Hip to be Psycho

AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Patrick Bateman is not your typical serial killer. He is obsessed with consumerism and has an affinity for music by Huey Lewis and the News and Whitney Houston, not to mention Phil Collins. He also happens to work at a firm in Wall Street. Patrick is a handsome, young man who is ruthless and arrogant - a yuppie who just happens to love killing people.

I was initially miffed to hear that Christian Bale was going to play the title role, but then I guess I had forgotten his smugness and arrogance in 1994's wonderful "Little Women." Bale is the perfect choice because he encompasses the soulless, excessive period of the 1980's integral to the character of Patrick Bateman better than any other actor would have.

Bateman's life is not all that exciting. He works in merger and acquistions (which is slyly referred to as "murders and executions"), though we mostly see him listening to his walkman in his office. He has a pretty secretary (Chloe Sevigny) and has a group of friends whose main concern is where they will be eating dinner and if there are reservations available at any one of the top restaurants. Bateman's day begins by applying several lotions and creams to his body while taking a shower, working out by doing a thousand push-ups a day and, in general, planning his evening with his dates including a socialite girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon). Sometimes Patrick picks up some prostitutes and then kills and dismembers them. Other times he will kill someone he knows, such as an ex-girlfriend or a rival co-worker (who has mistaken him for someone else) by using an ax or a nail gun. But who is Bateman really? Is he so devoid of identity that murder is all he needs to bring spice to his life? Or has he lost his soul and thinks that his identity is defined by his consumerist ideals, or the specific type of business card he carries?

I have read the controversial, infamous book by Bret Easton Ellis, though I am fuzzy on recalling certain details. Naturally, the big shocker of the book was the relentless, graphic violence against women - how they were dismembered and, well, you get the idea. For about the first hour of director Mary Harron's adaptation (she co-wrote it with Guinevere Turner), "American Psycho" has great fun with all the minute details of Patrick's life and his circle of friends. There is a classic scene set to the music of Huey Lewis's "Hip to be Square" where Bateman invites his rival (Jared Leto) to his home while explaining the brief history of the rock group and their gradual artistic integrity - the scene is especially tense considering that one can smell murder in the air. But the film loses its grip after a while mainly because Bateman seems to lose his mind, and we can't fathom why. Has he realized the errors of his murderous ways? We are never sure and though I would not expect a motive necessarily, his reasons can't be any more silly than that he feels his life has become a void - empty and unidentifiable. Many other Wall Street types may feel the same way without having to kill anyone. Somehow this rings false, as in the book, and I wish that the twist ending was removed. It feels like a cheat and makes the whole affair more surreal than it should have been.

"American Psycho" is often fun and, at times, surprisingly funny and on-target. Thanks to Harron's almost monochromatic visuals, such as Bateman's apartment, there is a Kubrickian coolness to it, detached and grayish as if life meant nothing. Even the restaurants look like science-fiction artifacts from "2001" - this is the alternate reality of the 1980's where money and greed were all that mattered. But the film also feels cold and remote and since we follow Bateman in his violent streak, we never come close to understanding him one bit. Despite some satirical touches and Bale's superb performance, this "Psycho" needed a little more savagery to really hit the mark.

Andy Kaufman is alive?

MAN ON THE MOON (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally reviewed in 1999)

Andy Kaufman remains as the old saying goes, "a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma." He was the most unconventional comic to ever grace a stage or an open mike because he purely challenged the whole notion of what comedy was. Comedians are known for one-liners, such as the famous Milton Berle, and punchlines - a plethora of jokes are expected to make the audience laugh. Kaufman is not someone you would accuse of taking the easy road to make people laugh - his intentions were based on showing up as the showman and nothing more. He did not tell jokes nor did he know how to tell them, and he was not a political or angry comedian like Lenny Bruce was. No, this man played the theme to "Mighty Mouse" and wrestled with women to get laughs.

"Man on the Moon" stars Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman, showing us his early stage routines of mimicking Elvis Presley leading to his famous Latka Gravas character on the popular TV show "Taxi." His agent (played by Danny De Vito, who does not do a reprise of his "Taxi" character) is amazed by Kaufman, but has no idea how to promote such a talent so he lends him the coveted "Taxi" role promising a "Fonzie-type" breakout character. It is no secret that Andy despised "Taxi" and caused a ruckus often using his hateful alter-ego character, Tony Clifton, a lounge singer, to cause chaos on the set. It is also no secret that Tony become a bigger star than Andy, especially in the days of Andy wrestling with Memphis wrestler Jerry Lawler (amusingly playing himself).

