Amoral, indifferent Madoff

THE WIZARD OF LIES (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

White-collar liars who steal money from the poor and give nothing back to the community are typical cinematic and literary antiheroes – there is nothing existential about them, they are just greedy yet they possess a snake oil charm. Modern cinema has had them in great ubiquity, among the most reptilian without question was Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” The mistaken assumption is that Gordon was seen as a hero of the cocaine-laden, money-hungry 1980’s. He was no hero and goes to jail for his offenses, you know, buying stock and selling it cheap and making millions in the process. Still, Gordon had something money can’t buy – sophistication and a smile that most grifters could never muster. Bernie Madoff, a real-life swindler, used a Ponzi scheme to rip off wealthy people through the wealth management branch of his firm. It amounted to more than 65 billion dollars fraud, the biggest of its kind in history. In Barry Levinson’s deadly serious film, “The Wizard of Lies,” Bernie is an amoral man who steals, and steals, and steals and there is nothing more, nothing less at stake.  From beginning to end, he is the same exact person, resolutely uncaring and undeniably evil.

In 1960, Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) founded and was chairman of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Although I can’t begin to understand this firm’s business model, let’s just say that it was linked to the creation of NASDAQ. The roots of the firm’s prominence and longevity, however, hold little interest in “The Wizard of Lies.” The film starts off in December 2008, just after the economic collapse, when the turds began to fly and hit innocent victims in the face. Well, not so innocent to Madoff who justifies his criminal activity of more than two decades by claiming that his victims should’ve known better than to invest. His victims were greedy, if not more so than he was.

The fascinating aspect to “The Wizard of Lies” is that there is no sense of sneaky, amoral fun to the schemes, no real kick. A business meeting is what it is, and when Madoff scores and gets the billions, he has no real pleasure in what he does. Ironically, it is as if it meant nothing to him, just another day at the office.

Madoff’s marriage to Ruth (a spectacularly awesome Michelle Pfeiffer) lacks passion, to say the least, and the most disturbing scene between them (which could have been unintentionally funny under the wrong hands) is when Ruth decides that a suicide pact by ingesting lots of Ambien would be preferred than dealing with the consequences of losing her husband in jail. Ugh, that was too alarming for me, too realistically conveyed particularly when Madoff decides to join her. Once again, there is no fun to be had in this marriage before or after the convictions against Madoff.

Madoff’s relationship to his two sons who work at the firm results in tense arguments and friction. Things get heated between Ruth and Bernie – how did these two ever fall in love in the first place or was it merely a business transaction? That reminded me of De Niro’s business-minded Ace Rothstein in Scorsese’s “Casino” who got his Vegas girlfriend (Sharon Stone) to commit to a marriage by approaching it like a business transaction. The difference was that Ace seemed to really care about his wife in that film – Madoff can’t or won’t show emotion. Essentially, “The Wizard of Lies” is about an obsessively business-minded suit with no emotional interior or exterior. Everyone else in the family shows some measure of regret, particularly at not knowing what gross misdeeds the family patriarch was up to.  

Robert De Niro, still one of our finest actors ever (watch “The Intern” for proof that he never lost his bite post-“Analyze This”), has a difficult task at hand – he has to play a blank-faced man with zero emotion. When his sons get too inquisitive, he brushes them off with angry, curse-laden words. Yet De Niro, a passionate actor of a high level of intensity, never expresses any other singular emotion except the look of a sourpuss who has avoided a human connection beyond the discussion of borrowing money. His Madoff (and no doubt the real person as well) is an aggressive Ponzi schemer who can take and take without ever feeling the repercussions. Sure, he ends up in jail with several life sentences but it does not affect him. Yes, there is the aforementioned Ambien fever dream sequence where Bernie and Ruth take several pills with the intent of committing suicide and all he can ask is, “are you sure?” Ruth eventually leaves him, his sons die (one a tragic suicide, the other from mantle cell lymphoma) and he is still standing around like a passive statue in prison without remorse. If there is any sense of compassion, he sure has a funny way of showing it. De Niro, the fiery Method actor who gave us solid emotional firecracker portraits in the past like Jake La Motta and Travis Bickle, has given us his first apathetic sociopath. He gets several rude awakenings but all they do is enclose him further from us. We come up empty and realize that De Niro and director Levinson have made us angry at this monstrosity. Our feelings matter, his do not. 

