Seize the Moments

BOYHOOD (2014) 

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Top ten best films of the 2010 era

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

I once saw a short film on HBO, far too many years back to recall the title, about a filmmaker who is making a savagely violent film where a family is attacked and almost killed. Someone on the set reminds the filmmaker that life need not always be depicted as cruel and savage; how about a film about a divorced couple with a family who try to get along? “Boyhood” reminded me of that. This 2-hours-plus revelation is about the maturity of a divorced family, within a 12-year span, and it is everything I love about cinema and everything conventional wisdom says you should hate about independent cinema. There is no distinguishable plot and no character arcs and not much story except the story of a family and how they cope with each other, and learn to live with each other through hardships. To complain, as some have, of a lack of narrative thrust is to dismiss what the film ultimately accomplishes. Call it Scenes from Childhood, or just call it very poetically, “Boyhood.” 

The sweet Texas daydreamer Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane, who in the opening scene, is seen staring memorably at the blue sky while lying on school grounds) is the young boy, the son of Olivia and Mason, Sr. (both magnificently played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke). Lorelei Linklater is Samantha, the sister who likes to tease her brother (they are seen sharing bunkbeds in their early years). Olivia and Mason Sr. are divorcing; the dad hopes to reunite the family as a whole, rather than visiting on selective days of the week. The divorce ensues, years pass, and Olivia marries two other men. One is an alcoholic, highly strict professor (Marco Perella, depicting an unflinching brutality); the other, a former soldier turned corrections officer (Brad Hawkins, showcasing a father who would rather be admired than loved) who expects an older Mason Jr. to respect his curfew. The professor causes discomfort at the dinner table, asks for his own kids and his stepkids to show him their cell phones and, worst of all, forces Mason to have the worst haircut of his life (we kids have all been there - “You’ll look like a man instead of a little girl”). The corrections officer, shown unobtrusively in two scenes drinking a beer, insists that his strict adherence to work and maintaining his family makes him “cool.” Teen Mason’s painted fingernails and earrings do not impress this straight-as-an-arrow husband of Olivia’s life.

 Moment by moment, the family faces disruption and instability. Mason Jr. and Samantha always have to switch schools, Olivia is attracted to the wrong kind of men (vicious, drunk, belligerent bullies at best), yet it is Mason’s biological dad who makes amends in his own life and maintains stability -- he gets married for a second time and with a child of his own yet never forgetting his own brethren. Mason’s Dad is the one that we of so little faith deem as a loser in the beginning (some audience members might), living with a band member and smoking pot and driving the same black GTO - I even thought he would disappear from the picture. In fact, he ends up as the most responsible of the bunch. Olivia also makes amends, hoping to be a “mommy monk, simple, celibate” and selling her home, stating that she is spending the second half of her life getting rid of everything she worked for. It is Mason Sr. who reminds Olivia that she did a good job raising the kids and we believe it because we see it -you feel close to the family and this becomes one of those rare films where we, the observers, becomes as intimate with the family as they are with each other. 

The attraction of the movie, its galvanizing power, is that it captures moments in a family’s history - you do not seize the moment, the moment seizes you. The filmed record of more than a decade’s worth is a wonderful novelty, adding immeasurably to the proceedings (Director Richard Linklater actually filmed the kids and the adults consistently for 12 years). “Boyhood” reminds me of the “Up” documentaries of which director Michael Apted followed young kids to their adulthood. “Boyhood” does something more captivating and emotionally grounded - it seizes the honesty of moments, both grand and small, from the acute perspective of kids as they reach puberty and beyond. Those precious moments, all 142 minutes of them, seize us.

October 9th: A Day in Prehistoric Infamy

CAVEMAN (1981) 

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

My wife pointed out that the October 9th title seen in the ludicrous and overtly silly "Caveman" is actually John Lennon's birthday. Since "Caveman" stars Ringo Starr as a prehistoric, lecherous brute then it is no surprise that the title figures in the "plot." There is also Barbara Bach as a prehistoric beauty whom Starr has lustful thoughts brewing about - this is the film where they first met and married several months later. Thankfully such trivia doesn't overwhelm the crude humor and absurd shenanigans of "Caveman" - either you laugh or you won't. I often did.

"Caveman" has a little of everything to keep one amused, including being set, as indicated by another title, "one zillion years ago"; B.C. of course. Ringo Starr already looks like some wild-eyed naughty child as Atouk who wants Bach's Lana for himself, away from the humongous Tonda (John Matuszak, former football player for the Oakland Raiders), her boyfriend who towers over everybody. Meanwhile, there is Dennis Quaid as Lar, Atouk's friend, who ends up in the Ice Age tormented by what looks like the Abominable Snowman (a great visual gag sees the two of them frozen while Lar is running from the beast). Then there are two different dinosaurs from the Harryhausen school of stop-motion, both creatures torment the men and try to eat them. Avery Schreiber also appears though he looks out of place here - on the other hand, so does everybody else. 

