Third-Tier De Palma thriller

 DOMINO (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The last thing I expect from Brian De Palma, our Hitchcockian imitator who has shown a flair for more adult themes than the late Hitch, is a fair movie. Fair? Yes, just fair, just okay thriller dynamics from a director who has a flair for overhead shots and dynamic dolly shots in long takes that seem to run on forever. His newest film is a decent thriller called "Domino" with a mixed bag of tricks and only a few notable scenes for what is seemingly a rushed product rather than a full-fledged genuine thriller.

Just watching the opening scenes gave me the nagging feeling that someone else's hands had touched De Palma's project (and, according to the director, nothing is further from the truth). A Danish cop named Christian (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has a cop partner named Lars (Soren Malling), who appears to be an unhappily married man. We sense that immediately as early scenes show Christian having dinner with the married couple, and later Lars is sitting in the dark contemplating his life as he ignores his wife who calls him. These scenes are edited so hastily that it was hard to get involved in them. Cut to Christian with a date and a wild night as he is ready to go back on the streets, and he leaves behind his gun! When the cop duo are out investigating a domestic dispute involving a Lybian with blood-stained shoes, Ezra Tarzi (Eriq Ebouaney from De Palma's "Femme Fatale"), chaos ensues as Ezra slits Lars' throat and Christian is hanging from the rafters of an apartment, you know "Vertigo"-style. 

Christian is taken off the Lars murder case for the unethical sin of abandoning his gun (say what?) that led to Lars' death (okay, I get it), and partners up with Alex (Carice van Houten), herself a former lover of Lars. Christian and Alex go to Brussels and then southern Spain to find Ezra and there is more up the sleeve than we realize when we are introduced to a smarmy CIA agent (Guy Pearce) who is actually looking for a truly dangerous terrorist, Sala Al Din (Mohammed Azaay). No surprise that Al Din has plans to kill as many people as he can at a bullfighting ring in Spain. Ezra wants Al Din dead, and so do the cops.

The only original angle to this messy, convoluted script is how Al Din has his fanatics set up their suicidal bombing - they are all livestreamed for all to see. This is further set up in the stirring, thrilling finale that shows De Palma's mastery of juxtaposing shots from alternate angles and alternate points-of-view to build suspense - few can do it better when it comes to cross-cutting from one specific location to the other.

Other than that, "Domino" is third-tier De Palma, though it is watchable and occasionally diverting yet the cast, with the exception of Guy Pearce and the powerful presence of Eriq Ebouaney, are a little flat.  The screenplay never quite develops its few ideas of ISIS using technology to make their terror accessible, and the character of Alex seems to have been left on the cutting room floor (the truth according to De Palma was that the troubled production was underfinanced and perhaps De Palma had more to shoot). The ending is puzzling as it repeats an earlier ISIS suicide bombing at a film festival - it left me wanting and perplexed. Okay De Palma thriller yet clearly lacking his mojo to distinguish it from the norm. 

Empty Hollywood Tale from the Front Line

 WHAT JUST HAPPENED (2008)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I watched "What Just Happened" with such an air of indifference that I felt nothing during or after it was over. The film just sits there (a commonplace truth) but, in this case, it is the literal truth. "What Just Happened" has no zeal, no real satirical Hollywood targets we haven't seen skewered before, and actually nothing of real consequence to say. 

The ubiquitous Robert De Niro plays a movie producer losing his edge who needs a hit because he has two ex-wives and some children to support. Two film projects are in trouble - one is in post-production that involves the hideous killing of a dog that preview audiences are hating, and the other project has been given the green light yet the major star, Bruce Willis, refuses to shave his Grizzly Adams beard. Other than that, De Niro speeds his way through Los Angeles in time-lapse motion shots that grate the nerves, and wants one of his ex-wives back, played far too thanklessly by Robin Wright. 

Other than that, there is not much more to "What Just Happened" and that is a shame coming from a director like Barry Levinson. The film feels weightless and perfunctory and doesn't add much punch to its targets, you know, the soulless Hollywood game where money is the deciding factor. Geez, where have we heard that before? 1992's "The Player" is still the top of the ranks when it comes to Hollywood satire and how Hollywood producers behave (geez, even a mild Hollywood insider comedy like "The Muse" had more laughs). Nothing here feels like it has any real value or verve (truly, the book by Art Linson, "What Just Happened?: Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line," must have some lifeline).

