Obsessive over the New York Giants

BIG FAN (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Maybe because I've known types like Paul Aufiero, I can safely say that with obsessions, there is some semblance of a life not colored only by obsession. In the film "Big Fan," Paul is all about obsession, obsession with the New York Giants and fictional Giant linebacker Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm). He is so obsessed by Quantrell that Paul sleeps with a poster hanging over his bed. But is there anything more to Paul besides being a passionately avid New York Giants fan? I am afraid not.

Paul is a 36-year-old Staten Island man living with his mother and working at a day job where he mans the booth at a parking garage. Paul's free time is spent watching the Giants play, including watching them on a TV outside the Giants stadium with his friend, Sal (Kevin Corrigan), since they can't afford the tickets inside. He also prepares by writing in his notebook what he will say about the Giants' game strategies or comments on the players to a late-night talk radio program called "The Zone," which he calls nightly.

Unfortunately, there is not much more to Paul. He masturbates almost every night and he hates his nagging mother and his brother, who is an ambulance chaser. He refuses to date, denies job offers from his relatives, essentially denies any ability afforded to him to move forward. Paul only loves the Giants and his friend, Sal, though one wonders what sort of life Sal has that he hangs out with Paul.

One night, Paul and Sal are having pizza and they both spot Paul's idol, Quantrell Bishop. They follow him to some neighborhood where Quantrell may be buying drugs. They further follow Quantrell to a strip joint and this is where Paul makes his move - he tells the football player he's a big fan. Then something happens and a fight breaks out, leaving Paul with almost fatal head injuries. The incident is reported to the press, a detective begins asking questions, and suddenly Paul's private world is exposed.

As written and directed by Robert Siegel (who also wrote the brilliant "The Wrestler"), "Big Fan" is not judgmental of Paul nor does it embrace him. The guy could be termed a loser by most, but that is too easy. However, I can't say there is more to Paul than his obsession and that is where the screenplay falters. Everyone has their obsessions - mine is cinema - but I do engage in other things. When I was single, I went to the movies but mostly solo - I would mostly get together with friends of mine and have dinner and chit-chat. I would go on long walks and exercise, read books, be engaged in world events through the news, etc. Paul is simply a New York Giants fan and it is what he lives for and what causes his downfall. The tragedy may be that Paul never makes the realization - he just doesn't care a lick about anything else. And some of this tested my patience a little.

Comedian Patton Oswalt gives a nuanced, eye-opening performance of mild, Staten Island-ish, almost New Jersey-ish anxiety but the character is still lacking in some inner life, something that would make us care about him beyond his obsession. As I said many times, I do not look to sympathize or like the main character in a film - only to feel myself in their shoes in some way. By contrast, "The Wrestler" was a fully dimensional and exquisite portrait of a lost soul - we saw Mickey Rourke's wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson's ups and downs, his lack of family, his need to be around a stripper, his pain, his sorrow, his guilt. With Paul Aufiero, we see his lack of detachment to anything other than football and his friend. This makes for a purposefully and correctly sad and depressing film, but not necessarily an enriching one.

Female terminator dives headfirst into toilet

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2003)

Who would've guessed that "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" would be an action-packed, thoroughly exciting entry in the series? Funny, nerve-frying, often supremely entertaining, "Terminator 3" certainly rises to the occasion and is one of the better sequels in quite some time. Still, I am not sure it is a necessity, aside from being a louder B-movie, but it gets the job done.

This time, an older John Connor (played by Nick Stahl, replacing Edward Furlong) is now working construction jobs and living off the grid, bearing in mind an unforeseeable future. Of course, since this is a "Terminator" movie, the future is still quite bleak. Two terminators have been sent from the future, one is the protector and the other a destroyer. The protector is the standard T-model, a titanium steel cyborg (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is not just protecting John this time but also Kathy Brewster (Claire Danes), a future wife of John's and also someone who will work under John's command. The destroyer is a T-X model, or Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken), an advanced liquid terminator prototype whose arms can fire missiles and can be used as blowtorches. Her purpose is to kill John Connor and Kathy, not to mention others who will eventually work under John's command. The problem is that on this day of chaos, a nuclear war is about to happen. "Judgment day was inevitable," says the protective Terminator model. The rest of the movie is like a sci-fi suspense thriller where our heroes have to race against the clock to prevent Judgment Day from happening.

