Love and compassion to keep the brain alive

 THE FATHER (2020)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Whenever I hear of someone suffering from what is curiously known as dementia or memory loss, I am at a loss for words. How can anyone understand or fathom such a cruel thing where the mind loses focus on memory to the point that you do not recognize your own family, or mistake them for other people. "The Father" focuses squarely on memory loss from the point-of-a-view of an older, 80-year-old man named Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) who cannot understand what is happening to him. Is he really losing his memory or are his family members playing a prank on him? You will wonder too, at first.

Something seems off with Anthony's memory from the beginning, or at least his understanding of a given reality. He lives in an expansive flat in London and seemingly has a daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), who is moving to France since she found a new man in her life. This means Anthony will be alone. Or will he? Is there a caregiver that has been hired to watch after him? And why is Anthony's daughter suddenly a completely different woman (played by Olivia Williams)? Is this Anne his actual daughter? And what of the man named Paul (Mark Gatiss) reading the newspaper in the living room - he claims to live there. Is he Anna's husband? And there is yet another switcheroo when the husband is a whole different person (this time played by Rufus Sewell). These switcheroos reminded me of Luis Bunuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire" where two actresses play the same role, though it became a necessity for Bunuel rather than a narrative function.

Yet "The Father" is not a supernatural, dreamlike stunt by way of David Lynch. These people in Anthony's mind exist alright yet he has no control of how he perceives them. His mind is not playing a prank on him - it is the unfortunate fact that his mind is simply losing memory. His facts become nebulous and sometimes an incident replays itself, as when Sewell's Paul talks to Anna about placing Anthony in an institution while preparing dinner. Anthony overhears this conversation and, in some truly skillful editing, the scene replays itself from his point-of-view after Anthony just had dinner - well, except it seems dinner wasn't served yet. Deja vu, not exactly, but it plays that way and, again, he has no control on how it plays out.  

The forceful, dazzlingly alive performances of Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins as Anthony and Olivia Colman as Anna expose such raw emotions that you can't help but weep for both of them. Hopkins' final scene as Anthony, who fleetingly becomes aware of how unaware he really is, is one of the most moving scenes this actor has ever performed - a scene that will stay in my heart and soul for years to come. Hopkins has given forceful, powerful performances before but "The Father" shows him at his most shatteringly human. Same with Olivia Colman who is torn and heartbroken by her father's inability to remember days let alone memories of the past, including her sister's fateful accident. Despite one odd moment where Anne imagines strangling her father, both characters define the raw intensity of a horribly unforgiving medical condition. Anthony might forget but there is a wisp of hope at the end, comparing himself to branches on trees where too many leaves have been shed. You'll shed tears. 

Weed like to welcome you

FROM THE QUARTERS TO LINCOLN HEIGHTS (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Forgotten historical footnotes always add immeasurably to the understanding of a subject's history. "From the Quarters to Lincoln Heights" has footnotes regarding a California town few outside of it knew of or remembered except for those who lived it. Several are interviewed reminiscing about the town of Weed in California and how African-Americans survived in a town that was once segregationist and where the only job you could if you were African-American was in a lumber mill.

The town of Weed had its own segregated communities whether you were black, Italian or Mexican or white. (The blacks lived in a section named the Quarters, now known as Lincoln Heights) Weed's growth came about during the 1920's when workers were sought for the town's lumber mill. Blacks came from down South to work in northern California - good jobs, good income and enough to live a decent life. The town of Weed is not the only one covered in a historical context - the towns of Mc Cloud, Mt. Shasta and Dunsmuir are also explored. But even in such towns, racism was prevalent and segregation was practiced, though apparently it was worse in the South. Interracial relationships were a definite no-no and Weed's own local shops and eateries were largely for the white people in the area - blacks could frequent the shops but the cafes were off limits as far as sitting at a table and having a meal. Segregation also extended to cemeteries, some of which had no gravestones!

The more dangerous jobs were given to the blacks, particularly operating the machines (one was known as the Titanic) with cables that lifted heavy logs (many died operating them). The whites who owned the mill found themselves moving up the ladder to the foreman positions while the blacks were employed solely for hard labor. It wasn't until the Civil Rights era, specifically through Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), that opportunities were presented to the blacks who could finally move up in the mill company, or work any jobs in Weed including a Safeway supermarket. A slow progressiveness occurred with the development of a baseball team known as the Weed Sons where blacks could play ball. 

