Same old, Same old voyeurism

 REAR WINDOW (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If the late Christopher Reeve had made a dramatic entry about his unfortunate paralysis and the medical progress he was making with stem cell research, not to exclude his personal relationships and maintaining a career, I might have been more supportive. "Rear Window" starts off that way with his character, Jason Kemp, who suffers an unfortunate car accident that leaves him paralyzed with a severed spinal cord. He is a successful architect that manages to hold on to his job and still keep an ex-wife looking out for him. Here are the makings of a TV-movie like they used to make, not quite the disease of the week but close. Instead Reeve is saddled with a paper-thin, largely undercooked and visually unstimulating remake of a Hitchcock classic. 

Reeve's Kemp is still working his architect job, though from home with the help of two nurses who make sure his breathing apparatus works and he is laid to bed. There is also an ambitious architect (Daryl Hannah, the Grace Kelly character) who helps him complete his latest project. To make the voyeurism new and wildly different from its 1954 counterpart, a video surveillance equipment has been installed so that Jack can keep an eye on an abused woman and her boyfriend, a sculptor. Unlike the original film, there is little to no drama in the other apartments whom Jack observes, including a gay couple, a single brunette who repeatedly takes off her clothes in silhouette, and some guy working on a computer. Not the most interesting bunch and nothing comes out of their situations because there is no drama. The only hint of drama is the poor blonde woman who then disappears, and Jack thinks she has been murdered.

"Rear Window" is not poorly done but it is mediocre in its character shadings and tension, and has nothing to stand out from various other voyeuristic thrillers in the wake of Hitchcock's film. Reeve is a standout here and makes us care about his plight and his weakened condition, mainly because Reeve really was a paraplegic. Daryl Hannah is no Grace Kelly, though, and Robert Forster's plain detective has a few colorful moments but far too few - unlike the original film, there is no camaraderie between him and Reeve since the detective only knows him because of the car accident. The killer is generic run-of-the-mill whose threatening nature you can spot his a mile away

"Rear Window" has no flavor, no real attitude towards its material and plays it too safe. Visually it is flat as a pancake without the three-dimensionality of the Greenwich Village apartment view of the original. There is a little suspense towards the end but the movie has no momentum, no real pizazz. If it were only a made-for-cable thriller with no connection to the Master of Suspense, I might have given it slightly higher marks.. And just like Christopher Reeve's sedentary character, the movie just sits there.

Habitual existence and electric blankets

 MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981)

A Look Back by Jerry Saravia

Time is a funny thing. Films like "My Dinner With Andre" are not introspective enough for a prepubescent child, certainly not in my case when I saw the film in 1982. You would think a simple story of two adults talking in a restaurant for two hours would be boring. You might be right, whether you are nine-years-old or a fully grown adult. It takes a special skill to make a fascinating film about two people talking. After all, could you look at two people talking for two hours in a restaurant? Of course not, unless you are participating in the conversation. At this middle portion of my life, I learned much while watching "My Dinner With Andre" and found many of the participants' talking points revelatory and, indeed, fascinating. It is a remarkable film full of much truth about life and the theatre world, and learning to find oneself in whatever environment works for the person.

Wallace Shawn, playing himself, is a failed, struggling playwright who is invited to have dinner with a successful theatre director, Andre Gregory, also playing himself.  Gregory is a man who left the U.S. to presumably find himself, to frolic and immerse himself in nature that went beyond the concrete city confines of New York. He had traveled to India, a forest in Poland, the rough Sahara desert, and yet he never exactly found himself. He abandoned his New York family to "truly feel alive." As Gregory explains, "it led to an immediate awareness of death." To truly feel connected to life, he will feel just as connected to death. When Gregory recounts that he attended a Halloween-themed event in Montauk Point (gee, I am almost curious to revisit Montauk myself), he has to be stripped naked, be photographed (!), write a will and wear a blindfold as he is buried alive. Yep, that might make the life-death connection even sharper.

