Heaven Help YOU!

RELIGULOUS (2008)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Bill Maher is a radical leftist comedian who has taken his radical political views quite far on his vastly entertaining show, "Real Time with Bill Maher." Religion is a hot-button issue for him, mainly because he thinks it is silly for people to believe in a space god. I am not sure if religion is a concept he is willing to invest more highly in - he treats it as a joke and thinks people are stupid if they believe. He is an aggressive atheist but maybe not aggressive enough. I have a feeling that is why he made "Religulous," a funny, observant and very uneven documentary. Uneven because Bill Maher has a habit of not listening closely enough and interrupting those whom he interviews.

Bill Maher begins the global journey in an effort to understand religion and why many believe in God. He travels to a North Carolina truck stop chapel where one of the truckers walks out in disgust at Maher's comments. Another trucker comments on being a former Satanist priest (!) who found God. We also get a Puerto Rican named Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who believes he is the Second Coming of Christ largely due to a bloodline of descendants from Jesus Christ. In addition, we get an actor playing Jesus at a Florida Biblical amusement park, which includes a whipping of a bloodied Christ carrying the cross accompanied by applause from the audience; ex-Mormons questioning Joseph Smith as a leader; an Amsterdam club where marijuana is smoked but not as a sacrament (this segment confused me but who knows, they were all probably high); a gay Muslim bar; a far too short segment on the late film director Theo Van Gogh who made a film that offended Muslims and was killed for it; a rabbi who denies the Holocaust, and so much more. Interspersed throughout the film are clips from old Jesus flicks and George C. Scott as Abraham in the hysterical John Huston film, "The Bible" (there is also a funny clip from "Superbad.")

Most of "Religulous" is very funny but I can't say it is all sharply observed or on-target. The truck stop chapel footage could've been better served had it been towards the end. Some segments deserve more focus, particularly the ex-Mormon bit, the comparison between Abraham sacrificing his son for God to a recent murder of five children by their mother ("God told me to do it"), more scenes of Bill Maher's late mother and her sharing in her son's concept of doubt, and the concept of original sin and why Jesus Miranda believes sinning no longer exists (that was a howler).

What does work is when Bill Maher asks truly valid questions. Why does the Old Testament not talk about the virgin birth? Why no written text exists on Jesus's teenage years? Why a certain preacher believes that Jesus was a rich man and why he can't get that old camel and the needle quote correct? I also liked Maher's observations on miracles and when rain is simply rain. Also interesting is seeing the area of Meggido and how it seems an unlikely location for the end of days.

As I said, "Religulous" is damn funny stuff and invigorating and illuminating but it needed sharper questions from Maher about the validity of religion and how and why it shapes people's lives, particularly when the concept of sin is often omitted. Maybe it scares Bill to get too deep or maybe he had already made up his mind about religion before he even made the film.

Wipe out any memory of this movie

THE FORGOTTEN (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The electrifying Julianne Moore and director Joseph Ruben should have been able to make a terrifically suspenseful psychological thriller. Moore, one of the most charismatic and honest of all major league actresses, can make your jaw drop with her acute sensitivity and ball-of-fire emotions. Director Ruben may not have a great track record since his underrated "The Stepfather" but he's probably just in search of a good story to tell. "The Forgotten" is not it but, boy, does it have a solid beginning.

Julianne Moore plays Telly Paretta, a married book editor who longs for her dead son. Her son apparently died in a plane accident and Telly, day after day, touches her son's belongings such as a baseball glove. One day she notices that her son has disappeared from her framed family photos, including photo albums. She suspects her husband (thanklessly played by Anthony Edwards) has removed the pictures but he denies ever having a son with her - he was apparently stillborn (and so is Edwards). Even Telly's good-natured, understanding psychiatrist (an even more thankless role played by Gary Sinise) denies that she ever had a son - he's been waiting for her moment of realization. Is there a conspiracy or is Telly suffering from a mental illness where she invents people in her life who don't exist? The idea that someone can imagine or invent a person or persons is an idea worthy for a film. Instead, the filmmakers opt for a series of deux ex machinas that trivialize the story and aim for maximum stupidity and unrealistic coincidences and occurrences that only happen in the movies. How the story changes its tune I won't say except that you'll feel cheated that the screenwriters didn't trust their own source material.

