Preciousness dialed up to the Wes Anderson channel

MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Moonrise Kingdom" is a such a tightly knit piece of preciousness that it almost chokes itself on its own brand of preciousness. In some ways, it redefines preciousness as something akin to magical sense memories - the kind that only director Wes Anderson could craft. There are no real notes of emotion in the entire film, yet maybe that is by design because I still found myself entranced by "Moonrise Kingdom." It never bored me, unlike Anderson's "Darjeeling Limited," and the cast is appealing enough and the story takes enough twists and turns to keep anyone entertained. But it still might be too precious.

Set in the mid-1960's, Wes takes us to some new territory - a New England town called New Penzance. A Khaki Boy Scout is missing and the troop and its Scout Master (Edward Norton) are having trouble locating the boy. It turns out the boy, Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), is an orphan and his adopted parents do not want the boy to return to their house, if he is ever located. This being the 1960's where cell phones did not exist and kids were known to roam free for days without causing too much heartbreak, or maybe a little, the search is on by the Troop Master and the Island Police Captain Duffy Sharp (Bruce Willis). There is another disappearance - a 12-year-old girl named Suzy (Kara Hayward), who happens to be pen pals with Sam and they meet and camp together in the most beautiful island you can imagine seeing. Love is in the air and innocence of another kind prevails.

Most of "Moonrise Kingdom" centers on the lovestruck couple and, for a while, Anderson maintains comic momentum and deliciously clever and funny dialogue. Most notable is Edward Norton who demonstrates a gift for comical ebullience, especially when he does a spot check on every Boy Scout before sitting down for breakfast. Gilman and Hayward play the sweetest preteen couple I've seen at the movies in a while - they look and feel like they sprang from a wonderful storybook of summer innocence. The movie made me think back to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer's adventures with Becky and that is a good thing. When we switch back to the adults, "Moonrise Kingdom" loses its grasp of what it is doing best - exemplifying the idea of a kid being a kid and discovering love and the outdoors. Bruce Willis doesn't register at all - it is like he is stuck in a cocoon though he has some humorous moments when he contacts Social Services (played by Conan - I mean, Tilda Swinton). Frances McDormand and Bill Murray, playing Suzy's eccentric parents, do little to evoke a smile from me - they exist in a frigid world of frigid manners (Anderson's "Royal Tenenbaums" did far better with its own frigid adults by finding their souls). The adults in this film, excepting Norton's Scout Master, are soulless and distance us from the central story. Since they are not always seen from the kids' point-of-view, I do not understand why they need to play such inanimate people.

"Moonrise Kingdom" is warmer and funnier when dealing with Sam and Suzy, two lovebirds who are discovering puberty. There is a sunny disposition about them that felt magical and sweet. As I wrote earlier, the film practically chokes itself on its preciousness - it seems like a world that can't possibly exist and one I would not mind visiting despite everything being too tidy, too perfect in its vision of a magical, precious land where nothing too epic or problematic occurs. The kids make it tangible and Anderson thinks big and crafts his customary widescreen shots where everything is nearly symmetrical. The adults intrude upon the magic yet, despite its lapses and occasional lulls, "Moonrise Kingdom" is still a candy-colored treat.

LockHeed Martin or Marilyn Manson?

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2003)

Michael Moore's latest documentary, "Bowling for Columbine," is a mess but it is the kind of mess one can glean great insight from. It is a frustrating, provocative and often powerful document of America's fascination with violence and guns. Many may scoff at its connections with larger issues but let's face it: nobody makes a compelling statement like Michael Moore.

The film begins with the scruffy Moore, wearing his trademark baseball cap, applying for a bank account at a Michigan bank. Nothing too strange except that when you open a specific account, you can receive a rifle as a special gift! It turns out that this bank is also a licensed firearms dealer! And so begins Moore's investigation into America's heartland of guns. We meet a LockHeed Martin representative who explains that he sees no connection between their weapons factory and the events of the Columbine massacre, despite the fact that LockHeed and Martin is in Littleton. Is there a connection? Of course not. But the mere fact that a weapons factory manufactures missiles that can be used in the event of a war paints a larger picture of this country's fascination with anything that can destroy human life. What if the Columbine killers were influenced by LockHeed and Martin and decided to wipe out all students at the local school? Okay, so we know that is not the case. As Moore indicates, nobody will ever know why they did it, but since we all need scapegoats to justify human behavior, then why not the President instead of shock-rocker Marilyn Manson? Manson, in a wonderful segment, says that people should have listened to the victims of Columbine. Yet how do we separate former President Clinton's own bombing of Kosovo the same night of the Columbine massacre? Perhaps Americans are conditioned to accept any leader's violent reactions to another impoverished, Third World country, thus it is easy to pick a target like Marilyn Manson who can influence young minds. Let's not forget that a recurring image in the media at that time was Leonardo Di Caprio wearing a black trenchcoat and shooting students in his class in a violent fantasy sequence from "The Basketball Diaries," a film released four years before Columbine. Did DiCaprio influence these teen killers or is he only an easy scapegoat? Or is it the media that has more influence since they greatly influence our minds?

