The Force is Strong yet Lumpy With this one

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Something strange happens in the first third of "Rogue One" that normally doesn't happen in a "Star Wars" film, a curious lack of engagement. The characters are a crossbreed of different nationalities and genders and they are exciting characters only after we get through some expanded exposition. It is too much exposition (reminding one of the heavy load of exposition in "The Phantom Menace") though once the film picks up its motor and engages, it is a thrill-happy, justifiably entertaining popcorn picture but it is still no "Force Awakens."  

Something is afoot in the Star Wars universe beyond characterization - there is no scroll (and no 20th Century Fox fanfare or logo but you knew that when Disney bought the rights years back). And, for whatever reason, a young Jyn Erso holds a Stormtrooper doll!!! Say what? That has got to be a new, relatively askew detail for "Star Wars" in general. Leaving that aside, Jyn is the daughter of Imperial weapons researcher, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen, magnificent in "Casino Royale"), who is reluctantly commissioned to complete a destructive new weapon (you know what that is since this prequel directly precedes the events of the original 1977 "Star Wars"). Jyn escapes, mom is killed, and we flash forward to several years later when Jyn (Felicity Jones), now working in an Imperial work camp, is rescued by the Rebels and agrees to work for them on a mission to obtain the Imperial plans for  the "planet-killing" Death Star. No surprise that Jyn's father is actually working on completing the Death Star, and wait till her motley crew finds out who she is related to. What is fascinating about Jyn is that she is not loyal to either side technically, but allows herself to help the Rebels nonetheless - think of her as a Han Solo only less witty yet just as bad-ass. 

The motley crew who accompany Jyn on this Rebel Mission are Rebel Intelligence officer Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) who thinks nothing of shooting an informant (a new wrinkle for Star Wars); a pilot with Imperial connections who turns to the good side, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed); a blind warrior named Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) who can knock down three or four Stormtroopers with ease, and a mercenary named Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) who seemed to have been hatched from a Kurosawa movie. There is also a new, tall droid named K-2S0 who is full of wisecracks and actually knows how to use a blaster! Imagine if C3P0 could've done that or, on the other hand, don't! (Apologies to reminding prequel trilogy haters of odd disturbances in the Force such as Yoda with a lightsaber).

The charismatic Forest Whitaker appears and disappears too soon as Saw Gerrera (he has a breathing apparatus), leader of the rebel allied militia known as the Partisans. Saw helped Jyn escape when she was young and then abandoned her. Great colorful character but why not include him in the central conflict. Aside from Felicity's Jyn, he is the most interesting of this whole bunch. The other characters, all warriors and Rebel fighters, do not stir the imagination - they are more rugged than colorful, more fighting machine and less individualistic.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" has a lumpy start yet it succeeds as an exciting, involving adventure story. The laser-battle action scenes do not disappoint but, then again, when do they ever? You've got a powerful yet far too small reappearance by Darth Vader and an insidiously evil Imperial Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) with a spanking white suit and cape. The return of Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia are fine, though the CGI can leave a lot to be desired (The return of two ugly Cantina pilots from the first "Star Wars" is actually hysterical). Ultimately Felicity Jones is the best thing in the movie and holds one's interest with her ambivalence and her whip smart abilities. "Rogue One" serves her right, front and center. The rest is loosely focused baggage.

You are the victim of boredom in this 3-D snoozefest

AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I will say the "unrelated" sequel in the endless "Amityville" series has a nifty start. Tony Roberts and Candy Clark are trying to debunk the horrors of that infamous Long Island house with the creepy attic windows. They pretend to be parents of a dead child ghost and participate in a seance. A blue orb appears but the whole thing is a hoax. Roberts is a reporter who goes after urban legends, and Candy Clark is a photographer and that is about as nifty as "Amityville 3-D" gets.

This alleged haunted house movie is not gimmicky horror fun, not even at the level of a William Castle picture. As a matter of fact, there aren't too many manifestations of hauntings at all, save for a hot water faucet that is impossible to turn off; a bottomless well in the basement where an evil creature resides; a bee followed by a host of bees that kill a realtor, and not much else. The movie can't even follow its own rules, especially when the manifestations occur beyond the surroundings of the house. Roberts needs a cool drink of water as an elevator descends at alarming speeds while he hangs on to the railing as if he was in some Warner Brothers cartoon. Oh, and there is a doozy involving Candy Clark who is almost frostbitten by frigid temperatures at that house and then loses control of her car in special-effects that look as hokey as anything in "Exorcist II." There is also a boating accident that is merely alluded to - we don't see the accident so who knows how it happened or why other than the house made it happen?

