Deconstructing Bad Woody Allen comedy

 ANYTHING ELSE (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from 2003

I would have to say that Woody Allen is one of the great comic geniuses of the 20th century. Any time I see a Woody picture, I always look forward to his brazen, frank dialogue and all the typical

Allenisms about relationships in the Upper East Side. There have been slight missteps here and there ("September" and that sex parody with too a long title to print here), but there are just as many

terrific films in his resume. "Anything Else" is not just a misstep, it is easily the worst Woody Allen comedy ever made, not to mention one of the most putrid romantic comedies I've ever seen. It is so

unfunny, so forced, so unnatural that you kind of wish Meg Ryan would show up and give it a lift.

I am a big fan of Woody Allen - he was always the master of the romantic comedy. His "Annie Hall" is his greatest comedy by far. I can also list "Zelig," "Broadway Danny Rose," "Bullets over Broadway"
and "Love and Death" and, well, there are many more. There are also his Bergmanesque films, such as "Another Woman" and "Husbands and Wives," that are criminally underrated. Watching "Anything Else" is like watching a carbon copy of the real Allen. It is junior-league all the way with almost nothing transpiring on screen that will move, excite or stimulate you. Casting Jason Biggs and Christina
Ricci may have seem like natural choices, but they almost have nothing to share on screen - they appear like cardboard, stock characters who are reciting lines for a Woody Allen play, not a movie. In fact, I got the impression we were watching a filmed recital! The film's staginess and virtually static camera shots with only occasional coverage (a stylistic choice of Woody's for quite some time) emphasizes the staleness of the whole project.

Describing "Anything Else" is like describing a bland souffle - it is bland and not much else. All the vigor and juice we expect from Woody is gone. There are jokes about the Holocaust but none ring
with the truth he brought to his earlier films - even some digs at the Jews come off as tired. Jason Biggs plays a comedy writer named Jerry Falk but he is not permitted a single line that is remotely
funny - Allen did a superior job playing a comedy writer in "Annie Hall." Christina Ricci is completely unconvincing as a self-involved, jazz-loving, wanna-be actress, Amanda, who may or not be cheating
on Jerry. These two lovebirds seem more like siblings than a couple.

There is also Stockard Channing as Amanda's mother who moves in with them and tries to goad Biggs into writing lines for a song she has composed. Then we get scenes that hardly elicit more than a
mere chuckle - a chuckle in recognition of the Woody Allen of the past. An opening park bench sequence with Woody making snappy comments on Freud and other philosophers will make you cringe - he seems to struggle for laughs that aren't there.

That leads me to describe Woody Allen himself. He plays a New Jersey teacher who tries to guide Jerry, but I just got annoyed with him. His character is supposed to be an offbeat sociopath but he comes
off as artificial. There is a whole extended sequence where Woody tries to persuade Jerry to arm himself. There is a lot of hysteria over this episode, including trying to move a piano that belongs
to Amanda's mother. It is such a laughless affair that you wonder what is the point. Woody would've been better off not appearing in the movie at all.

"Anything Else" will leave you stunned as if you are watching someone imitate the comic master's style. His films of late haven't reached the comical and personal nature of "Deconstructing Harry" but they have not been offensive to the funny bone either - "Hollywood Ending" had more laughs than this travesty. An unfunny Woody Allen comedy is a criminal act in the annals of cinema.

Played it too Many Times, Sam

 HOLLYWOOD ENDING (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original Review from 2002

It may be that Woody is simply too old to keep his famously neurotic schtick seem new all over again. In "Curse of the Jade Scorpion," Woody made us laugh by trying to make whoopee with Helen Hunt, and thus enduring all her putdowns. The fact that it was set in the 1930's made it almost refreshing from the usual stuff that passes for comedy nowadays. In "Small Time Crooks," he played a trashy loser who decides to pull a robbery to make ends meet. Since "Bullets Over Broadway" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (a decade ago), Woody has seemed content in making comedies, some as refined and less slapsticky as his early films. But in "Hollywood Ending," Woody is becoming a former shadow of himself. He is still funny (and I can't imagine a single Woody film being anything less than remotely funny), but he is losing his rougher, snappier edge - a quality that in something like "Deconstructing Harry" could attack us and make us laugh nervously.

