All you need is ganas

 STAND AND DELIVER (1988)

A LOOK BACK by Jerry Saravia

Ganas, that is all some East L.A. Latino high-schoolers need to take and pass the dreaded A.P. Calculus exam - a surefire way to get college credit. Math teacher Jamie Escalante (Edward James Olmos, a deserved Oscar-nominated role) begins teaching at the James A. Garfield High School with the hopes of turning things around at this school. Not much hope exists amongst the faculty, the teachers, not even the students yet Escalante knows these kids are smart and it is not just about them applying themselves to the challenge - it is about proving everyone wrong about these Latinos from the barrio whose job prospects and future endeavors seem extremely limiting.

I saw "Stand and Deliver" at the Douglaston, Queens movie theater a year before graduating from high school and loved the film then. Today, it is still a pleasurable, realistic look at the difficulties of teachers' jobs in educating kids and the tremendous struggle for these high-schoolers to do such challenging math work when just getting a passing grade in algebra is hard enough. The faculty has no faith but Escalante does - teach them with humorous asides and make it a party. After a while, the students start clapping their hands and their desks in unison, and we know that Escalante has gotten to them - he makes education fun. I had the impression then, and now, that I could take that difficult exam too if I had the right enthusiastic teacher. Of course, math never was my strong suit but if I was a student in his class, he wouldn't tolerate a mediocre response without persuading me. 

"Stand and Deliver" is based on a true story and it is about as gritty as one can get with this material, diligently and humanistically delivered by director Ramon Menendez. Naturally, some of the nuances are not all there with regards to relationships and the difficult learning process of studying one of the toughest mathematics courses ever. Escalante suffers a near-fatal heart attack (although in reality, there was an issue with his gall bladder) yet continues teaching as if he just ate some bad food. His devoted yet firm wife, Fabiola (Rosana De Soto), doesn't want her husband teaching extracurricular classes such as ESL for free, not to mention helping their youngest son with math homework. It is no wonder that Escalante is under extreme stress, making sure his barrio students pass this exam but at what cost? The movie skims past this with too much ease. I wanted to see more class sessions, especially the clarification of one particular math problem that everyone gets wrong and yet Escalante never tells them the right answer (is this so that all the students on the A.P. exam can get the same answer right/wrong despite not telling them one way or the other?) I wanted more scenes of familial struggles with these students who have to take classes through Christmas! We get an inkling of that with Angel (Lou Diamond Phillips) who is member of a gang that doesn't exactly believe in hitting the books - you know, got to preserve the tough guy image. He has a sick mother and there is a hint that he seems reluctant to be a gang member. There's also the late Vanessa Rosalia Marquez as Ana, a gifted student who almost makes the unfortunate choice of leaving school to work full-time in her father's restaurant. This student and Angel are given more emphasis in their endeavors than any of the others.

"Stand and Deliver" is an effective entertainment with a joyous ending that feels somewhat earned but we know it had to be even tougher. If only the director Menendez took more time to focus on Escalante, his family, and the students' lives so that we could see that progress played out. We get an inkling but there is not enough, oh, I don't know, ganas. 

Jesus sinned, Love is the answer

 THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)

Minor Lasting Thoughts by Jerry Saravia

"The Bible is a good book. But it is not the only book!"

- Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond, "Inherit the Wind"

Like any good book, everything that you read should be challenged. Can the Word of God be challenged by us humans, believers or otherwise? That remains a sticking point for many Christians and Catholics because Scripture, by and large, is open to interpretation. The issue is that there only seems to be one layer of interpretation that should be shared by all believers. The second that you stray from that singular interpretation, all hope for humanity is apparently lost since we must summon acquiescence. 1988's "The Last Temptation of Christ" is very loosely based on the Gospels though its main inspiration is a direct adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis's controversial 1950's novel. A simple observation might hold that the film questions Jesus as our savior, just as he is questioning it. Is he the Redeemer? Must he die on the cross to save us when, up to now in 2024, we are still sinning? To sin is to be human, again a simple observation, which means Jesus is no sinner because he is the Son of God. How else, though, are we supposed to know if we are human and God's children if not for his misbegotten son to prove his own humanity through divine measures?

