Santa's Wonderful Life

THE SANTA CLAUSE 3: THE ESCAPE CLAUSE (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

My only expectation with "The Santa Clause" movies is to laugh and to have a jolly good time watching Tim Allen dress up as Santa Claus (if you think about it, he is the only actor that can wear that costume and not look ridiculous). "The Santa Clause 3" is more of the same and, despite a shortened, unfunny third act, it works and it has a genial tone that is more pleasing in this day and age than you might think.

Tim Allen is back as Scott Calvin aka Santa, more jolly than ever and perhaps a little ego-driven (a fireplace is molded to resemble Santa's mouth). Carol aka Mrs. Claus (Elizabeth Mitchell) is none too happy because she is pregnant at the worst time of the year, Christmas, which is when Santa and his elves work hard to make toys. So, not unlike Scott's problems from the original where he was a divorced dad, he is in danger of getting a second divorce because he works too hard (he has to - he's Santa!) Since Carol is homesick and wants to see her family, Scott brings her parents (Alan Arkin, Ann-Margret) along with his ex-wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson), her yoga-worshipping, spiritually composed husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold) and their daughter, Lucy (Liliana Mumy). Scott's ex-wife's family already know he is the jolly red-suited guy yet Carol's parents are clueless, and a little perturbed that Scott's ex-wife is invited. Scott convinces his in-laws that they are in Canada and that all Canadians look like elves (the miniature hospital room and the elvish doctor should be signs that Scott is lying).

In the midst of all this, there is the wild, wily, frosty Jack Frost (Martin Short) who, to no one's surprise, wants to be jolly old Santa. Apparently his idea of Santa is to change the North Pole into a commercial theme park where his elves work as retail employees sans creating toys, and he gets to perform songs with the kind of gusto straight out of Broadway! Ironically, he gets his wish in the Hall of Snowglobes and the less said about that, the better.

"Santa Clause 3" has some chuckles and laughs strewn throughout, but the "It's a Wonderful Life" nightmare at the 3/4 mark turns into some sort of anticlimax and is given short-shrift (not that the alternate time line wouldn't end happily with the jolly red giant but it feels extraneous). I just wish the filmmakers had more faith in their Jack Frost premise and stretched it out, giving Martin Short the opportunity to really let loose with some inspired chaos. Plus, the most entertaining performance in the movie is from Alan Arkin, and one wishes the filmmakers had more faith in his character's doubts and concerns over hard-working Scott.

Still, for fans of the other "Santa Clause" movies, "Santa Clause 3" will do just fine. There are some nifty cameos by Mother Nature, Sandman, and the late Peter Boyle as Father Time. And for some good laughs, there is the funny tyke Curtis, the Experimental Elf (Spencer Breslin) who tries to coax Santa for some solidarity with the "help me, help you" speech. The movie is harmless family entertainment but it feels a little too short and precious for its own good.

De Palma's empty hand at the table

SNAKE EYES (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1998)

Director Brian De Palma has finally done it - he's made the first empty stylistic exercise of his career. Sure, there are bravura camera moves, superbly edited climaxes and an astounding opening sequence that can stand on its own as a classic, but what else is there?

"Snake Eyes" stars Nicolas Cage as an unctuous, loud, obnoxious cop named Rick Santoro (wearing what appears to be the same snakeskin leather jacket from "Wild at Heart") who always accepts bribes from cops and crooks, and strolls through his Atlantic City casino turf as if he owned it. During a championship bowling match, the U.S. Secretary of Defense is assassinated and all chaos ensues. Santoro takes charge of the investigation. But who killed the Secretary of Defense? And who was the blonde sitting next to him? Was the boxing champ who went down behind it? Or was it Santoro's best friend (Gary Sinise)? If you've seen one conspiracy film, you've seen them all.

