Keeping it Mooney-real

THE GODFATHER OF COMEDY (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Paul Mooney is the premier commentator and social critic on race in the United States. When Paul frequently talks about race with humor and understanding, he speaks of it as a long-gestating venomous attitude that hasn't changed since the days of slavery. When he cuts deeper into the recesses of racism, it is unspeakably and necessarily offputting. It makes one think of the nature of racism, its prevailing existence and what it dictates about our society. What can I say, Paul Mooney always scores a direct hit to the funny bone - he is also the thinking man's comedian.

Ever since he put to rest the N-word in his comic act, Paul Mooney has not softened his bitterness or his anger. In his new Showtime special, "The Godfather of Comedy," he espouses on celebrities such as Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Dr, Laura, Sarah Palin, Mel Gibson, Angelina Jolie, for starters. He claims that white people have stolen from the African-American community, everything from a now white-owned Apollo theatre, to a residentially white Harlem where he lives, to O.J. ("they took him and then they gave him back to us"), to the BET channel (" We still got Jet"). He doesn't spare us from calling Sarah Palin a "ho" or Lindsay Lohan. He reminds his audience that Cleopatra was black (hence, the title of one of Mooney's past shows) and the potentially cast Angelina Jolie playing the Egyptian queen in another epic remake is a blow to Hollywood and to the rest of us. Mooney also says that most black people in California are "anglo-saxon." To clarify, he says, "Their skin is black but their brain is white. They are 'Graham Crackers'."
 
Paul Mooney has some really riotous and engaging humor in the beginning (he is hilarious in his Tiger Woods put-downs), but when he segues into "white dolls" and the realities of past segregation in Louisiana (his home town) and being singled out daily for being black ("I am tired of being black"), the audience is still attentive but they are alarmed by the blatant, uncomfortable, cringing truths (there are white and black people in the audience, including "Facts of Life" actress Kim Fields). Paul Mooney is the Godfather of comedy but he also fully understands discrimination and the fears of the white man. Notable bits include how he stepped out of his car in a suit and a white woman, who saw him, took off her high heels and ran. Another one is a recycled joke he told before about how he was riding shotgun with a drunk driver, the police pulled them over and asked Paul for his I.D. And then Paul went to jail!

"Godfather of Comedy" is not for everyone - Paul Mooney is not for all tastes either. Dressed impeccably in a suit with a fedora and extremely well composed (asking his audience to remind him of certain names he forgets, though I think he knows them already), he is the antithesis in appearance to his late friend and co-writer, Richard Pryor. Pryor could be a wild animal on stage and had a gift for mimicry. Paul Mooney is always looking at his audience in a more restrained, intimate stage. He is an immensely likable presence who wants you to listen and he wants to keep it real. At the tender age of 70, Paul Mooney is still keeping it real.

Don't Piss on hospitality

TROLL 2 (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Troll 2" can be summed in one phrase: best good bad movie you might ever see. I've seen my share of good bad films that manage to entertain in spite of everything else that goes wrong ("Plan 9" is infamous, of course, but there is also "The Third Society," less well-known but worth watching because it is not boring). But "Troll 2" is something more unique, a fifth-rate B movie that is so woefully misguided and executed that, somehow, it actually works because it is so damn entertaining. If the filmmakers admitted they made a parody of "Village of the Damned" or something of its ilk, I would've said this was exceptionally hilarious. The fact that the filmmakers intended to make a serious horror movie makes this a special good/bad movie with its own special place in the annals of idiotic cinema.

