Barbie Dolls masking the truth

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1999)

I don't think I have heard a more blunt title in ages but for the most blunt summary of a film's content, you can't do better than "The Virgin Suicides." This is Sofia Coppola's brilliant debut film, a searing, intelligent drama of innocence destroyed by the overprotective ruling hand of parents.

The film opens with the title filling the screen from every corner, as if it was scribbled by overzealous teenage girls. Then the film gradually reveals one particular family, the Lisbons, five luscious-looking Catholic girls living in Michigan during the 1970's. The overprotective parents include the nerdy-looking father, a math teacher (James Woods), and the domineering, stuffy mother (a largely unrecognizable Kathleen Turner). Kirsten Dunst (in perhaps the best role of her career) plays the main Lisbon girl, Lux, whom every adolescent male pines for including those who live in the neighborhood. These girls seem perfect but everything is on the surface - they are like Barbie Dolls with masks to hide the real problems. At the beginning of the film, a thirteen-year-old Lisbon girl (Hanna Hall) fails a suicide attempt, and then successfully makes another attempt. Nobody knows why, and the parents seem unaffected as if it was a temporary setback. The father keeps thinking he sees his dead daughter, and so do the other girls. But the question is: why did she kill herself? Could it happen to the others?

The main focus in "The Virgin Suicides" is Lux and she is pursued by Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett), a cool dude, for no better description, who is pined for by all the girls for his smoothness and seductive quality - he is a like a young Don Juan. Lux avoids him but his charm eventually gets to her, to the point where she is asked to the prom as are all her sisters (they all end up wearing the same dress). Coppola also makes good use of songs by ELO and others to accentuate the mood, and the prom scenes are especially good at evoking a constrained innocence that is likely to be broken any time soon.

The prom is the central climax of the film where everything goes downhill. The mother gets so fed up with Lux's disappearance after the prom that she keeps everyone locked up in the house, confined by Lux's unconstrained behavior. Week after week, the girls are kept inside, restricted from ever leaving the house except to pick up the mail. The father seems to go slightly insane, resorting to talking to the plants at school. The mother throws out all rock n' roll records and anything else that might corrupt the girls' innocence.

"The Virgin Suicides" basically gives away what will happen to the girls - it is even foretold in the film's opening voice-over, narrated by an older Trip played by Michael Pare. There are no easy answers or conventional explanations to their suicides, but we can only surmise by the strange behavioral interaction between the girls and the parents (communication is notably absent). The beauty is that Coppola captures the essence of adolescence, and shows how fragile the Lisbon girls were within their confinement. They were easily corruptible, but were incapable of dealing with emotional pain and duress - instead, they dealt with it through an easy path, an escape, by ending their lives.

More furballs, zero story

CRITTERS 2 (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Question: what sequel has none of the humor, wit, scares or horror of the original cult film "Critters"? Answer: "Critters 2." Easy enough. There have been bad sequels but none as excruciating to sit through as this one, which only shares one aspect of the original's flavor - the title with a number in front of it. It not only recaps the original film with nary a story, but it also lacks any substantial purpose other than to cash in on the original's brand name.

"Critters 2" has also has the distinction of being the most contrived of all sequels. It is so contrived that it has almost no reason to exist as a movie. Consider the plot for a moment. This time, the lovable Brad Brown (Scott Grimes, with an earring) is back, having helped to extinguish all those furball creatures from space years earlier. He returns to Grover's Bend, visiting his grandmother for Easter. Amazingly, he hardly spends any time with her and instead peruses through some old photographs and a useless slingshot. But what do you know? The Critters' eggs that were left open for a sequel at the end of the original film are now hatching. I recall they were hatching already in the original's closing shot but never mind. Some of the local residents use them as Easter eggs, sold to them by an antique dealer! The new sheriff in town has to dress up as the Easter Bunny! And before you can say the words "unintentional comedy," the sheriff is killed by those mean little furballs with razor sharp teeth, and the local residents stay indoors at the local church. And Brad is blamed since his appearance in town coincides with the hatching of the Critters's eggs!!! Can the filmmakers be serious?

But low and behold, the bounty hunters, who are pursuing those furry creatures known as the Cripes (or is the Krites as indicated on the video cover box?), are back at the same damn town to blow them away with their perhaps unintentionally phallic, futuristic shot guns. This includes the return of actor Terrence Mann (as the long-haired Ug, the strongest of the bounty hunters) and Don Opper (the village idiot Charlie, who has become a bounty hunter himself), appearing as if he was sleepwalking through all this.

