I Love that Old Time Kevin Smith

 JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Geez Mr. Kevin Smith, captain of New Jersey dick and fart jokes, why return to such puerile, infantile material? What happened to the dramatic horror effect of "Red State" or the sickening ugliness of "Tusk"? (Eh, don't wish to discuss that one again) What happened to the unfunny cop movie homage of "Cop Out"? Nah, don't answer that one either. Thank you is all I can say. I am a fan of the View Askewuniverse (or is it View Askew Verse?) and any New Jersey material mined around the edges of a town like Leonardo where the Quik Stop exists makes me deliriously happy. The last time we saw the stoners Jay and Silent Bob was in "Clerks II," which was a super good sequel. Now my little pot-smoking waifs, we got "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" which is exactly what you might expect and then some. 

Jason Mewes as the somewhat moronic Jay who loves doobies is back along with his heterosexual mate, Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) who never says a word and texts how he feels via emoticons. Some of that humor can go a long way. Also, I must report Mr. Smith that the opening scenes of this movie fell flat and were troublingly unfunny, like freakin' "Mallrats" unfunny (Dude, or Your New Jersey Highness of the View Askew Order, did you really consider making a "Mallrats 2"?) Justin Long is a pop-cultured, prosecutor and defending lawyer of J & S and Craig Robinson is a judge, well versed in  Mighty Morphins trivia, and I was ready to say this movie was going to fall flat on its face. Little did I know that Mr. Smith had some snoogans in order, that is, he got me involved in a recycled plot from "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" where they try to stop a reboot of a "Bluntman and Chronic" movie called "Bluntman V. Chronic" only it is TV's "Supergirl" herself, Melissa Benoist, playing Chronic! Along their merry Mary Jane way with three saved potent pot cigs, Jay meets up again with Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), the giggly girl from the C.L.I.T animal activist group. It turns out Jay has a daughter played with electric energy by Hayley Quinn Smith (Kevin Smith's actual daughter). Anyway, the only way to stop this movie from being made is to go to Hollywood, and Jay's daughter also has some plans to head there as well.

Some gags really made me laugh, especially the whole comic-con version in the latter half (including an appearance by the real Kevin Smith playing himself who makes fun of himself). Included in the comic-con footage are terrific cameos by Val Kilmer as Bluntman and of course the aforementioned Melissa Benoist in a trailer for this fictional comic book movie.  It is also fun to see Ben Affleck back as Holden McNeil and Joey Lauren Adams as Amy, from "Chasing Amy" of course and the "Strikes Back" movie. I also found the Matt Damon cameo hysterical, playing that murderous angel from "Dogma." I could have lived without returnee Jason Lee as the irritating Brodie - something about that character sticks in my craw. A brief sequence involving a pedophile in a van just rang as tasteless and the "How High" pot-filled dream homage will make sense to only those that remember that movie. 

Jason Mewes, though, is the real star of the movie and just his ability to sniff out trouble in the winds or how he misinterprets everything as either sexual or otherwise makes me laugh. Kevin Smith can grate one's nerves as Silent Bob, though he does a fantastic homage to "Glengarry Glen Ross" during a KKK rally! Adding to valuable support to an increasingly silly universe is the incredible Harley Quinn Smith who brings the occasional Smith brand of genuine heart and soul. She's funny, smart and independent and slowly forms a strong bond with her stoner dad. I was incredibly moved by her in a movie that is meant to be raunchy with dick and fart jokes, or mostly dick jokes. Thank you Mr. Smith.   

It is HOT

 BODY HEAT (1981)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"Body Heat" is one of the few films I've ever seen that seems to literally sizzle. Every stylistically framed shot, every acutely timed line of dialogue and every performance sizzles. Set in a coastal town in Florida, it is the hottest time of the year and sweat pours out of you even after taking a shower. Other than Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," never have I felt the heat so intensely and intrinsically as in Lawrence Kasdan's "Body Heat." It has been deemed the first neo-noir thriller though there is nothing neo about it. Kasdan obviously aimed to make a new spin on the classic "Double Indemnity" and possibly "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (the latter remade as a raw and singularly unimpressive Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange flick) and has succeeded beyond expectations yet still stays true to its fundamental traditions.

