A romantic nerd in a sea of sex-starved males

FRATERNITY VACATION (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I will not be ashamed to admit that there is something I admire about "Fraternity Vacation" and I couldn't wrap my finger around it. I used to watch it a couple of times in the 1980's on cable and never figured out what it was. I don't find the film insulting to women or some sort of misogynistic sex comedy or troubling male fantasy about how to score chicks 101. Then I figured it out after seeing it again recently. It was Stephen Geoffreys.

Geoffreys is the nerd frat freshman, the one who carries a swimming pool float that knocks everybody near the swimming pool into the water. Hah! Very funny, or sporadically amusing. He does it repeatedly with one too many beats. Still, Geoffreys has a certain cool factor, and what makes him different from others in his Theta Pi Gamma fraternity at Iowa State is that he is willing to talk and listen to a girl. His aspirations do not run to what can happen between the sheets. His fellow Theta Pi Gamma frat boys (Tim Robbins and Cameron Dye) are just horny and want to pursue the supposedly stuck-up blonde across from their rented apartment whom they can view with their telescope (she's played by Sheree J. Wilson, in her film debut whom some of you might know from "Walker: Texas Ranger"). Geoffreys is just the opposite and has the bravery to ask a girl to come to his apartment (played by Amanda Bearse, and they both later appeared in "Fright Night"). 

"Fraternity Vacation" has copious amounts of stupidity related to Bearse's father (John Vernon as a very irate police chief) and Geoffreys' relationship with Bearse is boring to say the least - she doesn't seem interested in him at all though he has high hopes. Geoffreys is a romantic, and no one else in the movie has interests beyond copulation. Geoffreys' character is an optimist and no free suntan lotion to those who can't figure out whom he ends up with at the end. The movie is generic and freely devoid of any real sexual heat or humor beyond the juvenile. Stephen Geoffreys, though, is the one you will remember.

Protect me from ever seeing this again

 BACKTRACK AKA CATCHFIRE (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Dennis Hopper's directing career has had its ups and downs. "Out of the Blue" and "Easy Rider" are amazing, intense, sometimes poetic films of startling beauty. I am not one of the defenders of the fascinating, beautiful bore "The Last Movie." "Colors" is an entertaining and tough-minded cop movie, considering the caliber of actors like Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. "Backtrack," a 1989 film that is the director's cut of a film also known as "Catchfire," the latter being a film Hopper disowned and is thus credited as an Alan Smithee project, is a completely repetitive, choppy, highly disorganized mess. It seems to be pulpy material that is designed as a black comedy though at times it borders on parody. You can't be a black comedy bordering on parody - either you are one or the other. If it is black comedy, it isn't blackly funny enough. If it is intended as parody, it doesn't reach far enough into absurdity for laughs. The film is an infrequently (and unintentionally) funny movie because nothing in it rings of the tone needed to make it work.

This is the old cliched story of a witness to a mob hit and now the witness is being hunted down by a professional assassin. Nothing new except execution, performances and tone always makes the difference. Not here. Jodie Foster is completely miscast as Anne, an artist whose concepts are making electronic banner signs. While driving home, she gets a flat, looks for help and witnesses the mob hit perpetrated by none other than an uncredited Joe Pesci as the Boss! Her boyfriend is played by Charlie Sheen in a mercifully short part - he is killed by the mob hit men who are looking for her. Enter Dennis Hopper as Milo, the professional hit man who falls in love with Anne as soon as he sees her picture. He tries to enter her mind, reads about conceptual art, plays the saxophone as if he's trying to telepathically communicate with her, wait, what? Oh, yeah, he is falling in love. Some lovely couple they make - when he finds her, he spares her life. Milo forces her to wear lingerie and heels, rapes her, makes love to her, and they drive from town to town staying at one hotel after another. The mob is after them, and so are the police. And there's the kingpin I gather played by, and I am laughing while writing this, a wheelchaired Vincent Price! We also got John Turturro as a cackling hit man, Dean Stockwell who looks bored stiff as Pesci's lawyer, Bob Dylan as a chainsaw artist and an early performance by Catherine Keener!

