Coens traveling nowhere

O'BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2000)

I sat watching the Coen Bros. latest film, "O'Brother, Where Art Thou?" in stunned silence. I certainly watched with admiration that the Coens would be interested in the Depression era. I liked the art direction and the cinematography by gifted cinematographer Roger Deakins, who also photographed "Fargo." The film has a sense of time and place, and it has all the hallmarks of a wonderfully crafted period piece. The problem is that there is no attitude, no edge, no life. In fact, this remains the most lifeless, laughless comedy I've seen in years, and the Coens are to blame entirely for this misfire.

The film begins promisingly enough with the shot of a chain gang working on a railroad. Three prisoners escape and keep ducking across an open wheat field, unseen by the prison guards. They are Ulysses Everett McGill (thin mustached George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro), and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) - three fools with not one brain cell to their name. Nevertheless, Ulysses considers himself the leader of the group as they try unsuccessfully to hop on a freight train. Later, their chains are cut by a local who turns them in to the cops. The trio escape, finding themselves in one comical situation after another. Ulysses's intent is to find some secretly stashed money that they can split among themselves. Along this journey, they encounter trigger-happy Babyface Nelson (Michael Badalucco) who hates to be called Babyface; a one-eyed, vicious Bible salesman (John Goodman); members of the Klu Klux Klan; a remote radio station man (Stephen Root) where the trio cut a record as the Soggy Bottom Boys, and three sirens by a river who luxuriate their sex appeal in one of the most surreal setpieces the Coens have ever devised in their career.

And yet I was mortified by how little any of this made me laugh, much less chuckle. I sat watching all these events unfold on screen yet none of it engaged me on any level. Every sequence is flat and joyless, including a KKK rally that is neither ominous nor remotely funny. There is one brief segment involving the possibility that Pete has turned into a horny toad but it never leads anywhere. The sequences hang loosely with no weight or substance.

The actors do not help in the least. Clooney, Turturro and Nelson merely react with artificial expressions that seem less alive than those found in a Norman Rockwell painting. The Coens refuse to invest any humanity in these characters so that every single situation, every actor, every line is reinforced with a robotic mentality that produces no chemistry, no interest and no imagination. Holly Hunter shows up in a throwaway cameo as McGill's previous lover who finds him less than "bona fide." She shows some strength and vitality and refuses to come off as an automaton or a cartoonish caricature, unlike the rest of the cast.

"O'Brother, Where Art Thou?" reminded me of the frenetic road comedy by the Coens known as "Raising Arizona," which has become something of a cult classic and which I less than admire. I suppose their over-the-top brand of humor of the anything-goes school of comedy doesn't click with me at all, as I was also one of the few who heavily disliked "The Hudsucker Proxy." I admire their intentions in creating a zany comedic period piece (and thus basing it on Homer's "The Odyssey") but I found nothing here to connect with me on any level. Perhaps it is time for them to go back to their film noir roots, "Blood Simple" and "Fargo," two of my favorites by the Coens. Here, the Coens seem to be dangerously close to traveling nowhere.

Abandon ye Millions

A MILLION TO JUAN (1994)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Paul Rodriguez's "A Million to Juan" seemingly wants to be a raucous, wild comedy about greed, perhaps a touch of "Brewster's Millions" with a Latino edge. Rodriguez, serving as a debuting director, constructs "A Million to Juan" as a comedy with more dramatic moments, accentuated by a commentary on illegal immigration and the fear of reporting on slumlords that could lead to deportation. The film is not a total success but it is a suitable enough entertainment to make one wish it took more chances.

Rodriguez is the title character, an undocumented L.A. citizen (not an illegal immigrant) living with his son, Alejandro (Jonathan Hernandez), and two roommates in a tight slum of an apartment. The apartment building is in such shambles that the slumlord (a wicked bastard played by Paul Williams) refuses to fix the heating system. Juan wants a life with his son that doesn't include him selling oranges on the street corner by the freeway. One smoggy day in East L.A., an unseen stranger in a white limo hands Juan a million dollar check. The catch is that Juan can spend it, as long as he gives it back by the end of a 30-day trial period (not sure I really get the point of that - at least in "Brewster's Millions," the main character was able to spend the money and earn more if spent under strict regulations. Of course, this is based on Mark Twain's "The Million Pound Bank Note" where this presentation of the note is enough to warrant full credit at any store). Nevertheless, Juan and his two roommates show the check to the bank and plenty of high-end businesses and he never spends a dime - showing the check grants Juan collateral to get free meals, free groceries, free cars, free everything, including a Latina who craves a man with a nice car and a job. In actuality, Juan has his romantic sights set on an INS case worker (Polly Draper) who is impressed by Juan's ambitions to someday run a restaurant.