Julianne Moore does the best she can, looking as glamorous and beautiful as in those Revlon ads. She is not, however, given the freedom to really engage her emotions - by the end, she is more disenchanted and detached than the character should be. The rest of the cast is an embarrassment, including Alfre Woodard as a cop who distrusts the NSA (National Security Agency) who is after Telly. Woodard, who gave memorable performances in "Passion Fish" and "Grand Canyon," simply exists to utter mediocre dialogue and then drift away. Like all the other actors, they are wooden logs that are flung about without any rhyme or reason.

Director Joseph Ruben does know how to shock and move an audience, and it happens in one fleeting instance. There is a car crash scene that is unsettling and will make you rock back and forth in your theater seat. But such a moment means nothing other than to keep the audience awake. Such car crashes were more effective in films like "Adaptation" and "Punch Drunk Love." Here, it is nothing more than an attempt to make the audience believe they are seeing something new. I can't say much more about "The Forgotten" without giving away crucial details. The preview makes this look like the latest endeavor by M. Night Shyamalan. You will not just forget "The Forgotten," you just won't care to remember.

A Blasted Heath of a movie

THE CURSE (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

According to H.P. Lovecraft scholars, "The Curse," which is adapted from Lovecraft's own creepy and menacing short story "The Colour of Space," is more faithful to the author's literary source than the 1965 version "Die, Monster, Die!" Not sure if Lovecraft was thinking of Bible-thumping farm owners, marital infidelity, worms that eat the innards of cattle and apples, a lascivious real-estate agent, a poop joke, shades of "The Exorcist" and lots of bile spewing phenomenon. Then again, I am not a Lovecraft devotee but, then again, I have read the story and this movie bears little resemblance to its literary source.

As directed by David Keith, "The Curse" left me feeling nauseated. The movie is exceedingly gross, featuring too many shots of worms and maggots eating away the inside of fruits and far too many shots of unhealthy-looking face sores. The story is set on a Tennessee farm run by the Biblical and righteous Nathan Hayes (Claude Akins) who has a new family to support. There is the wandering eye of his new and very horny wife, Frances (Kathleen Jordon Gregory - her sole film credit), who has to learn to make better bread rolls; a zombiefied-looking Wil Wheaton as the stepson Zack; Nathan's giddy and maniacally irritating elder son (Malcolm Danare) who teases Wil incessantly, and Amy Wheaton as Zack's younger sister. A glowing meteorite crashes a few yards from the Hayes farm and it spews liquids and unknown elements into the property and the water supply. Most of the family members drink the water that transforms them into mean killing machines with contorted faces and a few ugly sores. Then there are the worms that fester on the livestock and the fruits. Yuck. See how you react to the sight of chickens pecking away at Amy Wheaton's face. Only the Wheatons are smart enough not to drink the water.

The characters have no more than two dimensions, especially Claude Akins who appears to be a rigid, strict disciplinarian (he laughs at a "poop" joke from his son and that is about as animated as Akins gets in the entire movie). Danare's Cyrus is every brother's nightmare - a loud, obnoxious, bullying brat who you know will get his just deserts.  Kathleen Gregory's Frances is convincingly dour but she only comes alive in horror makeup. We also get "Dukes of Hazzard's" own John Schneider as a surveyor from the Tennessee Valley Authority (the short story was told from his perspective).

"The Curse" is a generic and frenetic "alleged" horror flick that is mediocre in all departments - a largely revolting movie I will always remember for the worms. A vomit-inducer of a movie, if that is your idea of a good time. A better vomit-inducer is John Carpenter's "The Thing." Better yet, read the original short story by H.P. Lovecraft - it is riveting.

Media makes monsters

NO SUCH THING (2001)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have only seen two Hal Hartley films, "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Henry Fool." Both are existential dramas, mostly dealing with pain and repressed emotions. The main thrust in those films was the existence of the individual, and the individual's recognition of his or her own futile existence. "No Such Thing" now focuses on the existential nature of a monster, not a human being. A radical idea indeed, and I am not sure it is a major success at all but, at the very least, it gives it a whirl.