For some good laughs, it is a treat to see early performances in their careers by Meg Ryan and Lori Laughlin, but what on earth possessed Tony Roberts and Tess Harper to appear in this godawful mess involving flying frisbees, flying skeletons and sheer ineptitude? "Amityville 3-D" has apathetic reactions to almost everything, thus nobody cares about the characters (especially Candy Clark's fate) or the nonexistent story. Did the skeptical Roberts character even once question what is happening in this dreaded house that he buys? Apathy is the name of the game - all too common in 1980's rotten horror movie sequels.

Right on track

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sometimes it is enough to have a simple set-up for a thriller. A hijacked subway train. Three armed men, followed by an ex-motorman. Hostage negotiations and one million dollars ransom discussed with a colorful NYC Transit Authority lieutenant with a spanking yellow tie. The hijackers and the hostages are all of different ethnicities (see that millennials, this was always the case pre-Twitter era especially in 1970's pictures set in New York). What you got here is Joseph Sargent's incredibly exciting, humorous and explosive "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," a textbook example on how to engineer an efficient thriller with a splendid cast.

Walter Matthau takes the reins convincingly as the lieutenant who unknowingly assumes that Japanese men from the Tokyo transit authority don't speak English! Of course they do, the first step in seeing how stereotypes are seemingly set up and then avoided. Robert Shaw is persuasively efficient as the calculating British-accented leader of the armed robbers who gives the Mayor less than an hour to come with up a million dollars. Only the Mayor is sick with a bad cold and looks like a young Ed Koch, and the ex-motorman has a bad cold too (Yep, typical of an overcrowded New York City). Between the ransom demands, we see the fiery tension in the Command Center over a subway car that remains stagnant while Shaw makes his demands with few concessions. Time is of a factor and the movie's clockwork pacing identifies that beautifully.

Sargent directs with flair and a typically gritty style for that era, also keeping the humanity intact between the passengers that include screaming kids, an old man who can't fathom the purpose of stealing a subway car, a cocky young guy who served in Vietnam, an undercover cop, and a hooker who argues over her worth per hour. They could have been fodder with no characterization yet we care about them and hope they survive even if we don't intimately know them (the final half hour of the film with an accelerating runaway car will leave you on the edge of your seat. Think red lights!) The robbers with color-coded names have distinguishing personalities especially Shaw who has equal contempt for humanity and imprecise timing. Hector Elizondo is the odious robber with an itchy trigger finger who has contempt for Shaw's control. Martin Balsam, an exemplary actor of nuance, is the fired motorman who is not too sure about this tricky situation. Matthau has no contempt for anyone, simply a guy doing his job of saving New York City. We feel for the city and for the subway system. "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is fantastic, sharply timed entertainment with occasional blasts of humor.

Running from the law with belly laughs

THE WRONG GUY (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is an amazing endeavor to find a lost treasure. Sometimes there is a movie that has either been forgotten or left out to sea with no appeal of rediscovery. "The Wrong Guy" is such a movie - a hilarious Canadian comedy by the hapless, silly-minded Dave Foley of "Kids in the Hall" and "Newsradio" fame. When you consider the studio either had faith in it or not and that it went direct-to-DVD a mere five years after it was filmed, you'd rightfully expect a disaster. Most comedies of the late 90's into the 2000 and 2010 era have been of the gross-out variety, packed with fecal or other bodily fluid gags. Not this movie. I also have not laughed so consistently at a movie comedy from this era in quite some time so to discover "The Wrong Guy," thanks to my wife who bought a copy of the film and laughed along with me, is tantamount to a miracle. A miracle of laughs and proof that Dave Foley is a comic treasure.

Dave Foley is the perfect hapless, naive dummy in a slew of predicaments. He is Nelson Hibbert, who says hello to every employee at an office building, reminding himself and everyone it is a big day. Nelson expects a promotion as president of am unnamed company, and is passed over because as the boss who is exiting reminds him, "You married my other daughter, who is a great disappointment to me!" Nelson is so upset he has a crying fit and confronts the boss who he discovers is murdered. Nelson has another crying fit, grabs the bloody knife and takes off. Right from the start, "The Wrong Guy" could easily fall apart with either too much black humor and not enough whimsy, or too much whimsy laced with too little black humor. The surprise is that "The Wrong Guy" actually aims for belly laughs laced with a cartoonish, wacky tone. This works in favor of Dave Foley who so perfectly encapsulates naivete and fallibility with honest-to-goodness charm that nobody else could've been an improvement. He's got the expert comic timing and the body language of a wiggly clown with no common sense.