Okay, so for some of you out there, not one word of the previous paragraph will make a lick of sense. So let's backtrack: the first "Terminator" film featured a killer cyborg sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the future mother of John Connor, the leader of a resistance group against the machines after a nuclear apocalypse. In the second film, two terminators are sent back to kill the young John Connor (Edward Furlong), though the main focus was on Sarah Connor's own determination to stop the inevitable. Naturally, I thought the story was complete and there was nothing more to say. But money talks and Schwarzenegger, who's been in desperate need of a hit, could not say no. So is "Terminator 3" simply a reiteration of the previous films? In some ways, but it is acceptable since we are dealing with time-travel paradoxes where events are always reiterated in some form or another. For example, we get to see Schwarzenegger, in his birthday suit, enter another bar where he asks a male stripper (!) for his clothes. We also get a truck chase that is among the most frenetic in the series, complete with an extended crane that causes so much damage, you'd be surprised if half of the city of L.A. wasn't destroyed. This may not top similar sequences in "Terminator 2" but it comes close. There is also a physical battle between the two terminators, dozens of cyborgs armed with laser weapons, an army base that uses outdated computer systems, Arnie cutting his chest open to remove some explosive device, phrases like "I am back" or "I like your car" uttered by the mentally deficient terminators, computer systems run amok (meaning no cell phone use - how sad), helicopters crashing through walls, an electromagnetic field that liquid terminators may not appreciate, a coffin holding an arsenal of weapons, and so on. Yes, it is all silly to the nth degree, but I can honestly say that it is terrific fun.

Schwarzenegger still knows how to deliver his lines with a capable robotic mentality. Nick Stahl is a nice addition to the series, though his interpretation of John Connor indicates that he's more willing to accept his future than he cares to admit. He has a nice rapport with Claire Danes as the sweet-tempered Kathy Brewster, who of course learns how to fire an automatic rifle. As for Kristanna Loken, she may not have the malice or the fierce presence of Robert Patrick's T-1000 model from the last sequel, but she is definitely not someone you want to mess with either (though feminists may scoff at seeing her thrown into a toilet headfirst).

"Terminator 3" may seem unnecessary and may be too short for some, but it does have believable performances, a feverish pace and a truly astounding finale (some may consider it too much of a downer). Now that the focus is sqaurely on John Connor, I suppose we can expect another sequel. Let's say that the series has been leading to an inevitable conclusion and I will say, inevitably, it is enough.

Terminator 2 is THE END

TERMINATOR 2 SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE END

By Jerry Saravia

 "I knew my character arc was so complete in the first two" - Linda Hamilton on why she turned down 'Terminator 3'

Once James Cameron's thrilling, nonstop action spectacle "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" reached its

action-filled climax and its denouement concerning a friendlier Terminator than the gritty 1984 tech-noir classic that started this whole time-traveling mess in the first place, it was clear that the Terminator's days were over. Skynet, the artificial intelligence computer network that initiated nuclear war, was no more - it had no existence in the future. After the good Terminator finally destroys the lethal T-1000 Terminator (Robert Patrick, our liquid terminator) and then asks the young rascal John Connor to destroy him since a terminator cannot self-terminate, it meant no killer cyborgs in the future, no nuclear war, done. A whole decade later, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" burst onto to the scene, an unnecessary sequel yet still a fairly decent one with a bleaker outlook. As much as I enjoyed it, it was clearly a cash-in on the first two films and it completely contradicted the second film. (SPOILERS AHEAD for those who have not seen any of these films) Skynet manages to activate a nuclear war after all and as the returning Terminator insists, "It was inevitable." IT WAS? Yeah, to the studios maybe but let's be clear: I think James Cameron always thought that the story was over. There was no more story to tell. (NOTE: "Terminator Salvation" will not be discussed since I have yet to see it.)

Now there is yet another "Terminator" flick called "Terminator Genisys," which director James Cameron has already declared the true third film in the franchise. That may or may not be and my interest was a little piqued when I saw the newest trailer, which definitely let loose a major twist that should not have been so hastily unleashed. But to me, "Terminator 2" was the end. It had a finality to it and it really was more of a continuation, not a traditional cash-grab of a sequel, of Sarah Connor's quest to save her teenage son John Connor (future leader of the resistance against the machines of a post-apocalyptic universe) from the deadly T-1000 terminator. Sarah and John's story made the sequel more of an emotional journey, harkening back to the love story of the original film between Kyle Reese and Sarah (Kyle turned out to be the sire of John Connor, which brought up all sorts of questions). Yes, there are the requisite explosions, astounding action sequences that make your jaw drop and fight scenes that are as awesomely staged as ever (the longer cut of "Terminator 2" is the greater film experience). Without characters to care about, the movie would've been nothing more than catnip for action aficionados who do not care about complex relationships. Linda Hamilton brought a toughness and a touch of post-Ripleyness to her Sarah Connor - her scene in a mental institution where she angrily pronounces the end of the world will make you shiver and get you misty-eyed. Edward Furlong as John Connor is not some weak kid - he is resourceful and proves to his mother he's got the bravery to be a leader. Schwarzenegger is as alert as always as the protector this time, not the killer. And Robert Patrick was the very definition of a killer antagonist - imitating his victims with his chameleonic capabilities and then killing without provocation.

