Enervated 20's

HARLEM NIGHTS (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally seen in 1989)

"Harlem Nights" never knows what it wants to be. A misguided vanity production by Eddie Murphy, it either wants to be a gangster comedy or a serious semi-homage to gangster films from the 30's and 40's. There is plenty of violence and profanity but not much to laugh at, despite clearly comic innuendoes.

Eddie plays Quick, a hotheaded partial owner of a swanky nightclub in Harlem called the Club Sugar Ray. Quick's father figure is Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor), the main owner who is charming and a smooth operator. This club is seen as a threat to the Big Boss, Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner), who wants Sugar Ray out of town because he has his own club to operate. So Bugsy commissions help from the crookedest of cops, Cantone (Danny Aiello), to remind Sugar Ray that his boss wants a cut of the profits.

Meanwhile, there is some business involving the club madam (Della Reese) whom Quick shoots in the foot! There is a deadly mistress (Jasmine Guy, of all people), a stuttering boxer (Stan Shaw), a seductive tease like no tease I've seen in the movies in quite some time (Lela Rochon), and a crying hood (hilariously played by Arsenio Hall).

"Harlem Nights" is almost film noir done in lush tones and dark colors that rob the movie of any comic potential. But that is just it: what is "Harlem Nights" supposed to be? The movie never finds the appropriate tone and gets downright nasty and misogynistic beyond belief. For example, poor Della Reese as the madam is not only shot in the foot but she is almost crushed by a garbage can (I say crushed because the movie's sound effects involving punches and kicks are louder than the explosions and gunfire). There is also a scene of a woman shot in the head after being made love to. Nope, nothing funny about that either. But the movie is either not quite noirish enough or not comedic enough - in short, it is a beautifully lit mess.

There are pluses to "Harlem Nights." Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor prove what suave leading men they can be. Redd Foxx is simply there to be there but he did manage to make me smile with his character's semi-blindness. The score by Herbie Hancock is never obtrusive. But the movie is enervated, slow to a crawl, uneven, and shapeless. Though Eddie Murphy has had his share of follies but as actor, director and writer, I can blame him squarely for making me pass out on this one.

Searching for Eddie Murphy Laughs

NORBIT (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Norbit" is a gargantually unfunny piece of garbage - a movie of confoundingly rampant staged gags of cartoonish excess that perpetuates ugly stereotypes and uglier characters of little or no humanity. Most of the blame can be flung at Eddie Murphy and his brother, Charles Murphy, who co-wrote this atrocity.

Eddie Murphy plays Norbit, a meek-looking, bullied guy with a lisp who is unfortunately married to an obese and mean-spirited woman named Rasputia (also played by Eddie Murphy). The fact that she is obese wouldn't have bothered anyone if her weight was not the central focus of all 102 excruciating minutes of the film. Rasputia is a figure of grotesquerie mostly because she is loud, a cheater and wants to kill a neighborhood dog! Her weight is besides the point but Murphy can't help but make fun of Rasputia's weight at every given turn - the amusement park scenes are enough to make most groan when an employee reminds Rasputia that she is wearing no bottom (you get the picture). The slim plot of this overbearing pile of dung deals with Norbit's attempts to win back his childhood girlfriend, Kate (a very skinny Thandie Newton), who is engaged to Deion (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) who unbeknownst to her is planning to turn the old town orphanage into a strip joint. Liquor licenses are hard to come by. Duh!

I am an Eddie Murphy fan up to a point - I have avoided most of his family comedies though perhaps someday I may check out one of them. "Norbit" seemed to be a corrective to his family-friendly image - to present Murphy as the genuine talent he is by playing a variety of roles with the help of makeup expert Rick Baker. Murphy can inhabit an assortment of characters with ease but his writing curtails any sense of humanity - you end up caring about no one except his Norbit character (a little of him also goes a long way). The movie is crass in its staging and rhythm and barely any of it made me smile. It is especially crass in its portrait of buffoons and caricatures and exploits them for what they are in terms of personal appearance, not who they are. Even the kind and semi-racist Chinese owner of the orphanage, Mr. Wong (also played by Eddie), brings up uncomfortable reminders of Mickey Rooney's Chinese caricature from "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I just wanted to revisit "Coming to America," arguably one of Eddie's funniest, or even the juvenile antics of his "Nutty Professor." "Norbit" is missing Murphy's humanity. Oh, yeah, and some laughs. 

Shhhhhh!

SILENT MOVIE (1976)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Any movie that pays homage to silent film can't be bad. After all, silent films are a touchstone of American film history - without them, there would be no cinema. And so, as wildly uneven as some of the comic bits are in "Silent Movie," it is overall an amusing film and a genuine original.