The original instilled some sense of dignity with Brad's family trying to protect themselves and their home from the Critters. This time, the human interest level is kaput - in fact, there is not one solid characterization throughout except for the fabulous character actor Barry Corbin (replacing M. Emmet Walsh from the original) as the colorful retired sheriff. Corbin, like Gene Hackman, could never give a lifeless performance if his life depended on it - if he were the main character, this cruddy, lazily patched together sequel might have had some substance. The townspeople and the town remain anonymous with no real visible locale threatened except for the local church. There is a laughable, forced romance between Brad and a local reporter that makes after-school specials seem positively sultry by comparison. The critter action scenes are cut far too frantically, and the best the film can do is to show rolling furballs along the dusty roads. As it stands, "Critters 2" is as inert and undignified as they come.

Footnote: The most interesting thing to say about "Critters 2" is the scene where one of the bounty hunters tries to shape-shift their appearance into Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" ad. Fitting since "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors" showed a clip from the original "Critters" just before a TV addict met a demise from dear old Freddy.

Furballs from outer space

CRITTERS (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally seen in 1986)

In the wake of "Gremlins" and its myriad rip-offs came this very funny horror comedy, for a lack of a better description. It is quick (at a full-throttle 86 minutes), clever, self-parodic, and just plain delightful from first frame to last.

The story begins in outer space on some floating prison ship, housing fugitives known simply as the Cripes, who are to be transported to some asteroid. The Cripes somehow escape on the ship and head for Earth (aliens just love our home planet), while two bounty hunters dressed in almost Western garb, a combination of long trenchcoats and pointed boots, search for them. They also have to change their nondescript appearances to human form.

Flash forward to the typical American farmlands of Kansas where a nice American family live, consisting of the farmer, Jay Brown (Billy Green Bush), his housecleaning wife, Helen (Dee Wallace Stone), the presumptuous son, Brad (Scott Grimes) who loves using his slingshot, and the sister he constantly fights with, April (Nadine Van Der Velde), who has the hots for the local handsome teen male, played by none other than Billy Zane! The town is full of the usual cast of denizens, including the local sheriff (the terrific M. Emmet Walsh) and the village idiot (Don Opper), who believes aliens will invade Earth (he of course was once attacked by an alien). But an invasion is imminent as a spaceship lands in the farmlands, and a host of furballs start killing livestock, and basically they try to eat their way through dear old Kansas. They are of course the Cripes, a crew of furball monsters that have razor sharp teeth and use sleep-inducing (or perhaps poisonous) darts that shoot from their heads. They attack the farmer's family, and most of the town itself. Naturally, the bounty hunters finally land on Earth and cause their own havoc with their enormous guns blasting everything in sight (including churches and bowling alleys) as they search for the Cripes.

"Critters" is lots of fun, inducing more laughs than scares but of course, this is no serious horror flick. In a comical scene, Brad spots a silhouette of a Critter growing to mammoth proportions. I also like how one of the Critters utters the F curse, or how one plucks the eyes off of an E.T. doll.

The scenes at the beginning are the best as we see how this oblivious American family lives. I love the moment where Dee Wallace smiles in recognition as her daughter speaks to her boyfriend, which leads to a dinner scene with the family and the boyfriend. As the sweet couple leaves for literally a romp in the hay, the patriarch Jay asks his wife: "Have you ever told April about...you know?" She responds: "Years ago." Moments like that, and there are several featuring the sly Grimes, gives a sense of humanity to the characters. They are not cartoonish types, though the movie is one big cartoon spectacle.

It also helps that veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh (the slimy, corrupt detective in "Blood Simple") and Don Opper (memorable as the title character in "Android") were cast, lending plenty of humorous asides throughout. "Critters" is a guilty pleasure, but full of smiles and knowing references to the B-movies of the past. It would make a great double-feature with "Mars Attacks!"

De Niro's existential hero is back

CITY BY THE SEA (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2003)

Robert De Niro playing yet another New York City cop? Can we say "15 Minutes"? Well, let's not get too hasty. "City By the Sea" is an exceptional thriller giving us the De Niro that I kind of missed in the last few years. You know, the dramatic De Niro - the angry, ebullient De Niro playing the kind of existential antihero we had thought disappeared from cinema.