"Troll 2" has no relation to the original and very dull "Troll" from 1986, which starred Michael Moriarty, Sonny Bono and I think one angry troll. At least it had a higher pedigree than this movie, which may be the only sequel where "in-name only" feels like a cheap understatement. This movie was supposed to be called "Goblins," just as other notable films by the Italian director Claudio Fragasso like "Terminator II" and "Evil Dead V" had alternate, original titles with no relation to their popular U.S. titles. Moving on, a family goes on a vacation trip to the town of Nilbog (anyone that can't guess what that means...) where it is so sparsely populated that there doesn't seem to be a functioning grocery store (they offer unrefrigerated milk for free and it ain't Parlamat!). Lo and behold, Nilbog's residents are all goblins (hate to spoil that for anyone) and there is a resident witch living in a church with a crimson red bed in its lobby, as well as a portal to Stonehenge, and lots of plants! The family have a son (Michael Stephenson, the best actor of the bunch) who has visions of goblins eating the chlorophyll remains of dead people with green ooze in their mouths! He figures out what the town of Nilbog is up to, thanks to the spirit of his beloved grandfather. By the way, the house the family actually trade for their own has handwritten signs of the occupant's names taped on their doors.

For laughs, we get little Stephenson urinating on green-iced cookies and cake (we know he will do it when he opens his fly); the grandfather's spirit getting lost in the house; the witch seducing a young teenage boy with corn on the cob that turns into popcorn; a sheriff offering a teenager a cheeseburger with green ooze (now who would willingly eat that?); a silly jamboree; another hapless teen turned into a plant, holding a flower pot; an 80's dance scene, and there is so much more that I can't keep typing this nonsense. This is the kind of movie where any description of any scene must be followed by an exclamation mark.

What is "Troll 2" about? I can't say except that the town of Nilbog and its hungry goblins care about the environment and are vegetarian. However, they like to eat people but only after they pollute their victims' blood with chlorophyll mixed with cheeseburgers (from some 24-hour burger joint in town) or with vanilla cake and cookies. So, to destroy the goblins, it might help if you are armed with a double decker bologna sandwich that has no trace of chlorophyll. This begs the question: if the goblins are strict vegetarians, where do they get the unrefrigerated cow milk? (Unless it is Parmalat). Also, they are surrounded by the forest, so why don't they feast on plants and leaves instead of feasting on people and turning them into plants? Yeah, there is irony here but it is so slapdash and so absurdly presented that I classify it as un-ironic and unintended irony. That last statement makes about as much sense as the movie.

Apparently, the English-speaking actors in this ultra low-grade horror (shot in Utah) were not able to communicate with Fragasso (using the alias Drake Floyd) or the crew because they all spoke Italian. That explains a lot, but I can't say I was bored by this movie. It is so entertaining and so unintentionally comedic and so inanely acted and directed, it is hard to resist. It is a new high in the lower margins of fringe filmmaking. Suffice to say, once you have seen "Troll 2," you can't unsee it.

For a review of the documentary, "Best Worst Movie," check out http://jerrysaravia.blogspot.com/2012/05/dont-piss-on-troll-2.html

Don't piss on Troll 2

BEST WORST MOVIE (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Never before has a movie gone directly to video (with only the barest of theatrical showings), get slammed by critics and then get revitalized as some sort of cult film. In addition, it is a sequel and in-name only. That is the story of "Troll 2," a movie championed by comedians Patton Oswalt and Conan O'Brien and once you see it, you can't forget it. It is ashamedly awful but not purposely, and that is part of its charm. And now a documentary on this film pops up, "Best Worst Movie," and it shows how "Troll 2" had in fact changed the lives of everyone involved in it.

George Hardy ("A rich man's Craig T. Nelson") is an Alabaman dentist, a good-natured, jolly fellow who can tell when you have gingivitis. He played the family man in "Troll 2" who tried to rescue the family from goblins, not trolls, who want to eat them and turn them into vegetables! Hardy admits he was a bad actor giving a bad performance, but he always had that dream of acting. He gave it up out of respect to his father and became a dentist with a string of patients, and helps poor kids for free. He is loved in the community and dresses up as a tooth fairy annually but he is not loved for being in "Troll 2." Eventually, a fundraiser screening is held in town. Hardy's past as a jolly male cheerleader, however, may lead to some chuckles.