There are so many terrific comic set pieces that I laugh at myself just thinking about them. The frequency of silliness is admirable, whether it is Nelson trying to avoid police by pretending he has an extensive nosebleed or wearing a towel over his head, or how he is ready to hotwire a jeep that has keys in the ignition. His habit of running from side to side down a road shows off a certain Buster Keaton tomfoolery, not to mention jumping onto an open train car and landing on the other side of the tracks! Adding to the tomfoolery is Colm Feore as a clever hitman who is the real killer of Nelson's boss, and he sidesteps the police easily but never seems to catch up with Nelson whom he believes is an FBI agent! There is also Jennifer Tilly who suffers from narcolepsy and falls in love with Nelson rather quickly but, hey, this is a 96 minute comedy. Also worth noting is the hilarious shenanigans of Detective Arlen (David Anthony Higgins), who finds that an FBI expense account allows him to frequent Broadway shows and get Asian blonde escorts rather than using the resources to catch the killer.
 
I laughed so much at "The Wrong Guy" that I even surprised myself at how often I was doubled over with laughter. As co-written by "The Simpsons" writer Jay Kogen and Dave Foley not to mention David Anthony Higgins, the film mixes homages to Hitchcock's thrillers of mistaken identity with a wink, especially "North by Northwest" and "Sabotage." In fact, this film is a huge improvement over Mel Brooks' own occasionally funny Hitchcockian homage spoof, "High Anxiety," in that it stays true to the hapless nature of its central character (I am sure I spotted a few "The Fugitive" nods as well). You can't help but root for Foley's Nelson. "The Wrong Guy" is exceptional comedy gold.  

Tall Man's last infernal outing

PHANTASM: RAVAGER (2016)

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

Watching "Phantasm: Ravager" is like watching a series of rhythm-less outtakes cobbled together without any refinement or elegance. Unless you have seen the previous four "Phantasm" films, nothing here will make a lick of sense. I have seen them all and I still can't fathom what they were attempting here, though I have my suspicions.

Reggie (Reggie Bannister) is the main character as he is out on dusty roads leading to nowhere, holding a shotgun and ready to destroy the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). Sometimes Reggie is at a remote farm with hopes of bedding a redhead young female, other times he wakes up as an aged patient in a hospital suffering from dementia, or he is out on the road in his beaten up Plymouth Barracuda and entering an alternate dimension where the Tall Man resides in what looks like Dante's Inferno with giant spheres populating the red sky. We still get the freakishly monstrous dwarves who appear at the mausoleum, and we get scenes where Mike (A. Michael Baldwin, who has been in all the films except number 2) appears and reappears without a whole lot of consistency - he has a golden sphere in his head though details are never forthcoming. The killer spheres reappear as well yet I was more interested in the blimp-sized spheres which we learn little to nothing about them. There is a brief appearance by Mike's dead brother, Jody (Bill Thornbury), though I thought he was a sphere himself in previous sequels. The film ends with a stunning hellish cityscape shot that opens the door for another sequel, or maybe this movie should've started with that final shot instead!

The "Phantasm" movies are cinematic puzzle pieces that never come together, but sometimes they came close. The trouble is that it is hard to get a handle on what is happening other than some otherworldly chase picture where we lose sight of who is being chased and why, and what sort of definitive closure we are supposed to get. Reggie is willing to settle his differences with the Tall Man as long as he gets his family back. He seems to, at one point, and yet the repetitive chase goes on with a group of gun-toting rebels who are rendered anonymous at best. Rocky (Gloria-Lynne-Henry), Reggie's love interest from Part III, returns so briefly and delivers so much charisma, you kinda wish the filmmakers opted to have her on the road with Reggie from the start.

"Phantasm: Ravager" is fair as far as umpteenth horror movie sequels go, thanks to the entertaining Reggie Bannister who has to carry the movie on his shoulders. The late Angus Scrimm is still terrifying though the hellish landscape of the 4K digital dimension looks like an ad for a video game, not a movie. I'd prefer this sequel over the endless, monotonous "Oblivion" but do not expect the surreal aspects of the first three films. 

Stranger Things in Upstate N.Y.

A QUIET PLACE (2018)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

My favorite kind of horror film usually has locations in isolated, sometimes uninhabited areas, specifically the woods ("Evil Dead" and its brethren usually come to mind). So "A Quiet Place" already had me at the forest with a farm somewhere in the middle of it. Of course, the threat are giant creatures with tentacle-like legs and arms and an acute sense of hearing (they bare a resemblance to the monsters in "Stranger Things"), so if you drop a lantern in your farmhouse, these creatures speed through the horizon of corn stalks and trees like speed demons and arrive to destroy whoever caused the noise. Sounds like a B, C or Z-grade schlock yet with director John Krasinski involved, it is classy A horror dependent on the unexpected and finding the humanity in a tight-knit survivalist family at the center of chaos or, basically, silence to prevent chaos.

