Eastwood dabbling in Hitchcockian waters

 JUROR #2 (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

From one fiercely intense scene to the next, Clint Eastwood's "Juror #2" upends itself and drowns in suspense. This is a definite recommendation because it reminded me of some Hitchcock thrillers, "Strangers on a Train" or "Shadow of a Doubt", where we knew the main protagonist was guilty - the question was, would he ever be discovered? An even deeper question also prevails - is he guilty or just misremembering the facts?

In Eastwood's possibly final film as director, we keep hoping the guilt-ridden juror is not. The main protagonist is Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), a former alcoholic who is hoping he will not be selected as a juror in a high profile murder case. Justin has a wife who is facing a high-risk pregnancy (Zoey Deutch), and his time at home is needed. Of course, Justin is selected and claims to know nothing of the murder itself. On a rainy night in Savannah, Georgia, a man and his girlfriend were fighting at the bar and she stormed off. Presumably this temperamental boyfriend, James (Gabriel Basso) followed her, hit her with a blunt instrument and left her for dead under the bridge. Here's the kicker - it turns out that Justin might have hit her with his SUV though he initially thought it was a deer. It was that same night and he was at that same bar, and now he's a selected juror on this case! Will he declare James as guilty or not-guilty? 

The idealistic prosecutor on the case, Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) - the future D.A. of Savannah - is certain that James killed her despite the fact that no murder weapon was found. Eventually, the story becomes a mini-remake of "12 Angry Men" with the sole differences being that it shows Justin's future as a new father and his guilt in the case (the Sidney Lumet classic never veered outside the jury room). Could Justin be wrong? Did he only think he killed her or was it really James? That is another enveloping thread in Eastwood's film and in debuting writer Jonathan Abrams's delicately and sublimely written screenplay and I began to wonder if that was a prolonged twist. You almost want to believe Justin was not involved but if he is, will he fess up? Will he tell the future D.A.? Will he spill his guts out to his pregnant wife, to the jurors? That is where the suspense really plays up to the hilt and every scene is underscored by a tremendous amount of tension. 

"Juror #2" is Eastwood at his most forceful, playing us like a piano and we never know what note he will hit next for sure. It also helps that we empathize with Justin, exceedingly well-played by Nicholas Hoult who goes through an array of emotions. We hope he didn't do it, even if it was an accident, and we also hope he's not caught even if it means an innocent man would be going to jail for life. It is that forceful dynamic and the stellar performances that makes what could been a synthetic courtroom programmer into an intensifying experience. I had clammy hands throughout.   

Monster Does, as Gloria Does

 COLOSSAL (2016)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

You might need a stiff drink or a Pabst Blue Ribbon after watching Nacho Vigalondo's "Colossal," a most unusual hybrid of a rom-com mixed with Godzilla and spiked with delirious performances. This is an anomalous blend of genres that are somehow fused together and can still be picked apart - both are successful genre sections on their own. This may be the first time where I'd say that the rom-com section works better, if only because it is not all prettified and lit with 10,000 bulbs. That includes Anne Hathaway's sparkling smile and wide grin.

This most unconventional genre-spliced film has Hathaway as Gloria, an often inebriated online writer who is thrown out of a shared N.Y. apartment by her boyfriend. She moves back to New Hampshire to stay in an empty house with no furniture, just an inflatable mattress. Gloria runs into her childhood friend, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who offers her a part-time job as a bar waitress. Just when you think that everything will escalate into a romantic partnership, you'd be wrong. The Kaiju genre threatens this relationship as Gloria discovers she has a link to a monster who is currently destroying the city of Seoul and killing its citizens. Her link is a nearby playground where she embodies this monster's every move - whatever she does on this playground at a certain time, the monster mimics her moves. When Gloria reveals this to the bar employees, including Oscar, let's say that major havoc is around the corner in more ways than one.

As just a story of Gloria trying to adapt to her hometown existence, "Colossal" works wonders with Hathaway giving a splendid, honest-to-the-bone performance as a thirty-something woman trying to reconnect to herself. Refusing to drink at a bar she works at, despite Oscar's often angry insistence, is the first step. Oscar is a drunken mess himself, maybe not at Charles Bukowski's levels but close. And this magical connection Gloria has to this monster gives Oscar a major ego boost - he believes he can become something more than an unremarkable bar owner.