Director Michael Paul Stephenson (who played the young Joshua in "Troll 2") spends most of the film focusing on George Hardy. We also get tidbits on a sage actor who played the grandfather specter and feels he has wasted most of his life; Margo, who played the mother in the family, is now a delusional woman taking care of her sickly mother, and claims that the film's quality is closest to "Casablanca" (!); and there is the actor who played the shopkeeper in the film, who suffers from mental illness and has no recollection of what he did in the film.

Claudio Fragasso comes off the worst. He is the Italian director who helmed "Troll 2" and thought he was making a masterpiece, a film that is allegedly anti-vegetarian. Yet he scoffs and berates his cast at Q & A's, telling them that they have a poor memory about the film's production. Truthfully, at the time of production, he couldn't speak a lick of English and neither could do the crew. Claudio is amazed and angered that people laugh at the film - is he kidding?

"Best Worst Movie" takes us through sold-out U.S. screenings of "Troll 2" and the legions of fans who declare it the best movie ever. We also see the reality of an unintentionally funny horror flick that can barely muster enthusiasm at U.K. conventions. When there is a Q & A, few people are in attendance. The horror fans rather see the Nightmare on Elm Street ensemble. This documentary is mostly bittersweet about a film that was a failure and somehow found an audience, but it did change the lives of those involved. The actors who thought they would never work again after making "Troll 2," found work after the film got a cult following (and one actress would still rather keep it off her resume). At least we can say that the cast is now in one film that is a good/bad movie and another that is actually quite good.

Not quite a scream, baby

SCREAM 4 (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first saw the original "Scream" in 1996, I was floored by its first half and felt underwhelmed by the second half. It was good for what it was but it needed that injection of Wes Craven's postmodernist deconstruction take that he laid on with "New Nightmare" two years earlier. "Scream 4" begins with a nifty prologue-within-the-prologue, gets mired with characters I could not give a lick about and then, something happens. By the second half, "Scream 4" picks up the pace and tempo and has a gripping finale. Is that enough to save it? Not sure.

We are back in Woodsboro for the return of the survivor of the bloody rampage of the first three "Scream" films, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), now the author of a self-help book. Her last stop on her book tour is Woodsboro, a place I would not think of stopping by considering her past, bloody traumatic experiences there. Of course, Mr. Ghostface, that iconic Edward Munch-face from the iconic painting, "The Scream," is back killing teenagers from Woodsboro High. It is the anniversary of those bloody murders from eons ago and now, horror of horrors, a dead body is found in Sidney's car! Who is this new Ghostface who can run faster than the Road Runner and materialize almost anywhere with phantom-like precision?

Let's not forget that Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) is now the sheriff and married to bored Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox). Dewey is in charge of the case of the growing number of murdered teens. Numbed and shocked Sidney stays with her cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts), and is referred to as the Angel of Death. But is Sidney really responsible for the resurrection of Ghostface, or is it the shy film geek (Rory Culkin) who declares that horror remakes have upped the ante on gore and invented new rules? Actually, I take issue with his mantra of horror facts because horror remakes are simply gorier but they are hardly inventive (Zombie's "Halloween," anyone?) Or could the killer be Sidney's overzealous publicist (Alison Brie from TV's "Community"), or is it the canny party girl (Hayden Panettiere)?

As I had mentioned earlier, "Scream 4" goes off the rails after a truly riveting and meta (yeah, that word for the box-within-the-box) opening sequence that shows clips from "Stab" films with two girls watching one scene, and then we learn that scene is being watched by two other girls! It is the most original and witty sequence in the entire film. Once the film shifts to the real world of "Scream 4," things go downhill. Dewey and Gale have a fight over Gale's insatiable desire to return to the media world. Sidney Prescott looks only slightly befuddled by the murderous, blood-on-the-walls events around her. I started getting bored wondering if there was any fuel left to rev up this screamified engine. Alas, a little bit of fuel.

