3 hours a Tarantino Slave

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Quentin Tarantino's "Southern" film (not western, though it may as well be) is a crackerjack blast of heightened fumes, and it is sometimes a painfully uneven picture. It has a majorly supercharged cast and lots of pointed, delectable dialogue and bizarrely intense situations but it falls on its face when it decides, with brief bursts, to be allegedly both comedic and dramatic. Whereas "Inglourious Basterds" dealt with Nazis and war cliches by fusing them without losing sight of a consistent tone, "Django Unchained" has a wildly inconsistent tone. Despite that, it is one hell of a mean, demonic ride at the movies.

Set in the Antebellum South pre-Civil War, Django is a slave who is rescued by a former dentist and active bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who is looking for a partner to help locate murderous robbers. Dr. Schultz carries wanted posters and a wallet while armed with a gun under his sleeve. Django goes along for the ride, learning how to kill and maim the enemies while being a free slave. The last thing anybody has ever seen in the Deep South is a black man on a horse, and this notion is carried out through the rest of the film. Django strikes a deal with Schultz to help find Django's enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). She is working for the flamboyant and vicious plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who deliciously plays a seething villain) and Django plans to rescue her. Easier said than done.

"Django Unchained" lets loose with whiplash cinematic flair as only Tarantino can, but his setpieces are not nearly as loud or grandiose as anything in the "Kill Bill" volumes or "Inglourious Basterds." Tarantino holds back this time, and sometimes mutes the energy of comical scenes that should be hysterical. The KKK clan who wear unsophisticated hoods over their heads struck me as humorous yet hollow, much like a similar sequence from the Coens' deadening and laborious "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" A startling flashback with Bruce Dern who sentences Django to a chain gang strikes the right chord but that is the QT's trademark - Tarantino knows how to engineer the intensity at feverish levels. Leaving aside comical bits (like Django's rather unflattering costume with ruffles that is not played up much), Tarantino also shows scenes of slaves eaten by dogs, Mandingo fighting where one is beaten to death with fists and a hammer (the term "Mandingo" was not coined at that time and comes from a film with that title), and whippings of slaves by their slave masters (though there is nothing here as graphic as "12 Years a Slave"). Such scenes are imposed into the narrative to perhaps show the grave brutality of a particularly brutal time, but they do not mesh with the spaghetti western theatrics that figure prominently in the film. I expect to see gunfire in a Tarantino movie but a movie like this at times borders on the cartoonish and the comical. I am not talking "Blazing Saddles" comedy hijinks here but the humor doesn't balance well with the realistic torture we are occasionally privy to. "Inglourious Basterds" is a whole other kettle of fish where the brief bouts of realistic violence (Nazis beaten with bats) were never played out throughout the film - they meshed with earlier scenes of violence because neither depiction was too cartoonish. With "Django," Tarantino seems to be stuck between making serious parallels to slavery and associations with a playful, slightly comical, heightened style a la Sergio Leone.

Performances range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Christoph Waltz once again proves that he knows how to handle Tarantino dialogue better than most other actors - his presence alone is phantasmagoric and magical (it is a 180 from his evil Landa in "Basterds"). Leonardo DiCaprio is a frightening Satanic Candie and his last half-hour where he tries to manipulate our heroes is pure genius to watch. Samuel L. Jackson plays an exceedingly tough house slave who grows suspicious of Broomhilda and Django. Jamie Foxx exudes toughness and a tinge of sadness (particularly when he sees how the slaves are treated) as Django that makes this one of his better roles since 2004's "Ray." Only Kerry Washington falls short of fully realizing her character - looks like she got the shaft in the editing. Nice to see character actor greats Don Stroud and Lee Horsley in a movie again. But why do we see Amber Tamblyn so fleetingly? Actually, I did not even spot Russ Tamblyn and blink and you will miss Ted Neely, the Jesus of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And can we please dispense with the QT playing any sort of role in his movies?

Do not get me wrong with this review. Aside from its flaws, "Django Unchained" is still a solid, entertaining, and compelling effort by Tarantino and it is original and spiked with enough flavor to render it as a middleweight in between the ranks of the director's crowning achievements. Despite the occasional unevenness of its violence, the movie gets better and better as it rolls along to a truly infernal finish that will leave you breathless.  Just don't say you weren't warned with the nastier parts.

