What speech is allowable and what is not?

 MIGHTY IRA (2020)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I knew of the ACLU and its purpose but I knew next to nothing about Ira Glasser or the controversy surrounding ACLU's past defense of any type of free speech. This would include hate speech which many to this day still don't recognize as protected free speech under the First Amendment. Having Ira Glasser as its executive director over the span of two decades made its organization the one that truly stuck to its principles yet "Mighty Ira" only skims that surface - it is an entertaining documentary and full of brio yet falls short of truly delving into his man and the organization he helped nurture. 

"Mighty Ira" profiles Ira Glasser from his early days as a 1940's child of Brooklyn who became a fan of baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers and its most famous player, Jackie Robinson ("If you lived in Brooklyn and you didn't love the Dodgers, something was wrong with you"). Glasser became increasingly aware of racism in the country when he heard stories of Jackie Robinson's inability to stay in the same hotels as whites. Joining, rather reluctantly at first, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) from 1978 to 2001 at the behest of Robert F. Kennedy, Glasser became a champion for civil liberties especially in allowing civil rights leaders to march wherever they so chose. Still, the ACLU entered hot water when defending Neo-Nazis the right to march in Skokie, Illinois, a famous case and a suburb home to many Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. In the minds of the Jewish people, allowing neo-Nazis to march brought back the Holocaust and all its vivid horrors. This small group of Nazis and its leader, Frank Collin, eventually chose not to march in Skokie and instead migrated to a park close to their headquarters. 

A lot of "Mighty Ira" is devoted to this controversial case (which also became a 1981 TV movie with Danny Kaye) and we get to see the ramifications of such a case extend to Donahue's talk show and repeated segments on "Firing Line," which were hosted by the late William F. Buckley. Buckley and Glasser had dissenting views on many subjects and eventually became friends. Some of this is quite fascinating yet I never got a full view of the man himself, Ira Glasser. Other than being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and defending the Neo-Nazis' right to march, there is not much more to Ira's character or wisdom here. He is a boisterous raconteur yet I would have loved more insight - you can tell he's happy to spin these tales with ease but to often he's cut out of huge pockets of film time. And to be sure the ACLU is still known for more than Skokie when you consider they challenged the Patriot Act, defended LGBTQ cases, defended the Westboro Baptist Church and that is just in the last 20 years. During Ira's tenure, there was Oliver North and McLean v. Arkansas, which involved the teaching of "creation science" in Arkansas public schools, and many more cases that could've inspired more scenes of Constitutional law lessons regarding affirmative action, gun rights, etc. 

"Mighty Ira" is more useful as a visual guidebook on ACLU and their practices and how they fight to the death to protect speech. No matter how harmful it may be, one has the right to assembly and to speak out and march. When the ACLU faces a modern day Skokie like the 2017 Charlottesville incident, the issue in today's world may be less who can speak out...but rather that no speech is better than speech. Scary thought.

Connery at his most savagely brutal

 THE OFFENCE (1973)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Offence" is fairly close to being one of Sidney Lumet's finest films ever - a combination of the theatrical etched with the marked intensity of his first amazing feature, "12 Angry Men" (a film that merits close inspection by all students of film). Most of "The Offence" is tantalizing and shaky and fairly intense yet it is really at its best in three sequences - the virtually wordless opening, a middle section about marital discord, and the finale that is a true shocker between assailant and victim. 

Sean Connery in one of the angriest, atypical roles of his career plays the bewildered Detective-Sergeant Johnson, plagued by his 20-year career of having seen murders and violence of every iteration. In the stunning opening sequence, he is staking out a school where a suspected child molester is in the area. Nobody knows what the molester looks like. At first, it appears that one girl is walking home alone after waiting for someone to pick her up. She is walking through a ditch leading to some tunnel when she is seen with some man (a neighbor notices this and doesn't report it until several hours later). Johnson and many others in the police department are out and about looking for the schoolgirl and finally find her alive. Johnson is relieved yet he is obsessed with finding the culprit. Someone is seen walking around at night, presumably drunk, and it turns out to be a Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen - absolutely brilliant). Baxter is the suspect and Johnson questions him, flies into a violent rage and kills him. 

