Walking the streets of Paris when it rains

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Ever since Woody Allen departed the Gershwin-ized New York City of neurotic intellectuals for the city of Paris, he changed a little. Woody's filmmaking became liberating, somehow freer as if Manhattan was a heavy weight he had to shake from his shoulders. Not that the characters in "Midnight in Paris" are a new breed - we still got a Woody Allen-type and those fake intellectuals he so adores to put in their place. What the film has is something magical, something more askew that is closer in spirit to "Purple Rose of Cairo," "Alice" or the vastly underrated "Shadows of Fog" than "Manhattan" or "Deconstructing Harry." "Midnight in Paris" is fairly close in spirit to those earlier examples, though not as surefooted or as deep. Still, a good film from the Woodman is better than a bad one.

Owen Wilson plays the Woody Allen-type this time, a writer of Hollywood hack material who aspires to be a novelist. Inez (Rachel McAdams) is Gil's fiancee who wishes Gil would put away such aspirations - she feels he is lacking in a cultural education (a typical Allenism, to be sure). Gil and Inez are visiting Paris but she has no time for love or for walking the Parisian streets when it rains - she'd rather learn about Rodin and Picasso from a Sorbonne professor (Michael Sheen), the fake intellectual. The professor is so willing to prove he is so cultured that he questions a stated fact from a museum tour guide (Carla Bruni - talk about shrewd casting). Gil, meanwhile, has encountered a strange incident, right past the midnight hour. A horse and carriage arrive on the street and the occupants ask him to join in. It turns out that Gil has, well, shall we say, stepped out of his time and into the Paris of the 1920's and meets people like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, Picasso etc. He is in a world with real novelists, true intellectuals, imaginative painters - a genuine time of excitement and discovery.

It is not fair to reveal much more of "Midnight in Paris" except that Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates, who also appeared in "Shadows and Fog") reads Gil's manuscript and provides guidance. The trick is that Gil has to appear on a certain street corner at the midnight hour, but is it all real or in Gil's head? I will never tell. As sweet and scrumptious as the atmosphere is that the Woodster has created, "Midnight in Paris" is more of a valentine to an era when creativity and art really took hold and transformed the early 20th century. My issue is that some characters, not the historical artists, lack the spark and bite that can make the material really come alive. Michael Sheen perfectly plays the part of a bearded professor to be sure, but Rachel McAdams as Inez is left on the sidelines - her fiancee role serves to make Gil see that there is a world of opportunity that she can't or won't see. She merely irritates and makes one wonder what Gil saw in her in the first place. Likewise, Inez's parents are shrill and also see no hope in a wannabe novelist as a future son-in-law (though Inez's mother has no qualms about spending a fortune on extravagant chairs for the couple's new home, and the father is a Tea Party supporter). When Inez fights with Gil over moving to Paris, a city she hates, it smacks of tired Allenisms that I have heard one too many times.

When "Midnight in Paris" focuses on the Parisian scene of the 1920's, especially the angelic Marion Cotillard as Picasso's fictional mistress who has a nostalgia for the days of artists like Toulouse Lautrec, I was transported to another world that seemed so romantic that I did not want to leave. I understood how Gil feels when he has to go back to the modern world but the city of Paris seems no different from the past and the present. The city is depicted as intoxicating, winsome and elegant - the film makes you want to visit the city. "Midnight in Paris" has an inspired premise and some wonderful, inspired gags (the one with the detective cracked me up). But it also has the Allenisms that I had hoped the Woodster would've let go of by now - the young couple arguing and bickering over intellectualism and culture feels like refried leftovers from "Annie Hall" onwards. Even then, the last scene is one of the most sweetly romantic in Woody Allen's career. 

Portrait of a Narcissistic Lost Soul

BLUE JASMINE (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Maybe all Woody Allen needed was a fresh story and an invigorating actress to make his work feel new again. "Blue Jasmine" is a masterstroke, a deeply humanistic and provocative film that deals with characters we may have seen a million times before, but never with such acuity and polish by a master filmmaker who still has some golden nuggets of wisdom to share.