"Snake Eyes" is an often visually inventive film - the extraordinary opening sequence is one seemingly 20-minute long take (there is one match cut that I caught) that introduces us to the main characters and everything leading up to the assassination. And yet for all the tricks "Snake Eyes" has up its sleeve, there is nothing for us to chew on afterwards. The unusually simple plot (lazily written by David Koepp) relies on various implausibilities - e.g., how could 14,000 eyewitnesses and various police and security officers not notice a blonde woman with a blood-covered white dress? And I guessed who the perpetrator of this assassination was before it took place.

"Snake Eyes" is the type of film that is nice to look at, but you can anticipate its every preconceived move.

Painterly and still and stiff

GOYA EN BORDEAUX (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2000)

Famed Spanish painter Francisco Goya created paintings of carcasses of pigs, sheep and other animals using dark, vibrant colors (he also painted visions of death using people as well). His life must have been fascinating but you wouldn't know it from watching Carlos Saura's "Goya in Bordeaux," which reveals so little of the man and his art that it may as well be about good old King Henry VIII, if not for the time period and costuming.

The old Goya is played by Francisco Rabal, shown living in exile in France with his caring wife and his mature teenage daughter, Rosario (Daphne Fernandez). Goya reminisces about his past to Rosario, though she has heard these stories countless times before. He speaks of an affair he had with the dangerous Cayetano, Duchess of Alba (Maribel Verdu), who later opposed and was thus poisoned by the Queen Maria Luisa. There are also glimpses into his days as a court painter, his portraits of people he found both significant and otherwise, his increasing deafness, his admiration of Velazquez's "Las Meninas" and the visions of death he had that so haunted him till the end of his life. The younger, middle-aged Goya as shown in these flashbacks is played by Jose Coronado, and he is so charismatic and romantic that one wishes Saura spent more time exploring this actor. Alas, he does not.

"Goya in Bordeaux" is stunningly shot by one of our great cinematographers, Vittorio Storaro (who helmed Saura's previous "Tango," as well as some early Bertolucci), and it is beautifully crafted with various lighting color schemes and silhouettes, as if we were watching a painting unfold before our eyes. Unfortunately, there is barely much illumination into Goya's life and so we get the feeling that we are watching a series of still lifes that shed scarce insight into the man. We mostly see the older Goya fretting and arguing and feeling disoriented by his paintings but that is as far as one gets into his soul. As it is, this film may as well be about any sick old man living in exile.

Plimsouls have more edge than movie

VALLEY GIRL (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is tough to dislike Martha Coolidge's "Valley Girl" - it is easygoing, upbeat and winsome in its attitude. And yet it is nothing more than that. Even for a teen romantic comedy that doesn't aim for sexual innuendoes or gratuitous sex scenes, it is too mild, too laid-back an affair.

Deborah Foreman is Julie, the cute blonde chick of the movie, a Valley Girl high-school student who is getting bored with her schmuck of a boyfriend (Michael Bowen). She sets her eyes on a likable punk named Randy (Nicolas Cage) who doesn't wear pink polo shirts nor does he dance to, well, generic dance music. He is a Plimsouls man, goes to clubs and gets drunk and has sex a lot. He is interested in Julie because she is, well, cute I gather. Actually I did not quite get what the attraction was aside from Foreman having maybe more of an edge than her Valley girlfriends. So Julie and Randy hookup, eat out together, go to the beach, watch Romeo and Juliet at the movies and generally have fun. Unfortunately, Julie's ex is not happy and there is the standard peer pressure about dumping Randy so Julie can reconnect with her clique and get to be Prom Queen or something.

"Valley Girl" is an ostensibly sweet little movie but it is also mediocre and has two leads who have no chemistry together (Cage has never been much of a romantic leading man). It is too simple a movie, too eager to please and ends without ever revving its engine to go somewhere we haven't gone before. The best performances are by Frederic Forrest and Colleen Camp as Julie's parents (and health food shop owners) who are more thoughtful and realistic than most other parents seen in these movies. They want Julie to be happy, to roam free, to be herself. I wish the movie was about them. 