The characters in Kasdan's noir thriller, though, do not fit any of the traditional archetypes of the past. William Hurt is lawyer Ned Racine, a somewhat dim small-town lawyer who falls for Matty (Kathleen Turner) from the start, thinking only below his waist and not with his brains (She catches on quick when she says "You are not too smart are you. I like that in a man"). She is alluring, a sexual being who is married and tries to remain chaste. Ned is horny as a hound dog and says to her, "You shouldn't be wearing that body." Before one can say, "oh come over and just look at my wind chimes," Ned is asked to leave and bursts through her glass doors and makes passionate love to her. She wants it, and so does he. This is just the start of his troubles when Matty's husband (Richard Crenna), a wealthy businessman, comes back into town and the sexual pair have already decided to kill him. In this case, though, it is not for money or profit or anything other than this doomed pair wanting to be together because they love each other. Does Matty really love Ned or is it partially about money after all? It seems like it and, as you watch the film, it is clear that she is not just lusting after this man. Still, to make matters more complicated, Matty might have had a plan prior to their initial meeting. It is made more or less clear that she had him in her throes from the start.

Kathleen Turner, in her ravishing and hypnotic film debut, is not a one-dimensional siren nor is she a standard femme fatale. Her manipulative side is not made overtly obvious and that is Turner's strength as an actress. She loves men and she also wants freedom, so can she have both? Kasdan never makes that clear enough, making Matty one of those enigmatic femme fatales who knows how to play her cards right from the start. As Ned observes too late in the game, "She's relentless!" Yet Turner never makes it too obvious, always showing shades of false naivete in small spurts though never revealing how her mind is always at work and is one step ahead of everyone else. The final shot of the film is haunting, lyrical and beautiful yet quite sad. It should be victorious for a femme fatale of her nature yet it is not - we get the feeling she will never be quite at peace even in a scenic tropical island.

William Hurt also makes for a fascinatingly seedy man who beds many women who are either waitresses or nurses. He is just barely smart enough to know he's been had, though still dumb enough as well to not see what is happening with Matty. He thinks that his murder plan is his own when it is made abundantly clear that Matty has orchestrated the murder plot from the beginning (and that includes the drawing up of a new will). Hurt also has a sneaky way of making us care about him despite his seediness and his murderous mind - he loves this woman yet we can't get behind his taking a human life for love. This is all spun and orchestrated with far more humanity than the noirs of the past - you never sense a coldness arising out of these characters. Deftly and swiftly written by Lawrence Kasdan (his directorial debut),"Body Heat" has a clockwork plot that manages to never feel too complicated or contain any red herrings. Every piece falls into place because it really feels like the characters are orchestrating it rather than the feeling that some Chandleresque writer is at the helm. 

I am a lover of film noir in general, especially the postwar noir of the 40's and 50's. "Double Indemnity" holds a special place for me as having the most sparkling, deliciously spicy dialogue ever (Barbara Stanwyck was the siren in that film). "Body Heat" is not better but definitely its equal, containing more salacious dialogue and more honest sexuality yet never veering into crude, histrionic sexual scenes or heinous violence. That has become "Body Heat's" mainstay since very few thrillers during its wake have aimed for true sultriness and restraint or much else. The steam is what rises in "Body Heat" and leaves you satisfied with the lustful, somewhat romantic power of the film. "Body Heat" is the very essence of sophisticated adult noir. 

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain

 SMILE (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"One may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

Quote from Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

I have to report that within the first ten minutes of "Smile," there is a shabbily-dressed female patient meeting with a therapist and this patient is deathly afraid and losing control of her senses. The terrified girl starts convulsing and is out of breath before standing upright with a frozen smile on her face. Then she kills herself in a gory fashion and we get the title credits. My frustration with "Smile" was that a horror film nowadays has to always open with a violent death prior to the opening credits, and this has lingered as the repeated horror movie cliche since 1996's "Scream." I also have to report that once you get past this scene (which is essential to the movie's plot as a whole) you are then in for one scary, psychological, often emotionally bumpy ride that doesn't use the frozen smile as a gimmick.  