The Cliched Sounds of Death in the Hills

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2007)

Like most recent remakes, "The Hills Have Eyes" has no real reason for its existence other than to annoy and frustrate. I love the original film for its starkness and grittiness (a reason some of the 70's low- budget shockers worked so well). This redux of the Wes Craven classic has some shock value and some gore, but it lacks the punch to the gut the original delivered.

The film begins with a cliched opening credits montage where we see authentic photos of deformed babies frantically cut with blood imagery and real atomic blasts, all set to the tune of Web Pierce's "More and More." The remake of "Dawn of the Dead" had something similar in crosscutting newsreel footage with faux news reportage but it felt more inspired - in this film, it is nothing short of uninspired. Nevertheless, it sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Carter family is on a trip by stationwagon and trailer to California when they stop by a New Mexico gas station and are tended to by a grizzled attendant (played by the great character actor Tom Bower), who insists there is a faster way to get to the highway. Of course, this detour is actually a deathtrap where cannibals live in the hills and are ready for a massacre. There will be a couple of survivors and the rest will die, begging the question why nobody thought the gas station attendant might have been a little too creepy (especially keeping a purse in his little home).

The Carter family is comprised of the patriarch (Ted Levine), a former cop aching to be a security guard; the matriarch (Kathleen Quinlan, obviously in for the easy paycheck and a visit to Morocco, which is where this film was shot); the eldest daughter (Vinessa Shaw) who has a new beau in her life, a Democrat wimp (Aaron Stanford); a younger, teenage daughter (Emilie de Ravin) who loves her iPod; and their son (Dan Byrd) who has no qualms about picking up a gun (thanks to Papa Carter). Naturally, when trouble starts brewing, cell phones don't work (hey, they are in the desert near an atomic testing site) but CB radios work like a charm. And there are those typical family squabbles, such as Republican Papa Carter disapproving of a wussy, pussy like his daughter's husband.

In terms of blood and gore, it is piled on excessively. For the first forty-five minutes (excepting the pre-credit sequence), there is no gore until we get a rape scene, shots to the head, a dog is killed in a manner not unlike the opening of "Cabin Fever," another character delivers a shotgun blast to his own head, another one is burned alive, and so on. You've seen it all before, though never quite as nasty in its execution, pardon the pun. When the movie is over, you'll remember the violence and nothing more. Granted, the original "Hills Have Eyes" was not especially different but it had urgency and you felt these cannibals and their victims were not automatons (Remember Michael Berryman, whose visage was so scary that it become the selling point of the film?). Here, one bloody, visceral thrill with bloody entrails every few minutes doesn't equal suspense or any real scares. And if I have to hear another person scaring someone else with that accompanying and grating musical cue of crashing cymbals, I will gag.

The cinematography by Maxime Alexandre is quite amazing, especially the wide, high-angle shot of the crater with abandoned vechicles. To be fair, the final ten minutes have some shock value (including seeing a cannibal with a John Merrick-sized head). The actors, though, seem to exist in a vacuum of vacuousness. Unlike the original film with its Manson-style murders and memorable final freeze-frame that implied the victims are no different than the monsters, this remake will have you running for the hills all right, without anything to latch onto. At least, it is better than Wes Craven's abominable "The Hills Have Eyes Part II."

No longer a haunting at that Long Island home

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Whether it is a cruddy sequel or prequel makes no difference - "Amityville II: The Possession" bears little relation to the original 1979 shocker or the actual events that transpired long before the real-life Lutzes (the inspiration behind the original book) moved in to that dreaded Long Island home. Although it is not as sleep-inducing as the original film, it resembles more of an "Exorcist" redux at best.

A new family named the Montellis move into the Amityville house with those eerie windows. There is a force within the house that even the movers feel - basically, it is wind that penetrates walls and turns crucifixes upside down. It also turns water into blood and back into water. It ruffles Mama Montelli's shoulders when she is in the basement. Papa Montelli (Burt Young) is already an abusive lout who hates church and supposedly hates all four of his kids and his Catholic wife (Rutanya Alda) - his character is practically cut out of the latter part of the film. Seriously though, what a nice family.