Woody plays Val Waxman, a has-been superstar director who is stuck making deodorant commercials in cold environments. A new project has potential but it has already been offered to Peter Bogdanovich. However, Val's ex-wife, Ellie (Tea Leoni), a producer for Galaxy Pictures, has Val in mind to direct a gritty script she wrote called "The City that Never Sleeps." The story is set in New York and who doesn't know the Empire state better than Val. She has a tough time convincing Hal (Treat Williams), the executive backing the picture, that the has-been has the talent to pull it off. Unfortunately, Val suddenly acquires psychosomatic blindness and this can be a problem for someone who has to direct a cast and communicate with the cinematographer. Val has to appear like he is smoothly handling the reins of a 60-million dollar production, despite choosing strange angles and letting actors perform without the slightest bit of subtlety. You know the French would love this kind of film.

"Hollywood Ending" has humorous touches but Allen barely attacks Hollywood - his zingers lack the bite that earlier, similar films have handled with far more savage wit. It is funny hearing Val's suggestions that the film be shot in black-and-white and have a hand-held camera shot instead of a Steadicam shot to suggest the inner chaos of a character. I also like a house party scene where his friends comment that Hitchcock was an artist yet very commercial (the debate continues for all film scholars on that issue alone). But the movie's handling of Val's blindness is oddly unfunny, though it is a kick to see him to walk into people or fall from a scaffold. Every scene where a character talks to Val unbeknownst to his blindness falls flat. All Woody can do is stare in the opposite direction and flail his arms and speak in a nervous chatter (he does this routine better than anybody). Somehow the movie never really kicks into gear and offer the numerous comical problems that could occur if a director was blindly making a movie (bad pun). We never to get to see the dailies of Val's work nor do we get many comical payoffs while Val is on the set. A scene where an actress (Tiffani Thiessen) tries to seduce Val also falls flat - why couldn't the scene build on having the seduction actually work in Val's favor?

What works best is Tea Leoni as the sweet-tempered Ellie who greatly admires her ex-husband, though his focus and concentration on filmmaking was more important than their relationship (yet another Allenism we have endured again and again). I also like Treat Williams as the executive who fails to understand why he can't see the dailies. Debra Messing is the only annoying performance in the movie, heightening her character to near cartoonish status (maybe that was the point but she is far too bubbly and absent-minded for my tastes). George Hamilton as another business executive mostly recedes in the background. Mark Rydell, however, is superb as Val's beaming agent who tries to help Val get into his director's chair on the first day of production.

"Hollywood Ending" is Woody Allen at his most comatose, failing to wring the laughs from his cliched subject. Maybe there isn't much left to satirize about Hollywood anymore. It is interesting that Woody had more to say about La-La Land in 1972's "Play it Again, Sam" than he does thirty years later.

Joy and sadness at the festivities

 THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY (2001)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Digital video has become a revolution ever since "The Blair Witch Project," which was shot using video and 16mm film. "The Anniversary Party" is one of the latest films shot entirely on digital video. Though the medium is not so outstanding, it is creatively used in this film where nobody mistakes a dizzying hand-held camera as a motive for making a movie. In fact, this film doesn't look like a home movie and that is one of its strengths, not to mention the addition of an incredible cast.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming play Sally and Joe, a married couple living in the canyons outside of Los Angeles. Joe is an author who decides to take a shot at directing his own film, though he knows it may fail (he hates movies). Sally is a thirtysomething actress, who is thought to be past her
prime. Joe is making his movie based on one of his novels, using a bright twentysomething actress, Skye Davidson (Gwyneth Paltrow), to play the role of Sally. Sally herself is rightfully upset that she is not playing the role. The bulk of the movie is a party hosted by Sally and Joe celebrating their sixth
anniversary of their marriage. They seem like the perfect, loving couple until each guest arrives and we learn one small detail after another that reveal not all is well. The guests include Joe's best friend, Gina (Jennifer Beals), who creates an exemplary photograph of the married couple; Jerry (John Benjamin
Hickey), the business manager, and his loud wife (Parker Posey); John C. Reilly as a director, convinced that Sally has ruined his latest opus, and his largely neurotic wife (Jane Adams); a good friend of the family (Michael Panes) who looks and acts like Peter Sellers; Cal and Sophie (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates), a former movie idol and his retired actress wife; and, finally, two fussy neighbors next door (Denis O'Hare and Mina Badie) who are always complaining about Sally and Joe's barking dog.