The whole film plays exactly like a silent movie. There is some incidental music, as most silent films did have an orchestra playing (there are also plenty of sound effects). Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman are a bunch of guys who seem to be tooling around Hollywood without any real apparent purpose. They pick up a pregnant lady who causes their car to tilt on its rear wheels! It turns out Brooks is Mel Funn, an alcoholic movie director whose past consumption nearly ruined his career. His pals are helping him make this movie, a silent movie as it were, for a nearly bankrupt studio called Engulf and Devour. The head of the studio is Sid Caesar, but he hates the idea of a silent movie until Funn convinces him it can work if they cast movie stars.

So we get Paul Newman tooling around in a race car; Burt Reynolds taking a shower while other hands adorn his physique; James Caan, as he practices his boxing outside his trailer; Marcel Marceau, who speaks the only word in the entire film; Anne Bancroft; Liza Minnelli, as she is disturbed while eating at a cafeteria while the clan wears armor in disguise that causes the usual pratfalls, and so on.

"Silent Movie" has plenty of terrific gags but it did not leave me out of breath or delirious like Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" or "Blazing Saddles." There are some lulls (the introduction of Sid Caesar goes on forever) but there are just as many inspired moments. I love the moment where Marty Feldman has film reels wrapped around his body, and how they are unspooled so the film can be projected! I love the relentless battle with a Coke machine where coke bottles are thrown and explode on impact (Stephen King tried this gag somewhat to serious effect in his directorial debut, "Maximum Overdrive," and it didn't work). I also love a brief moment where an advertisement is shown for the skyline of New York City and we hear the instrumentals for "San Francisco" when, rather abruptly, it is interrupted for the more appropriate instrumentals of "I'll Take Manhattan." Then there is the fly in the soup for a patron that is none other than Henny Youngman. There is also a merry-go-round bit that shows how vulgar good old Mel can be.

As I said, there is a slight stretch of unevenness to it but "Silent Movie" is still funny, harmless and endearing enough for most anybody who loves the silent film era.

You'll forget it in a flash

FLASHPOINT (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Friends, Conspiracy Theorists, Thriller Fans, Lend me your Insights! "Flashpoint" is another one of those disposable conspiracy thrillers that has a concept that could've flown high. Instead, it crash lands to smithereens leaving nothing but dust in its wake. Killer concept, though, pardon the pun.

Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams (two actors I would love to see paired again) are border patrol cops, Logan and Wyatt, who sense their jobs are in jeopardy. A computer system, complete with motion-detection sensors, is to be installed thanks to the federal government, and all the agents have to dig in the hard desert earth and plant them. Sounds like a shit job, and it is. Wyatt fears they will be staring at computer screens all day, though I do have a nagging question - aren't border agents still needed to bring in the illegals who cross the border? Meanwhile, Logan discovers a buried Jeep in the desert that contains a skeleton, a briefcase with $800,000, and another case containing a fishing rod and a rifle. The money is dated 1962-1963 and its origin is Dallas, and the skeletal remains are of some individual from San Antonio. Clearly, it is a criminal of some kind, but whom? Movie buffs will instantly see a connection between this mystery (at least in terms of the actual discovery) and the plot of "Lone Star" from 1996 which also starred Kris Kristofferson in a killer role, pun intended. Movie buffs will further see a connection between this film and Treat Williams in the 1981 flick, "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper." This is all I could think about while watching this run-of-the-mill flick.

"Flashpoint" has a great concept that could have led to a fantastic mystery thriller with some clever twists and turns. For a while, the movie is involving and invites curiosity as Logan tries to find the clues to this mysterious dead fellow - was the guy an assassin or a bank robber? As soon as federal agents come into the scene, led by the inquisitive and devilish Carson (the always splendid Kurtwood Smith), the movie loses focus, the body count rises, and we are left with our heroes driving around the desert and engaging in quick shootouts. The final revelation will come as no surprise (let's say the year 1963 has some significance) but its execution is just stupid and comes out of left field. Plus, the two women in the film, Tess Harper and Jean Smart, are the alleged love interests but they barely have time to give our hero cops a rest from the conspiracy doldrums.

"Flashpoint" is a movie I saw on cable way back when and forgot about. Seeing it again didn't leave me nostalgic for the 1980's - it reminded me that crappy, disposable cinema has its place in every decade. Perhaps like the skeleton found in the movie, the movie's theme could apply to the movie itself - stay buried. 

Gay-themed Killers from Space

DON'T ASK DON'T TELL (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Mystery Science Theatre" was the first TV show to ever mock bad movies by filming actors voicing their rants and raves. Now imagine a movie where a bad movie's initial intentions are eradicated by inserting a whole new storyline, new voices to match the original actors and newly inserted scenes. It's been done before with Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily?" back in 1969 and some more obscure efforts since, but "Don't Ask Don't Tell" ratchets it up a few notches by making a statement about sexual orientation in America in the 21st century. It does so with lots of laughs, too.