Sosie Bacon is Dr. Rose Cotter, the creeped-out therapist who witnesses the strange girl's suicide and is ordered to take time off from work (Kal Penn, by the way, plays her sympathetic boss who reminds us of how one other patient didn't have medical insurance. We do need to be reminded of that in this day and age). Rose sees the smiling girl infrequently, either outside her office window or at home near her refrigerator or berating her in the darkness while she sleeps. But she can't get past the traumatic incident and when another patient exhibits that frozen, unwavering smile (albeit briefly), it turns out that it is not an epidemic since he is snapped out of it. But is there an epidemic of frozen smiles out there that lead to suicides? Rose finds that a doctor killed himself in front of the smiling girl, and that indeed it seems to pass on. Rose has her own trauma to deal with the repeated nightmares of the death of her mother, which Rose witnessed at a young age. And then as we get closer to the truth, it leads to an "unexpected" birthday gift from Rose to her nephew (talk about trauma), and the realization that her fiance may be more materialistic than she is. There are also some bitter truths regarding Rose's sister (Gillian Zinser) who couldn't deal with the mother's depression and walked out on the family.

In terms of psychological torment, "Smile" could be read as a film about mental illness and the eventual breakdown of one's frame of mind within a psychotic break. Even while watching it, I wasn't too sure of what could be anticipated or how Rose was going to combat this demonic apparition. "Smile" rises above its familiar "It Follows"-type horror trappings thanks to the intense shadings of Sosie Bacon (Kevin Bacon's daughter) as Rose and we start to wonder if any of this is real or just mere hallucinations. Bacon makes us care about her plight and, once we discover the truth of her horrendous, spiraling-out-of-control situation, we hope she can recover and get back on her feet. Her spectacular performance rockets this film way past the acceptable parameters of most horror fare. 

Aside from the viciously bloody opening, writer-director Parker Finn opts out of traditional blood and gore and uses it intermittently. He focuses on atmosphere that includes overcast skies and surroundings that feel claustrophobic and the occasional rotating camera that flips upside down, indicative of a smile becoming a frown (Finn also infuses sympathy for Rose and every scene features Rose - we go along for this terrifying trip with her). Coupled with a vibrating, almost Satanic music score or grinder of some kind and a few jump scares that are few and far in between, "Smile" gave me major goosebumps and the ending gave me major shivers that resulted in me not grinning from ear to ear. 

Sean Connery is the Only One that Counts

 HIGHLANDER (1986)

A Lack of Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

Going back to the well to reassess a movie you disliked only to find it became a bona fide cult film is a job I take infrequently. Such is the case with "Highlander" and its immortals and my recent excursion into the bowels of bromanship amidst flying jet planes with "Top Gun." Both films were released in 1986 though "Highlander" was a film I did not check out until home video in 1993. I disliked "Highlander" and found it boring, stiff and clunky. Watching it again, I still find I dislike it and it is still boring, stiff and clunky. Just because it became a cult hit that spawned several sequels and an animated series, not to mention a live-action series, doesn't mean it rates as wonderful. 

The movie begins at a wrestling match with actual wrestlers (and a very young girl in the audience flicking her tongue - what is that all about?) Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) is in the crowd of spectators who is not enjoying the action (and we see quick flashbacks to a different time of Scottish warriors fighting to the death with swords). Meanwhile, Connor runs out and confronts some guy in a business suit and they start fighting with swords that emit sparks when clashing against the metal and parking barriers. This all takes place in a parking lot and the business suit guy is actually an immortal and Connor decapitates him. The whole lot is practically levelled and lightning strikes Connor (this is called the quickening). Turns out Connor is an immortal himself, a 16th-century immortal born in Glenfinnan, Scotland near the shores of Loch Shiel (a phrase repeated more than once). We see flashbacks to a time in the Scottish Highlands where he barely fought anyone during the war with the Fraser Clan until he is seemingly mortally wounded by the menacing warrior, the Kurgan (Clancy Brown). Of course, Connor doesn't die and the townspeople oust him from their land thinking he is a devil of some kind. 

