Drop out of this school

SATAN'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS (1973)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Maybe including Satan in the title of anything, especially a semi-adequate TV movie of this nature, is asking for trouble, the kind where nuance and implication has no rightful place. "The Omen," "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" sound like decent demonic titles where Satan's name was not required for horrific effect. "Satan's School for Girls" is a moronic title for a listless, undernourished horror picture, the kind where a little subtlety in its title and in its overall direction could have been used. You'll be straining to stay awake.

A frightened female student, Martha Sayers (Terry Lumley), is running away though it is unclear from what or whom. She locates her sister's house but her sister, Elizabeth, is not home. After entering the house thanks to an eerie-looking neighbor, Martha suddenly sees something horrifying and her high-pitched scream carries us over to the next scene where she is found hanging from a noose. The film had me interested at that moment because we never see what made her scream and it gave me a nice jolt. Elizabeth (Pamela Franklin) finds Martha dead after the police burst through the door and her emotional reaction is the kind I have when I have to wake up early to go work - emotional indifference. It was at this point that "Satan's School for Girls" lost me. Nevertheless, Elizabeth ventures to the school her sister attended, enrolls in several classes and discovers that other students have committed suicide. Who is to blame? One student has a painting that resembles a dungeon (and the girl in the painting suspiciously looks like Martha, but that point is never raised). This student also commits suicide. The professors include one sadistic S.O.B (Lloyd Bochner) who is irritated when his students can't figure out his mice in a maze lessons. This one professor, known as Delacroix, might also be up to some questionable business in the cellar of the school, which of course resembles the dungeon-like atmosphere of that one painting. Is the school actually a coven of witches with Satan as their leader? Which professor is Satan? And are all the girls witches or are some more innocent than others?

"Satan's School for Girls" is adequate horror fare for those who enjoy watching women entering dark cellars with candles and flashlights, searching for devilish clues to a mystery. This would have made a nifty Nancy Drew mystery, and it turns there was one such book from the 1950's called "The Witch Tree Symbol." With the exception of Kate Jackson as a student named Roberta who has her own growing suspicions about her school, the movie never quite comes alive. I can only stand so many shots of women running through the woods or entering and exiting dark rooms. Pamela Franklin seems more apathetic than scared by anything and she is not allowed a single truthful emotional reaction - from the start, I thought she might be a witch or Satan herself. "Satan's School for Girls" lacks urgency and it is more likely to induce occasional boredom unless you find the prospect of entering and exiting dimly-lit rooms an exciting proposition.

This haunted house is not for sale

POLTERGEIST (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A nice family buys a foreclosed home in the middle of a seemingly sparsely-populated neighborhood. Weird noises occur, a bunch of ugly clown dolls are found in a closet from the previous owners, plasma TV goes wild with static noises that only the youngest of the clan understands, etc. Heard of this before? No, this is not an episode of the reality show "Fixer Upper." This is the latest unsolicited remake of a movie that worked just fine the first time around. Sam Raimi produced this "Poltergeist" remake, but why? Oh, why ask why? Money, of course, profiting from and exploiting a classic haunted house movie that was the brain child of Steven Spielberg and director Tobe Hooper. Neither should have allowed this mediocre movie to be made, but there is money to be made from revisiting 80's classics.

Something is amiss from the beginning, and I do not mean the creaking floors of this new house. This 2015 Poltergeist aims to get to the thrills and chills as remotely soon as possible. The Bowen family is depicted as a "nice" suburban family, with the youngest daughter mimicking everything her oldest teen cell-phone-obsessed sister says, and a young brother who is afraid of everything. Papa and Mama Bowen (Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt) are unemployed or at least Dada is, having been recently laid off. Mama Bowen is a published writer and we assume she is the breadwinner though both would've been denied a loan for a foreclosed home for sure, especially since she hasn't written in a while. Of course, I do not look for logic in a haunted house movie where a reality show star (Jared Harris) pulls information out of thin air, after havoc ensues in the new home that he's invited to investigate, that the cemetery may have been moved to allow contractors to break ground and build these homes yet someone left behind the dead bodies underground! That piece of dialogue brought a chill to the bone in 1982 with the Freeling Family but in 2015, like everything else in this ADD movie, everything is pulled of thin air only to remind one of the much superior 1982 film.

One slight whiff of inspiration in this movie is using a drone to travel through the portal where the poor little girl is held hostage by the ghosts, thus enabling the family to actually see this portal on video. Other than that, "Poltergeist" goes through the motions of a mechanical horror film and gives us precious little time to get to know the Bowens. It is a serviceable entry in the horror remake canon but it needed more than a fixer upper. The movie, like the house, should have had a sign that read: NOT FOR SALE!

