Fun yet Recycled Webbing

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Spider-Man Homecoming" is exactly the teenybopper Web-Slinger movie that some Marvel fans wanted from "The Amazing Spider-Man" movies and did not get. It does not have a brooding antihero, much like Andrew Garfield's interpretation in "The Amazing Spider-Man," and it has more humor and more of Peter Parker's romantic flirtations in his high-school years. What it does not have is much of an identity - it looks and feels like a Spider-Man tale but our friendly neighborhood arachnid hero appears to be stuck in recycled webbing.

Eager, ambitious high-school student Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is in awe of his Spider-Man suit, designed by the smarmy Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) The suit talks to Spider-Man and has a GPS signal - think of it as an iPhone superhero suit. Before I even thought to my 47-year-old self, hey this is too modernized for me, Spider-Man flies around as only a human spider can, thwarting thieves in an ATM robbery where they are masked with the likenesses of the Avengers (!) Unfortunately, an angry contractor (played by Michael Keaton), who lost his business years ago  to the government, has stolen some alien weapons from a massive alien ship destroyed by the Avengers. Along with some former co-workers, they have been selling these dangerous weapons on the black market. Spidey gets wind of this and tries to prevent further sales but that is not easy when the contractor, Toomes, becomes a supersonic Vulture with mechanical wings (in the comics, he was an old bald man with elongated wings). Nevertheless, Peter has scholastic duties to live up to, like the academic decathlon that he quits and rejoins much to the chagrin of his fellow students.

Watching "Spider-Man Homecoming" can be a strange experience considering this is the third reboot of a franchise that began fifteen years ago! Two actors have played the web-slinger with varying degrees of success, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Tom Holland has the snap, crackle pop of a hopping, anxious Spider-Man but he lacks the presence to hold the screen together as Peter Parker. Somehow, Holland convinces as a high-school teenager learning his ropes around girls and feeling shy enough to go back to his crime-fighting instincts, but he is not a persuasive Peter Parker. I never got the impression he was the same person that occupies that red and blue supersuit. As Spidey, he rocks the screen. As Peter, he looks too generic. If that is the intention, I must ask why when you consider Maguire and Garfield who both resonated strongly as Peter.

A similar problem plagues Michael Keaton's Vulture character - as Toomey, there is seething menace but not so much when he puts on a metal mask. Compared to Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin from way back, the villainy is not as potent.

"Spider-Man Homecoming" is certainly an entertaining ride from start to finish, and there is never a dull moment with hair-raising sequences such as the Washington Monument cliffhanger that will have you grabbing a hold of something to keep you steady. It's got everything you might expect in a superhero movie except a genuine sense of urgency. The webbing still sticks, but they need stronger chemical components. 

Friends Drive Each Other Nuts

S IS FOR STANLEY (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

You might think that a documentary about a film director's personal driver would be less than a spellbinding way to kill 90 minutes. Truth is that "S is For Stanley" is in fact a spellbinding documentary, a richly drawn and intriguing story that delivers an emotional wallop. It is about the fruitful relationship between two men who established a rapport through a friendship that could not die.

S is not just any Stanley, it is the late Stanley Kubrick, the restless taskmaster who hired Emilio D'Alessandro to drive back and forth between London and Kubrick's home which was a good half-hour away. Whether it was transporting the infamous giant phallus used as a weapon in "A Clockwork Orange" or handling the delivery of hundreds of candles for the "Barry Lyndon" shoot, or taking care of Kubrick's various cats or the faulty zipper in a jacket, there was no reprieve from the master filmmaker. D'Alessandro argued with his wife over the countless workdays with no vacation in sight and, during an argument, Stanley called for another favor. Stanley endlessly called Emilio's house until he figured the best thing was to have a private phone line with Emilio (interestingly, a private phone line also existed between Kubrick and Spielberg).

Though it shows Stanley Kubrick as relentless in his work ethic, it also unveils a far more human side than anyone had thought. Kubrick was not a cold, humorless man, he was full of life and had compassion for all living things. Helping to pay for the hospital bills for Emilio's son's or trying to save a donkey from getting slaughtered or wondering why the rabbits are laying in the sun, this man consistently wondered and cared about everything and everyone. In his last few years, especially during the grueling two and a half year shoot for his last film, "Eyes Wide Shut," Emilio reveals how sickly and grayer Kubrick got. Anyone believing in conspiracy theories about Stanley's death at the hands of assassins should hear Emilio's tearful depiction of Stanley's last day before dying - you can't help but choke up.