The moments where Tony Clifton appears, silencing the crowd before singing or insulting audience members, are the most outrageous and the funniest. Clifton was Andy, and sometimes Andy's best friend and writing partner, Bob Zmuda (Paul Giamatti), was also Tony and so this caused more confusion among audiences. How could anyone respond with a straight face to anything Clifton or Andy did on stage or on TV?

In fact, that is largely the appeal of "Man on the Moon." The film distorts reality on screen just as Andy did - we never knew what to expect from him or when he was staging fights or insults or actually doing them. The truth is that it was all staged, including the punishingly slow one-year debacle of Lawler fighting Andy on the ring or on David Letterman. That distortion or the fact that Andy was always in on the joke himself is what makes his life so speculative. Who was Andy? What kind of man was he? When was he not fooling around, and when was he being serious? There came a point when his sister did not believe that Andy had lung cancer, which he tearfully admits on stage while the audience bawls with laughter.

Carrey is so good as Andy that he disappears into the role, and it is more than just a recreation of the man or his acts - it is spookily eerie in that it really feels like Andy Kaufman is alive and well on screen. Carrey also carries scenes of tenderness beautifully such as the movie's key line where he tearfully replies to his girlfriend's remark "There is no real you" with "Oh, yeah, I forgot." I also like the moment where Andy is tricked by a psychic surgeon, who is actually a charlatan, into believing that his cancerous condition will be taken away - Carrey's face shows a mixture of elation and sadness. Jim has so many good moments that an Oscar nomination should be guaranteed - we have not seen such an authentic recreation of a key figure in show business since Val Kilmer's Jim Morrison in "The Doors."

If only the film dealt with his childhood past in more detail, especially in the days when he thought there were cameras in his bedroom walls watching his act (a reminder of Carrey's performance in "Truman Show"). And what did his parents think of Andy's act? Or his sister and friends, especially his girlfriend (thanklessly played by Courtney Love)? There must have been some thoughts on Andy - was he just a showman out for thrills or a genius of comedy?

"Man on the Moon" does not try to understand Andy Kaufman nor is there any attempt to. The mystique is still there, including the possibility that his lung cancer was a joke and that he will return in the year 2000 (the film makes no attempt to disprove the hoax). It is not a complete or fulfilling biography as was director Milos Forman's last film, "The People vs. Larry Flynt," but it is a strange and entertaining experience. I have a feeling Andy would have wanted it that way.

Can you imagine?

THE MASTER (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Master" is the most frustrating, exasperatingly opaque film of P.T. Anderson's career. At times emotionally draining and emotionally cold, "The Master" never fully establishes itself and it never hits the high notes of its very ambitious themes. That being said, "The Master" offers a lot of food for thought and is often rather brilliant, and sometimes simply offputting and a little overlong (even "Magnolia," P.T's best film that ran 3 hours didn't feel as long as this one that runs an hour less). But it is Joaquin Phoenix who will leave you feeling far more frustrated than P.T. Anderson might have intended and that is the film's ultimate flaw.

Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) is a emotionally crippling and horny WWII vet who is left to fend for himself and discover what the future holds, or if it holds anything in particular. Quell is an alcoholic lost soul (he concocts a drink using paint thinner) who parades from one job, one drink and one woman after another. He is a seaman, works as a migrant farm worker, a department store family portrait photographer, and eventually he finds himself as a stowaway in a yacht. It turns out that Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is in this yacht, acting as a minister for a wedding and reception. Dodd is also the founder of a new religion called The Cause (obviously meant to evoke Scientology and its own creator, L. Ron Hubbard) where he indulges new participants in a recorded session of repeated questions such as "What is your name?" and "Did you ever kill anyone?" Quell participates and lives "rent free," along with Dodd and his wife Peggy (Amy Adams), in the homes of women who support the Cause. But Freddie is as lost as ever, though he acts as muscle for Dodd's non-believers or those who challenge the Master's book. 