"The Offence" is not easy viewing and much of it may be hard to take for average viewers, especially fans of Sean Connery. Connery doesn't make it easy for us, nor should he. He is animalistic and yet controlled in his behavior, and we are never sure what his next pronouncement will be. He is quite evocative in the scenes between him and his poor wife (Vivien Merchant) whom he calls "not pretty" and says she never made him happy. This sequence is astounding at evoking the truth of this sad, pathetic marriage. Then there is Johnson's last scene with Baxter, and the conversation leads to the expected outrage of this alleged child molester (though we are never sure if Baxter is guilty) and how he resists the ugly thoughts inside Johnson's head - the big sergeant clearly needs a vacation yet we also see how this sergeant might be insinuating how he, perversely, wants to commit these crimes. Chilling.

"The Offence" is fairly compelling stuff though the scenes between Johnson and his Detective Superintendent Cartwright (Trevor Howard) does not quite have the spark in the narrative as the other sequences. Based on a play by John Hopkins, the film's theater origins are very apparent and perhaps even the powerful three sequences could have been broken up a bit (there are occasional flash cuts to what Johnson is thinking, especially being the savior of the schoolgirl that left me quite disturbed). Still, in terms of its literally cold, harsh look at the madness that starts to seep in when you can't separate such grueling work from your own life, "The Offence" is startling, demanding and pummels you. Sean Connery does the same, trying to shake his James Bond image at the time. The audiences might not have been ready but Connery had already been a stronger force to be reckoned with - a truly dynamic, titanic presence in a tough, uncompromising film. 

Pandora is the land of turquoise dreams

 AVATAR (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

James Cameron's "Avatar" is an astronomically explosive experience of a movie. It is also far more explosively imaginative when dealing with a fictional planet called Pandora than with some rudimentary military grunts and businessmen whose vested interest in Pandora is not in its sensual beauty or florid environments but, rather, what they can mine from that planet. Putting it plainly, those with financial considerations don't deserve Pandora.

Disabled Marine vet, Jake (Sam Worthington), is being used as a substitute for his deceased twin brother to assume the body of an avatar and explore the delicate, dangerous jungles of Pandora - a planet on the  Alpha Centauri star system. Jake is told right from the start by a corporate stooge (Giovanni Ribisi) from RDA, known as Resources Development Administration, that the purpose behind Pandora is to mine it for a precious mineral called unobtanium. The focus is for Jake to inhabit a human-hybrid, extremely tall blue-skinned creature from the N'avi tribe (the avatar) and get the tribe to relocate to a different part of the planet so the mineral can be obtained. Further stipulating these orders is Marine Colonel Miles Quaritch (proudly battle-scarred and formidable villain played by Stephen Lang) who says that if the N'avi do not move away, a firefight will be incurred. So corporate and military forces make no bones about annihilating with missiles and explosives on a tribe armed only with bows and arrows. 

The N'avi are quite an extraordinary tribe of 12-foot giants who are at one with nature (the Native American allegory is unmistakable). They have many precious bioluminescent flora and fauna in this amazing biosphere of floating rocks with springs of water, and many dangerous creatures such as predatory dragon-like banshees who fly across the skies and waterways - the N'avi require a bonding with the rider that is also a rite of passage. There is also a Tree of Voices that contains the ancestral voices of the past, the Hometree which is housed where the large deposit of the precious mineral of unobtanium exists, and The Tree of Souls where one's consciousness can be transmitted from one organism to another. Such intoxicating beauty should not be destroyed or messed with.