Get Down and Boogie with the Dramatics

DARKTOWN STRUTTERS (1975)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Blaxploitation pictures were crude, humorous, abrupt and violent. "Darktown Strutters" may not be the best parody of such pictures but it does capture the zing, the crudeness and the abruptness so well that it gets a pass as one rollickingly good time at the movies.

Describing this movie may give away some genuine surprises but I'll do my best not to spoil anything. Trina Sparks (whom some may recognize as Thumper from "Diamonds are Forever") is Syreena, the leader of a black Queen motorcycle gang, and she is looking for her mother, Cinderella! Her kung-fu practicing brother has no idea where she is. The pimps don't know either, but maybe a certain Col. Sanders-lookalike chicken tycoon (Norman Bartold) might have some idea. This leads to an underground cave with prisoners, including the Dramatics band performing one of their own show-stopping tunes no less! Added to this farcical hodgepodge of blaxploitation pictures cliches, perhaps a dig at specifically Pam Grier's own films, are racist Keystone Cops that drive police cars with oversized flashing sirens; walls that come toppling down in houses and apartments; a blackface minstrel show in the tycoon's mansion that may leave some offended (oh, well, such scenes were commonplace at one time); drag queens; three kids who harass an ice-cream man by finishing each other's sentences; lots of giant-sized ribs; hilariously speeded-up and anarchic bike chases and car chases that are probably as exciting as the real thing; and a finale involving cloning and a contraption that makes babies that may just leave you in stitches.

"Darktown Strutters" (also known as "Get Down and Boogie") is not for all tastes but its histrionic level of cartoonish tomfoolery coupled with some digs at the genre and, undoubtedly, white L.A. cops left me in good spirits. Almost fifteen years later, we got the similar "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," aimed at parodying the same genre. I'd say a double-bill would be fitting.

Bennifer can make you vomit

GIGLI (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Oh, pity the movie that rhymes with "really." Pity the poor fools who thought that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez could rate as mob enforcers or hit men. Pity the people who thought that sexually explicit jokes are funny if they are not written by Kevin Smith. Oh, and sadly, pity director Martin Brest who thought he could make something artful out of something so artless.

This wasteland of a movie has Ben Affleck as Gigli, a hit man-of-sorts whose job is to kidnap the mentally-challenged brother of a federal prosecutor so that some mafia henchman (Al Pacino) will not get a stiff sentence for whacking people. Gigli is so incompetent that Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) is sent to make sure he does his job correctly. Excuse me? Let's see if I get this right: a lesbian mob enforcer is sent to make sure a hotheaded, arrogant mob enforcer doesn't screw up holding a hostage in his own apartment? Why didn't they just give the job to Ricki? As the movie ensues for an eternity, Ricki and Gigli verbally duel on matters involving sex, sexual preference and sexual orientation. Ricki decides to sleep with Gigli on the same bed, but not make love. Gigli loves to strut and tries to prove his case that heterosexuality should be the preference for everybody. Ricki proves her case by mentioning there are two orifices from which a woman can get pleasure, rendering lesbianism as the sexual preference. It should come as no surprise that Gigli and Ricki do get it on, which proves that lesbians in Hollywood movies eventually put out.

Martin Brest directs these scenes with no flair, no energy, using mostly long lenses. A lot of films nowadays are shot with long lenses, so long in fact that actors and backgrounds often merge in a flat, two-dimensional look. The problem is that these actors are about as interesting as a piece of cardboard. Ben and Jen never convinced me they were mob enforcers. Christopher Walken does a walk-on, Al Pacino shows up and kills somebody in a "Scarface"-like rage, and that's about it. Most of the movie centers on Ben and Jen, formerly Bennifer, chattering away like annoying neighbors. It is a two-hour joke on sexuality with graphic violence thrown in for no real measure. And to think that the director once made "Going in Style," "Beverly Hills Cop," and "Midnight Run," not to mention "Scent of a Woman," is enough to make you vomit when his latest endeavor rhymes with "really."