Real Assassin's Creed

THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) 

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Parallax View" is suffused with paranoia - it suggests that shadowy figures for some evil corporation are assassinating presidential candidates. And yet for such a political 1970's paranoia thriller about a reporter's relentless search for the the truth, there is no vivid attachment to the main character and precious little politicizing.

At a public function on the observation deck at the Seattle Space Needle, a senator running for President is assassinated (echoes here of Robert Kennedy's assassination). Chaos strikes, a patsy falls to his death, and there are several witnesses. Right from the start, the paranoia begins as a frightened TV reporter named Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), in a flash-forward three years later, tells her tale to Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), a newspaper reporter who doesn't believe in conspiracies. Carter is convinced that her life is in danger because of what she witnessed, yet Joe is not too sure. That is only until Carter is found dead under suspicious circumstances. Joe investigates, especially after the death of other witnesses prior to Carter's, much to the chagrin of his editor (a wonderful Hume Cronyn) who reluctantly gives him petty cash. From small-town dams to a sheriff's itchy-trigger-finger to incoming explosions in boats and planes with other presidential candidates, to the cold and distant look of the actual Parallax corporation, Joe braves one calamity after another to such an amazing degree of survival that I thought he was involved with Parallax.

That is the basic problem with "The Parallax View" - Joe is shown to be as remote as the corporation he's after. Episode after episode shows him surviving every obstacle yet we are never rooting for him. Beatty never struck me as a nuanced actor and he's always come across as aloof (especially in the experimental New-Wave oddity, "Mickey One"), thus the actor's emotional distance emerges at its peak in this film. The other issue I have is that it is never clear why Parallax wants to assassinate these presidential candidates. Are the candidates too progressive in their politics? I don't need films to explain everything but my impression of Parallax is that they don't want senators to run for the Oval Office. Who do they want or who does the government want that hires these assassins?

There is one stunning sequence in "The Parallax View" that made my jaw drop. It shows Joe's introduction to Parallax as he watches a mind-control film with on-screen titles about happiness and home coupled with evil atrocities, like the Holocaust, suggesting that everything and everyone can be corrupted. It is stunning to watch but there is no visible reaction from Joe - director Alan J. Pakula uses long lenses to deflate the main protagonist. A close-up would've been nice but if Pakula wants to demonstrate Joe as an emotionally cold man who is not affected by anything, he succeeds. No wonder Parallax wants to hire Joe as an assassin.

An American Crime Family

ROAD TO PERDITION (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally reviewed in 2002

Like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks has great sincerity. Here is an actor who always brings authority and truth to his roles - a man who you believe you can trust. Witness his range of work from "Philadelphia" to "Saving Private Ryan." Therefore, as he once said on an interview with Charlie Rose, the last thing he would play is a serial killer. I can't see that ever happening, but a hit man? Now that is an unusual change-of-pace, but don't be fooled. Hanks is still authoritative and full of truth but he does manage to convincingly play "a bad man" who kills people.

Based on a graphic novel by Max Allan Collins, "The Road to Perdition" is set in 1931 in Chicago, the time of Al Capone and Prohibition. Hanks is Michael Sullivan, the main enforcer for the grumpy mob boss, John Rooney (Paul Newman, in another change-of-pace role). Rooney has been helpful and generous to Michael and his family for so long that Rooney considers him family, much to the chagrin of his own flesh and blood, Connor (Daniel Craig). Michael's eldest son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), is curious about his father's business and frequent outings at night. One night, junior becomes witness to a murder, causing problems for Michael Sr. and his family, which consists of his wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a younger son. Suddenly, a series of misunderstandings and double-crosses occur, not to mention murder, and now Michael and his presumptuous son are on the loose, eluding the death throes of Rooney's other hit men on his payroll. One clever hit man doubles as a crime photographer. He is Maguire (Jude Law), who is always hunched over and dresses like a mean Charles Chaplin - his orders are to kill Michael, not the son.

Essentially, "The Road to Perdition" deals with father-son relationships in the mob, a theme that has not emerged in the genre of mob crime pictures before. It is also a continuing theme of dysfunctional families trying to come terms with their own faults as evidenced by director Sam Mendes's spectacular debut film, "American Beauty." This time, Mendes tries to fuse those elements in a crime picture and the results are often dazzling, if also lacking some depth. This is permissible since we are dealing with interactive behavior between Michael and his son and his strained relationship with his surrogate father, Rooney. If only there had been as much emphasis between Rooney and his real son, Connor - a character who is disappointingly cartoonish (he has one good line - "this is all so f***ing hysterical.")