"Avatar" also contains a rather mute love story between Jake's avatar (claiming rather humorously to be with the Jarhead Clan!) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who is a fierce warrior in her own right and daughter of the Omaticaya clan (clearly a real clan in this environment which is inhospitable to humans). I was never really convinced by this love story but it doesn't hurt the film. "Avatar" is at its best during the exploration of Pandora and these are sights and sounds I've never seen in the movies before. A combination of dark and bright turquoise colors that kept me so absorbed that I wanted to visit this mysterious moon and soak it all in. Less riveting are the cliches of the military wanting to demolish something so beautiful if necessary - it leads to an elaborate action climax that is still something to behold and has real-world politics written all over it (Iraq, for one, and no doubt the plight of the Native Americans in USA). Still, the Colonel is just pure evil, thinking with his head not his heart. War is still something of an answer in movies like this coming from an American military and, though I understand how it leads to violence, it is still cliche ridden. 

Nevertheless, "Avatar" has too much to recommend and I found it smoothly compelling in all its 162 minutes. From a wunderkind director like James Cameron, he can still craft watchable, imaginative entertainment better than most. Despite all the cliches and somewhat half-hearted love story, "Avatar" is often a wonder to behold. Nothing half-hearted about the depiction of this lovely world of Pandora.

Passivity threatens the chills

 I TRAPPED THE DEVIL (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What they term slow-burn in cinema nowadays, I simply call leisurely. Horror films at their best, particularly in evoking dread about the supernatural, take their sweet time in developing a story with characters of some note, some personality. "I Trapped the Devil" is leisurely paced with an ominous music score yet it failed to entice me because the characters were thinly veiled and somewhat uninteresting.

There is hope from the start when we observe a bearded man named Steve (Scott Poythress) living alone in a family home with an old Christmas tree and lots of Christmas lights. It is of course Christmas time and Steve's brother, Matt (AJ Bowen) and his fiance, Karen (Susan Burke), arrive unexpectedly. Steve wants them out of his house and Matt knows there is something quite perturbed about his brother. Apparently, Steve is keeping a man locked in a separate room in his cellar with a wooden cross barricading it. This is no ordinary man, though, this is the Devil himself.

I wouldn't dream of giving anything away yet, on the other hand, there is not much to give away. We never see the Devil, but we do hear him talk. And he does talk about needing help and wanting to get out (these few moments of that red-lit door are chilling). Steve also talks about his past life with his wife who had passed away, and she fleetingly appears in split-second images flickering on the TV monitor. Steve also talks about the Devil and evil, and newspaper events of missing people that have come back. The reason behind the sudden reemergence of these missing people? Not good detective work but rather because he has kept the Devil locked up in his house. How and why are two very pressing questions that I did not need answers to nor are they provided. But we do have to get through a lot of talk and exposition and not much action to get to a finale that isn't quite the sum of its parts.

I was not expecting split-second shots of mutilations or bloodied corpses or any "Evil Dead" mayhem - I have seen enough of that nonsense to know it doesn't always work with regards to a story about the Devil or demons. It does pain me to say that for an indie horror flick, this one just occasionally bored me. Again, not because I was wrung dry by hair-trigger scares or false alarms but because the dread is too drawn-out for a such a simple story. Scott Poythress maintains some level of introspection yet most of the time he's either silent or holding a gun or ready to babble - I never felt truly invested in his probable delusions or perhaps the reality that he really has confined a supernatural creature. AJ Bowen's Matt and Susan Burke's Karen appear to be more apathetic than concerned over a situation that could be a potential kidnapping - nobody thinks about calling 911. Sure, there is a sliver of concern but once Karen finds a loaded gun, it is only of passing concern. These characters, excepting Poythress's Steve, are far too passive.

I respect the attempt by debuting director Josh Lobo and if his interest is in developing stories of suppressed or unseen evil in the most remote locations, I am all for it. Yet he does need to develop his characters and/or their personalities a bit more. This could have been a fascinating, claustrophobic examination of a character who may or may not be losing his sanity. All we get saddled with is a lot of red tinted cellar scenes, too many talky moments, and the barest of shudders about the alleged menace behind that cellar door. The menace, like the Devil, sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than anyone else in the movie. 

