JAWS with a fatalistic edge

OPEN WATER (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 2004

We know that independent horror films ("28 Days Later," "Blair Witch Project") are always more terrifying and realistic than the standard Hollywood horror picture. "Open Water" is the latest independent horror film that could be seen as riffing on some of the primal scares of Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." The difference is that "Open Water" does something rather unique that is rarely seen in recent horror pictures - it shows the hopeless nature of a dangerous

situation where survival is unlikely.

The film begins with a couple ready to go on vacation. They are Susan (Blanchard Ryan), who runs her business with cell phones and a laptop, and Daniel (Daniel Travis), her boyfriend. Their vacation consists mainly of scuba diving, but first we get to know them a little when they arrive at their hotel.

Daniel wants sex but Susan is not in the mood - judging from this scene, it is clear that Susan is stronger than Daniel. The next day, the couple embark early aboard a boat full of curious scuba divers. After Daniel and Susan spend some time underwater observing an eel, they come to the surface to discover that their boat is gone! They have been stranded in the middle of the ocean. What do

they do? Occasionally, a boat or two can be seen in the horizon but Daniel decides not to swim to it. Both are bitten by jellyfish. Then they discover a shark or two, glimpsed by the random fin in the water. Unfortunately, they stay in the water overnight, drifting many miles from where they were left behind.

Their boat has forgotten them, and now they have to brave more sharks, jellyfish, and lethargy. At one point, Susan wakes up from having fallen asleep only to discover that Daniel is nowhere to be found! Will they ever be found? How long can they drift without food or water?

"Open Water" is based on true events that took place in Australia (and many other similar events I am sure). Don't expect "Open Water" to be a modern-day "Jaws" because sharks, despite their sense of menace throughout, are not the focus of this story. This story is about survival in the lonely, open horizon of the ocean with two people who just have their scuba diving outfits to keep

them afloat and not much else. The film is dependent on a situation to make it work, and it often does. Susan wants to swim to the boats they often see in the horizon, yet Daniel would rather wave his arms for help. Susan drinks the water and gets sick. Daniel gets his leg bitten by a shark. Both Susan and Daniel start to turn on each other, blaming each other for going on this trip when they could have gone elsewhere. I liked the admittance of Susan that Daniel always wants to do things different than anyone else, like observing an eel for a longer time than necessary.

In terms of a feverish intensity based on dread and hopelessness, "Open Water" has it all and will instill an uncontrollable unease. In many ways, "Open Water" reminds me of "The Blair Witch Project" in its minimalist look and its simplicity (both shot on digital video). This is not the kind of film where

false alarms and pulse-pounding music remind one to be scared. In fact, there are no special-effects in the film and the highlights, seeing an occasional shark or a lightning storm that illuminates our protagonists, are all performed and directed as it actually happened (the sharks, by the way, are very real).

My one major gripe is the introduction of the two characters, Susan and Daniel. The mini-DV camera shows close-ups of their faces and close-ups of them in their house and car - there is no room here for angles or composed shots that show normal domesticity. Compare the shot of their car leaving suburbia with the similar opening shot in Steven Spielberg's "Duel" and you'll wish that the writer-director, Chris Kentis, had opted for inventive visuals - a contrast between the ocean and the couple's house would have been nice. If nothing else, Kentis knows how to scare you in and out of the water.

Despite a short running time, one too many wild party montages, and a nudity shot that will probably get more discussion than deserved, "Open Water" succeeds in getting your nerves fried and your juices flowing. So the next time you go scuba diving, be sure they do a head count.

Courage to Create is life or death

 ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In the mid 90's, I attended University of the Arts, an art school in Philly, and one of my most distinct memories was taking a drawing class. Not only did we have nude models to sketch, we also had to judge our works in front of the class and offer our insights. Insights ran from tepid to just plain dumb because how does one account for the meaning behind an assigned Picasso attempt to a painting that features a lot of brushstrokes in the Jackson Pollock manner? My major was not drawing but Filmmaking with a 16mm Bolex camera. Watching "Art School Confidential" brought all those memories back and I will say on record that "Art School Confidential" is the most accurate picture of art school you will probably ever see. If it had stayed focused on that alone along with its adrift protagonist, I might have declared it Terry Zwigoff's newest masterpiece. A subplot kind of ruins such high marks despite what it is trying to say versus what it actually says. 

