Curiously remote Sarah Polley

 MY LIFE WITHOUT ME (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is a moment in "My Life Without Me" where Sarah Polley's character makes tape recordings for her daughters. You see Polley's character, Ann, is dying of ovarian cancer and she wants to make a voice recording for each of her daughters' birthdays until they are 18. I was waiting for a moment where Ann would ditch the idea, throw the tapes and the cassette recorder into the nearest river, and admit to herself that she is dying and finally admit it to her family. Well, the whole movie makes you ask such questions about Ann and why she doesn't do this instead of that. It becomes irritating.

Let's focus on Ann's character more closely. She is a 23-year-old woman, married to her first love whom she met at a Nirvana concert, has two daughters, has a janitorial job at the local university, and lives with her family in a trailer outside her mother's house. One fine day, after fainting in her
kitchen, Ann learns at the hospital, from a doctor who makes no eye contact, that she has incurable ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, due to her age, her cells are too young to fight the disease. Instead of letting her family know of her inevitable death, she keeps it to herself, claiming she has anemia, and starts to make a list of things to do. One of the things includes making love to a man outside her husband (and making this unlucky fool fall in love with her), finding a woman for her husband and her kids (no points for those who can guess her name will also be Ann) and, among other objectives, making those damn tapes for each and every person in her life.

I could have lived with knowing more about Ann's mother (Deborah Harry), a washed-out baker, Ann's boyfriend Don (Scott Speedman) who is getting a new job and loves his wife and kids, and Lee (Mark Ruffalo), the lonely guy who lives in a house with no furniture. This would have made for a great character piece, having these three characters interact with Ann. But no, we also get the
next-door neighbor, the hairdresser with braids (Maria de Medeiros) and Ann's co-worker (Amanda Plummer) who is always talking about diets. There is also small talk revolving around Milli Vanilli and the Nirvana band. Some of this is terminally annoying, some of it is as flat as a flatline. And we keep hearing Ann talking about herself and to herself...she is a selfish woman who should be worried more about her family and their future than her own needs. A better movie would show Ann focusing on why this has happened to her, questioning her own life and her past. The movie gives a hint of this from her multiple voice-overs but not nearly enough.

Sarah Polley, a gifted actress, is perfect as Ann but she doesn't play the character as someone frightened or saddened by the prospect of death - she sort of accepts it (like a middle-aged adult would) and moves on. The last thing I expect from this actress is to play a character who is so curiously remote from
her feelings. At least, her final scene with Ruffalo shows the emotion we expect from an actress with such striking eyes (to be fair, she has a couple of tearful scenes).

"My Life Without Me" is the kind of film that grates the nerves and makes you look at your watch. You keep waiting for Ann to realize that her objectives are foolhardy. After a while, you just hope she will go away. Sorry, Sarah Polley, if you read this review, remember, I love your work. I just don't love this
character.

Anything Goes

 THIRTEEN (2003)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The opening moments of "Thirteen" may cause audience walkouts or, in this case, DVD walkouts. A close-up of a stoned girl is seen as the camera gently sways vertically. Suddenly, we realize she is sitting on her bed and is breathing in gas from a can of compressed air and sharing it with another girl. Then they ask to be slapped and punched across the face, and they enjoy it. In just those few moments, "Thirteen" encapsulates everything that we may think teenagers are about - they enjoy violence and laugh at it. Their attitude is anything goes, as long as they don't get caught, or if they get caught red-handed, they will deny it.

The leading troubled girl is Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a straight A-student who loves to write poetry. She lives with her mother, Melanie (Holly Hunter), and her brother. Melanie runs a beauty salon from her kitchen (!) but it is barely enough to pay for their house rent. Occasionally, Melanie's boyfriend (Jeremy Sisto) stays over if he is not at the halfway house. Home is not grand but it is not hell either. Then one day, Tracy is overwhelmed when she sees a few girls led by Evie (Nikki Reed) get ogled by guys and watches them all storm off like a locust. Tracy wants to be a part of that world, she wants to be liked and to be popular. Before you can say that we entered the high-school world of John Hughes, Tracy starts hanging out with Evie. They become best friends, they indulge in drugs, sex, robbing clothing stores, partying, etc. Eventually Evie moves in with Tracy after Evie convinces Melanie of a familial tragedy. What can a mother do but be sympathetic to a 13-year-old?