"Terminator 2" set a whole new standard for the post-apocalyptic action picture - it comes up aces in all departments, has eerie, nightmarish scenes of nuclear devastation, and moves at a brisk, unrelenting pace. It just makes no sense for additional sequels to have emerged in its wake. 

The pits for Harrison Ford (and I've seen Hanover Street)

HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally review from 2003)

I thought buddy-buddy cop movies were on the outs. I mean, how many variations can there be on "48 HRS." and "Lethal Weapon"? How many more sequels do we need to such movies, particularly "Bad Boys" (and I do not mean the excellent Sean Penn flick). "Hollywood Homicide" is the latest in the generic, bland, colorless buddy-buddy cop movies, its only major distinction being that it stars Harrison Ford.

Ford plays homicide detective Joe Gavilan, who always orders a cheeseburger while investigating a crime scene. He also has another job as a realtor, though he hasn't sold any real estate in years. The latest teen heartthrob Josh Hartnett ("Pearl Harbor") plays Gavilan's partner, K.C. Kalden, whose other job is as a yoga instructor for young women he can score with. He also has aspirations to be an actor, and his latest role is playing Stanley Kowalsi in a stage version of "A Streetcar Named Desire." But back to the homicide investigation, which deals with the murder of two rap stars at a nightclub. The culprit may be a wealthy rap producer (Isaiah Washington) who wants his clients to stay with his record label - if they don't, they'll be killed. Yawn.

The plot of "Hollywood Homicide" is so run-of-the-mill that I am surprised Ford would agree to star in it, considering his reputation for picking projects carefully. As of late, he has starred in snoozers like "What Lies Beneath" and "Random Hearts" but at least those projects were more in line with Ford's willingness to expand his horizons. This film's plot and characters are so arbitrary that they could have been played by any group of actors. It doesn't help that we are bombarded with stock villains, stock shootings, stock plot, stock dialogue, stock everything. Ford elicits a wink and smile here and there but it seems forced, as if the audience was pleading for him to show the joy that was missing from his work lately. The Joe Gavilan character is laid-back and mimics his sexual prowess by banging against a window (a gag that was more inspired by way of Jason Mewes), but Ford mostly looks bored and listless. Hartnett is so uncharismatic and so devoid of personality that I do not even understand his teen heartthrob status. The two stars are about as inanimate and dull as the movie's formula is. Had the movie been about the aging producer (Martin Landau) who wants to sell his mansion for a firm offer to a nightclub owner, we would have had an original, exciting movie here. It is something that writer-director Ron Shelton ("Bull Durham") could have pulled off perfectly, but instead we are saddled with this extravagant waste of time and talent.

"Hollywood Homicide" may well be Harrison Ford's worst film in years. Now that he is pushing sixty, all I expected to hear was the old cliche, "I am getting too old for this sh--," and I would have been out the theater in a heartbeat.

Van Damme's strange directorial debut

THE QUEST (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Quest" is an incomplete, half-hearted martial-arts adventure. For Jean-Claude Van Damme fans, it is passable entertainment that has ambitious higher than most martial arts pics with a 1920's setting, and focuses on a martial-arts competition with different fighting styles implemented. On the other hand, it has a charismatic actor playing a role with not one shred of nuance so that we are left with secondary and tertiary characters that have more variety than its main leading star.

Van Damme injects a dash of "Oliver Twist" into his character, Chris Dubois, a pickpocket in clown face and stilts who is trying to make a better life for a bunch of street urchins. He escapes from the police after one of his urchins steals a bag of money from the mob, and finds himself a stowaway in a ship headed to Asia. He is then sold into slavery by a dapper con-artist and pirate named Lord Dobbs (the always dapper Roger Moore) on an island where Chris learns the art of Muay Thai fighting. Dubois is already fairly accomplished at kicking people in the face and months later, he becomes a pro martial-artist.