Questions fill the screen for 2 hours and 46 minutes of Scorsese's "Last Temptation of Christ." We have a Jesus of Nazareth (Willem Dafoe) who is the only one building wooden crosses for the Romans (I am glad his carpentry paid off for something). Judas the Betrayer (a seemingly miscast and yet perfectly cast Harvey Keitel) hates what Jesus is doing yet senses that the Holy One is changing. Something is not right with Jesus as he hears footsteps in the rocky beaches yet sees no one. Jesus hears voices that crawl up his brain - no amount of aspirin or ibuprofen would've helped his severe headaches. He looks on at a tattooed Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey), a prostitute whom he watches having carnal pleasures yet he can't indulge in them himself. Is Jesus already being tempted and does this go against God? He must know yet, at one truly galvanizing point, he takes his heart out of his chest while holding an ax and is ready to go to war (the removal of the heart is not in the book). Has Jesus lost his mind or is he willing to go against what God wants? I tend to believe this schizophrenic Jesus is still trying to figure out his destiny yet he knows Judas is supposed to betray him - it is as if Jesus saw his future but still doesn't understand it. A doubtful Jesus? Judas Iscariot is the hero of this tale?   

"The Last Temptation of Christ's" main folly (and a blasphemous folly to boot by many who decried the film) was showing Jesus having a temptation while on the cross. His vision of a life that continued without a crucifixion was to get off the cross, marry and bear children with Mary and grow old. Jesus does wed Mary and she is pregnant yet God kills her in one stunning scene where she looks at an enveloping white light while smiling. Jesus is torn asunder so he later marries a different Mary and Martha, has several children, and grows to old age. Jesus has betrayed his own destiny and has become too human, like the rest of us. Such a vision is just that, a vision of a life that never was and never could be. When Judas berates a sickly old Jesus while a war brews in the background, Jesus cries and then begs God to take him back on that cross. That scene alone with Jesus kneeling and crying in shame for what he has done is the most powerfully moving scene in the entire film. It grants Jesus his moment, his own spiritual awakening on what his universal purpose was.   

I do not consider "The Last Temptation of Christ" to be Scorsese's finest work or his most spiritual (I sense more spiritual matters in his street movies, especially in the very fallible Jake La Motta of "Raging Bull") but it is an important, angry and sublimely poetic film, one that challenges, questions and yet remains true to the Gospels. When an energetic Jesus is eager to spread the message about Heaven and doing God's work and that Heaven itself is where everyone is invited, it should make one smile and agree with this Jesus who is trying to spread the Word. Scorsese and Kazantzakis had intuited what God and the Son of God meant to them - a brave approach that should've been met with praise and enlightenment throughout the world in 1988. The folly for them was that they did not have the same reigning thoughts on God and Jesus' place in history as those of any religious persuasion. "Last Temptation" says that Jesus may have been fully human and fully divine yet somewhat uncertain and never feeling absolute about it, and this is where the filmmakers were unprepared for man's anger at such non-incendiary questions. Jesus would've been angry too.

Voyage is a special treat for Trekkies and movie fans

 STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Time-travel plots are always tricky since they are not always clockwork in terms of logic or coherence. So it gave me great pleasure to remember that "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" is not only one of the best entries in the "Star Trek" saga but also one of the most delightfully escapist and wittiest time travel movies ever. 

A giant cigar-shaped alien probe is attempting to make contact with humpback whales on Earth. This is a big problem in the year 2286 because humpback whales are extinct. Why this probe is trying to make contact with the whales is a mystery wrapped inside a supernova where no man has gone before. That is one of the wondrous thrills of "Star Trek" - the very notion that new threats and cosmic complications are beyond our understanding since they take place in space and everything is light years ahead of us. It must be extra tricky to construct such a simple story and make us care and that is yet another positive from "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," thanks to the very capable hands of director Leonard Nimoy.