Set in Long Beach and Manhattan, De Niro is Vincent LaMarca, a rugged homicide cop who goes to work at the crack of dawn, watches TV, visits his girlfriend, Michelle (Frances McDormand) who lives downstairs from his apartment, and not much else. His partner, Reg (George Dzundza) is a family man yet Vince is not comfortable with visiting Reg's family - "Too much love," the man says. His reasoning is understandable - Vincent walked out on his family many years earlier. His estranged son, Joey (James Franco), who drives a blue Chevy Nova, is a junkie living on the boardwalk of Long Beach, sometimes residing in an abandoned casino building. One night, while drugged out on crank, he kills a neighborhood drug dealer. Now Joey is wanted by the police, and guess who has to lead that investigation. Vincent's own past has come back to haunt him, including dealing with an understandably bitchy ex-wife (Patti LuPone) and Joey's ex-girlfriend (Eliza Dushku), who has a kid. There is also the drug dealer's big boss (William Forsythe), who is about as vicious and snarly as one can expect in a movie of this type.

Okay, so we have heard all this before. The difference is that "City By the Sea" is based on true events, emanating from a 1997 Esquire article by Michael McAlary. Truths aside, the movie works because the characters are believable and three-dimensional. Rather than subjecting to overdone car chases and endless shootouts, director Michael Caton-Jones ("This Boy's Life") keeps the pace lively and the character studies sturdy. This movie is not about action but about words. It is about people who are affected by the downward spirals in their lives, and about families broken apart by unforeseen tragedies.

De Niro is as good as he can be as Vincent LaMarca, showcasing the character's strengths and flaws. He abandoned his child and he may abandon his grandchild. Will he be a father again to his son or just another cop? "I am a cop and a father," says Vincent to Joey. This is a standout sequence in itself, again focusing more on their relationship than the actual plot. And what of Vincent's relationship to Michelle (Frances McDormand)? Vincent has kept her in the dark about his family, including his father who was electrocuted for murdering babies. Can Michelle handle his family history and his inability to hang on to whatever family he may have left?

"City By the Sea" is often sensational entertainment, briskly directed and acted. The ending suffers a bit from either straining too hard to be emotional or not enough. I also could have learned more about William Forsythe's expendable character - he is nothing more than a meanie with a shotgun. On the plus side, De Niro and James Franco rise above the melodrama and provide the poignancy that might otherwise be lacking. A fine film, unjustly ignored by audiences.

Action painter at work

POLLOCK (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The most innovative of the Abstract Expressionists was Jackson Pollock whose surrealist paintings gave way to "action paintings," the idea that paint could be dripped onto the canvas and create vivid splashes of color. Pollock created the drip technique and thus, a sense of freedom within the canvas was born where space became largely ambiguous. Pollock is world renown, so much that American film directors like Martin Scorsese or Oliver Stone are often referred to as the "Jackson Pollocks of cinema" for their often seemingly free form styles. Such an innovator is given a fairly conventional though often harrowing treatment by Ed Harris in his directorial debut.

Naturally, Ed Harris plays the tortured, neurotic, manic-depressive Jackson Pollock. The film begins in New York City in the postwar era of the 1940's where Pollock is still an unknown. He meets with another painter, Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden), who hears of Pollock through word-of-mouth and becomes interested in his work. After all, if you are a painter in New York who is talked about in circles, you must make your appearance through the proper channels. Lee Krasner knows the proper channels. She is acquainted with Peggy Guggenheim (Judith Ivey), the owner of the Art of This Century Gallery, who is ticked off when climbing five flight of stairs to find Pollock is not home. Nevertheless, she sees his work and commissions it to be shown in her gallery.

Pollock also finds a willing romantic partner in Lee Krasner who knows of the man's faults and still decides to be with him. Pollock is an alcoholic and usually finds himself sleeping outside tenements. His solution is to get away from the city, and so Krasner offers him an option - get married and move or she walks. They move to the Hamptons near the beach for tranquility. This is also beneficial for Pollock who can find himself locked in his work rather than in alcohol. As time goes on, Pollock eventually discovers his drip technique and becomes a sensation in New York and around the world. And when does Pollock know that his work is finished? "How do you know you are finished when you are making love," asks Pollock when interviewed by Life magazine.

"Pollock" occasionally finds the painter at work in his studio but the film's screenplay devotes more time to his turbulent relationship with Lee Krasner. Lee puts up with Pollock through his affairs and endless drinking bouts because she wants him to be the great painter that he is. It is clear that Lee is devoted to him and tries to help him, thus putting her own career on hold for his sake. They frequently have their arguments, some more harsh than others, but they still manage to stay together for several years.

By the 1950's, Pollock grows into a bearded, fat, obnoxious, unlikable man. He retreats from his "drip" style to his original abstract paintings. He also has an affair with a luscious art groupie (Jennifer Connelly) and largely detaches himself from Lee. The brief romance is mostly dull as compared to his emotional bond with Lee, and the film meanders a bit whenever Connelly shows up, whom I do admire as an actress overall.