Jerome (Max Minghella) is the adrift protagonist, an excellent sketch artist who can make his profiles come alive through subtle nuances and a deep understanding of the human body and facial characteristics. In other words, the students in the drawing class do not care for him or his accurate insights into other people's work. The students seems to favor non-traditional and non-specific over nuance and style, as in one student's painting of a car on a canvas that could've been painted by a three-year-old. Oh, yes, the lack of clear dimensional characteristics give it some apparent heft. Ugh, I don't think such paintings would've been even attempted by any of the students when I went but maybe things have spiraled since the 90's (and of course of this is slightly satirical though not by much). 

Jerome probably should have walked out of this school, a fictional one named Strathmore, in the first ten minutes of this movie but he is eager to become "the greatest artist of the 21st century." He is also eager to please Audrey (Sophia Myles), a nude model who is supposedly interested in any guy that attracts attention with alleged artistic merit. That guy would be the one who painted the car, Jonah (Matt Keeslar), who is actually an undercover police officer and attracts attention including from the professor (John Malkovich, a fabulous performance).

When "Art School Confidential" sticks to the mechanics and close observation of the art school world, it is both hilarious and kind of sad. We know there are people who go to art school who have no talent along with teachers who may have even less. The details of what is considered art and how one goes above and beyond kissing a teacher's ass - how to get their work shown in a hallway gallery or a gallery across the street from the school (known as Broadway Bob's) that at least serves great coffee - are all richly layered and acute observations. It is only when the film dovetails to an investigation on the Strathmore Strangler who is killing university students that the film falls a little apart. And when the film shifts to gleaning insight from what separates the art from the artist, I found that the insight needed to be made yet the approach by way of this silly subplot crushes the film a tad.

"Art School Confidential" has fairly persuasive performances by Max Minghella, Sophia Myles and John Malkovich, not to mention colorful support from Steve Buscemi as Broadway Bob and Ethan Suplee as an anxious filmmaker who has to find his personal side. I read a comment from an anonymous user that the Strathmore Strangler is necessary to the story because art school is about life and death and being strangled by it. I think all this is covered beautifully by writer Daniel Clowes and director Zwigoff without the intrusion of a killer subplot. Let's just say that a tragic accident makes us question Jerome's inclinations if not his morality yielding consequences that don't make sense - suffice to say, it did not need to be there. "Art School Confidential" is 3/4 of a great film and one quarter of it is as one art student puts it: "Has the singularity of outsider art, though the conscious rejection of spatial dynamics could only come from an intimacy with the conventions of picture-making." Something like that. 

Walt knows more about death than living

 GRAN TORINO (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I've met hard-bitten, angry, bitter men like Walt before. I have heard racial epithets used during my pre-teen past but not necessarily by Korean War veterans but other men who felt the need to express their views or "tell it like it is." Maybe I never paid a whole lot of attention and kind of laughed it off, like some of the Hmong teens do as depicted in "Gran Torino." Walt is just one of those crazy old American guys who doesn't like the direction America went in, hates Japanese cars (hell, he's a former Ford auto worker) and just wants everyone off his lawn. He doesn't care who is on his lawn, or whether the skin color is not white - nobody better step near his lawn.

Clint Eastwood is the angry, embittered Walt Kowalski who has just lost his wife. His estranged offspring are grown up and drive those Japanese cars that he hates so much. Walt lives alone and wants to be left alone. An eager young twenty-something priest, Father Janovich (Christopher Carley), wants to help him per Walt's wife's last wishes but Walt wants none of that. He can't stand anyone or anything, hates his Hmong neighbors whom he wished just stayed where they came from and, in one terrifyingly funny scene, clearly boils with pure anger when his son insists he move into a nursing home! Oh, the gall! 