Time travel ensues that requires a Klingon ship from "Star Trek III" to travel at warp speed around the sun and back to San Francisco in 1986. The ship has a handy cloaking device so that allows our favorite members of the Enterprise crew to settle in Golden State Park. Smooth, debonair Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and his reliable companions that includes the logical Vulcan Spock (Nimoy), the witty Dr. Bones (DeForest Kelley), Sulu (George Takei), the often exasperated engineer Scotty (James Doohan), Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura to catch the whales and bring them back. There's also a new member to the cast, the vigorous Catherine Hicks as Dr. Gillian Taylor - a marine mammal scientist who loves and cares for those whales at the aquarium and knows they will eventually be released back in the water. 

"Star Trek IV" is the most wildly unusual "Star Trek" flick in that there are no actual villains, no Klingons, no actual threat other than saving the future. What helps build its elaborate, ecologically-themed plot is the lovable Enterprise crew and their culture shock in reacting to ancient technology of the past. Whether it is Scotty thinking he can just issue commands to a computer; Spock dressed as some 1960's hippie unable to sense the ironies in speech, or any appetite for Italian food; Sulu making inquiries on 1986 helicopters which he deems as ancient or Chekov asking for directions to the nuclear "wessels," "Star Trek IV" has so much humor and so much rich humanity that it is impossible to resist. This is one of those rare sequels that works as a standalone movie, meaning you need not know anything about Star Trek to enjoy it. Special mention must go to Catherine Hicks, a wonderful actress and deeply unappreciated in my book, who adds icing to the cake. This voyage is a special treat for Trekkies and movie fans.  

Indignant look at the Holocaust through the lens of familial tranquility

 THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Years ago, I had watched a powerful, unblinking documentary on the Holocaust called "The Night Will Fall" that focused on combat cameramen documenting the liberation of Nazi camps. The footage recorded was beyond shock or horror - it was the very picture of genocide. In addition, the film also addressed how German families were living in homes outside these camps, supposedly unaware of what was happening. Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" is not an unblinking account of horror in the margins of these homes, it is an unblinking account of apathetic families living next door to unimaginable horrors that we never see. 

One of the worst SS commandants of the Third Reich, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), approaches his job as apathetically as one can imagine - he may as well be working as a gardener doing some yard work. He leaves from his almost palatial home on horseback to the Auschwitz camp next door. In the film's unsettling opening of idyllic scenes near a lake, we see a family cavorting in a tall grass area and swimming in the lake without a care in the world. This placidity is important in seeing how some families are not unlike others. Scenes of domesticity in the house alongside the camps are about as normal as one would expect. Nobody, not Höss's wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), has any opinion on what is happening and we assume, based on her cruel verbal treatment of the Polish maid, that she approves of the extermination. The children who are always playing outside or in their rooms have no visual on the murders taking place other than hearing the sounds of rifle shots and a very clear visual of the smoke from the crematorium - they surely do not understand what unspeakable horrors are taking place. Only Hedwig's mother, who sees the fiery smoke emerging from that chimney at night, decides she can no longer take it and leaves.

"The Zone of Interest" is not for everyone and it surely will not appeal to those who were incredibly moved by "Schindler's List" (count me among them). Glazer's film has more of a standoffish approach, taking a backseat to character development or any colorful personalities and looking in as an observer and often from a distance. Close-ups are not used and there is no deciphering Höss's family's roots or their ambitions in life other than staying close-knit. Still, friction and unease figure into the film's 106-minute run time as Höss tells his wife he is being sent to a different camp - she's upset and refuses to live somewhere else. The prolonged unseen agony and brutality continue and all Höss can think about it is the best approach to killing Jews in huge numbers. There is faint hope in the form of a young Polish girl, shown in stunning solarized black-and-white scenes, where she places apples at the camp for the Jewish prisoners. She resembles a ghost-like angel bringing some solace to the victims and to us, the audience.

"The Zone of Interest" will keep you focused and angry at every turn about one of the worst crimes of inhumanity in the 20th century. Despite its unrelenting sense of doom, there is the added and necessary depiction of tranquility in the Höss family stable despite the very audible nightmare outside of it. It would be a crime to ignore this vivid, uniquely told and vital masterpiece from one of our masters of cinema.

Is it black enough?