My complaints of the film are largely relegated to the depiction of Pollock's own status in the art world. The recent "Before Night Falls" did not dwell on why the famous writer, Reinaldo Arenas, became a writer, it only showed his surroundings and how they affected him. But Pollock is a more complex, larger-than-life character. He seems to lack communication with his mother (Sada Thompson - the matriarch from the 70's TV show "Family") or his brother and his family - they attend his gallery shows but they never speak to each other, particularly at the dining table. Pollock's family life is given so little shred of introspection that we never understand why they ever visit him in the first place - consider that almost every scene with his family ends in a violent disruption. Does Pollock's temperamental personality and his seclusion in his work cause his family to be silent or are they unhappy with his artistic life? Whatever lack of communication exists may hint at Pollock's own troubled nature but the film never makes that connection.

The two fantastic lead performances rescue whatever character limitations exist. Ed Harris is powerful and harrowing as the troubled Pollock - he even looks like the painter judging by recent photographs I have looked at. Marcia Gay Harden is the strong, sympathetic, tough and direct Lee Krasner (she deservedly won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work here). They have several great scenes together but my favorite is when he asks her if "they can make a baby." She says no, claiming that fulfilling his needs is enough and all she ever wanted. It is indeed.

If "Pollock" had dwelled on the artist's personal, familial side and if the fleeting world of Abstract Expressionists had been developed, the film might have been a stunning masterpiece. As it is, it is a hellish, demanding work with two ball-of-fire performances that will rattle your nerves, shake up your senses, and largely disorient you. Just like Jackson Pollock did.

Run-of-the-mill snuff thriller

15 MINUTES (2001)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

(Originally written in 2001)

Something shocking happens in "15 Minutes." It is so shocking and unexpected that it will leave you coming up for air wondering why the filmmakers went through such lengths to shock the audience. And yet its shocking twist results in a final half-hour of ridiculous implausibilities squandering its initial premise.

Robert De Niro plays Eddie Flemming, a New York City homicide cop who loves to be surrounded by the media (he also dunks his head in ice water to sober up). Eddie is a celebrity cop, having had his hide splashed on the covers of People magazine. The latest murder in town involves arson, and Eddie is there ready to mingle with the press while solving the crime. Trouble is that an arson investigator, Jordy Warsaw (Edward Burns), has solved the crime first, realizing it was actually a homicide than an accidental arson case. Eddie knows it too and gets all the credit. You do not have to be a film buff to know that Eddie and Jody become partners in what appears to be a buddy-buddy cop flick, only Jody is no cop and realistically, he would not have been allowed to follow Eddie everywhere since the subsequent murders do not involve arson! We will allow logic to be suspended for now since their banter is occasionally intoxicating.

The latest string of murders are committed by two European thugs. One is Olgen (played by Olgen Taktarov), a bald-headed man who grins uncontrollably and his partner, Emil (Karel Roden), who also grins and shoots their murders with a stolen digital camera. Their motives remain unclear at first but afterwards, their intent becomes clearer - they want to publicize their snuff videos on television and become celebrities. Olgen's idea is that in America, nobody is blamed for what they do and everyone is a celebrity for at least fifteen minutes. Andy Warhol might have wished his words were not used synonymously with murder.

"15 Minutes" is nothing new, and its theme of how amoral and devalued our country (and the media) has become has been explored in everything from Sidney Lumet's "Network" to Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" to Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" to the blackly comical "Man Bites Dog," which this film so closely resembles. But what the film says is that someone crazy enough would be willing to create a snuff film and try and sell it to the media in return for some exposure. Sure, there is jail time served but who can say no to book rights, movie rights and the right lawyer who can negotiate a percentage of the profits (Olgen's lawyer is played by real-life Gotti lawyer Bruce Cutler).

Most of "15 Minutes" has a jazzy, immediate feel to it, and there are some terrifically choreographed scenes. One involves a gruesome murder seen from a witness's point-of-view. Another involves a shootout on the streets near Central Park that is hair-raising and frenetic. I also liked a long scene involving an escape from a burning building. But "15 Minutes" lacks much thrust or purpose. It seems to evolve from one type of genre to another. First we get some harrowing scenes of violence from a camcorder's point-of-view. Then we get the buddy shtick of De Niro and Burns at odds with each other. Then there is a developing romance between De Niro and a reporter (Melina Kanakaredes from TV's "Providence"). Then there is the brief satire of the media (such a cliched attack at best) where Mr. Frasier himself (Kelsey Grammer) plays a famous TV tabloid reporter whose sole purpose in news is summed up in one line, thanks to actress Kim Catrall: "If it bleeds, it leads." At this point, I was confused since the film doesn't stick close to any consistent tone or style.