Wallace often listens to Gregory for the first hour or so, believing in being a "detective" or sorts since he likes asking questions. After some inordinate time of listening and eating pate with fish and potato soup, Wallace takes issues with Gregory's exotic trips to foreign lands and that we are living in a "dream world" where our perception of reality is gone, that we are in a trance or some sort of fog. Living habitually, Gregory argues, is "not really living." Shawn begins his spiel about how he appreciates comfort in knowing he can have a good cup of coffee, having warmth with an electric blanket, and that things merely are coincidences and not everything is predicated on chance from a fortune cookie or some esoteric book that seems to speaking what you are going through. You need not climb Everest to really live when you can discover just as much at the local cigar shop down the street.

"My Dinner With Andre" is an entertaining, profound and experimental film about the beauty of language where just talking to someone and being engaged by various topics can be fruitful. In today's world, a film about people talking without the benefits of technology may seem alien to most, perhaps boring. Not so with Louis Malle's film which seems to make it animated, hilarious at times, and often unsettling. Shawn and Gregory are well-defined by their radiant personalities and by their ability to truly delve into the modern world, the absurdity of doing nothing for moments at a time, the abrasiveness of the world, and how to really live. How could this be boring to anyone?

The Afterlife sure looks like fun

 BEETLEJUICE (1988)

A LOOK BACK by Jerry Saravia

"Beetlejuice" is one of those rare Tim Burton films that I've seen only once, though I have some fond memories of it. It is a supernatural ghost comedy yet it is so far removed from the world of "Ghostbusters" (one of its primary influences according to the writers) that it may as well exist in some other planet. Well, some other otherworldly realm for sure.

This is Burton's film all the way, and it is sheerly amazing that he did not create this story at all (actually conceived and written by Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, and co-written by Warren Skaaren). "Beetlejuice" (spelled Betelgeuse) is some sort of freelance bio-exorcist from an otherworldly existence, who advertises himself to spirits as an entity who can scare the bejesus out of the living. He is a foul creature with moldy, green skin and spouts crude jokes that land flat on their face. Some jokes are funnier than others, such as stating that "The Exorcist" gets funnier each time he sees it. Otherwise this demented, perverted spirit is one who consistently grabs his crotch and flirts with female spirits who slap him if he gets out of line. Is this the guy that the Maitlands want? The Maitlands, by the way, are a married Connecticut couple who died when their car crashed through a covered bridge and fell into a lake. They need help driving out a new family that moved into their idyllic country home - the quirky family known as the Deetzes. Before Beetlejuice can be conjured by saying his name three times, the Maitlands partially succeed in a possession that involves the Deetzes and some dinner guests involuntarily dancing to Harry Belafonte songs such as "Day-O."  

"Beetlejuice" begins with sweet, good-natured scenes between the excited Maitlands, Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin), and their need to stay home for vacation and decorate their house. After their demise, the movie is flat and antiseptic for a while with the introduction of the Deetzes that includes former real-estate developer Charles (Jeffrey Jones), his shrill wife, the sculptress Delia (Catherine O'Hara - truly marvelous) and their goth/death obsessed daughter, Lydia (Winona Ryder). Even with the introduction of their colorful interior decorator, Otho (Glenn Shadix), the movie still felt devoid of any energy and scenes between them rang unfunny and spiritless. That is until the wild introduction of Beetlejuice and the Belafonte songs, and the movie picks up steam and had me howling with laughter at its sheer inventiveness and wacky humor. The special effects are spooky stop-motion animation moments that I'd love to see more of in today's CGI-infused climate. I also like the otherworldly waiting room for the dead (who are all civil servants), including the shrunken head explorer and the woman with half of her torso sitting separately. Sylvia Sidney's appearance is the cherry on top.