Krasinski plays the father, Emily Blunt the pregnant mother, and they have two children (one of them is deaf, played by real-life deaf girl Millicent Simmonds, and one other is killed in an alarming early sequence). They all communicate by sign language because any sound of verbal communication can cause these killer creatures to emerge (I am amazed that they can't whisper, wouldn't that sound be in line with walking barefoot on sand?) Actually any sound is problematic - dinner is served on lettuce leafs, footstep markers exist on stairs and floors where no creaky wood noise will ring, and sand footpaths are laid out, between their domicile leading to the bridge and the local uninhabited stores. This family is not completely alone - others live by and also have to live by silence. The real suspense kicks in when we know Emily Blunt will have to give a natural birth, and she may have to scream in agony!

Krasinski as a director and actor kept me on my toes throughout "A Quiet Place." The movie is an unnerving, shivering, truly nail-biting experience at just barely 1 and 27 minutes. It is probably the right length for an old-fashioned chiller and there are enough intimate family moments for everything to fall in place - a family we sympathize with and we hope this predicament is resolved. How it is resolved is one of the film's neatest surprises - all I can say is that it has to do with an improved hearing aid.

As a pure exercise in terror (especially the dynamic sound design and abbreviated uses of silence), "A Quiet Place" fills the bill. I don't know if it will become a classic but it will stand as one of the niftiest scare surprises of the 2010 era. Watch out for that protruding nail on the basements steps!

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Elton John Must be Loved Properly

ROCKETMAN (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

My 1970's memory of the effervescent Elton John was always tuned to his oversized frame-colored glasses and his flamboyant costumes which were never garish nor were they otherworldly like David Bowie - to me, it meant an artist having a ball and we were invited to the party while he played rock and roll music in his trademark piano with the passion of entertaining the audience. He was the rockin', euphoric clown who could light up any stage with fireworks of giddiness, the guy who could bring down the house because he loved to perform. "Rocketman" may at first glace appear to be the standard biopic of a rock musician yet it has an inner joy and a deeper complexity than the norm, stemming from a man who found a way to battle his demons through his music - it was no easy road.

"The Bitch is Back" is played in an outstanding opening musical number at a rehab center, so you know this will be a spirited, hell-on-sparkling wheels journey. We watch Taron Egerton as Reginald Dwight with a later adopted stage name of Elton John, ready to divulge his past to strangers while wearing a devil costume. Right from the flashy opening number (partially sung by a younger Elton), we are invited to his world of pain and pleasure. Pain stems from a largely absent, scornful father who has no faith in Elton's musical abilities, and an indifferent mother (a stunning performance by Bryce Dallas Howard) who reacts with equal aloofness when Elton reveals his homosexuality. Pleasure is his music and he has an amazing gift of adeptly playing any classical piece on the piano just by listening to someone else play it. He has lyrics that scream his pain and loneliness yet composed with a lyrical liveliness so that it can't depress anyone too severely (unlike one record producer, yep, we have seen that scene before of a producer who sees no potential in the singer yet there is strong support from the band members, friends, etc). Elton is a revelation in the music scene, specifically in his Troubadour debut in Los Angeles where he performs "Crocodile Rock." The scene establishes a hesitation from Elton at first, and then the joy and ecstasy of performance and of the crowd melts away any reluctance. These scenes are electrifying and form the basis of the whole film - even in Elton's darkest hours, an upbeat tempo is subtly invoked because, hey, it is Elton John and he has to live. Music is what he lives by so lively musical numbers every once in a while is to be expected. 

The rest of the film follows the expected trajectory of any musical biopic, you know, the singer becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol, and there's a scene where Elton almost drowns in his swimming pool and visions of his past and the young Reginald at the bottom of the pool haunt him. Of course, we get the usual shenanigans of the rock star becoming aloof to the people closest in his life, including his (still) long-time lyricist and friend Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) - a relationship that could've used more depth. As I said, the expected tropes of this genre are clearly defined and no real risks are taken here (unlike say Todd Haynes's audacious "I'm Not There" that featured several different actors playing Bob Dylan accompanied by multiple interpretations). Despite its same-old, same-old narrative, what sets "Rocketman" apart from the norm is its infectious joy stemming once again from Egerton's persuasive performance as the bitchy, emotional Elton who may say goodbye to the yellow brick road yet familial pain still rests on his shoulders. He wants to be loved properly (the tempestuous nature of his sexual relationship with his music manager John Reid is hardly love) and he eventually finds it, postscript. Along with the equally infectious "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Rocketman" is a beam of light that welcomes music as an evolutionary step to being loved, to share in the poetry of attaining that love. Being properly loved is no easy task.