"A Million to Juan" is a safe, family-friendly film that barely exploits its premise. It never takes its central idea and runs with it - it mostly runs circles around it. Juan never spends a dime and would rather be working and do away with the check - are you kidding me? The screenplay by Robert Grasmere and Francisca Matos spends its time instead with the INS case worker and other supporting characters, particularly some neighbors that results in a tragedy which does little for the comic output of the movie.

I am not completely disregarding "A Million to Juan." Paul Rodriguez is a likable enough actor and his and other characters are hardly depicted as stereotypes (well, with the exception of the Latina and Mr. Gerardo's "Rico, Suave" act). The characters are mostly written with a touch of humanity and the immigration issues are brought into the mix with honesty and some biting humor. But none of this holds enough water for its premise that is open to so many possibilities - all squandered for the sake of a predictable plot and an ending that is sweet yet hardly unexpected. I was expecting a comic tale of greed where Juan learns that money isn't everything. Instead, I got a movie about a familial, romantic, nice guy who has no greedy inclinations and just wants to open a restaurant. 

Disney on Ice again

FROZEN (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Frozen" is a delicate, tasty Disney treat...that we kind of have seen before again and again. Based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" (which it barely resembles), it is fun for the whole family but like P.L. Travers had said about the Disney film adaptation of her "Mary Poppins" book, it is heavily diluted.

The green land of Arendelle has got two distinct princesses, both sisters who love to play with snow and ice. Thanks to Princess Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) special power of creating both snow and ice, the younger princess Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) loves to slide up and down the snow hills that are created right in her huge bedroom. A near fatal accident for Anna causes grief for Elsa and her parents, who are told by a rock Troll King that she must hide her powers from her precocious younger sister. This means no more snowmen or snow hills, and almost no real contact (Elsa stays insider her bedroom, never coming out to build any snowmen for fear of killing her only sister). As the years go by, Anna meets, falls in love and wants to marry a prince, Prince Hans (Santino Fontana), but Elsa forbids it. An argument during Anna's coronation as Queen leads to chaos as Elsa accidentally turns the whole land into ice and thus creates an eternal winter. Anna leaves and creates her own icy Fortress of Solitude.

Nothing that happens in "Frozen" can't be anticipated. There is the cute and funny comic relief, Olaf (Josh Gad), an amiable snowman who follows Elsa on her dangerous trip to reconcile with Anna; the mountain man and inevitable true love for Elsa, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), and his trusty reindeer, Seth, and the wicked and greedy, ah, I will not reveal that one but there is a character who does a 180 that you'll see coming through the hazy, windy frozen tundra. Andersen's original fairy tale "Snow Queen" is vastly different in tone and characters and a darker, though no less magical vision (No princess sisters in that tale, they are actually young neighborly friends, plus there is also an evil Troll and a magic mirror. The Snow Queen is more of a mysterious figure). "Frozen" almost feels like a repeat of "Brave" but far less idiosyncratic. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy "Frozen," I did and I love the songs (a comment you won't hear from me often when it comes to recent musical animated tales) and you can't help but like the two princesses, but the movie feels like warmed-up leftovers from other tastier confections in the Disney and Pixar canon. I only wish someone followed "Snow Queen" more closely to the letter but Disney is not in the business of riskier family fare, just more family-friendly fare.

Holocaust as a farcical game

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (LA VITA E BELLA) (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1997)

Roberto Benigni is the modern-day Chaplin - quixotic, energetic and clownish. He's always surrounded by societal misfits and higher-ups who want no part of him, yet Benigni always finds a way to immerse himself in their company and conform to society's expectations, all the while still remaining buffoonish. "Life is Beautiful" is his latest film as writer-director, but this time he's confronted by a deeper reality - the Holocaust.

Benigni stars as Guido, a Jewish-Italian buffoon who continually runs into a pretty schoolteacher (Nicoletta Braschi), whom he desperately longs for. The first time, he confronts her at a farm where he makes off with some eggs. Then he makes a merry trip to one of the picturesque villages of Tuscany, seeking employment as a waiter and living with his uncle. Of course, he keeps running into the schoolteacher, who admires his persistence. In one incredibly riotous scene, Guido impersonates an official who is to lecture a class on races. Guido makes such a spectacle of himself by undressing in front of the class and making observations about racism that it practically had me falling out of my seat laughing. Guido finally wins the teacher's heart and they get married, have a son, and run their own bookstore. During the last hour of the film, Guido and his son are captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. It is here where Guido tries to convince his son that it is all a game, a contest played by military-style officials where the grand prize is a real tank!