But it is Tracy who starts to come apart. Her school grades plummet and sometimes she doesn't bother showing up for class (the fact that she may have to repeat a grade surprises her). She becomes more unsatisfied with her home life particularly her father's absence and her mother's boyfriend, who is
trying to be helpful. Tracy stars to cut her arm with a razor blade, just enough to let go of the pain she feels. Meanwhile, Evie starts stealing from Tracy and her mother. The lies and deceit mount, as does the drug-taking. 

"Thirteen" is tough and uncompromising to be sure, but something is askew in the depiction of Tracy's character. For one, I understand Tracy's need to cling to something, to be part of a clique. I also understand the co-dependency of Tracy to Evie and vice-versa. But for Tracy to be unhappy of her home life when she seems to love her mother feels untrue, especially to the point of mutilating her forearms (she used to cut her wrists). Call me a naive adult who has never suffered to such an extent as a teenager, but I hardly believed that Tracy's own ill-will and lack of self-image comes from an absent father. I imagine it would realistically (the screenplay was written by Nikki Reed based on actual experiences), but consider the girl we see before this wicked transformation takes place - she never seemed mad at anyone until she met Evie. It is like Evie drove Tracy to madness.

Most of "Thirteen" is shot with a hand-held digital camera, but the director Catherine Hardwicke should have told her cameraman that not every scene needs to be as wavy as a tsunami. Though I liked the icy blue-green look of the last half of the film, some stable camera shots could have been put in place. We do not need to be disoriented every second when the main character isn't always disoriented (and make no mistake, the film is told from Tracy's subjective point-of-view).

The performances are outstanding overall. Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed are completely credible as the co-dependent teenagers who look for anything wild to do as an experiment, including kissing each other. Most notable are the mothers in the film, including Holly Hunter who is mostly mortified at her daughter's behavior. Hunter does have a nude scene with her boyfriend that is likely to
cause more flinching than anything else in the film. The other mother, Brooke (Deborah Kara Unger) may or may not be Evie's real mother but she is not the best guardian for Evie - no wonder Evie leaves her. Both Hunter and Unger get credit for playing the most unglamorous female characters of their respective careers.

"Thirteen" has moments of raw honesty and paints a fairly bleak picture of teen life. The ending is a powerhouse delivering an emotional catharsis unlike any seen in any teen film in recent memory. I just wish Tracy had been a more rounded, full bodied character so we could understand the pain she feels. But if this is what it is like to be thirteen in the 21st century, then I suppose I should be counting my blessings.

You'll feel born-again!

 SAVED! (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Viewed on June 23rd, 2004

"Saved!" is quite a miracle in many ways and, in other ways, it is your standard teen comedy. But the twain shall meet since it is full of laughs and comical yet truthful insights. It's not a huge success at what it does but, in the summer of Hollywood's more-bang-for-your-buck, you can say "Hallelujah!"
just once.

"Saved!" takes place in one of the rarest of institutions seen in the movies - a Christian high school. Jena Malone is Mary, a senior at this prestigious school named American Eagle who is facing a conflict of religious interests. Her boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust), a fellow student, has discovered he is a
homosexual. Mary finds out when they share their secrets in the pool and underwater to boot! She is so outraged that she bumps her head and sees a vision of Jesus (not played by James Caviezel) telling her to help Dean. Nope, this is not an episode of TV's "Joan of Arcadia." Mary accepts this as a vision
but it may be anything but, and it spells a drastic change in her Christian attitude. You see Mary is now pregnant, thanks to Dean who has been expunged to the Mercy House (a place for sinners). She thought she could save Dean by having sex with him and still be a virgin (are Christian high-school girls that
dense?)