As for the Montelli kids, there is Sonny Montelli (Jack Magner), the older sibling who clearly has a thing for his sister, Patricia (Diane Franklin of "The Last American Virgin" and "Better Off Dead" fame). They share one particular scene that develops with tension and unease as Sonny gingerly gets his sister to disrobe for him - it is the one scene that is handled tastefully if not honestly in the entire movie. There are two younger siblings, a younger brother and sister, who love each other as siblings should without any incestuousness.

If "Amityville II" had handled such difficult material for a mainstream horror flick with such restraint, it might have worked as something more than a casual retread of "The Exorcist." Though this is supposedly based on the terrifying true case of murders within the DeFeo family, the movie skimps on reality and assumes that a demon made Sonny kill his family (to be fair, the real-life shooter Ronald DeFeo initially claimed he was possessed). The house in Amityville is not actually haunted this time; it is more of a malevolent demonic force that occasionally knocks on the front door in the middle of the night and speaks to Sonny via his Walkman!  Then we get the actual shootings by Sonny (with a distorted, demonic face) that remains the most chilling sequence in the entire film. Of course, the actual shootings from the book (Hans Hozer's "Murder in Amityville") claimed that Ronald shot his family while they slept in separate rooms.

Then the movie belabors for another half-hour with the priest (James Olson) trying to convince the police department (including a detective played by Moses Gunn) to let Sonny go and be exorcised at his parish. The movie becomes sillier and more convoluted leading to anything but an actual exorcism. More like a cleansing.

I was never a fan of "The Amityville Horror" but I am fascinated by the book and the bizarre DeFeo family murders. Dino DeLaurentis produced this so-called prequel when in fact it is more of a sequel (the 80's look by way of automobiles and a Sony Walkman) but it doesn't even retain the original's infrequent eerieness. Italian director Damiano Damiani keeps the camera moving and tilting and zigzagging but there is no unifying sense of fright or chills. The actors recoil at bloodsoaked horrors in the kitchen and the bedrooms without the slighest hint of surprise at what they are witnessing. I would be more than willing to leave a house where there is so much blood coming out of a faucet and an unexplained mural in the kids' bedroom with writings that say: "Kill the pigs." Jack Magner does come close to evoking a certain kind of steely menacing look crossed with a little bit of charm. Other than that, this Amityville sequel's singular purpose was to make the bee-line for the box-office.

Wolf of Wall Street is not porn!

SEX, DRUGS AND...MORE SEX AND MORE DRUGS (but that is not all)

By Jerry Saravia

"The Wolf of Wall Street" may very well be the most divisive film of director Martin Scorsese's career. I thought audiences were going to tune out from this film because it deals with a former Wall Street broker who scammed millions from the 98% and the richest 1%. It opened on Christmas Day, a day associated with the celebration of the human spirit and the birth of Jesus, not the celebration of a Satanic Caligula dressed up in modern clothes having sex with every hooker and consuming endless lines of cocaine. But what I thought was going to be a box-office bust wound up doing pretty well the past couple of weeks, scoring more than 68 million in box-office revenues, just behind the newest "Hobbit" flick. However, any time a film biography arrives, especially one this incendiary and passionate, the naysayers come out in full force. A few critics loved the film (I count myself as a supporter) but some critics, like David Edelstein and Michael Philips, have taken issue with the depiction of Jordan Belfort's excessive lifestyle. One of the first scenes in the film is Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) receiving oral sex in his Ferrari. Not too long after, he snorts coke from a woman's anus! Much later, Belfort's cronies have an office sex party where each male waits in line to have sex with a hooker. Sometimes it is a female worker at Belfort's Stratton Oakmont offices who delivers oral pleasure to every worker, and even marries one of them! Jordan has sex with his trophy wife (Margot Robbie) more than three times, and a scene where he forces himself on her has been criticized as a rape scene. I will not forget to mention there are a few shots of erect penises and vaginas as well, unusual for a R-rated film (Scorsese did trim some sex scenes to avoid getting a NC-17 rating).