Written and directed by Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh, "The Anniversary Party" is an amalgam of Henry Jaglom crossed with the eavesdropping bravura of Robert Altman. In fact, the film reminds me a great deal of Jaglom's heart-rending "Someone to Love," which was set on Valentine's Day where a bunch of characters are invited by Jaglom to a run-down theatre. "Anniversary Party"
maintains a lively, kinetically comic charge for the first two-thirds of the film. It feels like we are eavesdropping on private conversations within this glass house. The film is all attitude and behavior, showing the different personalities of every character and slowly dissecting the Sally and Joe
marriage, albeit in a predictable though never less than compelling manner. It does loses some momentum when one character introduces ecstasy to all the guests, and we get myriad situations involving cheating and sexual byplay. Some of it is cute yet also feels forced, as if it was straining to keep things lively and interesting. The best moments are the reflective, humanistic touches
where revelations lead to dissent and conflicts, not to mention jealousies. There are also quick humorous asides and gags that are best appreciated on second viewing. But the highlight is a stunningly real and honest confrontation between Leigh and Cumming that is sure to be remembered by fans of these two excellent actors.

Joyous, sad, voyeuristic and funny, "The Anniversary Party" is quite a movie. All the guests are affectionately played by the huge cast but it is really Leigh and Cumming who hold the film together. It is about them, their marriage, their fears and their hopes for the future. A great party indeed.

This HMO thriller is not exactly killer

 JOHN Q. (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Original review from 2002 screening)

"John Q." made me angry, but for all the wrong reasons. "Do the Right Thing" made me angry but that film was honest about racism and race relations in ways that few films ever are. "John Q." pretends to be interested in the corruption of HMO's and medical professionals who do not provide the medical
care that people need. It is a ripe subject for cinema, but it is told with such artificiality and dishonesty that one may think they are seeing a provocative statement on justice and nobility. Hogwash.

Nobility is John Q. Archibald's strongpoint (played by Denzel Washington). His hours at the factory have been cut because the factory is downsizing. His wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise), is getting annoyed with John's lack of money (what the heck, their car is towed away for nonpayment). The only happiness
centers on their enthusiastic son who loves to strut and plays Little League. One day, their son collapses while playing baseball, and the panicky parents rush him to the emergency room. Apparently, the kid's heart has grown three times larger than it should have and his only salvation is a heart transplant. Sounds easy enough but John Q.'s medical plan and insurance does not cover such an expensive procedure. He needs to make a down payment of $75,000 for a $250,000 dollar operation, but his HMO had been switched without his prior knowledge. To make matters worse, John's son has had the
heart problem for a long time but no doctors ever made mention of it, again due to minimal insurance for a high-risk operation.

If you have seen the previews for the film, you know that John Q. takes the law into his own hands and holds everyone at the E.R. room hostage, demanding that his son's name be put at the top of the priority list of heart transplants. In this day and age, all it takes is a gun and an attitude and you will get what you want, not to mention endless media coverage. In other words, the same old song, long preceded by Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" in 1975. But be advised: John Q. is not really going to use his gun or hurt anybody - he just wants his son to be saved. Does he not realize that his actions may hurt more than help his son? When the hostage negotiator (Robert Duvall) and a haughty police chief (Ray Liotta) consider the pros and cons of killing John Q., you know you have entered a simplistic movie that refuses to acknowledge its subject matter, not a full-blooded portrayal of the moral implications in taking people hostage and staging a crisis for the sake of a heart transplant.

As written by James Kearns, "John Q." doesn't make pleas or moralize as much as deliver an antipathy against all medical professionals, whether they are cardiologists or hospital head administrators. The movie says they are all scum, botching the system to make a fast buck and depriving the poor because
they lack the necessary medical coverage. There may be a lot of young kids who need heart transplants, but this movie does not seek to find alternatives. A gun and an attitude is all it takes. Fine, but why make the character so noble? Is John Q. not at fault here as well? Has he not seen enough TV shows to realize that if a hospital administrator finally gives in and puts his son's name on the list, it doesn't mean it actually is on the list?