Don't flip the bird at Crystal Lake teens!

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Back in the 1980's, on my Magnavox VCR, I saw the first three "Friday the 13th" slasher flicks. The 3-D version was released on video on 2-D (no technology for that format yet). They were expendable and disposable flicks and I am not sure if I could differentiate one from the other except only in terms of the killer. Jason Voorhees' mother was the killer in the first film, followed by Jason in the next two sequels and future installments. Watching for the first time "The Final Chapter," I was reminded that these flicks were always meant to be disposable, escapist, harmless 90-minute flicks and nothing more. You did not care about the human characters and you forgot them long before the movie was over. All you could remember from this one was Jason in a hockey mask skewering and impaling all those teenagers at sleepaway camp, and young Corey Feldman.

There can't be much more to say except that Judie Aronson ("Weird Science") plays one hormonal teenager who is killed by Jason in an inflatable raft; Crispin Glover plays another hormonal teenager who dances to music in that hyperkinetic fashion that can only come from Glover, and there is Lawrence Monoson ("The Last American Virgin") as another hypersexed teen who repeatedly calls Glover's character a "dead fuck." That leaves the rather unnecessary inclusion of a heavyset hitchhiker girl who is killed by Jason, which begs the question: why does this happen? We know nothing about her except that she flips the bird at the other teens in a car who refuse to give her a lift. So I guess if you are a teenager and have sex and/or flip the bird at passing motorists, you are dead meat to Jason? Let's not forget that a virginal girl-next-door blonde survives Jason's attacks because, surprise, she is virginal. Oh, and I cannot forget to mention how Corey Feldman, in one of the hastiest resolutions I've seen in almost any slasher flick, sees a pic of young Jason from a newspaper clipping, takes some scissors during Jason's attack on his sister and cuts his hair to look like young Jason! This will presumably stop the attack. Uh-huh.

I have nothing else to take away from "The Final Chapter" except that I got bored with the slow-motion-teens-thrown-thru-windows-shots (one even includes a dog who jumps to his death?) Other than that, it is not as flat as Part 3 and somewhat entertaining to a degree. You might get your kicks from seeing a bald Corey Feldman. 

A DeLuise Ball of Comic Proportions

HOT STUFF (1979)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Hot Stuff" is the Stoked-Mary-Jane cop comedy of the 70's, a hazily measured feeling of stoned hijinks in the tradition of Cheech and Chong, not terribly long after the famed stoned pair did their debut in "Up in Smoke." Aside from C&C, "Hot Stuff" also reminded me of 1973's funny and leisurely paced "Cops and Robbers" (incidentally, both films were scripted by crime novelist Donald E. Westlake). Yet it is that stoked feeling and the film's leisurely pace (compared to the rip-roaring, fast-paced screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's) that lends it intimacy and overall good-naturedness.

Good-naturedness is at the core of "Hot Stuff," Dom DeLuise's directorial debut. Ostensibly based on a true story (sort of), this is about Miami undercover cops who feel their arrests of thieves are fruitless. As soon as the criminals are facing court and a public defender, they are back on the streets doing the exact same thing (my, how times have changed since 1979). Four cops (Dom DeLuise, Jerry Reed, Luis Avalos and a new officer winningly played by Suzanne Pleshette), decide to take over a junk shop, pay top dollar for items sold, film the thieves who try to sell stolen items thru a mirror and eventually entrap them in a big party where the cops can arrest them all. Items sold include everything from stereos to Cuban cigars to snakes to that drug that induces a leisurely paced, laid-back mentality, marijuana.