 De Niro appears and exists in the movie, and that is the best I can say for him. The only real life and blood of the film is Michael Wincott as an alcoholic, pill-popping, capricious film director who hates movie cliches and wants his integrity to remain firm (despite not having final cut) which includes the shooting of the dog at the conclusion of his movie. Speaking of firm, Catherine Keener provides plenty of it as a studio chief who wants the ending fixed. What Just Happened? A boring, empty movie, that's what.

Diminishing, futile Cold War

 THE FOURTH WAR (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When you watch a second-rate, ridiculous action picture like "The Fourth War," you have to check your brain at the door. Not that the film is brainless technically yet nothing in it seems remotely believable. 

Roy Scheider plays an Army colonel and Vietnam hero, Jack Knowles, who is something of a colossal screw up, a malcontent who has been moved and stationed in so many Army bases that you wonder why he did not lose his command already. His newest station is West Germany, right on the border of Czechoslovakia, and he has retained his command, albeit briefly. One bright sunny day, Jack is on patrol with other soldiers and notices that at the border, a refugee is trying to defect and is shot down by the Soviets. Jack impulsively orders his soldiers to fire at the Soviet helicopter yet thankfully there is resistance. But you can't keep a malcontent hero down for long. At night, Jack crosses the border and tries to engage the enemy, first by holding three Soviet soldiers down and forcing them to sing happy birthday because, you know, it is the Colonel's birthday. On yet another attempt in crossing the border (this becomes a running gag), Jack sets fire to their command post and throws a few grenades for good measure. All I could do was laugh at these ridiculous scenarios - is he trying to start World War III?

Scheider is a strong, competent actor who shows iron will in his character and his performance is enough reason to see the movie. Also watchable are Tim Reid as the Army's second-in-command who starts to wonder about Jack's motives (I am not sure what they are either other than continuing a fight that, by the time of the film's release, was over), and the always reliable Harry Dean Stanton as Jack's old war buddy who knows Jack is a screwup and a hero. Unfortunately Jurgen Prochnow as the Russian Colonel Valachev is given so little screen time that we never quite see him as an adversary until there is a twist involving another defector. I sensed the screenwriters were aiming for a cat and mouse game yet it never evolves into such a scenario.

"The Fourth War" is capably directed by John Frankenheimer yet its view of a diminishing, futile Cold War is not given enough expansion - we get scenes in and out of a Czech camp that look like Rambo leftovers. As unintentionally funny and sporadically entertaining it is at a tight 91 minutes, "The Fourth War" is so far removed from the psychological war games and mind control of Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate" that it resembles nothing more than a near-parodic parable. 

You Will Not Forget Alana or Gary

 LICORICE PIZZA (2021)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Paul Thomas Anderson's deliciously sweet and strangely hypnotic "Licorice Pizza" is one of the finest films of his career - so abrupt in its own curlicue rhythms and so hypnotically alive in its romantic notions of adolescence that it stands out with paramount greatness. It is suffused with love over romance between young people and with collectively distant memories of a time and place in the pre-teen years when everything was somehow strange and wonderful. That collection of memories and deeply-rooted nostalgia of a time and place reminded me of Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" yet, rather than focusing a story told through the decades, "Licorice Pizza" is told through a shorter amount of time and almost as brilliantly. A charming knockout of a movie. 

Of course, there are two shifting points-of-view in "Licorice Pizza" and only one character is a pre-teen, a certain Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, Philip Seymour Hoffman's son) who is an actor in commercials and TV variety specials. He is bright, energetic, whimsical and also has an entrepreneurial spirit (he manages to open a waterbed company and a pinball machine arcade!) He also falls head over heels for Alana (Alana Haim), a 25-year-old girl photographer's assistant with a stubborn side and yet a lively spirit who can stomach a lot of heartache (oh, she can drive a mean truck with no gas in reverse too). Alana tries to push away Gary yet she is amazed at his tenacity, asking her to just come by and say hello at his favorite restaurant. Alana shows up and, as framed by director Anderson (who serves as one of the cinematographers), she is in the background and we only see the back of Gary's head in the foreground. She avoids eye contact at first and then she turns to him and says, "You are being creepy." The honest delivery of that line by Alana Haim took me back to my adolescent years and "Licorice Pizza" becomes fixated on that initial element of surprise and attraction in ways I had not seen before in a delicious long take. It is snapshot of a memory, and the whole film operates on that level. 

