Year: 2001

  • The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

    The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) Most Coen-Brothers films take at least two viewings to appreciate, but even knowing that, The Man Who Wasn’t There remains a disappointment. Oh, it starts well enough, with an unremarkable protagonist slowwwly being sucked in a web of criminal acts. But then the Brothers get weird on us, and in short order we’re asked to juggle a noir storyline with elements of aliens, oral sex and ironic punishment. I know, I know; it sounds good on paper, but doesn’t translate as well on-screen. It would be foolish to deny the depth of the screenplay, what with its constant return to the conformity of the American dream. Nor would it be useful to ignore the visual polish of the black-and-white cinematography, which gives rise to some powerful imagery. But with its languid and divergent second half, The Man Who Wasn’t There tests even the most indulgent viewer and diminishes its impact. A second viewing will be useful… but can wait a few years.

  • Lake Placid (1999)

    Lake Placid (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2001) Interesting experiment, here, as the structure of a typical monster movie is taken over by a writer with a good ear for dialogue. The result is nothing more than a monster B-movie, but the repartee is so crunchy that you’ll forgive the film a lot of otherwise unpleasant things. Such as the unlikable characters, the silly characters and the cardboard characters. Oh, but have-I mentioned that the dialogue is pretty good? In a sarcastic kind of way, of course, as the writer’s idea of “good” dialogue is verbal insults. It might work for you. The rest of the film is nothing special, though it is a cut above the usual straight-to-video monster movie.

  • Time Future, Maxine McArthur

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Aspect, 1999 (2001 reprint), 445 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60963-3

    Looking at the recent SF production of 1999-2001, it does seem ironic that at the very turn of the century, some of the most vital novels of the genre are from non-American authors. You might even call it the revenge of the British Commonwealth, what with Britain (Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter) and Canada (Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Charles Wilson) churning up excellent material. Now Australia joins the pack, with the ubiquitous-yet-unseen Greg Egan, and now Maxine McArthur. It’s much too early to say whether McArthur will establish herself as a first-rate writer, but Time Future is an interesting first novel that bodes well for her next.

    Arriving on American shores in paperback form nearly two years after original publication, Time Future comes pre-packaged with a few choice quotes and even an award, the George Turner Prize for best Australian SF novel. Try to lower your expectations, though; at its heart, Time Future remains a standard space-station-bound space-opera the sort of which Babylon-5 did so well.

    On the other hand, Babylon-5 never dropped its characters in such a prolonged nightmare: As Time Future begins, the Jocasta station’s been under siege for over a year. No transit, no supplies, not even any communication with the outside universe. No trace of a rescue attempt either. Inside the station, things are looking grim, what with a growing refugee problem, failing environmental systems, increased hysteria amongst the factions aboard the station and no hope in sight.

    Commander Halley is the one who must deal with this situation, and after more than a year, even the strongest women can falter under the constant stress. Nightmares, personality conflicts and plain desperation are her daily torments. As if that wasn’t enough, the novel piles up the difficulties: The blockading aliens want to talk to her, the alien factions inside the station aren’t helping at all, a mysterious ship is cause for more questions than answers, an alien trader is killed in an impossible fashion and her estranged alien ex-husband comes back to haunt her.

    It’s definitely not a cheerful novel. No one will be blamed if they’re tempted to fast-forward rather than slog through more than 400+ pages of claustrophobia, depression, no hot showers and constant peril.

    Through it all, though, McArthur creates a fascinating universe. Perhaps reflecting Australia’s geopolitical status vis-a-vis the United States, her humans are merely bit-players on the galactic stage. They barely rent out faster-than-light travel, own a station more through chance than merit (it’s not even human-built) and more or less acknowledge that they can be wiped out at any time. Hmm. (Someone could build a fascinating thesis comparing and contrasting this attitude against the British post-colonialism and the American hegemonism. But that’s not going to happen in this review.)

    As far as the novel itself is concerned, Time Future is merely adequate. It can be read, and eventually picks up some narrative steam, but it’s not much of a page-turner. The details are convincing but not mesmerizing. The writing doesn’t flow as easily as it should for a mystery/adventure such as this one. The characterization is well-done, though maybe more by piling up problems on the characters rather than making them sympathetic. (The protagonist herself is afflicted with yet another one of those “murdered relatives” trauma.)

