and Bruce Wayne roles) would've been more an apt choice or he might have been offered and declined (his price tag according to undetermined sources would have been 50 million dollars!) At this stage of the game, it is hard to say who could have played Batman but somebody should have chosen an actor who did not look like a duplicate of Henry Cavill - there has to be some contrast. I would have gone with Rufus Sewell myself, or maybe Bruce Campbell (now that would have been interesting).

Rufus Sewell as the Caped Crusader?

Rufus Sewell would have made a reflective contrast to Cavill's Superman. Anybody ever seen the highly underrated masterpiece, "Dark City"? Sewell went nuts as he tried to find out his identity in a world that was not what it seemed. And let's face it: any man who wears a Bat suit and parades at night in search of criminals has go to be, how can I put this, Bat-shit crazy? Sewell has eyes that bulge and that can be deeply serene and he shows his dark side beautifully, especially in "Dark City." There is something unsettling about him and that is what Batman needs from an actor (just like Christian Bale who showed the arrogance of Bruce Wayne and the fierceness of Batman).

But a lot of us may have to pause for reflection. When Michael Keaton was announced as the newest Batman in the Tim Burton film of 20-plus years ago, outrage was rampant amongst comic-book fans. The guy from "Mr. Mom" and "Beetlejuice" is going to play the Caped Crusader? I don't how many fans even care anymore when some of the most ardent fans even prefer Tim Burton's film over Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. So let's not write Affleck off completely, but let us pause for reflection and, yes, some momentary regret they didn't choose someone else. 

Slowness is the key to happiness

MONSIEUR IBRAHIM ET LES FLEURS DU CORAN (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2003 screening)

"Monsieur Ibrahim" is the kind of film that recalls the neo-realism of the Italian cinema - it all takes place on a Parisian city street using an apartment and a grocery shop as its main focuses of action. That also means we have the typical Francois Truffaut kid of yesteryear (check out "400 Blows" as an example), the one who wants to see and live the world as an adult. There is also the gentle old man who knows the secrets to happiness, and so on. If you were a fan of "The Bicycle Thief" and "400 Blows" then, frankly, there is nothing here that would not provide an enlightening two hours of your time.

The Truffaut kid is Moses (Pierre Boulanger), a 16-year-old kid who wants a push out of his drab home. His angry father (Gilbert Melki) makes the kid wash the dishes, cook dinner and go grocery shopping. His father is so consumed by his own unhappiness (his wife had left him) that he forgets Moses's birthday, enabling the kid to make his dad remember by baking his own cake. Meanwhile, out on the Parisian streets, Moses frequents the grocery shop to talk to the owner, Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), who knows the kid is stealing from him but he lets him get away with it, as long as he can call the kid Momo. There are also prostitutes out on the street whom Moses wants to sleep with - he uses the leftover money from the grocery store to pay for their services.

Now so far I have made no mention of Moses and Ibrahim's nationality. The simple reason is because it is irrelevant to their relationship. Having said that, Moses is Jewish and Ibrahim is Islamic and I suppose in this day and age, it is important to remember that racial boundaries do not always exists with people who need each other in some capacity (consider the American soldier and the Iraqi woman who have married recently in Iraq). Eventually, Moses's father splits, thinking he can't be a real father to his own son. The gentle Ibrahim takes Moses in, knowing all about Moses's family from the past. Ibrahim teaches the kid how to smile and how to enjoy slowness (the key to happiness) - something people in this country should start appreciating. The wise old man buys a red sports car and decides to go to his own hometown in Turkey, letting Moses tag along to discover a whole new world.

Most of "Monsieur Ibrahim" is compelling and almost magical in its depiction of a lost world we can only imagine. Most of the film is shot with a hand-held camera that allows us to watch and listen closely to its characters and their surroundings. There is a breathless moment in a church that will keep you captivated in ways only foreign films can manage to do so with sparse surroundings. My one gripe is the Parisian location - it looks like a street from a studio, not a real street in the neo-realism sense. Still, almost every shot is involving and inescapably clinging - you can't turn away from the screen.

In the latter regard, Omar Sharif has a sage-like appearance that keeps us glued to our theater seats. The 71-year-old actor, best known for "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago," has the presence and authority of a man who has lived a full life. He wishes his life were better, and that he had more money, but he knows he at least lived a life. It is the sad irony that he misses his hometown that is part of the film's heart and soul. Sharif wraps it around with his astute sense of craftiness and wittiness (as well as the twinkle in his smile) that makes this one of the better looks at old age since "About Schmidt."

The Cosby Show starring Riggs and Murtaugh

LETHAL WEAPON 4 (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Who would have thought that a decade later the "Lethal Weapon" franchise would turn into an unfunny, Cosby-like comedy about family values with some exploitative violence thrown in. Not only that, but remove all the elements that made the first three films exciting and fresh.