Stale Vengeance

 EYE OF THE TIGER (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Survivor's iconic song, "Eye of the Tiger" (written specifically for "Rocky III") was a song I played relentlessly in 1982. I had the LP and played the song over and over, pretending to be Rocky Balboa while doing the warmups. That nostalgic moment in my early pre-teen years will stay with me longer than the stale, moronic and completely absurd revenge action picture called "Eye of the Tiger." Oh, yes, that iconic song is played twice in this movie, naturally titled "Eye of the Tiger," yet the song would've been better served in "The Lion King" soundtrack. 

Check this plot out and see if you can count all the cliches. Gary Busey is Buck, a family man let out of prison who finds his childhood town has been terrorized by a motorcycle gang in league with the bastard of a sheriff (Seymour Cassel, of all people). That means the gang can pillage, steal, and rape women whenever they want. Lovely. I already see a superior movie - the original "Mad Max." In fact, the virtually anonymous gang is led by a biker leader with a very poor man's Mohawk (William Smith - shades of Vernon Wells' Wez from "The Road Warrior"). To top it all off, they are living like scavengers in a desert plot of sorts just like the biker gang from "The Road Warrior." Even worse, the gang barrel through Buck's house and kill his wife and reduce the daughter to elongated catatonia. 

Gary Busey is one of those actors that looks like he is made of steel and can't be hurt - he is the perfect hero for this. Yet there is nothing to latch onto in Buck's character, especially when he shares not one tear after his wife is dead. The gang even remove the dead wife's coffin and drag it to his demolished house! These guys are pure evil and they get their just desserts in one crafty explosion after another. I just yawned through the whole thing. 

Keeping Solidarity in secret

 MOONLIGHTING (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A British home workman might charge more money to renovate a home than a Polish worker who just wants a chance to make a little money to, you know, to buy a watch and a bicycle. "Moonlighting" is about Polish workers who come into London with temporary visas to illegally renovate a Polish government official's home. This may not sound like an exciting story for a movie but when you consider the logistical complications of the Polish workman doing a job illegally and secretly while Poland is facing martial law, "Moonlighting" becomes one of the great, exciting, humorous political films of all time without bluntly throwing politics in your face.

Jeremy Irons is completely convincing as a Polish foreman, Nowak, who brings along his workers to London and he is the only one that can speak English. They move into the flat, demolish walls, work through the nights at times, paint and fall behind schedule too. The men need entertainment so the funds are used to buy a TV for forty pounds that has no plug and no antenna (referred to as "aerial") so they can watch sports. When the TV breaks down, it almost comes as a blessing in disguise because Nowak discovers through the British national newspaper that Poland is under martial-law (the Solidarity movement). The laborers can't speak or read in English and they also can't speak to their relatives or families in Poland since all lines are cut off. In addition, Nowak starts running out of money and finds a clever way of stealing from a local supermarket by misplacing his gloves. Will the Solidarity movement end before they finish their work or will they find out that their foreman has been keeping a secret?

"Moonlighting" is fluidly directed by Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski ("The Shout"), and all the possibilities and outcomes of such a dire scenario are played out with utmost skill and authority. Every frame of "Moonlighting" contains escalating tension between Nowak and his tired workers. Every detail is wrung out from Nowak collecting a neighbor's newspaper for the latest headlines, to stealing a bicycle when his own is stolen, to the supermarket managers catching on to his thievery, to Nowak's black-and-white picture of his wife, to trying and failing to pick up a salesgirl, and avoiding clashes with the apartment landlord who can't stand the loud construction noise during the night. Irons gets underneath the skin of Nowak, a man facing a monumental crisis of faith in himself and his native country. The final scene of revelation is a nail-biter, showcasing the realities of a world falling apart.