 AMERICAN FICTION (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I've frequently said that satire, at its most definitive, can convey humanity through the situations that are being mocked or exaggerated. The beauty of debuting director Cord Jefferson's "American Fiction" is that what it satirizes is not only possible, it is happening. In fact, it has already happened and we are not necessarily the better for not recognizing it. 

Professor of English literature, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), is up in arms over many things. For one, his class is facing hyperbole from one student who objects to the title of a book on the American South literature course he's teaching ("You are going to encounter some archaic thoughts, coarse language..."). This opening scene alone dictates the long-standing problem with universities in general, especially when you consider the book this film is based on ("Erasure") was written in 2001. Students often cry foul and have their sensibilities offended, and this is just one white female student who leaves the class in tears. But let's get back to the movie. Monk is told by the college faculty to take a leave of absence and reluctantly spend time with his family in Boston where he also has to attend a literary seminar with a sparse audience. The ball is not in his court.

Monk has a very loving mother who has Alzheimer's; a sister, Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), who is a doctor, and a brother (Sterling-K-Brown), a plastic surgeon who had a divorce from his wife because she found him in bed with a man. Lisa understands Monk and only wishes he was living closer to deal with family health issues - one that his sister suffers from after dying from a sudden heart attack. Monk has his departed sister cremated and now has to find assisted living for his ailing mother. This costs more money than Monk makes since his latest book may not have found a buyer - what to do? Inspired and rather annoyed by the success of the best-selling book "We's Lives In Da Ghetto" by writer Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), Monk opts to write a typically stereotypical melodrama with coarse language, to be sure, and archaic thoughts that inflate violent situations called "My Pafology" which later has a title change that starts with the letter F, not Ph. The manuscript not only gets sold but becomes an instant nationwide hit and Monk uses an alias, painting himself as some sort of wanted convict! 

"American Fiction" is fascinating in its complex portrait of family, and it makes no difference whether we are talking about a black family or not - the film firmly establishes any family as family. They have their universal problems of sickness, acceptance of some family members over others, romance, marriage, etc. It was crucial for director Jefferson to make that leap, which shouldn't in 2023 be considered such a leap. Jeffrey Wright, an unsung character actor who first exploded with fireworks in his portrayal of the artist Basquiat in the late 90's, effectively and with solid understatement shows a man who cannot comprehend this day and age. How can such a phenomenal writer who is not considered "black enough" contend with writing exploitation and showing black men as anything but regular people? (I still wonder what "not black enough" means, a phrase repeated frequently for the last 20 years or so). How can his new girlfriend actually buy that book that he can't admit to writing? How can he judge books as a juror when "My Pafology" is not only up for literary awards, it may actually win?

"American Fiction" is smooth, confident and never aims to be over-the-top. It has a harmonious balance between exaggeration, derisive humor and heavy drama. Writer-director Cord Jefferson deftly handles it with expert finesse, as if he has been a veteran director and has just made his magnum opus. I have seen films that have the rhythms of jazz and "American Fiction" is one that plays like a bittersweet jazz piece, one we need to hear more often.      

Murky Peruvian treasure tale

 CABO BLANCO (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Well, here we go again when discussing a movie's seemingly obvious virtues falling short of its overall impact. "Cabo Blanco" has got the rugged features of Charles Bronson as a barkeeper, Jason Robards as a former Nazi, Fernando Rey as a chief of police, and Dominique Sanda as some sort of femme fatale. Plus, the added bonus of a distinguished action film director like J. Lee Thompson (his best is still "Guns of Navarone") should have made this film stand out from the pack. No, not really, yet "Cabo Blanco" is diverting enough as a curiosity and not much more than that.

An explosion takes place off the island of Cabo Blanco where some sea explorers are investigating the remains of a ship known as the Brittany - one man is killed. This Brittany ship means a lot to the ex-Nazi, Gunther Beckdorff (Robards), who is living on some palatial home on a hill overseeing all the fishermen who live modestly on the island. Sanda is Marie, some mysterious French-accented woman with no passport who knows Gunther and he is aware of her as well. These two both know that shipwreck holds an untold fortune at stake, allegedly gold. Somehow so does hotel owner and barkeeper Giff (Charles Bronson, a more tender tough guy role before he became a one-man army killing machine in the 80's Cannon pictures), who might have some inside information on that Brittany ship. Or maybe not. 