Walt lives next door to Thao (Bee Vang), a virtually silent young Hmong kid whom Walt slowly brings out of his shell. Thao is harassed and practically forced into joining a Hmong gang and when the gang try to coerce him (after a failed initiation run), Walt approaches with his rifle and yells "Get off my lawn!" The iconic line has entered pop culture ever since yet this is not Eastwood in a Dirty Harry phase, this is a curmudgeonly 78-year-old man who has no qualms about shooting someone in the face. After this seemingly "heroic" incident, Walt is showered with gifts and prepared meals from the community. He wants nothing of it yet feels the need to teach Thao how to be a man, apply for a construction job, collect tools and fix things. If Thao is lucky, he just might get a sweet ride out of Walt's 1972 Gran Torino parked outside the garage.

"Gran Torino" unfolds with sublime elegance and shows Eastwood is still as confident a storyteller as he is an actor. Speaking of acting, in actuality, this is the first truly hypnotic performance by Eastwood I've seen in quite some time. His ailing, bigoted Walt is a far cry from anything Eastwood has ever played and he disappears into the role (especially during confrontations with Hmong gang members or black gang members harassing Thao's sister). There is something genuinely off about this man only because he had lost so much and is uncertain of his future or if he has any. When he talks to Father Janovich about life and death, the fatalities of war and following orders, Walt sees a deeper, more haunting reality: the moment when a man does something he isn't ordered to do.

"Gran Torino" is packed with a lot of heat and a certain kind of boiling anger (this Walt is not the same trigger happy bigot Peter Boyle played in "Joe"), not to mention isolating the cultural differences between what is said and unsaid between an American like Walt and the Hmong people (some from the Hmong community, including Bee Vang, have since criticized the film for inaccuracies and exploiting racial slurs). Though the film could've have benefitted from a more stringent outlining of the Hmong people (though Ahney Her as Thao's older sister is terrifically funny in her scenes with Eastwood), the film nevertheless stays truthful to Walt who may or may not be seeking redemption and there is an unexpected self-sacrifice. A powerful, moody character portrait of sadness and, yes, indeed, self-sacrifice.

What if today was tomorrow

 INLAND EMPIRE (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

David Lynch is the absurdist nightmare master of cinema - his films are intricate puzzle pieces that can fit together with some measure of coherence if you think long and hard about it (though not always coherent, of course). "Mulholland Dr." was one of those lyrical "Hollywood" dream movies that few directors can ever hope to achieve, yet one understands that it is at least about an actress in trouble with a dual personality, possibly.  "Inland Empire" uses the tagline "A Woman in Trouble" and it is, once again, about an actress in trouble with two personalities, her own as an actress and the character she is playing in a new movie. This time, however, I could not really fathom what was happening with this Hollywood actress or what director Lynch was aiming for. I am still perplexed and frustrated, yet deeply fascinated and absorbed all the same.

Laura Dern is Nikki, an actress who has just won a part in a new film called "On High in Blue Tomorrows", a remake of a cursed, unfinished movie. She is married to some man of high importance and they live in a mansion. A Polish neighbor (Grace Zabriskie, in a terrifying performance) visits Nikki and tells her that the movie role she won involves murder. Nikki is disturbed by this neighbor who has decided to drop in and introduce herself. Then the neighbor tells her an old anecdote about a girl lost in a marketplace only "half-born." Segue to the cold reading of the script with Jeremy Irons as the film director, Kingsley; Harry Dean Stanton as the director's assistant who has access to valuable information about the screenplay's inception; leading actor Devon Berk (Justin Theroux) and of course Dern herself. Devon always sleeps with his leading ladies yet Nikki is not his type. 

