Muck of the past

MASTER GARDENER (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Paul Schrader is one of those writer-directors who is willing to go places few wish to pursue. There is always the well-traveled road choice and his latest film, "Master Gardener," explores mostly new territory and occasionally heads towards the familiar. Still, in a time where everything is rebooted and repurposed for 80's nostalgic revivals, I am okay with Schrader recycling a third of his past endeavors.

Joel Edgerton gives a hypnotic, persuasive performance as the titular character, an insular horticulturalist named Narvel who tends to the elegant, enormous gardens of a Miss Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver, who somehow brings up memories of Dickens' Miss Havisham). It is Haverhill's private estate and Narvel has a few employees who keep the flowers blooming over the crucial seasons. Of course, nothing is precisely what it seems. Narvel is having a relationship with Miss Haverhill, usually after an elegant dinner. It is also evident that Narvel is not just any gardener, he is a former white supremacist who has committed murder (the scene where he is barechested revealing all those Nazi tattoos is a moment to take your breath away). Narvel might have changed his ways but he's still got those tattoos and he's got that haircut known as an undercut, which has become stylish in the 21st century but his plain cut is far too evocative of something we'd like to forget. 

The slow chain of events in these gardens begins to intensify when a young woman named Maya (Quintessa Swindell) is employed under the tutelage of Narvel. Maya is Haverhill's niece and Haverhill has never been happy with Maya's mother, a drug addict who died from an overdose. Maya suffers beatings from her drug dealer of a boyfriend and Narvel takes it upon himself to help her (a lot of this will remind many of Schrader's "Taxi Driver" screenplay). Narvel's hidden past is creeping up on him and I will not reveal what other obstacles he has to face.

"Master Gardener" is deftly carried along by Joel Edgerton, a workmanlike Aussie actor who has a delicate presence of repressed emotions - the guy initially can't go along with sleeping with Maya (his suppressed hate is no longer the issue). I was quite surprised by the many developments with these characters who grow on you - just like the opening title credits featuring flowers, they all blossom. Sigourney Weaver has a tricky role of appearing like a matron of all yet she secretly may harbor hate towards anyone not white-skinned (the fact that she sleeps with Narvel is indication enough). Swindell's Maya also makes a huge impression and she walks the walk and talks the talk, a streetwise girl who needs Narvel in her life. Swindell is a real find and is easily one of the brightest spots of the movie.

My objection to "Master Gardener" is that I wish it did not feature a violent solution that felt like a pale echo of "Taxi Driver" and "Light Sleeper" only not as brutal - just a few punches and kicks and (*SPOILER*) no one dies. I wish Schrader went somewhere else with regards to Maya (one sequence has them driving presumably a long distance from their lost jobs when, in fact, they are not that far from Haverhill's gardens). They need each other and I wish the film spent more time on them and their developing relationship. Still, despite such faint recycling of past Schrader violent climactic conflicts, "Master Gardener" is efficient in prose and a tight narrative structure, sometimes quite poetic (we hear Narvel's thoughts as he writes in his diary, another Travis Bickle staple). The ending is a doozy. 

Hate the dial-up modem's white noise

 BLACKBERRY (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Other than knowing it had something to do with the history of the forgotten phone called the Blackberry, I had no idea what I was walking in to when I watched "Blackberry." As a documentary subject, it might have been fascinating enough yet it is actually a docudrama. The biggest surprise is that I was elated once it was over and wished it kept going. A Canadian film production using some top-drawer talent we don't see enough of, "Blackberry" is so acidically funny, so absolutely in lockstep with the construction and imagination of a phone that changed our society, if ever so briefly until improvements were made, that you almost feel you are a fly in the wall. 