The movie in question is 1954's "Killers From Space," a science-fiction thriller that starred the young Peter Graves. Except this movie is not strictly about aliens but rather about gays! Some sort of alien laser is changing straight people into gays and Graves, playing a scientist known as Dr. Fartin (voiced by Erik Frandsen), is the latest victim after an unsuccessful mission to Operation Manhole. He becomes bewildered, distraught, can't walk straight and keeps saying everything is "fabulous." Dr. Fartin will not make love to his wife Ellen (Barbara Bestar, voice of Rosa Rugosa), which proves frustrating especially after numerous attempts to entice him by lifting her skirt. Finally, she consults the help of a German doctor who advises her to try more provocative poses. The military, represented by Colonel Butts and Major Problemo, try to find out how the good doctor got himself into this mess. They also recommend the best solutions to regaining his straight, virile self. One solution had me laughing out loud: "Did you try driving a tow truck?"

So we have truly bug-eyed aliens, provocative nurses named Nurse Bendover, sexual shenanigans involving blueberries and pancakes, townsfolk from Inbred, Texas, a few cracks at the Bush administration (including a portrait of Ike that morphs into Bush), a Freudian shrink, and so much more. The best moments center on the new lines given to these forgotten actors from the 1950's (excepting Peter Graves, who had narrated TV's "Biography"). Thanks to editor Jackie Eagan, most of it is quite seamless, though the depth of field for sound could have been better (it sounds like the actors are just speaking into the mikes). There is one great gag where Colonel Butts shows how menacing he is by indicating that everything except his eyes are masked (masking was a common editing effect since the silent era). Nice touch. And I also enjoyed the scenes of a toll-booth attendant (or was he a gas-station attendant?) giving the latest information on Fartin's whereabouts. And for gratuitous musical number fans, there is one involving the aliens that will rock your boat.

Now, of course, this is all as silly and overdone as one can expect. Comedian Lloyd Floyd, who appears in the newly shot and inserted scenes, plays a bunch of different characters like Nurse Bendover and other inhabitants devoid of intelligence from Inbred, Texas. They are not side-splittingly funny and some simply mark time. The sexual innuendoes and shots of crotches may induce more groans than laughs. And repeated use of the same close-up head shots of the military figures grows monotonous after a while.

Still, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is a goofy, often hysterical time at the movies. Director Doug Miles and writer Tex Hauser infuse the 1954 film with a refreshingly comical and sordid tone. As for satire, it makes the claim that homosexuality is not something that should be feared, and acceptance can grow even in the military. Sounds like it has more up its sleeve than "Killers From Space."

Joyless Kaiju destruction

GODZILLA (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is one scene in "Godzilla," the newest remake of the Japanese creation from the 1950's, that so indelibly captures the King of the Monsters that fans will rejoice. Godzilla, after reducing most of an American city to ruins, wakes up from a nap and walks towards the sea. Everyone stares at this massive reptile, including two key characters who look at him with a sense of wonder and amazement. A shame this is the last scene of a lumbering, underwritten and lazy monster flick that I watched with a collective yawn.

The wisp of a plot details an earthquake at a Japanese nuclear facility where conspiracy-wired nuclear engineer (a stellar Bryan Cranston) believes that a meltdown was caused by something else, a couple of atomic monsters no less. Cranston's wife, a nuclear scientist (Juliette Binoche, an excellent actress who deserves better), dies during the meltdown (the trailer gave one the impression that they were in the entire movie). Fast-forward to fifteen years later where Cranston tries to convince his son (Aaron Taylor-Thomas), a U.S. Navy explosives expert, to investigate the dormant facility. Problems arise when a huge winged creature takes flight, killing Cranston in the process. The rest of "Godzilla" barely has our favorite atomic monster and features endless scenes of destruction while spectators watch in disbelief as their cities are drowned by tsunamis and a heck of a lot of 9/11 imagery. Too much, in fact, to the point that all fun is drained from severely underlit night footage of the monsters battling it out.

Cranston, a real fireball of an actor, is the best thing in "Godzilla" and his appearance is premature. Elizabeth Olsen is not given much to do besides being the token worried wife. Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, the lead scientist of a certain Project Monarch, merely looks concerned throughout - a waste of a remarkable actor who first sprouted real acting chops in "The Last Samurai." The actors are mere window dressing for special-effects that are not much to look at, I am afraid. I think I appreciate the old 1950's "Godzilla" features more so than this snore-inducing CGI fest. In recent years, "Cloverfield" and "Pacific Rim" proved to be far more successful at surprising us and including a sense of fun. This "Godzilla" is for the birds with not an ounce of suspense or real thrills in it.

