Boobs in Fantasy Land

BABES IN TOYLAND (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When a fantasy movie is so third rate that it is devoid of magic, a sense of wonder or anything approaching a sense of fun, I get irritated. "Babes in Toyland" is threadbare Clive Donner crap (a director who has done far superior work, including 1984's invigorating "A Christmas Carol" with George C. Scott) that is unlikely to move an impatient toddler.

Drew Barrymore is Lisa Piper, a Cincinnati 11-year-old girl who cares for her family and apparently does all the cooking. Her older sibling, Mary (Jill Schoelen), works at a toy store and is forced to push sales of teddy bears by a demanding boss (the wonderful Richard Mulligan). Keanu Reeves plays Mary's boyfriend who also works at the toy store. When Lisa gets wind that her mother (Eileen Brennan) will not be in time for dinner due to a severe snowstorm while the TV antenna's signal is cut, little Lisa runs to the toy store and asks for her sister's help. They all drive merrily home while singing "C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I" until there is a car wreck! Guess what happens! Lisa is transported to Toyland where her sister Mary, now Mary Contrary, is getting married to the dastardly, wicked Barnaby (Mulligan, again) who lives in a giant bowling ball! The marriage is intervened and we also get a roster of talented stars such as Eileen Brennan (again) as Mother Goose; Pat Morita as a Toymaker who turns out to be (SPOILER ALERT!) Kris Kringle himself, and a host of pale-green-faced creatures and actors wearing immobile animal costumes including teddy bears who serve as crossing guards! I think I also spotted Humpty-Dumpty with a movable, wandering eye. "Wizard of Oz," it is decidedly not (The stage musical of "Oz" served as the inspiration for the operetta of "Babes in Toyland" back in 1903).

The Cincinnati opener is actually decent and sort of fun, while it lasts. Jill Schoelen and Drew Barrymore work so well together that you wish they had more screen time as sisters before embarking on the Toyland adventure. Once we enter the colorful Toyland, it disappointingly looks like an amusement park, not a lived-in fantasy land. Worse yet, despite a game cast, the movie is insufferably dull and practically unwatchable. There is no flair or sense of magic in this land - it is dreary and artificial at best despite the brightly colored art-direction. Mother Goose's Shoe House and those Go-Carts are fun for a while (I like Brennan's line: "I will not allow such radical thinking in my shoe!"), and it is somewhat interesting that it is always daylight in Toyland but the whole setting resembles a western that just happens to have odd creatures. Other than that, the movie sinks fast with unmemorable songs and a climax with the toy soldiers that is so shoddily staged (witness Drew pelting monsters with tomatoes and a wooden soldier shedding a tear) that it is hard to believe anyone like director Donner would've shaped it. Everything about this movie is wooden, both in design and staging and performance (Pat Morita and Eileen Brennan bring some measure of intermittent sweetness but lovely Drew is misdirected as if she was a rotten actor who couldn't emote beyond a sunny smile). If you are a babysitter and wish to put the kids to sleep, show them this movie. 

Film is not reality, reality is not film

FULL FRONTAL (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Steven Soderbergh's "Full Frontal" is quite a movie experience but it is not a coherent one, and I kind of appreciated that. Soderbergh has created a mini-canvas of lives in Los Angeles but without the multi-layered connections of a Robert Altman or an Alan Rudolph flick, or for that matter Paul Thomas Anderson.

"Full Frontal" takes place in Hollywood where movie stars like Brad Pitt make movies on the city streets and people walk around dressed in full Dracula costumes. This is also the Hollywood of screenwriters, massage therapists, producers, reporters, personnel directors, animal doctors, and so on. They are all conflicted in their lives because of bad relationships that need desperate mending. Lee (Catherine Keener) is a personnel director who loathes her job and humiliates her employees by asking them personal questions (get it?) while holding a globe. She is unhappily married to Carl (David Hyde Pierce), a screenwriter who also writes magazine articles and gets fired from that job because he has confused quirks with standards. Lee feels frustrated and takes her frustrations out on her sister Linda (Mary McCormack), a masseuse who can't find the right man in her life so she looks for one on the Internet. Their relationship is the most arresting and fascinating of the lot.