Set during 1996, we meet a crew of tech nerds inside a ramshackle of an office space - everything looks messy and disorganized. A toilet plunger sits on a desktop computer (remember those? That is what I still use to type reviews on, um, the desktop computer of course) and all of these young nerds play video games, clogging the one phone line with an Internet signal (Internet Explorer, or is it Netscape?), and they always have movie night. The movie in question is everyone's favorite - a VHS tape of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) is the CEO of RIM (Research in Motion) and he has developed a brand of smartphones that includes both the Internet and email capabilities with a built-in keyboard (he deplores white noise from dial-up modems). His partner in crime is a red-bandana-wearing Douglas Fregin (winningly played by the film's director Matt Johnson) who is stoked by the invention yet wants to speak for Mike - he looks like one of Kevin Smith's slackers only he is an actual bundle of energy. Their first meeting with Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), a hot-tempered bolt of lightning who seems to have emerged from Wall Street, doesn't go well but Jim does see potential with having a "computer in your phone." Jim eventually is allowed to oversee and promote what was initially called the "Pocket Link" and just as soon as there is a meteoric rise in success and sales (President Obama initially boasted about the Blackberry), there is also a precipitous fall. The now commonplace iPhone starts to emerge as a phone that is far more utilitarian, including having a touch screen keyboard rather than actual keys! It is the death knell for Blackberry and I seem to remember this sharp decline rather well. 

"Blackberry" is hysterical from the start as it shows these young men who are creative and imaginative yet can't hold a business meeting. Douglas is up front and often too bewildered, opting to run the company smoothly rather than aggressively (he wants to be co-CEO). Mike Lazaridis is his equal in that department, yet there is a stunning development during the course of their creation where he becomes all about business - Mike completely forgoes movie night for his crew of engineers! Jim is the man of the hour, able to talk good business sense and cut through all the red tape to get results. With this invention soaring, he becomes greedy, practically avoids his co-CEO responsibilities and thinks he can buy a couple of sports teams. When the SEC starts calling, Jim ignores them thinking that money talks no matter what - little does he know. 

"Blackberry" has a modest budget and looks like it was shot with S-VHS cameras or hi-8 camcorders but that doesn't detract from the film's relentless pacing and the anxiety from its characters. Jim is pure hyperbole, an action figure come to life with fumes coming from his ears who sees no limits. Mike has anxiety written all over his face, never finding common ground with anyone except for himself. He is not on an ego trip but the movie suggests he could become like Jim. Finally, Matt Johnson is the soul of the movie, a guy who likes to have fun and sees it all seeping from the company's original model. His final moment with Mike when he is let go is one of heartbreak. To add a touch of extra mileage, a supporting cast that includes Michael Ironside and Saul Rubinek sizzles the proceedings. "Blackberry" is acidic in temperament and, by the end, has heartbreak written all over it and plenty of laughs too. It is akin to "Wolf of Wall Street" as an out-of-control toybox with all its real-world business lessons. At the end of the day, Mike's sole concern is the white noise emanating from the new line of blackberrys. This is the one mainstream product line of recent times where progress was not its middle name.  

Fly Me to Neverland

 PETER PAN AND WENDY (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The most magical "Peter Pan" movie I've ever seen is the 1924 silent film version that starred Betty Bronson as the Boy who Never Grew Up. 1953's Disney animated version comes close. I never found Steven Spielberg's live action "Hook" to be enthralling - noisy, yes, but not the least bit magical. Though I have not been privy to the last couple of 21st century "Peter Pan" versions, Disney's newest "Peter Pan and Wendy" is often delightful fun, though never raucous, and has the right spirit and tone. This not exactly a compelling movie at all; just good solid adventure that will keep kids invested and entertained, even adults like myself .

I think everyone knows the iconic J.M. Barrie story quite well so keep in mind, with certain key differences, this is the exact same movie as the 1953 classic animated film. Of course, Peter Pan is back and played by British actor Alexander Molony, though he is not as rousing a Pan as I would've liked but he does have a kindred spirit with the previous boys in green tights (and don't message me with "well, the role was played by girls, too." I am well aware of that). There is a winsome quality to Ever Gabo Anderson as Wendy, the girl who doesn't want to grow up though she knows her days of playacting tales of Peter Pan with her younger siblings is coming to a close. Yara Shahidi is an exceptional Tinkerbell and she is ebullient in her physical acting since Wendy can't always understand what the fairy is saying. Kudos must also go to Jude Law as the aggressive Captain Hook who wants to kill Peter Pan - it turns out there is a backstory involving Hook as the former boy James who was abandoned by Peter. A momentous scene that I found moving is when Pan apologizes to Hook - a rarity in Pan lore.