Beatrice (Sarah Polley) is the assistant to the "Boss" (Helen Mirren), the chain-smoking producer of a trashy, tabloid TV show. The latest news are the problems in New York City, including terrorist organizations infiltrating subway systems and bridges (this film was released last March though it was initially set to be released in the fall of 2001. In these troubled times, the terrorism angle is sure to be a reason). The Boss is sick of the latest news and wants something catastrophic and unusual - something to send shock waves across the country. Lo and behold, one of their TV news crews had disappeared somewhere off the coast of Iceland. One of the crew members was Beatrice's fiance. Beatrice decides to follow the story and find out what happened to her fiance and everyone else. A jet plane carrying Beatrice crashes though, and she miraculously survives. She then has to face a spinal operation and intense physical therapy for six months. Beatrice recuperates and proceeds to go to Iceland. She finds that a horned, fire-breathing monster (Robert Burke) has killed the crew. This monster is isolated, immortal, a drunk and obscene. Beatrice knows he will not hurt her, and he trusts her enough to accompany her to find a reclusive doctor named Dr. Artaud, the only known man who can kill the monster. Make no mistake, the monster wishes to be killed so he can end his suffering.

After reading this far, you might be saying, "How ridiculous!" Of course it is but Hartley never aims for satire or for laughs. He has not crafted a horror film either. This is more of an expose of how the media turns freaks into fodder for the masses - oh, the exploitation! The horror! But it is also a love story of sorts between the beauty and the beast, and how the beauty manages to forget the beast while he's being exploited. It is also how a monster views himself in an existential world where pain and suffering will go on and on. He can't stop himself from killing people, but he does make a promise to Beatrice not to kill after leaving his island for America. But I can't say that all of "No Such Thing" is really that coherent. It is a mess, straining and working to be one kind of film before changing and shaping itself to be something else.

The first thirty minutes of "No Such Thing" are as beautiful and mysterious as most films can be. We follow Beatrice on her journey to Iceland, and Polley makes her character strong and compassionate. I even liked the scenes of her and the monster. However, when the film shifts its setting to America, it becomes a self-conscious jumble of how the media is morally corrupt. How often have we seen this cliche played over and over again? How cardboard can Helen Mirren and any of the stock news characters get? Why even bring the monster to America? Why not let the story stay in the Iceland setting since, in such a remote land, anything can happen? Why is the monster such an obnoxious, indefensible creature with no apparent remorse for anyone or anything? If he had existed since the dawn of man, would four-letters be the extent of his language and understanding?

"No Such Thing" could have been so much more, but the last half of the film fails mainly because it forgoes its initial ideas for mediocre ones. Burke's monster can be repetitious, as is Mirren's shtick, but Polley shines brightly in her role. Her best scenes are the quiet ones, such as the moments prior to her operation or when she gets drunk with other Icelanders. I also liked a priceless scene where she practically gets mugged by a heroin chick in New York (though I am not quite sure of the significance of that scene). But Beatrice's shift from compassionate to merely hogging the media spotlight when bringing the monster to America is curiously unsatisfying and inconsistent. I can't say that I recommend "No Such Thing" because it does fall apart and never recovers. But I will say that Hartley's failure is infinitely more satisfying than failures from hack directors. At least he has something to say.

Welcome to New Jersey's Short Cuts

HAPPINESS (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Best film of 1998)

(Original review from 1998)

"Happiness" is one of the richest, darkly complex, and ironically funniest portraits of American life since "Short Cuts." It is tinged with irony, deadpan humor, and some severely unpleasant subject matter, though always treated in a respectful, artful manner by a promising writer-director, Todd Solondz. Solondz previously directed "Welcome to the Dollhouse," a provocative statement about growing up in Jersey, but who would have thought he would helm a multi-layered, disturbing portrait of Jersey like this one.

The film begins with a date at a restaurant. The curly-haired brunette Joy (Jane Adams) is sitting at a table with a man (John Lovitz) whom she has just dumped. He questions her, trying to discover why the relationship is over. He shows her an engraved ashtray, and tells her it's for the person who will love him for who he is.

Afterwards, we meet the orange-haired Allen (the great Philip Seymour Hoffman), a guy who masturbates on the phone while arbitrarily picking names off the phone book and asking the women what they are wearing. Not only does he stalk people on the phone at home, but also at his office where he works. When he confesses his explicit sexual fantasies to a therapist, Bill (Dylan Baker), we recognize boredom is settling on the therapist's face. We hear his thoughts in voice-over. We see a strange dream where Bill kills everyone in a playground with a machine gun. Then he masturbates while looking at teen magazines, and we realize his true nature: he's a pedophile.