After a slow start, "Scream 4" turns up the blood-splattered dial to 11, and there is a welcome burst of comic energy thanks to the terrific Courteney Cox. Her character, Gayle, wants to keep an eye on the "Stabathon" all-night party at a local farm (All seven Stab films are played annually at this event). The audience of teens relish the kills with glee (eeek!), and Gale sets up cameras on haystacks to track the real killer. Meanwhile, Ghostface slices and dices past Jill's friends and family and eventually confronts Sidney, but who is the killer and are there two of them? Will the cops watching Jill's home survive this ordeal?

"Scream 4" is full of the requisite postmodernist winks that the series built itself on. 71-year-old horrormeister Wes Craven ups the bloodletting but not the focus on character, though that is largely writer Kevin Williamson's fault. The stabbings become repetitious and frankly dull - don't want to sound like a prude but there is far too much violence and not much of it carries any sting or surprise. Neve Campbell, a fierce, animated actress who brought so much humanity and sensitivity to Sidney Prescott, is on autopilot here - she walks through the movie. But the last half of the film does in fact work, and there is a devilish surprise that kept me on the edge of my seat. I do like the remarks from these modern horror-savvy teens about horror remakes but they still haven't figured out how to outsmart the killer. This could've been Craven's attempt to really revitalize the genre by truly deconstructing it and making something new out of it. Four Ghostface movies and he has still only scratched the surface.

A Whisky-Soaked Ace of Spades

LEMMY (2010)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If there was ever a nuclear war, all that's gonna be left afterwards are a load of cockroaches and Lemmy

I have only listened to a couple of Motorhead songs recently (I am not a heavy metal listener, only a beginner). I liked what I heard - the rickety rhythms, the gravelly voice of Lemmy himself - it does sound more like rock than metal. So I guess I was not surprised to hear that Lemmy himself doesn't consider Motorhead to be metal. Such are the surprises in store for a humane portrait of the cult singer outlaw icon, Lemmy, in this fascinating if slightly long-winded documentary.

The Staffordshire-born Lemmy the Lurch was actually named Ian Fraser Kilmister. Before possessing his Richenbacher bass guitar and receiving the success of Motorhead, he was part of the Beatles-type group, the Rockin' Vickers. Lemmy also knew a world when rock and roll did not exist - it was inevitable that it would exist and he would be part of it. He was once a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, had been a band member of Hawkwind from which he was fired for using speed, and made his way into Motorhead which Ozzy Osbourne claims was truly the first metal band (though Black Sabbath technically preceded them).  

What is fascinating about this rock legend is that he is practically superheroic. At the age of 62, he still drinks a jack and coke everyday (and has for thirty years) and lives near L.A.'s Rainbow Room, a bar for rockers and heavy metal musicians. He still sings and rocks like nobody's business. He still tours, plays video games, watches "Family Guy," collects World War I and II memorabilia and plenty of knives for their aesthetic value (he has a vast knowledge of military history), and talks to only one of his sons. Lemmy is unapologetic about his alcohol intake ("He is a lion," quips one rock and roller) and doesn't give a damn what others think of him. But he is also resolutely human. He speaks with a tinge of sadness about a girlfriend from the early 70's who died of heroin, a drug he is opposed to. Lemmy mentions only in passing about his father who left him at a young age, and declares his son to be the most important aspect of his life.

Other than that, this documentary glorifies the man, the rocker who won't quit, the one who Foo Fighters (and former Nirvana drummer) Dave Grohl claims is the real deal as opposed to the neutered Keith Richards (I suppose the argument is that Keith Richards used to be a wild man and Lemmy is still the same). Later scenes inside a tour bus seem to run on forever (a little editing might have benefited). Directors Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski provide small shards of insight (such as Lemmy's crucial letter to the husband of former Nashville Pussy's bassist Corey Park insisting he did not have an affair with her) but I imagine only as much as the whiskey-soaked man himself will allow. If I can't love the film because of its adoration of this rocker without the slightest hint of criticism or opposition, I do like Lemmy himself. Unapologetic, friendly, humble - he is the ultimate rocker on the surface but I also sense a man who is in touch with his soul and with the people in his life. He doesn't have many regrets and doesn't live in the past.

