Highway To the Danger Zone again

 TOP GUN: MAVERICK (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is not a surprise for any of my regular readers to learn that 1986's "Top Gun" is not a film I love or loathe - to me, it was nothing more than a jingoistic war picture not unlike "Rambo: First Blood Part II" that was released the year earlier. "Top Gun" is a film I instantly forgot to the point that my best friend at the time had to remind me that we saw it. Cut to 36 years later and we got a sequel I thought nobody wanted but I've found that I am wrong about many things. "Top Gun: Maverick" is actually a decent popcorn flick that doesn't seem to be a recruitment film like the original, though I am not sure it will dissuade anyone from joining the Navy. In 1986, it was the startling image of Kelly McGillis who was instrumental in getting young guys to join the Navy. In 2022, it could be Jennifer Connelly but I have not seen the latest Navy recruitment numbers.

Tom Cruise is back as Maverick, not aging too much since those happy-go-lucky days. He is still Captain and never rose in the ranks, and for many he is a killjoy - a top-flight F-18 pilot who can zoom in and out of the sky like nobody's business but is hardly in step with the chain of command. Right at the start of the film, Maverick is already in trouble as he disobeys an order to pilot a supersonic jet from the "Darkstar" program that shows him going at speeds too fast even for Chuck Yeager. The jet is destroyed when he pushes the pedal to the metal. Maverick is told that he is a relic of the past - drones will take over and jets will no longer need pilots. So instead Maverick will be back in the TOPGUN program teaching the best fighter pilots on Earth how to evade radar and destroy a uranium plant while flying low-level in canyons surrounding the target. Sounds like an impossible mission, right? Maverick doesn't think so yet he is, initially, not allowed to go on this mission.

When "Top Gun: Maverick" really works our nerves, it is with the aerial footage which is truly extraordinary and keeps you on your toes. We are right there with the pilots and their efforts to swing the jets up and over cliffs shows how much strain and pain it can cause them. When the movie is on ground level, it sputters a little especially in the beginning. Jennifer Connelly has a magnetism unmatched on the screen and I wish her role was more a supervisory Navy officer rather than some gal owning a bar who used to date Maverick (McGillis played a flight instructor in the original). Connelly looks far too glamorous to own a bar but then I remembered this is "Top Gun," not "Born on the Fourth of July." This whole movie is a boy's own adrenalized fantasy of fighting a war that just incorporates destroying one singular target spot (which made me think of the Death Star's own small portal where a couple of laser strikes was all that was required) and becoming triumphant. 

Though not all the interactions in the film work, some do stick out. I like Miles Teller playing LT Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, wearing shades and singing "Great Balls of Fire" like his dad that passed on in the first film (Rooster's dad was played by Anthony Edwards in the original). I also liked the braggadocious Hangman (Glen Powell), more than likely modeled on the Iceman from the original. And it was the butter on the popcorn delight to see Val Kilmer back as an ailing Iceman - it is short and powerful and one wishes more time was spent on Kilmer. As for the other recruits, they are hardly memorable if only because their dialogue is simply about who's the better pilot as they one-up each other.

For an undistinguished, glorious look at war where the enemies are faceless, "Top Gun: Maverick" will fit the bill just like those old-fashioned war movies of the 40's and 50's. It is entertaining to be sure and the climax thrives on pure adrenaline. You might forget most of the movie after it is over, but it is hard to forget the image of Tom Cruise and those gleaming choppers as he's riding a motorcycle through an air field - a nostalgic 1980's kick in the pants.  

Watch a B-movie from "Something Weird" instead

 FILM HOUSE FEVER (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A curio is a curio until it ceases being a curio and becomes a something of a rarefied piece of junk. Such is the case with "Film House Fever" which is nothing short of an empty void filled with some sort of stench.

Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Junior (both friends in real life) play B-movie junk food aficionados who watch movies on three TV's! This is all they apparently do and Mark Boone seems to be the one that becomes a zombie for watching too many movies. They hear of a "from Dusk till Dawn" film festival which only seems to show trailers and short segments of B-movies and grade Z zilch (this is an all-night film festival?)  Then it turns out the theater is inhabited by actual zombies who attack our two so-called movie snobs. That's all folks.

Amateurish to a fault and unwatchable from beginning to end, it resembles something cobbled together if you spent time with friends on a weekend shooting a movie on 16mm and editing it the same weekend at a non-profit TV station (nothing wrong with that because I've done it myself). At 58 minutes though, it feels 5 hours too long. It is great to see early "performances" by Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Junior yet that is its only novelty. "Film House Fever" is best forgotten like any piece of grade Z junk.