That's all folks. Some will get a kick out of seeing Jodie Foster nude in a couple of scenes, others will get a kick out of seeing an incomprehensible Dennis Hopper with an accent I can't quite make head or tail of. The Taos location where Anne hides out at one point has some pulse because the location is so breathtaking (having visited Taos on a couple of occasions, I heartily agree). Hopper seems to be reaching for the black comedy stylings of what Tarantino accomplished a few years later so thrillingly yet it falls apart too easily. The ending is too bizarre to contemplate (Foster and Hopper wear fire proximity suits!), and just as stupid and inconclusive as the rest of the film. Geez, I'd rather watch "The Last Movie" again over seeing "Backtrack" any day. 

Blood and Jaeger in the Appalachians

 KILLING SEASON (2013)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I marvel at the days when movies like "The Most Dangerous Game" (the original 1932 version) and its modern rockin'-in-the-rapids counterpart "Deliverance" would shock and awe people with its vision of brutality in the mountainside where you never knew what or whom you would come up against. Some of that exists in beautifully scenic shots of the Appalachians in "Killing Season," an occasionally entertaining yet wildly overdone and undernourished thriller where the brutality between two former soldiers results in one too many graphic scenes that just might make you sick.

I know that "Deliverance" was considered shockingly violent for its time, but definitely not profane. The moment where Burt Reynolds pulled an arrow out of a body could make people squirm - that was in 1971. In 2013, we get a scene where a hook is inserted through a gaping wound on the calf of the leg and thus...eh, you get the idea. There is a waterboarding moment, no doubt to remind many of water torture methods from the Iraq War. But let's stop quibbling about the gratuitous violence and get to the plot.

John Travolta, who is completely unconvincing as a former Serbian (Scorpion) soldier named Emil, is seeking revenge for having been shot in the back by former Colonel Ford (Robert De Niro) during the Balkan Wars. Emil wants Ford to admit to what he had done and why, though it is clear that Emil killed many Serbians (some are seen inside a train car that immediately evokes Holocaust imagery) and the American soldiers had to put a stop to this. Why Ford decided to shoot him in the back as opposed to the head in the middle of a firing squad is an intriguing question never satisfyingly answered. Why Emil's poison of choice is drinking Jaegermeister, I couldn't say. 

De Niro does an able job as a retired Colonel living in the wilderness inside a log cabin, cooking for himself and occasionally taking pictures of elk. There is a bit involving Ford's son (Milo Ventimiglia) that is superfluous at best, especially when we only get dialogue from Emil's background end about a woman he loves to have sex with. The Colonel is a far more compelling character and I was willing to go where ever he went. I felt sympathy for him and De Niro gives the role more substance than the screenplay does. Travolta doesn't register any real presence, other than his deep black short-haired cut that has more personality than he does.

Yet it all becomes a bloodier than thou cat and mouse game, too bloody even for this critic (though the film is never boring). The violence borders on what we might see in a "Saw" sequel - as I often ask myself in some of today's movies, did it have to go that far? Wouldn't it have been enough to have both men chasing each other through the Appalachians with their bow and arrows and make it more of a psychological mind game, that is to have their wits put to the test. And why not give us some backstory on the war itself, otherwise they may as well be talking about Vietnam or WWII (the original screenplay used the latter war as a pretext). When I can't understand what Travolta is saying in his heavy Serbian accent and when De Niro's final speech is overwhelmed by an overstated musical score, then you have lost me. It would be easier to navigate the Appalachian mountain range than navigate Travolta's incomprehensible accent.  