Meanwhile, there is a director named Ed (Enrico Colantoni), who Linda is about to meet for the first time in Tucson. He is working on a new play about Hitler as some sort of buffoon (it is entitled "The Sound and the Fuhrer"). The terrifically funny Nicky Katt is playing Hitler though there is a method to his madness - he likes to rewrite the stage directions and insult the actors. And let's not forget Blair Underwood as a movie star in the film-within-the-film called "Rendezvous," who begins to explain the method to his madness and his standing as a black actor to a smitten reporter (Julia Roberts). So what we are seeing is a movie relationship and the real relationships in "reality" - what is the real truth being explored here? Or perhaps Soderbergh is saying that life is like a movie, hence all relationships are like movies. It is possible we are not seeing a "realistic" relationship in the entire film.

"Full Frontal" is one quirky film alright, as playful and entrancing as Soderbergh's "Schizopolis." The point of the movie may be that a movie is a movie, never a reality. This is not a new conceit. Consider that Alejandro Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain" had the director appear in the last scene showing that his film was not a real film, hence a film crew is seen in the shot. Ah, but a film is still being made and someone is still shooting a scene of the director making his remarks. The point is that film is not a reality anyway, only an approximation. Still, the last shot of "Full Frontal" is what I call a "glass breakage" scene where the reality of the film is broken by its reflection of an inner truth nobody was aware of, or thought of. It's nothing new but it did catch me by surprise.

"Full Frontal" is shot on grainy, low-grade video and 35 mm film. Again, the technique of applying different film stocks is nothing new but it feels appropriate for the material. It feels like Soderbergh made this film to renew his faith in the magic of filmmaking at a guerrilla stage, and who can blame him? After making the excellent "Traffic" and the fluffy "Ocean's Eleven," he is back on track making the kind of films that gave him his shot of recognition in the first place. Maybe in a few years I'll look back at this review and say to myself, "how could I have given 'Full Frontal' a rave review?" Well, nothing will hinder my praise - "Full Frontal" is one of the few engaging films of 2002.

Han Solo and Rambo together, oh, if only

THE EXPENDABLES 3 (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sylvester Stallone has become far more interesting nowadays, thanks to his gravelly voice and his been-there-done-that-older-wiser repartee. He looks like an older lion who still has the stamina and strength to crush you, yet he can also have a good time at a bar drinking with the rest of them. Unfortunately, "The Expendables" movie series has gotten more banal with each entry and this third chapter is inexplicably a two-hour snoozer. Stallone tries to save it but his presence is not enough.

Stallone is once again Barney Ross, the mercenary who wants to kill a former Expendable-turned-psychotic-arms dealer, Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson, looking as if he wants to be home screaming at someone - perhaps his agent). The problem is that Ross's boss, an impatient CIA operative (Harrison Ford, who looks like he'd rather be piloting the Millennium Falcon), wants Stonebanks alive so that he can be tried for war crimes. A mission where Conrad, presumed dead, is initially discovered by Barney results in the near-fatal gunshots suffered by Hale Caesar (Terry Crews, always a spirited and fun actor). Ross decides to disband his older cronies for newer, fresher blood. These new recruits barely got my attention except for Ronda Rousey as a tough bouncer and mixed martial-artist - she has a tender and vicious side that makes her a perfect new Expendable. However, you start to miss the reliable pros of 80's and 90's action pic fame like Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford - they are AWOL for almost 60 percent of the film.

"Expendables 3" is not as cartoonishly empty as the second film but it is nowhere near as decent as the first film. In the end, the movie is about nothing more than amassing a huge body count and the chance to hear Harrison Ford say the word "fuck." I am all for the small pleasures in life but with such an extraordinary cast that can bring you goosebumps when you hear all their names together, the end result is nothing but numbing monotony. 

Alcoholic, thieving, sexed-up Santa

BAD SANTA (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The only words I have for "Bad Santa" is that it is indisputably funny. Many will disagree but you can't expect anyone to have the same formal opinion when it comes to a movie about an alcoholic, foul-mouthed thief who dresses up as Santa. The reason this movie works so well is because of Billy Bob Thornton, a remarkable actor who continually surprises me.