De Niro has some bright, lively moments but it is mostly a thankless role for someone of his stature. He does have a touching scene, however, where he fills out a card to his possible bride-to-be written in a different language. Edwards Burns is not always up to the task and I had a hard time believing him to be an arson investigator (ironically enough, De Niro did wonders with a similar role in "Backdraft"). The two thugs are so inhuman, callous and pathetic that nothing registers them as anything but cartoonish, jocose villains whom I did not care for in the slightest.

"15 Minutes" has that unexpected twist in the middle (which will not be revealed here) that leaves the rest of the film without much soul or interest. Let us just say that another pile of cliches follow, including the obligatory turn-in-the-badge scene and a host of other predictable scenes from the "Dirty Harry" school. And the ending is so melodramatically silly and over-the-top (similar to the finale of the remake of "Shaft") that it ruins its thought-provoking premise. This is the kind of film possibly written by one person that is then run through a full-scale committee turning it into your average Hollywood run-of-the-mill thriller, satire, commentary, or whatever the heck it is.

This Peek-a-Boo is a boo-boo

HIDE AND SEEK (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally reviewed in 2006)

When a new movie arrives in theaters that stars Robert De Niro, I get a little excited. After all, De Niro is one of our great actors, a man who gave us many inspired, complex performances. So for him to appear in a horror thriller, it is exciting news. The news, unfortunately, is precisely where the excitement ends.

De Niro plays a psychologist named David who has just suffered a tremendous loss - his wife (Amy Irving) has committed suicide by slitting her wrists in a bathtub. Now he has to console himself and his young daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning), so they move upstate from all the noise and chaos of New York City. This is seen as a hindrance to Emily by David's close friend and colleague (Famke Janssen) but hey, David feels the openness of country living might be therapeutic. So much for that idea. Before you know it, Emily starts exhibiting odd behaviors. She claims to have an imaginary friend named "Charlie," she dresses in a black dress for dinner, she visits a cave where she deposits dolls she destroys, she uses a bug as fish bait, shall I go on? Naturally she is hesitant to accept anyone new in her father's life, including Elizabeth (Elisabeth Shue), so Emily's behavior may be symptomatic of all that.

But then, a drowned cat is found in the bathtub and, twice, words are sprawled across the bathroom walls that serve as ominous warnings. Is "Charlie" the culprit? If so, how can David stop it? And if a cat drowns in your bathtub and you suspect your daughter is responsible, then wouldn't you consider taking your daughter out of the country setting and seek professional help? The plot thickens.

All this leads to the inevitable surprise ending, which will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read good mystery novels and is a film buff. The problem with "Hide and Seek" is that after a remarkably solid thirty minutes, it slides into the trite and bleak world of nothingness and emptiness. In other words, the filmmakers decide to abandon the two strong characters of Emily and David and subject them to pointless thrills and chills that ride high on the implausibility meter. This leads to more pointless scenes of David's neighbors, David's extremely brief fling with Elizabeth (and their initial encounter has got to be the speediest request for a date ever), endless scenes of David wandering the hallways and basement of his house, the cliched teapot hissing, etc.

De Niro handles the task of playing a bespectacled psychologist respectably but that is because he is Robert De Niro - unfortunately, he barely tries. He inhabits the role in a dreamlike state with no inner tension. Anyone could have played this role and that is not true of De Niro's other incarnations such as Travis Bickle or Jake LaMotta. On the De Niro meter of bad films, this is far better than "The Fan" or the dreadful and painful "Meet the Fockers" but that isn't saying much.

Dakota Fanning has the right look as the big-eyed, pale Child of the Damned, or so it seems (she looks like she could be in a remake of "The Bad Seed"). Save for the occasional smile, this kid could grow up to be a Stepford wife - an emotionless doll. I understand that her Emily character is upset over her mother's death but Fanning appears geared to be in a goth rock band.

The last half-hour of "Hide and Seek" is so incongruous to the rest of the story that I felt cheated and hoodwinked, but not in a good way. I always say that the only director who can come up with a surprise ending is David Lynch because he works in the logic of a dream. To a certain extent, it is difficult to surprise an audience when we've seen most surprise endings by now. "Hide and Seek" seems to be heading in the direction of nightmare or dreamlike logic but it goes for broke, culminating in an ending that one can see miles away since no other logical conclusion is possible. The biggest insult is how one movie can make Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning and poor Elisabeth Shue so damn enervated. Now that's surprising.