Don't Smile

 JOKER (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

As unnerving and intense an actor as Joaquin Phoenix is, "Joker" feels like a homicidal take on Phoenix's occasionally fascinating and mind-numbing work as the catatonic Freddie in 2012's "The Master." Here's what I said about Phoenix in that film: " At 2 hours and 17 minutes, it is simply a chore to watch Freddie (Phoenix) who engages in sex or humping a nude sand figure, and stares and laughs maniacally or indulges in uncontrollably violent confrontations." That might sum up Phoenix's work as the iconic villain from the Batman universe in "Joker." Joker dances and cavorts in some strange balletic movements, laughs maniacally enough to draw notice from bystanders, and runs frequently after shooting people or knifing them. This bullied Joker is also on a Rupert Pupkin vibe as he desperately wants to be on a late night talk show though his comedic material is more political than funny. And just as it was true of Rupert in "The King of Comedy," Joker is also not much of a standup comedian where his uncontrollable laughter serves as an obstruction. This life is one that has been compared to members of the incel community - I just don't see a celibate person here. I just see a sick, diseased mind from a profoundly disturbed and delusional individual and that is all. Or maybe that is enough.

I don't feel that Todd Phillips' film "Joker" cuts any deeper than that though. The movie is not a bore but it can be an irritating chore to sit through. It is ostensibly a dark character study inspired by Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy" but the movie never gives us much depth to the Joker, certainly not enough to warrant such comparisons and homages. Phoenix's Joker is not an engaging or remotely cunning personality - nor does he need to be - but the conception of a guy who is as empty and devoid of emotion as the world around him doesn't make for stirring entertainment or a full-bodied character study at 2 hours and 2 minutes. Drawing more comparisons, the late Heath Ledger showed us a Joker as a tortured clown who could defeat Batman yet never felt more out of place in Gotham than Batman - society needed those two to exist or it would've been necessary to invent them. Phoenix's Joker is, as evidenced in "The Master," a dour one-dimensional sociopath who is not allowed one honest emotion through the whole movie (his skeletal torso revealed when Joker takes off his shirt is far more intriguing - his spine looks like it is barely hanging on to his body). At least in "The Master" Phoenix gave us two notes of expression. This Joker is given one - smile or force that smile by faking it and laughing (the latter is a medical condition that is expressed in a medical card he carries). That is the whole movie and the whole performance. 

"Joker" is set in the early 1980's in Gotham and that is about as original as the film gets (a small treat to see Robert De Niro as a late night talk show host). There is no moment worth savoring or salivating over - "Joker" has the mojo to work on your nerves but at the expense of any real human dimensions. Sometimes the film is riveting particularly the first half-hour (his aforementioned medical card made me laugh) where there's momentum developed between Joker living at home with a mentally ill mother (Frances Conroy), and a supposed romantic relationship he has with a next-door neighbor. But these moments are so arbitrary that they never build to anything - they exist as fleetingly as Joker forcing a smile while looking at a mirror or dancing on a staircase to the tune of "Rock and Roll Part Two." The violence emanates from Joker aka Arthur Fleck because he can't take the craziness of Gotham City anymore (and his medications are no longer available due to the Mayor cutting the budget on mental health care) but, again, no real buildup. When the violence occurs, it is as distancing as any superhero movie might show. When the film was over, I respected individual moments that clearly ape Scorsese and Sidney Lumet (the "Network" finale) and even (intentional or not) "Erendira," but I felt as indifferent to the Joker as I did to the movie. I did not feel sorry for him, I just wanted him gone.

The Reseda Kid is more than a Junior Rocky

 THE KARATE KID (1984)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

It is not hard to forget how good the original "The Karate Kid" was. Ralph Macchio as the vulnerable, stringbean-looking kid, Daniel Larusso (who seems he would have trouble picking up a bag of groceries let alone delivering a kick at a martial-arts tournament) gave us the rooting hero of the film, and the feeling that any kid with the mildest karate experience could learn to fight with the proper guidance. His guide is the iconic Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), an apartment handyman from Okinawa who has deep philosophies about karate and learning balance within the art itself and in life. Though some supporting characters are sidelined a bit, the movie is an uplifting, spiritual success of a picture, a way of championing the underdog and remembering life's lessons in the process too.