Then there are the drugs, copious amounts. Cocaine is snorted with dollar bills and snorted on women's orifices. Matthew McConaughey, playing Belfort's first boss, snorts it at a business lunch as common ritual practice. Quaaludes figures prominently in the latter half of the film, quite hilariously during an extended sequence where Belfort tries to get inside his car by dragging himself literally in the street! Jonah Hill, playing Belfort's crummiest employee and confidante, also does his share of quaaludes including some from an expired date where it takes longer for the effects to be felt.

This depiction of Jordan Belfort's exorbitant lifestyle has been deemed as accurate by former friends of his and others who have crossed his path. But no one has discussed the copious amounts of shots of money. Money is flung into wastebaskets, flung at FBI agents, strapped around a female with tape and, a cliched shot to be sure, thrown into a bed where lovemaking occurs. The idea is that Belfort made so much money, he did not know what to do with it. That should make people angry - after all, he took from his investors who dabbled into penny stocks and larger stocks without ever giving anything back. Belfort gets away with it because he has a lethally persuasive charm and it helps that Leonardo DiCaprio plays the role with more vigor and passion than almost any other role he has ever played. DiCaprio persuades us to take this trip with him, but he is not always likable. Belfort punches his trophy wife in the stomach, takes his kid away and almost gets killed in the process. Belfort has been investigated by the FBI and decides to do rat out his friends, thus receiving a light jail sentence. Of course his own confidante (Jonah Hill), who gets wind that the party is over, decides to rat out Belfort.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" has also been criticized as ignoring the victims of Belfort's scams and schemes. But this is based on Belfort's two bestselling-books, and he never expresses sympathy for them in the books either (until recently, in the last few years, where he expressed disgust over his lifestyle, thus all profits from the books and the film have been given to the victims as part of his legal restitution). Ignoring the victims from Belfort's point-of-view fuels the flames of resentment towards Wall Street and all the Bernie Madoff's of the world.

The notion behind Scorsese's "Wolf" is to characterize this guy as scum, a rotten, money-grubbing individual who, in one scene where he flips the bird to a cold caller whom he later calls a loser, loves money and nothing else. By observing his flamboyant lifestyle and his endless motivational speeches to his crew (Belfort is now a legal motivational speaker), we see a swindler, a con artist who is unapologetic from first frame to last. Viewers who walk out (a twitter account has been established for this purpose) on "Wolf" because it is too excessive or maybe too boring (though I can't see how) are missing the film's acerbic humor (the Golden Globes have nominated the film for Best Comedy). You can call "Wolf of Wall Street" whatever you want but it is definitely not porn nor is it a comfortable movie experience, but there are more than a few funny lines. "Wolf of Wall Street" is an indictment of a man who stole from the rich and the middle-class to give to himself. An observation of what Jordan Belfort is rather than who he is has pretty much defined Scorsese's cinematic career - he divulges insights based on behavioral study. All this talk of too much sex, too much profane language and too much drug-ingesting neglects the bigger issues.

Hang on by your fingertips

CLIFFHANGER (1993)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sylvester Stallone has had a wayward career when it comes to action flicks. He never got beyond action thrillers like some of his contemporaries did, such as Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis. Stallone has never proven to be a solid actor though he does have oodles of charisma. For every "Rambo" and "Rocky" picture, there was a "Rhinestone" or a "Over the Top" or even worse, "Stop! Or My Mom will Shoot." In 1993, Stallone made a brief resurgence in the mainstream with the occasionally effective and downright preposterous "Cliffhanger," a movie that is so completely implausible that you simply have to give up logic and go full speed ahead with it.

Stallone is Gabe Walker, a superhuman rock climber who is part of a rescue mission to help stranded folk who get caught in areas deep in the mountains. At the start of the film, there is Gabe's buddy, Hal (Michael Rooker) and his girlfriend, the latter who gets her hooks unfastened while suspended on a rope between two cliffs and falls to her death. Gabe tried to save her but failed, though it wasn't his fault. Meanwhile, a few treasury agents get mixed up in a plot with a nefarious madman (the always scenery-chewing John Lithgow) to steal millions in cash from a U.S. Treasury plane by using a wire rope extended from their own plane! Naturally, a few people get killed, their plane careens out of control through some thick brush, and the villains end up in the mountains with suitcases of cash stuck somewhere in the snowy pikes. Guess who is going to accompany the villains on their mission to find the cash? Why Gabe and his buddy Hal, of course, but they are having a tough time getting over their past history over a certain girl's death.