This intoxicating documentary by director Alex Infascelli also makes sure we get acquainted with Emilio, an Italian immigrant who drove a cab before being discovered by Kubrick. Emilio had a passion for racing car driving but his close relationship with Kubrick also showed he had a patience and a fondness for this man who wrote one memo after another to him. Emilio clearly has soul and empathy too. If the newer documentary "Filmworker," which details the relationship between Kubrick and his longtime assistant Leon Vitali, is half as good as this one then they will have the distinction of being the most introspective insights into the legendary director we'll ever have.

"S is for Stanley" fulfills two rules for any documentary about a renown filmmaker - if the character telling the story about the filmmaker is half as interesting as the filmmaker, you have made a good film. "S is for Stanley" could be subtitled "E is for Emilio."  

Macroscopic Entertainment

ANT-MAN (2015)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Some Marvel comic-book movies may seem interchangeable, but personality distinguishes the best of them. “Thor” was a thunderous epic picture, with a hero wielding a hammer and a beer with the same glee. “Captain America” was an adrenalized dose of nostalgia, while “Iron Man” had the delectable witticisms of Robert Downey, Jr. to keep it afloat. If it weren’t for the shrewd casting, these movies would barely get by with their CGI effects. “Ant-Man” has the distinction of being the funniest, the loopiest and the most entertaining of all these movies. It is not a typical summer blockbuster with CGI fireworks to keep everyone awake, and it is not standard-issue Marvel fare either.

As I said, personality separates the solid efforts from the weaker ones -- “Ant-Man” coasts along with a high humor quotient and the always charming Paul Rudd taking center stage. Thank the Marvel Gods for having faith in Paul Rudd -- he is a charismatic actor who brings Ant-Man to vivid life. Rudd is Scott Lang, a master thief (he prefers cat burglar) and sometime electrical engineer who is released from San Quentin prison after a three-year stint. No sooner than you can say “pussy burglar,” Paul is lured by his cellmate pal, Luis (Michael Peña, always a hoot-and-a-half), back into the burglary business when he has to rob a wealthy man’s residence. Problems persist when he’s caught with his pants down and then realizes there is an ulterior motive. The wealthy man is actually Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a retired entomologist and physicist who had summoned the unknowing Scott to his residence in the first place. Dr. Pym had developed a chemical substance that allows one to shrink to the size of an ant (marginally smaller than the Incredible Shrinking Man) and he is worried that his protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who now runs the company, may discover the secret to shrinkage and use it for military application. Why does every villain nowadays want to use such incomprehensible technology for war? Pym only uses ants to place sugar cubes into a cup of tea. That is more like it.

Pym hopes to use Scott as his Ant-Man to infiltrate the top-security of his former company and steal the Yellowjacket (the new shrinking suit created by Darren), and not without some rigorous training. Scott’s hope is to redeem himself in the eyes of his young daughter and be seen as something other than a felon by his ex-wife (Judy Greer). Pym has to confront his own lies about his late wife to his daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly, with a black bob haircut that recalls the cinematic sirens of the past) who works for the same company that is creating the Yellowjacket. Hope also helps Ant-Man train and delivers a knockout punch without breaking a sweat (2015 is the summer of women who can kick ass as swiftly as men, witness Charlize Theron in “Mad Max: Fury Road”).

“Ant-Man” has all the existing tropes and clichés of the typical comic-book movies (protagonist is the Everyman trying to survive, summoned to do good, training montages, etc.). What rises rather than shrinks “Ant-Man” is its easygoing star, Paul Rudd, and a far less epic feel than most of these overblown movies. The effects are jaw-dropping yet they still possess the clumsiness of its reluctant hero -- when he first tries on the suit, he escapes a near-drowning from water filling up a bathtub to practically being stomped on by partygoers, to making an LP skip while a DJ hosts a party, to being swapped while sliding down a newspaper and so on. It is all nifty without being overcooked, and a fiery finale involving the Thomas the Tank Engine made me smile.

A workable and enriching screenplay by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd help to create a sense of pathos and enough spurts of eye-filling action (always centered around the plot) to make “Ant-Man” one of the liveliest and funniest of recent comic-book films. It is virtually comical throughout (thanks to wry turns by Michael Pena and Tip “T.I.” Harris), makes a mockery of the large-scale action of “The Avengers,” and has enough digs at corporate billionaires to swing just barely past the liberal meter. Michael Douglas lends gravitas to the proceedings, and there is something bewitching and startling about Evangeline Lilly -- it is as if she has something to hide and that suspicion about her makes the character more interesting. It is Paul Rudd, though, who steals the movie, shrinking its epic feel to his indie-level charms. He is swift, likable, smart, vulnerable.

