Old-fashioned with purple tights

 THE PHANTOM (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I used to read the Phantom comics back in my native Uruguay every weekend. My grandfather was also a fan and read the comic in our newspaper, always mentioning this hero with extreme delight. I was always excited by this masked hero and his jungle exploits, and what kid wouldn't be. Watching 1996's "The Phantom" put me right back in the mindframe of an excited 6 year-old and what is most exciting about "The Phantom" isn't just its rousing titular hero - it is that is unashamed in showing us dastardly villains, some pirates in a lair that could easily be right out of "The Goonies" and a few exotic dames (including an early role for Catherine Zeta-Jones) as an extra bonus. "The Phantom" is just pure old-fashioned fun with its old-fashioned heart in the right place.

Billy Zane is our masked, purple-tights hero, the Phantom aka Kit Walker who lives in his fortress of solitude somewhere in Bengalla. There is also Xander Trax (Treat Williams who is delightfully evil, reminding one of Timothy Dalton's similarly devious role in "The Rocketeer"), a tycoon who believes any and anyone can be bought. Well, of course, welcome to woeful capitalism in the years following the Great Depression. He wants possession of three Phantom skulls that when combined, well, you know with great power comes great villainy. It later turns out that three skulls are not enough but why carp over cracked skulls mythology. The Phantom himself knows more than Trax about that power which largely emits deadly lasers. Why do these unimaginative powerful villains always think of artifacts in terms of advanced weaponry and nothing else? 

That's about the only real question this movie never answers. But I don't go to see pulpy adventure tales like "The Phantom" for philosophical questions - I go for escapist fun and adventure in serial-esque fashion. From director Simon Wincer, he acquits himself beautifully with some rousing action scenes including the Phantom running from bad guys by springing on top of taxis to finally setting afoot at the local zoo where he pets a tiger. There is also a terrific elevator scene that is almost on par with the claustrophobic thrills of the first "Die Hard" movie. Need I forget to mention a truck holding a child rescued by the Phantom as they are dangling on top of a collapsing rope bridge? How about a seaplane where the Phantom rescues his ex-girlfriend, Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson), as they are ready to jump off onto his white horse named Hero? Of course, evading villains no matter what mode of transportation is never enough when they just happen to find you. Yep, it is that kind of movie.

"The Phantom" is smoothly directed by Simon Wincer with just enough finesse to make one giddy with the movie's many thrilling action setpieces. There is also sufficiently sly humor by the late screenwriter Jeffrey Boam ("Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Lethal Weapon 2") to make this more than a worthwhile pulp effort. Pulpy all the way, in production design and in its authentic 1930's flavor with a hero who has an insatiable appetite for getting into trouble and two dames who know how to fight back, "The Phantom" is not a great movie but it is a superbly fun time at the movies. You just might pinch yourself at the end. 

Loving You Tender, Tuesday

 HEARTBREAK HOTEL (1988)

Reminiscence by Jerry Saravia

My father was an absolute diehard Elvis Presley fan. He loved Elvis as much as any other rock and roll singer, and there are legions that can say the same thing. My father was born in 1942 so Elvis became a big sensation even in our native born country of Uruguay. He also used to own several original Elvis LP's but couldn't bring most of them when we moved to Canada in the 1970's. Anything Elvis-related he saw, that included all Elvis movies including the ones that he knew failed. My recollection in the 1980's is that we saw "This is Elvis" twice in theaters - an essential documentary for any fans of the King (and he did not know at the time that many scenes were flawlessly recreated). However, my fondest memory of seeing an Elvis movie with my father is one that didn't star the King at all. It is the campy, glossy, fictional fairy-tale known as "Heartbreak Hotel." 

Sure, it is pretty much a one-joke movie with a superb premise that is never truly fully realized. Sideburns Elvis in 1972 (well-played by David Keith, though not bearing much of the King's likeness) is kidnapped by some teenage kids and one of them, Johnny Wolfe (Charlie Schlatter), is a wannabe rock and roller who doesn't care for the King's music or swagger. Johnny kidnapped Elvis to keep his mom happy who is dating guys of low repute (the mother, often bathed in golden hues, is played by a vibrant Tuesday Weld who actually appeared in one Elvis flick, "Wild in the Country"). Lo and behold, Elvis is upset after he wakes up and discovers what has happened but then goes along with Johnny's plan. Johnny still finds little of Elvis relevant to his world. Johnny's mother, Marie, adores Elvis and so does Marie's young daughter (Angela Goethals) who doesn't want to turn off her nightlight. Can Elvis convince the young girl to turn off her nightlight? Can Elvis make Marie's dreams of having him live in her Flaming Star hotel? Can Elvis teach Johnny some tight pelvis moves on stage? Will there be a fight in a cafe with a jukebox that imitates a classic scene from "Loving You"?  And where else in the history of Elvis will you find Elvis actually mowing the lawn!