You want action and you got it in "Cliffhanger." There are several chases through the snowy hills, extensive climbing, lots of shootings, lots of fireballs, a cave full of bats, icy caverns, etc. But there is also a general sense of nastiness and plenty of gore. We get several beatings in the film with punches and kicks so curiously amplified in digital sound that you wonder how nobody ever breaks a bone in their body. There is a scene in icy waters where a barechested Stallone is underwater and manages to shoot the bad guy. Someone even gets impaled on a stalactite - that's an inventive killing method. There are even two scenes where bullets are fired from a machine gun yet they are not heard - some operatic music plays on the soundtrack instead. But the heavy gore and reliance on pure meanness leaves a bad taste.

I shouldn't leave out Janine Turner as Jessie, another rock climber who loves Gabe. Turner is so unconvincing as his love interest, however, that whatever magical spark existed in "Northern Exposure" is missing here. I will say that, outside of Talia Shire, Stallone has never convinced me to be any woman's dream come true so that may be partially his fault.

As directed by Renny Harlin, "Cliffhanger" is still marginally effective as a "Die Hard" clone but it lacks a compelling hero. Stallone has the stuff of an action hero but he is more muted and expressionless than usual. And scenes where he is forced to climb those rocks wearing nothing but a T-shirt in zero-below weather really strains credibility - by the looks of it, Gabe would've suffered from hypothermia and have died. But then we wouldn't have a movie.

Over-the-hill Don Juan

BROKEN FLOWERS (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Jim Jarmursch is the very definition of quirky and offbeat. Consider films like "Stranger than Paradise," "Mystery Train," "Down By Law," "Dead Man," and "Night on Earth." They are all films of people finding themselves in an existential world - loneliness pervades their existence. That is clearly felt in "Broken Flowers," which may very well be the definitive Jim Jarmusch film. It is a heartfelt, quiet, wonderful drama with comedic overtones that is so understated, it qualifies as something of a small masterpiece.

The laconic Bill Murray is perfect as Don Johnston, a retiree living alone in his house, spending his time watching old movies. He made his fortune from computers yet he doesn't own one. His last girlfriend (Julie Delpy) has moved out since she is tired of Don's need to have a mistress rather than a wife and a family ("You are an over-the-hill Don Juan"). So he is alone, tired and perhaps emotionally spent. His next-door Ethiopian neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), is a detective mystery fanatic and wants to perhaps inject some spice in Don's life.

One day, Don finds a pink envelope with a note from some anonymous past girlfriend that claims he bore a son with her, and the now 19-year-old son is coming to look for him. Since there is no return address, Don can only think of his past conquests and love affairs. But who is it? Winston suggests that Don visit every former girlfriend to find his son, and does all the Internet research of finding their addresses.

So Don reluctantly travels to meet them and perhaps find his son (and the typewriter used to type the note). He travels by plane and rental car to each destination. First there is Laura (Sharon Stone), a professional organizer, and her typically nude daughter named Lolita - strike one. Then there is Dora (Frances Conroy), who is married, has no kids and sells real estate - strike two. Strike three is Carmen (Jessica Lange), a former lawyer who communicates with animals and has no son. Finally we get to Penny (Tilda Swinton), an angry woman living in seemingly squalor conditions who clearly hates Don. Well, three strikes and you are out.

Part of the pleasure of "Broken Flowers" is the anticipation of Don finding his son, not necessarily of Don reuniting with the mother, whoever it may be. And that pleasure is increased hundred-fold with Bill Murray. Murray's resistance to overstatement or rolling his eyes in disbelief has nurtured his work in recent films such as "Rushmore" and "Lost in Translation." Here, he gives his most nuanced, understated performance as Don, a man seeking answers to his past when he should consider the present. The fact that he finally does reach the end of his emotionally exasperating journey is a testament to Bill Murray who could have overplayed emotional reactions or facial tics with ease, as he has in the underappreciated "Scrooged." He wisely chooses not to - he is like a silent comedian. His body language, his gestures, give ample indication of what this man is thinking from moment to moment. No sentiment is required.