Gary tries his hand at selling waterbeds but eventually it goes broke during the oil embargo crisis of the 1970's because, you know, oil is necessary to make rubber (Alana reminds him, amazed at his obliviousness). Eventually Gary tries his hand at a pinball arcade after pinball is legalized, while Alana wants to mature by going her own way and not being Gary's business partner. She wants to hang with the adults, not adolescents, yet she is still tickled by Gary who is wiser, at times, beyond his years. Alana eventually works for a mayoral candidate and tension breaks when someone may either be trying to blow up the headquarters or be a reporter. We never quite find out who the mystery person is and the whole film revolves around adults whose world the younger people cannot comprehend. 

There are strange scenes involving the adult characters performing actions that make us question them as well. It was then I realized that they were being seen through Cooper and Alana's point-of-view and they see the world as strange and difficult. When we get scenes of a bearded Bradley Cooper as a womanizing, haughty Jon Peters who insists that Cooper pronounce Barbara Streisand's last name correctly, the movie almost loses us for introducing such a wild and crazy privileged Hollywood type who tries to beat the gas line by threatening the gas station's customers with a match. Jon smashes windows and has such total disregard for anyone or anything, all of which is seen from Alana's point-of-view. Then we get scenes of a seemingly calm Jack Holden (Sean Penn), an actor not unlike the late William Holden who is smitten with Alana whom he hopes to cast in his new movie as a character named Rainbow, talking about Korea yet in cinematic terms, almost like he is reading lines from a script and seeking approval from others. During a conversation fraught with tales of behind-the-scenes movie jargon and other indiscernible situations between Holden and his drunk director (high-pitched performance by Tom Waits), Alana is puzzled and says, "what are you guys talking about?" This sequence ends with Holden on a motorcycle and Alana falls to the ground and Gary, who had been watching this whole incident from afar, comes to her rescue.

That is at the offbeat heart of "Licorice Pizza" - Gary and Alana's unconsummated love for each other overcomes all obstacles. A literal running gag is that every time something happens (like Gary's arrest for a murder he did not commit), Gary and Alana run to each other and embrace. They remain loyal to each other no matter the jealousies or any pain or guilt. That in of itself makes the film doubly romantic, more so than any movie about young people that I've seen. Once the film is over, you will not forget the faces of Alana or Gary (the two actors make their amazing debut in this film and I expect great things from both of them in the future). They make us remember the power of distant memories from our early years and Paul Thomas Anderson has made those memories palatable. A wondrous achievement that you will not forget.    

Woody Allen-lite relationships

TRUST THE MAN (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

20/20 hindsight might dictate this frothy comedy-drama as a near-miss but it is surprisingly entertaining, enough to warrant a pleasant night of viewing, perhaps with a significant other. "Trust the Man" is perhaps negligible entertainment, a sort of Woody Allen-lite comedy on relationships, but it coasts by on its sense of humor and lightness.

Set in New York City, we focus on two modern couples, one that is married and the other that isn't. House-husband Tom (David Duchovny) is married to his actress-wife, Rebecca (Julianne Moore), who both have a seemingly super-duper marriage, until it is made clear that Tom desires frequent sex whereas Rebecca doesn't. They go to therapy only once a year, which may not help matters. The other couple is writer Tobey (Billy Crudup) and his girlfriend of seven years, a publishing house receptionist, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who are not married because Tobey knows they are all going to die in the future so who cares. He also refuses to drive Elaine to work because his car is where he does his best writing, and he refuses to change parking spaces (Having once lived in New York amongst those that drive, I totally understand).

I suppose it is no surprise that these couples resolve their differences through infidelities. Before you can say "Manhattan" and any Woody Allen film since (the writer-director Bart Freundlich is a
fan), we get relatively little time devoted to what drives the men and women to have affairs. Rebecca has a fling with one of her fellow young actors at the theatre but it is treated with almost no emphasis
at all, except through a painful montage sequence that made me cringe. Tobey has a fling with an old college female buddy (Eva Mendes) that seems to have been left on the cutting room floor. And Tom's minor fling with a female parent who has lost her husband seems abrupt and half-baked. Elaine is the only character who had the courage to break up with her significant other.