Moore wants to place violence in a larger context, trying to discover why America is the most violent country in the world. We learn in Canada that thousands carry firearms yet there is hardly much violence, and citizens keep their doors unlocked! The local Canadian news hardly ever features any murders as their main topics. In this country, we are conditioned to fear everything, including our next-door neighbors. We keep our doors locked! Our country's history is suffused with violence and paranoia. Today there are more violent movies and violent TV programs than ever before. However, in Japan, there is just as much violent entertainment and yet there are only a reported 65 deaths a year. Compare that statistic to this country where there are more than 11,000 deaths a year!

And yet Moore doesn't stop there. We get a staggeringly emotional montage of clips from chaotic global events like Chile, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to the tragic 9/11 event where Moore makes it clear that terrorist leader Bin Laden had CIA training, along with the Taliban. Is that why it is so hard to find him? Hmm. The mind boggles. We also see a hysterically funny and pointed animated montage of America's rise from the pilgrims to the present day. There are also interviews with the creator of the "COPS" show, Terry Nichols' brother (the former responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing), Michigan hunters, K-Mart employees who sell bullets, Dick Clark, Columbine citizens, Michigan teachers at the school where a six-year-old girl was shot by a boy the same age and last, if not least, NRA president and movie legend Charlton Heston who declares that "mixed ethnicity" is the real culprit of violence in this country. Ouch!

I wouldn't doubt that Michael Moore staged certain scenes and not others (as he has in the past). When Moore shows Heston a photograph of the six-year-old girl, I was mortified only because the blame is not concrete (that scene is flawed in that Moore denounces Heston for having a gun rally only days after the violent incident in the same town). I still feel that moment is staged in some way, if nothing else, for Moore's own ego. The Dick Clark moment certainly looks real enough, as does the Heston scene, but the opening bank sequence, which is startlingly funny, looks staged.

One arguable notion missing from "Bowling for Columbine" is that in the early 90's, there was a lack of shame, guilt and consequences for any action, including murder - the feeling that anyone could get away with anything, and sometimes did. That is what the highly controversial "Natural Born Killers" is all about. The lack of shame seeped into the culture in such a way that alleged killer O.J. Simpson got away with murder. We need to start analyzing the media, which Moore does, and re-educate our children before they start to think violence is okay.

"Bowling for Columbine" is often powerful and riveting, and it will make you think about our culture of violence and around the world in ways few movies ever do. I sense that Moore stretches credibility at times, and plays with the documentary form (news which may not please Academy voters), but we can't help but admire him for raising issues that need to be raised. If this is what it takes to get the ball rolling, then so be it.

Former Scrubs star makes good

GARDEN STATE (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in August, 2004)

"Garden State" is the offbeat charmer that is only seen by a handful of people (though it may be gain some box-office status), and its charm and gradual shift in tone can only be appreciated by those with patience to spare. I admire the film and I think writer-director Zach Braff has great potential, but "Garden State" falls somewhat short. There is a lot to admire but it fails to deliver the true emotional payoff I believe it was aiming for.

Zach Braff plays Andrew Largeman, an L.A. actor and a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant (where, of course, they serve no bread). He seems to live an isolated existence, nicely exemplified by an overhead shot of Andrew's pristinely white bedroom with no furniture. He gets a message from his estranged father (Ian Holm) reporting that his mother died drowning in her bathtub. Andrew returns to the garden state, good old New Jersey to the rest of you, goes to his mother's funeral, meets some of his old friends, and purposely avoids communicating with his father. We learn that Andrew's father is also his psychiatrist and has put his son on lithium and other anti-depressants for many years. The reason is that Andrew had inadvertently paralyzed his mother.

When Andrew returns home, he is in a perfunctory stupor - as if he was a stranger in a strange land. At the mother's funeral, one of the family's friends sings "Three Times a Lady" as part of her eulogy. Andrew's friend, Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), works at the local cemetery and lives at home with his mother. Another of Andrew's friends has made millions by inventing noiseless velcro. All anyone seems to do in Andrew's age range is party, play "spin the bottle," smoke pot and consume ecstasy. That is until Andrew meets Sam (Natalie Portman), a pathological liar and a very content young woman. Her home life seems to be the kind you would find in New Jersey - there is a hamster and fish cemetery and bright colors around the house. Since Andrew has stopped taking medication, he has become more lively, more attuned to his life, and no doubt that Sam has helped engineer that as well.