So is that army of ants.

Affleck is still Chasing Amy

GONE GIRL (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

It is tempting to dismiss “Gone Girl” after its opening scenes of a somewhat haggard Ben Affleck driving to a local bar called “The Bar” with a coffee drink in his hand, talking to a female bartender who begins with the typical “Look who finally graced us with their presence” statement. I was almost ready to give up since the scene reminded me of those Edward Burns movies and other indie rom-coms of the 90’s, heck Affleck was in some of those. But as the scene unfolds, we learn the bartender is actually Affleck’s sister and Affleck’s character actually co-owns The Bar. Then he arrives home to find his wife is missing and one of the living room tables has been smashed. Director David Fincher immediately fashions a cool sense of suspense and menace, almost a creepy vibe washed with placid, dull colors. Affleck looks dull, his sister looks dull, and everything looks plain and rather bland. Naturally, that is the point. If everything looked as pristinely beautiful with a Technicolor tint as in the opening scenes of David Lynch’s suburban nightmare “Blue Velvet,” the creepy vibe would not be as strong for this intense story. People can go nuts in perfectly balanced bland suburban towns.

Based on a best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn who also wrote the intricate screenplay, Ben Affleck is the disaffected Nick Dunne who discovers that something besides his Best Director Oscar is missing (sorry, it had to be said). All hell breaks loose and the media has a field day with his wife’s disappearance. Naturally, Nick is seen as a murderer, the husband who did away with his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), the inspiration for her parents’ books called “Amazing Amy.” Nick makes every mistake imaginable – he smiles for the cameras, shows no real remorse or emotion especially when supposedly feigning concern at a candlelight vigil in honor of Amy, and still carries on an affair with a younger woman. This whole section of the film, including Ben Affleck’s demeanor, reads and smells like the infamous real-life murder case involving Scott Peterson, right down to the pregnancy factor. Only writer Flynn and director David Fincher store some grisly surprises that will take your breath away. I cannot say more for fear of spoiling but those who have read the book, you know what to expect. All I can say is do not expect to see a corpse.

Speaking of Scott Peterson and that equally grisly and profoundly disturbing media story, I recently revisited an interview Diane Sawyer had with Scott and the comparison with Affleck is uncanny – Affleck acts and looks like Scott Peterson to a tee (including in interviews). Nick Dunne is the performance of Affleck’s career and the purposeful lack of an emotional center makes him more human than he first appears. Once you consider the numerous twists in the narrative, you will understand his indifference in hindsight. As for Rosamund Pike, she delivers a scorchingly eccentric performance that will make you nervous, shocked, befuddled and downright exhausted. You are never too sure what to make of Amy and her alleged disappearance, and the minute details are revealed through her diary in voice-over and exacting flashbacks.  

If I have a bone to pick, it is that “Gone Girl” has flashes of character-oriented details and nuances yet scant insight into one of its main characters. Without revealing the twists, you still wonder why one specific character behaves the way they do – motivation takes a backseat. Despite that, “Gone Girl” is an entrancing, blood-curlingly fierce suspense thriller, one of Fincher’s very best mainstream flicks since his underrated “Panic Room” with a fantastic supporting cast (especially, in atypical roles, Tyler Perry as a cynical attorney and Neil Patrick Harris as Amy’s wealthy ex-lover). “Gone Girl” is consistently watchable and unpredictable, showcasing a marriage that is not what it seems leading to a touch of fatalism that will keep you up at night. It is a swift, intricately layered, sensational thriller that requires strict attention. Prepare to squirm throughout.

Weaponized 40-ton truck

DUEL (1971)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Right at the start of Steven Spielberg's masterfully exciting "Duel," you can see the unimaginable road trip the main character has to face. The unaired theatrical version of this TV-movie shows Dennis Weaver's Red Plymouth Valiant pulling out of a suburban garage from his intrinsic point-of-view (Suburbia has been an iconic staple of Spielberg’s work). Through a series of dissolves, Weaver’s character travels through the city streets and tunnels until he is finally in the lonely desert road. He is David Mann, a salesman presumably headed to some city or town for a meeting. We never know what David sells nor do we need to. When he tries to pass a gas tanker truck in a Californian two-lane road stretch, the truck roars past David like a bat out of hell. It startles David and before long, the chase is on. This is not so much a cat-and-mouse chase – it is a terrifying chase picture where the truck driver’s intent is to kill David.

