Boring stiffs

 CLASS (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Class" starts off strong with a progressive comic spirit, so strongly that I figured this was going to be a modern day update of Mike Nichols' fabulous "The Graduate." It is imperative that I mention how I can start off by saying how a movie starts strongly (and this is commonplace in reviews) and how it flies off the rails so quickly. The issue here is complete abandonment of a terrific premise for an alleged college comedy.

Andrew McCarthy is the new student at a prestigious prep school (well, how many aren't prestigious?) He is Jonathan Ogner, and he's already made a boo-boo in terms of college etiquette - he has worn his uniform on the day he arrives on campus! I am not sure what the issue is exactly but I went with it. He meets his roommate, Squire Franklin Burroughs IV (Rob Lowe), an upbeat prep student also known as Skip with a knack for partying and fondling uptight women. Skip fools Jonathan into wearing women's underwear outside the school only to be mocked. Jonathan ups the ante and pretends to cry at the cafeteria and hangs himself! Of course it is all a prank and Skip got fooled into believing he committed suicide. So far, so good, so preppie. When Jonathan goes to a bar in Chicago to have a sexual experience, he fails and is consistently mocked until he meets Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset) and they have an affair. It gets steamier and steamier as they have sex in an elevator and in hotel rooms. Jonathan never tells her he is a preppie student, claiming instead to be a Ph.D student. Ellen is older and turns out to be Skip's mother! Whoops, Sexual Apocalypse!

Unfortunately, what starts out as a prankish, almost black-humored "Animal House" tale then develops a sweetness with the striking Bisset, and then becomes self-serious. We have a dinner party at Skip's house where Jonathan is invited and he and Ellen see each other - the affair gets placed in the backburner so as not to reveal to Skip who the mystery woman in Jonathan's life is. Then we are introduced to the patriarch (Cliff Robertson) who doesn't exude an ounce of humor or elegance - he is just a boring stiff. And Ellen starts drinking too much and becomes a neurotic stiff. Likewise Skip. A whole bunch of stiffs stuck in some movie that loses its identity. Then we get too much talk about the SAT's since Jonathan cheated on them and told Skip about it, not to mention an investigation on students' whose SAT's scores do not match their college grades. There is also a muddy fight on rolling muddy hills that goes on far too long. 

"Class" was seemingly designed to be a raunchy version of "The Graduate" and instead it becomes an unironic movie about nothing. Ellen is eventually placed in a mental institution and we get too much of Jonathan's guilt, and somehow whatever comic aspersions were cast erode quickly. Too serious for its own good.

Multiple Personality Disorder Horrors

 IDENTITY (2003)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

James Mangold's "Identity" had me fooled with its twisty twist. I suppose calling it that makes it less M. Night Shyamalan and more Mangoldian twist. I was fooled and despite a very rocky, incongruous beginning, I was eventually swept in by this movie even though I am not sure it is the horror version of "Sybil." "Sybil" was already horrific and based on a true story, and Brian De Palma's "Sisters" and various other multiple personality horror films might be superior yet "Identity" still holds some ground.

From the start, I was immediately put off by the mean-spirited characters and situations that are set-up and then rewound to show how they got there. Well, there isn't much, at first. Amanda Peet is a high-class Las Vegas call girl who wants to move to Florida and have her own orange grove. Her car almost get stuck in a current bad rainstorm. John Cusack is a former cop and now limo driver to a pompous actress (an unrecognizable Rebecca De Mornay). They are also in the midst of this rainstorm and stop at a motel, just like Peet's character, and he runs over a woman on the road! Then there is truly reliable Ray Liotta as a cop bringing in a prisoner (creepy-as-ever Jake Busey) - they also go to the motel because it is only the one available for miles. There is also a family with a young son whose mother is the one that gets runs over by Cusack! I shan't forget Clea DuVall and her new husband and they are as annoying as you can imagine, relegated to screaming matches! Meanwhile, one by one, people get killed at his motel. The motel owner (John Hawkes) is a dubious personality, to say the least. And there is much hate from him towards Peet due to her profession. I would not want to be anywhere near these people. 

"Identity" starts off with a mean streak as these characters are too selfish and do stupid things, like in any slasher flick. Run and scream in the rain, why don't yah? Still, the story picks up speed when we realize there is something ominous at this motel that has more up its sleeve than random killings. Don't quite cue "The Shining" yet because it all evolves with a double twist that knocked my socks off. It was the most surprising ending since maybe Shyamalan's "Unbreakable."

John Cusack always holds my interest and we are pulled along by this mystery just as he is, and it is a major plus to have the presence of Ray Liotta (though I did suspect he wasn't exactly who he said he was). Amanda Peet kind of grated my nerves and Clea DuVall was wasted - a real shame for an actress of such vitality. Overall, a decent effort by director Mangold to suggest a multiple personality disorder frame of mind within the confines of a horror slasher.  