As you can see, "Garden State" develops into a film involved with characters living with their foibles and eccentricities. There are also episodes where the term offbeat really comes into play. For example, there is a guy who works at a Middle Ages restaurant where he has to dress as a knight, and is dressed in full armor at the kitchen table. Mark keeps trading cards of the Gulf War and other collectibles so he can eventually sell it all and make a living. The noiseless velcro guy has a huge house with no furniture. There is a boat that sits at the top of a quarry. A shirt's design matches the wallpaper in a room. Andrew and Sam's only noticeable quirks is their growing love for each other.

But at the end of "Garden State," I felt somehow underwhelmed by the experience. Braff's Andrew undergoes major changes - he is on a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness. And the ending cheats him in a Hollywood resolution that is anticlimactic. Since the film follows Andrew's point-of-view, we are guided along by this journey with him, seeing the slow transition from indifference to acceptance and acknowledgment of the people in his life. The problem is the movie treats the character as someone who is overcome with love for Sam, rather than the real love he's been developing for himself.

On a positive note, Zach Braff and Natalie Portman play the cutest couple in a movie in some time. Braff shows his character's inner life with reserve and nuanced touches of humor - he's got the stuff to be a major actor (he can be seen on TV's "Scrubs"). Portman easily steals the film from everyone with her resplendent smile and her emotional outbursts - it is as a good a performance as you can imagine, though her character is underwritten. The point is that Braff and Portman are believable as a couple at every turn, except for that ending.

"Garden State" is an impressive debut for Zach Braff. He's also a fairly good writer, showing humanity, intelligence, compassion and laughs in equal measure. As a director, he has not shown his flair for the visual side just yet - in this film, New Jersey looks like Anywhere, USA. Still, he knows how to coax a performance out of anyone (for the record, Natalie Portman looks more animated than in either of the last two "Star Wars" flicks). And there may be one or two superfluous gags involving dogs, and I would loved more time spent on Andrew's father. In the end, "Garden State" is a hell of a good start.

Synthetic food for thought

SOYLENT GREEN (1973)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first saw "Soylent Green" over twenty years ago, I always remembered the green haze in the city of the future and the Soylent Green food as something other than edible. Twenty years later with SNL and Simpsons mocking the cult film, I see a decent, memorable film here that is unintentionally amusing and, strangely, somehow hypnotic.

Set in the year 2022, it is New York City as a futuristic, overpopulated dystopia - a nightmarish vision that is mostly seen in daylight. The sun beams hard on this city, though a green smog fills it (sort of like China). People have a hard time finding apartments so they all sleep in apartment staircases or fill up the local church by sleeping on bunk beds and on the pews. Every Tuesday is Soylent Green day where a green wafer-thin food substance is served free to the people on the streets. Why this peculiar food item? Because the masses want it and it is all that is available to them. Jugs of water are filled on the street for the people. Essentially, the mass population of poor people are treated like dirt, left to mostly squander and survive on their own.

A stocky Charlton Heston plays Detective Thorn who lives like the poor, though he shares an apartment with his wise friend and police researcher, Sol (played by the late Edward G. Robinson). Thorn investigates the murder of William Simonson (Joseph Cotten), the head of Soylent Enterprises. Initially the murder is thought to be committed by a burglar but Thorn knows better - he thinks the man was assassinated. Thorn also knows how to screw up a crime scene since he washes his face with soap and steals some liquor, meat and vegetables - of course, the benefits of real food and real tap water for anyone in this dystopia who isn't rich is like winning the lottery (strawberry jars, for example, are $150 each). There is also Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), a prostitute referred to as "furniture" (ouch!) who lived with Simonson - every time she speaks, it is in whispering tones. But this murder leads to some sort of conspiracy involving Soylent Green corporation and how they produce their synthetic foods. The final twist may not come as a shocker but it will leave a knot in your stomach.

Director Richard Fleischer does well with staging riot scenes and crowd scenes in general. The sense of overpopulation in New York is also well-presented - you get a real sense of clutter, ubiquitous litter and the empty streets at night surrounded by towering skyscrapers. And though the green smog is clearly shot with a green filter, it almost makes you feel queasy.