What is most fascinating is that the Deetzes and Otho eventually spring with such liveliness that you wonder why they seem like such unlikable boors at the beginning. And watching Catherine O'Hara dance to "Day-O" is one of the greatest cinematic pleasures I can think, at least for the latter 1980's. "Beetlejuice" also has exuberant Michael Keaton having a wild party time as the bio-exorcist, a spirit who is more content lifting up Barbara's skirt and hanging with women than scaring anyone. And Ryder gives the movie a soul, a girl who can't quite commit to everyday life's expectations yet is more eager to hang with the Maitlands than the Deetzes. I can't blame her.   

Not quite on the level of the Beatles album

 BACK IN THE U.S.S.R (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

From what I gather in this lumbering, plot-holish disaster of a movie, there is a religious icon that the Russian mafia wants. A priest also wants it after it was stolen from him. And a museum curator demands it. Just about anyone is willing to kill for it. Its monetary worth and why these people crave it are questions never answered and possibly never asked by the filmmakers of this completely nonsensical thriller. It may as well be a comedy.

Frank Whaley, always diverting no matter what he's doing, is the naive American named Archer visiting Russia and eager to see the "real Russia." This includes going to some punk rock club, getting mugged, having sex with a Russian prostitute who steals the icon in the opening sequence, getting beaten by Mafia goons and getting shot in the hand by a criminal businessman (Roman Polanski, doing a reprise of his "Chinatown" character). Oh, and the terminally stupid Archer is wanted for murder all over town! The Russian girl's friend wants Whaley's precious sneakers. So much for that "real Russia." And on, and on, and on, to the point that I just gave up and admired the overcast Russian skies and was fascinated by the run-down areas of Moscow. I also enjoyed watching Natalya Negoda as the Girl who has one trick up her sleeve that you can see miles ahead. A final, infernal (a dual meaning there) twist will make you wonder if you are supposed to be stupefied or to laugh, or to do both. 

I could say you've been warned but in the spirit of the former Soviet Union and glasnost, I'd rather take it to another level: it is a DEFCON 4 warning. 

Frontier Life Seeped with Violence

 HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1 (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There have been sporadic westerns in the last few years but there has not been an epic of this magnitude like "Horizon." Kevin Costner's "Horizon: Chapter 1" is tough, gradually exciting, magnificently shot and never feels long. Costner can make long, long films ("Dances With Wolves" has an extended Blu Ray version beyond its initial 180-minute theatrical version) but he is a master of character building and development in the western genre. The fact that three or four more of these stories will unfold in the next couple of years is tremendous news for this western fan. Aside from Eastwood and a couple of other notable directors, Costner is so firmly associated with the Western that there is a comfort level to it - you just expect him to be there.  

In all fairness, I was not sure where Costner was headed with this grand story, the saga of the Natives vs. the white settlers in the frontier life, circa 1859. The film begins with merriment between families dancing in tents in a new settlement called Horizon - construction is imminent and ads circle this area as part of that new frontier. Only the Apaches are unhappy with white men coming into their territory, and that is exactly where the film sold me on its premise. That is, albeit, only part of it. After the Apaches attack (including the young determined warrior Pionsenay played by Owen Crow Shoe) these families in a sweeping fire that kills and wounds many (the violence is pungent and heartbreaking), headstrong Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter, Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail), escape under the floorboards of their home using a shotgun pushed through the ground so they can breathe. Most of this stunning sequence takes over the first hour and it never feels excessive or overlong. 

The story cleverly shifts between two different women with different prospects. One is a prostitute, Marigold (Abbey Lee), who has trouble earning money since she has steady competition. The other is Ellen (Jena Malone), a tough-as-nails mother who shot her violent husband, Sykes, and took her child away. Sykes is wounded but not dead and his family wants Ellen and her baby - retaliation is in the air. This is further complicated by horse trader Hayes Ellison (Kevin Costner) who is not looking for a fight and has a gradual interest in Marigold and he might just run into the almost demonic, cackling Caleb (Jamie Campbell Bower) and his older, no-nonsense brother Junior Sykes (Jon Beavers), both who are the elder Sykes' sons. Marigold is residing with Ellen and her new husband, and violence once again enters the picture when they least expect it. 