"Hot Stuff" is chock full of weak stereotypes (the Mafia Don played by Marc Lawrence, a walking underworld type for the millionth time, and his minions), cliches you see coming from miles (car chases and one or two explosions) and a final party scene that is not entirely necessary (it goes on way too long, too). What sets this comedy apart from others is the upbeat tone - DeLuise turns it into a party of good feelings without ever becoming too raucous. The cops need to make it fun for themselves in this rather dull-looking junk shop (and we do get obligatory music interludes before they became obligatory in the 1980's) and you can tell DeLuise, Reed, Avalos (who has some great double-takes) and Pleshette are having a ball. Particularly sidesplitting is DeLuise getting high after a couple of tokes - his laughter is contagious.

One dramatic scene stands out in "Hot Stuff." A young kid attempts to sell his dog because he and his mother need money. The cops take the dog and give him the money and DeLuise can't help but feel emotional. You will too. There are no other scenes like it in the very fittingly funny, leisurely-paced "Hot Stuff" but it makes you wonder how many more scenes like that could've been shown. For a lazy Saturday afternoon where you have no Mary Jane available, "Hot Stuff" might do the trick.

How Dreams Die

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original review from 2001

One of the Top Ten Films of 2000 decade

I have seen "Requiem for a Dream" twice now. Why on earth would I see a headache-inducing, frantic, pessimistic look at drugs from the internal point-of-view of the drug takers twice? The answer is simple. The first time I saw it, I thought it was powerful yet faintly lacking any inner life or purpose other than to shock you into oblivion about ever wanting to take drugs again. On second viewing, it is not so lacking inner life or purpose at all - it only seems that way because the final half-hour is like taking a trip to an emergency room at Hell's Kitchen, and it virtually decimates the rest of the film. But I'll get back to that later.

Set in Coney Island, New York, the opening scene already establishes disorder and chaos, and fragments it visually. Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) is stealing his mother's television, which she has chained to the radiator with a lock. Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is shocked by her son's urges but can do nothing about it. Harry sells the TV to a pawn shop, and Sara buys it right back from the owner. It is a common reality. Harry loves heroin, and needs money to buy it. So does his partner in crime, Tyrone C. Love (Marlon Wayans). They both fantasize a lot. Harry has a moment where he fantasizes stealing a cop's gun and playing it around like some toy. He also has dreams of his girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connelly), standing by a pier. She keeps vanishing in the dream. Still, what else can Harry dream about? He fools around with his girlfriend at tenements setting off fire alarms, throws paper airplanes, and gets deep inside the business of selling heroin. His dream is to sell enough to lay low and have a nest egg between himself, Marion and Tyrone. Marion has dreams of becoming a fashion designer, and makes several designs in her spare time when she isn't using heroin. Tyrone dreams of more innocent times with his mother, and hopes to make a killing with this drug business by partnering with some dangerous drug dealers. They all have dreams but they remain almost distant.

Sara has a lonely life. She lives alone in her apartment and has few friends. One day, she gets a call from a television station that claims she will be a guest on some television guru's program. Sara is excited by the prospect, and begins taking diet pills to lose weight so she can look fabulous on TV. Problems occur when she becomes addicted to the pills, and begins having nightmarish visions of her refrigerator and of the television guru (the guru is named Tappy Tibbons, played with great energy by Christopher MacDonald, who you might recall played a similar personality in "Quiz Show").

Once these characters are established, they slowly descend and descend into the cruel abyss of life where there is no end and no hope (of course, this is out of the characters's own volition). I have said that very few films in this day and age of irony ever plunge deep enough into a character's private hell where there is no escape. This is what made film noir such a wonderful genre - there were no limits to showing human desperation. Well, the final half-hour of "Requiem for a Dream" is so dark and frightening that it will leave nothing more than an audience member extremely exhausted, not to mention a sense of relief once it is over. Director Darren Aronofsky makes no compromises nor does he sugarcoat anything - we see the world through these four characters and we suffer along with them. It is so unflinching and so powerful that I am less likely to see anything closer to the heart of darkness than what Aronofsky shows us.