Strictly the King of Rock and Roll

 ELVIS (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" is a 24-carat, gold-studded, immensely entertaining knockout of a rock and roll movie musical. There have been other film adaptations of Elvis Presley's life but this one offers more personal touches and gets deeper, especially the relationship between him and Colonel Tom Parker. 

I have to say that while watching the first half-hour of "Elvis," I felt I was being contained and thrown around through a barrage of images that dissolve in and out of each other - basically, I felt cut out of the movie. I love Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" which was itself a montage movie musical where no shot lasted longer than 3 seconds. I was praying that Luhrmann was not going for that headache-inducing approach which would, I originally thought, not work for someone like Elvis - it could threaten any emotional investment you might have in any character. After a while, though, I was carried along by it because the musical influences on Elvis and the discovery of Elvis as a new singer to contend with kept me happily hooked and I stopped feeling like I was being jerked around from one corner of the frame to the other. 

Austin Butler plays Elvis, through the 1950's up until his death, and I first thought he looked nothing like Elvis - Butler looks more like Val Kilmer channeling Elvis. But, once again, even if the looks are a tad dissimilar, the most important aspect is that Butler captures the swagger and  no-frills attitude of Elvis. There are moments where time stands still, as in Presley's attempt to sing on stage during the Hank Snow tour. The audience waits, the silence creeps in, and then Elvis starts singing - it is a cliched moment in musical biopics but it still works. He gyrates, vibrates his hips and makes the women go crazy screaming - he's a sexual animal using every muscle below his torso to engineer excitement for the audience and for himself. Elvis's mother is also in attendance and she is more than nonplussed by this, not to mention his strict, money-hungry manager Col. Parker (Tom Hanks, an atypical performance). After Elvis gets permission to sing by having his parents sign the contract (Elvis was still a minor at this point), the world discovers that the man with rock and roll swagger can sing and transport the audience in ways nobody imagined (many at the time, including Parker before he met the King, thought Elvis was black). That swagger and his gyrations were too hot for TV at the time, so Elvis had to dial it down. He had to dial down so much that he was drafted into the Army and was stationed in Germany where he met Priscilla Presley (the reasons he was inducted are not all accurate but it was a method per Parker to illustrate the King as a good old American boy with a crewcut). The rest is history, and his death was far too premature due to imbibing alcohol and every drug prescribed to him under the sun during his Vegas years.

"Elvis" does have its faults, especially in including Elvis' songs performed by others on the soundtrack during Elvis' prime years (to be clear, these play on the soundtrack and not while he's singing). Those cover songs feel like an intrusion though I do love the depiction of black rhythm and blue guitarists and the gospel singers from Tupelo in Elvis's younger years - you can see how young blonde Elvis is immediately entranced and influenced by them (in a church, he seems to collapse in their arms as if possessed which adds to his later Vegas performances where he is similarly possessed). Another issue is that Priscilla Presley (Olivia DeJonge) is introduced as a young girl he dates (though you wouldn't know it from watching that she was in reality a fan) and then, presto, she's his wife and then she disappears for a little while, shows up to calm Elvis during the news of political assassinations, then she is a regular in the audience showing emotional support, and then they get divorced. The movie skims their relationship unlike Elvis' love and affection for his mother (exceedingly well-cast Helen Thomson) - what I love about the mother is she's shown as someone who believes in her famous son despite his wiggle and his energetic gyrations (" The way you sing is God-given, so there can't be nothin' wrong with it."). Of course, we can't have everything when we have an Elvis movie (reportedly there is a 4 hour cut) but I wish the Priscilla relationship was beefed up.

The main focus of "Elvis" is Parker's unending attachment to Elvis to the point of controlling every aspect of his life - he sees Elvis as a money-making machine that can help with Parker's notorious gambling debts. Though Elvis's family claims Parker was a "wonderful man," there is no denying that Parker was a greedy bastard yet Tom Hanks plays him as a lovable loser who goes too far. The scene of Parker's incredulous and emotional reaction through a glass reflection of Elvis singing the glorious "If I Can Dream" at the famous 1968 TV comeback special is something to witness. We still know Parker wants to sweat every cent out of Elvis yet we do get a momentary glimpse of Parker's recognition of the kid's super talents. 

"Elvis" is a sonic boom of a movie, a cinematic odyssey of one outstanding flourish of images and colorful montages after another. This is Baz Lurhmann on hyperdrive and not one moment or image feels out of league with the story of the King of Rock N' roll. Even when Baz calms things down, there is a genuine, mystical power in seeing Austin Butler giving every ounce of himself over to the King. The movie is a workout for those who loves stable images and simplified editing but Elvis's life was too haywire to merit too much stability. 