"From the Quarters to Lincoln Heights" is a captivating history lesson complete with interviews of descendants and former workers of Weed, charting the town's unique history of the late 1800's up through the Great Migration of the 1920's and beyond to modern day. With skillful use of archival photos and reenactments plus some riveting, often troubling insights into the town's history regarding race from locals, "From the Quarters to Lincoln Heights" makes the case for learning from our history in its complexity regarding the treatment of people who deserved to be treated equally. A rare, provocative glimpse into such forgotten quarters . 

With Great Movie Titles Comes a Greater Responsibility

 HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Watching "Hobo With a Shotgun" is like having your toenails pulled with a pair of pliers. It sure feels painful and not much fun at all. That almost says everything you need to know about this movie but let me go a little further.

There is a town called Hope Town that is infested with sickeningly ugly crimes; violence to the point of cameramen shooting video of people getting stomped on; a TV producer named Drake (Brian Downey) who owns the whole town and stages violent bloodbaths as if was a TV show for terrified bystanders; and there are Drake's two psychopathic sons who wear sunglasses and beat and kill people inside a club for fun! One of them wields a bat embedded with hundreds of razor blades (imagine if we saw that in "The Walking Dead"). Neither son cares about anyone, not even themselves. These guys also torch a school bus and the young tots on board! 

Enter the Hobo (Rutger Hauer) who enters the town after hopping off of a freight train. He sees the violence rampant on the streets and does his best to ignore it and collect soda cans in a shopping cart. Eventually he arms himself with a shotgun after he's unable to stomach anymore violence and blows away everyone who commits a crime. A pimp is shot in the face. A pedophile dressed as Santa Claus is also shot in the face. Meanwhile the hobo is protective of a young prostitute (Molly Dunsworth) who lets him stay in her apartment. The hobo endures a lot of physical torture himself, including getting stomped on the back with ice skates worn by one of Drake's sadistic sons. He also gets carved on his chest with a knife by the other son, Slick (who is anything but). 

More scenes of bloodbath delirium are exposed. A woman's fingers are cut off by a rotating fan until we see nothing but a bloody stump. One character is shot in the genital area with his you know what exposed and torn apart. Hobo is forced to eat glass for twenty bucks for a video cameraman. I simply cannot go on. 

I have enjoyed some of Rutger Hauer's other movies in the past, particularly his underrated "Blind Fury" which was a fun and kooky take on the blind swordsman Zatoichi movies. This movie is not fun, not even grisly fun, not even at the level of bloody-intestines-pulled-by-the-hero fun as it was in "Machete" which is a Merchant Ivory production compared to this (both Hobo and Machete originated as faux trailers in "Grindhouse.") When a man's head is decapitated while wearing a manhole cover (do not ask) and blood sprays like a fountain while a nearly naked woman bathes in it, I am lost in seeing how any of this is remotely entertaining (Sadists might get a kick out of it). "Hobo With a Shotgun" is numbing and repetitive in scenes of allegedly shocking violence - there is no shock value in it because wetting the screen with blood and viscera is not enough for a movie, not even for an exploitation movie. Director Jason Eisener can disguise it all with solarized colors and high contrast yet with no rooting interest in any character, not even B movie king Rutger Hauer (who at least has one good scene where he talks to newborn babies about their future), then you have nothing, zilch. The movie says that this world is nihilistic and we are all prone to excessive violence and heavy ingestion of cocaine. All I can say is that with great movie titles comes a greater responsibility.  

Where were you?

 THE EMPTY MAN (2020)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I don't think I have figured out "The Empty Man" but I wouldn't say it left me feeling "empty" either. I also believe that like many of David Lynch's own labyrinthian puzzle pieces (his "Inland Empire" is still somewhat inexplicable to me), "The Empty Man" requires attention and patience and yet once we discover some of its hidden truths, we are still at a bit of a loss to understand what the film is saying.   