Director Nacho Vigalondo ("Timecrimes") certainly knows how to weave the monster genre expectations around a personal story of Gloria's hopeful growth into someone who can take charge of her life. Still, the kaiju theatrics are not the most interesting elements, despite good use of CGI, and occasionally feel out-of-place with the key relationships in the movie. Sudeikis and Hathaway are so electrifying together that I wished the movie stayed firm with their characters - they are very well-defined by Vigalondo. "Colossal" is very entertaining and kept me invested in its rom-com dramatics, even with the rampant monster silliness. Seeing a monster scratch its head, just like Gloria often does, might make you reach for that Pabst Blue Ribbon.    

We all have our cross to bear

 THE MONSTER CLUB (1981)

Tolerated by Jerry Saravia

It's a funny thing when you watch a movie repeatedly as a kid. I was in my pre-teen years when I watched "The Monster Club" on TV - Channel 11 in New York on a weekday late afternoon. I always enjoyed it and then the movie evaporated from my existence until 15 years later. I was excited to see it again and taped it off television. I watched it and found it poor in all departments, plus I felt nauseated while watching it - I can't explain the latter. Now I just saw it again the other night for the first time since the late 1990's and I didn't feel nauseated - some of it is sort of fun in a tongue-of-cheek manner. I don't know if I will ever see it again, but seeing it on "House of Svengoolie" with Gwengoolie and the other horror hosts made it tolerable.

Deep in the city of London lies "The Monster Club," a wacky place filled with monsters dancing the night away and pop bands performing on stage. John Carradine is Chetwynd-Hayes, based on the actual horror novelist who wrote the book this film is based on, and he runs into a famished vampire, Eramus (deliciously played by Vincent Price), who just barely penetrates his fangs on the old author. Eramus is apologetic and invites Chetwynd, whom he deeply admires, to the club. 

By way of a drawn diagram of different monsters in existence including werewolves, vampires, ghouls, shadmocks and so on, Eramus tells of three different horror tales. One deals with a shadmock (James Laurenson), the least frightening creature you can imagine, who can whistle in such a way that it burns people and animals to a crisp (he loves birds but not cats, apparently). A con-artist (Barbara Kellerman) is disgusted by his appearance but then slowly sympathizes with him - she is supposed to catalogue his antiques but she is actually wanting to steal them. Watch out for that whistling sound! This one is likely to scare anyone who found TV's "Dark Shadows" too frightening.

The second story deals with a nobleman/vampire who is being hunted. In an ironic twist, he lives with his family, who are not vampires, and sleeps during the day in the basement, etc. Donald Pleasance is the main vampire hunter masquerading as a priest so he can lure the Count's son at school to the unholy resting place. There's also lovely Britt Ekland as the Count's wife trying to protect the family. Pure silliness that includes a rare item in vampire lore - a stake-proof vest!

Then we get the creep factor in full gear with a secluded place shrouded in fog called "Loughville" where a horror movie director (Stuart Whitman) is looking for a place with gobs of atmosphere. He sure gets it as there are ghouls wanting to eat him - they are a bit hungry after eating corpses from dug-up graves. Yuck! This is the one that nauseated me.

As a horror anthology work, there are superior ones even by director Ron Ward Baker (this was his last film). Still, this is one that would be best viewed at midnight at Chiller Theatre with an actively participating audience. And it is hard to hate a movie when the Monster Club secretary is a werewolf!

A Lady of the Underexposed Night

 THE BRUTALIST (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Brutalist" is a 3 1/2 hour exploration of brutal people in brutal times with brutally exacting imaginations in a visually fuzzy America from the 1950's-1980's. That would be fitting for an American epic but it is too shallow, too scattershot to make enough of an impact. 

On one hand, this is the story of the American Dream from the subjective view of a struggling and talented architect who had survived the Nazi holocaust. He makes his mark in America slowly (working for his friend in a furniture store) and eventually migrates with the help of a boorish, egotistical millionaire industrialist named Van Buren (Guy Pearce) who hopes this architect can help build a massive, ambitious project - a concrete building with four large separate sections including a chapel. This architect, László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jew (played with resplendent charisma by Adrien Brody), has even more ambitious designs on such a building - adding an opening on the top roof section that allows light to filter in and show an illuminated cross in the chapel. 

On the other hand, this is also the story of László Tóth's long-suffering wife, Erzsébet Tóth (a brilliant Felicity Jones) who is trying to come to the United States with her largely mute niece (Raffey Cassidy). When Erzsébet does arrive, she's wheelchair-bound thanks to osteoporosis caused by famine. The couple and the niece live together on the work site; issues with László's impotency and heroin use cause disturbances in their marriage yet they are committed to each other. 