"Caveman" has plenty of funny scenes and inspired gags, though it could've fully exploited its premise. For one, these prehistoric men don't look like prehistoric men or Cro-Magnon, more like boorish drunks who stayed up way past 3 am before succumbing to a hangover. Some gags are from the immature pre-school variety at best, including seeing mounds of fecal matter referred to by the men as "caca" and eventually as "shit" (pretty sure I also heard some fart noises as well). That may be the central notion that the prehistoric men were dumb and unsophisticated (the latter naturally) yet the film lifts little to no inspiration from its most obvious source, the Dawn of Man section of "2001: A Space Odyssey." What if they found a monolith that was shaped like a phallus and then discovered the pleasures of sex? The scene where Atouk tries to force himself on a sleeping Lana brings up memories of "Animal House," not necessarily anything that took place in B.C. More comedic bits could've been filtered around Evan Kim as another caveman who seems to be more advanced in language and communication. The "2001" comparison is apt for parody and clearly the filmmakers have Kubrick on their minds when featuring variable bits of the William Tell overture ("A Clockwork Orange") or the discovery of using fire as torches to ward off the enemy and beat them.

"Caveman" doesn't always sustain its comedic rhythm but I did laugh enough during its 90-minute run. Seeing Ringo amuse himself with his joy of performing grunts and discovering how to erect his back is funny - he's in on the joke and that keeps things amusing. Seeing Dennis Quaid slip on ice as he runs from the Snow Monster is hysterical. Watching Matuszak trying to master the art of throwing a rock is comic absurdity at its best. Everyone is on some sort of comedic high, even the googly-eyed stop-motion dinosaurs.  

Vampires that don't glitter

 What We Do in the Shadows (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

Reprinted with permission from Steel Notes Magazine

“Vampires don’t do dishes” – Deacon, old vampire

Imagine a mockumentary about vampires in Wellington, New Zealand. It is a brilliant idea in a
technology/Youtube-based world where everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, even if they have
done nothing. The vampires depicted in “What We Do in the Shadows” are not lazy creatures (save for
the 8,000-year-old Count Orlok-type who can’t bring himself to have a flat meeting with his younger
compatriots); they, in fact, roam the Wellington bars and clubs for fresh necks to bite. The conceit of
a documentary crew following them around makes for partly hysterical, partly horrifying fun.

Right from the start, the film made me smile. The 17th century fop, Viago (Taika Waititi), rises from
his coffin after his alarm clock goes off, and we hear him narrate his nocturnal activities.
First question: why does a vampire need an alarm clock? Oh, never mind. Meanwhile, the vampires
have flat meetings over undone chores, such as sweeping floors full of dead carcasses and cleaning
blood-stained dishes. The occasionally tempered Vladislav (Jemaine Clement, best remembered
for the HBO series “Flight of the Conchords”) is a former medieval warlord who tries to pull his
weight around the house they all share -- he could hypnotize crowds of people once upon a time but
has problems shape-shifting into other creatures because, according to Viago, “He could never get
the faces right.” A former European peasant and Nazi vampire, Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), is more rebellious, vociferous and refuses to do chores. Then there is Petyr (Ben Fransham), the ancient vampire who resembles Orlok from “Nosferatu” and almost never leaves the basement. Naturally, it is important for the curtains to be drawn nightly and there is the problem of dressing up for a bloody evening since vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors. The vampires live in a flat that looks ominous both indoors and outdoors. They need someone to sweep the leaves, clean up their bloody messes and procure human virgins as potential victims during their dinner parties. Their unlikely servant would be the very human Jackie (Jackie van Beek), who longs to become one of them. 

As swiftly written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (who will helm the next “Thor”
sequel), “What We Do in the Shadows” could have settled down as a solid black comedy with plenty
of wicked one-liners and bloody gags left and right. Remarkably, the filmmakers have also infused some bloody humanity into this as well, particularly Viago’s fondness for the woman from half-a-century ago he had hoped to be with. There is also a young lad who was presumed to be a virgin, Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), who becomes a vampire and shows the suffering one goes through in the preliminary stages, as if he was a heroin addict trying to kick the habit. It is these touches of human frailty that shows these vampires are not comic creations intended for us to laugh at them; they are no different from the rest of us, despite their supernatural abilities. Occasionally, the vampires run into werewolves (prior to the hairy beasts’ transformation) - the vampires believe these creatures to be smelly with a knack for urinating on everything.

