I am on bad terms with this soap-opera

THE EVENING STAR (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in 1997)

Aurora Greenway is one of those colorful, larger-than-life characters who exist only in Southern novels, particularly those by Larry McMurtry ("The Last Picture Show"). In "Terms of Endearment," coincidentally based on a novel by McMurtry, Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) arose as a tender, full-blooded, fiercely emotional creature. In the excruciating "The Evening Star," she is depicted as a bloodless caricature, as if she drifted in from the latest soap opera series.

"Terms of Endearment" is one of the great movies of the 1980's - it is captivating, unsentimental, brilliantly acted, and superbly directed by James L. Brooks. The heart of that film was Aurora's troubling yet loving relationship with her daughter Emma (Debra Winger). The trials and tribulations they endure evoked a nice balance between humor and heartbreak. For example, Aurora dates a swinging, hard-drinking bachelor and astronaut (Jack Nicholson), and a tender love affair begins and ends abruptly between them. Emma marries Flap (Jeff Daniels, who's been typecast ever since), a professor who teaches English and has affairs with co-eds. In retaliation, Emma has an affair with a banker (John Lithgow), and so on.

"Terms of Endearment" has a wonderful ensemble of actors at their best, and honest, vibrant writing. The beauty of the film is Brooks's careful balance between comedy, seriousness and tragedy. "Terms" also never steps into caricature or droll exaggeration resulting in a film that transcends its soap opera origins.

"The Evening Star" is at the opposite end of the pole. It is grossly exaggerated, wildly uneven, contains numerous caricatures not characters, and takes an eternity to end. This time, the eccentric Aurora (Shirley McClaine, again) has Emma's sexy teenage daughter (Juliette Lewis) to contend with, a grandchild in prison, and Emma's rich, snobbish friend (Miranda Richardson) who is trying to buy Aurora's granddaughter's love. In addition, there's Aurora's loving, loyal maid (Marion Ross) who seems more like an intrusion in her life than anything else. Oh, and there's the local psychiatrist (Bill Paxton) who has a brief, unbelievable fling with Aurora.

"The Evening Star" suffers greatly in every department when compared to "Terms." For one, the casting is actually awful. MacLaine overacts to the hilt of all hilts - she's actually annoying and boring to watch. Juliette Lewis does better with her role as a troubled teenager, but it is something she can play in her sleep. Marion Ross and the late Ben Johnson, in his last role, seem to be sleepwalking throughout.

The one actress who is wrongfully cast, and an indication of what's wrong with some sequels, is Miranda Richardson as the snobbish friend of the late Emma - she spews seemingly delectable witticisms with a crooked drawl that brings out the worst in Southern stereotypes and accents. Interestingly, her character was played by Lisa Hart Carroll in "Terms" with complete restraint - a far cry from Richardson's manic fits. Where's the dignity of Southerner Billy Bob Thornton when you really need him?

"Terms" was a real human drama and completely unpredictable and truthful from beginning to end. "Evening Star" is utterly formulaic nonsense done with none of the vigor or honesty of the original (and with a high mortality rate to boot). The film is so desperate that it even brings back Jack Nicholson for an unnecessary, heavy-handed cameo. Where's Jim Brooks when you really need him?

Max Cady makes the Bowdens suffer

CAPE FEAR (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Shared with Oliver Stone's JFK as Best Picture of 1991
(Originally viewed in 1991)

The original "Cape Fear" (1962) is not a great thriller but it is expertly done and an appropriately lurid melodrama. It is amazing then that someone like Martin Scorsese would see fit to remake it. And it is doubly amazing how terrific the remake is - one of the most tense, superbly frightening thrillers in years. It shows Robert De Niro and most of its cast at the top of their form under the hands of a real master.