Eventually, the story segues to the actual competition in the Lost City of Tibet. Along for the ride is a competitive Gentleman Jim-type (James Remar) heavyweight, and an anxious female reporter (Janet Gunn). Dobbs is along for the ride since he has an avid interest in the Golden Dragon trophy, which he tries to steal by way of a zeppelin! Chris wants to be the champion who takes the trophy and uses it to give a better life to those desperate street urchins. Martial-arts competition ensues and we get several fights, and a ridiculously elongated fight with Chris and an imposing Mongolian fighter (Abdel Qissi) who can literally break his opponents's bodies in half.

"The Quest" is mindless fun and has scenes that make the body quiver and the mind race, such as Van Damme's Chris staring at a Buddha statue! Why was that shot included - was Chris hoping for some peace in his life? I can't say for sure but Van Damme (in his directorial debut) has given himself more close-ups than anyone else in the film. A touch of subliminal romance with the reporter is subdued by all the fight scenes, which are remarkably well-staged and exciting. "The Quest" is beautifully shot but it also bears far too many abrupt transitions - a stunning silhouette looks like a vintage Western composition but Van Damme has no faith in visuals lasting longer than 3 or 4 seconds. Roger Moore and James Remar seemed to be having a hell of a good time playing colorful archetypes from another time. Van Damme still kicks ass. A curious movie but definitely one to see, even if you are not a Van Damme fan.

Vic Morrow's death is a black shroud on the Zone

Vic Morrow's death clouds Twilight Zone: The Movie with dread 

By Jerry Saravia

When I first saw "Twilight Zone: The Movie" on VHS back in 1984, I was floored by it. Being a devoted fan to the Rod Serling series, I enjoyed the heck out of this grisly, cartoonish wild ride of a movie. I am still floored by it, having seen it twice more since, but something gnaws at me. It is the first segment in this sci-fi/horror anthology, the one that fills most people with dread. I am talking about the unfortunate John Landis-directed story that stars the late Vic Morrow.

In the first segment, entitled "Time Out," Vic Morrow plays Bill Connor, a bigoted louse of a man who has been passed over a promotion by a Jewish worker. When speaking out about his depression at a local bar to his friends, Bill spouts racist remarks and slurs without respite until he is interrupted by two black men at a nearby table. Bill leaves the bar and finds himself in WWII Occupied France where he is followed, shot at and attacked by Nazis thinking he is a Jew. Then he finds himself at a KKK rally where he is about to be hung on a tree, then we segue to the Vietnam War and then back to occupied France where he is sent away in a train car to a concentration camp. The original ending was to feature Bill helping two Vietnamese children escape from being killed by bombs - it was to be the character's redemption.

"Time Out" is hardly the most convincing look at racism and it suffers because of its downbeat ending (to be fair, some Serling episodes were downers). The tone of the piece is a little off and there is precious room for irony, mainly because the original ending is not present (for obvious reasons since Morrow and the two Vietnamese kids were killed in a tragic helicopter accident during filming). What really bothers me about this segment (the weakest of the four) is the audacity of the filmmakers to include it in the first place! Some critics at the time took note of it and could not ignore the real-life tragedy - how could you? How can one discuss this segment without mentioning the demise of its key participants? Why couldn't the filmmakers have opted to film some other segment entirely - there are many "Twilight Zone" episodes that could have been remade or perhaps come up with a story from scratch. But by including it, it can't escape its own unintended tragic, despairing dimensions. The whole segment feels vaguely exploitative and in poor taste.

The rest of the "Twilight Zone: The Movie" is terrifically scary and surprisingly tense. Between Spielberg's incandescently warm glow on "Kick the Can" (the only segment that is not horrific), to George Miller's frightening "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" with John Lithgow as a nervous passenger, to "It's a Good Life" with a devilish kid (far more devilish and evil in the original) who can conjure up cartoon worlds straight from his numerous televisions, "Twilight Zone" is a frenzied nightmare that is hard to shake off. That, and there is Dan Aykroyd in an opening prologue with CCR's "Midnight Special" playing that is sure to make your teeth chatter. Enjoy the film for what it is, and just skip that "Time Out." Vic Morrow would have wanted it that way. 

Success is the rarity; failure is the norm

HEAVEN'S GATE (1980) - What went wrong!