Once we learn the origin of the script they are filming, "Inland Empire" becomes completely absorbing. Then it runs on a highly surrealist fever dream pitch of Nikki getting lost with her character as the realities become ever so distinct yet ultimately the same. Nikki hangs around a group of prostitutes on Hollywood and Vine St. and sometimes these women dance in uniformity to the "Locomotion" song. Sometimes Nikki goes to some stripper club where a silent therapist resides a few staircases above the stage, and she talks about being raped and beaten by men. Sometimes we get a glimpse of some European prostitute who is beaten by her wealthy clients, and sometimes she watches a sitcom about humanoid rabbits! Whether all this is in Nikki's mind or only the character she is playing as the movie-within-the-movie unfolds is not always clear. It is all too fragmented and we know the movie director Kingsley is not filming any scenes of Nikki running into bizarre barbecues or her own husband's bedroom they share, or doors leading to other dimensions or some phantom wearing Nikki's face or a woman with a screwdriver in her abdomen. As I said, hard to decipher the dream from reality. That's David Lynch in a nutshell.

"Inland Empire" is 3 hours too long and either you go along with this frustrating, occasionally repetitive, insanely high-pitched nightmare or you don't and check out early. Shot on low-resolution digital video, some darkly lit shots are indecipherable though most of it is brilliantly dank along with those lamps that illuminate only sections of every room. The snow scenes of presumably Poland in the 1930's are exquisite. So is Laura Dern in easily one of the most powerful performances she has ever given - she holds this puzzling film together. I greatly admire experimental films and especially David Lynch's work so even if I don't rate this as highly as "Mulholland Dr." or "Lost Highway," I was still along for the ride. Unpredictable from first frame to last and sometimes quite frightening, it is definitely about a woman in trouble though how much trouble, I can't say. Just do the locomotion and you'll be okay.

Hell on Earth with no chance of survival

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)

A Reconsideration by Jerry Saravia

Sometimes there are films that creep up on you, that shatter you to the very core of your very own soul. Good war films can manage that feat, great ones prove earth-shattering. When I think of cinema's great war films, I immediately think of "Paths of Glory," "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter," "Platoon," "The Big Red One" and "Full Metal Jacket." "Saving Private Ryan" is a curious case for me because those first few words I wrote apply manifestly to Spielberg's World War II film and to the short list of great war films I added. I have admired "Saving Private Ryan" far more than I did in 1998. I knew at the initial 1998 screening that it was a very good film yet maybe some of it felt gratuitously mawkish. I thought, as many other critics did, that there were too many cliches that befell the dialogue between Captain Miller and his troop of the kind of stereotypical grunts we often saw in WWII movies of the past - you know, the medic; the Brooklyn-accented, arrogant soldier; the reluctant German and French translator, etc. Yet I felt for these men, I identified with their plight, with their fears of what bloodshed might be around the corner. Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" contains some of the best war battle scenes in motion picture history, thrillingly and vividly realized by Spielberg. The D-Day footage alone is so remarkably frightening and fraught with so much raw emotion that it is nothing less than the most vicious, unrelenting vision of violence and carnage upon soldiers that you will ever see in the battlefield, no holds barred (a common term to be sure but it definitely applies here). Having seen the film several times in the last twenty years, I must say the cliches do not feel like cliches anymore and there is nothing one-dimensional about the Miller's troop or Private Ryan or certainly Captain Miller himself. In other words, "Saving Private Ryan" is a solid A war film, a penetrating and fearsome machine of a movie that is nonstop in its look at war as not just hell, but Hell on Earth with no real chance of survival. That encapsulates our hold on the soldiers and our hopes they will move on if they ever find Private Ryan. The theme and its vexing morality of war is what drives the film forward from first frame to last. 