"Cape Fear" begins with a very young Juliette Lewis staring right into the camera as she tells us the story about fear and danger in a beautiful place of nature, the Cape Fear river. Lewis plays Danielle Bowden, the precocious, pot-smoking teenage daughter of the Bowdens. The Bowdens include her father, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), a righteous lawyer who is having an affair with a law clerk, and Leigh Bowden (Jessica Lange), the mother who knows her husband is up to no good. It is a typical dysfunctional family that somehow functions despite such problems. All it takes is for someone like Max Cady (Robert De Niro), a vicious, tattooed, Bible-spouting rapist to bring the family to the surface with its problems.

It turns out that Cady has some history with Sam. Sam was Cady's former lawyer who buried some evidence that would have got Cady out of jail sooner than a fourteen year term. The formerly illiterate Cady has learned how to read in jail, to weight-lift but more importantly, to know the law as well as Sam has learned it (not to mention keen knowledge of Biblical passages). Since Cady is aware of Sam's indiscretions, he is ready to make Sam's life as miserable as possible. Cady savagely rapes the law clerk who knows Sam (well-played by Illeana Douglas), kills the family dog, teases Leigh and, in the most controversial and jaw-droppingly breathless sequence, seduces Danielle with a marijuana cigarette, talks of Henry Miller and kisses her. It is a scene to stop time, as many have declared, and Lewis and De Niro make it startling as well.

"Cape Fear" is a jittery experience, full of fear and anxiety in equal droves. No one ever seems to stand still for one moment, nor does the camera. Even a relatively simple scene between Nolte and the law clerk has them anxious to move on, as if standing still and talking were a nervy thing to do. The whole film is like that. When the Bowdens go to the local movie theater to see "Problem Child," Max is in the theatre laughing as hard as anyone else and smoking up a storm. There is not a single moment where anyone behaves or moves quietly. Scorsese is determined to keep you on edge and uneasy, going so far as to have certain characters walk right into the screen. We see X-ray shots of the Bowdens making love. Fireworks erupt outside as Max looks on sitting on the ledge. Thunderous clouds, sometimes reddish in color, are in abundance throughout. Phones ring when least expected (as in most thrillers). Books mysteriously appear underneath geranium pots.

It is easy to write off Scorsese's "Cape Fear" as simply a thriller exercise, a moment of respite between the weight of his "GoodFellas" and the "Age of Innocence." But Scorsese and writer Wesley Strick are after more than making average Hollywood schlock. Most writers would make Samuel Bowden and the family happy and clean cut with no inner flaws, thus making the evil that haunts them far more savage than needs be. Only Sam has committed an unethical act - he simply did not do everything he should have to protect his client. Leigh would normally be shown as the dutiful, respectful wife with no complaints. Boy, is she full of them, and she is even attracted to Max (a character trait in the original that was only hinted at). Danielle, the daughter, also has her share of problems and tries to escape from them. She has parents who are always arguing and shouting with each other. Max seems like a nice escape from her home life but, well, she should know better than to go in a empty, ominous-looking theatre.

De Niro is nothing short of perfect as Max Cady, a psycho who is only interested in saving the Bowdens, not destroying them. He just wants them to suffer as if he was some avenging angel cleansing them of their sins. The final conclusion in a raging river inside a houseboat where Max wants Sam to tell the truth is harrowing, powerful stuff. It is not a Freddy Krueger finale where the killer comes back from the dead (he is burned but manages to come back into the houseboat for one last confrontation). In these scenes, De Niro shows the pain he suffered because of Sam's indiscretions and it is as nerve-jangling and as intensifying as the actor has ever been since.

Nick Nolte restrains himself nicely as Sam Bowden, the lawyer with hardly any ethics or values left. His transition from reserved and pathetic to angry and resilient is brilliant to watch (look carefully at the scene where Sam witnesses the attack on Max by hired men - a scene not found in the original). Jessica Lange is exceedingly good in every scene she is in and holds her own with Nolte and De Niro. And the star-making performance of Juliette Lewis is a stunner - a girl with sexual inhibitions about ready to burst at any moment (the movie can be approached as her story judging from her opening and closing narration). Her final stare at the end of the film is unforgettable. Kudos also go to Joe Don Baker as a private detective who has a peculiar drink to stay awake and the three principal actors from the original, Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam and Robert Mitchum, make swift, brief impressions.