"The Road to Perdition" has lots to recommend for all film fans and also for those who loved Mendes as a real actor's director with "American Beauty." He does not disappoint with most of the assured cast. Hanks brings measured simplicity and restrained emotion to the ambiguous Michael, an antihero who is simply a dad (or as Michael's son recalls in reliable voice-over narration, "he was just my father.") Hanks is not playing a stereotypical Joe Pesci gangster from a Martin Scorsese movie. Instead he opts for some humanistic touches added to a man who is only doing his job.

Paul Newman is also quietly effective and menacing as the older, wiser Rooney who still loves Michael as if he was his own son, even if he wants him dead. Jude Law also exudes the kind of charisma with his piercing eyes and rat-like body language that can only come from a major movie star, and he is the real star of the show. Every scene he is in, he steals it from reliable heavyweights like Hanks and Newman. Law's final scene is a shocker. Unfortunately, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Daniel Craig merely have throwaway roles and do not make any lasting impressions.

"The Road to Perdition" is not quite a gangster picture (though there is plenty of gunfire) and not quite a noir piece (though there are endless shots of rainy nights). It is a family drama, though it does not have the scope and weight of something like "The Godfather." I consider it a lark for Sam Mendes, who may go on to greater things. This is first-class entertainment with prize-winning performances by Hanks and Newman. Their piano duet scene is exemplary, and the difference between attention to character detail versus attention to bullet-size holes. I'll take the former.

This Movie is buried up Schitt's Creek (and not in a good way)

THE MAN (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from 2006

I hate starting reviews for potentially winning comedies the same way, so I will make a slight alteration. Samuel L. Jackson as an ATF agent with earrings is chasing some bad guys in Detroit. Fair enough, sounds like a sequel to "Shaft." Eugene Levy is a dental supply salesman who is mistaken for a special ATF agent, hence Jackson's character. Sounds like comedy gold and in the vein of "Midnight Run." Unfortunately, the veins burst and create an arterial spray that results in a bloody, largely unfunny mess.

I'll be somewhat fair - I did laugh for the first twenty minutes of "The Man." Eugene Levy is the perfect foil to the towering presence of the raging Samuel L. Jackson. But something is slightly off with Jackson - as watchable as he is, he seems disengaged and slightly robotic. Take the scene where Jackson is driving and chasing a criminal on foot - Jackson doesn't exude the magnetic anger that typifies Jackson at his best. Plainly, he doesn't go over the top and you know, when Jackson goes over-the-top, he can be downright scary. Still, he has some bravura reaction shots to Levy's own inanities and personal matters.

Quickly, after those promising twenty minutes, "The Man" just becomes a stale, moronic comedy with fewer and fewer laughs, to the point that flatulence becomes yet another faux laugh-getter (When will filmmakers realize that flatulence is not automatically funny?) The villains are also on automatic pilot, as is the wasted Miguel Ferrer as the internal affairs cop (will Ferrer ever get the opportunity to play anything besides a one-dimensional, cartoonish villain?) As another in the long line of tired buddy-buddy action comedies, "The Man" is fitfully mediocre and fails to live up to what Jackson and Levy, with the right director and screenplay, can really do (though Levy does crack me up anyway). Here, they are robotic, stock characters uttering the same old phrases in the same old way. Call it "The Generic Man."

Flirting with Something Wild road-movie connotations

THE OPPOSITE OF SEX (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from 1999

I described Christina Ricci's face as cherub-like in "Buffalo '66," and nothing can be further from the truth than in "The Opposite of Sex," a delectable comedy-drama where she plays a tramp with a heart of lust. Ricci has a beautiful, fascinating face that speaks volumes of lustlike, uninhibited qualities - she would have been ideal as Lolita.

Ricci plays Deedee, a sixteen-year-old tramp who just moved in with her half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan), a gay teacher in Indiana. He lives with the spinster-like Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), sister of Bill's former lover who died of AIDS, who takes an immediate dislike to Deedee. Bill's new boyfriend is the muscular, dim-witted, bare-chested Matt (Ivan Sergei). Deedee sees a new catch for her net and proceeds to seduce and bed Matt, who is almost too willing. This results in Deedee getting pregnant, taking most of Bill's savings, and running off with Matt to L.A. Bill and Lucia proceed to find them, and it all involves endless plot complications and twists.