The first hour of "Life is Beautiful" is sweet and comical, among Benigni's finest moments on screen. It is on par with the rampant silliness of "Johnny Stecchino." The second half is not as ingenious, and I think mainly because Benigni chose a subject that is difficult to take on any comic level. The notion is that Guido tries to shelter his son from the horrors of the Nazi death camps by accentuating that it is all a game, a farce that can be reckoned with. In doing so, Benigni has removed all the inhumanity and horror from the Holocaust - he turns it into another one of Guido's comical pranks. Some of it is successful - I like the scene where Guido serves as translator for a German commandant who explains what the duties of the prisoners are in the camps. There is also a brief moment where Guido sees a mountainous hill of corpses, all photographed as if they were a glass painting. By the end of the film, though, the theme of survival and sacrifice is lost when we don't really see what was lost or gained from the experience. It doesn't help that the camps and their surroundings are photographed in the same colorful, picturesque quality as the Tuscan village scenes.

"Life is Beautiful" is a paradox in theory - it presents the Holocaust as a fairy tale, and expects us to laugh along with Guido. If we had seen it from Guido's son's point-of-view, the comical scenes would have worked better. His son surely would have had his own wild-eyed view of one of the 20th century's greatest atrocities. And the last scene of the American tank arriving at the camps reeks of Spielbergian sentiment.

In general, "Life is Beautiful" does so many things right, and is often wonderful and touching. Benigni is one of the few uncommonly pleasurable actors in the movies today, and he has agreeable chemistry with his real-life wife Braschi ("Down By Law"). It was a mistake, though, to transcend the meaning of the Holocaust by turning it into a farce. The movie doesn't have the atmosphere or the sardonic pull of the similar Lina Wertmuller classic, "Seven Beauties," which accepted the reality of the war and had the superb comic actor Giancarlo Giannini at its center, saving his own life by sleeping with the commandant. Sure, we all make sacrifices, but sometimes we need to see what we're making them for.

Pamela, the ship has sailed

SAVING MR. BANKS (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I expected a maudlin and overly sentimental film from Disney while watching "Saving Mr. Banks." Instead, I witnessed a very moving, almost poetic film about a stern, rigid, cynical woman who is slowly coming out of her own shell.

Emma Thompson, an actress of exemplary simplicity, is Pamela Travers, the stiff-lipped British writer of "Mary Poppins" stories who is facing some financial hardships (she can't afford a maid yet keeps hiring and firing them). The ever cheerful Walt Disney (Tom Hanks, perfectly cast) wants to make a film adaptation of "Mary Poppins" (a 20-year-struggle) but the ever cynical Travers, who despises Disney's movies, will not sell the rights to her stories unless she has absolute control of the production. Her stipulations are harsh: no use of the color red, no animation, and complete line-for-line approval of the script among other requests. If her stipulations are not adhered to, she will quit and take her novels with her thus, no movie (in reality, Disney had already secured the rights to the novels despite the fact that Travers still had script approval).

The pre-production of "Mary Poppins" turns into a nightmare of unseen proportions with Travers disapproving of the silly songs, the lack of authenticity in the script, the dilution of the characters from her books, the sole animated sequence and much more. There is reason behind this - "Mary Poppins" is a very personal work for Travers, extrapolating stories from her own personal background that includes a rough childhood in the Australian outback. Her alcoholic father, a banker who gets himself fired frequently (exceedingly well-played by Colin Farrell), is shown in various flashbacks as well as her mother - one scene involving her mother in a lake is gripping and somber in ways that we don't expect to find in a Disney film. Farrell's drunk episodes will make you cringe - they are conveyed with extreme honesty. The memories are too painful and that is the insight we gather from her objections to "Mary Poppins" - it is not so much a cutesy film about a flying nanny as it is a deeply personal work about her inner demons. You'll slowly understand why Travers objects to various script elements and especially the use of the color red.

"Saving Mr. Banks" is not a flight of fancy biographical tale with a warm rinse and rose-colored glasses, nor does it trivialize the arduous creative process of a Disney production. It is much more of a somber and involving film about a woman's scorn for diluting personal experiences for the sake of an entertainment. 

D.O.A. Bernie and the laughs

WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The problem with stiffs in a comedy is that once a character is dead and lugged around from one place to another, you can only milk the gag so far before it runs dry. Sensing the occasional chuckle in an otherwise resolutely gag-free "Weekend at Bernie's" for a second time proves that with age, some movies suck the air out of the room. Maybe in 1989, the movie seemed funny to me but it is just an elongated, one-note premise, and nothing comes of it.

Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman play two friends who work for an insurance company who discover a fraudulent account. The dashing, suave Bernie is their boss (played with unabashed charm and stiff-like grace by Terry Kiser) and applauds their efforts by inviting them to his beach house in Hampton Island, NY (a fictitious island, by the way). However, there is more than meets the eye since the fraud is Bernie's doing (a mob connection), and he wants the two ambitious kids whacked. Problem is the mob knows Bernie is sleeping with the head honcho's mistress so Bernie will be whacked instead. So we eventually arrive at Hampton Island, Bernie is whacked and the boys, once they discover this, hesitate to call the police, then they try to call, hesitate, etc. They hope that Bernie's party guests will notice he is nothing but a corpse but no - the guests on this island are all drug-addicted, alcoholic idiots who want to borrow the dead man's prized possessions and nothing more. Naturally, the mistress comes around and she and Bernie are engaged in an act together that is the most inspired note in the whole film.

I did leave out that Silverman's character has a thing for a fellow co-worker (a wasted Catherine Mary Stewart merely existing as a pawn - she is better than that) whom he profusely lies to! This subplot belongs in another movie (especially the awry romantic scene at his parents' house). Mostly, we get a dead Bernie whom the boys hoist onto boats repeatedly or shake his body in front of the guests to feign the appearance of someone alive...but very little of it is funny and comes across as crass and unbelievable. Being a stiff is not automatically funny...nor is seeing one buried in the sand twice any more comical. And using two highly unlikable and soulless idiotic chums as the protagonists makes this comedy D.O.A.

House of Diluted Horrors

THE FUNHOUSE (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Out of all of the early 80's slasher flicks, "The Funhouse" is slightly above most of them but there's not much more to say. Coming from Tobe Hooper who scared the bejesus out of me with his frighteningly intense and nightmarish "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I expected a whole lot more. After all the Hoop made the sensational TV movie "Salem's Lot" and directed most of "Poltergeist."

Elizabeth Berridge (who some of you might know as Constance Mozart in "Amadeus") is Amy, the virgin who goes on a date with a hot guy! The guy is Buzz (Cooper Hucklebee) and they are on a double date with Amy's friend, Liz (Largo Woodruff), and her very nerdy boyfriend, Richie (Miles Chapin). They are off to the funhouse, a traveling carnival in town that has been plagued with trouble in other locations. Amy doesn't want to go since she would rather see a movie but Buzz convinces her. Once they are at the funhouse and see attractions like a two-headed cow and various goblins and skeletons and other spooky contraptions, the double daters decide to stay overnight. Big mistake when you consider the occupants of this funhouse including a foul-mouthed fortune teller (hilarious wickedness from Sylvia Miles), a possibly deformed male wearing a Frankenstein get-up, and the demented master of ceremonies (Kevin Conway, a sort of poor man's Oliver Reed). A murder ensues witnessed by the pot-smoking, sex-starved teens that leads to an inescapable dilemma.

I would almost recommend "The Funhouse" had it been more devilishly fun and made better use of its ominous sets. There are good set-ups, especially involving Amy's brother, Joey (Shawn Carson), who sneaks out of the house and checks out the funhouse. Why? Maybe because he fears for his sister's safety or because he has an affection for Karloff's Frankenstein monster (which he keeps a poster of in his house) or due to the strange Frankenstein-costumed carnival worker he sees. Hmmm. There are a few scenes where Joey gingerly tries to avoid getting seen after the carnival is closed but nothing comes of them. When one of the workers calls his parents and they pick him up, you kind of wished this whole subplot was eliminated altogether.

Little hints of something more foreboding are sprinkled throughout the misguided screenplay. The scene where the carnival worker wipes Joey's face while his parents look on is far more tense and scary than anything else in the movie. I also like Berridge's scene in the car with Buzz before they go to the funhouse where Buzz merely tries to manipulate her and she sees through it, though she retains her naivete (she also finds his jokes unfunny). It is such a good damn scene, so perfectly written and acted, that it deserves better than what follows. And whatever hope there is, and it is suggested, of seeing the glint of sadness in Kevin Conway's character is immediately eradicated by the usual shocks and "who goes there?" cliches.

I am not totally dismissive of Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse" and I do see that he might have been trying for a more character-oriented slasher film, dependent more on mood and atmosphere than bloody mayhem. Unfortunately, there are one too many missed opportunities, not to mention a silly looking monster, homages to "Halloween" and "Psycho" and not much else. Elizabeth Berridge and the film's sense of atmosphere almost make up for it, but this carnival could've had more fright value.