In the opening scenes, Larusso has reluctantly moved to Reseda, California with his Jersey-accented mother Lucille (Randee Heller) - a world of palm trees and warm weather which is a far cry from Newark, New Jersey. Daniel is invited by a neighborhood kid (Israel Juarbe, fleetingly seen during the tournament as well) who lives in the same apartment dwelling to a beach party. Talk about the 1980's - the girls have big hair and the guys love to play soccer in the sand and so we get the typical music montages. There is a sweet blonde named Ali (Elisabeth Shue, her debut role) who takes an interest in Daniel - their eyes meet and a slow romance blooms. Not if Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) can help it - he is Ali's ex-boyfriend and he destroys her radio and knocks Daniel in the sand. Daniel's brief  karate training isn't enough - he learns from a book and eventually from an unexpected teacher, Mr. Miyagi, who happens to be the handyman at the apartment Daniel lives in. Of course, we all know the rest - Daniel has to maintain a complicated high-school relationship with Ali while trying to evade Johnnie and his Cobra Kai clan. Cobra Kai is a different kind of aggressive fighting style so Daniel instead learns to adopt Miyagi's Way of the Intercepting Paint Brush and Sanding Technique (and learns about clipping bonsai trees and catching flies with chopsticks). Oh, yeah, and that famous crane kick will become useful against the Cobra Kai bullies (they are bullies, by the way, though there has been speculation that Daniel was the real bully! This is a ridiculous fact that sprung up on youtube and found its way into the spectacularly entertaining "Cobra Kai" Netflix series. I suppose Daniel shouldn't have tried to defend himself against Johnny's roundhouse kicks, huh?)

The cast is a bright bunch of personalities, not the least of which includes Randee Heller who has to push the stationwagon in order to get it started - she is credibly cast and has a smile of gratitude that one can't forget. William Zabka has too few scenes overall - a one-dimensional badass who shows some mercy for Daniel in the concluding tournament sequence (his role has been beefed up in "Cobra Kai"). Martin Kove is such a tightly coiled snake as the Cobra Kai teacher, Reese, that the scene between him and Miyagi leaves one breathless (Kove also returned in a hugely enlarged role in "Cobra Kai"). Elisabeth Shue exudes ample charm and is a good match for Daniel - why her role was ignored in the sequels is beyond my understanding (she reappears in Season 3 of "Cobra Kai"). Macchio is ideally cast as Larusso who finds his inner strength to move on and get to the next level - his character is one of the few joys to be found in any teenage movie role in the 1980's. 

The heart and soul of "The Karate Kid" is Daniel and Miyagi's relationship - they form a bond and there is unexpected depth to their characters (something the first two sequels barely touched on). Sure, Daniel is a regular kind of nice kid who wants to get along with everyone but he has no father (the screenplay wisely omits any explanation). Daniel finds a father figure of sorts in Myagi but they actually become close friends and when we learn that Miyagi lost his wife and child years back at an internment camp, we feel for the teacher because he is only human and can't quite balance this sadness unless he drinks himself into a stupor. Nevertheless their bond is lifelong and they both realize that karate helps teach that balance, and also clipping those bonsai trees. 

Say Goodnight Rambo

 RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What I noticed about "Rambo: Last Blood" is that Sylvester Stallone shows a little more humanity than is normally allowed for a one-man killing machine like Vietnam Vet John Rambo. Other than the fact that the film is titled Rambo, it is virtually indistinguishable from any other grossly exploitative action movie.

New character details are present at first. Rambo has shorter hair, sans bandana, and rides a horse in his Arizona ranch. Peace seems to have settled into the character, well kinda sorta. There are endless tunnels throughout the property which can only occasionally trigger his PTSD! Rambo also keeps serrated knives and a healthy supply of guns nearby. That is expected from a Vietnam Vet and especially Rambo but peace can't last for long in this idyllic setting. He has adopted a family that includes the doting Maria (Adriana Barraza) and her ambitious granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) who wants to go to college. Rambo feels very protective of Gabrielle, seeing her as his own daughter. By the way, there appears to be no romantic partner in Rambo's life, a sight unseen since Part II.