"The Opposite of Sex" begins as a satire and winds itself topsy-turvy as a road movie about the importance of family and relationships. I didn't mind the winding, but the satire is the best and most clever part of the film. There's something playful about writer-director Don Roos's sly take on family life, the media, and how a gay man perceives the madness in (a) Deedee conquering his male lover, (b) putting up with the aggravating Lucia, and (c) accusations of sexual crimes at his school by a former student, Jason (Johnny Galecki), Matt's other lover.

The satirical elements are not maintained, however, when the road movie takes over the second-half of the picture resulting in a "Something Wild" ride through twists and surprises. There's also the introduction of a bland sheriff (played by none other than Lyle Lovett) who holds a torch for Lucia, and a Louisiana redneck kid - they both bring the film to a halt whenever they appear. And the conclusive Canadian border sequences hardly mirror the originality of the first half of the movie.

"The Opposite of Sex" is told from the point-of-view of Deedee and we hear her self-aware narration as she comments on the facts of the story. My favorite quips were regarding plot devices: "A gun. This is foreshadowing. Duh." Even funnier are her comments on gays: "Only gays love houses like this," or when she refers to Billy and his friends as "losers." She constantly reminds us we are watching a movie and foretells all the clichés that take place, though the movie never really transcends them.

There are quite a few problems with "The Opposite of Sex" in terms of its theme and exploration of sex and relationships. For one, Deedee is an unredeeming brat and tramp rolled into one, who even holds Bill's dead lover's ashes in a ziploc bag as collateral - there is no way she would ever have a heart of gold. The movie tries to say that sex (and sexual orientation) is all that matters in a relationship, and there is no existing foundation for love. Then it switches gears, particularly Deedee's motives, and says that family is all that matters. The happy ending not only reverses its theme but succumbs to a development in Deedee's character that is hardly believable.

As good as Ricci is, Deedee is still portrayed as a vixen with no inner life. We learn precious little about her or her past except that she destroys other people's lives. Others fare better in sharply written roles such as Martin Donovan playing the blank-faced Bill. He plays his role perfectly and is used to better effect here than in any of the recent Hal Hartley films. Lisa Kudrow is the major surprise: her facetious one-liners and double takes are intoxicating and proves there is life beyond her Phoebe character in "Friends."

There are enough wildly comedic parts and choice dialogue bits to qualify "The Opposite of Sex" as mild entertainment. I kept thinking of a similar road movie/satire called "Flirting with Disaster," which stayed true to its themes with no cop-outs or false endings. "The Opposite of Sex" flirts with coming close to that movie's greatness, but never adheres to its own convictions.

Reality Check for Lindsay Lohan

JUST MY LUCK (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Maybe Lindsay Lohan needs a reality check when choosing projects. With the exception of "A Prairie Home Companion," Lohan has not made any real decent films. "Mean Girls" was occasionally diverting whereas "Freaky Friday" was a mediocre Disney remake, and "Herbie: Fully Loaded" was merely a bore. Things may change but one thing I can say, she is a major movie star and one hell of a good actress. With "Just My Luck," her charismatic star pulse outlasts the material. I mean, let's be honest, not even Julia Roberts ever did a haphazard romantic comedy like this one.

That is if you can call "Just My Luck" romantic or even comedic. The movie has this fantasy notion that some people are so lucky, they don't even have to open an umbrella when it is raining because the sun will magically shine when it is required to do so. Lohan plays the luckiest gal on earth, Ashley, who works for some anonymous marketing firm. She holds meetings for her boss who can be late when the elevator is stuck (talk about bad luck!) She can hold soirees and masquerade balls with boundless enthusiasm and the greatest of ease. She always wins when she scratches lottery tickets (that is almost too hard to swallow). Everything works out for this girl. That is until Ashley kisses a guy named Jake (Chris Pine) and, voila, her luck is gone. There are endless pratfalls, her dresses come apart at the seams, and she ends up in jail (Summoning Paris Hilton). Oh, yes, she throws a hairdryer in a bathtub and puts too much detergent in a washer! Unlucky or unwieldy?

The first fifteen minutes are devoted to Jake's unluckiness and then his sudden lucky streak thanks to kissing Ashley. Then we endure more than an hour of interminable nonsense about Ashley's unlucky streak. Chris Pine is merely bland as Jake, the love interest, though Lohan does make the screen lively when she appears. However, she can make the screen sparkle at any time (even in those funny faux commercials for "Saturday Night Live" she did a while back) but she also needs a good script. Lohan can't be witty on her own and can't slum through a movie and make us think we care. No, even Audrey Hepburn had good scripts. So did Ms. Romantic Comedy Meg Ryan, long time ago before monotony took over. Lohan may end up like Meg Ryan before she reaches her prime. That would be bad luck.