Okay, so what does work in "Trust the Man"? For one, the four principal actors, which include Julianne Moore, David Duchovny, Billy Crudup and Maggie Gyllenhaal, are exceptionally good, vibrant actors
who keep you glued to the screen despite how undernourished some of their characters are. The writing is also occasionally smart and spot-on, with delicious zingers and one-liners. None of the dialogue feels rushed or forced, except for the rather inane ending at an opera house that feels less like the work of writer-director Bart Freundlich ("The Myth of the Fingerprints") and more like something a desperate, mediocre screenwriter might have concocted.

"Trust the Man" is uneven and truncated, but it has a breeziness and charm that almost makes it more captivating than it has any right to be. Many scenes register with truth and humor, and some do fall flat
when it opts for slapstick (punches to the lower male extremities never quite make me laugh). Still, for its rather rare sense of humor coming from the usually morose Freundlich, "Trust the Man"
occasionally works but it is nowhere near the level of what Woody Allen could attempt with these New Yorkers.

Literal Mind Trip

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed on Dec. 14th, 1999

For sheer audacity and outrageous invention, you can do no better than the truly extraordinary "Being John Malkovich," a bizarre, involving, strangely moving film experience. Putting it plainly, it is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

John Cusack stars as a ponytailed puppeteer named Craig Schwartz, an expressive, magical talent who performs his act on the streets. Most of his puppet shows contain sexual connotations, and thus are not always embraced by passerby. He lives at home with his animal-loving wife, Lotte (an unrecognizable Cameron Diaz), but the marriage is unexciting and their conversations do not merit much communication. When Craig is not performing, he sleeps most of the day until he gets the energy to look for a job. This leads him to an office vicinity located in the 7 1/2th floor of a Manhattan
building (one has to crawl in between floors to get in) where he works as a fast file clerk. It is here where he discovers a mysterious portal that leads into the mind of John Malkovich!

The portal changes Craig's life, as well as Lotte's (who forms a sexual awakening). Along for the ride is Craig's co-worker. a sexpot vixen (cunningly played by Catherine Keener) whom Craig is attracted to. To say much more is to ruin the fun of "Being John Malkovich," which takes its central idea through all kinds of delirious heights and lengths with one inventive twist after another. We are talking sexual connotations galore, celebrities, parentage, a one-hundred-year-old office manager, chimps, wooden
puppets, a bald-headed Charlie Sheen and, of course, John Malkovich. Cusack's Craig is the perfect foible for this type of bizarre fantasy - the Everyman as the malcontent artist trying to make a name for himself any which way he can. We are led every step of the way of his unusual circumstance, and
slowly the subjective stance of his character shifts to Lotte, back to Cusack and Keener, and Malkovich. This leads to an interesting question: whose life is it anyway? Anyone can live inside Malkovich's mind briefly before being deported hilariously into the New Jersey Turnpike, but when can a mind not be
your own? Craig uses this portal as a portal into his own alternate existence, and the film grows more complex and darkly comic as Craig's ambitions grow.

Cameron Diaz is astoundingly good, and proves she is a fine character actress - look how well she disappears into the role of the sexually carnivorous Lotte. This is clearly her finest work since the comic powerhouse of "There's Something About Mary." Catherine Keener gives an acutely observant
performance - her best scenes are when she tries to woo Malkovich (in and out of his brain) or when she seduces Charles and Lotte in their apartment. Malkovich is as always Malkovich, an elegantly stylish actor - he seems like the right actor for this kind of mind trip, though the running joke in the
film is that most of the characters can't recall what films he has appeared in.

"Being John Malkovich" is directed by music-video director Spike Jonze, who often relies a bit too much on hand-held camerawork, but nevertheless has an efficient, straightforward style. Writer Charlie Kaufman must have had a wonderful time concocting all the different paradoxes and twists with such a
novel idea - he runs with it and takes it from one extreme to another. It is not so much about being someone else as it is about losing your soul in the process. This is the first film I would literally call a mind trip of the first order.