Then we are introduced to Joy's sisters, which include Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), a bland, perfect housewife unaware of her husband's (Bill's) clandestine sexual nature, and Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), a poet who writes about rapes and finds that New Jersey is the ideal place to live to prove you're not a showy writer. There is also Joy's unhappy parents, Lenny (Ben Gazzara) and Mona (Louise Lasser, a long way from "Bananas"). Lenny wants out of the marriage so he can live his life, yet Mona understandably thinks that it is because of her and that she's too fat and needs a facelift. When Mona asks for advice from a real-estate dealer (amusingly played by Marla Maples) about her marriage, the dealer responds: "Divorce is the best thing that ever happened to me."

Joy needs and wants love desperately, but doesn't know what love is. Her sisters berate her about their perfect, exciting lives yet she feels cast out of the family. When not being sexually harassed on the phone (by Allen), she confides in a thick-accented Russian taxi driver (Jared Harris), who has sex with her and patiently listens to one of her guitar-playing songs. Of course, he turns out to be a thief who is married!

Everyone in "Happiness" has difficulty adapting to their lifestyles, and they are all inadequate about their loved ones. Interestingly, they all feel a brink of happiness when they are alone. Allen lives by himself in a bland apartment and is giddy when making anonymous calls; Joy feels better when playing the guitar to herself; Lenny can't bring himself to have an affair and chooses to be left alone; and Bill wants to be left alone with his son's male friends by drugging everyone with sleeping pills. Only a secondary character named Kristina (Camryn Manheim), Allen's neighbor, needs solace when she admits her own secrets to Allen.

"Happiness" is an exemplary combination of flawless writing, directing and acting. It is shrewdly written by Solondz, and he never makes it easy for the audience when he wavers between drama and comedy with unusual results. At times, you don't know whether to laugh, cringe or both. The most obvious example is when Bill admits his secret sexual desires to his son - it is so painful to watch that we are not sure how to respond to it. This is true of Kristina's secret, which causes one to laugh because it is so unexpected.

The performances are so adeptly attuned to the material that you can't separate one actor from the other - they fit the roles perfectly. One lasting impression is left by character actor Dylan Baker (who should be remembered at Oscar time) as the disturbed pedophile. His face is so haunting and etched with so much pain that he becomes unforgettable - he also brings a sense of humanity to Bill that makes it harder to judge him as a person. He tries, in one scene, to tell his wife that he is sick, yet he can't help his nature.

Solondz has not crafted an exploitative fantasy where the freaks are on display for everyone to identify - a modern-day Jerry Springer-like movie where the audience can boo the loveless characters off the screen. Instead, he addresses these characters as normal, everyday people facing their own crisis, their own lack of understanding, and their own inability to love. He looks at everyone with a sympathetic eye, including the pedophile, and cuts deeply into our consciousness about our human needs.

Bad Lycan Seed

GINGER SNAPS 2: UNLEASHED (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Ginger Snaps: Unleashed" is one of the scarier horror sequels since the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. The difference from most slasher cum horror series is this sequel actually builds on one of the main characters it established in the first film, bringing the tension to a grisly finish that will leave you in stitches.

In the original "Ginger Snaps," Brigette (Emily Perkins) was the dour high-school girl, the loner who wanted to save her sister, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), from reaching maximum lycanthropic heights. Since Ginger died at Brigette's hands, Brigette is now infected, slowly but surely she will become a werewolf. She cuts herself daily, to see if she heals any faster with the antidote she concocted - a bluish, purplish liquid, basically wolfsbane, that she injects into her arms, legs, wherever. The problem is that she is building an immunity to the stuff. There is also a werewolf after her, for reasons never made clear, and somehow Brigette finds herself in a psychiatric facility for girls. She also has to contend with Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), a young, wise blonde girl who runs around the facility and often takes care of her grandmother who nearly got roasted in a fire. Question: if this is a psych ward for girls with mental and other problems, what is a burn victim doing there? Anyways, Ghost learns of Brigette's problems and they become pals - Brigette's main concern is to escape the facility since she is in danger from the monstrous werewolf.

"Ginger Snaps: Unleashed" has several moments of frightful surprises, and the tension is unbridled throughout. Director Brett Sullivan unleashes quite a few scares from the start and the gory flash frames, used sparingly, the tremendously foggy, snowy landspaces, the dank art direction (the psych ward and Ghost's booby-trapped house are especially creepy) add enormously to the film's atmosphere.