The movie is nothing spectacular, simply a sweet little fairy-tale of the "what if?" variety. The script and direction by Chris Columbus is a little flat, though I did love the final shot of fog rushing by as Elvis boards his plane. It is something out of an adolescent's dream taken out of a teenager's scrapbook and, on that level, it works (that shot, incidentally, reminded me of "La Bamba" when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens took off on that ill-fated plane ride). I am sure my father is smiling knowing I remember this slightly bizarre theatrical experience. All hail the King! 

Interactive Demonic CD-ROM

 BRAINSCAN (1994)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Brainscan" is frequently a laugh-a-minute riot, though one can take it seriously at first if so inclined. Or maybe listen to a Primus song, as does the Trickster in one unintentionally funny moment, and learn that this is all fun and games. Only "Brainscan" has such a novel idea, so perfect for a horror film - the very notion of entering an interactive game world that flirts between reality and fiction - that it should work wonders with imagination and style. Those last two superlatives are applicable to the Trickster, a sort of Alice Cooper variation on Freddy Krueger, but not the movie which is standard, mostly watchable fare at best.

Edward Furlong is Michael, a largely sour-faced 15-year-old kid with an irascible demeanor who lives at home alone and has technological equipment that seems vaguely futuristic for 1994 (the computer has a built-in phone operated by voice commands). His father is away on business so Michael has to fend for himself, like drinking milk and eating candy while looking at his video monitor and playing the latest virtual reality games where it is all about death, death and death. In fact, at his high-school, Michael has started a little horror club where they watch silly horror films, presumably from the 1960's, and one of them is titled "Death, Death, Death Part 2." The principal despises the club and ends it. Michael is then convinced by his best friend, Kyle (Jamie Marsh), to play Brainscan, the newest in terrifying interactive games on CD-ROM. Michael is sure it will suck since he has played all sorts of blood-splattered games. He has spoken too soon.

The game itself involves a first-person narrative where the player gets a knife and stabs someone to death while they sleep, and then proceeds to amputate the victim's foot for good measure. Wow, what a great game. This is where imagination and style take a backseat except the murder seems to actually occur and if Michael doesn't play his cards right, he could be targeted by the police unless he kills the witnesses. 

The Trickster manifests through the interactive game and he appears as a monstrously deformed, jokey variation on a heavy-metal rocker with a pinkish-red mohawk who has played too many ballads. T. Ryder Smith as the Trickster is photographed too cleanly and is so brightly lit that it leaves no real mystery to this offbeat creation. Edward Furlong never convinces as Michael, not for a second, and thus we develop very little sympathy for the alleged hero. Michael is simply a boring kid who no rational person would want to spend 2 minutes with. 

Still, "Brainscan" is not boring and it is relatively tightly paced, keeping you glued to the screen (the haunting music score by George S. Clinton though deserves a better movie). The virtual reality stuff is nothing new yet it is sort of a thrilling ride. I do like the Trickster and his affinity for Primus - it is the most novel idea in the entire movie.  

Ennui for the sake of it

 PERMANENT VACATION (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Jim Jarmusch's first independent feature starts off as a semi-jazzy riff on Charlie Parker with its visual look of urban decay in the Lower East Side of New York. It starts off so well, so in tune with the ennui of finding yourself as its main character drifts through the city seemingly from one street to the next that I was hooked. And, slowly but surely, I became unhooked.

Jarmusch's loner character is Allie Parker (Chris Parker), a young man fixated on Charlie Parker and nothing else. He looks like a Beatnik from the 1950's and looks adrift in the New York of late 70's. His opening voiceover narration suggests a guy who likes a new environment, specifically rooms, and then gets so used to it that dread eventually sets in. That's it, that's the revelation he makes about himself other than naming his possible future child after Charlie Parker. He lives with his sourpuss of a girlfriend (Leila Gastil) who sits by the window of her tenement building, smokes and has nothing much to say. Neither does Allie who plays jazz on her radio cassette player and dances. Allie has no interests and nothing to do - he is parading in a world where there is nothing to be excited by nor are there any interesting prospects. He refuses to work or to sleep, and has no interest in being confined to any single place. I would think the electricity of New York City would be enough to keep anyone motivated to do...something of interest. Not for Allie who visits his institutionalized mother, and peruses his former home that looks like it has been bombed out (he claims the Chinese bombed it) and finds some guy living there who thinks a war is raging outside of this condemned former home. For any sense of excitement, Allie steals a car and sells it for 800 dollars so he can leave New York in a ferry. Wow, just wow. 