"Cabo Blanco" is quite entertaining in terms of rich atmosphere (the interior look of the bar is perfectly realized; the deep blue sea is enticing), an enveloping Jerry Goldsmith score that speaks high adventure and some decent performances. The plot hanging between four major characters (just barely a reminder of "Casablanca") is truncated and oscillates between murky details and curiously underwritten motivations (you'll quickly forget the presence of Simon MacCorkindale as a spy). Dominique Sanda's Marie is toothless at best with scant mystery or allure and her purpose, other than seeking the man she presumably loved who was also looking for treasure, is the only real mystery. Robards' Gunther is depicted as appropriately seedy yet he meets a rather anticlimactic finish. Fernando Rey is a colorful delight and Bronson, looking a little modern for a 1940's setting, registers with ample charisma. It is hardly a "Casablanca" but, then again, so few movies are.  

The Wolf is not the savior this time

 WHITE FANG 2: 

MYTH OF THE WHITE WOLF (1994)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Filmed adaptations of Jack London's classic novel, "White Fang," have relatively focused more on the human characters than the wolf hybrid known as White Fang. The 1991 film adaptation, which realistically evoked the brutal winters of the Yukon, showed some of the rough treatment White Fang endured by humans who only used him for dog fights and not much else. One young prospector, Jack Conroy (Ethan Hawke), kept the wolf as his hunting guide and the shift in perspective became obvious - the movie focused largely on Jack's adventures. "White Fang 2" is not based on any Jack London novels since a sequel was never written and squarely focuses on the human characters leaving our favorite iconic wolf's paw prints on the snow as opposed to on the screen. Still, for a Saturday matinee adventure that will keep kids and some young adults quiet for an hour and a half, it will do.

Ethan Hawke does an unbilled cameo turn as Jack Conroy, writing a letter from San Francisco to another young prospector, his friend Henry Casey (Scott Bairstow), and entrusting him with the log cabin, White Fang who loves to run around and, of course, the gold mine. Naturally, other prospectors have their eyes on the gold yet White Fang and Henry's rifle keeps them at bay. When Henry decides to go to town and collect some dough for the gold dust, his raft falls into the dangerous rapids and he's separated from White Fang. A young Native American woman named Lily, from the Haida tribe, is told to find the wolf who can supposedly shapeshift into a human and vice versa - Lily's father informs her of this since he dreamt it. Lily finds the wolf in the water, then happens to see an exhausted Henry emerge from the water. She believes he's the wolf who will free the caribou from the villainous miners so the tribe can free themselves from starvation. 

While watching "White Fang 2" unfold, I found there was not a single moment one couldn't anticipate. Everything is told like a clockwork, run-of-the-mill western, the likes of which nobody has seen since perhaps the 1950's. It is all so perfectly innocent and harmless that you wonder if this was some sort of undiscovered youth-centric adventure movie from back in the day. As soon as one sees Alfred Molina as a preacher, well, you just know he's not really a preacher. The whole business of the mine and the wall of rocks separating the caribou from the Native Haida tribe is straight out of either Lone Ranger or Davy Crockett, not Jack London. And there is precious little time devoted to everyone's favorite half-dog, half-wolf canine who sometimes frolics with a purely white-as-snow wolf (those scenes evoke a certain wonder about wolves that the movie could've used more of).

So if you want to see White Fang in action, it is only in spurts. Bairstow's boyish Henry Casey remains the hero and the savior of the Haida people (though one must also give credit to Charmaine Craig's Lily and her trusty bow and arrow). I might have preferred if this was Lily's story along with White Fang's - what if Jack entrusted the title canine to the Haida people? Lily is seemingly the heroine of the piece since she saves Henry's neck twice but then she's also the damsel in distress in a frantic wagon chase. It is all perfectly silly and not half as memorable as the 1991 film, but its breathtaking scenery and the details of the life of the Haida tribe in the snowcapped mountains of Alaska make for watchable entertainment.