The poster child for needless remakes

THE STEPFATHER (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Hollywood is so remake-happy nowadays that they'll even remake slasher/horror movies that were box-office failures. 1987's "The Stepfather" was a hell of a Hitchcockian suspense thriller yet, outside of L.A. and New York, it didn't perform well and only received an audience when it debuted on cable. Lead actor Terry O'Quinn (who is now known for TV's "Lost") was so terrifyingly maniacal in it, complete with a "Leave it to Beaver" complex about family life, that his stepfather remains one of the best psychopaths ever seen on the silver screen. O'Quinn returned for the first sequel (which wasn't bad) and the series ended with an abominable TV-movie sequel which did not feature O'Quinn. Twenty-years-later we get a remake that is neither as good nor as bad as other slasher flicks, but just as silly, undernourished and flavorless.

Murderous stepdaddy is now played by Dylan Walsh, who calmly walks out of his home after killing his entire family. He moves to a new town, becomes David Harris, has a meet-cute to end all meet-cutes in a supermarket where he runs into Susan Harding (played by Sela Ward), falls for her, moves in with her, and gets a job through Susan's sister (played winningly and smartly by Paige Turco). Of course, David has no social security card, no work history under the assumed name, and naturally Susan's sister gets suspicious. Then David's neighbor gets suspicious after seeing someone bearing the same facial features on America's Most Wanted (thank you John Walsh - no relation to Dylan). Of course, David stupidly checks online for his notoriety on America's Most Wanted website (O'Quinn's stepdaddy would never have done that). Plus, there is the new stepson who just go back from military school and whom David tries to get along with (stepdad has a problem with his boy's skimpily-dressed girlfriend). Yeah, David wants family so badly, he'll kill them and move on if they disappoint him (or if they find out who he really is). I want to say bring back the delightful Jill Schoelen, who played O'Quinn's stepdaughter in the original, but I hate to be too obvious. She could've played Sela Ward's part since Sela is wasted in the role.

Red herring after red herring, "The Stepfather" has too many characters and too many set-ups without any real payoffs. This is essentially an overstuffed, undercooked bore of a movie. The PG-13 rating may have a lot to do with it since the ads suggest a "Disturbia" comparison. Comparing one mediocre movie to another doesn't help. The performances are adequate and yet too facile, too unpenetrating. Nothing in this movie seems to evolve like the thriller counterpart of the 1987 original. It is more like an over-the-top TV-movie about a stepdad who happens to be evil, but with little visual investment in the overall feel of the community with its tree-lined avenues, picket fences and so on - we never get a full picture of suburbia the way the original cinematic shocker managed.

Competently made with the usual array of false scares and a sillier ending to boot than in most thrillers of this type, "The Stepfather" might bring the occasional shock to the system but it is far too nondescript to succeed wholly. Only Paige Turco brings an element of surprise and a small measure of depth (she is a lesbian hooked on Sherry Stringfield, the latter of whom you might know from TV's "E.R."). This Turco character would have enraged O'Quinn's character two decades ago. In the 21st century, the stepdad just wants her to stay out of his forged work history. That's progress, I suppose.

God of Thunder likes beer

THOR (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Back in 1996, Kenneth Branagh made the exasperating, overlong, stupendously amazing and richly layered and highly melodramatic "Hamlet." Branagh took the source material, adapted it to the 19th century, and took almost every word for word from the original text and made it breathe in a stunning 70mm format. Laurence Olivier would've been proud. So what is my point? My point is that I was not the least bit surprised that Branagh took on the comic-book "Thor." He has created an exasperating, stupendously amazing and richly detailed film that is not the least bit overlong or too melodramatic. Branagh occasionally thinks big and, when he does, he creates dazzling entertainment. And the Shakespearean allusion to the comic-book is there in full-force.