Director Jim Jarmusch has dealt with ennui brilliantly in other films like "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down By Law," largely due to offbeat characters whom he gave ample breathing room. Here, there is Allie and he's the least interesting Jarmusch character I've ever witnessed. Granted this was Jarmusch's first feature made on a shoestring but even the people Allie runs into don't hold much interest (John Lurie appears and plays the sax, and that's about it). There is nothing to gravitate to, nothing to chew on, and the ennui simply becomes tiresome. For Jarmusch fans, it is worth checking out but anyone else will simply be bored out of their skulls.    

Flyora is the soul of war

 COME AND SEE (1985)

One of the greatest antiwar films ever made

By Jerry Saravia

A 13-year-old Russian kid is playing with another child, pretending to be adversaries in war games for fun. One pretends to be German wearing a German helmet. The other one buries himself in the ground and we sense he is in some sort of anguish, or that he got shot or has feigned getting shot. The German-helmeted kid senses something is wrong. It turns out that the 13-year-old has managed to dig out a German rifle out of the ground. He is armed and ready, and both see a passing war plane overhead. Is it the enemy or the Russians? Are we in the midst of World War II? 

Flyora is the teenage boy (Aleksei Kravchenko), joining the Belarusian partisans who arrive to pick him up despite objections from his mother (she is so distraught that she tells her son to kill her and the twin girls). Flyora is off with the partisans and once their mission is set, the kid is left behind with an older partisan who gives up his worn-out boots for the kid to wear. While crying over not being part of the militia, he finds Glasha (Olga Mironova), a partisan nurse, who was also left behind. They laugh at each other and then there is a sudden bombing campaign with paratroopers deployed from the sky. Things only worsen when Flyora leaves with Glasha back to his home only to find everyone is dead - Flyora doesn't see the pile of corpses bu Glasha does as he strains to find his family in the thick muddy swamp. They both let out cries that shatter us emotionally and the soundtrack, which is oppressive itself, seem to cry for them and warn them at the same time. More nightmarish events are unfolding, one worse than the next.

This is a profane war sometimes told from Flyora's point-of-view, and often we get startling close-up images of Flyora looking straight at us, the viewer. There are dark, muddied images that will pierce your soul here such as the Germans holding Flyora at gunpoint for a picture; the church burning sequence that is agonizing to watch (a little sardonic humor is thrown here when one of the SS brigade officers almost gets trapped with the Russians in the church); the relentless gunfire overhead that nearly kills Flyora, kills a cow and another partisan; the effigy of Hitler left standing in the middle of the road; the Nazi generals who don't want to look at Flyora who gets out of the church alive, and so on. There is one scene of Flyora and Glasha shaking the trees to receive some rain water as they bathe themselves - the only joyous scene complete with a rainbow forming in the woods. But there is one scene of Flyora, who looks like he has aged 10 years in the midst of battle and deeply unsettling situations, pointing a rifle at a picture of Hitler that is one of the most chilling scenes of any antiwar film in history. It may feel like it has go on for a little too long until you reach the climactic point. 

Shrewdly directed with an uncompromising vision by Elem Klimov (his last film) thanks to screenwriter Ales Adamovich who was an actual child soldier with the Belarus partisans in WWII, "Come and See" is war as reality from the perspective of those who are living in villages and farms. It also show the grim reality of war as an inevitability, with all the ugliness of immoral actions from the enemies. Kravchenko's pained, agonizing and horrified face says it all - it is the very soul of war as an immoral action. 

Meandering fiction, mesmerizing Brad Dourif

 THE WILD BLUE YONDER (2005)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If director Werner Herzog had cut down some free-floating sequences of astronauts inside a space shuttle, I would have felt that this quasi-documentary crossed with a fictional storyline was less of an endurance test. Herzog doesn't know when to quit sometimes, when certain scenes are shapeless and go on for an eternity. I am generally very understanding of long takes and short takes, though everything has to feel in tandem with whatever story you are telling. And, yes, that includes a very experimental feature by Herzog, a man prone to going off the deep end in very masterful films from the past such as "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and his "Nosferatu" remake or "Stroszek." "The Wild Blue Yonder" is not one of them but it should also not be dismissed.