There are a couple of girls at the school lead by the-ever-dense Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), and this triad is trying to save any high-school student who needs saving. The principal, Pastor Skip (Hal Hartley regular Martin Donovan), leads his audience of students as if he was a game-show host. Skip's son, Patrick (Patrick Fugit, from "Almost Famous"), has just enrolled and is a member of the Christian Skateboarding team and is, naturally, interested in Mary. This offends Hilary who notices Mary is not herself and has the audacity to question Hilary's beliefs. The Pastor sees the problem and asks Hilary and her two minions to help Mary ("Just don't do anything gangsta.") Instead, the born-again girls try to exorcise her (with a nice touch of adding "Tubular Bells" on the soundtrack).

Mary is not dismayed by Hilary. She makes friends with Cassandra (Eva Amurri), the only Jewish student at the school and the most rebellious. Cassandra can see past Hilary, aware that no young girl just goes to Planned Parenthood for the heck of it. And to really make Hilary steamed, Cassandra is going out with Hillary's wheelchair-bound brother, Roland (Macaulay Culkin), who isn't really
Christian.

"Saved!" has a lot to say about high schools, young unwed mothers-to-be, homosexuality, acceptance, morally ambiguous issues, and so on. In other words, it brings up questions of faith that "The Passion of the Christ" avoided. This is a rare achievement these days where preference seems to center on the
typical teenage dilemmas about romance and sex. "Saved!" hardly cares about such issues, though there is a bit of both. Its concern is about Mary's own dilemma of becoming a mother, and about being expunged and sent to the godforsaken Mercy House. Mary starts to see the hypocrisies inherent in
Hilary's triad and incessant praying and in Pastor Skip's refusal in accepting sinners unless they attend Mercy House. Cassandra, Hilary's brother, even Mary's mother are more open-minded in their thinking, seeing that morality is not always definable according to the holiest of Christian texts, the Bible.

As satire, "Saved!" is hellishly funny and criticizes the foundation of Christianity in today's world more effectively and humorously than Kevin Smith's "Dogma." There are superb digs at Santa (which, when scrambled, spells Satan), Christian rock music, exorcisms, Lifetime movies, and who can resist
this movie when Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" plays on the soundtrack? And gradually through the writing, layers of vulnerability start to come to the surface. No person in this movie is what they initially seem, especially Hilary. I'll take issue with some critics who regard Hilary as a
one-dimensional monster. I'd say that her need to help others is a mark of the goodness in her, and I do believe that she believes it is all for Jesus. How can you hate a girl who wears a pair of white wings on Halloween? Even the crude shenanigans of Cassandra mask a girl who wants to be loved by someone she can relate to - how this girl ever ended up at this school remains a mystery. But the most crucial character is Mary, faced with a future she is not prepared for. Jena Malone has the appropriate moods of a girl waiting to be born again from her own born-again beliefs. Though the ending doesn't do her character justice, there is a great deal of sympathy for her plight. Yes, it all involves Hilary's cruel intervention (who is treated cruelly as well) and a prom nightmare involving a statue of Jesus. But you do wish Mary would leave that school and not be so suffocated with it all.

The teenage movie genre gets a real voltage charge from "Saved!" The movie has smart, sympathetic teenagers who, despite their individual beliefs, stick by their own rules and live by them. This is not a movie about Christianity as much as about the Christian ideals of faith and morality wrapped around some satirical barbs. You'll feel born-again!

Warm as a cup of hot milk

 A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There have been three different sequels to 1983's perennial Yuletide classic, "A Christmas Story," and only one seen by me - 1994's "It Runs in the Family" which was originally titled "A Summer Story." It was not half as charming or as funny as the original but it did give it the good old college try. "A Christmas Story Christmas" is the exception in sequels since it just about matches the original for charm, nostalgia and laughs even though it may not be quite as terrific overall, but how many movies are?

