Cooly extreme politics

SYRIANA (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original review written in 2005

As of this writing, Exxon Mobil has just garnered 104 billion in profits. No surprise considering the price hikes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Oil is all that accounts for anything in the political drama "Syriana," a film bent on placing characters in situations beyond their control and our control.

George Clooney plays a paunchy, slightly hunched-over CIA operative, Bob Barnes, who is sent on a mission to assassinate one of two Saudi princes. Barnes's mission is derailed when he is bound by duct tape and tortured by some anonymous contact. Reasons are never made clear but we do know that it'll take time for him to grow back a few fingernails. Barnes is still on a mission but he wants to know why the CIA is turning their backs on him. Did Barnes screw up or is the Saudi prince a casualty that the government and big corporations cannot afford?

The Saudi prince is Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) and he is hopeful he will be the next emir (king to the rest of you). He is also ambitious and smart and has a collective interest in maintaining a business relationship with America and China. His American contact is energy analyst, Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) who, in a brilliantly written scene, explains how the Saudis are economically irresponsible and regressing in their business interests. That is quite a dig at the Saudis, isn't it Mr. President?

Next there's a Washington attorney, Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) whose job is to investigate the merger between the two oil companies, though he finds there are discrepancies and corrupt people within (as if that was any surprise). Is he willing to help the hand that feeds him or will he bite? Holiday also has a drunk father who sits on the stoop every day waiting for him, and also has the tendency to check on his son's notes on the bulletin board.

There are other characters in this melting mix of conspiracy and corruption and it is tough keeping track of who is who. Part of the reason may be that writer-director Stephen Gaghan (who also wrote "Traffic") doesn't spend much time on characters or motivations - he just wants to rub our noses in these scandalous times and ask us to be shocked. I was, but not as much at the evil, greedy corporations that exist (a cinematic cliche for more than three decades now), not to mention our own government, but at how little I got to know the participants in the puzzle that Gaghan has constructed for us.

This movie is all over the map, never quite zeroing in on any particular situation or event. I have no problem with Gaghan's structure, which certainly worked in "Traffic" and has been a staple of director Robert Altman's for quite some time. But such a structure can also produce its own flaws. "Syriana" assumes that big corporations and Saudis investing in oil profits, first for the benefit of mergers and raking in the big bucks, and secondly for the benefit of the American people (what benefit is there if gas prices alarmingly go up and down?) while CIA operatives are scapegoated and political turmoil ensues with radical Islamic bombers, is enough reason to give it urgency. To some extent it is, considering our current political climate, but the movie operates under exclamation marks with a clearly liberal agenda. I do not object to setting a political agenda in a film as long as the characters within the framework are not one-dimensional. Unfortunately, for "Syriana," they are and we are left fending for something to grab hold of.

Clooney's bearded Barnes, who is shown wasted and out of breath throughout (a far cry from his heroic role in "The Peacemaker"), is a man with nothing when he's made the patsy by the CIA. We learn that his son goes to Princeton and his wife may leave him, but not much else. Theoretically, that is an accurate assessment of a CIA operative but, for this movie, less is less and we never really care about him or his mission.

Matt Damon comes off strongest in the film as Woodman, strongly affected by the accidental death of his son and using it to support an idealistic prince. However, we are not given much insight into Woodman's plans either, and his supposed realization in the end that family matters may as well have drifted in from a Disney flick. Jeffrey Wright is also firm and commanding as the attorney Holiday, though one is never sure where his trust truly lies. There's also Christopher Plummer and Chris Cooper in the kind of roles we've seen them play before in their sleep.

"Syriana" is not so much confusing as it is exhausting, with too many conflicts and not much human interaction for the audience. It is like watching a bunch of stick figures in a maze, never quite knowing where any of them belong. The message of the movie is that greed corrupts everyone and that the one commodity of interest in these turbulent times, oil, is all that matters. It is a cynical (and possibly) truthful assertion, but it needs some emotional weight. I admire some of the performances and some of the writing (including a nail-biting description of the nature of corruption) and there are some intriguing scenes in "Syriana," but it is an underwhelmingly cold movie. Personally, I like a little more dimension with cooly extreme political views.