"Peter Pan and Wendy" is fitting, colorful entertainment and legions ahead of Spielberg's dismal "Hook." Disney has been accused by a precious few naysayers of woke-isms which, by the way, there are precious few. Yes, there are some Lost Girls in the Lost Boys group (another key difference) and a lot more diversity than norm for this tale - that in and of itself is hardly something to deplore. Wendy also turns out to be proficient with a sword though it is nothing like what we saw Alice capable of in Tim Burton's caffeinated "Alice in Wonderland" remake. These are not flaws, just woke-isms which is a phrase I do find deplorable. For good old-fashioned entertainment with some jaw-dropping scenery making Neverland a place I would love to visit, "Peter Pan and Wendy" has a sense of periodic fun and magic to it. Sometimes, that is enough.

The Colonel Needs a War

 THE GREAT SANTINI (1979)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Recalling my first viewing of "The Great Santini" with great fondness back in 1979, I couldn't forget Robert Duvall's sense of authority, directness and full control as Col. Bull Meechum. Duvall is one of the national treasures of American cinema since his startling, powerful Arthur "Boo" Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird" to his amoral network boss Frank Hackett in "Network" and everything else in between and beyond. Watching "The Great Santini" again, Duvall is clearly tailor-made for his role as Meechum though there is a subplot that threatens the narrative and feels tacked-on for reasons never made clear. Despite that, Robert Duvall rules in a role few could tackle so honestly.

It is the pre-Cuban Missile Crisis era of 1962 and Lt. Col. Bull Meechum is a troublemaker in the Marine Corps, playing all sorts of pranks and tomfoolery on recruits and generals. One such incident involves a vomiting act at a restaurant where the Colonel substitutes Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup (it took me years to be convinced to eat that type of soup again since it made me sick thinking of this scene). Another involves literally dragging a recruit from a bathroom stall and reminding him of how many were attacked while taking a crap during Pearl Harbor and that wiping yourself after a dump requires more than two...well you get the idea.

Col. Meechum moves his family to South Carolina to a spacious house in a military base town. His close-knit family includes his pliant wife (Blythe Danner) and their four kids. One of them, Ben who is the oldest (an exceedingly good Oscar-nominated Michael O'Keefe), is consistently harassed and bullied by his father. This notably happens when they play one-on-one basketball and the Colonel is losing to his son - the Colonel cannot accept defeat during a time when there is no war. A war is what this man needs to feel justified in his military career so he goes to war with mostly his son (one unforgivable scene, after cheating on the game, has the Colonel bouncing the basketball off of his son's head). When the Colonel drinks heavily, he fights with his wife (he also has a habit of waking up the household at 4 am and gathers them together as if we was rallying the troops). He needs a war and he will not find it in this small town. This is especially true when he almost wrecks his Ben's basketball game at school - a scene that made me cringe at the truthfulness of it since Ben decides to nearly the break the arm of another player just to irritate his father.

The scenes of hostility with Bull's treatment of his son and his family hits close to home, all based on Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel. Yet when we get to a character known as Red Pettus (David Keith), an absolute racist who bullies and threatens the stuttering Toomer Smalls (Stan Shaw, who also played a stutterer in "Harlem Nights"), I felt as if this inclusion to the narrative hindered everything else that I love about "The Great Santini." The characters of Toomer and Red also appear in the novel and there is a similar tragedy but I felt as I walked into some other movie (Toomer and Ben become friends and there is a mutual trust). Just because it is set in the South though doesn't entail such a troubling subplot with Red - it almost feels as if it came out of left field. Perhaps it is to indicate the differences between father and son in a moment of crisis (Bull wished his son listened to his direct orders rather than coming to Toomer's aid) but I felt the differences were more properly aligned with Ben and his father's personal relationship than with Ben and Toomer. 