 Simply made with complex weaving of fragile emotions and fragile relationships between Nowak and his workers without seeing one frame (other than on a TV news channel) of Poland's Solidarity in late 1981, "Moonlighting" is essential cinema about a fractured, frenzied time that demands attention and recognition.   

This is not America

THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What works best in John Schlesinger's absorbing Cold War-spy-drama-as-played-by-amateurs is that the movie never judges them nor does it celebrate, condone or admonish these traitors either. Based on a true story, it is a mistake to read "The Falcon and the Snowman" (the characters' sobriquets) as anything but traitors yet it is not how they view themselves. Well, not Christopher Boyce though Daulton Lee does see it that way.

Timothy Hutton plays Christopher Boyce and a highly unrecognizable Sean Penn plays Daulton, both California kids from well-to-do families and former altar boys. Boyce chose a vocation with the ministry and then opted out, though the reasons remain unclear. He goes out in the wilderness and sends his pet falcon to fly around catching birds. Daulton is a mess, a nervous wreck of a kid who goes out on drug deals in Mexico and does nothing else worthwhile in his life. Both of these 22-year-olds live with their parents and are best friends. Boyce's father is a retired FBI agent (fabulously played by Pat Hingle) and gets his son a job at RTX, a defense contractor in a separate, cryptic (in every sense of the word) section called the Black Vault. This is a secretive room within the building's confines that employs a Vietnam Vet (Dorian Harewood) and a flirty, engaging woman (Mady Kaplan) as they monitor CIA cables being sent and addressed to NSA regarding world affairs. Boyce can't stop himself from reading these cables and finds there is a wide U.S. surveillance using intricate satellite systems, specifically zoning in on Australia with regards to the prime minister. Clearly a lot of these cables are not meant for mainstream news thanks to national security.

"The Falcon and the Snowman" is based on Robert Lindsay's novel and is exceedingly good, spine-tingling filmmaking. It has nerve, poise and an attitude about spying as a generally slow-moving, intricate and dangerous process. Hutton's Boyce decides it is a good idea to sell some secret documents and codes to a Russian embassy in Mexico. Guess who the courier is? Why none other than Penn's Daulton who at first scoffs at the idea of selling top secret documents to an embassy for a then-Soviet Communist country. "I am a patriot...and proud of it," says Daulton. Daulton seems to have no political ideals though he is aware of dire political situations in the past, like the socialist Allende elected to Chile's government. Paranoid Daulton does it for the money, while Boyce is doing it out of some far-reaching idealism I couldn't quite fathom. His eyes are opened to the NSA's practices of trying to influence elections and foreign governments by spying on them. This is what Boyce can't get a grip on and somehow feels he has to let the embassy know they are watched. The boys are complete amateurs and yet, as voiced by David Suchet as Alex, a KGB agent, "the minute you took money, you became a professional." 

While watching "The Falcon and the Snowman," one becomes aware how these two professionals are anything but. Boyce just has to tell Daulton about the secret inner workings of our government. Daulton often lets the cat out of the bag to women friends and even to his own disbelieving family! Daulton also makes himself a prime target to the Russians by waltzing in to the embassy, sometimes climbing the wall to get in (who knew it could be that easy). That's what makes this movie potent and fully charged in its energetic storytelling - these are just kids who eventually realize they are playing with fire and it will lead to their inevitable downfall. Hutton shows the sullenness of Boyce - he's smarter and alert to what he's doing and to whom yet there is a fundamental loss of understanding I had about him. Is it really ideals or does he realize during this late 1970's period of Nixon and Watergate and Vietnam that disillusionment has settled in and he has nothing to lose? With Penn's Daulton, he just becomes a coked-up freak who is imbecilic and suffers pain and torture in the process before being arrested by the FBI. Despite becoming professional spies, they are still amateurs.