Making new memories for Riley

INSIDE OUT (2015) [One of the 10 best films of the 2010 era]

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are few films in life that are so spirited, so joyous and so embraceable that they want to make you hug them. They are not cuddly exactly but they inspire because of their zippiness, their absolute sense of assuredness in their storytelling. Animated films don't always do that for me, with the exception of the "Toy Story" trilogy and "Up" (possibly Pixar's best film), but this latest Pixar feature, "Inside Out," is a glorious, resonant, inventively dazzling, colorful and emotional beauty of a film. It is so damn inspired that you kinda wonder why nobody thought of it before.

Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger are five of the emotions that are bottled up inside of Riley's conscious mind. Riley is a Minnesotan girl (Kaitlyn Dias) who is not too sure about moving to San Francisco when her dad gets a new job. Riley makes the best of it yet one of the emotions, Sadness (Phyllis Smith), wants to turn her very being as blue as possible because Sadness, well, she just can’t help it. Let’s backtrack: Sadness is an actual being inside Riley’s mind, one of five personifications. There is the ebullient Joy (Amy Poehler) who wants to make sure Riley is always in an up mood, and who tries her best to keep Sadness at bay. Anger (Lewis Black) burns with rage, literally, especially when flames shoot out of his head and Fear (Bill Hader) hops away from all possible entanglements that Riley may get into (like her first day of school, always trying to keep her safe). Disgust (Mindy Kaling) expresses as much at the new house that is in desperate need of repair.

The emotions are living in Headquarters, Riley’s mind, which is where memories are stored in colored orbs. Joy is hoping all of Riley's memories and core memories are joyful - the core memories are turning points in Riley's life and power different islands that encompass personality aspects. At a console, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger manage to keep things in control. But after the moving fiasco and Riley's sadness about her former life in Minnesota, it becomes clearer that sometimes emotions can't always be manipulated by anyone, including Joy. Sometimes core memories are forgotten or begin to erode and one of the key themes of "Inside Out" is that the mind is far more complex than what five beings can manage at a console. In the end, Sadness may be the key to resolving Riley's issues.

"Inside Out" is a resplendent film of boundless imagination. Every scene and every shot takes us into a world I have never seen before - one where memories and emotions coexist in a varicolored landscape of orbs in multiple wall displays and a maze of tubes. Thanks to the screenwriters Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, "Inside Out" also emits so much humanism, controlled humor and unshakable sympathy to Riley and the five emotion personalities that you can't help but feel connected to them all. The film has an air of sophistication about how emotions cannot be controlled and manipulated. Even happy memories can fade and though there is a touch of melancholy about growing up and adapting to a new home, the future still holds a measure of hope and suggests that life is an adventure and all sorts of emotional curveballs will come Riley's way (Joy just has no clue what will happen when puberty hits). But this facet of Riley's existence is not something that only young girls will identify with - everyone will see some semblance of themselves in the restoration of happy and sad memories.

Stunning animation, vivid colors and razor-sharp writing are all but a few of the reasons why "Inside Out" works. We now live in a pop culture that revisits cinematic helpings of already well-traveled landscapes. “Inside Out” reminds us of the genuine power of fresh new landscapes.

Burt Reynolds wants to go to Venice

HEAT (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 Burt Reynolds is an actor who has so much magnetism and charisma that he can lift his right or left eyebrow, smile a little, shrug his shoulders and say so much without uttering one syllable. So much talent, spread and squandered on so many futile efforts. "Heat" is among them, an alleged action thriller that thrives on the absurd and preposterous and says nil.

Mind you, I do not expect an action thriller to always have something to say nor do I expect a Burt Reynolds flick to be anything other than a sparkling diamond in the rough. But let us consider the opening sequence. Burt is some mean drunk at a bar who hassles a woman waiting for her date and a proposition of marriage. He harasses her to no end and the date shows up, telling Burt to leave. They exit the bar and a fight ensues where the scrawny-looking date actually has the upper hand, or the upper punch. He knocks out Burt and his date is impressed. It was all a ruse you see, and that could have been a sweet setup for a comedy about how Burt Reynolds is always playing tough and mean only to be roughed up by a weakling to impress a fiancee. That could have been a major stroke of inspiration, especially from screenwriter William Goldman ("Misery," "All the President's Men") who is not known for such comedic sensibilities.