These early scenes lack panache and the swordfights are utterly dull - there is no real spatial sense of any real action occurring and it is all poorly staged and edited. The only real panache comes from the arrival of Sean Connery as Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, a born immortal (like Connor) who is not a Spaniard but in fact Egyptian! Pardon? Nevertheless Connery kept me awake and shows the life force of a man enjoying his time on Earth, making the most of it with passion and verve (and he likes to drink). 

Once Connery exits prematurely from the movie, "Highlander" suffers a quickening of tedious scenes of sword fighting and more fighting. Lambert is not bad here as Connor, and he has some humorous lines in the 1985 section where he is Russell Nash, an antiques dealer, but he is not strong enough to carry the weightless script. Clancy Brown can grate the nerves as the Kurgan and is far more hideously over-the-top than needs be (though his shouting at the nuns and a priest in a church is a little more animated than anything else in the movie). Some sweeping shots of Scotland are awe-inducing yet the finale, a swordfight that goes on forever, is set on top of the roof of some building with neon letters that read "SILVERCUP." You don't see much since they are nighttime shots and it is hard to care who lives or dies, or just who lives (they are immortals but decapitating them is the only way to destroy them). "Highlander" has its fans and is of major cult status but this movie was about as exciting as watching somebody watching wallpaper dry.  

Bitterly cold Moscow murder mystery

 GORKY PARK (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Icy with the accent on cold, frigid, any synonym you can think of to describe "Gorky Park." The atmosphere of Martin Cruz Smith's complicated murder mystery novel is there but hardly any characters that inspire much in the way of empathy. 

William Hurt, perfecting a British accent rather than a Russian one, is Renko, a Moscow police inspector who is investigating the heinous murder of three young people. It is purely a sadistic murder with each of the three people found with their faces and fingertips cut off. Why? No one can be sure but Renko finds this leads to a rabbit hole of KGB agents, potentially his own supervisor and an enigmatic American businessman, Osborne (Lee Marvin), who sells sable fur coats (Guess what they do to the sables in making those coats? They skin them of course, in ways that remind Renk of the murdered victims). Renko goes deep into a world that includes a desperate New York City cop (Brian Dennehy), a brother of one of the victims; a pair of skates belonging to a wardrobe girl on a movie set (Joanna Pacula), and of course, Gorky Park itself, the amusement park with the ice rink and a LP player that hauntingly plays Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."

As I said, the cold, brutal winter of Russia and the cloudy skies permeate the story of "Gorky Park" and it is all evoked as well as you can imagine. I was soaked in by it (you really feel the bitter cold) and the intricate police procedural (including the reconstruction of the victims' faces from their bone structure) yet everyone in this film seemed standoffish to me. Renko is a bit difficult to warm up to, no pun attended, and though William Hurt is a compelling actor in his own right - he doesn't convince as a Russian officer. Every character look ashen-faced and untrustworthy. Lee Marvin gives the most solid performance as a cold, calculating man whose very presence gave me the shudders - his dialogue is often cryptic. Yet the whole ending feels anticlimactic despite an intriguing first half and, in the end, I felt more sympathy for the largely unseen sables than the aloof depiction of its characters. 

Party loyalty

 EMINENT DOMAIN (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Donald Sutherland's towering, keen presence always makes for compelling viewing in any film. A half-hearted though still fascinating thriller like "Eminent Domain" doesn't suffer because he is there - he is present in every scene and makes it count. Someone else wouldn't have made it nearly as compelling treatment of a Kafkaesque political tale as Sutherland does. Still, I was left wanting by the end of it.