The first half of "The Brutalist" is fairly potent and sets up the loss of control László has in latter years in the second half of the film (separated by the rare use of an actual intermission), especially the difficulties with Van Buren who turns out be far more rotten than anyone thought. Unfortunately, the film never exactly engaged me or involved me. The characters are credibly portrayed by everyone involved yet I was not persuaded to care about them. I found myself adrift throughout, never getting caught up in their plight or whatever dramatic situations were transpiring. The movie is high drama technically yet it's also inert in execution. The construction of these buildings and the intricate plans are not delivered with any real excitement or energy - everything is just enervatingly presented despite the energetic performances. The towering music score by Daniel Blumberg has real-buildup but it does not correspond to the images.

Speaking of images, the cinematography by Lol Crawley is shot using the rarely used Vista-Vision process though at the screening I saw it at, it had muted colors and extremely low-light levels. That may be the intention, of course, but why use the crispness of Vista-Vision that is meant to be more expressive than impressionistic? There were times that I could not make head or tail of what was happening on screen and for an epic about America post-WWII and the immigrant experience, that struck me as the wrong approach. Some scenes work well with this visual choice (the dance party in a catacomb-like dwelling; the wide vistas of the mountain range where László and Van Buren witness the beauty of marble) yet all interior scenes are too underlit for my tastes. It may not be the underexposed look of say a different kind of immigrant story like the epic of "The Godfather Part II" but it still looked dank minus any true focus or clearer depth-of-field. 

"The Brutalist" has some scenes of raw power yet it all registers as shallow and morose without the juice to spice it up. A story like this needs magnetism, some rocking cinematic feeling in those vistas and the actors are up to the challenge but the moody, muddy look lend it an overall leaden feel that shouldn't be there.

Liquid Satan just possesses everyone

 PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The slow murmur and drum beat on the soundtrack of "Prince of Darkness" gets to you and can be pulsating. It is not all that different from the soundtrack of John Carpenter's "The Thing" or his "They Live." A solid opening for John Carpenter's Satan film, dealing with subatomic matter and green ooze in a canister and some light philosophical and religious discussions, should have yielded sparks. All I got were numbingly mild shocks.

A group of scientists, computer experts and graduate students from a local university gather together at a run-down church in Los Angeles. This particular church houses the green ooze in a canister, which can only be opened from the inside. Yeah, who is going to get close to a canister where that green liquid ooze is in constant motion! Some do try, and then get that green liquid shot into their mouths causing them to be possessed. Donald Pleasance is a very perturbed priest who is summoned to this church while homeless people (including one played by Alice Cooper) stand around looking at the sun - at night, they look at the open windows of the church. Standing, and standing, and standing. If anyone leaves the church, they come after you and kill you, or you get possessed with creepy crawlies like bugs consuming your body. 

The most stunning image is one presumably from the future where the church entrance shows someone, maybe Satan, in shadow with its arms outstretched. Other than that, we do get a romantic subplot with the late Lisa Blount and Jameson Parker that draws some sparks of interest. I like the deep conversations between Victor Wong as a physics professor and Pleasance. The rest of the film is turgid, monotonous nonsense with the liquid Satan consuming everyone in its path and possessing everyone to kill each other. A reflective mirror leads to another dimension where Satan's hand is not far behind. Coming from the one of the masters of horror, John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" contains a few jump scares (which Carpenter is terrific at, minus any "shock" sound effect) but most of the film is just silly humdrum fare where you are left standing, or sitting, waiting for the inevitable.

Not tropical, just the afterlife

 BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Director Kevin Smith once joked that a sequel will hopefully not materialize to 1988's classic chill-to-the-bone ghost comedy, "Beetlejuice." That once-upon-a-time proposed sequel was something along the lines of "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian" to which Smith quipped, "Must we go tropical?" Well, a sequel arrived and without Smith's involvement and I am happy to say, yes, this sequel is as good as the original and just as fun and diverting with a lot of unexpected turns and twists to make for a delirious ride into the afterlife. 