My main quibble with "The Master" is Joaquin Phoenix whose misshapen body language and catatonic persona reduced my interest a little. For a short film about a WWII vet undergoing disillusionment and dissatisfaction, Phoenix would have been mesmerizing. At 2 hours and 17 minutes, it is simply a chore to watch Freddie who engages in sex or humping a nude sand figure, stares and laughs maniacally or indulges in uncontrollably violent confrontations. The performance has two notes and maintains it even when he may be changed by Dodd's "processing" through the Cause but I can't say for sure if he is remotely changed at all. A fine actor overall, Phoenix aims for a level of restraint during the film's closing scenes that goes beyond what he had shown in the first two hours. That may be too little and too late for most viewers. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman brings humor, a slight touch of sympathy, lightness and the occasional outburst particularly when his movement is criticized for suggesting outrageous claims, such as claim that Earth was created a trillion years ago. Hoffman is indeed mesmerizing as a the founder of a religion he is clearly making it up as he indulges further into his subjects - he is a charlatan and knows how to control those he processes. It is a frighteningly vivid and top-notch performance.

 Various scenes and shots in "The Master" will stay with me for a long time such as the motorcycle endlessly rampaging through the desert; the ocean's waters that look mysterious and uninviting; the somehow askew wedding and reception on the yacht; the moments where Dodd relentlessly tests Freddy with clinical trials that make no sense whatsoever such as walking from one end of a room to the other; Amy Adams' compassion and smile masking a far more firm individual than her own husband; the models in a department store, etc. Yet as intoxicating as many scenes are, the overall effect is deadening and too coldly detached. P.T. Anderson may be trying for a touch of Michelangelo Antonioni ambiguity but even Antonioni could wring emotion out of dead silence and sustained long takes. Every time I saw Freddie, I saw a catatonic lost soul from a war that may have ravaged his psyche. That is a realistic angle but I can only handle so much catatonia with no shades or glimmer of anything other than suppressed anguish, or a need for a father figure though that angle is disputable. 

"The Master" is indelibly fascinating and spellbinding and worth a look but it is also dramatically inert - a bit of a Catch-22. 

Jeers, mate!

CROCODILE DUNDEE IN LOS ANGELES (2001)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

 

Eddie Murphy made this movie in 1984. It was called "Beverly Hills Cop," an uneven, fitfully funny fish-out-of-water action-comedy. Paul Hogan did his bit in the original "Crocodile Dundee" in 1986, and then returned for a mildly entertaining sequel in 1988. Considering both Dundee movies scored well at the box-office, it is amazing it has taken a whole decade to make a sequel so bereft of anything remotely comic.

Paul Hogan once again returns as the formidable crocodile hunter, Mick Dundee, who still remains naive about the world and pop culture (though the latter is not a bad thing to be naive about). He still resides in the Subaru Outback, though he is unable to catch a crocodile. He is also still living with Sue (Linda Kozlowski), the Newsday journalist, though they are not legally married. They do have a son who worries about razorbacks. So far, not too bad. That is until the filmmakers decide to take the family out to the big city, yet again. The reason? Sue has a job in L.A. at her father's bureau. Whoa! Her assignment is to investigate a movie studio that is making sequels to "Lethal Agent" though they are all financial disasters - sort of what Paramount is doing with Crocodile Dundee. Is the sequel business a front for something else? Of course, and Mick Dundee does all the hard work while Sue sits behind the desk. Meanwhile, we have product placements for the Paramount tour and Wendy's. There are also one-note, thinly veiled jokes about Mike Tyson and meditating, coffee enemas and George Hamilton, gay bars, Hispanic gangs, cartoonish villains, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, and chimps that can't follow directions on a movie set. Using a chimp in a movie sequel is the cry of DESPERATION. Lest we not forget that there are a few women in the movie who find Mick attractive, though he remains naive about their suggestive remarks. How's this for a different kind of sequel - the setting is the Outback where Mick decides whether or not to legally marry Sue while fending off alluring women's advances from his tours, as well as training his son in the secrets of the wilderness? Not funny? Well, then you can see why a return to this shallow character was not a great idea in the first place.

Like its once charismatic star, "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" is the equivalent of a flatline.