The opening scenes, which last a good 25 minutes, didn't exactly strike a chord with me. Four hiking partners are walking through the cold and desolate Ura Valley in Bhutan. They are at a high elevation in the Himalays and one of the hikers, Paul, falls through a crevice on the mountainous rock (after all successfully walk through a dangerous bridge). Paul initially heard a distant noise, as if someone was communicating with him, and is found by his friends in a cave kneeling before a Lovecraftian skeleton with tentacles -  it looks like a demigod to be worshipped. Paul is catatonic and is whisked away by his friends to some remote log cabin during a snowstorm. A tragedy results in two of the hikers getting slashed with a knife by Paul's girlfriend and then she purposefully plunges herself to the bottom of the mountain. Suicide or was she forced to do it?

"The Empty Man" is far more interesting and scary after that opening prologue when we are introduced to an ex-cop named Lasombra (James Badge Dale) who is investigating a series of murder-suicides where a cryptic phrase is written on a wall that reads "The Empty Man Made Me Do It." Of course, he is not a cop anymore but it doesn't stop him from checking out these strange cases, especially the disappearance of his next-door neighbor's daughter (Sasha Frolova, her cherubic face exists on some other plane of  existence - good casting) who has that phrase written in blood on the bathroom window! Who is the Empty Man? Slender Man's Cousin? Who knows though he can be summoned by blowing onto a glass bottle on a bridge - that is part of the legend and sure enough, in one of the movie's two scariest sequences, someone is kicking bottles and making noise on the other side of the bridge. When Lasombra finds four kids that have hanged themselves at the bottom of the bridge, we know this entity or phantasm is not playing around. But what does the Empty Man want? Great question.

"The Empty Man" borrows or perhaps patterns itself after films like "The Babadook" and "The Ring" - both of which are more straightforward than this movie. But I do love ambiguity and debuting director David Prior has a lot of ideas about the metaphysical world and what is real and fundamentally true versus what is often punctuated through repetition that could just be a "refrigerator magnet" (some of this philosophy is provided by the leader of a terminally strange institute played by Stephen Root, a great character actor who is just as creepy as the guy he played in "Get Out"). Those moments of philosophical discussion really piqued my interest. On a narrative level with the main characters, I was far more invested in Lasombra and his pill-popping, heavy drinking stretches (he lost his wife and child in a horrible car accident), especially the fractured friendship between him and his neighbor Nora (Marin Ireland) - she also lost her significant other. Both James Badge Dale and Marin Ireland are so damn good, so honest in their portrayals of lost souls who try to repair their damaged psyches that a whole film just about them would've been grand. That is usually the mark of a good horror flick.

But by the time we reach the frenetic, heavy clicking sounds and deep-bass-tremors-in-the-soundtrack climax (I had some idea about Lasombra's possible true identity halfway through the film), I felt a little underwhelmed. That is not to say that the film's supernatural climax isn't stirring - it definitely is - but it negates the soul dimensions provided by Dale for his ex-cop Lasombra and the stunning Frolova for Nora's daughter. Despite the uninvolving prologue, there is much to admire in "The Empty Man" which has its share of scares and spooky atmosphere and it leaves you with a lot of questions (its philosophies will stay with me).  After it ended, I just felt more hoodwinked than enlightened but definitely not disinterested.

Comedic Management Prescription

 ANGER MANAGEMENT (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What can you say about a movie when Adam Sandler shows more restraint than loose cannon Jack Nicholson? Not very much, I'm afraid. Though I'd hardly call "Anger Management" Adam Sandler's worst comedy, it is definitely one of his weakest. With a dependable premise and a promising cast, the film sinks without ever adhering to its own ideas.

I hate to use the same old phrase that most critics use but this film does have a great premise. Adam Sandler plays Dave Buznik, an employee for some conglomerate who has just received a promotion. His girlfriend (Marisa Tomei?) is excited by his job success but is dismayed that he can hardly reciprocate the love they share. Then on an airplane flight, Dave asks for a headset so he can watch the in-flight movie. He keeps asking until finally he ends up in a scuffle with the airline stewardess. This scene is funny because Sandler uses whatever expert timing he has to deliver the right facial reaction and, his slow burn segueing to slowly mumbling his words with quiet ease before erupting, is stimulating to watch. This is, of course, what audiences expect from Mr. Sandler, his anger resulting in beating the heck out of everyone around him. But then we are left with arched-eyebrowed, goateed Jack Nicholson as a doctor with anger management experience who wants to cure Dave's boiling temper-tantrums. We are also introduced to peripheral characters who do nothing except induce severe groans (at least they do to me). John Turturro, Heather Graham (mouthing chocolate cake and mumbling) and Luiz Guzman play such arcane stereotypes that I was amazed not one of them could make me crack a smirk. Even reliable John C. Reilly, as a reformed Buddhist monk, literally kicks some butt but to no end. Like most of the movie, the idea is funny but the execution is wanting.