Not so well-handled is the casting of Charlton Heston. I always saw Heston as a man who insisted on macho authority as if he willed it from his steel chin, those Moses eyes and his large, invincible chest. He not only seemed like Moses in most every role he ever played - he was Moses. Someone as iconically authoritative as Heston makes the sci-fi trappings of "Soylent Green" seem miniscule and unimportant. Perhaps that is the point but Heston always seems too larger-than- life. That is why he fit so well in "The Omega Man" - he spent most of the movie isolated from existence and encountering albino, flesh-eating mutants! That was more apropos for the titanic, muscular giant that Heston was.

Heston is still watchable but the mood and the purposeful snail-pace of "Soylent Green" accentuates the hypnotic quality of it. Edward G. Robinson makes us listen to his every word, especially in his last, touching scene that is sure to make you well up a little. Hardly a perfect film, "Soylent Green" is consistently despairing in its bleak future - suggesting that our ecological resources will cease to exist. Definitely food for thought.

Neville the Redeemer is Legend

THE OMEGA MAN (1971)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first saw "The Omega Man" many years back, two aspects of it stayed with me. One was seeing Charlton Heston driving all over empty Los Angeles streets, making a stop to watch "Woodstock" at a repertory movie theater. Another were those plague-carrying albinos wearing black hoods, causing fires around town and doing not much else. "The Omega Man" is an odd, albino duck of a movie - it is frequently riveting yet silly, often thrilling yet anticlimactic. It is a macho Charlton Heston sci-fi action pic and, on that level, a heck of a lot better than other apocalyptic films of its ilk.

Neville (Heston) is presumably the last man on Earth, thanks to an outbreak of biochemical warfare that began with the war between China and the Soviet Union. Neville is a scientist who has created a vaccine that eradicates any trace of this deadly plague. Ultimately, there are others who have survived this holocaust. Some turn into albino mutants with sores on their faces, otherwise known as the Family, who want destroy all traces of existing technology ("the Science"). There are other survivors who have not succumbed to albino status, including Lisa (the sexy Rosalind Cash), one of the few ragtag group of survivors who have not turned yet. Meanwhile, Neville befriends them and informs them of a serum that can cure them with the help of his uninfected blood. Will he help the Family who have waged war on Neville?

"The Omega Man" is fascinating and often engrossing stuff. Neville's own insular life where he has plenty of food and artillery in his apartment, as well as a bust of Caesar to use as a chess opponent, adds a degree of emotional weight. What I can't figure out is why Neville did not start treating people as soon as the outbreak occurred, only saving himself. The ongoing, two-year war with the Family is a little perplexing - they know who Neville is yet can't they figure out a way to destroy fuse boxes to do away with electricity so Neville has no power in his apartment? The Family hates science after all, so they might hate electricity too. Instead they spend their time uttering epiphanies about science and technology, yet they burn works of art! According to Heston, Neville deals with the Family on a nightly basis (they are nocturnal creatures after all) because he doesn't want to be completely isolated. When he meets and falls for Lisa, you hope his situation and the other non-albino mutant survivors will improve. Occasionally, though, Lisa and others call Neville "evil." Is it because he could have done more before this biochemical warfare reached astronomical levels? How do they know that?

Loosely based on Richard Matheson's book "I Am Legend," "The Omega Man" confounds the viewer somewhat by not instilling any real clarification about the chemical apocalypse or its subjective stance and/or opinion of Neville. Hero, antihero, villain or semi-Redeemer thanks to a closing Christ-like shot? Still, despite many perplexing questions, I was caught up in "The Omega Man" all over again. Heston has the titanic presence and stature of a man who won't easily go down without a fight (and I suspect his Neville might have a sneaking bit of sympathy towards the Family). Rosalind Cash is simply a stunning woman in every respect (sharing one of the more tender kisses with Heston since Heston's own "Touch of Evil" with Janet Leigh), and the great Anthony Zerbe as the Family's leader Matthias (as well as former news announcer) delivers every line with frightening intensity. "The Omega Man" is one of the more intriguing sci-fi films of the 1970's.

Vampire Bella breaks the Volturi

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If Part 1 of "Breaking Dawn" had less of the Rio sex scenes between Edward and Bella and been combined with the intermittently lethal charms of Part 2, I might have thought differently of this last chapter in the "Twilight" saga. As it stands, the word is intermittent. "Breaking Dawn: Part 2" is a solid no-brainer sequel - its got all the goods of previous sequels - but the emotional core is missing.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is now officially the new vampire of Forks, Washington. She had turned to save herself, and to raise her newborn daughter, Renesmee (named after the Lochness Monster and played by copious CGI and Mackenzie Foy) who matures so quickly that Pampers and milk bottles serve little purpose. Naturally, little Nessie is no ordinary child - she is mortal and is half human, half vampire (a first for this series and a plot point that could have used more depth). Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is the father, looking more and more bored with each scene. A rift exists between the Cullens with their new forbidden offspring and the Volturi Council, the elite vampire group who, I guess, decide on all the ethics, laws and mores of being a vampire (immortal children are forbidden). Michael Sheen gleefully returns as Aro, the leader who has his minions tear apart vampires limb by limb, specifically starting with a decapitation (the kind of thing that a PG-13 rating would not allow twenty years ago - remember the R-rated "Speed"?) Let us not exclude Taylor Lautner as Jacob, the werewolf who has imprinted Renesmee and has to protect her.