Again I ask though, what is the point? Is there a purpose behind showing such extreme forms of behavior leading to such relentlessly tough denouements? Yes, there is but it is easy to miss the purpose the first time out. Though Aronofsky and Selby have not written characters of real depth, they have created intense personalities that are hard to forget. There is a mixture of innocence and stupidity in Harry - a wild-eyed innocent who only lives for the moment. Marion will do anything for Harry, including getting money from stag parties to feed his addiction and hers. Tyrone seems to function as Harry's yes-man, but does not see that things are spiraling out of control. Sara has hopes of being on television, and is hopelessly addicted to her TV and diet pills which make her hyper. She just wants to belong to something, and is gradually accepted by her neighboring friends who sit outside the apartment. Only Tyrone is capable of controlling his urges, but since he follows Harry around like a puppy dog, he will end up in that cruel abyss of life as well.

Of all the scenes in the film, the most impressive and by far the most emotional is Sara's confession of her loneliness and isolation ever since her husband died. She talks of belonging to something, of being accepted - these are her needs. All the characters have needs, most of all Sarah who confuses drugs with fulfilling her needs. It is a gut-wrenching scene that is sure to elicit a tear or two from the most jaded viewer. Ellen Burstyn's performance is on par with her great work in "The Exorcist" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," and justifiably garnered her an Oscar nomination.

Based on the Hubert Selby, Jr. novel, "Requiem for a Dream" does indeed have a purpose - to show that addiction to a drug, any drug, can result in chaos and suffering. This is nothing new but it is how it is conveyed that makes it strong and so unflinching (the split-screen effect and time-lapse motion effects certainly contribute to the overall film's power). There is no moralizing or preaching - the film makes no judgment of any of these characters. Do not expect a modern-day "Reefer Madness" where we are told that drugs are evil and immoral. Instead, Aronofsky wants to address the situation subjectively. We recognize that Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone do have dreams but they are short-shrifted in favor of uncontrollable addictions. It has been said that every high school should show this film as proof that intense drug addiction leads nowhere except to madness. I am not sure I totally agree with that assessment but "Requiem for a Dream" certainly makes a case for it.

Stu is no major sinner

PHONE BOOTH (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from May 4th, 2003

WARNING: (this review contains one spoiler)

"Phone Booth" has a terrifically intense premise - a guy is stuck in the phone booth talking to a sniper who is ready to kill him if he exits the booth. It is such a good premise - one not so dependent on plot than on action and behavior - that it is stunning how it never quite works. It misses by a hair.

Colin Farrell is Stu Shepard, one of those fast-talking, deceiving press publicists who lies to his clients about potential deals. He has a protege who is having a remarkably good ability of catching up with Stu. Of course, Stu talks to his clients on his cell phone. But on 53rd St. and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, he uses the only phone booth left standing in the block before it is to be torn down. Little does he know that he will be the last one to use it. He gets a call from a sniper, urging him to stay in the booth and talk to him or else the sniper will kill him. The sniper demands that Stu call his wife and tell her he's been thinking of having an affair with a sweet ingenue named Pamela (Katie Holmes). Stu had been calling Pamela in the booth every day instead of using the cell phone so that his wife wouldn't find out when looking at the bill (of course, Stu could use a post office box address for his cell phone bill, but never mind). Naturally the sniper has other demands beyond Stu's planned affair - mostly this is the omnipotent sniper who wants Stu to confess his sins to the world. The world would be the media since this whole event becomes a media circus after the sniper shoots a sex-club worker (unsurprisingly, the sniper is nearby watching him with his crosshairs). The police arrive, as does Stu's wife (Radha Mitchell), and a slew of media vans and reporters. Forest Whitaker plays a cop who tries to get Stu out of the phone booth. The tension builds until we realize there is not much of a threat of explosive violence as one would think.