"Anger Management" has maybe two scenes that offer a chuckle or two - one is Sandler's response when he discovers Nicholson wants to date his girlfriend. The other is Sandler and Nicholson's duet to a song from "West Side Story." A few unusual cameos by John McEnroe and Rudolph Guiliani simply mark time - nothing comes of them. The movie has as little to do with anger management as it does with surrounding Sandler with guest star cameos and over-the-top mugging. And to show how the movie eradicates its original concept, it ends as yet another mediocre romantic comedy! What the film needs is strictly narrative and comedic management.

Pancake brought his girl to the Waffle House!

 THE LADYKILLERS (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Viewed on April 10th, 2004

The Coens have done it again. In 2003, they made one of the unfunniest comedies ever made, "Intolerable Cruelty." In 2004, they have crafted one of their funniest works by far, "The Ladykillers." Though the concept and ideas behind this dark comedy are not new, the Coens's wit and sharp edges enhance this caper comedy to the max. Like I said, the Coens have fooled me again.

The opening shot is vintage Coens. It is a high-angle view of a bridge separated by two gargoyles while a barge passes underneath. It may not mean much to most but it establishes the tone immediately - death looms in the horizon. Then the Coens continue their playful digressions by introducing Marva
(Irma P. Hall), a churchgoing no-nonsense woman who despises hip-hop music (especially the recurring use of the N-word). She complains about such music to the police, who pay her no mind. One sunny day, a genteel, goateed professor known as Professor G.H. Dorr (Tom Hanks) inquires about renting the room in her house. This professor is not the quiet type - he talks incessantly and speaks in the florid tones of his favorite authors. In other words, like some real-life professors, he speaks nothing but gibberish. Marva is not easily misled but she does allow him to rent the room when he mentions his classical music band and the necessary rehearsals for an upcoming concert.

Of course, the Professor is not what he seems - he is a robber who plans to steal money from the Bandit Queen casino. The idea is to crack through Marva's cellar door walls and make a tunnel to the casino. He gets help from Pancake (J.K. Simmons), an explosives expert, who has a girlfriend named Mountain; Lump (Ryan Hurst), a dumb football player, who can tear down the walls; Gawain
(Marlon Wayans), a Bandit Queen janitor who has access to the money; and the General (Tzi-Ma), a Vietnamese chain-smoker who knows a thing or two about tunnels. The good Professor must find ways of evading the police (who turn up at Marva's house) and pretend they are in a band while tunneling their way through her cellar (they keep a cassette player handy to play classical music).

"The Ladykillers" is one of those rare delights in movies where the characters, as cliched as they may be, keep the movie running at a lively pace (though the plot turns may be predicted by most). Part of the charm are the actors who do their damnedest not to go over the hill for laughs. Tom Hanks gives one of his most playful, energetic performances in a long while, focusing on the character's brand of peculiar, intellectual speech patterns that I never thought he could muster with such finesse. Marlon Wayans gives us the pizazz of a real live-wire, and his facial reactions are sidesplittingly funny (including
an encounter with Pancake and his girlfriend at the Waffle House). J.K. Simmons gives us a mustachioed explosives expert who would be right at home in a Warner Brothers cartoon - his Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms during moments of crisis are extreme yet done with the right touch of sly humor. And Tzi-Ma's Vietnamese General is a masterful performance of silent comedy - he handles
cigarettes with a magician's ease. But the highlight of the film is Irma P. Hall's Marva, delivering some of the best one-liners in the film. Her own speeches to the portrait of her late husband are also a major tickle to the funny bone - she has the energy and confidence of a woman who will not back down from her own decisions.

"The Ladykillers" is the remake of the Alec Guinness picture of the same name, and though it is not nearly as sublime as its original counterpart, it is in a class all its own. The Coens have many tricks up their sleeves and aim to deliver with the spit and polish that is lacking in many of their outrageous
comedies. It is a cartoon alright, and damned if I wasn't laughing through the end credits.