"Private Ryan" begins on D-Day at Omaha Beach, amid a flurry of bullets and cannon blasts, as the American troops approach the beach to fight the Nazis. The graphic, brilliantly choreographed footage shows dismembered bodies, in all their blood, guts and glory. Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, the leader of his troop that underwent the furious Omaha assault. Along with the members of his troop (Edward Burns as the Brooklyn-accented, arrogant soldier; Tom Sizemore as the tough, devoted Sergeant Horvath; Barry Pepper as the Bible-quoting sniper Private Jackson; Giovanni Ribisi as the pale medic Wade, and Jeremy Davies as the bony, scared Corporal Upham), they go on assignment to find a Private Ryan from another platoon stationed in the French countryside. It turns out Ryan is
the sole surviving brother of the enlisted four who died in action. As one soldier remarks, "This Ryan better be worth it" - he better be if they are going to fight more Nazis.

"Saving Private Ryan" is terrifically frightening and compelling in its battle scenes, particularly the final epic battle in Ramelle amid rubble and wobbly tanks. These scenes are not just feverishly intense - they are framed intimately with the characters amid the chaos. Pepper's Private Jackson is shown in one scene shooting from a concrete tower and his skill at almost killing one Nazi after another while quoting Scripture is unforgettable. What also works extremely well in "Private Ryan" is the maturity and frailty of Captain Miller, wonderfully played by Tom Hanks. Miller's trembling hand and sorrowful glances suggests that he's only human and can surely fail in such a mission. Hanks also suggests that even in an apocalyptic frenzy, a heroism can still exist however unwanted considering he's an English teacher, not John Wayne. One scene shows Miller off on a hill by himself, sobbing because what else can one do when you start losing men left and right. John Wayne would never do that but this is very far from being a "Green Berets" update. Miller also makes it clear he wants to be home, to return to his wife and his presumably idyllic existence which he hopes will be justified by saving Ryan.

My other favorite character is the arrogant, Brooklyn-born soldier played by Edward Burns ("The Brothers McMullen") who refuses to play by the rules. I also enjoyed Jeremy Davies ("Spanking the Monkey") as the cowardly Corporal Upham who loves hearing Edith Piaf on the radio, but is choked with terror by the possibility of picking up a rifle. When he finally does, the morality of war comes into question - can Upham be any different than the one German soldier Miller refused to kill whom Upham runs into yet again? War where complex decisions have to be made about who dies and who lives gives "Saving Private Ryan" its impetus, its reason for being. 

I am far from being a left-leaning anti-war protester who feels any war is a crime, no matter how you justify it (a quote attributed to the late Ernest Hemingway), but I know my initial 1998 criticism, "Spielberg and screenwriter Robert Rodat seems to think that any war, no matter how unjustified, still warrants a hint of heroism and bravery," was an error in judgment because the heroism is clear, the actual World War battle was justified historically and it would be a mistake to link this most crucial war with the likes of Vietnam or Iraq. "Saving Private Ryan" is not an anti-war film nor does it contain a flag-waving, patriotic, jingoistic bent to it - it falls somewhere in the middle of a war picture whose pure intent is to show what our very young servicemen suffered, how they died and those who survived - all in the service of maintaining our freedoms. Even the graphic, unrelenting war footage of D-Day is not Spielberg's attempt to be against the war in any way nor are the dynamics of a boat approaching a beach where bullets cannot be evaded criticized. The craziness of war where a young soldier crouches in fear behind dead soldiers, or a dazed soldier looking for his severed arm, or killing Nazis who are surrendering are the complications of battle that will never be understood by anyone except those in combat. Spielberg is not showing us the dehumanizing effects of war - he is just telling us that this war was the last Great War. The opening and closing shots of a faded, desaturated American flag suggests heroism tinged with the regret of the loss of so many lives. 

Assembly line of nothingness

 HOUSE II: THE SECOND STORY (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are bad movies assembled out of derivative parts of other movies and then there are bad movies that are just simply assembled. "House II: The Second Story" is one of those "movies." I hesitate calling it a movie because it is not - consider it the most poorly assembled piece of crockery since "Manos: Hands of Fate." This is not high praise or a recommendation; just a warning.