By Jerry Saravia

"Heaven's Gate" first showed signs of life through United Artists. They had faith in its director and their studio had its first shot at actually carving its mark in the industry - an actual film made on their dime where they were primarily known for solely distributing other people's movies. The dime itself was pricey, a 11 million dollar budget ballooning to a hefty 40 million dollar price tag, with the assurance that the director, Michael Cimino, would make a western masterpiece. Cimino was just coming off the box-office success of "The Deer Hunter," a hard-hitting Vietnam picture that won Best Picture and he won his Best Director Oscar. The signs of going overbudget began immediately and Cimino, ever the perfectionist, went overboard with self-imposed delays. Construction of sets, demanding numerous retakes, and waiting for a specific cloud to enter the horizon in one shot were among a host of its problems. It was a relentless studio nightmare.

The result: "Heaven's Gate" was a critical and financial flop, possibly the biggest financial loser in U.S. cinema history. I am not one to pay much attention to a movie's budget yet, as it happened, the critics excoriated the picture for its excessive budget principally - they were ready to hate it. This colossal failure led to a bankrupt studio (Transamerica sold the studio to MGM) and it sullied the career of an egotistical and overpraised director (his last picture was "Sunchaser" in 1996, which went directly to video). The film's reputation even led to Kevin Costner's own directorial debut, a western no less, "Dances With Wolves" to be dubbed "Kevin's Gate" though that proved to be an error in judgment since the film was a box-office smash and won 1990's Best Picture prize.

Most film aficionados are fully aware of the film's disastrous reputation, but is it any good? Is it really as mind-numbingly awful with not a single redeeming feature as New York Daily News critic Kathleen Carroll once declared? Actually, no, but it is predictably overlong (I saw the 2 1/2 hour version). It is often a stirring picture, full of marvelous, meticulous sights of the Old West that go beyond what we might have seen in a John Ford picture...but that is where my praise ends. The film itself is also far too serious, too laid-back and often incomprehensible.

Based on the Johnson County War in Wyoming in the 1890's, the film takes too long to get to the film's inherent conflict. The conflict is between the influx of European immigrants, who came to the U.S. as settlers, and the wealthy cattle barons and the ranchers. In a historical revisionist move by Cimino, mercenaries are hired by ranchers to kill immigrants suspected of stealing cattle (These murders are sanctioned by the Governor of Wyoming, the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States.) At endless board meetings, the mantra spread by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association is that these immigrants are "thieves and anarchists" and 125 of them are placed on a death list. Christopher Walken is Nate Champion, the enforcer who keeps reminding us of another signature line of dialogue towards the immigrants: "Go back where you came from!" Kris Kristofferson is the stoic Marshal of Johnson County, Jim Averill, who tries to make sense of what is happening. Isabella Huppert is the madam of a bordello who loves both Jim and Nate.

My issue is that "Heaven's Gate" is not coherent, not fully shaped at the screenplay level to accommodate an epic running time that initially, during its test screenings for the studio bosses, eclipsed that of "Gone With the Wind." On one hand, it wants to be the tragic story of how America had no interest in competing with immigrants with regards to grazing cattle. Cimino wants to show how racist wealthy white people were, to the point of having Frank Canton (Sam Waterston), the head of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, shoot an immigrant in the head in plain sight. On the other hand, it wants to be a tragic love story, a romantic triangle with Kristofferson and Walken competing for Huppert's love except Walken has little rapport with Huppert and it is clear Huppert is more in love with Kristofferson (Kris Kristofferson's affections for Ellen Burstyn's Alice in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" were far more believable.)

The key word to the bombast of "Heaven's Gate" is ENDLESS. The film is endless - it never comes to a full stop. The movie features an endless prologue at Harvard University that distances us immediately - dust and dirt and amber tones make Harvard look like a university in the middle of the desert. There is an introduction to the graduating classmates who figure later in the story but the intro is nothing earth-shattering, aside from John Hurt's endless speech and many scenes of people dancing in the courtyard. Familiar faces like Jeff Bridges, Terry O'Quinn, Geoffrey Lewis and many others pop up and disappear, spouting incoherent dialogue. Later in the film, we get more dancing and sometimes people in roller skates dance and dance. Then we get violinists who play and play forever. Cimino could have trimmed this movie below a two-hour running time and saved us a lot of endless music and dancing that would've been at home in a Warner Brothers musical western.

Lots of overcast skies and a muddy look and a superbly detailed reconstruction of a long lost era gives "Heaven's Gate" authenticity to be sure, but it is no Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (Altman's film was also a bit long too, but a far more rewarding and enriching experience). The biggest tragedy of "Heaven's Gate" isn't its financial loss - it is that it had a lot to say...and none of it ever made it to the screen.