With nods to Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic “Dracula,” “The Lost Boys” and the “Twilight”
series (Nick boasts about “Twilight” at the local clubs), “What We Do in the Shadows” is deliciously
wicked, often terrifying and bitingly funny. Every sequence leads to another smoothly with priceless
invention and delectable wit -- there is no shortage of wild ideas here that pay respect to vampire and
werewolf mythology. It is a perfect antidote to the sparkling “Twilight” series. 

Oh What a Feeling to be Loved

 COMING TO AMERICA (1988)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

Eddie Murphy has run hot and cold for me for the last couple of decades. Not every fast-talking, stupendously talented comedian with a gift for mimicry can make a great movie every time. In the 1980's, the decade which he ruled the cinematic screens with an iron fist, Eddie Murphy made a splash with "48 HRS." and "Trading Places" (which has ample comedy gold courtesy of Eddie and able help from Dan Aykroyd) and even bigger splash with "Beverly Hills Cop." What followed was an uneven streak with the fitfully funny "The Golden Child" and the slight misogynistic thread that ran through the entertaining (and loud) "Beverly Hills Cop II" and the profane (though funnier than I had thought in 1987) "Raw." Before hitting the ground of the submoronic nastiness led by "Harlem Nights" that led to minimal box-office until 1996's hysterically funny "The Nutty Professor," there was 1988's "Coming to America," an old-fashioned love story that is so predictable that you wonder, aside from the concept of an African prince traveling to New York, why humorist Art Buchwald sued the filmmakers and won! But that is a story for another time because despite anticipating the outcome of the film, "Coming to America" is all about attitude and jokes and gobs of humanity. 

Prince Akeem Joffer from the Kingdom of Zamunda (played effortlessly by Eddie) is about to face an arranged marriage with a woman (Vanessa Bell) who will do anything for her prince. I do mean, anything. She will hop, bark like a dog, and will "like anything you like." Akeem can't quite convince his father, King Jaffe Joffer (the grand and gloriously funny James Earl Jones), that he doesn't want to uphold tradition like having an arranged marriage, dealing with the "rose bearers," the servant women who bathe him or having his shoes tied for him ("An overrated experience," claims the King). Akeem is adamant on finding his own wife and enlists the help of his dutiful friend Semmi (Arsenio Hall, never funnier) to find a bride "that will satisfy my intellect as well as my loins" in America, specifically Queens. Cute.

The bulk of "Coming to America" takes place in Queens, NY and thank goodness for that because it fully exploits the fish-out-of-water concept (which "Beverly Hills Cop" did as well). How out of place can an African prince get with gold-plated fur coats look in Queens? When a cab driver curses Akeem out, Akeem innocently asks, "What does dumb f%^& mean?" Akeem seeks meager accommodations, in other words to look and live poor so that his selected bride will see him for who he is, not what royalty he represents. This also includes Akeem and Semmi working at McDowell's, an offshoot of McDonald's, run by the kind Mr. Cleo McDowell (John Amos). A vision is realized by Akeem when he spots Lisa McDowell (Shari Headley), Cleo's daughter, who is about to be married to Darryl Jenks (Eriq La Salle), the son of a successful hair-styling company called "Soul Glo." Akeem sees Lisa in his future yet there are a few obstacles to overcome. 

"Coming to America" is essentially my favorite Eddie Murphy comedy and it is helmed with perfect comic timing and pitch by director John Landis who also made the classic "Trading Places." The two movies would make a perfect double feature since both rekindle old-fashioned plots from the 1930's yet with a little more edge and some street smarts (Speaking of "Trading Places," two characters from that film return and it is a hoot and half). The whole cast is terrific with Murphy and Arsenio Hall in multiple roles (thanks to makeup designer Rick Baker), most memorably the barber shop geezers. James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair are an appealing King and Queen of Zamunda, and Murphy and Headley have sparkling romantic chemistry. It is Eddie Murphy though who makes "Coming to America" praiseworthy with enough laughs and heart that we would not see again until "The Nutty Professor." I have with certain exceptions always liked Eddie's rawer side but his sweeter, softer side makes the movie glow. It still does thirty years later. 