Winona Ryder reprises her Lydia Deetz role, a little older but still looking as Goth as ever. She's the host of "Ghost House" where paranormal events inside haunted houses are investigated. At the taping, she think she's spotted the funhouse demon Betelgeuse. Complications have arisen for Lydia. For one, her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, undeniably well cast) is at a private school and wants nothing to do with her mother ("You care more about ghosts than me.") This is all largely due to the unfortunate passing of Astrid's father, and Lydia's former husband, who died in the Amazon. Another death has now been reported, that of Lydia's father who almost died in a plane crash out to sea when he then got eaten by a shark. Lydia reunites with her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara, always wearing colorfully gaudy costumes) for the funeral, and Delia is sad and tries to fake scream in front of a camera to let out her frustrations (that is a good idea). Before long, there is the summoning of Beetlejuice or, more appropriately, Betelgeuse which Lydia's producer/boyfriend (Justin Theroux) thinks is important so that Lydia can deal with her past demons. Little does he know that they both have a ticket to the afterlife which includes shrunken headed desk clerks and gruesome ghosts.

Most of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is engaging, darkly imaginative and wonky, as you might expect from director Tim Burton. Nothing here visually is all that different from the original, only the dialogue is sharper and funnier. There are too many characters, though most have sufficient screen time without bungling the narrative. I would have liked to have seen, however, more of Monica Bellucci as Betelgeuse's former girlfriend (a black-and-white flashback narrated in a different language by Betelgeuse is vintage, classic Burton and hilarious to boot). The one character that sticks out in my craw is Theroux's boyfriend character whose reasons for being with Lydia have nothing to do with love - he is a one-dimensional bore that takes time away from O'Hara and Ortega. Bellucci could have used more screen time, divulging her love for that pin-striped suited demon. A boyfriend for Astrid could've led to something darkly romantic, but it is quickly resolved in too abrupt a fashion 

Still between the ghoulish afterlife depictions (love that "Soul Train") and the sandworms and the practical stop-motion effects overall, Burton's demented and spirited sequel is some of the best work he has done in years (excepting "Big Eyes," a truly wonderful biopic). Kudos to Michael Keaton reprising his horny toad of a demon with relish and some good comical scenes (the reprise of the marriage scene is a hoot). Winona Ryder brings much needed sympathy to her Lydia - you keep wanting to reach out and comfort her (can you tell I was always a fan of Ryder's?) Jenna Ortega is fantastic as the daughter who doesn't believe in ghosts and eventually comes around. O'Hara's outrageous outfits brings back memories of the original film and TV's "Schitt's Creek." Hearing the song "MacArthur Park" brings memories back of the 1970's. "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is a delightfully gleeful and joyous movie. It left me with a silly grin and a hope that when I meet my maker, it will look like the afterlife of this movie. 

A Mad Magazine movie

 TOP SECRET! (1984)
An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

There are some comedies that make you laugh because of the intrinsic humor derived from its situations. Then there are some movies that offer nothing but belly laughs, the intent being just to poke fun and have fun. There is nothing more uproarious in the 1980's (other than the original "The Naked Gun") where you have an anything-goes comedy meaning, quite literally, anything goes than "Top Secret!" The ZAZ comedy team (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) hope that some of the jokes land and many do. It is nonstop joke movie.

Val Kilmer is Nick (his acting debut role), a 50's Elvis singer who is touring East Germany and becomes embroiled in an espionage plot involving French Resistance fighters and Nazis as bad guys! Just what year is this movie is supposed to be set in? Oh, yeah, that's right, who cares? When you have anachronistic references to TV classics like Mary Tyler Moore Show and Bonanza and Montgomery Ward, then it is clear the year is not anyone's concern. Nick tries painting the landscape as he's traveling by train! Another tries to catch a tree train! A Nazi, in one of my favorite forced perspective shots ever, picks up a giant phone receiver! Omar Sharif ends up, sort of alive, inside a crushed car! Nick gets to sing some Elvis tunes, and one by Little Richard! On a marquee, Linda Ronstadt is singing and, with time permitting, Frank Sinatra! An underwater fight takes place within an underwater saloon! And there is one of the most hilarious and craziest dance sequences I've ever seen that has to be seen to be believed! 

"Top Secret!" is the kind of crazy, anarchic movie that you can't wait to share with your friends. It is infectious and, though it is not as hilarious as ZAZ's other comedy-spoofs, primarily "The Naked Gun," it is still too damn funny to be ignored. When a movie starts off with a Nazi Germany meeting followed by a "Skeet Surfin" song (obviously parodying The Beach Boys), then you know you are in for a roller-coaster of laughs, puns and absurdity on the level of Mad Magazine. Pure anarchy.