The only instance where the film rests is literally at rest stops. A truck stop café is the setting for various truck drivers who look on at David as David is sitting at a table, imagining which one is the menace on the highway. David can’t figure it out and, alarmingly, as he picks a fight with one truck driver who has similar-looking boots, the ominous gas tanker truck through the window’s background takes off. It is a virtuoso Spielberg scare scene, anticipating the menace of the unseen shark in his very own “Jaws” three years later. A Snakerama gas station stop (also featured in Spielberg’s “1941”) that features rattlesnakes as its main attraction gets awry when David uses a payphone and sees the truck is headed right into it. David escapes in the nick of time (a cliffhanging moment that is as hair-raising as Indiana Jones’s own wondrous cliffhangers that Spielberg himself later directed) and the truck practically demolishes everything in its path. When David manages to elude the driver near a railroad crossing, he sits in his car for hours, feeling elated at the prospect that the nightmare is over. As soon as he starts his engine and leaves, he stops in the middle of the road and sees the truck yet again, waiting impatiently for the chase to continue.

“Duel” is relentless, manic and in-your-face, a brutal nightmare that takes place in daylight. 35 years later after its debut on television, it still carries a hypnotic charge. The film could’ve been a bore had it been one endless chase scene but it’s got the presence of Dennis Weaver and an ugly-looking truck to compensate, not to mention Spielberg’s tight direction and constant changes in composition so that you never feel you are looking at the same shot over and over again. It is “Jaws” on wheels only this sort of restless panic where road rage and aggression take center stage is a reality faced by many motorists daily, more so than the prospect of running into a hungry shark. What Spielberg does so cleverly is to make us fear for David’s plight and we never know if David will survive it. That Red Plymouth Valiant is no match for a grimy-looking gas tanker truck emitting all sorts of exhaust into the atmosphere – a tree-hugging liberal’s nightmare. But the environment is hardly what David cares about, it is the lack of control he has over this unseen driver (only the driver’s boots and his arm are ever visible). When it is all over after the truck plunges over a cliff, David feels victorious and jumps up and down. Then he settles down and sits on the edge of a cliff, looking despondent. The nightmare may be over but we never know what really stimulated the truck driver to aggressively attack David (the various license plates in the truck’s front bumper certainly suggest that this driver has done this before). There is calm and unease and the victory slowly dissipates. “Duel” is about a lonely man on a lonely two-lane road who, by the end of the film, is more alone than ever.

Fireflys' ignoble sense of morality

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005)

  Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I wish I could say that "The Devil's Rejects" works as a pure horror movie, but it does not. As horror, it does little besides titillate us with blood-soaked images. As a slasher flick, it does practically the same thing. So what gives? What has Rob Zombie wrought with a sequel as bloody as the original? Well, that is a good question. "The Devil's Rejects" is such a wildly sordid state of affairs that it did not appeal to my basic ignoble sense of morality (that is a joke by the way). Quite frankly, Zombie is not interested in the morality of these characters nor does he (nor do we) like any of them very much. So what gives? What is there to gain from a movie like this? I have no idea except some good old-fashioned brutality for the sake of those who like that sort of thing. The reason I persist with these notions when I could easily dismiss them, since one could dismiss "The Devil's Rejects" as an average slasher film, is that this movie does aim slightly higher, a higher body count that is. This is an unrepentant assault on the senses, but it is not as cartoonish or laughable in its savagery as its original incarnation, "House of 1000 Corpses." This time, Rob Zombie means business.

So we have the returning psychotic family from the original on hand. Baby Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie) and her truly psychotic brother, Otis (Bill Moseley), and their mother, Mother Firefly (scenery-chewing, tongue-wagging Leslie Easterbrook replacing Karen Black), are back for more carnage galore. The police have discovered this murderous family's hideout in the opening sequence, where we have a standard shootout right out of the Old West. Sheriff Wydell (Snarling William Forsythe) wants some good old-fashioned, hellbent revenge on this family since they killed his brother, a cop, last time out. The Fireflys warn a creepy clown, Captain Spaulding (the King of Scenery-Chewers, Sid Haig) to meet up with them at the local motel and, get this, Spaulding is the patriarch of the family! Of course, at the motel, these Fireflys have to exact their inner demonic violent tendencies upon another family, which includes Geoffrey Lewis as a guy who once shook hands with Johnny Cash, his wife (Priscilla Barnes), and a young couple. Oh, there is also the marijuana-stoked guy who wants to be a clown, which is good for a few laughs.