"Cape Fear" is not for average audiences for many reasons, notably because there is no one to root for. And the bitter, nasty climax will leave you stunned into shock and out of breath. But its morally complex issues and full-bodied characters and incredible, unbridled tension make for one of the best thrillers of the 1990's and a remake that actually outdoes the original. Scorsese said he wanted to make a film about fear and anxiety and he has succeeded admirably.

Postulating saints

THE THIRD MIRACLE (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2000)

Finally, we witness a film about priests and miracles that does not condescend to the audience by featuring superfluous special-effects or a demonic Patricia Arquette. "The Third Miracle" is a bloody miracle, an extremely well-acted and thematically rich film by notable director Agnieszka Holland ("Europa, Europa").

Ed Harris stars as Father Frank Shore, a postulator known by many as the "miracle killer," who is seen at the start of the film working at a soup kitchen. He is called back into duty to investigate a woman who may or may not be a saint but is loved by the people of a Chicago community all the same. Every November, the people gather to see a statue that weeps blood - this is coincidentally the month in which Helen O'Regan (Barbara Sukowa) - the supposed saint - died. There is talk that she cured a young girl of lupus by simply touching the girl.

Father Shore has his doubts but the blood is discovered to be real, and the girl, now a drug-addicted runaway, was cured of lupus. But can there be some doubt that this is all highly coincidental? Is Father Shore the right priest to investigate since years earlier he had debunked the myth of another saint and thus destroyed the faith of an entire community? There is also the question that a saint would never leave his or her children behind to pursue faith. Such is the case with the late Helen, who abandoned her daughter, Roxanne (Anne Heche). Roxanne is angry at her mother and feels her mother could never be deemed a saint.

"The Third Miracle" asks lots of questions and justifiably answers very few of them. Father Shore may have doubts about his own faith (as most priests do in the movies nowadays) but this is a job, and it is one he where he must be nonjudgmental. He has his own emotional flaws, such as the possibility of falling in love with Roxanne. He also has to fight against the devil's advocate, Archbishop Werner (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a ferociously stubborn man who feels the world has no need for more saints or miracles. But sainthood is a tricky judgment, it has to be proved and tested and Father Shore goes against all odds in pursuing the truth and, thus, waiting for another miracle.

Ed Harris does solid work (as always) as the dubious Father Shore, one of the few actors on the silver screen whom you can tell when his mind is at work. He has a very touching, effective scene with Heche, as she visits her mother's grave and they talk about the good Father's flirtations and loss of virginity in high school. Some of this was also featured in the horrible "Stigmata," but here Harris makes it all credible and believable. Anne Heche is sprightly and alive as always...and she shares lots of emotionally implicit scenes with Harris.

"The Third Miracle" is not a great film (I am tired of seeing statues weeping blood, for one, and the ending is abrupt) but it is richly rewarding and tastefully done. It leaves you thinking about what the church constitutes as miracles nowadays, and what a saint's credentials should be. Ultimately, it is a fascinating look at the nature and question of faith in the church. And thanks to Ed Harris, we almost come close to believing that any miracle may be possible.

Lethargic Murray in Coppola's lively rom-com

LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2003)

Bill Murray is an actor, even if you think he hasn't proven it yet. His trick is one that comes from all great actors - he never lets you know he is acting. Others may say Murray is only playing himself, but being yourself is not easy either. In "Lost in Translation," Murray has one of the best roles of his career, playing and defining a character so perfectly that you might forget Murray is acting at all. Akin, though less emotional, to Jack Nicholson's own weary-brand-of-loneliness character in "About Schmidt," Murray has a role that is easily the life force of the movie.