The Force was strong in 1977

STAR WARS (1977)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 1978

George Lucas' "Star Wars" is one of the great outer space fantasy movies of all time - it was, and still is, a gleefully exciting popcorn movie full of special-effects galore and chivalrous heroes, stubborn princesses, evil dark empires, and two adorably argumentative robots. The characters were Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Darth Vader, to name a few. It is no surprise to state that "Star Wars" became a pop phenomenon on a scale like no movie before it or since - it redefined what audiences ultimately wanted from the movies - pure escapism into a world that did not exist. There has never been another phenomenon like it and, despite all the special revised editions and the two sequels that followed forming the Holy Trilogy, it is technically the first film (aside from Spielberg's "Jaws" released 2 years earlier) that initiated the term, blockbuster.

The original "Star Wars" was a major box-office success signaling the rise of merchandising and the wave of Hollywood blockbusters and endless imitators to come. The main difference between "Star Wars" and the so-called action entertainment of today is that "Star Wars" had wit, style and imagination to spare, not gratuitous action scenes and bloody violence at the expense of a story or characters worth caring about. It was even more of a sheer joy to watch this film restored to its original glory with the first Special Edition revisions in 1997 with its blazing colors, beautiful cinematography and the uplifting Dolby Digital musical score by John Williams. The special-effects are as awesome as they ever were, including the classic battle on the Death Star, the plentiful laser gun fights, and the lightsaber duel between Vader and Kenobi.

The actors are also rather pleasing to watch after all these years. Harrison Ford has as much fun here as when he played Indiana Jones and his constant snickering and witty asides are as marvelous as ever. Ditto the youthful Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia (who for some reason speaks with a British accent when confronting Vader); James Earl Jones' eerie voice for the mysterious Darth Vader; the comical interaction between the lovable robots C3PO and R2D2; Mark Hamill's naive farm boy Luke Skywalker who eventually becomes a fighter pilot for the Rebellion (Hamill's career never took off the way his co-stars did); the masterful restraint of Sir Alec Guinness as the sage Obi-Wan (no doubt inspired by Gandalf back when "The Lord of the Rings": was still only a book); Peter Mayhew as the hairy seven-foot growling Chewbacca; and notably Peter Cushing as the commander of the Death Star station - he's almost as scary as Vader when he blows up Leia's home planet Alderaan!

There is not much more to be said other than the fact that I was 7 or 8 when I first saw it, in Toronto, Canada  in 1978 (I was going to see it even earlier when we lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil but my father told me kids could not see it then, 1977 to be precise, though I am sure that was a falsity). Just the opening title crawl alone followed by the Imperial Cruiser that seems to come from over our heads and the thunderous John Williams score were enough to entice me, to transport me to a galaxy light years away. When we first catch glimpse of Princess Leia, we don't know who she is or if she is even one of the good guys. The introduction of the ominous Darth Vader, as seen behind the mist of an explosion aboard a ship, who is carrying a loud breathing apparatus and a helmet that looked like it could give Dracula the heebie jeebies was enough to suggest villainy of the darkest sort. 

"Star Wars" is just grand escapist entertainment - a more mature update of Buck Rogers with its serialized quotient of action scenes and last minute escapes. In many ways, it anticipated the Indiana Jones movies (though they are more intense) and it also anticipated a seismic change in moviegoing habits. It also brought a new term in the lexicon - the Force ("an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”) If it wasn't for "Star Wars," there might not be superhero movies or "Avatar" or any number of so-called "franchises" of the fantasy or sci-fi sort. Studios went crazy with the escapist variety and tried to replicate it, foregoing personal statements by other directors contemplating on issues such as "real life." Adult cinema, that is to say, films for adults about adults became more and more rare to the point that today, a film about adults might be something you can only stream. Movies did change but it wasn't "Star Wars"' fault - the audience changed too after suffering through scandals such as Watergate, the Vietnam War and so on. There was a need for escape and that is understandable and "Star Wars" screams escape. 45 years later, we have had 10 or more "Star Wars" movies (My preference is still for "The Empire Strikes Back"; as for the sequel trilogy, "The Last Jedi") and yet for many, this 1977 pop entertainment and its two respective sequels remain the favorites for many (not sure how the tots of 2022 feel). The Force will be with us for some time.