"Thor" is the God of Thunder, majestically played by Chris Hemsworth, a brash, arrogant, prideful warrior who longs to be King of Asgard. Thor's father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), sees how brash Thor is and before Thor is inducted in a ceremony, the Frost Giants crash the party. The Frost Giants are eight or nine-foot creatures who have the ability to turn anyone into ice. They are after the sacred Casket of Ancient Winters - it is their lifeforce that was taken from them by Odin during a past war. When Thor learns that Asgard's security has been breached, he takes his motley crew of warriors (The Warriors Three) to Jotenheim, the ice planet where the Frost Giants reside. A big battle ensues, with Thor wielding his powerful hammer with great velocity. Odin, who wished to settle peacefully with the Frosties, feels that Thor has betrayed him and banishes him to the planet Earth, in addition to sending the hammer there as well, firmly placed on a rock like Excalibur. When Thor learns humility and a sense of worth, he just might get his powerful weapon back.

When the film is earthbound, we learn that an astrophysicist, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), is awestruck in the New Mexico desert by wormholes in the nightly sky. Little does she know that the wormholes bring Thor to Earth. Jane is smitten by Thor and can't comprehend his Norse-like method of dispatching doctors and policemen by flinging them with Hulk-like precision. Thor is a mortal on Earth and tries to get Jane, her mentor Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), and Jane's i-Pad-prone and bored tech-savvy assistant, Darcy (Kat Dennings), to release his precious hammer so he can get back to Asgard. Only problem is that Thor's deceitful brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston, who looks like Iago, Othello's betrayer), craves Odin's throne and has some evil deeds up his sleeve. If the familial problems of the gods of other planets isn't in some way related to Shakespeare (and Branagh freely admits it is intended to), then I do not know what is.

"Thor" could have been a CGI fest of explosions and a lot of grunts and bells and whistles, sort of like the tepid "Conan the Barbarian" remake. Thanks to director Branagh and the ideally cast Chris Hemsworth, I breathed a sigh of relief when I did not see a single explosion within the first five minutes. Okay, that was a little sarcastic. I actually said, thank you Mr. Hemsworth who makes Thor a jolly, passionate, arrogant, funny God of Thunder. He does not look ridiculous in his armor or when he wields the hammer (unlike that especially campy version of Thor from "The Incredible Hulk Returns" TV movie). This is not a Thor that lands with a thud - he lands with humor, panache and a larger-than-life charisma. And when he is banished by his father, I can't say I wasn't more than a little moved by Hemsworth's nuanced, humanistic Thor.

The movie also has a great pair of villains, including Loki who will figure in the plot of the upcoming "The Avengers" movie; a tremendously exciting sequence with the Destroyer, which is a metal giant that can demolish a New Mexico town with his heat-emitting visor; superb special-effects of the planets of Asgard and Joteheim and those flashy rainbow bridges and a rotating sphere known as the Bifrost that offers passage between planets (the Bifrost is such a believable piece of machinery that I was ready to duck when it rotated at great speeds); Anthony Hopkins' opening narration of the times of war that will remind some of his similar tone of voice-over in Coppola's "Dracula"; and Stellan Skarsgård who is a hoot and a half as the doctor, who loved reading stories about Thor as a child but can't bring himself to believe he is sharing a beer with the God of Thunder.

If I have a gripe, it is Natalie Portman. She is an empty vessel of love in this movie, and it shows how times have changed when she delivered far more depth in her career-making roles in "The Professional" and "Beautiful Girls" than here. I suppose if the role had been played by current "2 Broke Girls" sitcom star, Kat Dennings, this movie might have been perfect popcorn fare. Added to that is the fleeting appearance by Rene Russo as Thor's mother - an easy paycheck and a bit of a waste of an actress who has not been used well in a long time.

Still, one slight miss in an otherwise brightly shaped and colored comic-book fantasy like "Thor" is like saying there is a floating pin in the universe headed for Asgard. Yeah, not that big a deal.