Love I Saw in Gere was just a Mirage

 AMERICAN GIGOLO (1980)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"American Gigolo" has all the hallmarks of a new luridly fascinating chapter from the world of screenwriter and director Paul Schrader. It has Richard Gere as a male prostitute who works for very wealthy clients. Its got the artificial world of Los Angeles as its backdrop, a memorable character of its own. Its got Lauren Hutton as a woman who is charmed by Gere and falls in love with him, almost inexplicably. Then there are those clients who have bizarre fantasies they want fulfilled with Gere, some of which don't surprise me since I haven't seen the film in forty years (and probably did not surprise many other adult viewers in 1980 either). As a tale of the inside world of prostitution on a sophisticated scale, "American Gigolo" is remarkably absorbing. When the lurid goings-on turns to a story involving murder, the movie feels like standard issue melodrama and that is a crying shame.

Gere is Julian, the male escort who lives the most superficial life you can imagine. He has a fantastically luxurious apartment where he listens to Smokey Robinson's "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" while selecting color-coordinated ties and suits. Shoes are important of course, not to mention the look of a professional who works out, keeps his chin up and his shoulders back. He is almost a businessman working for a firm except it is all for show, to maintain the appearance of an elegant individual ready for sex and to please women (he doesn't have sex with gays and has no interest in kinky sex). That is all he knows, and that is all he does. He has no aspirations, no long-term goals and probably no prospects of ever getting married. Julian exists to please women in bed.

When Julian tries to pick up a lonely woman at a hotel bar (Lauren Hutton), something happens. Julian doesn't exactly fall in love with her but he is dumbstruck by her beauty and her heavenly voice. The woman turns out to be Michelle Stratton, a California state senator's wife, and so this developing sexual relationship teetering on love may be risky. If the film continued along those lines, it might have been one of the more unusual love stories. But before you know it, a murder takes place - a client Julian had sex with in front of her husband had been killed and Julian is the prime suspect. He has obviously been framed and then we get the inquisitive detective, and one of Julian's pimps who may have framed him that leads to yet another murder, justified or not. 

"American Gigolo" has the charm and charisma of Richard Gere to warrant a look - he is very good at playing a boring person. This Julian has no inner life - he is a robot with a spark of charm and that is only because of Gere. The movie has an entrancing first half and then it devolves from its backroom intrigue of a world alien to most to an overheated, overdone thriller. The ending was strange because after seeing the film, I completely forgot how it ended. Or maybe, like the indifferent Julian himself, I just didn't care. 

Nostalgic Return to Zamunda

COMING 2 AMERICA (2021)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Never in a million years did I think there would be a sequel to "Coming to America." I never heard once since the film's 1988 release that there was the most remote interest in making a sequel. Anyone who has seen "Coming to America" knows that movie pretty much ended as it should and there was no more story to tell. Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy, in one of his most restrained roles) marries the woman from Queens (Shari Headley) and they remain in the fictional kingdom of Zamunda. Well, here comes "Coming 2 America" and it has its fresh spots of inspiration and an even more restrained Eddie Murphy and quite a few laughs. Still, from the perspective that typifies most comedy sequels, it is intermittently funny yet not nearly as exuberantly funny as the original and has a middle section with far too many lulls. 

The always beaming Prince Akeem (Murphy) is celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary to Lisa Joffer (Shari Headley), the woman from Queens, NY who now holds the royal throne like the Queen to be.  Akeem's father is dying (a mostly bedridden James Earl Jones) so Akeem will assume the King title until he discovers he has a bastard son in Queens! How can this be? You see when Akeem was looking for his Royal Queen in 1988, he was drugged and unknowingly had relations with the loutish Mary (Leslie Jones). Talk about a convoluted idea for a sequel but there you go. Since there is now a male heir to Zamunda (and Akeem has little regard for one of his three daughters to be the heir), Akeem has to find him and bring him back with the help of his friend, Semmi (Arsenio Hall). "Oh, hell no, your Majesty!," says Semmi. 

Akeem returns to America to claim his bastard son, Lavelle Junson (it gets funnier each time Murphy relates to this kid as "bastard son"), and he is a ticket scalper no less at Madison Square Garden (Lavelle is played in a wonderfully alive performance by Jermaine Fowler). Once the new family is brought back to Zamunda who look like multiple fishes out of water, tension mixed in with lunacy figures in the action. A neighboring country named Nextdoria is led by the fierce lunacy of General Izzi (Wesley Snipes, easily the best performance in the movie) who wants his son to marry one of Akeem's daughters hoping to unite both kingdoms. Not if Akeem can help it, unless he can get Javelle to marry one of Izzi's daughters.