Directed by Bill Condon, who took care of Part 1's romp-in-the-hay crossed with bloody birth complexities, "Breaking Dawn Part 2" is fast-paced and has an indelible snowy climax with the Volturi, the werewolves and the Cullen vampires. Kristen Stewart is a dynamic presence as always, though Pattison could have used an infusion of sodium pentothal. Lautner, who seems to be having a whale of a time, and Sheen rise above the soap-opera theatrics and the movie's theme of eternal love with much-needed biting humor. My main issue is the movie is too matter-of-fact about its characters; they turn up, they wax on about trouble brewing in paradise and it is all done with precious little conviction or urgency, or at least not half as urgent as "New Moon" or "Eclipse." Another issue is that Renesmee is just an innocent mute child - imagine what could have been conveyed about her own emotional stake of being raised in a glass house in the middle of the woods with emaciated vampires! "Breaking Dawn: Part 2" is an enjoyable flick overall, but not exactly the most biting chapter in the saga.

Sexual tension in a French villa

SWIMMING POOL (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in 2003)

In a summer season glutted with terminators, pirates, comic-book adaptations and fluffy chicks with kung-fu capabilities, it is always a welcome respite to see something truly unique. "Swimming Pool" is not an original film per se but its dreamlike power and gripping sense of sensuality surely rates this as one of the most mysterious films of the year.

Charlotte Rampling plays the old spinster role, that of a crime fiction novelist named Sarah Morton who's become indifferent to her popular detective novels. She has a meeting with her publisher (Charles Dance) about pursuing other topics of interest, perhaps something more germane to her personal side. He suggests staying in his French villa on the countryside as a place of solitude. Sarah flies out to France and becomes enamored with the beautiful weather and vistas. She lives in an area not far from Marquis De Sade's castle in ruins, and even gets to meet a sexy, younger bartender, Franck (Jean-Marie Lamour), who works at the local restaurant. But something threatens Sarah's peace in the form of a loose, sexual creature named Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), who is the publisher's daughter. Suddenly peace and tranquility have given way to Julie's nightly sexual exploits. The pool by the villa is used as a playground of emerging sexuality by Julie, who is often seen topless and swimming in the nude. All this causes great confusion and a sense of inspiration in Sarah whom you feel has been rejuvenated by this sexually carnivorous female.

It would be wise, as is often the case, not to dwell further into the twists and turns in "Swimming Pool." Suffice to say, they are of a subtle nature, merely appearing to us without calling too much attention. The director, Francois Ozon ("Under the Sun"), likes to toy with the viewer, immersing us in the atmosphere and the art direction and the performances before slyly shocking us with surprises. "Swimming Pool" begins as a woman's personal odyssey in coming to grips with her writing talent, until we learn that it has more up its sleeve. I will say that Ozon may have been possibly been inspired by two films, "Bitter Moon" and "Tristana." In the case with "Bitter Moon," Polanski's claustrophobic, sleazy drama, there is a scene where a writer (Peter Coyote) is impotent and sitting in his wheelchair. He observes two sexy people dancing before they segue to the bedroom. There is a similar shot in "Swimming Pool" where Sarah sits in a chair as Julie dances with Franck to a pop tune, and we watch Sarah become transfixed yet still unable to join in the fun (though she eventually starts dancing). Another scene has Sarah standing from the balcony of the house exposing her breasts to the caretaker. There is a similar scene in Luis Bunuel's "Tristana" where Catherine Deneuve exposes her breasts to a young man. These possible nods of inspiration help "Swimming Pool" with its toying sense of sensuality and sexuality.

"Swimming Pool" is a haunting mood piece with a finale that is ripe for endless discussion. The film's sensual, sexual overtones and its lingering rhythms are so titillating and unobtrusive that you will be swept away. Sagnie's Julie and Rampling's Sarah are two characters whom you will likely not forget by year's end. They bring such a shimmering, mysterious quality to sex and sensuality that it makes you wish Hollywood was just as imaginative.