Murray is Bob Harris, a famous actor who's being paid millions to do a whisky commercial in Tokyo. He'd rather be doing a play but the money is good, and he does have a family to support back in California. The problem is Bob is not sure where he should be. When he isn't acting or taking incomprehensible directions from a Japanese director, he is in his hotel room watching TV, sometimes clips from some of his early movies. Sometimes a hooker is sent to his room and asks him to rip his stocking, though it sounds like lip. Other times, when he can't sleep, he is drinking at the hotel bar. And when he is relaxing in a pool or in bed, his wife calls asking what color the carpet fabric should be in his study.

One day, however, he meets an angel of wonderment, a miracle that could change his life. Her name is Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson), a twentysomething girl who is married to a photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) and doesn't know why. As she exclaims in a phone conversation about her wedding, "I felt nothing." Her husband is always on shoots, never in the room with her (and he snores loudly too). Charlotte is forced to fend for herself, parading around the streets of Tokyo shopping and looking, perhaps looking to be engaged by something. Sometimes she frequents the hotel bar, and that is where she meets Bob. The two have a huge age difference but that doesn't stop them from sharing stories and anecdotes. They go shopping together, walk around the streets, sing karaoke, and eventually end up in the same room together. Don't raise your eyebrows just yet, though, because writer-director Sofia Coppola is more interested in their personalities and their quirks than seeing them making love. Why the director felt obliged to show Charlotte's posterior in close-up in the opening shot remains a mystery, but this is still no ordinary romance.

My issue with romances like this is when we learn about the prospective others, the people whom the newly loving couple are married to. Charlotte's own husband seems to either deliberately ignore or is blissfully unaware of his wife. Since his character is shown to be more edgy or anxious than expected, we quickly think he is wrong for her. But tell me how any man could be blissfully unaware of someone like Charlotte? And Bob's wife? We just hear her voice on the phone, saying everything and telling us nothing. She doesn't admit her love for him, and seems almost pained to hear he has a day off from shooting a commercial. It is simply too easy and lazy for the screenwriter to assume that people often use the cliches we expect to hear so we can admonish them and root for the real couple to be together. "Sleepless in Seattle" has this annoying screenwriting problem, among countless other romantic comedies.

Where Coppola proves her worth is in the visuals. This is a kinetically framed romance, often filmed with a hand-held camera and with a lens that shows us a soft-focus world of Tokyo - the movie has the effect of looking through a fog. What it lends is an intimacy that makes the love story almost a documentary of how two different people can meet accidentally. All I can say is that, like cinematic love stories that make Paris look inviting, I would love to visit Tokyo based on what I saw in this movie. We feel like tourists in a strange land, just like Bob and Charlotte.

Bill Murray has a role that defines what he can bring to the screen better than anybody - laziness and lethargy crossed with humor. It is almost like Murray sort of enjoys the lethargy, in a strange way, and he has never played as full-bodied a character as Bob. Those droopy eyes and thin lips make Bob as sad and funny as we can expect Murray to be. Along with his colorful supporting roles in "Rushmore" and "Ed Wood," Murray is as exquisite and as restrained as one can expect - he could make Robin Williams blush on a "Good Will Hunting" day.

Scarlett Johansson also has pizzazz, delivered in a low-key manner. She is sad and funny too, but we sense that she would rather be with someone like Bob who understands her loneliness. Johansson makes the character so endearing and so real that I'd be surprised if there wasn't any man who would fall in love with her on first sight. That dreamy, low-toned voice certainly helps.

The last sequence of "Lost in Translation" doesn't end with the typical happy ending, a requirement of this virtually exhausted genre. Coppola has invested too much in these characters to make easy solutions come to surface. With Bob's own lackadaisical energy and Charlotte's own lost sense of self, they are like lonely lovebirds singing the hymns of lost romantic souls. They search for something, only to find each other and discover there is more to learn about love. It is a romantic notion but Murray, Johansson and Coppola make it come alive in a melancholy way. A sweet film.

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!"