Humans want their Earth back

 LAND OF THE DEAD (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed on June 24th, 2005

I must confess that I enjoy zombie movies. 2004's black-humored, scary spoof "Shaun of the Dead" and the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" were among the best the genre had to offer. So maybe George A. Romero, the father of the zombie genre, had been out of the loop for too long to come up with anything comparable or different. Not true. His "Night of the Living Dead" still scares the bejesus out of me, and his original "Dawn of the Dead" is more comical than frightening but still delivers an occasional shock or two. "Day of the Dead" left me wanting yet Romero's latest, "Land of the Dead," an
occasionally effective horror picture, is a marked improvement but no great success. It has Romero's personal stamp written all over it and the occasional satiric touches but its meaty themes need more, um, seasoning.

The movie begins with close-ups of zombies walking around an abandoned gas station (a prominent sign reads "Eats"). Our heroes, who are human, notice that the zombies are playing musical instruments, trying to fill up a gas tank, and so much more. Maybe these zombies are learning to adapt to their state of mind. Certainly Big Daddy is, a tall zombie with more brain cells than anyone else in the entire movie (he's played by Eugene Clark who has more presence than anyone else in the film). He knows how to communicate with others of his ilk, especially when humans are nearby watching them through binoculars. The flesh eaters even start to arm themselves against their human adversaries using a machine gun, a baseball bat, a meat cleaver, and so on. This is one of many original aspects that was hinted at in "Day of the Dead" - they can become the aggressors who have learned by observation (Well, Big Daddy has - he leads them and instructs them on how to fire a gun!) 

There are human mercenaries who work for the arrogant Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), an egotistical, wealthy man who hires them to keep zombies out (including the lower class starving denizens of the sparsely populated city). Kaufman and the rich live in a tower called Fiddler's Green, a luxurious paradise that seems out of place in a zombie-ridden city. One of the mercenaries, Cholo (John Leguizamo), wants to move in to this paradise but, hey, there's a long waiting list and the implications are that Cholo's ethnicity doesn't fit in with the upper class! There's also Riley (Simon Baker, from TV's "The Guardian"), the reliable head of the mercenary group, who wants to go north to Canada and get away from the madness. We also get a sweet-natured hooker named Slack (Asia Argento), who is saved by Riley before being eaten in a ring by two zombies while an audience watches! Yep, Romero seems to be saying once again that humans are no better than zombies - we use zombies for exploitation at a geek show (like the Roman gladiators did with humans, of course), which is rather sickening and apropos.

For zombie fans, Romero delivers plenty of gore and plenty of explosions (I think there are more explosions than scenes of zombies ripping out guts or eating fingers, though the unrated cut leaves a lot of the gore intact). We get numerous scenes of zombies used as target practice or as buffoons or sport for spectators. We also get the traditional scenes of zombies getting shot in the head. There is also a powerful armored vehicle named "Dead Reckoning" that is some sort of anti-zombie tank (no different
than the one used in the "Dawn" remake yet more stable). There are also those ads for Fiddler's Green that promise paradise for all, even if it is exclusively for the rich. And for fans of Tom Savini, he returns as a biker zombie carrying a machete.

I appreciate many things in "Land of the Dead" but I suppose that, in this steady diet of flesh eaters at the cinema, I expected so much more yet I was definitely not disappointed. Romero made something strangely eerie and unique with his original "Night of the Living Dead" - he painted a bleak picture of a world of indifference between humans. The last shot of that film always shook me and riveted me - it said more about humanity or inhumanity than any zombie film had the right to. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was about consumption of a material lifestyle - once you have all the material possessions at a shopping mall, what the heck is left? "Day of the Dead" began to show that zombies could evolve
with the proper help of doctors. I was hoping that "Land of the Dead" would evolve along those lines but it does so fitfully, not wholly. Don't get me wrong: "Land of the Dead" has some scares and is never boring. There is much here that relates to a post-9/11 world (did Cholo actually use the phrase
"jihad?") and nobody can stage gore like Romero can. I just sense that Romero had more to say and either chose not to or was forced to trim the film to a bare 93 minutes. It is slightly above average fare but you may wish there was more to, um, consume.