The Eyes of Karen Black say it all

 CAN SHE BAKE A CHERRY PIE? (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I once met Karen Black at a Chiller Theater convention in the early 2000's. She signed an autograph for me and was quite moved that I picked a "Family Plot" picture for her to sign ("Family Plot" was of course Hitchcock's last film). When she looked at me, her hypnotic, witchy eyes left me feeling as if I was put in a trance. It was amazing to see her look at me this way. That is why she is so perfectly and believably romantic, goofy and kooky all at the same time in "Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" which is among Karen Black's finest performances ever. When a man looks at her, he can't help but be transfixed and how could he not be? 

Zee (Karen Black) is unable to deal with her husband leaving her. At first, I thought he was a boyfriend who had to leave for work but then we see him packing his clothes while she puts them back in the drawers and vice versa! Meanwhile, we hear the jackhammerin' outside and director Henry Jaglom has an annoying habit of cutting from the jackhammering to Zee pleading with her husband to stay, back and forth and back and forth. Oh, God, why? I still don't understand the juxtaposition nor do I understand how Jaglom frequently has his team of editors just barely cut by slivers at the end of many scenes so you get an occasionally abrupt transition that feels out of step. It works in some films but here, there are many scenes that have a simple beauty, like the guy playing with a pigeon that flies to his hand on command in long takes without abrupt cuts. The former is just an editing pattern that you can ignore due to the cast and our engaging involvement with Zee. 

The movie is primarily about Zee though not always from her point-of-view. In one stunningly moving scene, Zee starts to sob trying to order a meal at a local cafe and a near-balding social worker, Eli (Michael Emil, a true original in this type of movie), tries to comfort her. He succeeds in making her laugh and the rest of this atypical romantic comedy has them frolicking in the city, frolicking in bed while he measures his heartbeat, and then they start to really talk to each other. Zee panics and thinks people from the cafe where she met Eli are following her, yet Emil doesn't judge and tries to calm her down. Zee sometimes sings at an underpopulated bar, and sometimes she watches Orson Welles on TV doing magic tricks (I wouldn't doubt some of this footage is from Jaglom's "A Safe Place"). 

Zee sees beauty in the everyday, even in the concrete jungle of New York City. Eli loves her for that reason and these scenes really got to me on an emotional level. Karen Black encapsulates Zee's inner and outer beauty flawlessly so that when she sings, we are touched by this emotional wreck of an angel. "Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" is awkwardly shaped at times with the introduction of needless characters at the cafe (including a very young, almost unrecognizable Larry David and that annoying pigeon expert) and though some of these interactions are cute, they do not merit half the attention we want from Zee and Eli. Zee finds some measure of hope, of belonging to someone like Eli whom you might least expect to discover such a capable romantic partner. We see it in her eyes and they do not lie. Those hypnotic, witchy eyes. 

Paul and Mary would kill to own a restaurant

 EATING RAOUL (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Eating Raoul" is not a lacerating black comedy or satire, nor does it try to go over-the-top firing on all cylinders at its targets. There is quite a bit of charm to it despite its potentially disturbing subject matter and its almost demure flatness is itself part of the joke. And it is a great funny joke that exploits its premise to no end at a cool and inventively hilarious 83 minutes.

What happens when a liquor store clerk and his shapely nurse of a wife run a swingers newspaper ad and confront all sorts of male chauvinist creeps? Well, they hit each one of them on the head with a frying pan, that's what. Paul Bartel is Paul Bland and Mary Woronov is Mary Bland, and their interest in swinging with any sexual fantasy welcomed by the client is initiated because they need money to buy a restaurant. Paul and Mary sleep in separate beds because they do not engage in sex! Mary is consistently sexually harassed at work and when she applies for a loan. When it comes to the sexual swinging, the men are aggressive as well and Paul and Mary think nothing of murdering their wealthy clients and taking their money. An orgy is attended by the matter-of-factly couple and let's say they make a killing.

A professional thief who is also a smooth locksmith, Raoul (a delightfully suave performance by Robert Beltran), is on to the couple and wants to assist in these murders as long as he gets a percentage of the profits. When Paul gets wind that Raoul is pleasuring Mary thanks to smoking a Thai stick, he asks for help from a dominatrix (Susan Saiger) who doubles as an INS agent, a nurse and a blind nun just to get Raoul out of the way. It almost works and these scenes made me double over with laughter.