Yes, the idea of a sniper pointed at a city block in New York is ripe for tension. The situation would have been more threatening had the sniper truly intended to hurt Stu or his wife or Pamela, both of whom arrive on the scene. All the sniper can do is laugh maniacally and tease Stu, even teasing to reach for a gun that is lodged inside the booth (certainly the killer with the cell phone in "Scream" truly meant to inflict harm). Stu sweats and talks a mile a minute, eager to get out of a haywire situation. But the sniper's intent is to get Stu to confess to the media world that he is a one-note publicist who lies to his clients and wears fake luxury watches and thinks of cheating on his wife. Hallelujah! As if we did not truly know these things already! Why would a sniper care enough about a lying, manipulative publicist who can get you free Britney Spears tickets? Why couldn't the character in the booth be a cop? Possibly Forest Whitaker? And why can't an exasperated publicist with his own life on the line think of a way of manipulating the sniper so he can actually get out of the phone booth? What if a truly chilling scene involving Stu's wife and Pamela really meant he had to make a decision on whose life he would have to spare?

Joel Schumacher, the flashy director of "Flatliners" and "St. Elmo's Fire," keeps his camera circling around the hero without ever examining his soul. You can also blame the thirty-year-old script by Larry Cohen (one that Hitchcock was rumored to direct), which lacks any real insight or purpose beyond the clever line, "If you are talking to a cell phone in the streets of New York, that determines status." This kind of thriller would have had a more kinetic punch in the 1970's, back in an era of truly "dangerous cinema," the kind of cinema where anything could happen because the director had the potential to do anything. In the 21st century, after the 9/11 tragedy, the recent D.C. sniper tragedies and the post-politically correct world of the 90's, a thriller where a character is forced to test his morality by the demands of a loony sniper no longer seems as viable to audiences as it once did. That is because audiences are not receptive to complex moral decisions anymore - they like the world to be a lot safer and kinder than it once was. "Phone Booth" is too safe and sanitized. It assumes that planning an affair and lying about it is cause for indignation and death. I never got the impression that Stu ever really sinned (outside of telling fibs, a publicist's job no doubt). He only has temptations. Only the Moral Majority would think that is enough cause for punishment.

Goosebumps provided by Wilson and Farmiga

THE CONJURING 2 (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 "The Conjuring 2" is one oddball haunted house horror flick. Sure, it's got a demonic nun who doesn't like its name being uttered, it's got creepy septuagenarian ghosts sitting on living room chairs, it has possessions and the typical question of whether the hauntings are real or "conjured" up by the alleged people being haunted. What is odd about this sequel is that I cared about the two Demonologists,  Ed and Lorraine Warren, and wanted their story to be told, not the one they are involved in. This may be the first haunted house movie I've seen where I wanted less hauntings and more character definition, you know, like it used to be done.

The Warrens are shown in a over-the-top prologue at the Amityville house where alleged hauntings took place in the 1970's. Once there, Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) has clairvoyant visions of the demonic nun, who looks like a standard-issue demon in a habit. This is a pure nightmare for Lorraine who would rather stay away from haunted houses and focus on other things, especially after witnessing a vision of her husband's death. Hubby Ed (Patrick Wilson) has other ideas as they are commissioned by the Church to investigate the Enfield Poltergeist, a true case of peculiar ghosts haunting a small house in England. The Hodgsons family consists of a single mother Peggy (Frances O’Connor) and three children - 11-year-old Janet (Madison Wolfe) is the primary child frequently attacked by these ghosts and occasionally possessed by them. Sessions with Janet speaking with an 70-year-old man's voice are recorded on reel-to-reel (oh, how I miss those days). Skeptics, one played by Franka Potente, feel the whole thing is engineered (as was actually believed and proven to be by camera recordings) but in director James Wan's world, these otherworldly beings are for real.