Good old Billy Bob plays Willie, an alcoholic safecracker who has a long-time partner, an angry dwarf named Marcus (Tony Cox). They have been robbing department stores at Christmas time for eight years. The basic setup is simple: Willie gets a job as Santa and the dwarf is your basic elf. By the end of the holiday season, Willie and the elf will wait for the store to close and rob it blind. They prove successful in their exploits, enough to where Willie can afford to drink himself into a drunken stupor until the following Christmas. Sadly, the newest attempt proves a disaster from the beginning. Willie obviously hates being Santa, hates kids, hates department stores, and naturally hates himself. He is always drunk, is foul-mouthed to everyone (including his employer played the late John Ritter), incessantly uses the four-letter word, has sex with customers in the dressing rooms, etc. Nobody can play a mean drunk half as well as Billy Bob Thornton.

Suspicions abound when the store's security chief (Bernie Mac) is on to the duo and wants a cut of the profits. There are also some other obstacles. Willie meets a kid (Brett Kelly), known in the credits as The Kid, who insists that Willie is Santa Claus and will do anything to help him. This includes the Kid letting Willie stay at his house, while Kid's father is in jail and the only parental guardian is his almost catatonic grandmother (Cloris Leachman). Another obstacle is Sue (Lauren Graham), a bartender who loves to boink guys in Santa suits. Willie is no exception, and the relationship seems to be nothing but sex. That is until we slowly learn that Sue has feelings for a drunker-than-thou Santa Claus.

What can we expect to see in "Bad Santa"? I saw the unrated cut (known as "Badder Santa"), which includes some extra boinking scenes (including a moment where Willie demonstrates to an underage girl how to play pinball with more thrusting), Bernie Mac getting his toenails manicured, a dazed and confused Cloris sleeping through most of the movie, the Santa-loving kid with the occasional snot in his nose, Willie knocking over reindeer models, and so on. Yes, filth and vulgarity galore. I've neglected to mention that I found this movie funny throughout. Yes, I got a kick out of it.

True, Billy Bob seems almost too intelligent to make stupid mistakes. Also true that the movie is slightly overlong (including a far-too extended and slightly sappy climax). The Kid is not always the most appealing character to look at, what with all that snot in his nose. And I would've loved more scenes with Sue so that we got an inkling as to her attachment towards Bad Santa.

Still, "Bad Santa" is funny and mean-spirited in good, healthy doses to make one smile. There is a touch of humanity thanks to Billy Bob that could've easily been nothing less than a one-joke movie with any other actor. With Billy Bob and director Terry Zwigoff ("Ghost World"), it is a socko comic triumph with plenty of belly laughs. 

Jill Schoelen is an angel pointing the way

AN ACTOR CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

By Jerry Saravia

Celebrities (actors, actresses, directors, etc.) are people first, celebrities second. I always thought of Jill Schoelen as a person first, not a movie star or an actress. To those who are unaware of who Jill Schoelen is, she is the star of films like "The Stepfather," "Popcorn," "Rich Girl," and "When a Stranger Calls Back," among other films. From my own experience, I guess it has to do with "The Stepfather," the first film where I first took notice of her. Her Stephanie Maine character in that film instilled confidence in me that I might meet someone special later in life, and of course I have - my darling, wonderfullest Dana who has been my better half since 2003. I first saw "The Stepfather" on late night TV in the fall of 1989, not long after graduating high school. In high school, I was a loner and never had much luck with women, and didn't try to. I can't explain it but Jill Schoelen's sweetness and rebelliousness in that film was hitting me like a flash of my future - that a woman like that could be in my future and take an interest in someone like me. She was like an angelic sister at my side, somehow directing me to where I am today. It may sound odd but that is what she did for me. Although Jill is not a friend of mine beyond facebook nor have I ever met her, I would thank her for giving me the confidence to communicate with women, without feeling agitated or nervous about it. I don't know where I would be had it not been for that late night in the fall of 1989...it was fate I suppose and it still took some work (I hardly became an overnight Lothario). Of course, I don't know where I would be without my Dana either. Jill Schoelen was the first step in making a difference in my life. Thank you Jill!

1 out of 4 is a bad score

FOUR ROOMS (1995)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Allison Anders, Quentin Tarantino, Alexander Rockwell and Robert Rodriguez all have one thing in common. They have concocted a disastrously wrongheaded anthology about four different rooms in a David Lynchian hotel with one omnipresent character, a bellboy. If only these four rooms didn't all seem the same.