Talkative to the point of irritation, formerly wealthy Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) has just arrived in San Francisco to temporarily live with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Jasmine has delusions of grandeur, hoping to meet the right man again after her embezzling, fraudulent investor of a husband (Alec Baldwin) committed suicide. She has no real prospects except to enroll in college and work part-time at a dentist's office. Jasmine disapproves of Ginger's apartment, her life and her new boyfriend, Chili (Bobby Cannavale), a mechanic head-over-heels in love with Ginger. Jasmine considers Chili a loser and hopes Ginger will meet someone else, which she does. Meanwhile, Jasmine starts talking to herself and has flashbacks of her opulent lifestyle.

"Blue Jasmine" may sound like a stiff bore and I can sense someone feeling that we have seen enough movies about wealthy socialites who despise everything that is not upper class. Thankfully the Woodster invests a measure of humanity in Jasmine, also thanks to Blanchett's acute, explosive performance. To Blanchett's credit, we never hate Jasmine but we do see her as nothing more than a pathetic, fragile creature who is out of her natural habitat. She lived a life of lies and never questioned anything her former husband did, that is when he conducted obvious fraud in their home and had love affairs with other women. Fragility underlies Jasmine - a woman whom we would regularly scorn acquires our sympathy. Blanchett is amazing and has a showstopping transformation towards the end that made me quite emotional, something I've not felt in a Woody Allen picture since 1988's "Another Woman" with Gena Rowlands.

Heaps of praise must also go to Sally Hawkins as the compassionate sister whose own love life is in turmoil; Andrew Dice Clay in the most sensitive, colorful performance he has ever had as Ginger's former husband who was bilked out of his lottery savings by Jasmine's ex; Bobby Cannavale as the mechanic who so dearly loves Ginger and cries in a grocery store to win back her love; Peter Saarsgard as a wealthy diplomat who has his eyes on Jasmine, and Louis C.K. who offers solid support as Ginger's occasional bedmate who seems nicer than the character from his "Louie" TV show.

Cate Blanchett informs "Blue Jasmine" in every scene with her idiosyncrasies and little asides - she is a nervous, loquacious spirit who is, possibly, seeking some measure of redemption. Her own son will not talk to her for reasons best left to the viewer. Her memories feel less substantial because her life was superficial before she lost her money. Now she finds people of a different economic state who are more welcoming, including her sister, and she freezes and loses sight of who the real Jasmine is. "Blue Jasmine" is one of the most penetrating and moving portraits of a narcissistic lost soul I've seen in years.

We only get one take!

THE HARD WAY (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in 1991)

"The Hard Way" is largely a generic action-comedy with superb performances and oodles of post-modernist goo to give it a slight lift...maybe a slight lift on a swing set as opposed to a large crane. Without Michael J. Fox or James Woods, the movie would sink fast.

Fox is a Nick Lang, a spoiled movie superstar who makes Indiana Jones clones to make people smile. Lang's agent (Penny Marshall, always the scene-stealer) reminds him that it is his job to make people smile, not think about the darker recesses of the human soul (Those are my words, not paraphrasing, but it is implied). Lang wants to break out of the sequel cycle of his "Smoking Gunn" series, mature and make a gritty, realistic cop movie after watching the news and seeing the hard-bitten cop, NY Detective Moss (James Woods). Lang's plan is to research the role of the cop by living and breathing Moss on a 24-hour basis. Need I remind anyone of the formula that has been beaten to death in buddy-buddy cop lore? You know what to anticipate next. Moss is not interested in educating a naive Hollywood star about the inner workings of good detective work, no sir, yet Lang is undaunted by Moss's resistance - Lang is fascinated and records Moss's thoughts and angry tirades in a tape recorder.

It is a shame that 'The Hard Way" does not stick like glue to this concept - here was the brave, postmodernist opportunity to deconstruct Hollywood buddy-buddy cop thrillers/action comedies from the point of view of a movie actor and a real high-wire cop. There are some priceless moments - I love Lang imitating Moss's girlfriend to Moss - but they are few and far in between. The screenplay is more interested in the Party Crasher (Stephen Lang), a serial killer who shoots the derelicts of society especially drug pushers at nightclubs. Too much time is devoted to this grinning one-dimensional maniac, resulting in two extended action scenes towards the end that stop the movie cold.