What really lends support is Emily Perkins' performance as Brigette, a girl suffering inside and out from her curse. She does not give in to her sexual impulses, thanks to her sister Ginger who appears occasionally as a ghost to tempt her. Brigette knows it is a hopeless situation, but she accepts her eventual, full scale transformation. Also worth noting is Tatiana Maslany as Ghost, a devious yet seemingly innocent girl - her last scene will give you major goosebumps.

"Ginger Snaps: Unleashed" is frighteningly good, occasionally gory fun (and its psych ward is far more interesting than the one in "Girl, Interrupted") but it does have a few loopholes (who is that werewolf really?) Still, for a genre that used to be rooted in slasher routines, this sequel ups the ante on devilish surprises, piquantly written, and leaves the werewolf to the imagination (only seen in quick close-ups). Is it as good as the first cult horror film? No, but it comes darn close. What gives the film an extra ounce of demonic pleasure is the performances by Perkins and Maslany. At least one of them gives new definition to the term: bad seed.

Crop circles restrain Mel Gibson

SIGNS (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed on Sept. 22nd, 2002)

There are definite signs that M. Night Shyamalan is destined to be the next Spielberg. Or the next Hitchcock. Or whatever. I am still waiting. After the phenomenal success of "The Sixth Sense" and the solemnity of "Unbreakable," Shyamalan was left wondering what to do next. He crossed over into a story involving aliens and that leaves us with "Signs," an artfully made thriller with echoes of faith written all over it, yet completely lacking any real emotional conviction. If only the lead character was not such a zombie.

Mel Gibson plays former Father Graham Hess, a widower with two children to raise, a younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), and a farm full of corn stalks. He is a former Reverend who questioned his faith after his wife died in a tragic car accident. Merrill has moved in to help him cope. Graham has two children, Morgan (Rory Culkin), and Bo (Abigain Breslin), who have their own eccentricities. Morgan becomes immersed in extraterrestrial books. Bo leaves half-empty glasses of water all over the house for fear of contaminants. Merrill stays glued to the television hidden in a closet, awaiting further updates of aliens hovering all over the planet. All this after crop circles have materialized from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to India. These very same crop circles have materialized in Graham's own farm land (which is set in Bucks County). Are there really aliens occupying Earth or is it an elaborate hoax?

The signs are there, and this is where the movie really works. The Hess's dog tries to attack Bo and is killed by Morgan. There are the glasses of water. Strange language patterns are heard in a baby monitor. Graham hears noises in his farm land, and sometimes hears and sees someone leaping all over their property. A Brazilian video birthday party shows a green man waltzing by (a nod, no doubt, to the famous Bigfoot footage from the 1970's). And, of course, there are those crop circles. Is the world going to end? Are these aliens friendly or hostile? Will Graham restore his faith in God by believing that these aliens are a godsend?

After a tight, fright-filled forty minutes, I began to suspect that Shyamalan was going to hit us with something profound or give us some kind of epiphany involving these aliens and the Hess family. Sadly, nothing ever comes out of the initial premise. I was hoping for a more studied look at hoaxes versus reality and how they affect a family willing to believe in the impossible. Shyamalan holds back and just focuses on the family members. That is all fine and dandy, but there is no real presence in the leading character played by Gibson. Graham is shown to be emotionless and faithless. Gibson plays him with such solemnity and restraint that there is nothing left to look at except at a robot. Thankfully, Gibson has no over-the-top shouting matches in the movie but there is not much else either. It is one thing for a character to be humorless and devoid of personality, but an actor like Gibson, who can be humorous and full of life, makes Graham about as interesting as a refrigerator.

Only the kids come forth with any hint of vibrancy. Rory Culkin shows more range than his older, famous brother, and Breslin has that childlike innocence that always works. I also enjoyed Joaquin Phoenix as the less-than-straight-arrow brother, but even he seems to have toned down his performance. Excepting the kids, it is like watching a movie with zombies instead of real people (one of the flaws that plagued Shyamalan's "Unbreakable"). The climax is shoddy at best and a letdown. M. Night Shyamalan still has talent to spare in his choice of framing shots and building suspense with ease, but empathetic characters are still needed to make the suspense work. The buildup is all there for a gripping, compelling film. All we get is the buildup that leads to numerous signs and little else.