The original "House" with William Katt was a good-bad movie of the haunted house variety and it was tongue-in-cheek in its attitude even if not a complete success on any level. I was entertained by it. "House II" is not entertaining - it is a queasy, endless chore to sit through. The cast is white bread bland with expired mayonnaise on top. Arye Gross is Jesse who has moved in to his parents' mansion where they were murdered by some ghostly gunslinger from the Old West! Jesse and a party-hearty friend of his (Jonathan Stark, who was put to better use in "Fright Night") exhume the great-great grandfather at the cemetery because the skeletal remains may be in possession of an Aztec crystal skull! Only the great-great grandfather (Royal Dano) rises from the dead, and the "heroes" decide to keep him in the basement of the mansion while he watches old westerns on TV. This dead cowboy, affectionately referred to as Gramps (oh, how original!), starts drinking like a fish and parties with young women and loves to drive fast cars!

"House II" is meant to be comedic but it falls flat quickly with the blandest actors imaginable (yes, that includes Bill Maher as a record producer) and cartoonish juvenile hijinks that features a caterpillar dog, a baby dinosaur and some grunting barbarian. So much for hauntings. The movie looks as if it was made in a hurry and marches through at a snail-paced rate of speed. Don't sell this house, torch it instead. 

He's finished

 THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"There Will Be Blood" is the kind of misanthropic, twisted, repulsive and consistently watchable movie where the main character, a misanthropic, greedy man who slowly becomes a monster, takes hold and shapes the entire film. That is quite an audacious feat for a movie about the turn of the 20th century when drilling for oil was worth more than anything. Only Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview seems to think he should be the only one drilling for oil - anyone else is somehow a marked man.

The opening moments of "There Will Be Blood" exceed anyone's expectations about the power of images and oblique sounds to establish an uneasy mood (complete with music cues that sound distinctly Kubrickian). Daniel is digging for silver in the southwest, and as he continues to, he falls and breaks his leg. He props himself above ground and manages to get a silver certification for the discovery, eventually moving up the ranks as he becomes a wealthy oil magnate. His sole purpose is to drill in California communities where he promises wealth and enrichment. Eventually Daniel adopts a child belonging to a worker who died while in the cellar of the oil rig. Now the presentation is complete - Daniel is robust, commanding and persuasive. Even a holier-than-thou preacher (Paul Dano) can be bought and sold in his community despite his reservations. Naturally the preacher feels anyone can be saved but he doesn't know Daniel. 

Unease is evident in every frame of "There Will Be Blood," so much so that director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "Magnolia") can practically drown you in it. I am not sure it is necessary to prominently feature that intrusive music score which overdoes that unease - the masterful scenic shots, long takes and Day-Lewis himself is sometimes enough. Only Daniel Day-Lewis's performance sometimes made me impatient - his John Huston-like accent and maddening stares and grimaces can grate the nerves. This is infrequent to be fair because Day-Lewis is a revelation in every scene - he holds the movie together with his larger-than-life persona of a man who goes off the deep end. Daniel Plainview has no scruples or moral code when it comes to protecting his legacy as an oil magnate. When his adopted son (Dillon Freasier) becomes deaf during a gas blowout, he nurtures him but has little sympathy for the kid's loss of hearing (he later has the kid sent to a San Francisco school in a heartbreaking, devastating scene). And then the madness settles in even deeper when Daniel's half-brother (Kevin J. O'Connor) arrives making us uneasy at reveals of Daniel's past, or is the half-brother a fraud?

"There Will Be Blood" is audacious in its context of a capitalist who has no bounds, no moral compass and little regard for humanity. "I hate people," he says and not with a shred of irony. Daniel Plainview doesn't represent all oil magnates but he does represent a cold-blooded man who has some shimmer of humanity when recalling the family he might have had, and his failings with his adopted son whom he practically cuts off in latter years. Still, Daniel is so relentless in his business agenda that he almost loses it all when he sells to different investors. He can't stand someone telling him how to raise his son and, by the end, he can't even hold on to that. Sad, pathetic rumblings of a conniving, insular man who is left with an expansive home with a bowling alley and nothing else other than the raw nerves of a sociopath. He's finished.