Ruins a perfectly good song

 JEEPERS CREEPERS: REBORN (2022)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

An endurance test is what it feels like for a non-movie, a piece of filth with no brains or insights or even two-dimensional characters worth caring a lick about. That non-movie is called "Jeepers Creepers: Reborn" which is not the latest example of a so-bad-it's-good movie. Don't be fooled my merry gorehounds out there - this alleged sequel reboot is not worthy on the most basic gore level.

Not that "Jeepers Creepers" movies were ever meant for gorehounds. The original "Jeepers Creepers" thrived on imagination, a creative-looking and designed monster, spooky backwoods atmosphere and the comic spirit of Justin Long. This movie has the Creeper but we see too much of him. He also doesn't quite feast on flesh for the 23 days of his expected appearance every 23 years - he kills without provocation. There is a less-than-lively young couple who are headed to a Horror Hound festival (no relation to the convention despite using the same font) somewhere in the backwoods of Louisiana, the state itself which has been green-screened to death. The festival is some sort of carnival with lots of cosplay (though seemingly sparsely populated) and a chance to go to some escape room in a dilapidated old house!

Meanwhile, Creeper is nearby and wants the young woman's baby blood since she is pregnant (she's played by Sydney Craven, unrelated to director Wes, and has appeared in 42 episodes of "East Enders"). Why baby blood? Why a sacrifice and since when does the Creeper have evil cloaked assistants? Oh, the Creeper also knocks out a utility pole and now nobody at Horror Hound has wifi! Bloody hell!

The thinner-than-Stephen-King's-Thinner plot of this makes little sense considering the series itself and the Creeper's own actual agenda as addressed in the original film. The dialogue is banal to the point of sleep-inducing and no character here makes much of an impression. We are saddled with the most soporific horror movie sequel in ages. Just like the record of the title's namesake that is destroyed making the Creeper furious, this movie ruins a perfectly good song and will make your peepers' eyelids shut quickly.  

Myth, Legend, Man

 BARBAROSA (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The strangest western I've ever seen, most allegorical in terms of religion and surreal backdrops, is Alejandro Jodorowsky's "El Topo," a cult western that has no real equal for what it attempts. The second most strange western I've ever seen is Fred Schepisi's "Barbarosa" which has the unusual casting of Willie Nelson and Gary Busey - both at the top of their game. So is underrated Australian director Fred Schepisi who has fashioned a mythical western with almost no cliches and that is a feat considering the genre's traditional norms.

A naive farm boy named Karl (Gary Busey, with buck teeth) has trouble he's escaping from - he has accidentally killed his brother-in-law with a stick! He's riding his horse when he comes across a legendary, mythical outlaw named Barbarosa (Willie Nelson) - the outlaw has no relation to the Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa. This aging gunfighter is no John Wayne wannabe or a Clint Eastwood variant; he is simply wanting to get close to his Mexican wife and daughter and has to deal with members of that clan trying to kill him. Each one fails and is killed by Barbarosa. There is the patriarch of that clan, the angry father-in-law Don Braulio (Gilbert Roland), who had his leg shot off by Barbarosa on the day of the outlaw's wedding! Braulio commissions a bunch of gunslingers but only one has the temperament he's seeking to kill that mythic figure and son-in-law, the fiercely committed Eduardo (Danny De la Paz).

Meanwhile, Karl is not adept with a gun or much of anything else but he is a true gentleman and a good kid - he treats Barbarosa with respect. Karl wants to stay with the outlaw as a partner-in-crime, ripping off anyone with money. Barbarosa wants to walk alone in the desert landscape as the revolving door of hired killers runs through his horizon - can he ever truly stay with his Mexican wife (Isela Vega), who longs to leave with her husband, or his daughter (Alma Martinez) whom Karl has a passing interest in?

What is most striking in "Barbarosa" is that desert landscape which seems hazardous to one's health - too many rocks, too many cliffs and a sectional woodsy area that spells death around each tree. Nothing feels quite safe in "Barbarosa" and we get strikingly photographed images that resonate such as the burial of three men with only their heads surfacing above ground  that is memorably eerie; the armadillo that Karl can't quite catch for dinner, and the pristine ranch where Don Braulio lives with his clan. 

"Barbarosa" also has Karl's slowly nuanced transformation from farm hand to a hellish gunfighter who has a vivid, unforgettable final scene that cements this 90-minute western into one of the greats of its genre. It also breaks down the idea of myth, of seeing a man and his infamous name that every Mexican exclaims as one to spin tales about to children and to equate with a devil or demon who can't be killed. Barbarosa is not so much a myth or a demon as much a man trying to support his family. Just a regular joe.

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.