Most of "The Conjuring 2" is standard-issue terror, including a silly scene where a bunch of crucifixes on the wall turn upside down in unison. I miss the feeling of dread from the first film, the inescapable feeling of tension that suggests a real presence beyond the grave is haunting us. When a dog suddenly shape shifts into the Crooked Man from an English nursery rhyme, sorry, but I almost wanted to laugh at this - it did not scare me or frighten me a little. Janet's character is not particularly memorable and the finale is seemingly rushed though its coda is emotional and affected me.

Despite my misgivings about the film and its slight overlength, "The Conjuring 2" is fitfully fine for what it is but it is Farmiga and Wilson that gave me goosebumps. Their chemistry, as proven before, works and there is nothing as heavenly as seeing Farmiga smile at Wilson who plays an Elvis tune for the kids. It is a love story that stops at the service of the plot of a haunting that is nowhere near as thrilling as the Annabelle doll from the original. Give me a movie about the Warrens and their love affair and I would be more than thrilled - I'd get goosebumps. 

Clowning around the darkness

VULGAR (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original review from 2000

The View Askew Universe has not just included Kevin Smith's films. For those of you in the dark about View Askew or Kevin Smith, Kevin Smith is best known for writing and directing his 1994 comedic highlight, "Clerks," which made him a household name. He also owns the film company View Askew. This means that other first-time filmmakers can make a film with Smith's name attached to it. Digressing for one minute, I do recall seeing an episode of John Pierson's "Split Screen" where Kevin Smith said he would buy a videotape of Mark Borchardt's "Coven," a half-hour horror film he was trying to distribute. I think that might have been a wiser choice than "Vulgar," a wholly uneven film that never quite decides on its tone in presenting deeply disturbing subject matter.

Brian O'Halloran (best known as Dante in "Clerks") plays Will, a barely confident guy who has no real direction in life. One thing he knows for sure - he wants to take his clown act for children and make it his life's work. But Will can barely make a living considering his clown act is often at residences where the police show up daily. He should obviously expand his boundaries. His home life is a mess, his hateful mother is staying at a retirement home which he can barely afford, and his best friend, Syd (Bryan Johnson), considers him a loser. One day, Will gets the bright idea to take his clown act to bachelor parties. He will come in dressed as a clown named Vulgar and wear women's lingerie! This is coming from a man who wants to make something of himself as Flappy the Clown for children! Unfortunately, his first attempt as Vulgar ends in anal rape from three piggish men, which include a father and his two sons.

"Vulgar" starts off as a sequel to "Clerks" with O'Halloran playing the same kind of loser in that film. The tone is comical and the dialogue (written by first-time writer-director Bryan Johnson) is akin to Kevin Smith's own brand of wit. I felt some of the dialogue was forced but I was willing to go along for the ride. Then when we enter the heart of darkness with Will being brutally beaten and raped and the tone becomes far more sinister. I began to see that Johnson was aiming for something more, and O'Halloran's performance is filled with the right touch of pity and self-loathing and near suicidal-tendencies. I started to see some promise here of a real film that pulled no punches. Alas, that was not to be the case. "Vulgar" heads right back into a comical tone with cartoonish music that throws off the edge of what preceded it. It's as if Johnson had to redeem himself for showing such disturbing material. He seems to lack the courage to take it further than the average B movie, and that is a shame.

O'Halloran is at his best when showing his frail, shameful, human side. The scenes with his mother, however, are disbelieving and artificial. It is always a pleasure to see Jason Mewes (Mr. Jay himself) as some other kind of stoner who keeps guns in his basement. The scene with the rude waitress elicited a minor chuckle or two. Overall, "Vulgar" is not bottom-of-the-barrel junk aimed to exploit clowns or clownish behavior. There are highly effective scenes that show Johnson has more up his sleeve than he cares to admit. But its inconsistent tone and uneven performances make it less vulgar than intended.