Peter Billingsley is an older Ralphie who still has vivid daydreams though they thankfully have nothing to do with a Red Ryder BB gun. He is not a man-child (thank God!) - Ralph is a married Chicagoan with dreams of making it as a novelist. His literary aspirations are of the sci-fi realm and his story deals with Neptune. His wife finds the 2000-page novel a bit talky and the umpteenth publisher he's met with denies interest in his work. It is also Christmas time and Ralph and Sandy, his wife (the vastly underrated Erinn Hayes), have two children who are definitely in the Christmas spirit. Ralph, unfortunately, finds out from his dear old mother that his father has passed on. Nevertheless, it is Ralph and family off to Hohman, Indiana to visit his mom (Julie Hagerty, perfectly cast replacing the late Melinda Dillon) and the childhood home he lived in.

The old childhood gang from 33 years earlier are all back and they include a boisterous Flick (Scott Schwartz) who runs a bar; unlucky Schwartz (R. D. Robb), who has run an extensive tab at Flick's bar, and the bully whom Ralphie beat up back in the day, Farkus with those mean yellow eyes (Zack Ward), who is now a police officer! Meanwhile, money is tight in the Parker family yet Ralphie is able to buy Christmas presents at Higbee's while the kids visit Santa ("Make sure you don't get kicked in the face!") Still, some minor disasters occur and none are as innocent as finding out Little Orphan Annie's secret code. Ralph's daughter, Julie (Julianna Layne), gets an eye injury when her father inadvertently hits her in the face with a snowball. His son, Mark (River Drosche), breaks his arm while sledding. While the Parkers are at the hospital, the presents are stolen from the trunk! Ralphie keeps waiting for a phone call from a publisher about his manuscript to no avail, plus there is the stress of writing an obituary for his old man. With no presents and a broken star that was to adorn the top of the Christmas tree, what is Ralphie going to do?

"A Christmas Story Christmas" finds it own groove in simple moments of humanity and a couple of hysterically funny scenes, such as Schwartz sliding down an old military ramp to settle his tab. I also love the bits about spouses calling the bar asking for their husbands; Ralphie's daydreams about winning the Pulitzer and beating out Isaac Asimov; the nextdoor Bumpusses and their various dogs, and much more.What is engaging about all this is the captivating presence of Peter Billingsley who also narrates the story (the bit about the egg in the radiator is illuminating) and he reminds us of the world he lived in as a parent, specifically 1973. It is a different world than the 1940's setting of the original but it still proves to be nostalgic without wallowing in it. There is still a timelessness to this Christmas tale, just like the original, and that is due to the writers having faith in relatable situations and proficient director Clay Kaytis ("The Christmas Chronicles"). Neither too wacky and never mean-spirited or gross (staples of most comedy sequels in the last forty years), "A Christmas Story Christmas" is delightful, engaging and witty. It also, by the end, reconnects to the original in a meaningful and inventive way. Old Man Parker would be proud. 

It'll Change Your Life

 THE GAME (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed in 1997

David Fincher's "The Game" is quite a mind-bending trip to endure, and it is fitfully labyrinthian and complex enough to give Kafka nightmares. It is manipulative, thrilling, exciting, nerve-wracking nonsense designed to give you a volatile charge every few minutes, and it certainly succeeds.

Actor Michael Douglas gives us a solemn portrait of a wealthy investment banker, Nicholas Van Orton, who lives in a luxurious mansion complete with a forgiving maid (Carroll Baker) and little else. Nicholas lives in solitude with just a television and a remote to occupy his time when he isn't working. One day, he meets his smart-aleck brother, Conrad (Sean Penn) who gives him a pass to CRS (Consumer Recreation Services) for his 48th birthday. This company offers grand entertainment and big thrills - "It'll change your life," says the grinning Conrad.

It certainly does. Nicholas is initially reluctant for excitement but goes along with it anyway. He undergoes an extensive, all-day application process answering feeble-minded questions, enduring various psychological tests, fitness exercises, etc. Eventually, though, his application is rejected but by
then it is too late, the game has already started.