"Coming 2 America" has many more laughs in the first forty minutes than in the last forty. We get the expected callbacks to the original film, including the barbershop quartet of geezers who have their own thoughts on political correctness and gentrification (yes, all three show up including Saul who has coughing fits); Murphy gets to wear the I Love N.Y. jacket and hat as in the original albeit briefly; an updated bit on the McDowell's restaurant and Mr. Louie Anderson, and we get extended scenes of that 80's club from the original film (thanks to CGI youthification of Murphy and Arsenio Hall). When we are in Zamunda, Snipes steals the show and has a high comic spirit that brightens the film. But the movie gets into a heavy lull with Fowler's Javelle as he starts to fall in love with his "royal groomer," and no surprise that she is his intended bride to be and not the arrangement Akeem and Izzi have planned. A lot of this rehashes the same old romantic plot from the original film which recycled this all-too familiar love angle from its own Hollywood predecessors. You know the lines, "I want you to love me for who I am, not what I am." It was cute and old-old-old-fashioned in 1988 but now, this little subplot just sits on the screen without much vibrancy.

Still, though the film is a bit stilted and boring in the middle, it picks up the pace when Akeem returns to America yet again in the somewhat frantic climax! Murphy is finely tuned and restrained as Akeem and goes through the motions, though he does not make the film his own (unlike the recent "Dolemite is My Name"). Arsenio Hall is more than adequate as Semmi though he gave us far more to laugh at in 1988. Jermaine Fowler has pizzazz and is a snappy, joyful actor though his romantic inclinations feel forced. It is finally Wesley Snipes, Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan (Lavelle's uncle) who bring the movie to its comedic knees. So some sustained laughter, a few lulls (did we need a CGI lion?), and some more laughs towards the end. "Coming 2 America" is a fitting, nostalgic reminder of a time when Eddie was king.

A smart 80's road movie

 THE SURE THING (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

John Cusack has always had an incredible gift for making us believe he is sincere and forthright in his ambitions and his abilities. You never doubt him, especially during the 1980's when he reigned supreme with films like "Better Off Dead," "Say Anything" and "Journey of Natty Gann." "The Sure Thing, a delicate, sweetly funny and very romantic comedy about college students on the road to Los Angeles, is one of the very best teen romantic comedies not directed by John Hughes. The fact that Cusack appears is a stroke of good luck. The fact that Daphne Zuniga is the reluctant romantic interest makes it doubly appealing.

Cusack is Walter, an insecure freshman college student who has a romantic interest in Alison (Daphne Zuniga). She brushes him off yet falls for his incessant attitude - he claims he needs tutoring in English. Alison almost falls for his little speech about astronomy and "speaking each other's unspoken language." Then Lance, Walter's buddy (Lance Guest) from California, invites Walter for Christmas vacation to meet the "sure thing" - a blonde girl who will sleep with Walter, no questions asked. Yep, sounds like the plot of a million other spring break vacation movies of the 1980's only this film is much smarter, wittier and becomes a road movie, my fave genre. Another plus is that the sure thing is not dumb and Zuniga is a very smart young woman. In order for Walter to save money and travel to L.A., he rides with a sing-along couple (played hilariously by Tim Robbins "I am not the Gary Cooper that's dead" and Lisa Jane Persky) and also happens to share the ride with Alison! What are the odds. 

During the road trip, after getting thrown out by the couple for stripping their clothes to passerby, Walter and Alison walk and hitch rides, sometimes with eccentric people along the way (Walter continuously jokes that he loves "living on the edge"). Walter and Alison are smitten with each other yet both can't admit to it and find other ways of revealing their love for each other. When Alison is sexually assaulted by a creepy older driver, Walter feigns insanity as if he was some sort of serial killer just to save her. When they stay at a fancier hotel, they sleep in the same bed and inadvertently caress each other in the morning. In typical John Cusack fashion, he gets up from the bed, says he is apologetic though she doesn't mind and steps outside for fresh air while waving to her from the balcony. Not too many teen movies of this period deal with a similar situation honestly and with a winsome attitude. Oh, in case I forget to mention, Alison is on her way to meet her L.A. boyfriend who is far nerdier and WASP-ier than you can imagine. Alison and Walter both think they are traveling for sure things, and both are wrong in thinking they are better off with other partners. Nothing new in terms of story but the execution of the material, written by Steven L. Bloom and Jonathan Roberts, is what it makes fun and spirited and deeply touching by the end.

"The Sure Thing" has so many bright moments of romantic yearning and romantic spells that I was just smiling through the whole film. Directed with complete assuredness by Rob Reiner, "The Sure Thing" is brisk, tight storytelling that is neither fanciful nor thickly maudlin. Even the subplot about the sure thing herself (played by Nicolette Sheridan) is handled with sensitivity - you just know Walter won't go through with it (though we never do find out what Sheridan's character's opinion about all this is). The point is otherwise made abundantly clear - Walter is meant to be with Alison and we cheer for them and wait for them to admit their mutual love. Their love is a sure thing.