So between Hayes and Marigold and their escape from the Sykes, the Apaches and their plans to push out the white settlers, a wagon train with an educated people unaware they should participate in manual labor, and stunning scenes of Frances Kittredge and her daughter staying with the Union Cavalry and a potential romance between Frances and the Army lieutenant, "Horizon, Chapter 1" has plenty of story to spare and it is all deftly told (written with a sure hand by Jon Baird and Kevin Costner) with tremendous landscapes that any John Ford fan would love. I never found my attention flagging nor did I check my watch. Costner is able to keep everything smoothly played out with dramatic, intense moments and truly romantic scenes especially with Kittredge. Is this first chapter of "Horizon" a masterpiece? No, but I sure as hell look forward to seeing the rest of this saga play out. 

Que Sera, Sera, Mean Girls whatever will be!

HEATHERS (1989)

Reassessment by Jerry Saravia (includes Spoilers)

Talking about being an affront to the normally cutesy romantic teen comedies of the 1980's, it is only fitting that the cold-as-ice "Heathers" was released at the tail end of the consumerist 1980's. "Heathers" is wild, wildly uneven, rancidly black comedy purporting to be somewhat satirical though never quite crossing that stream without shooting itself in the foot repeatedly. It shattered the glass of expectations for high-school comedies in general, yet all that remains are bloody shards of glass. It is revolting yet I can't say it doesn't hold your attention.

The basic outline is that there is a clique of high-school teenage girls who calls themselves Heather, and they all play croquet. The parents of these girls are well-off and seem lost in Never NeverLand. Veronica (played by the bewitching Winona Ryder, who steals the movie) is reluctantly one of the Heathers and reluctantly goes along with whatever the leading queen Heather (a sharp-tongued Kim Walker) says or does. This includes outrageous acts like sleeping with high-school jocks, cow-tipping, and pranks of such low bar (like passing a fake love note) that they could only happen in high-school. Veronica's whole plastic, pointlessly cruel world comes to a screeching halt when she meets the troublemaker J.D. (Christian Slater), a student dressed in a long coat who looks ready to kill and maim anyone who gets in his way (in one scene, he shoots two jocks with blanks in a cafeteria). J.D. and Veronica talk over slushies and have sex rather than play croquet (thank goodness) and it looks like the rebel, the cool outsider, has found his own queen. Veronica hates Heather Number 1, so much so that the idea of making her violently ill pleases her. Only J.D. doesn't believe in an orange juice/milk solution but rather Drano! It is the first and only truly shocking death in the movie. Heather Number 1 drinks the deadly potion as a dare, unaware what she's consuming, and lands face first on a glass table. I think I stopped laughing and smiling after that.

After the initial shock, "Heathers" never quite recovers and removes itself from its initial satirical targets. It aims into territory that today would be considered either a documentary or some half-witted and half-hearted attempt at eviscerating political correctness or good taste (Just so you know where I stand with satires about suicide and bad taste, I love "Harold and Maude"). J.D. and Veronica decide that Heather Number 1's death should look like a suicide and her note should include the word "myriad" (a word Heather got wrong in a test). Then there are the two jocks who are killed in what is meant to look like a murder-suicide of two gay guys who were not gay at all (this would not pass muster today, nor 20 years ago). The school becomes embroiled in these unexplained suicides and the local news turns the spotlight on them. Veronica is saddened at first and then gets off on it somewhat. She claims to be naive about blanks versus bullets, yet they are about to  murder anyone she and J.D. hate (one nightmare scene of killing a Heather is almost as cartoonish as reality itself). She writes voraciously in her diary wearing a monocle, and that is quite a sight - a Heather-like version of "The Catcher in the Rye" with spilled blood.