Fake Movie vs. Real Politics

ARGO (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Ben Affleck had has a wayward career as an actor, riding up and down from Kevin Smith's films to foolhardy decisions such as "Gigli" and "Surviving Christmas" (if you can stand to watch more than ten minutes of the latter, I applaud you). As a director, his career has supercharged and revitalized him, from "Gone Baby Gone" to "The Town." "Argo" is a more ambitious effort, parading around international conflicts in Iran during the 1970's which is a far cry from the Bostonian settings of his first two flicks. Does it work? Yes, but it is not a great movie. However, it is a fittingly suspenseful political thriller of sorts with enough intrigue, drama and a Hollywood satirical subplot to give it a lift. Of course, all this is based on fact, a true story that might've been concocted by a movie studio.

It is 1979 and a cancer-striken Shah of Iran, who wanted to Westernize his country, is ousted. The Ayatollah Khomeini is now in power and many Iranians are sympathetic to his cause and deplore the Westernization of anything, perhaps because it is a reminder of America. Things are awry in Iran - flags are burnt on the streets and the American Embassy is coming apart at the seams when the people decide to break down the fence and windows of the building. 52 Americans are taken hostage while six U.S. State Department officials from the Embassy escape to a Canadian ambassador's house. Then we see Iranian soldiers and children piecing together shredded documents and pictures with the hopes of identifying those six missing Americans.

The international situation is a scandal for the Carter administration and it has to be fixed, but how? CIA officials suggest the Americans flee in bikes but winter is nigh. An experienced CIA operative, Antonio J. Mendez (Ben Affleck), suggests an undercover operation where he can pose as a Hollywood scout seeking Iranian locations for a fictitious sci-fi project called "Argo." The six Americans will pose as a Canadian film crew. It sounds too good to be true but, hey, this is based on a true story.

Director Affleck and writer Chris Terrio have fun with the dynamics of Hollywood meetings in trying to drum up interest in a film that does not exist. Alan Arkin plays a no-nonsense Hollywood producer and the underrated John Goodman is a Hollywood makeup artist, John Chambers, who makes sly comments on the truth of Hollywood moviemaking. Most of these scenes are far more entertaining and involving than the Iranian incident. To be fair, Affleck builds up the tension towards the inevitable climax where the six Americans have to flee by plane (the actual incident did not end up as a chase scene) but it is the middle section involving Iran that doesn't quite jell. It has no real immediacy and no sense of real political strife - to be fair (with the exception of the realistic crowd protest scenes), it could have been set in any country. And when you cast an actress like Clea DuVall and leave her and the other Americans in the dark, you are risking losing interest in a situation that drives the movie. Interest doesn't wane and you want them out of the country, but did all the Iranian soldiers have to be so cartoonish?

Aside from the Hollywood backstory, the scenes that truly work are the CIA briefings and the incredible ignorance of some CIA officials. Bryan Cranston does solid work as the sympathetic but tough CIA chief who gives the dubious mission a go. Victor Garber (a fascinating actor since I first saw him in Atom Egoyan's "Exotica") is the kind Canadian ambassador who keeps calm in a crisis. Ben Affleck is clearly a better director than an actor but he is not bad as the bearded Mendez (charges from critics that an Anglo-Saxon played a Hispanic man are futile - I am Spanish and look as white as snow and the real Mendez is only partly Hispanic). My issue with Affleck is that he is not a charismatic actor and hardly exudes much personality. Of course, you have to keep calm in Iran and not stick out like a sore thumb. That could easily describe the film "Argo" - pleasant and fitfully entertaining time-filler that doesn't try to stand out like a sore thumb or a polemic. Just imagine, though, what someone like Costa-Gravas could have done with this.