Annabella Sciorra as Moss's hapless girlfriend exudes a magnetism that is intoxicating - she provides a slight emotional center (for film fans, you will enjoy seeing a very young Christina Ricci as Sciorra's daughter). Fox and Woods make a good team and have fine chemistry - check out Woods towards the end as he comforts a wounded Fox. But the movie loses focus and patience with these electric, dynamic actors, concentrating instead on a plot that is manufactured television fodder at best. I would have preferred if director John Badham and his writers had fun with Lang and Moss on a 24-hour cycle that involved real grit, real shootouts, real violence - a police procedural with wit to give it some oomph. As it stands and as fitfully entertaining as it is, "The Hard Way" often looks and feels like a Nick Lang movie.

Chris Rock's rigorous honesty

TOP FIVE (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have not seen too many Chris Rock movies, but his confrontational stand up is always profoundly funny. He also has a habit of bringing a measure of discomfort with his stinging sense of humor, witness his recent provocative "Saturday Night Live" monologue in 2014. "Top Five" is a sneakily charming and often witty comedy from writer-director Chris Rock and although the wit heads for the mildly profane bone, it never loses sight of its unflinching honesty.

Chris Rock is Andre Allen, more or less based on Chris himself, a formerly alcoholic movie star who made people laugh and is now going through a transitional phase into more dramatic territory. His self-centered, gold-digging fiancee, a reality star (Gabrielle Union), has their love story and future marriage shaped into an episode of her own reality show though it is really to meant to boost her career ("I slept with Bradley Cooper!"). Allen's transition from comedy gives way to a serious movie about the Haitian slavery rebellion entitled "Uprize." When he checks a movie theater to see how it is performing, the latest Tyler Perry flick (with Madea in a haunted house) is the winner, not "Uprize." What is Andre Allen going to do if he can presumably be funny only when he drinks?

Enter Rosario Dawson as a New York Times reporter, Chelsea Brown, who is eager to interview Andre and find those sneaky truths or, as recovering alcoholics will tell you, "rigorous honesty." Andre reluctantly accepts her interview request, slowly building trust with Chelsea, even so far as to show his old neighborhood which includes his old friends and an ex (Sherri Shepherd) who wishes she stuck with him. Andre's friends (which includes a barfingly funny cameo by Tracy Morgan) remind Andre of his roots, how his first stand up gigs were disastrous, and also share their favorite five rappers.

Andre Allen is also shown as the alcoholic he once was. One particular naughty flashback deals with Cedric the Entertainer as a Texan freewheeler who introduces him to clubs and prostitutes. A hotel room involving pillows and champagne results in...dare I reveal it? Let's say it involves more than a couple of less-than-sanitary spots involving Cedric (it is a sequence that would been at home in "The Wolf of Wall Street"). There are also bouts of aggression when Allen dressed as Hammy the Bear, a character Allen played in three movies (something which Rock himself might not have ever agreed to - perhaps a commentary on how black actors are offered cartoonish roles such as Madea, or perhaps a little dig at Eddie Murphy who dressed up in an amusement park outfit in "Beverly Hills Cop III." According to Rock, it references Whoopi Goldberg's T-Rex partner in the forgotten "Theodore Rex"). The final straw is when Allen sees his Hammy character is used to sell beer.

"Top Five" has big belly laughs but it also has uncomfortable, sincere truths - remember, rigorous honesty. When Allen returns to his old neighborhood, he confronts a seemingly wise codger (Ben Vereen) who knew Allen and needs some cash, despite putting Allen down with regards to returning to his roots only for an interview. It is one of the best scenes in the film - the sly codger turns out to be Allen's father. There is also an uproarious scene where Allen talks to his hollering, frustrated agent (Kevin Hart) - their conversation about how his upcoming marriage is the only thing Allen has got going may recall the Kanye and Kim K. wedding. Added to that is a conversation about how 1968's "Planet of the Apes" might have inspired James Earl Ray to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. (dubious theory, funny at any rate). I can't leave out truly hysterical moments from DMX singing "Smile" and Jerry Seinfeld listing his top five rappers...but you have to stay tuned during the end credits for that.