I avoided "Eating Raoul" for years because I thought it was some sort of cannibalistic comedy and cannibalism is a subject I can do without (regardless of my perverse love for "The Silence of the Lambs"). Truth is it is anything but (though there is a feast involving eating raw meat though it is so understated that you can't possibly be offended by it). "Eating Rauol" turns out to be one of the most raucous, perfectly straight love stories you might see involving a murdering couple. Paul and Mary are not exactly amoral - they just see this killing spree as another way of making money without any regard to the consequences or the humanity of their clients (many of them are creeps and attack and attempt to rape Mary without any prior knowledge that they are to be killed by frying pan!) To the Blands, it is all fun and games that is justified as long as they attain their capitalist goal of owning a restaurant serving Bland food. Their happiness extends to that American dream and their love for each other than runs deeper than anyone thinks. Watching Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov discuss their future and their expenditures while corpses are being dragged out of their apartment in trash bags kept me laughing throughout. It is absurdist and so uniquely clever and engaging that I can't imagine seeing it less than twice.

Broken Reels

 CRIMEWAVE (1985)

An Escaped Review, not a Releasable Review 

by Jerry Saravia

"Crimewave" is a delirious puzzle of a movie - actually, it is a puzzle and I hesitate calling it a movie. Its got two killers on the loose (bug exterminators) with maniacal glee in their eyes and a cackling laughter that just might turn you off in the first few minutes. It has Bruce Campbell deliciously playing a heel (the best performance in the film). It also has Sheree J. Wilson as some glamorous 1940's-type woman who hates heels and presumably nerds. Speaking of nerds or wonky vulnerable men, it has one (Reed Birney) who tells this whole bizarre story before his scheduled electrocution in prison for allegedly killing people. I hesitate calling this a story but this "story" also has nuns who have a 40-year vow of silence. And there's Louise Lasser as some housewife. 

"Crimewave" is directed, or rather shaped into a shapeless monstrosity, by Sam Raimi who has done infinitely better. It is ostensibly written by the Coen Brothers who wisely started directing their own scripts after this - I say ostensibly because they feel like words on the page but they do not form complete sentences. I simply gave up trying to figure this incredibly tedious effort out - a sort of deeply inconsistent cross between 40's noir, farcical comedy and a chase picture with an anarchic spirit. Yep, it is pure anarchy and not much else. The version I saw did not have the title "Crimewave," it was titled "Broken Hearts and Broken Noses" (This was the San Diego test market title). Broken Reels is a more appropriate title.

Unemployment never keeps you down

 RAINING STONES (1993)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When a couple of unemployed workers from Manchester stoop as low as grabbing a sheep and trying to sell it as meat to local butchers, you can't imagine things getting any lower. Only Ken Loach's "Raining Stones" does go lower and one of them, Bob, faces a moral crisis.

An unemployed plumber, Bob (Bruce Jones), is trying to support his wife, Anne (Julie Brown) and their young daughter, Coleen (Gemma Phoenix), who is getting ready for her first Communion. Naturally she needs a Communion dress and though the local priest says there is no shame in giving her one of their pristine dresses, Bob stubbornly says he will buy her one - he has to keep his pride (and the poor guy just had his green van stolen). Plumbing is something Bob tries from door-to-door unsuccessfully. His good friend, Tommy (Ricky Tomlinson), is also unemployed and feels shame in accepting money from his daughter who is presumably making a killing in selling perfume, makeup, etc. Bob and Tommy try everything from selling sheep meat, to cutting patches of grass to sell to a landscaping company - that's just what they do in pairs. Bob tries his hand at bouncing at a nightclub which ends with him spotting Tommy's daughter selling drugs - he is fired for being unable to prove that any drug pushing took place. This is a curious moment because Bob never tells Tommy that he spotted her. Everyone is going through enough turmoil.

"Raining Stones" is practically a documentary of the Manchester working class during a depression where financial woes and unemployment can cause a strain in families. Nothing new about that notion yet Ken Loach makes Bob and Tommy not into losers but rather optimistic men who are trying their damnedest to work for a living. He wants to keep his youngest daughter Coleen happy, to make his wife happy, yet he keeps making mistakes. A subplot involving Bob getting a loan from a tough loan shark is very intense and dramatically satisfying because we know it is all about the Communion dress. If Bob can make anyone happy, it won't be himself - it will be his daughter.

Whether it is the working class conditions from Glasgow in Bill Forsyth's "That Sinking Feeling" or Mike Leigh's own British tales of woe ("Naked" is one of his most powerful), I have a deep admiration for such stories because they are about people struggling yet nothing stops them from trying. "Raining Stones" is one tale of woe that kept me on the edge of my seat. I worried for Bob and his family and hoped that he would get out of the troubling financial situations he was in and find a job. Never has that seemed so meaningful and potent as in "Raining Stones."