Brad Dourif appears as an alien from the Andromeda system, only in human Dourif form. He talks to a camera a lot about that system and how many light years it is from our galaxy, and how he took a human form and joined the CIA to explain what he knew. The CIA did not listen to him, to which I said to myself, well, did you tell them you were an alien or did they think you were a kook? This is never explained yet this alien persists in telling his story of how aliens have failed, and his species failed in establishing their own government in the U.S. Then we hear his explanations by voice-over as we see footage of the Wright Brothers, I think, and some turn-of-the-century footage while he goes on about how one of his brothers tried to commit suicide. Then we get footage of NASA astronauts as they venture into space to find this system and, alarmingly by way of an actual astrophysicist and his elaborate diagrams, they find gravitational tunnels that lead from one planet to the next. Their discovery of Andromeda, a largely underwater planet which the astronauts hope to colonize, yields amazing sights of all sorts of fish species. When the astronauts return, it is 800 years later and they find the Earth to be a barren planet, you know, the way it was in prehistoric times.

All of these astounding insights delivered by Dourif are fascinating and he is easily the most watchable aspect of "The Wild Blue Yonder." I like the message of having respect for any ecological environment. Unfortunately, director Herzog uses actual footage of astronauts as they are shown weightless in their space shuttle, eating and having a hard time getting in their sleeping pads. This footage goes on and on to the point of tedium, adding nothing of value other than the sight of weightlessness which is not that amazing anymore unless you have never seen similar NASA footage. The underwater footage of this planet is mesmerizing and otherworldly (it is Antarctica substituting for Andromeda). I still felt Herzog cut away too often from Dourif, who is a mesmerizing presence as well. I wanted to see more of him, and who was filming him? Was this recorded footage for posterity? Who can say. "The Wild Blue Yonder" definitely meanders and its far too ample use of NASA footage leaves us out of the loop. Still, I will say this - I've never seen anything like it before. 

Shakedown with the Heat Still On

 BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL F (2024)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Entertaining? You bet. Lots of action and comedy? Sure, kind of stirred up. The Heat is Back On? Ah, yeah, the heat is there but it is also recycled and rebooted and reformatted for our current times. We are talking about "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," the fourth film in the "Beverly Hills Cop" series that made Eddie Murphy an international star and a superstar. Times have changed when a "Beverly Hills Cop" movie, even the turd that is the third film, opened in theaters. Now, streaming is the new way to watch a new nostalgic-heavy sequel starring Eddie Murphy. Downsized to be sure in every way, this is a smooth and fun ride of a movie and an improvement on the third film but nowhere near the league of the 1984 film started it all. 

Right from the start, the nostalgia factor is on overdrive. Axel Foley is driving around Detroit, his home turf as a police detective, and we hear Glenn Frey's sensational song "The Heat is On," memorably used in the original film. Then there's a slightly funny moment between Axel and a fellow cop at a hockey game that then gives way to a truck action sequence utilizing Bob Seger's song "Shakedown," fairly iconic song used in "Beverly Hills Cop II." Oh, yes, Virginia, the Pointer Sisters' own energetic "Neutron Dance" is replayed during yet another chase scene. You'll smile when you hear these songs (especially if like me, you had the soundtracks on cassette) but you may still wonder why other newer songs couldn't have been used.

Then there are the recurring characters who have not appeared in a Cop sequel since 1987. Paul Reiser is a retiring, frosty-haired Detroit Chief of Police, Jeffrey Friedman, who was a hapless fool in the original films (how did super smart detective Axel Foley not get that job?) When we are smack down in Beverly Hills, we get the return of Taggart (John Ashton), still complaining about his wife Maureen whom we see fleetingly, and he is now Chief of Police in Beverly Hills. Other returning characters last seen in 1994's "Cop III" include the flamboyant Serge (Bronson Pinchot, still gives me belly laughs) and naturally the gun aficionado Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold, looking a little shell-shocked yet still has that vigor). 

The plot is as old-hat as they come, and it involves cocaine, drug cartels and a heavily corrupt cop (Kevin Bacon). Gee, where have we seen those plot points before? Of course, all the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies have mediocre plots with Eddie Murphy doing his best to improvise his way through them. Murphy, at 63 years old, still has the juices flowing though he is also more relaxed and confident and it shows a maturity that works better here than in "Cop III." His trademark laugh may be gone (and it has been gone for decades) but he still works his comic magic with some new impressions, and has solid chemistry with Taylour Paige as a defense attorney who happens to be his estranged daughter (do daughters and/or sons always have to be estranged? Look at "Live Free or Die Hard" for proof of this tired trope).

High-speed chases galore (including a hair-raising helicopter flyby through Beverly Hills), a few hilarious comedic bits (the one with Murphy and a parking lot attendant is a howler), some solid backing from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as another 90210 detective and the easygoing charm of Eddie Murphy makes for a decent sequel. Murphy has been there and done that and, yet, there is a sneaky joy in seeing him do it all over again.