    Still, it’s a relatively enjoyable novel. The mystery isn’t as interesting as it thinks it is (not all the required facts are available to the reader from the onset), but it’s fun to piece together the various parts of the narrative. Hey, it’s a promising debut.

    Finally, it occurs to this reviewer that the claustrophobic setting of the Jocasta station is in fact an ideal way to introduce the first novel in a space-opera series. Further volumes may uncover and fully use the complexity of the galaxy unveiled in Time Future, much like David Brin’s Uplift series had to wait until volume six to really expand the scope of the action. Who knows?

  • Keeping The Faith (2000)

    Keeping The Faith (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2001) Every single Ed Norton fan in the audience, please wave your fist in the air and cheer for the guy, who not only turns in yet another great performance, but also convincingly directs his first film with Keeping The Faith. The story sounds a lot like a bad joke (“So this priest walks in a bar, tells how he and a rabbi both fell in love with the same girl…”), but the development of the tale is anything but silly. The three protagonist couldn’t be played better than by Norton, Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman. Fortunately, they can depend on a rather good script, which not only mixes the inevitable romantic entanglement, but also includes a pretty good comparative look at both Catholics and Jews. This chameleon-like film will play well not only with religious audience of both denomination, but also with less-devout audiences. There’s something to like for everyone, from a karaoke salesman to great shots of New York. (Plus a wonderfully cool bit with our two men of faith walking in slow-motion to Santana’s “Smooth”) Funny, smart and even poignant, you’ll be hard-pressed not to enjoy Keeping The Faith.

  • K-Pax (2001)

    K-Pax (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) I like Kevin Spacey, but ever since he’s had his Oscar, he’s been making strange choices. I mean… Pay It Forward? Now comes K-Pax, another one of those sugary dramatic treats that Hollywood does so well. Think One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Think about that alien-comments-on-humans Starman shtick we’ve seen so many time before. Think mental-patients-are-really-sane- in-an-insane-world cliché claptrap. Better yet; don’t think, because the film bends over backward trying to make damn sure that there’s no logical solution to the problem it poses. It first tries to set up the alien hypothesis, then -through an atrociously convoluted “hypnosis” sequence- tries to build the “crazy guy” hypothesis. Naturally, by the end, we have convincing proof of both, and at the same time of neither. The film is really a showcase for Spacey (who, it is true, is rather enjoyable in the first half of the film) but beyond that, there isn’t much to like. Sure, the directing is efficient and Jeff Bridges is all right, but for those things, why don’t you rent The Big Lebowski again?

  • Heist (2001)

    Heist (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) David Mamet can be frustrating or entertaining, but with Heist, the emphasis is on the entertainment. 2001 has seen at least three movies about professional robbers, and Heist ends up being the film that The Score and Ocean’s Eleven so desperately tried to be. Crackling dialogue, well-defined characters and constant plot twists will bring a smile to your lips even as you recognize the usual “caper-film” structure. It all adds up to an entertaining package. It’s as gratuitously convoluted as Mamet’s previous The Spanish Prisoner, but not as annoying: you’ll hardly mind as the onscreen action unfolds in a way that would be impossible out of movies. The beauty and satisfaction of Heist over comparable movies comes mostly from the various array of clever tricks used by the thieves to con everyone including themselves. Twists, twists, twists, up to and including the final seconds. Don’t make any mistake; this isn’t a particularly noteworthy or particularly heart-felt film: you’ll recognize the mechanics and the calculations. But never mind; Heist is so entertaining that it would be a crime to dislike it.

  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aka Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aka Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) Is it possible for a movie to be too faithful to the original novel? It’s tempting to say so while watching this first film in the Harry Potter series as the second half of the film sinks in indulgent pacing and gratuitous scenes. Indeed, the film seldom exhibits signs of snappiness or extreme originality; it’s leisurely, even conventional in pure fantasy terms. Avid fantasy readers will have “seen” all of this before. But don’t let the above deter you from considering Harry Potter 1 to be one of the best films of 2001: The technical professionalism, good dialogue and acting talent of the film more than make up for any deficiencies, and the result is a long, conventional but very good film. It’s mind candy almost all the way through! Particular recognition goes to acting wizard Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, and newcomer Emma Watson as the irresistible Hermione. In a year where most blockbusters have fallen flat on their faces (Pearl Harbor, Tomb Raider, Planet Of The Apes, etc.), this is one hyper-hyped movie event that really does deliver.