This is an intriguing premise for a movie because the "game" itself depends on unpredictable surprises, and sometimes Nicholas is unaware when the game is real and when it isn't. A waitress (Deborah Kara Unger) accidentally spills a tray of drinks on him, but was it really accidental? Could there be a plot
against Nicholas perpetrated by a rival (Armin Mueller-Stahl) to take away his fortune? Is Conrad behind all this considering he was a former CRS player? Are people trying to kill him or is this just a game gone too far? Without the right actor in the lead role, the movie's double twists and red
herrings would have been hard to swallow. Douglas is, however, perfectly (and credibly) cast - he brings pathos to this cold, emotionless Gekko-type who we learn to care about, and whom we believe may be in danger. This threatening, terrifying game slowly brings Nicholas out of his repressed shell to confront his feelings, his emotions and his desires. Douglas, a veteran of shattered male egos from "Fatal Attraction" to "Basic Instinct," fully encompasses Nicholas's fears, flaws, and horrible memories specifically his father's suicide that we see in flashbacks.

The rest of the cast does as well as they can with such a mentally puzzling screenplay. Deborah Kara Unger (the siren from "Crash") is the obligatory femme fatale - an enigmatic, voluptuous woman who is fired from her waitress job and accompanies Nicholas to determine the extent of the game he's playing - she is, of course, not what she seems. Nobody in the movie is. Sean Penn has a brief, electrifying cameo as the tense (what else?) Conrad, and veteran actor James Rebhorn is the sly CRS executive who vaguely explains the nature of the "game." There's also a nice bit by Carroll Baker ("Baby Doll") as the maid who tells Nicholas stories about his father's past.

The movie "The Game" is not a complete success due to a cop-out finale that renders the rest of the film as a tad insubstantial - let's just say that Kafka was never accused of being a sentimentalist. Still, director David Fincher ("Seven") imbues the screen with his shadowy angles and low-key colors making the "game" as mysterious and frightening as possible. Michael Douglas makes the
film his own inhabiting every single shot of the film - we, in effect, are playing the game along with him. "The Game" is not as daring or as original as Welles's "The Trial" or Lynch's far more enigmatic "Lost Highway," or as much fun as the Kafkaesque "U-Turn," but it is a finely acted, occasionally
thrilling diversion.

Time of your life, kid

 RISKY BUSINESS (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

1983's king of teenage sex comedies, "Risky Business," is more than just a teen sex comedy - it is a sophisticated, slightly sardonic though always humanistic teen sex comedy (I can't think of any other during this period that fits that bill). It was also part of the 1980's youth-movies trend where wealth is everything and all that matters. Writer-director Paul Brickman might have had a tougher ending than what we got but the message remains the same. Time of your life, huh kid? Sure, "isn't life grand" (the presumably darker ending has this voice over line) isn't a line that occupies the lively comedy I saw 

Looking back at "Risky Business," it is amazing how mature these high-school teenagers are. Sure, they have their childish games yet they also play poker, drink, and wonder about their future ("Future Enterprisers" as it were). Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) is one of those white rich kids in a Chicago suburb, specifically the Chicago North Shore area of Glencoe. His strict parents are going out of town and are especially adamant about the house being in pristine condition, which includes dad's stereo ("Do you hear a preponderance of bass?") and mom's precious glass egg ("an artsy fartsy thing.") Joel sends them off at the airport, promises to use mom's station wagon instead of dad's Porsche and also to use "good judgment" when inviting friends over. Well, he followed all those rules dutifully, oh, please, we go to movies like "Risky Business" to see kids defy their parents, not respect their wishes. In the 1980's, teen comedies always had kids outsmarting their parents and, in some cases, the parents were always dolts. The parents here are not dolts although Joel's SAT scores were pretty damn great, close to perfect score of 1600, yet his mother asks if he can take them again. I got less 700 when I took them, so please don't tell anyone. 

Everything that can go wrong goes very wrong - merrily wrong - in Joel's life. Joel's friend Miles (Curtis Armstrong) calls the escort service to come to Joel's house. Joel plays up all the bass levels on his dad's stereo when dancing to and mimicking Bob Seger's classic song, "That Old Time Rock N' Roll" (one of the definitive tracks for a classic, fantastically energetic sing-along that you will ever see). Getting back to the escort service, Joel decides to call for himself for a one-night rendezvous with mysterious Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) and, slowly but surely, things get heated and out-of-control. Miles' advice to Joel prior to all this is "sometimes you gotta say, what the heck...make your move." Oh, Joel sure does but he has his regrets. In order to pay Lana for her services, he has to cash some of his bonds. Then there is the matter of the sleazy, though smart and aggressive pimp (Joe Pantoliano) who might be a little too dangerous. And can this possibly future Princeton student who has aligned himself with Future Enterprisers have the savvy business sense to make it big, particularly when he has to make some dough to pay for his father's nearly damaged Porsche that fell into Lake Michigan? 