I still have great admiration for "The Great Santini" and for Robert Duvall's astonishingly realistic performance. Blythe Danner also offers ample humanity as the wife who is frequently apologetic for her wild husband's digressions - you know she could never leave him but she will not stand for incessant bullying. Michael O'Keefe hits all the right notes as the son who could love and hate his father equally - the scene where he brings his drunk father home is one for the ages. Also must mention the acerbic Lisa Jane Persky as one of Bull's two daughters who tries her father's patience. Duvall stands tall in this movie and it is one of his greatest roles ever. The Great Duvall, indeed. 

White Sands: My Brief Time as an Extra

 WHITE SANDS (1992)

Remembering my time as an extra 

by Jerry Saravia

The shooting dates for the occasionally tantalizing Roger Donaldson thriller, "White Sands," were August 13th, 1991 to October 31st, 1991. I lived in New Mexico at the time and we got word they were looking for extras at a rodeo located somewhere in Santa Fe (not sure where exactly, it has been a while). It was a cold, bitter night and the scene being shot involved Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's character, Lane, riding a horse while crowds were cheering. Willem Dafoe and Mickey Rourke were in attendance since their scene was shot a few times that night as they sat on the bleachers. The scene was shot and then the 1st AD reminded the crowd to be quiet and mimic shouting and hollering while they recorded ambient sound, I imagine. Naturally, the crowd forgot to mimic and yelled. "CUT," said the 1st AD. This was going for three hours already and then myself, my mom and my brother decided it was time to leave. It was too damn cold and New Mexico nights can be cold, you know, higher elevations. 

My younger brother ran into Mickey Rourke at the bathroom and they shook hands (presumably after they were done with their business). Mickey told my brother that he was glad he came out. That's pretty cool. I did see Samuel L. Jackson lurking about as he passed our seats but nobody knew who the hell he was. I did, after seeing "Jungle Fever" especially, but he was not a big movie star yet. Mastrantonio was not present that evening as her riding scenes were performed by a stunt rider. So it goes. 

My final thoughts on being an extra (and mind you, I don't think our scenes made the final cut) was the exactness of Willem Dafoe's entrance to the bleachers as he sat down next to Mickey Rourke after several takes. It was amazing to behold. The movie itself is hardly fantastic though definitely watchable. That night though was quite memorable.  

111 million wasted pints of blood

 TERRIFIER 2 (2022)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I said that the original sadistic freak show called "Terrifier" was the equivalent of 11 million pints of blood splattered across the screen. "Terrifier 2" is no different other than maybe it is more like 111 million pints this time around - call the Red Cross and donate all that blood. Just don't call Art the Clown.

"Terrifier 2" is more blood and gore and entrails served up to make the screen as reddishly violent as possible, so much so that it may as well have such scenes fade to red. Yes, that is how violent it is. The mutilations includes gouging and plucking eyes, removing beating hearts, stuffing mashed potatoes into blown-out-faces-with-a-shotgun, and relentless stabbings and disembowelments and decapitations and head-scalpings galore. One particularly vicious beating and stabbing lasts about 3 minutes and the poor mutilated girl is still not dead! Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) does the bloody deeds with a smile and a little of his "Oh, what did I just do?" demeanor makes it doubly disturbing...but never scary.

The story has Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) as a young woman who has panic attacks and vivid nightmares but tries to stay strong. She lives with her tough-as-nails mother (Sarah Voigt) and her younger brother, Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), who has a predilection for serial killers and for Art the Clown. The film is set during Halloween and the little guy wants to dress up as Art the Clown, much to the understandable disapproval of Mom. Meanwhile, Sienna is developing her Xena-like bronze-plated costume yet, one night, it goes up in flames due to lit candles. Sienna's mother is quite upset after putting out the fire and yells at Sienna, though she claims she never lit the candles. Jonathan finds a dead possum with a couple of schoolmates, then later finds the dead animal in the hallway as Art the Clown and a Little Pale Girl throw it at him! Guess what happens? Jonathan is accused of vandalism! The Little Pale Girl is sometimes present and sometimes not, and though we might think it is a spectral entity - it might not be.