  • The Deep End (2001)

    The Deep End (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) Is it an accident if motherhood and water are the two recurring themes of the film? Far from starring the usual stalwart single action hero, this thriller revolves around a harried single mother whose husband is away on naval duty. She is gradually drawn, in inimitably thrillerish fashion, in a series of increasingly criminal acts to protect her family… but then the menace starts to be seductive and everything goes wrong. Tilda Swinton cuts a sympathetic figure as the heroine, but even despite everything, the film feels a bit too forced, too calculated and definitely too slow even at 100 minutes. It’s definitely a minimalist thriller, the type that allows a few viewers to imagine themselves is similar claustrophobic circumstances. If you’ve got a long attention span, fine; otherwise, be prepared for slow stretches.

  • Citizen Kane (1941)

    Citizen Kane (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Third viewing, On DVD, November 2001) Justifiably dubbed “the best movie of all time”, Orson Welles’ masterpiece gets a lavish DVD treatment, complete with a beautifully restored print, two commentary tracks and a full-length documentary feature. Particular attention should be given to Roger Ebert’s commentary track, which will make you fall in love with the movie all over again. Even if you think you’ve seen everything about Citizen Kane, give this one a spin.

  • Chuet Sik San Tau [Martial Angels] (2001)

    Chuet Sik San Tau [Martial Angels] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2001) Oh, the wonders of Asian cinema. Here we have an action movie starring half-a-dozen young female protagonist in what does actually sound like a Charlie’s Angels derivative. Too bad it just falls flat. To begin with, the protagonists all look like each other. Then the ho-hum plot does nothing to attract or retain interest. While there are a few good directorial flourishes and the plot finally starts to move late in the film, the overall effect is less, much less than we could have hoped for. The action scenes are merely serviceable, and so are the few laughs. Too bad, really; in an environment where men dominate the action cinescape, it’s interesting to see a film where men are either evil or fools and where the ladies are so obviously carry everything. Oh well. The opening credit sequence is cool.

  • Big Daddy (1999)

    Big Daddy (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2001) I despise Adam Sandler, I despise stupid comedies, I despise gratuitously sentimental films and at this stage of my life, you could even say that I despise kids. No surprise, then, if I found Big Daddy to be one of the most useless films I’ve seen in a while. Oh, it sort of acquires narrative inertia near the end, but for most of its duration, it’s the sort of film you don’t feel guilty ignoring. There are a few good lines, most of them not actually said by Sandler. (I liked “Oh, in retrospect it seems as if I’ve made some very bad choices after high school.”) Some will be pleased to note a complimentary reference to Canadian beer. Not an essential film by any means, nor even a worthwhile one.

  • The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)

    The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2001) A terribly frustrating movie. Not having any strong identification to the original series, I was left to ponder the film on its own merit, and… egad… It’s not that the film itself is bad, it’s that parts of it are just atrocious. The humor ranges all the way from witty to childish, with several detours though simply-not-funny. And yet, and yet, the silliness of it all somehow won me over, as it’s hard to be angry at a stupid cartoon moose.

  • Dispatches from the Tenth Circle, The Onion

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Three Rivers Press, 2001, 174 pages, C$24.00 tpb, ISBN 0-609-80834-6

    I have long been a steadfast admirer of The Onion, a devastatingly funny web humor magazine with the guts to say out loud what most of us can’t even conceive. That admiration became nothing short of worship on September 26, 2001, when The Onion was the first publication to face the 9-11-2001 tragedy with smart satire. (The “Holy F*cking Sh*t! Attack on America!” edition included such disturbing gems as “God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule”, “American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie” and “Hijackers surprised To Find Selves in Hell”)

    While Dispatches from the Tenth Circle doesn’t contain post-2000 material, it represents your most accessible option to reward the good staff of The Onion: rush out to your local bookstore and pick it up, along with their previous Our Dumb Century.

    Inside, you’ll find 174 densely-packed pages of the best of The Onion over a period of a few years (roughly 1998-2000), a steady assortment of howlers and an unflinching look at today’s North-American society. There aren’t very many book out there that fully deserve their price tag, but if anything, Dispatches is a bargain even at cover cost.