I can't shoot it like Hitchcock

THE KEY TO RESERVA (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"I can't shoot it the way I would. Can I shoot it as Hitchcock? I don't think so. So who will I shoot it as?" - Martin Scorsese

Thus begins the one of the most unique commercials I have ever seen - an ad for Freixenet Cava wine. What is interesting is that director Martin Scorsese is not as focused on the wine as he is on the approach of doing a Hitchcock filmmaking style for an unfinished fictitious script. The script is only 3 pages long and it deals with a Hitchcock hero (Simon Baker) searching for a key that opens a box of wine that holds top secret information in its cork. The setting is a concert hall where the conductor and orchestra perform Bernard Herrmann's classic theme from "North By Northwest." One of the violinists (Christopher Denham, who later appeared in Scorsese's "Shutter Island") spots our hero in the theatre box and leaves to strangle him. Chaos erupts as Herrmann's music builds with more and more intensity. Homages to classic shots and compositions from Hitch's films abound, though Scorsese's touch is not evident (excepting the pull-back shot of the concert hall which reminded me of "Age of Innocence"). Of course, this is precisely the point and it asks the tough questions about a filmmaker with a distinctive style imitating another - can it be done and should it? At the end, Scorsese even flirts with the notion of completing Erich Von Stroheim's "Greed" (Scorsese himself would never attempt to complete someone else's work, despite this commercial which may be his first jokey, postmodernist approach to another master director. Only the adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel "Nostromo" comes to mind - a film that would have been directed by David Lean who died during pre-production. Scorsese had been attached to direct it at one point but it is doubtful he would have shot as Lean would have).

"The Key to Reserva" will make most Hitchcock aficionados giddy with spot-on references to "The Birds," "Notorious," "Saboteur" and "Dial M for Murder" and "North By Northwest." Simon Baker even resembles Farley Granger from "Rope" and "Strangers on a Train," not to mention the casting of Kelli O'Hara in the Grace Kelly/Eva Marie Saint role and Michael Stuhlbarg as the James-Mason-type villain who clearly wants Baker's character killed. Mostly, "The Key to Reserva" is Scorsese having a ball trying to adopt a style that has been filtered through in his own work. Now about those stills from "Greed"...

A tongue-in-cheek martial-arts classic

ENTER THE DRAGON (1973)

An appreciation by Jerry Saravia

It is strange to think that the late Bruce Lee just hit his international Hollywood mark with "Enter the Dragon" and never lived to see his legacy. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the tender age of 32 back in 1973. He was gone way too soon yet none of that diminishes the impact of one of the finest martial-arts flicks of all time, the one and only "Enter the Dragon." It is a comic-book movie, a sort of Chinese James Bond but with none of the gadget gimmicks. In this case, Bruce Lee plays Lee, a Shaolin Temple fighter who enters an epic martial-arts tournament by a most evil yet charming Mr. Han (Shih Kien).

Lee is not the only fighter entering the competition in some remote island where guns are not allowed. John Saxon is Roper, a gambler and con-man who is pretty good with his fists even when evading some mob muscle while playing golf. The late Jim Kelly is Williams, the one with the huge afro who admonishes Han for acting like a villain from a comic-book. Roper and Williams are old friends who want to party and get the girls. Lee merely has a mission unbeknownst to anyone - to find evidence of women OD'ing and left to die off the shores of Han's island. Naturally, Lee also has a vendetta against one of Han's prized fighters, O'Harra with a nasty facial scar (Bob Wall), though I will not reveal what that vendetta is.

"Enter the Dragon" has many classic sequences that are pretty much iconic in the action-adventure realm as well. Bruce Lee's fight sequences are legendary, especially fighting with nunchakus, flip-kicking or delivering flying kicks in slow-motion (the flip kick is not actually performed by Lee but by his double, though Lee had planned to incorporate gymnastics into his Jeet Kune Do style). He steals the show from everyone (though as former film critic Danny Peary once said, you kinda wish Lee had shared at least one moment with Williams).  Still even a scene-stealer like Lee can't take away from the charms of John Saxon or Jim Kelly. Saxon has many crowd-pleasing moments (and he has great chemistry with the wonderful Ahna Capri as Han's assistant) but it is Jim Kelly and his sarcastic asides to Han that elevate the tension of a most unwelcome island where guards are killed if they do not protect the island's deep dark secrets. Kelly's Williams also has a funny flashback to some racist cops who can't allow a black man to travel to Hawaii - it has a racial charge and its denouement had audiences cheering back when I saw the film in theaters in 1978. And when Saxon's Roper fights the rough and vicious Bolo (Bolo Yeung), it is electrically charged escapism, particularly the segue to hundreds of minions fighting our heroes in what must have been hellish staging by director Robert Clouse and Bruce Lee, who choreographed all the fights.