Let's consider the first "Lethal Weapon," a tough-as-nails buddy-buddy police actioner with a badass Mel Gibson as the suicidal Martin Riggs. Here was a ticking time bomb ready to die at any given moment - regardless of the consequences. Let's also consider Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), a family man who served in Vietnam and is getting ready to face old age. The two were an unbeatable pair, and they also faced one of the best villains in the history of action films, played by Gary Busey! The point was that a mutual camaraderie existed between them.

The second film was purely action and laughs with the very funny and oily Joe Pesci as the accountant, Leo Getz ("Whatever you want, Leo gets!"). It also set the standard for one of the best, most explosive action scenes ever. The third film went further with the comedy, and too much action. There was little or no character development, and the introduction of the Internal Affairs officer, Lorna (Rene Russo), resulted in one of the weakest entries of the series.

So what's left in "Lethal Weapon 4"? Not much, I am afraid. Riggs is now a respectable citizen with short hair, ready to settle down, and no longer lethal (Is this the same suicidal freak from the first film?) Chris Rock is shown briefly and doesn't figure much in the story, except that he gets Murtaugh's daughter pregnant. Murtaugh is unaware that Rock is the father, and thinks Chris Rock is gay. Riggs's girlfriend, Lorna, is also pregnant and wants to get married! Funny, indeed. Leo Getz is back as a private investigator, and he is unbearable throughout with his continual "whatevers" and "okays." The thin story has to do with Chinese gangsters conspiring in some threadbare plot about counterfeit money and led by a formidable villain (Jet Li), a martial-arts expert - a true lethal weapon. And there are the requisite explosions, implausible action scenes, and typically racist jokes aimed squarely at the Chinese.

"Lethal Weapon 4" looks like it was assembled rather than directed. One car chase here, one fist fight there, one obvious joke here, and so on. There's no plot or story to speak of. No shred of acting skills either, despite the high-powered cast, although Jet Li says a lot with one stare, here and there. It's like a tired parody of the "Lethal Weapon" experience and its ickily sentimental, heavily overwrought last passage - involving Pesci's unintentionally funny monologue and dual pregnancies - left me in a state of dumbfounded shock. There's never any sense of danger or peril, and no sense of communion or camaraderie between the characters. It's "Lethally Bland Weapon" for dummies.

Aronofsky's Tree of Life

THE FOUNTAIN (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2008)

I have said that Darren Aronofsky is a force to be reckoned with. After seeing "The Fountain," no apt description could make it less apropos than to call Aronofsky a force to be reckoned with. "The Fountain" is a beautiful, luscious, often compelling film that is severely limited in the dramatic and emotional departments. It has a story of epic proportions but the running time limits any epic appeal.

Another force to be reckoned with is Hugh Jackman (an actor whose whole state-of-being belongs in this kind of story), who plays Tom in three alternate timelines. In one timeline set 500 years earlier, he is Tomas, a conquistador who wants to kill a and has a love for Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz). He is willing to do anything for her, including finding the Tree of Life (the one tree that God did not inform Adam and Eve about) that will allow one for immortality if you drink the tree sap.

It seems, however, that the conquistador is part of a novel called "The Fountain," which is written by Izzy (also played by Rachel Weisz). Izzy has a brain tumor and is close to death while her husband, Tommy Creo (also played by Hugh Jackman), is trying to develop a drug that may cure her (he is also conducting experiments with a monkey). Izzy hasn't finished her novel and hopes that Tommy will write her last chapter. A strange wish since he is a doctor, not a writer.

Flash forward to the 26th century where Tommy Creo is a bald man, practicing presumably tai-chi, who has a tree of life that he sleeps next to inside a bubble of sorts. He also travels in a ship that looks like a golden orb, and hopes to connect with Xibalba, the nebula that Izzy spoke of that the Mayans believe is the origin of life. Speaking of presumptions (and some interesting explanations from avid watchers of this film), the 26th century element may be well be the final chapter of the book that Tommy has written.

"The Fountain" has little visual grandeur, overall, containing several blindingly lit close-ups of the fascinating faces of Weisz and Jackman. This makes it tough to digest any of the emotional connections in the story, especially with a towering actor like Jackman. I say this with great respect to the actor but he is not meant to be squeezed into a pretty love story. Jackman is too larger-than-life, too energetic and fanciful a performer to be restricted to shallow depths of despair. He comes off best as the Spanish conquistador or as the bald Buddhist Tom of the future because he is allowed to break free and pounce. The central, present-day story comes off weakest when he appears. I just can't fathom or believe Jackman as a doctor who yells at his staff when a cure isn't found quickly enough.

Rachel Weisz is the soul of the film and brings the yearning for an ethereal woman whom Jackman pines for. She has fragility and vulnerability in her that you almost feel she is about to break. Ellen Burstyn briefly appears as Tom's supervisor, and her eulogy for Izzy is heartbreaking and one of the emotionally sensitive scenes in the film.