    I’d classify the Onion’s shtick to be divided in four rough categories. My general favorite is the “full-blown satire” mode, with such articles as “Doritos Celebrates One Millionth Ingredient”, “South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year”, “Coca-Cola Introduces New 30-Liter Size” or “Video-Game Characters Denounce Randomly Placed Swinging Blades”

    Then there are the “Ironic twist on common headlines”, such as “Supreme Court Overturns Car”, “Loved Ones Recall Local Man’s Cowardly Battle With Cancer”, “Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids” or “ACLU Defend Nazis’ Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters”

    Some of the best laughs, of course, come from the “Slice of Daily Life” features, where stupid everyday stuff somehow headline material. Who can resist “Woman Who ‘Loves Brazil’ Has Only Seen Four Square Miles Of It”, “Twelve Customers Gunned Down in Convenience-Store Clerk’s Imagination” or “Graphic Designer’s Judgment Clouded By Desire To Use New Photoshop Plug-in”?

    I’m not generally a fan of the “Other Features” of The Onion, but the “What Do You Think?” often features small gems. A few Point/Counterpoint features (“You The Man / No, You The Man!”, “My Computer Totally Hates Me! / God, Do I Hate That Bitch”) can be priceless.

    Don’t skimp out on the details, either: Some of the best lines in Dispatch are hidden on the margins. Granted, the “STATshot” features are usually lame, but you can’t beat such one-liners as “Standard Deviation Not Enough For Perverted Statistician”, “Georgia Adds Swastika, Middle Finger To State Flag” and “Artist Starving For A Reason”.

    Funny? Damn straight. Expect to laugh aloud, groan, roll your eyes and quote the book for weeks afterward.

    It’s not stupid humor, mind you. If ever you happen to be familiar with one of the subjects lampooned in The Onion, you’ll find that these guys know their stuff; it’s very, very rare to catch them using an improper reference or to make an unintentional factual mistake.

    Of course, the most seductive aspect of Dispatches is how clever it is underneath that veneer of hilarity. Pay attention, and you’ll acknowledge hidden truths about today’s world. The Onion‘s staff is not merely skilled at humor, but at social commentary. (A “vox populi” about middle-east violence includes “Maybe we should stop thinking of it as middle-eastern conflict and start thinking of it as middle-eastern culture.” Ouch.)

    Needless to say, Dispatches from the Tenth Circle is highly recommended. It makes a great gift, and should provide you with enough quotable/photocopiable material for a while. Don’t you dare miss it, nor any of The Onion’s other collections. Needless to say, you can always go to http://www.theonion.com/ for your weekly fix.

  • Lunar Descent, Allen Steele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1991, 325 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-50485-X

    All too often, catching up on an author’s entire oeuvre is an exercise akin to completing a puzzle. You’ll read the most available/important/distinctive works first, then work your way to, eventually, the rest of the picture. Whenever you do complete your work, though, you might find out that the smaller pieces illuminate something unexpected in the panorama.

    So it was that I began to read Allen Steele with his ninth book, and gradually worked my way to the rest of them in time. With Lunar Descent, Steele’s third novel, I finally put in the missing puzzle piece, and it all forms an interesting portrait.

    Orbital Decay was about a semi-rebellion among workers building a space station. Clarke County, Space was about a semi-rebellion among residents of a space station. Lunar Descent… is about a semi-rebellion among workers on the moon. Okay, so the details differ (Clarke County, Space isn’t about the rebellion, though it happens shortly after in the same timeline and Lunar Descent is about a strike action), but at this stage we’re merely playing with words. Suffice to say that some recurring themes do figure pro-eminently in Steele’s fiction.

    The style, too, has similarities. Most of his novel are built around straight-ahead prose supplemented by other forms of writing; interviews, oral testimonies, media articles, etc…

    Both of the above similarities, make sense when you know about Steele’s background as an investigative journalist before he started writing SF full-time. It’s no accident if he’s one of the most liberal SF writers in the business. His blue-collar characters like to have chemically-influenced fun, disrespect authority and do the job their pointy-haired managers have assigned them.

    The protagonists of Lunar Descent are no exception. Our “moondogs” are the few, the brave, the proud men and women mining ore on the moon for the Solar Power Satellite projects back on Earth Orbit. Think about those hard-workin’ oil rig personnel and you’ll have a fair idea of their mindset. Sure, they get high and mean from time to time, but -wink, wink- work hard, play hard, right?

    Apparently, the evil corporate villains of Steele’s fiction don’t think so, and before long they tighten the screws on operations, replacing half the personnel, finding a wholly unsuitable station manager, clamping down on “non-essential” imports and generally doing everything in their power to be completely unlikable. Boo! Hiss! Fight da power!