Gabrielle wants to meet her real dad in Mexico yet this small-knit family is against it. Naturally Gabrielle ventures into Mexico and is kidnapped and placed in a sex trafficking ring lit like something out of TV's "FBI" with a garish green glow. So far, so good - a decent setup for this type of movie. Rambo gets wind of what is happening and the action, thrills and suspense start. For a while, I was actually absorbed by this movie despite featuring an army of angry, one-note Mexican villains that look virtually anonymous - not one stands out as memorably evil. Rambo's intent is to rescue Gabriella and kill all these guys in the most gruesomely violent manner possible. I was hardly appalled by the violence but watching Rambo employ horrific killing methods such as holding a beating bloody heart in his hand stops the movie cold. Did it need to be that grisly?

"Rambo: Last Blood" is not nauseating in its final brutal half-hour, just simply repetitious and numbing. Stallone has the killer presence as always yet some of his mumbling can be, well, just mumbling. I like the introduction of a Rambo retiring at his ranch but that is about as fresh as this old-hat, by-the-numbers action picture gets. Say goodnight Rambo.  

A divided country in the 1970's

 JOE (1970)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A young couple in a dingy apartment are injecting heroin in their arms. Susan Sarandon, in her film debut, plays the naive and innocent flower of a girlfriend. The guy is always out for a fix and sells pills for quick cash. In the first few moments of "Joe," you might think you are watching either an Andy Warhol film or some ultra gritty documentary about heroin users. Nothing can prepare you for what's to come. Having said that, "Joe" as a film doesn't resonate as strongly as I would've hoped after it is over and yet the substance is mostly derived from Peter Boyle's Joe who will resonate long after the film is over.

The eponymous title character is not introduced yet as we delve into a rich advertising businessman named Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick) who wants to help his strung-out daughter who's hospitalized after OD'ing (eventually she goes missing). He can't stand the way she lives nor can he stand the guy whom he accidentally kills by thrusting the guy's head against the wall repeatedly (edited with multiple dissolving frames that gives it an extra charge of brutality). After the murder, exasperated Compton walks into a bar and hears the title character Joe (Peter Boyle) talking about his intolerable hatred of blacks and hippies. The two form an uneasy alliance and come from different worlds - Compton is wealthy and Joe works in a factory. Their households and their wives couldn't be more different - Compton's wife is sophisticated and taciturn. Joe's wife is loquacious and gets on her husband's nerves. Compton has a fireplace and the luxuries of a high-rise, expensive apartment building. Joe has a smaller house and a gun collection in his basement. 

If "Joe" had stuck to these two characters and their families as an exploratory character study and their differing views of the world at large, the film would've been a powerhouse. As it stands written by Norman Wexler, we get a little too much time devoted to free-lovin' hippies where Compton and Joe cavort in and smoke grass while trying to find Compton's missing daughter. Their wallets get stolen by the hippies and all hell breaks loose in the uneventful climax that results in an unexpected tragedy. The film loses some ground because the first 2/3 suggests anything but the climax we get. The two main characters of Joe and Compton are so fascinating and so intricately layered that the story demands something more than the sum of its parts. 

"Joe" existed during a time of the Nixon-era when the hippies and their lifestyle were starting to wane and the counter culture was evaporating fast. Working class guys like the bigoted Joe were all too common, sensing that their worth only came down to dollars and cents whereas blacks could go on welfare and make the same amount of money (it is important to illustrate that these are his observations which were shared by many at the time...and still are). Compton makes far more money yet Joe respects him mainly for taking charge and for their mutual agreement on warfare against the free-thinking, free-lovin' liberals. A lot of this could've used more of a clear focus, to gauge their beliefs by putting them into practice beyond a semi-cop out ending. What we get leading to that shocking finale is some sex at a hippie hangout that goes awry and the aftermath of a violent shootout (all too common ending in controversial 1970's films). Still, "Joe" is an intriguing film that is worth seeing particularly for the on-the-nose and superior performance given by Peter Boyle - his early scene at the bar and other significant moments of observation are so damn riveting that I will never forget them. His character could still resonate today and that is scary to think about.