"Terrifier 2" drags on for 2 hours and 18 minutes with a poorly developed family dynamic dependent on screaming matches than anything else. Two of Sienna's friends, both of whom are shallowly set up for slaughter, are killed so viciously that you wonder why Art the Clown does what he does. He's a supernatural monster dressed in a black-and-white clown outfit with a little black top hat strung around his head. This figure is frightening all by itself, including the Little Pale Girl with occasionally yellow piercing eyes and a terrifying smile. Copious amounts of blood, gore and severed body parts camouflage any real story or rooting interest in any character. The purpose of a movie like this is to allegedly thrill you and scare you but it only manages in becoming an endurance test. For the rest of you, it might be a bloody good time. Or you might want to donate blood to the Red Cross after seeing it. Either way, good luck.    

High Comically Frenzied Art

 THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(One of the best films of the 2010 era)

I have admired the idiosyncratic and preciously designed films of Wes Anderson but I wasn't quite anticipating this superb discovery of a 2014 film. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" seems to push the boundaries of Anderson's previous films, evoking more of a comic spirt and liveliness that doesn't seem to echo anything I've ever seen before. It is the first cartoonish comedy I've seen that actually looks animated - nothing in it looks or resembles anything that actually exists and that makes it doubly special.

The most liberally perfumed man in Europe is Monsieur Gustave H. (a brilliant tour de force role played by Ralph Fiennes), the Grand Budapest Hotel's exceptional and precise concierge (I am sure he is meant to encapsulate the perfectionism of the film's director). He is so precise that even as he tells the "LOBBY BOY" all the tasks he needs to perform in a desired time frame, he kind of stops himself - too much precision may be a bad thing. The film begins with an author of the book, aptly titled "The Grand Budapest Hotel," narrating until it switches to F. Murray Abraham as the elderly Zero (the lobby boy in the 1930's section played with perfect timing by Tony Revolori) in the 1960's telling his incredible, hypnotic adventures dealing with Monsieur Gustave H. The concierge bedded many wealthy, elderly dowagers and also has an inheritance that includes a sought-after painting called "The Boy with Apple" thanks to his latest relations with Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), the owner of the hotel who has passed on. Naturally, nobody from Madame D's family wants Gustave to acquire any of her money or acquisitions as mentioned in a will. 

Most of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is an absurdist comedy of epic proportions, and no shot is ever wasted and no frame or composition seems to be simple. The film would probably require multiple viewings just to catch all the references and subtle clues. I've seen it twice before and I still am not sure I caught everything - the constant whip pans from one enormous space to another makes you quiver in your boots at the sheer magic of it all. The hotel is a grand design with so many windows, floors, and spacious hallways that you might think this hotel is the biggest of its kind in the world. Scenes of cable cars, prisons, interior train cars, wintry outdoor shots of skiers skiing much faster than humanly possible and so much more are intricately designed and shot - every interior is as ornate and as grandiloquent as any film I've seen since possibly anything directed by Visconti. Expansive on a level unseen before by Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is a true marvel to witness. 

The actors all perform up to the speed and clarity Anderson invests upon this world hinted as a specific time and place that no longer exists. Ralph Fiennes is a revelation, and so is the Tony Revolori as the lobby boy Zero - the scenes of him running around the hotel or on rooftops exude a breezy comic feel (I just laugh looking at him). There are also peak notes of hilarity from absurdist characters played by Jeff Goldblum as a moralistic lawyer; Harvey Keitel as a bald, tattooed prisoner; Saoirse Ronan as Zero's girlfriend with a major birthmark on the right side of her face; Willem Dafoe as some sort of cretinous hitman who throws cats out of windows, and Edward Norton as a sharp police detective. 

I was just swept away by "The Grand Budapest Hotel" more so than Anderson's other films. I never felt as if everything was too stagy or beyond comprehension (unlike say "The Darjeeling Limited"). An original work of high and comically frenzied art from a master director.