"The Fountain" is a noble and savvy experiment by Aronofsky but, as an epic, it loses much momentum and it is dwarfed in its ambitions by the 90 minute running time. This is one time when I wish for a director's cut.

Riggs and the 3 Stooges

LETHAL WEAPON 3 (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(original review from 1992)

I'd be hardpressed to dismiss "Lethal Weapon 3" because, as an essentially pure action movie, it works. Yet, stacked up against the first two, it falls quite short despite delivering exactly what it promises.

The movie, though, doesn't begin very promisingly. A huge building implodes, thanks to occasionally unreliable cops, Murtaugh and Riggs (played by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson). Rather than wait for the bomb squad to arrive, Riggs gets the bright idea of cutting the wires to the bomb, the wrong wires of course. Thanks to their conduct, they are relegated to traffic duty, which of course leads into an armored car chase (the movie hasn't really even started). Then we eventually get to the plot - a brutal ex-cop (Stuart Wilson) is selling illegal firearms to street gangs and also maintains an interest in real estate! Newest character to the series is the Internal Affairs officer, Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) who keeps cameras in interrogation rooms, unbeknownst to the police. A crime has occurred in one of those rooms and this ex-cop is the culprit. So it is up to the reckless Riggs, the retiring Murtaugh and this karate-chopping IA officer to bring down the cop and his henchmen, as well as some members from "Boyz and the Hood." There is also an annoying distraction with returnee Joe Pesci as Leo Getz, the mob informant from Part 2. I love Pesci but there is only so much I can take from a peroxide motormouth who is also interested in real estate!

To top it all off, there are chases galore with thundering sound effects and punches delivered to the noggin and the nuts that sound like clashing refrigerators (I saw this movie with a THX-sound-system back in 1992 that had a bass that would rock your seats). Bullets pierce flesh like there's no tomorrow. Riggs falls from three stories with only a dislocated shoulder (an injury he had in Part 2). People are hit by cars and trucks, including some of the villains, and the worst injury they get is a bruise. This is more of a cartoon comedy than the other films ever came close to being.

We get countless scenes of Gibson mugging, hollering and spitting at the camera with absolute relish. Gibson also has his share of one-liners, and Glover merely looks dumbfounded (best moment is when he fires his gun accidentally in a locker room). Rene Russo is simply too unbelievable as an Internal Affairs officer. Yet the frenetic pacing matches the frenetic acting. And for "Jaws" fans, there is a scene where Riggs and Lorna compare battle scars. Cute, but more appropriate to "Jaws" than this movie.

For sheer entertainment, "Lethal Weapon 3" fits the bill. But with an anonymous villain, a perfunctory plot and far too many action sequences, the film rings hollow and lacks the spirit of camaraderie that the other entries had. This movie tries to do too much with too little. It is clear that Gibson and Glover have chemistry and work as a cop team yet, unlike Murtaugh's final decision regarding retirement, "Lethal Weapon 3" was not the last word on this franchise.

Hotbed of racial hate

JUNGLE FEVER (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" is one of his most audacious and entertaining films yet, curiously, one of his most flawed. But we can forgive Spike for not sticking as close to his subject matter as one might have hoped - his film rocks and strikes at us with some of the frankest discussions about race ever committed to film.

"Jungle Fever" begins with Flipper (Wesley Snipes), a successful architect with a light-skinned black wife (Lonette McKee) and a precious daughter who pretends she never hears their lovemaking each morning. Life is as normal as can be (as established by the boy throwing the New York Times at their doorstep in slow-motion). Of course, tension exists from the start. Flipper has a new receptionist, an Italian-American named Angie (Annabella Sciorra), when in fact he requested an African-American (he put it in writing after all). But the more Flipper gets accustomed to Angie, the more he feels the "fever." He craves Angie because he wants to know what it is like to bed a white woman. Angie falls into it as well, though her initial reasons (outside of horniness) are never made clear. At one point Flipper tells her, "You were curious about black," yet Angie is not so sure.

If "Jungle Fever" stuck to its guns in delivering insights on interracial couples, it might have been a small masterpiece. But writer-director Spike Lee explores other issues. We learn Flipper has a God-fearing family, including his father, the Good Reverend Dr. Purify (Ossie Davis), and his mother, Lucinda (Ruby Dee), both of whom praise God while Mathalia Jackson music plays in the background. We also learn that Flipper's brother, Gator (Samuel L. Jackson, in an electrifying performance that won him a Cannes Best Actor award), is a crackhead who frequents a corroded, uninviting crack den called the Taj Majal with his woman, Viv (the virtually unrecognizable Halle Berry).