"John Q." is manipulative, saccharine nonsense, designed to make the audience cheer for the lead character's supposedly justifiable actions because, after all, HMO is evil for not helping the poor when in need (or is it former president Bill Clinton's fault?) John should have listened to what the negotiator tells him at one point: "Nobody cares John. People will forget about you the next day." Exactly.

Skeptic sees a winged creature

 THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Mothman Prophecies" is an example of low-grade horror with high-grade talent. It could easily have been called "The Mothman" and starred actors like John Saxon, and nobody would have given it a second look. With a bigger budget, a high-class star like Richard Gere and an Oscar nominee like Laura Linney, the temptation is to treat this film as if it were serious horror that builds with imagination and mystery. Imaginative and mysterious, yes, but watching this film can be a chore.

Richard Gere is John Klein, a respected reporter for the Washington Post. He is also something of a skeptic. He is about to move into his new house with his darling wife (Debra Messing, from TV's "Will and Grace") when an unusual, brutal car accident occurs. It is so brutal that the doctors discover Klein's wife has brain cancer and has only a short time before she passes away. She leaves some obscure drawings of a moth-like creature for him after her death (a creature she had seen just prior to the accident). Two years pass as Klein finds himself on a trip to Richmond, though he mysteriously ends up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a four-hundred mile trek he accomplishes in less than two hours!

Naturally he has no idea how his travel plans got so screwy. His car breaks down. He asks for help from a seemingly crazed man (Will Patton) who brings out a shotgun! Nice neighbors! This man claims he has seen Klein before, knocking on his front door at 2:30 in the morning. He says he has also seen the Mothman, a figure with red eyes and sprouting wings who can see future catastrophes. One
of the Mothman's obscure phrases relates to "99 lives" and the number 37. Klein gets a phone call from this Mothman, who knows of similar catastrophes, one involving a collapsing bridge. So the question is: what did Klein's wife see the night of the car accident? Who is this mothman, and why does he taunt people, particularly young couples making out in the backseat of their cars? Why are people who make contact with the Mothman getting eye rashes that don't go away? Does the police sergeant (Laura Linney, playing what seems to be the only police officer in town) know who this Mothman is, or is she just interested in getting Mr. Klein in the sack?

Based on a 1975 novel by John Keel, the first forty minutes of "Mothman Prophecies" is gripping because we are as interested as Klein is in discovering this phenomena. Unfortunately, director Mark Pellington ("Arlington Road") seems uninterested in keeping the audience in suspense without the benefit of overcaffeinated camerawork, grainy superimpositions, lots of shots of the red eyes of the mothman, and several other stylized effects. It's not that I mind such effects - I just do not see their purpose in a horror film that keeps its mystery ambiguous throughout. Consider how Roman Polanski might have helmed this film, sparing us of all the fanciful camera moves that have become du jour in
horror since the late eighties. Some tracking shots and fast zoom-ins seem to indicate the point-of-view of the mothman, but is the mothman really circulating around Klein all the time? Who knows. The effects simply become repetitious, and whatever mystery exists is thrown out of the window when we realize that, prophecy or not, this mothman is just playing games with us.

I liked Gere's restrained performance, and I loved the scenes with Alan Bates as some sort of physics professor who knows the history of the mothman. These few scenes electrify our curiosity because they are not overplayed or heightened for any effect. Laura Linney seems completely wasted as the police sergeant - it is as if she is back playing insignificant roles prior to her great work in "You Can Count On Me." There is a creepiness to Will Patton, but most of the film is inert with loud sound effects to remind us that the mothman is near. My prophecy is that this film will be long forgotten. That is not the equivalent of a catastrophe.

We are watching you

 ENEMY OF THE STATE (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

With a title as generic as the movie itself, this latest Jerry Bruckheimer production is not as headache-inducing as "Armageddon" but it may still leave you with a slight migraine. That is not to say that "Enemy of the State" isn't fun, it is, but in a crudely packaged, sensationalistic way.