Also noteworthy is the Hall of Mirrors climax, nicely echoing a similarly startling moment from Orson Welles' "The Lady From Shanghai." It is thrilling and nail-biting entertainment with Han's claws dominating the sequence as he tries to tear apart Lee. Lee also has a slow-motion scream in close-up where he destroys one fighter during a tournament - it has to be seen to be believed and it is positively chilling.

A vastly entertaining martial-arts action picture, "Enter the Dragon" can infrequently get silly and a little unbelievable (watch Lee fly from the ground up to the top of a tree branch) but it is tongue-in-cheek without getting too goofy. At once humorous, graceful and full of some truly hypnotic fight sequences that seemingly last an eternity (Angela Mao as Lee's sister has a very intense fight sequence with dozens of fighters that lasts a good five minutes), this is the best of the ensemble martial-arts action pics, a precursor to Clouse's own "Force Five" and others of its ilk where the director hoped he would reignite that "Dragon" feel (Clouse never managed to make lightning strike twice). It is the catlike Bruce Lee, though, who shows what a charismatic fighter and electrifying screen presence he really was. We'll never know, after doing four action pics and the incomplete "Game of Death," where Bruce Lee's career would have taken him. "Enter the Dragon" is a great hint.

When Prince Struts

PURPLE RAIN (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Purple Rain" is one of those movies I recall seeing but have little recollection of anything substantial. I know I saw it on cable back in the 1980's and recall the scenes by the lake with the strutting Prince and the curvaceous Apollonia taking her clothes off. I also remember the concert sequences, the song "When Doves Cry" played as an MTV video (an excerpt I can recall was played on the TV special "Sneak Previews" back when Jeffrey Lyons and Neal Gabler were the critics), and Morris Day dumping a woman literally in a trash bin. Seeing the movie again recently, I can say it is flashy and watchable but also listless and uninvolving. The music sounds great but there is nothing else to groove to.

Prince is the Kid, a rising musician in Minneapolis who plays at a local club. His songs of late have disappointed the regular club customers, mostly because he is playing to himself. The club owner tells Kid not to be like his father, another musician who failed to harness his talent. The group that really plays to the crowd is the Time with Morris Day (playing himself) as the playboyish, strutting, preening lead singer. His song "Jungle Love" is electrifying, exciting and sexual, as well as other pop songs he plays to the crowd. The Kid does not cater to the crowds the same way - he is too concerned with his own traumas to care. The Kid doesn't just have his own ego-inflating persona to deal with - he also has an abusive, emotionally shattered father who beats up his white mother. But there is some measure of hope when the Kid meets Apollonia, a nineteen-year-old singer with huge aspirations. They start having an affair and when the Kid makes her undress and beats her, we see him imitating his father. By the end of the film, things will go back to normal.

"Purple Rain" has its best moments dealing with the Kid's band, especially the two backup singers, Wendy and Lisa (playing essentially themselves). Wendy often writes her own songs and wants Kid to hear them and play them live. Kid merely mocks them with a hand puppet. I also enjoyed Morris Day's interludes with his assistant as they look for sexy dancers in their act. Clarence Williams III scores a realistic, tough performance as Kid's long-suffering father who keeps unperformed lyrics in the basement of their house. Beyond that, "Purple Rain" is empty and lackluster in the dramatic department. Prince may have presence on stage but in close-up, he looks like a weeping Liberace with big eyes and bright outfits. There is no real energy in his performance - he merely stares stupefyingly into empty space. Apollonia is barely given much to do outside of singing and appearing like a sexual creature in lingerie and black outfits.

The musical stage acts are well-choreographed and titillating - they keep your eyes and ears glued to the screen. Most of the movie is an MTV video and, on that level, it has a kinetic charm that is hypnotic. I still say that Morris Day should have had the lead role - he is more alive than anyone else in the entire movie.