Tim Roth plays Ted, the bellboy who works one long night on New Year's Eve catering to the demands of every guest at the hotel. Firstly, we have a coven of witches all played by Madonna, Lili Taylor, Valeria Golino, Sammi Davis and Ione Skye. For Skye to become a witch, she needs Ted's sperm! Then Ted inadvertently wanders into a bizarre S & M game with Jennifer Beals. Later, Ted finds himself acting as a babysitter for two little rascals while the parents (Tamlyn Tomita, Antonio Banderas) are out partying. Finally, there is the movie star (Quentin Tarantino) and his cohorts on the top floor who stage a bet involving cutting someone's pinkie off.

To give Tim Roth the title role is a stroke of genius but he's not given much of a character to play. His constant tics and forced smiles in all four episodes evoke wearisome histrionics, not laughter. Just imagine what Steve Buscemi from "Barton Fink" might have done with this.

The best episode is the first one called "The Missing Ingredient" with the coven of witches - it is funny and has some zest to it, and all the actresses make witty appearances. Rockwell's awful "Wrong Man" episode is uneven, stupid and definitely the worst - this episode's idea of wit is to have Beals's character come up with various synonyms for penis. Rodriguez's over-the-top "Misbehavers" is strangely dull with Banderas overdoing his "Desperado" slicked-ponytail routine. The last episode, "The Man From Hollywood," is relentlessly dreary with Tarantino doing his one-note characterization of a movie star and his knowledge of how movies gross at the box-office. The finger foible story adds zilch to Tarantino's own pulpy film resume, and the constant hand-held camerawork and litany of f-curses is headache-inducing.

"Four Rooms" is a misguided and terminally unfunny anthology offering none of the evident talent from its star directors, excluding Allison Anders ("Gas, Food and Lodging"). It is less a movie than an excuse to show a serpentine, uncontrollable late-night party with more jeers than cheers.

The makings of a disaster

LE FEAR 2: LE SEQUEL (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Making a low-budget B monster movie is sure fun for anyone involved. Making or attempting to make a quality "film noir" horror movie with Z-grade amateurs is probably not much fun. Part of the hilarity of Jason Croot's "Le Fear 2: Le Sequel" is when you expect quality with a bigger budget...and you still get horse dung.

Carlos Revalos (Kyri Saphiris) is the incompetent filmmaker who is pitching to make a horror film that features vampires and presumably witch doctors. A South African executive producer (from Nollywood - Nigeria's answer to Hollywood) named Dirk Heinz (played by Andrew Tiernan) promises a huge 10 million dollar production deal as long as Carlos puts up 500,000 pounds of his own money. Aye, there is the rub. Why on earth does Carlos have to put up money for a proposed 10 million budget? Good question.

Enter Nollywood producer Efi (Seye Adelekan) who is some sort of hip, energized yet completely hopeless and clueless man that basically ruins the production. When Carlos asks for a studio set, he gets a used, smelly caravan vehicle. Props and FX master brings in Halloween decorations! An actress plays a vampire in ways that even Vampira would object to. Queenie (played with an edgy wickedness by Victoria Hopkins) is the sex-starved makeup artist who seduces the cinematographer and an actress. A lead actress (Denise Moreno) is nonplussed by the shoddiness of it all. "I want horror," screams Carlos consistently and all he gets are inflatable alien dolls and an Ed Wood-type inflatable UFO from a FX expert who supposedly worked on "Avatar"! When the lead actress angrily exits, a Japanese actress who can't speak a lick of English replaces her. A 35mm motion picture camera and a dolly are requested and all Efi brings to the table is nothing but an old 8mm camera.

There are many laughs and a few groans in "Le Fear II." For one, the appearance of the title of the film on occasion runs a little dry (maybe it should be introduced twice during its opening credits, the second time it can be shown in bigger letters as it was in Robert Altman's "Brewster McCloud"). I also think a little tightening of a couple scenes would help - there a few dry spells that do not elicit much laughter such as Queenie aiming incessantly for a quickie with the cinematographer (far funnier and titillating is Queenie seducing the vampire actress). Carlo's shocked face at the progress of the movie could be sustained longer periodically. Still, I love the freewheeling Efi whose very cluelessness (including his misunderstanding of the word "gremlin) ups the ante on laughs that had me in stitches throughout - he steals the movie singlehandedly.

This review of "Le Fear II" applies to a work-in-progress - the official date of release is not till April 2015. In terms of other movie-within-the-movie movies, "Le Fear II" is nothing new technically (aside from the shadiness of the South African producer and money man) but it is consistently smart and witty (it will be funnier to those who have participated in the making of grade Z schlock).