"Godzilla" is a marginal improvement over the colossally bad 1998 remake that featured the most ridiculous-looking King of the Monsters in history, but that is not exactly a fitting recommendation. When all the DTS sound effects and ugly-looking visuals are over, you will wonder why Godzilla and company are only filmed at night rather than during the day - ah, perhaps because as Roger Ebert once said, nighttime covers up flaws. It didn't cover up screenplay flaws, though.

Rising above Guy Ritchie

SEXY BEAST (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally written in 2001)

(Ten Best Films of the 2000's)

I have declared my distaste for the postmodern Tarantino crime genre ad nauseam so I feel no need to continue voicing it. Nevertheless, a film like "Sexy Beast" usually comes marching along to ignite the genre beyond the usual expectations and boy, does it ever. "Sexy Beast" is a firecracker thriller, as intense and entertaining as "Reservoir Dogs" and about as menacing as "GoodFellas."

The opening scene sets in a different tone than expected. We see a man basking in the hot sun as he is lying on a chair near the pool. He starts using synonyms for his peace of mind and relaxation. Before you know it, a boulder comes crashing into his pool almost killing him in the process. His relaxation is over, as is the audiences'. The man at peace in his glorious house and pool is Gal Dove (Ray Winstone), a retired gangster who is trying to sooth his nerves. Those nerves become jangled as the imminent arrival of a Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) is announced by Gal's close friends, an ex-gangster sidekick (Cavan Kendall) and his exotic blonde wife (Julianne White). Don Logan is feared by these people and rightly so. Logan has come to recruit Gal for one last heist in London, a job commissioned by a crime lord known as Teddy "Mr. Black Magic" (Ian McShane). Problem is that Gal has no interest but boy, does Don try to persuade him. Persuasion and insistence are Don's codes of coercion - he will not take no for an answer. Don verbally and physically attacks everyone in his sight, including Gal and his former porn star wife (Amanda Redman), not to mention Gal's aforementioned friends. Never before have I witnessed a cliched plot device delivered so brilliantly in terms of desperation and sheer persuasion as shown here.

Eventually, Gal ends up in London to perform the complicated heist, which involves a highly secure bank and a Turkish bath! Teddy is the mastermind of this heist and also inquisitive and persuasive, particularly involving the mysterious disappearance of Don. This all results in one of the most conniving, cunning and surprising climaxes I've seen in eons.

Ben Kingsley is clearly the marvel of the film, a supreme scene-stealer. His startling, piercing eyes and thick East End London accent will drive you bonkers wishing he would just disappear. It is a performance of amazing intensity, all the more amazing coming from Kingsley who has played bona fide saints in "Gandhi" and "Schindler's List." He did play a suave gangster in "Bugsy" and left a haunting impression in "Death and the Maiden," but neither role can prepare you for what is easily the toughest villain since Joe Pesci's trigger-happy act in "GoodFellas." Ray Winstone is also as assured as the quiet, implosive Gal. He wants out of the crime world but one gets the sneaky suspicion that he craves the leisure and laid-back living it can provide. Only someone like Don has given him reason to quit for good and ever.

One final performance that left me riveted was Ian McShane's icy, cold-blooded Teddy - a character that is as dangerous and steely-eyed as Don. Combining these two magnificent performances in one film can create terror in everyone's mind for months on end. They would make James Bond's heart palpitate.

"Sexy Beast" is directed by first-timer Jonathan Glazer, whose background is in directing music videos. One would expect jump cuts galore and lots of loud rock music from the Guy Ritchie crime school. Glazer eschews the in-your-face style for a more formal, stable palette of fixed compositions (the swimming pool even looks menacing at times). His focus is also on the characters, and the best scenes are when Don and Gal are sitting by an umbrella table by the pool as the sun sets its glow on Don's bald head. It is moments of that nature that bring an unsettling tension to the film. No one-liners or clever postmodern, wink-it's-only-a-movie moments that would cut away from the tension. Glazer is as graceful and composed as most seasoned directors.

"Sexy Beast" is not as much a heist film as it is about people involved in an emotional crisis and mood swinging tempos, especially Gal's wife who loves her husband dearly yet feels threatened as does everyone in the film. Exceptionally performed, directed and photographed, "Sexy Beast" is like no crime film I've seen before - a surreal, sometimes mind-bending trip into the allure of crime and the leisure it offers. There are unforeseen obstacles and sometimes it is less than glamorous in the underworld. When someone like Don Logan comes along, there may be no way out.