"Heathers" then falls into a horror-movie scenario involving J.D.'s plan to blow up the school (oh, boy, that would definitely not go over well today). Veronica has her limitations when it comes to violence and I grew to hate her and J.D. "Heathers" gives us no one to empathize with or to root for. No student of this school is pictured as anything more than a potential dead teenager. The adults are dumb and could care less, especially the school faculty who don't want any sermons on togetherness lasting longer than half a day . The world of this movie is bizarre, uncontrollable and devoid of humanity. Well, that is until the last scene where Veronica decides to befriend a bullied Martha “Dumptruck” Dunnstock (Carrie Lynn) who does attempt to kill herself by walking into traffic. This is after J.D. has gloriously blown himself up, saving the school thanks to Veronica who becomes the savior. Yeah, sure.

I've seen "Heathers" a couple of times since 1989 and, each time, I found myself getting punched and kicked in the face by it. There was potential here for satirizing the Heathers and the very idea of cliques, not to mention high-school life. There are shades of that but not quite enough - the spirited lunacy from its solidly tight first half-hour or so doesn't last. There is not much spirit or lunacy or any sense of wicked fun beyond its first act. There are "myriad" jokes on gays and suicidal attempts and they all kind of fall flat on their face. I still find the film eerily compelling in its rawness and in Ryder's dumbfounded looks and priceless smirks and frowns. Slater does his best to remind us that he could be as good as Jack Nicholson yet his character is an enigmatic psycho (just what is the deal with his father, a demolitions expert?) Watching this movie can feel like nails being driven into a chalkboard. 

Hope is the dream of a waking man

 STALKER (1979)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

For mainstream viewers, watching a Tarkovsky film would be like watching paint dry. It is an expression I hate, especially when applied to one of his films which are often cerebral and poetic. "Stalker" is not one of Tarkovsky's greatest films but it is a maddeningly frustrating and deeply unsettling film about the search for happiness. Or so it seems. 

The Stalker (Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy) is not one who stalks people but rather serves as a cautionary guide to the Zone. The Zone is a largely grassy, unkempt, unclean furnace of nothingness yet if you dare enter, you do not leave as the same person you were. The Stalker is the guide for two people of literate background, the Writer and the Professor. The Writer pontificates quite a bit about his loss of inspiration for writing. The Professor doesn't talk as much though he is angling for a Nobel Prize, and after a while I got a little confused as to who the Professor or the Writer were. Not that they seem interchangeable, but they are stripped of their individuality and their personalities when entering the Zone (which may be precisely the point). Sometimes I got lost where the Zone actually began and where it ended (or if it even included where these three live and originated from on their forbidden journey). We see decaying metal staircases that are practically underwater, and an endless tunnel with stalactites that leads to a small metal door (it certainly looks like a gloomy, uninhabited section from a hydro or nuclear plant which is where the film was shot). This all leads to the Room, a place where a former stalker named Porcupine had entered to save his brother and then committed suicide. Whatever sense of relief from gloom and doom exists in the Room and its surroundings is not apparent - it looks uninviting. All three weary, mucky travellers hear a phone ringing - who is calling them and why? 

"Stalker" begins in startling monochromatic sepia tones that sure make for arresting images, especially scenes inside decrepit buildings near the railway. I must say that the switch to grainy colors didn't please my eyes as much, no matter how well shot it is (the cinematographer is Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy). Though I am not exactly confounded by "Stalker," I was left feeling a great deal of despair over its stark dystopian look at a world that is practically crumbled already. When it is discussed at the beginning how a meteorite crashed somewhere in the Zone's grasslands with some hint of science-fiction, I didn't think it made any difference for the film's bleak outlook. The Stalker, for example, has a wife and a daughter who has some special gifts, yet the relationship with his wife is fraught with nothing but despair and pain. Almost the whole film has nothing but pain and displeasure in its veins. When Tarkovsky films his subjects in close-up, it bears the stamp of humanity still trying to improve the world and the lives of its protagonists. But is there any hope of change? I doubted it until I felt momentary relief during its closing scenes, a small ray of sunshine. Cloudy with hints of sunshine, which may sum up Tarkovsky's career overall.