Fast and Furious

 FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Mad Max: Fury Road" is one of the greatest and most imaginative post-apocalyptic action films of all time. Its kinetic, towering action scenes and the exemplary use of Charlize Theron as Furiosa, the one-armed road warrior who is as skilled a driver as Mad Max, added to the immense power of it all. "Furiosa" is not quite on that same grungy, dusty and mechanical level but it will do as a fast-and-furious prequel that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. You may have to occasionally duck.

Imperator Furiosa has a hell of a backstory to tell, and it isn't all sunshine and roses. Furiosa (played by Alyla Browne as a tyke) yields from the Green Place of Many Mothers as a prepubescent girl who is kidnapped by mutant-like bikers led by Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, truly phenomenal) of the Biker Horde.  Furiosa's mother, a warrior in her own right (who isn't in this nihilistic Mad Max world), tries to save her and she's crucified as a result. The young Furiosa finds her path through the years as she's adopted by the pale and fearsome Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), much to the chagrin of Dementus, and placed with Joe's many white-dressed breeder wives. Before long, one of Joe's musclebound sons tries to have his way with Furiosa and she escapes. Well, she's not found since she pretends to be a War Boy. Considering how tight security is in this fortress, I don't know how she managed to evade capture.   

"Furiosa" sends us on a desert wasteland that looks more desolate in its saturated color grading than ever before, sharing its audacious visuals of copious sandy dunes, endless roads and blue-hued nighttime scenes with "Fury Road." Quite striking are the scenes inside the Green Place of Many Mothers, a sort of idyllic community of green grass, peach trees and agriculture. This serene place is desired by Dementus, Immortan Joe and many who perhaps want to rekindle the past prior to the nuclear apocalypse. Mostly we get visits to Bullet Farm, and the vast cavernous look of the Citadel with its share of more pale-faced fighters known as the War Boys who will die on command. This world is nasty, violence-prone and everyone gets their adrenaline rush from riding various vehicles and trucks that look ready to split apart before their wheels even touch the ground. Indianapolis 500 on overdrive. Gas is a commodity they can't do without yet vehicle parts are available everywhere.

As with any Mad Max film, there is plenty of visual and aural stimulation that will rock your seat back and forth and maybe burn your eyes off. I was never less than in awe at what director George Miller has crafted here and with previous Mad Max films - he takes you on a journey that is immersive and larger-than-life with unbelievable stunts that seem to cross a level never seen before. "Furiosa" is an elongated chase picture as well as a nifty character progress of what made Furiosa who she was, and Anya Taylor-Joy extraordinarily captures her presence as an emotionally wounded fighter who chooses action over words. Her big eyes strike a chord and say it all and she is a fitting precursor to Charlize Theron's adult Furiosa.

If "Furiosa" falters at all, it is that somehow it's too short for its own good which is surprising since it is 2 hours and 28 minutes long. Also, the movie is not quite as vividly intense in its high-octane action as "Fury Road" or "The Road Warrior" - Miller dials it back a bit which may benefit those who found "Fury Road" overloaded. A side character with Max's lone wolf reticence, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), is not given enough screen time. These are minor quibbles and we get ample amount of Furiosa shooting bullets and firing arrows with the marksmanship of an Annie Oakley (hey, what if she got to play Annie in a big-screen treatment?), not to mention the humorous asides from Hemsworth's Dementus. His final scene with Furiosa is as memorably confrontational in its acidly-written dialogue exchange as the Joker and Batman's confrontation in "The Dark Knight." This "Furiosa" roars with excitement that only George Miller can deliver. 

Birth of Damien is 2 hours too long

THE FIRST OMEN (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first heard of the title of this new take on a 50-year-old horror franchise, I thought, well, we already had our first Omen and that was in 1976. Did the filmmakers have amnesia between the 1976 shocker and its needless 2006 remake? Well, duh, because this is the prequel to the events of the 1976 film, not a sequel. There you go. Today, we have sequels with the same titles as the originals, sans Roman Numerals so you'll forgive me if the word "First" threw me off. "The First Omen" is not a disaster and there are inklings here of something more than the standard fire and brimstone Hades tales of many sequels and rip-offs since the original "Omen." Still, I was largely underwhelmed when it was over.

A Massachusetts-born woman, Margaret (Neil Tiger Free), is a novitiate who has just been employed at an Italian orphanage working with the nuns and young girls. Her knowledge of Italian is spotty at best as she is made fun of by the girls yet she gravitates towards one very sullen girl, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), who scribbles on the wooden floors of her room and, when summoned due to bad behavior, is placed in the "Bad Room." Margaret lives in an apartment with a roommate who takes her clubbing. Once there, she meets Paolo and it doesn't take long before he's out of the picture mid-way through this overlong movie.

"The First Omen" has some startling, wild images including when Margaret wakes up in bed with strands of her long hair forming what looks like a giant spider (see the picture above). A Caesarean is performed in one scene that is enough to make strong stomachs ache (it almost garnered an NC-17 rating). There is also a vision of a demonic nun that may remind you of "The Nun," of course. Most of the movie has flashes reminiscent of "Rosemary's Baby" than "The Omen" or its various inferior sequels. In fact, except for one timidly gory death at the beginning and an immolation harkening back to a suicide by hanging in the original, this "First Omen" doesn't have much of the flavor or Gothic look of the original films. What might have worked as the story of a woman's need to become a nun, facing obstacles like sex and dancing at clubs in addition to facing unimaginable horrors, becomes a late-night horror film that resembles early 90's made-for-VHS/DVD horror. I don't know if that was the intended aesthetic but it did not leave me nostalgic for that type of low-rent, smoky, sepia-toned horror fare. 

Neil Tiger Free easily gives the film some of its soul and she is the best thing in it (aside from an unrecognizable and chilling Sonia Braga as the abbess of the orphanage). Most of the movie though is easy to anticipate including those very cliched false alarm scares minus (thankfully) the shrieking alarm sounds, and the big secret that you can pretty much guess from the beginning. As a demonic horror movie, it does a serviceable if unwanted job of leading up to the opening scenes of the first "Omen." Give the real First Omen another look.

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.