Then we learn about Angie's family, which includes her widowed father (Frank Vincent) and her two foul-mouthed brothers. Every night she has to cook dinner for them. She is also engaged to Paulie (John Turturro) who works at a luncheonette owned by his overbearing father (Anthony Quinn), who refuses to carry the New York Times because it doesn't sell. Angie mistakenly confides in her two best friends, Denise (Debi Mazar) and Louise (Gina Mastrogiacomo), about her affair with Flipper. Let's just say that this ignites the hotbed of racial hate.

For starters, Paulie's Italian-American customers and friends turn on him for liking the friendly black woman that buys the Times each morning (and for not expressing more outrage over Angie's conduct). Angie's father beats up Angie in a scene of tremendous violence. Flipper's wife flips out to say the least, and it leads to a wonderful, much-discussed sequence where a group of black women frankly discuss where the good, faithful black men are (apparently, they are sanitation workers and bus drivers).

"Jungle Fever" is feverish, exciting, alert filmmaking by Spike Lee but he tends to dwarf his own premise and reduce it, slimming it down to something about nothing less than racial myths. Flipper may feel that way about the relationship but he is also speaking for Angie, who is not allowed to express her own view. After they are both slighted at an all-black restaurant, she asks a simple question: "What are we doing?" Flipper responds by saying, "I honestly...don't know." Lee says this couple is not in love - they are experimenting with their own racial attitudes and living up to certain idealized myths. It is a shame that Sciorra shows far more depth in her character than the screenplay allows. A shame largely because Spike Lee refuses to be encumbered by at least one scene where the couple discuss anything but race.

The best scenes are the discussions of race, racism and interracial relationships among the characters. Once again, I'd argue that an interracial couple spends as little time as possible discussing their race than making passionate love. Still, the honesty of how each character feels is expressed with enough persuasive power to hopefully make the audience wonder why race has to be the standard in defining anything. But once too often, Lee gets sidetracked into all the drug business with Gator which, as powerful as most of those scenes are, have little to do with the central theme. Still, for a movie this tantalizing and brave and expertly performed, "Jungle Fever" shouldn't be ignored.

Where are my TITS?

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Myra Breckinridge" is a wacky, nonsensical mess of a travesty, and I liked it. I suppose it is a guilty pleasure on all counts but it is never boring and consistenly mesmerizing in its attemps to film the unfilmable, namely a book by Gore Vidal of the same name. I've read portions of the book (written as a diary) and it is so suffused with sexual explicitness and innuendoes of every kind at every turn that no film could ever really do it justice, especially when the book's main theme is that heterosexual men can be made into homosexuals. The film adaptation doesn't quite fulfill the book's themes, nor is it as pointed in its criticism of WASP values as it is a critique of Hollywood at its most base. Still, the fact that someone tried to make a film out of it is cause for a minor celebration.

Rex Reed (in his sole leading role) is a homosexual writer named Myron, who undergoes a major sex operation and becomes Myra (played by Raquel Welch). Never mind that Welch looks nothing like Reed - hey, it's a movie - but that there is no real correlation in their behavior either. This is probably why writer-director Michael Sarne chooses to have Rex Reed on screen at the same time as Welch, and they both talk to each other! At one point, Reed masturbates and imagines fellatio with Myra, I gather, in a scene that must have caused more laughter than hysteria of the inclusion of such a scene in an X-rated film of 1970.

So we have John Huston as a former movie cowboy with an oversized hat running an acting school that admonishes the film acting found in B-movies, though Myra is of the opinion there is value to be found in them. There is also a stoned John Carradine smoking a cigarette as he performs the movie's opening operation; Mae West as a Hollywood talent agent who has an affinity for male hunks and makes more sexual remarks and double entendres than any of her past movies combined; Farrah Fawcett as a slightly dim blonde who loves Myra; and a scene involving sodomy with a dildo that is neither as ugly or unwatchable as its reputation seems to suggest.

In fact, "Myra Breckinridge" is hardly as wrenchingly bad as its reputation suggests. This is a far better wacky film of wacky proportions than Gus Van Sant's unwatchable atrocity of an unfilmable novel, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." "Myra Breckinridge" forges sex jokes galore but it is also a condemnation of any Hollywood movie made before the MPAA ratings were implemented. Scenes of Rex Reed are a bit long on the tooth - he is not a charismatic actor and looks zombiefied throughout - but he himself has expressed more admiration for any movie made before 1950.

I would say some novels are not meant for film adaptation but "Myra Breckinridge" features Rex Reed at his liveliest only when dancing and cavorting with Welch while listening to Shirley Temple's song "You Gotta S-M-I-L-E (To Be H-A-Double P-Y)", and he even gets to say the line, "Where are my tits?" I can say that although the movie's pleasures may be small, I did get a kick out of it and enjoyed this garish, brightly lit opus that is like a zonked-out, flashy erotic dream drained of eroticism. Interesting.