Set during the pre-Solidarity Poland of 1979, Sutherland is Jozef Burski, an influential Politburo member (known as Number Six) who has the good life - a spacious apartment full of books, a wife (Anne Archer) who cherishes him, and a young, naive daughter (Jodhi May). It is a loving family and a loving marriage in a Communist country, so what could possibly go wrong? One day, Burski is told he has no security clearance and no job, not to mention a now "closed" office. Burski needs answers but is never told why he lost his position. He procures the help of his friend (Paul Freeman), a bug expert, who finds that the Burski's apartment is bugged. Still, no answers. 

If "Eminent Domain" continued along those lines and prolonging the agony and the paranoia, then it would've become a classy Kafka political nightmare. As it stands, the movie is at its best within the confines of the unknowing, the ambiguous nature of Burski's membership - did Burski do something wrong? Did he bribe someone he shouldn't have? Or does the Politburo just want a new member in his place? Instead we are saddled with a tragedy in the middle of the narrative, and an explanation that emerges prematurely dealing with party loyalty. Huh? I expected a lot more than that considering that the co-screenwriter Andrzej Krakowski based this story on the true experiences of his own father, a Communist party member. I doubt that Krakowski's own father had exactly the same experiences that Burski has since much of the film seems melodramatic and there's a forced happy ending.

"Eminent Domain" has some chilling speeches about party loyalty but not enough grit to make this a showstopper of a political thriller  - it just falls short. The film is watchable and often tinged with suspense and occasional verve by director John Irvin - you keep waiting to see what the denouement will be. The answers, though, are far more underwhelming than the setup. 

We Will Meet Again

 THE HIT (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Hit" should've been a winner. It's got John Hurt as a sullen, virtually silent hitman with oil-slicked hair. It's got Terence Stamp as a career criminal and gangster who is on John Hurt's hitlist. It's got some amazingly gorgeous Spanish locations and British director Stephen Frears who has sparked many films with his directorial flair later in his career. Beautiful to behold, yet a trifle of a crime movie with more offbeat touches than any narrative tissue worth caring about. 

Stamp is Willie Parker, a former London gangster who outed his associates in court and lives comfortably in a Spanish villa. The villa is an intimate place with plenty of bookcases and a typewriter and various rooms that you make you almost feel the coziness and relaxation of such a surrounding. Trouble brews immediately as a bunch of seeming hooligans invade the home space and wait for Willie to return. It turns out that Willie couldn't remain in hiding forever - John Hurt is the assassin, Mr. Braddock, who has located him and is going to kill him. But Mr. Braddock can't just kill him anywhere - he has to bring Willie to the kingpin who is waiting in Paris. But why bring him all the way to Paris? Why can't Mr. Braddock just shoot him, take a picture as proof and be done with it? Well, that would take away the potential excitement of a road movie with a killer and his assistant, along with Willie who frequently and inexplicably smiles. For rather contrived reasons that only the screenwriter could explain, Braddock intends to stay in a supposedly unoccupied Madrid apartment where they instead find the owner and his 16-year-old Spanish hooker (Laura Del Sol)! Oh, but why? As, perhaps collateral, they take the hooker with them on the road to Paris, but why? And why does Mr. Braddock, a killer with excellent aim, need Myron (Tim Roth, in his acting debut), a younger, peroxide blonde assistant or apprentice or both? 

The only character of any real worth and understanding is Terence Stamp's Willie, who accepts that his life is coming to an end. He quotes from a book about death and it comes a little too late in the film yet we feel that he has accepted his eventual demise. Stamp has one solid scene with Hurt's Braddock where one senses Braddock might not want to go through with the hit. Yet "The Hit" never quite takes flight as an exciting, humorous suspense thriller or even as an astute character study. It exists through the engineering of chaotic, violent situations and one too many extraneous characters. Save for the electrifying flamenco guitar score by Paco de Lucia and terrifically framed compositions of the beautiful Spanish countryside, "The Hit" seems to waste the talents of its cast by giving them a story that doesn't amount to much other than to suggest that death is always around the corner.