    So our guys strike, and unfortunately, their evil managers declare their SPS work crucial to national economic indicators, and send in the space marines to quell the rebellion. So it’s exoskeleton-boosted marines against weaponless marines. Who will win? Well, yeah, but not in the way you’d expect, fortunately.

    All and all, even though we’d seen this before, Lunar Descent is a success because of its likable characters, the vivid description of life in a workplace 300,000 kilometers away, the snappy writing and the good humor with which Steele nails down the essential details. Some stuff doesn’t ring true (why is it, for instance, that characters born in the 80s or 90s will always be fascinated by the same classic-rock enjoyed by the author? Hmm.) and Steele’s usual biases make the action predictable at times, but no matter; here’s another solid hard-SF book well worth your time and money. Lunar Descent is what the SF mid-list is all about.

  • First Contract, Greg Costikyan

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2000, 287 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-54549-4

    You would think that more than a hundred years after H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, Science-Fiction would have managed to come up with every single imaginable twist on the “First Alien Contact” scenario. And yet here’s First Contract, a refreshing take on the subject that will make you smile in amusement even as it describes the complete economic collapse of Earth.

    The hook is simple: Aliens descend on Earth, say “hi!” and propose a small trade; a copy of the galactic encyclopedia in return for the low-low price of, say, Jupiter. Before anyone can scream out “REMEMBER MANHATTAN!”, the deal is done and humans are stuck with a set of UN-controlled data files that no one can figure out. Meanwhile, aliens set up shop on the planet and destroy most of our industries by offering better products. The resulting economic catastrophe makes the depression of the Thirties look like a trifle.

    I won’t pretend that this type of scenario has never been explored before in SF (who knows what might have been published in “Analog”, not to mention Costikyan’s own seed novella, “Sales Reps From the Stars”), but it’s certainly not a common spin, and the style with which it’s explored deserves mention.

    In many ways, this is a novel that should have been published by Baen Books. The glorification of market forces, the deep and thorough knowledge of economic drivers, the quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of past historical precedent all bring to mind the usual Baen potboiler. But no, surprise, this is a Tor book… Jim Baen must be kicking himself.

    The story takes the form of a narrative by Johnson Mukerjii, initially a hard-working high-tech CEO whose business, marriage and life are irremediably destroyed by the aliens. Before long, he’s huddled underneath a bridge, plotting his revenge. Mukerjii makes a perfect narrator, his lively wit illuminating the dry exposition passages he must dish out throughout the story. Hey, it works; expect to know a lot more about stock markets, financial statements and trade shows by the end of First Contract. Heck, the novel will even make you understand how third-world countries have to behave in light of rich-nations imperialism.

    It’s worth repeating that even though the novel deals with heavy-duty economic SF theory, it’s never dull or difficult; Costikyan vulgarizes quite well, and if the novel isn’t all hilariously funny, it’ll leave a quasi-permanent grin on your face while you’re reading it. Which isn’t as straining as you might think; you’ll probably end up reading this book in a single sitting.

    Dig a bit deeper and, of course, you’ll find here a deep and knowing satire on corporatism and the new feudalism. Or is it? Costikyan understands his subject so well that it can play both ways. Certainly the last few pages of the book take the Wal-Mart philosophy of retail (and supply) to its logical galactic extreme… and if that’s not satire, well, I’m ready to send back my SF-Critic’s license.

    It helps, of course, that the book is a throwback to the plucky-humans-über-alles philosophy of so much golden-age SF. Despite being technologically pounded, economically colonized and spiritually destroyed, humanity -through our stalwart hero- finds a way to make a good deal. We haven’t conquered back the universe by the last page, but it’s obvious that we’re on our way and it’s only a matter of time. Say what you want about self-image and wish-fulfillment, but that type of attitude usually earns a bonus point or two in my ratings.

    I wasn’t so taken by the last two pages, which seem a lot like a gratuitous extra spin than a knock-out ending. (Cut it, and the true ending sentence is much funnier. You better believe they’d ship on time.)

    But taken as a whole, First Contract ranks as one of the best SF novels of 2000, a unique blend of big business and alien invasion. Cleverly imagined, compulsively readable and constantly amusing, this is a book that should please a wide array of readers. Don’t miss it.