Watching "The Devil's Rejects" is an unnerving, unbridled, curiously shallow experience. Shallow only because Zombie spends no time in getting know the Firefly family or any of the victims. It is a pre-sold, prepackaged, grainy 70's homage to slasher films where everyone gets their comeuppance - they are all action figures with deplorable personalities and nothing but murder on their minds (that includes the Sheriff). The acting is about as good as it can get with Sheri Moon more delirious than ever, and Bill Moseley acting less anarchic. Only Sid Haig reaches the same heights of devilish intensity that we come to expect from Captain Spaulding (his feverish sex dream is a classic). Add to the mix a human roadkill scene that is as violent as one can expect, a movie critic called in to decipher the legend of Groucho Marx, a nod or two to "The Empire Strikes Back," more bloody executions, Ken Foree and Michael Berryman, discussion about screwing chickens, and you got one hell of a demonic ride that will make you sick to your stomach. If I can say one last positive aspect, Zombie is mean as hell as a director and is not about to tolerate any "Scream" jokes or post-modernist winks anymore.

Free Press Serves the Governed

THE POST (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When President Trump lambastes the so-called liberal media for getting all their facts wrong or sometimes refers to them as "fake news," which is far more disingenuous, then it becomes quite refreshing to see a movie that recalls the pre-Trump days when newspapers had a voice and assumed responsibility for getting their political stories out there, no matter how incendiary. In the case of the publishing of the incendiary Pentagon Papers that the Washington Post published back in 1971, everything was riding on this paper's legitimacy and reputation. This was before the attack on Nixon's involvement in Watergate. Steven Spielberg's "The Post" is a finely crafted, intricately layered and suspenseful drama, showcasing the details of journalistic duty and ethics, you know things that don't seem to matter much to the governors anymore in 2018, except to those who are governed.

Early on in "The Post," military analyst and Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) is seen whisking away the Pentagon Papers, three or four folders at a a time, making Xerox copies. Right from the start, Ellsberg is miffed at Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's outright lying to the press about the ongoing Vietnam War. An unseen Neil Sheehan, top reporter for the New York Times, decides to publish excerpts of the classified Pentagon Papers, covering more than thirty years of the Vietnam War. Naturally, the White House gets wind of this and tells the Times not to publish. Enter Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks, absolutely terrific), editor-in-chief for the Washington Post, who is hoping to cover more than just the wedding of President Nixon's daughter. Bradlee consults assistant editor and reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) who gets access to these papers but it comes at a cost. The Post is losing popularity with women readers, its stock value is at stake, and its publisher/owner Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep, also outstanding) is trying to make amends. At first, Ben Bradlee and the male-centric advisers and lawyers do not pay her much mind since she got control of the paper after her husband died. She is an executive, so what can she know or do when the reporters are smoking a chimney while typing furiously in the press offices? One scene, out of many, highlights how Katharine is treated - she has breakfast with Ben and she tells him that it might be good to focus and write on women's issues. Ben tells her, "Katharine, keep your finger out of my eye!" It is a hell of a scene, dramatic in its own finite way of showing how women were pushed around and criticized for being critical, which is of course her job.

Though the historians have come out and attacked with their sharpened knives, decrying the film for focusing on the Washington Post as opposed to The New York Times who first broke the story and had their own sources, "The Post" doesn't exactly shy away from those facts and, naturally, the dramatic focus is on the parallels of power in the newspaper business between Bradlee and Graham. In an age of the #MeToo movement and how far women have progressed, it is of note to mention that Katharine was the first female publisher of a major newspaper. Her ability to contend with the males around her and then make her final decision to publish despite opposition from the board members is astonishing to witness. It is a penultimate moment that ranks among the finest moments of Meryl Streep's career, an actress I have less than admired and have criticized for being robotic in manufactured emotions. Aside from "Silkwood" and her few comedic forays, Streep had always struck me as cold and detached. Watching her work now since 2004's "The Manchurian Candidate," she has emerged more full-blooded than ever before.

Tom Hanks brings a tacit amount of joviality and a sneering sense of self as Ben Bradlee, realizing late in the game that it isn't so much his neck on the line, it is Katharine's who has much to lose. Bob Odenkirk dazzles as Ben Bagdikian, realizing his own mistake at not revealing the Times' source to the lawyers prior to the publication of the story. Bruce Greenwood astutely shows the different sides to McNamara, seeing how his close friend Katharine has a hell of a dilemma at her feet despite knowing his reputation may suffer.

"The Post" is prescient filmmaking at its best, diving into another era when the newspapers had to cling to the truth at any price. It is a fitting companion piece to "All the President's Men" (which this film alludes to beautifully at the end and of course features Bradlee), a thrilling and tightly wound narrative with the incendiary tone of journalism at its brink...and when it threatens to explode.