Jarmusch finds a rhythm in this film that is as close to poetic as anyone can get. From his typical fades to black after each segment and his minimalist use of camera movement, "Broken Flowers" slowly and suspense-fully reaches a conclusion that will leave you breathless. From Sharon Stone's sly smile to Don almost flirting with a flower shop female clerk to Winston's wife always greeting Don with a sunny smile, "Broken Flowers" is the kind of film that can be enjoyed for its leisurely rhythms and charms (and there are a few laughs too). But it is also a sad, observant, reflective film of a man who has somehow lost his passion, not just for women but for anything. Don't be surprised if you shed a tear at the end.

Jarmusch's ghost of a chance

GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2001)

It pains me to write off Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" as half-baked, but it truly is. It is also a half-cooked and undernourished tale of a cold-blooded hit man with little or no sense of individuality.

Ghost Dog is the name of the hit man (Forest Whitaker), a lone wolf in an urban wasteland who performs hits for the mob. Basically, Ghost Dog is the retainer but he carries no phone and seems to have no mailing address. His only contact in the outside world is through a pigeon carrier that sends notes back and forth to his "master." You see Ghost Dog was once saved by this mob affiliate, referred to as the master, and now he has paid him back his respect by killing people for a living. Ghost Dog also avidly reads the ways of the Samurai, figuring his sense of loyalty and his brand of violence stems from it. He couldn't be more wrong as both are tested to the limit when a hit goes awry and now the mob want to kill the elusive, enigmatic hit man.

"Ghost Dog" tries to be a fusion of hip-hop and gangster cliches coupled with Jarmusch's own brand of poetry, mixing in the urban wasteland of the titled character with the sense of grace and freedom as witnessed by several shots of birds above tenements. There are many scenes of beauty and grace and all are succinctly photographed by Robby Muller (who also shot the beautiful black-and-white "Dead Man," also directed by Jarmusch). Jarmusch, however, is not a stickler for narrative consistency and fails to bring any inner life to the crucial character of Ghost Dog.

How are we suppose to view this man? As played with panache and glum looks by Forest Whitaker (who also played a similar character in "Diary of a Hitman"), Ghost Dog is the classic Man With No Name character with no real background or real sense of individuality. He seems to bond with the local French ice-cream truck vendor and with a young girl who likes to read books such as "Frankenstein" but, essentially, this man has no friends and no family. All he has are his nest of pigeons and his loyalty to the so-called master whom he hardly sees much of. In an ironic twist, Ghost Dog gets paid only once a year and always during the first day of autumn as part of his contract by the master. Rarely do we get a glimpse of any humanity in the character - as played by Whitaker, he is a hooded hulk bereft of emotion or purpose other than to kill. He may lack individuality and truly has erroneous views on what being a samurai is next to being a cold-blooded hit man, but coldness and detachment seem central to the character. I simply felt nothing, not even pity, for this remorseless man. Why did he choose to lead such a life?

The film has some virtues, such as the casting of Cliff Gorman as the second-in-command of the mob who has trouble keeping up the rent for a Chinese restaurant backroom. I also enjoyed the scenes where Whitaker bonds with the French-speaking ice-cream truck vendor whom he never understands yet reiterates exactly what the other says. The violence is strong and brief, and there is a fine moment where a drainpipe is used as an unusual method of shooting someone (a moment lifted from Godard's "A Band Apart"). I also enjoyed seeing the exhausted gangsters trying to find the hit man, going from one tenement to another and coming up empty. It is also nice to see Jarmusch leaving his main character mute for the first forty-five minutes, thus allowing us to watch a man who is coming apart at the seams through Whitaker's expressive, haunting face. Unfortunately, just when a glimmer of hope appears at the end, we are still left with the same glum Ghost Dog we started with.