Let's consider the plot for a moment. Will Smith plays a labor lawyer named Robert Clayton Dean, whose life is already in peril before the plot thickens. He's facing problems with the Mob regarding a videotape and a troubling association with an ex-girlfriend (Lisa Bonet). By chance, he abruptly meets an old college friend of his (Jason Lee from "Chasing Amy") who slips a videotape into Dean’s shopping bag. This tape contains footage of the murder of a congressman, and it is up to the high-ranking National Security Agency (NSA) officials to get their hands on it. This agency is run by Thomas Reynolds (Jon Voight, the villain du jour), and he's eager to get the tape back since he was
at the murder scene.

It's a Kafkaesque downfall for Dean, who can't use any of his credit cards and can't convince his wife (Regina King) that he's innocent of all these charges they've drummed up in the media, including an alleged affair with his ex-girlfriend. Worse yet, Dean's house and his entire life is bugged right
through with high-tech surveillance equipment. Dean hides out and finds a certain Mr. Brill (Gene Hackman) who used to work for the NSA and can outwit any of those officials. Still, Dean is only a lawyer and makes stupid mistakes, like calling his wife. Wake up Dean, the phones are bugged too!

This film is illogical and senseless, but it moves at a fast clip. There are enough comical surprises by Smith, though the script makes him a little too bland for my tastes. He has a hectically funny scene where he pretends to be hotel hospitality, and undresses before a hysterical Asian couple while the
NSA are trying to catch him. Some scenes are unforgivably implausible, such as seeing Dean running down a tunnel in a white robe (wouldn't any car stop?); the NSA killing everyone they question except for Dean; a laughable Tarantino-like shootout between the Mob and the NSA, and so on.

"Enemy of the State" is a high-tech conspiracy thriller with no surprises or sense of real, imminent danger. It is too dependent on loud explosions and gimmicky, electronic music to remind us that we should feel tense. The outline of the plot is very similar to Coppola's classic "The Conversation," which was a deftly handled character study relying on dialogue and a quiet, understated style to convey the madness of privacy invasion. The other connection is the frenetic performance by Gene Hackman as a bug expert, practically the same role he played in "The Conversation," but with far less subtlety this time around.

All in all, this is an overdone popcorn thriller in the fast-cut, explosive style of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott ("Top Gun"). It'll keep you awake and you'll enjoy Smith's precious few quips, but you'll have forgotten about it by the next day.

Negligible Leads

 ROMANTIC COMEDY (1983)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is nothing more stale in Hollywood cinema than seeing the same old story told the same old way. Worse yet is casting two bright personalities on screen who do so little to bring it any new life. "Romantic Comedy" is as stale and generic as its title and its worst sin is casting two excellent actors as negligible romantic leads. 

So let's see Dudley Moore is Jason, a renown Broadway playwright who is about to get married to Allison (Janet Eilber, who just looks bored stiff). Jason is not the monogamist type since he has had some affairs. Mary Steenburgen is another playwright, Phoebe, who is about co-write a play with Moore. She arrives at his house, unaware he is about to get married on the day of her arrival. Everything falls apart from the start because nothing especially funny or romantic happens in the early scenes. Steenburgen looks out of place and Moore is somewhat incorrigible and arrogant. When Steenburgen steps inside his office without an invitation, he acts with an air of indifference. He proceeds to undress before her (no, no sexual proclivity here) but she is more smitten being in the same room with the well-known playwright to notice his birthday suit. Nothing here rings true, and the pacing slackens.

Oh, it only gets worse. These two bicker and fling papers across the room. Then Steenburgen falls in love with a reporter (Ron Liebman, an authentic, piercing New York presence). Moore is not exactly happily married yet falls out of it, especially after his wife is pregnant. And the movie laboriously goes on without a shred of real wit or punch or vitality. I wish I could say something nice about the film. You know a film is in trouble when you can't even remember what role Robyn Douglass played. 

I did not exactly dislike "Romantic Comedy" but I can hardly say it is worth the effort. Based on a play by Bernard Slade that originally starred Anthony Perkins and Mia Farrow, mediocre is written all over the margins of this film. Dudley Moore looks like he would rather be somewhere else. The only real spark is the winning personality of the bright angelic presence of Mary Steenburgen - she lights up the screen. I wish I could say that is enough.