Travel with Burt

Instead we are saddled with a movie that goes nowhere fast. Burt plays yet another tough guy named Escalante, who might be a bodyguard at a casino though he looks more like James Bond. He also helps out a young troubled girl (Karen Young) who is roughed up and raped by some scrawny-looking rich kid in a blue robe. A Mafia Don eventually enters the picture...oh, why go on? Peter MacNicol is some other rich, scrawny-looking guy (I sense a pattern) who wants to hire Escalante to help teach him how to fight back. How noble. All I learned from the training exercises is that in a violent situation, when in doubt with those fists of fury, aim for the tender ball sack or tear off an ear!

Escalante's character is so mysterious that either he is a Vietnam Vet and current bodyguard, or he works at a dingy travel agency (it looks like one) because the guy has a major need to go to Venice. He is also adept at fighting and never uses a gun, and has a gambling problem. Or maybe he needs a lot of money so he can stay in Venice. Either way, this interminable bore of a movie is not really about anything - just a series of flimsy, illogical excuses to show close-ups of Burt Reynolds. In one exceedingly ill-written scene, Escalante somehow convinces a villain to off himself! No way! For some seeing Burt in anything might be sufficient justification and, for others, "Heat" is a reminder of the semi-interminable celluloid waste of Burt Reynolds. 

Let's Get Nuclear

WARGAMES (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Watched repeatedly in the 1980's - This review was written in 1999)

1983 was the year of the computer revolution in the movies. Computers were ubiquitous, even appearing as a deadly villain against Superman in the dreary "Superman III." The following year, it became an instrument of jealousy in a relationship in the sweet "Electric Dreams." "WarGames" is different though since it is not really about computers in the general sense - it is about how much trust we put in computers, and how we may erroneously depend on them when it comes to the inevitable threat of nuclear war.

Matthew Broderick, in his pre-Ferris Bueller mode, stars as David Lightman, a teenage high school student with a fixation for his bedroom computer. His parents are unaware of his computer hacking methods, but they do know his school grades are suffering (he breaks into the school's computer and advances his grades to A's). One day, David unknowingly accesses the WOPR computer at the NORAD missile-defense system, which makes 24-hour decisions regarding the plight of a possible World War III. David only he thinks he is playing some advanced video games. Before you know it, the country is embroiled in a possible war with the Russians but it is all orchestrated by the supercomputer - the question remains: Does the computer know it is only a game?

"WarGames" starts off with a thrilling prologue where we see the men who pull the switches for the silos preparing for an unforeseen attack. One of the men fails to operate the switch to launch the missile, afraid of killing millions of people. It turns out that the attack was a test but they did not know this - this sets up the rest of the film's theme about the paranoia centering on the threat of nuclear war. We also get lots of "Dr. Strangelove" scenes of Barry Corbin (best known for TV's "Northern Exposure") as General Beringer commingling with other advisers in front of giant computer screens showing several Russian missiles destroying U.S. military bases. The coup de resistance is seeing Dabney Coleman arguing with Beringer while John Wood shows up as Stephen Falken, a former scientist who created the WOPR, insisting that it is all a game.

"WarGames" is skillfully directed by John Badham ("Blue Thunder," "Stakeout") and the thrills and tension abound with restless unease. The threat of nuclear war seems real enough because it is all at the mercy of a computer, and that is what makes the film a thrillingly scary ride. "2001: A Space Odyssey" warned us of the dangers of computers in 1968 and "WarGames" tells us that it is no longer a warning - it is a very real possibility. Now in 1999, we are all dependent on computers for all our daily needs such as the Internet, banking, shopping, the arts, etc. I am using a computer right now to type this review, though they say writing improves greatly when first written on paper. The last straw, though, is to have a computer making life-threatening decisions for us.

One of the best scenes is when David tries to get the WOPR to play thermonuclear war. It asks: "Wouldn't you prefer a fine game of chess?" David says: "No, let's play global thermonuclear war." Its response: "Fine." That scene still keeps me horrified and tense probably because we also hear the computer talk with David's use of an electronic transmitter - the voice sounds properly inhuman and soulless.

"WarGames" may not be a great thriller nor is there much weight to certain characters, particularly the underdeveloped Stephen Falken role played by John Wood. Still, it has its share of surprises and thrills along the way, and its relatively simple theme - do not rely on anyone but yourselves in the event of a crisis - is as resonant today as it was in 1983

Absorbing yet vapid heart

RANDOM HEARTS (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Despite the critical consensus that "Random Hearts" was a purely muffled, static melodrama, I found something of interest in it anyway. Not a stunning achievement by any means, "Random Hearts" is dare I say watchable, if also clumsy and underwritten. It is also somewhat absorbing.