Making it big means inviting a bunch of young males to his house for sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile, Joel has to simultaneously conduct an interview with a Princeton admissions interviewer (wonderfully played by Richard Masur) while Lana keeps interrupting by trying to make every room available for hanky-panky with a fold-out mattress. Joel has become an entrepreneur and, by the final scene, he is Lana's pimp. Whether that was planned or it just, pardon the pun, fell on his lap is not certain. Will Lana join him at Princeton and make big bucks in prostitution? Will the Princeton University students go for it? That remains ambiguous regardless of which ending you see, the original ending being available as a DVD extra. And yet, as the film's credits came up, I had one thought I recalled when I first saw it multiple times on cable in the 1980s - forget "Dirty Dancing," I had the time of my life with this raucous, almost poetic and romantic teen movie. 

You can kiss my furry butt

 MEN IN BLACK (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM 1997

Do we really need more movies about aliens? Since the success of the mediocre "Independence Day," the multiplex has been full of them. Television has "The famous black-and-white footage of a supposed alien autopsy. We have also had the marvelously witty and wicked satire "Mars Attacks!" but seriously folks, the thrill is gone. "Men in Black" is an entertainingly engaging comedy, and is full of whiz-bang effects galore, but it doesn't come close to the level of "Mars Attacks!"

During the opening sequence, we see Will Smith as a cop chasing a remarkably fast and superhuman killer who leaps from a high-rise building and disappears. It turns out the killer is an alien, and the Man in Black (Tommy Lee Jones) arrives on the scene and blasts Will's face with some kind of flashlight stick called a "neuralizer." Pretty soon, Smith hesitantly joins Jones in a secret organization called M.I.B., led by a big boss played by Rip Torn who "works 27 hours a day." Their job is to monitor the 1,500 extraterrestrials who disguise themselves as humans and are mostly residing in Manhattan. Any human memory of aliens is zapped by the M.I.B's neuralyzers. The aliens themselves are not
really evil or monstrous, they are really annoying! One of them even disguises himself as a dog.

One evil visitor lands in a farmer's backyard. The bug-like alien kills the farmer and assumes human form as played by Vincent D'Onofrio - he becomes a decomposing zombie with an obvious limp. This becomes a sly, amusing joke and it as wacky and overdone as you can imagine. Still, director Barry Sonnenfeld ("Get Shorty") has a commonplace flaw - he tends to take the spontaneity out of
all the numerous gags and jokes by presenting them one after another and compressing them, and then giving us some dead space until the truly funny climax. This become more overbearing than exhilarating, and you might forget most of the jokes since they slip by so quickly. "Men in Black" runs by at a full-throttle speed of 98 minutes, but it never truly takes off.

The performances hit all the right notes. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith have great comic chemistry and seem to be having a great time. D'Onofrio is a real riot to watch, although Linda Fiorentino is underutilized, as most female leads are nowadays, as a doctor who is constantly neuralized. The biggest scene stealer is an alien disguised as a dog ("You can kiss my furry little butt") that provides the biggest laugh in the entire movie.

The visual effects are impressive, especially the final shot of an alien holding the entire universe on the palm of his hand, and Sonnenfeld has a quick directorial eye (his visual inventiveness since "The Addams Family," though, has diminished). The movie is definitely fun yet somewhat dispiriting, and is
not half as clever as the original "Ghostbusters." Another flaw is that it starts and stops frequently after a bright, rhythmic half-hour - a problem that conflicts most box-office bonanzas. It's decent fun but, frankly, I've had it with aliens and would prefer more dinosaurs any day.