"Top Five" isn't a top-of-the-line comedy (the cinematography has a rather dim, neutral look) but it has a terrifically bouncy edge to it, and Rosario Dawson's charms and wide smile (almost too wide for widescreen formats) is more than enough juice added to Chris Rock's observations on race and our celebrity obsessed culture. I am just being rigorously honest.  

Pick Tracy Flick

ELECTION (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1999)

Just when you thought that there was nothing more than brainless, insipid teenager movies obsessed with sex and money comes a delectable treat known as "Election." It is one of the best, quirkiest, smartest and most outrageous movies of the year - a bright, comical triumph from first frame to last. It also boasts one of my favorite performances of the year - from the wondrous fireball of energy known as Reese Witherspoon.

Witherspoon stars as Tracy Flick, a scheming, energetic, overly ambitious, overachieving high school student (how rare nowadays to witness such a person in any movie) with dreams of running for office. Tracy tries so hard that she makes muffins with the logo "Pick Flick" emblazoned on each one while seated at her campaigning table. And campaign she does, as Tracy runs for the upcoming high school election for school president. Only the civics teacher, Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick), is not sure he wants Tracy to win, and she has a hell of a chance since she's the only one running. So he encourages a dumb jock, Paul Metzler (Chris Klein - a keen reminder of Keanu Reeves) into running for the election, thus sending a chord of resentment through some principal characters. Tracy is understandably furious thinking she's the only one who should run. Paul's sister, Tammy (Jessica Campbell), is a rebellious loner with lesbian tendencies, and decides to run for president as an attack against her brother's girlfriend. What transpires are voting posters torn from walls, countless affairs, inarticulate political speeches, bee stings, meditating between power lines, lies, bitter jealousies, and enough catastrophic events to make Monica Lewinsky blush with shock.

"Election" is deftly written and imaginatively directed by Alexander Payne. His first effort, "Citizen Ruth," was a mild, uneven black comedy that nevertheless raised issues about abortion rights - a touchy subject. With "Election," Payne explores and deeply uncovers a cutthroat comic spirit in the realm of politics , and there is an occasional mean streak - all the characters suffer and pay for the consequences of their actions. Yes, even the righteous Mr. McAllister, who knows the difference between morals and ethics but does not apply them to his daily life. As played by Matthew Broderick, it is hard to dislike him, but you can reject his ethical and moral choices.

In "Election," it is impossible to know whom you should be rooting for or whom you should sympathize with. And Payne cleverly shifts from one character's point-of-view to another to the point where we at least hope everyone gets away with their individual actions. We hope that Tracy gets the shot as president, but we start to doubt her ethics (she wants to get ahead in the world, after all). However, is she any worse than McAllister, who has an affair with his friend's wife? Does it matter that his friend was a former geometry professor who had an affair with Tracy and, as a result. ousted from the school? Or what about the dumb, sweet Paul who can't give a speech to save his life? Or Tammi who has ambitions beyond elections, and considers suspensions to be restful vacations?

The cast is uniformly perfect. Reese Witherspoon is a spunky, tense, frighteningly ambitious creature who will do anything to get support (not unlike her similar character in "Freeway") - she is like a tight ball of energy ready to burst. Broderick has his best role in ages - he adeptly switches from an omnipresent, good-natured teacher to a repulsive-looking creature with a bee sting aiming to destroy Tracy - an act Ferris Bueller's principal (the memorable performance by Jeffrey Jones in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") would have been fond of. Jessica Campbell goes against the grain of zit-free, attractive teens with her braces and rebellious attitude towards the school - she would have been a fitting replacement for Rachel Leigh Cook in "She's All That." And the cameo by Colleen Camp as Tracy's mother is a shrewd casting choice - she is as ambitious as her daughter.

"Election" is a hysterical, wonderful movie guaranteed to keep you in stitches throughout. It is original, offbeat, edgy and facetious.

Broken coal in your stocking

JINGLE ALL THE WAY (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally viewed in 1996)

Virtually unfunny, crude and masochistic are indicators of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Jingle All the Way," a comic fantasy selling itself as a family comedy with "family values."

Arnold plays Howard Langston, the workaholic dad who is never around when his son or his pretty wife (Rita Wilson) need him. His son's Christmas wish is to get every kid's favorite action toy figure, Turbo Man. Problem is that every parent wants to get it including a hysterically less-than-amusing Sinbad, who plays a postal worker dad. Please, no gone postal jokes - Arnie is already there.