Harrison Ford (sporting for the first time an earring) is William "Dutch" Van Den Broeck (who the heck is going to remember a name like that?), a Washington, D.C police sergeant who has just learned that his wife died in a plane crash. He is saddened but he has those detective genes in him, questioning why she was not involved in any work-related trip to her destination, Florida. Sure, she is on the flight to Florida but not under her married name! The plot thickens as we discover that she traveled using the name of another married woman! Yes, Virginia, she has been having an affair and "Dutch" is not very happy about it. He tracks down a Republican congresswoman, Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose husband (Peter Coyote) had been seated next to Dutch's wife on the ill-fated flight. Dutch continually pesters Kay through the whole film, asking her questions about the affair that neither of them knew anything about. Dutch even travels to Florida (!) in what shapes up to be some kind of mystery about his wife - who was she really? Did she lie about everything, not just her job or her flights? I was not clear what Dutch was expecting to find...and the more he kept looking, the more I got interested. Perhaps there was some surprise, some twist of fate to arrive at that would make an already overlong movie at 2 hours-plus even longer. And, in truth, Dutch is only fooling himself.

I hope I did not give anything away but "Random Hearts" is one curious movie. Here are two actors in fine form (though Ford is a little too zombiefied for my tastes), a delicate, restrained script (that veers away from its intended course with superfluous subplots involving political campaigns and Internal Affairs), and some assured direction by Sydney Pollack, and the end result is a vapid mess. There is absolutely nothing in the palm of its hand. The two main characters fall in love with each other but neither is as concerned as they should be about their former spouses The film is far too remote to care about, and the cadences in the dialogue (followed by long silences and pauses) made me realize how little was really being said. There is a hypnotic pull to the movie, and somehow you are carried along waiting to see what happens next. The truth there is nothing at the end of this rainbow.

Footnote: Sydney Pollack shot this film in 1998 through early 1999. Pior to this film, Pollack had also been shooting a role in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." I have no doubt that the pauses and silences in this film were influenced in some way by the late Mr. Kubrick, whose film has it share of pauses and silences between dialogue exchanges.

Rabbit's rise to the rap world

8 MILE (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

Original Review from 2002

I have heard a couple of Eminem songs. My impression of this rap singer is summed up in one line in this film when he refers to a homosexual in both candid and politically incorrect terms. In other words, I sense Eminem's purpose is to address society's problems, familial conflicts and outright hypocrisy in everything we do. Some of that comes through in "8 Mile," his first leading role in a film, but the rest feels as disconnected as the main character does.

Eminem plays Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, a rap artist in the making who works at a Detroit metal-stamping factory (the kind of place where ex-convicts work). He lives in a trailer with his lethargic, alcoholic mother, Stephanie (Kim Basinger), and his 5-year-old sister, Lily (Chloe Greenfield). His mother is dating a guy who was a former classmate of Rabbit's. Needless to say, Rabbit does not approve but he doesn't have to say so - his body language and frequent stares say it all.

Rabbit's world looks hopeless. He works long hours at the factory. He can't muster the courage to perform at a rap contest organized by MC Future (Mekhi Phifer) - the first time he comes onstage, he merely looks at the audience who boos him. His electric lyrics come through in impromptu raps at garages or at the factory. Rabbit has the talent to not only improvise - he can also mock his own life as a white-trash boy in such a way that his sincerity cuts through any rival rapper's ability to one-up him.

"8 Mile" works when focused on Rabbit's rapping interludes, and the coup de grace is seeing the climactic showdown where he tries to one-up another rapper whom you are sure has torn him to shreds. Never before have verbal duels been handled so thrillingly, and director Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") has the right directorial attitude to handle them. But when we resort to Rabbit's home life, his sexual dalliance with a wanna-be model (Brittany Murphy), and his constant bickering with Future and a possible record deal with a hustler (Eugene Bird), we feel about as bored stiff as if it was a second-rate TV-movie treatment of the same material. Particularly grating is to see Eminem give blank-faced reactions in almost every close-up (a similar problem pervaded with Prince in "Purple Rain"). Eminem has a solid, commanding presence yet, as an actor, he is virtually stolid. When he sees his ex-girlfriend in her apartment watching television, we see nothing but vacuousness in Eminem's eyes. It is a shame because there is more to Eminem than meets the eye but we never see it, we only hear it in his music.