"Jingle All the Way" is an uncomfortable mix of "Toy Story," "Hook" and arguably Arnie's worst picture, "The Last Action Hero." Instead of the screenplay sticking with the idea of toying with today's obsessive consumerism, "Jingle All the Way" attempts to cajoles us with anything but. There are relentless fistfights, lots of broken glass, eager shoppers shoving and pushing each other, a group of Santa con men led by Jim Belushi, and even a desperate reindeer - this is prime comedy material? There is so much cartoon violence that it becomes nauseating, including a jarring ending with Arnie wearing the Turbo Man outfit to please his kid. Arnie tries to go the route of sentimentality but it is more than heavy-handed - it is darn right delivered with a bulldozer. Funny how Schwarzenegger used to make movies - give us a violent action movie early in the year, then cajole us with some kinder Arnie tale near Christmas as if to redeem his bloodbath trespasses. Early in 1996, he gave us a reasonably entertaining action picture, "Eraser." "Jingle All the Way" will make one yearn to watch "Eraser" again.

The whole cast of "Jingle All the Way" is wasted except for Phil Hartman as the irksome neighbor who rises above this tripe with unblemished wit and grace. If Hartman had played the absentee dad, then it might have developed into a minor Christmas comedy classic, without a doubt. As it stands, Arnie merely jingles all the way to the bank on this one. 

Communicating ideas based on hard facts

THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT (2014)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I was never an avid reader of the New York Times nor the New York Review of Books so I am approaching this documentary with a cold perspective. "The 50 Year Argument" is an incisive revelation, a rip-roaring guide through the years of the numerous articles, authors and writers who dominated the hot potato of controversy of a magazine that, upon its inception, was anything but what it remains today - an intellectual, eye-opening discourse on politics and key central figures in our history.

The documentary covers the gamut of writers like Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Isaiah Berlin, Noam Chomsky, W.H. Auden, James Baldwin and Stephen Jay Gould, among many others, who covered a wide range of topics and scrutinized (rather than lionized) many central political figures such as Nixon and, most alarmingly, Leni Riefenstahl, the documentarian of the most beautiful and controversial propaganda film of all time, "Triumph of the Will." Sometimes the focus was on current American issues of the day such as the Vietnam War, feminism and Norman Mailer's own virulent discourse on women (his 1971 Town Hall standoff with Susan Sontag has to be seen believed), and other times it was on the political progression of countries like North Vietnam, post-Vietnam War, and how it implemented power no different than its formerly Communist regime. Naturally, all of these various topics, covering alternative ground on matters that the national dialogue would not permit, is watched, read and analyzed by Robert Silvers, the New York Reviews of Book's founding editor who knew his writers better than they knew themselves.

Three writers stand out in "The 50 Year Argument" - Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and Joan Didion. Mailer criticizes Vidal for placing his hot-temperedness on the same list as Charles Manson, and for Vidal's understandable concern about Mailer's "sexual violence" leanings in his novels not to mention his opposition to feminism. The two duked it out famously on the Dick Cavett Show.

Writer Joan Didion, who used to be a screenwriter, is featured in one segment as having written that something was askew in the assigning of blame to three black men for allegedly raping the Central Park Jogger. She correctly surmises that the three black men were innocent years before it was fact - assigning quick blame to black men for raping a white woman, something which she mentions casually has happened before. Thus, a historical perspective and a societal mob mentality, with varying degrees of polarization, enables scapegoating the wrong assailants.

"50 Year Argument" is exceptionally shaped and lucidly structured as a document of 50 years of ardent discussion and communication in the little magazine that could. The fact that it helped to shed light on matters of national and societal importance, something which mainstream newspapers couldn't or wouldn't articulate with regards to apparent cultural shifts in foreign and domestic stories, is exemplified by Silvers who sought complex truth, not simplicity. A barrage of clips of authors speaking of the magazine as one whose intellectual prowess reached the isles of Ireland, directors Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi have concocted a massively detailed history in just over a hour and a half without missing a beat. More significantly, the film reminds us of a time where a communication of ideas based on hard facts could take precedence over arguing without them. Today's news could take a page or two from the New York Review of Books.