Kim Basinger is not as bad as expected, though at times her accent borders on a Southerner's tongue - clearly not Detroit material. Still, she is not an embarrassment and chooses to tone down her usual overly-hysterical emotions when crying out for help. But the scene where she wins big at a bingo game feels out of place - she looks like a hooker rather than a woman who just won money and bought bags of groceries.

Watching "8 Mile" is a curious experience. It has the roots of Rabbit's rise to the rap scene but none of the vigor or juice that we can connect with to understand his need to move forward, to escape. I assume the teenage and the twenty-something crowd may enjoy it regardless (my brother is a big fan). I think he has talent to spare but I am in the minority when it comes to appreciating rap music (I never have but times do change). Eminem and the movie seem half-hearted, and I felt likewise.

Suburban Goose stepping Nazi

APT PUPIL (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Stephen King's novella "Apt Pupil," part of the "Different Seasons" short stories, is probably one of his most ambitious recent efforts. It is the story of a young boy's growing fascination with an SS officer living in a typical suburban American town, but the movie version shies away from its basic premise and becomes a slightly baroque Gothic thriller.

The apt pupil is a blank-faced high school student named Todd Bowen (Brad Renfro), who is obsessed with the Nazis' tortures of the Jews during the Holocaust. After some Nancy Drew-type investigating, Todd discovers that a local resident named Arthur Denker is really a former SS officer named Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellen). One day, Todd visits the old man's house and, at first, the old man denies the kid's charges. Finally, Dussander succumbs, and is coerced by Todd into telling him the detailed atrocities he committed. If Dussander complies, the kid will not tell the authorities his true identity since he is on a wanted manhunt list. In one eerie scene, Dussander puts on his SS uniform and marches until the kid insists that he stop. The comfort of evil has struck again.

"Apt Pupil" begins promisingly, and I thought the film was going to show the grim reality of the war through the spoken words of a Nazi who was just following orders (this was one of the novella's high points). The film begins that way, but then the machinations of the plot take over. For example, we see Todd's fascination and obsession seeping into his life when his high-school grades deplete, he loses contact with his best friend ("Dawson's Creek's" Joshua Jackson), and he dreams of gas showers. Then there's the nerdy guidance counselor (a fine comic bit of casting by a mustached David Schwimmer), who tries to determine the root of Todd's school problems. Todd's basketball playing, ironically, is better than ever. These are all fine details that should be explored, but the problem lies in the casting of the lead character.

Brad Renfro ("The Client") exhibits a blank, emotionless, cold-eyed stare as Todd throughout the whole film, making him less than interesting or obsessive. I also didn't feel the tension building or developing between him and Dussander, considering how the film tries to show that a kid can be induced into evil. Mostly we get elements out of your typical Gothic horror/slasher movie: there's Dussander struggling to place a kitten in an oven; the unnecessary inclusion of a homeless man (Elias Koteas) who suspects that Dussander has homosexual tendencies; a bloody murder scene with Wagner's tragic excerpt from "Liebestod" suffusing the background; and Dussander's attempts to pass himself off as Todd's grandfather. All of these elements diminish whatever power the crucial central story had of a boy's fascination with evil.

The one redeeming factor is the superb performance by Ian McKellen as the weary, gentle, menacing Dussander, but the film shows him only as a one-dimensional monster. During the war, the SS officers were given orders and they had to uphold them, but they were still human beings performing atrocious acts of inhumanity. If the film tried to maintain a human, empathetic level with Dussander's role in the war - to see ourselves in the face of incomprehensible horrors - then it would have been a more cunning portrait of evil. As it stands, he's a monster, nothing more. Think of the similar role played by Armin Mueller-Stahl in "The Music Box" - he did it with shards of humanity and understanding.

Director Bryan Singer ("The Usual Suspects") and writer Brandon Boyce throw in too many complacent, cinematic flourishes instead of trying to deal with the nature of evil and how it breeds in small-town America, especially in adolescent boys. Singer would have been more apt at showing how evil cannot be easily pigeonholed or traced - now that would have been scarily profound.