Year: 2003

  • Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

    Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2003) I loved the original film for its sense of go-for-broke energy and its casual disregard for mere conventions such as, oh, physics. The sequel is bigger, louder and even more furious than the original (the opening dam sequence is a perfect Big Dumb Action Sequence; I was left wishing for more, more, more!) but somewhere along the way, the delirious pace starts working against itself. More money and more attention has made director McG a needy and insecure director. The fantastic long shots, the mean focus, the clear palette of the original are gone and replaced with mayhem, chaos and confusion. It doesn’t work quite as well; the composition of the shots lacks confidence and clarity; we’re left with grittier pictures, sequences with few outstanding shots and a sense that someone is just trying too hard to win our approval. Not that I’m a demanding viewer; in this case, the adorable goofiness of Cameron Diaz (plus my unquenchable thirst for more Lucy Liu) is enough to make me giddy with excitement. Some of the stunts are, indeed pretty cool and Charlie’s Angels 2 is a beautiful monument to nonsensical blockbuster-making. But the structure is off (Demi Moore’s true alignment it revealed much too late), the subplots are irrelevant (did we need all of those back-stories?) and even capable players like John Cleese, Crispin Glover and Bernie Mac aren’t particularly well-used. Heck, I shouldn’t complain: There are some very cool moments (Lucy Liu doing the ferret; the use of Edwin Collins’ “A Girl Like You”; Crispin Glover’s backstory; the CSI sequence) but it’s not as purely entertaining as the first one. Darn!

  • Bottle Rocket (1996)

    Bottle Rocket (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2003) Low-key film about a pair of very small-time criminals trying to decide whether they should break into the crime business or stay outside of it. Brothers Owen and Paul Wilson star in this first Wes Anderson film (Owen co-wrote the screenplay) and if you’ve seen his latter Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, you can already expect the sort of awkward comedy and sympathetic losers favoured by Anderson. It’s not a spectacular film nor even a particularly interesting one, but it eventually works its way up to something adequate. There’s a notable lull midway through as Inez is brought in the picture. Both Wilson brothers turn in good performances, though fans of both actors will find it weird that their usual hair styles are here inverted. Anderson and Wilson completists will find plenty to like in Bottle Rocket, though it remains to be seen if others will have the patience to sit through what can be a series of lengthy moments. The bare-bones DVD edition is decidedly lacking in special features; a commentary would have been worthwhile.

  • Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

    Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2003) Despite the rather good cult reputation of this film, I was surprised at how… ordinary it ended up being. Even though Kurt Russell shines as all-American Jack Burton (his charming ineptness is one of the film’s highlight), the film isn’t as endearing nor as memorable as I was led to believed, or half-remembered from TV memories. It’s certainly not a dull film, mind you: The pacing is steady and the action rarely stops. (Plus, there’s a neat hero/sidekick reverse dynamic at play here.) But the dialogues fall flat (always an important factor when dealing with a protagonist with such an attitude) and the effect simply isn’t as electrifying as similar fare such as, say, Evil Dead 2. Part of this tepid reaction, I suspect, is that kung-fu fighting has been done elsewhere since then, with a greater degree of sophistication: The tongue-in-cheek parody of classic Chinese martial arts film may have been loads of fun in 1986, but years after America’s newfound fascination for Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, there isn’t anything startlingly new left in the movie. Structurally, the film covers the same ground again and again in a succession of underground lairs that end up featuring the same few villains. I do realize that this film wasn’t aiming for high art, but the truth is that it doesn’t completely succeed as a fun camp classic. Fun, sure, but also a disappointment. On the other hand, the film is well-worth seeing again if only for the audio commentary starring Russell and director John Carpenter; maybe half of it directly relates to the film, but all of it is fascinating. A few unmemorable supplemental features round the special edition DVD set.

  • Total Risk: Nick Leeson and the Fall of Barings Bank, Judith H. Rawnsley

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper, 1995 (1996 reprint), 256 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-109535-4

    In many ways, it seems like a tale too implausible to be true: How a young 28-year-old trader managed, through a series of increasingly risky trades, to wipe out the assets of a major British bank and drive it to bankruptcy. You probably heard about it a while ago; the story made plenty of headlines in early 1995. In 1999, the docu-fictive film, ROGUE TRADER (starring Ewan McGregor) even brought the story to European silver screens. (The film was a straight-to-video release in North America, perhaps indicative of its low-budget, mildly-imaginative execution.)

    Though ROGUE TRADER was based on a book, it used Nick Leeson’s autobiography as a starting point, not Judith H. Rawnsley’s rather more objective account. Total Risk is a more straightforward retelling of the story by someone who’s familiar with the context: Interestingly enough, reporter Rawnsley found herself fascinated by the fall of Barings Bank because she herself had worked there years before the scandal, even meeting Leeson on a few occasions. In the early parts of the book, she makes full use of her personal experience by describing the environment in which Nick Leeson operated and how it may have fostered the sense of invulnerability that lead to the financial collapse of the bank.

    Structurally, Total Risk begins with an explanation of the author’s relationship with Barings Bank, a short description of the collapse of the institution and only then begins to explain what led to this crisis. It’s a good decision, but a risky one; as it stands, Total Risk is never as good as when it describes both the fall of Barings and the background elements that allowed such ambition to take hold in Nick Leeson. (Latter parts of the book delve into financial minutiae and are not quite as fascinating as the first half.) One of the strengths of the book are the numerous quotes and opinions presumably obtained by Rawnsley herself, allowing us to peek under the curtain of what happened during that time.

    As Rawnsley explains, Barings Brothers lasted some two hundred years as one of Britain’s most renowned banks before deregulation was introduced in 1986 in an effort to improve the efficiency of British financial institutions. As a result, Barings started looking for more exciting ways to make money, spinning off a unit called Barings Securities, which in looking around for profitable markets, settled for Far East bureaus. Total Risk hits its stride in describing the alpha-male social environment in which the expatriate young traders evolved, and how this led to some curiously excessive behaviour. Still, initial successes were so impressive that the Singapore branch was allowed greater and greater independence, a lot of it concentrated in the person of one hot-shot trader —Nick Leeson.

    When Leeson’s luck ran out (as it usually does in every gambling environment, high finance being no exception), he started making illicit loans to cover his losses. When his further investments also started panning out, he borrowed some more. Rawnsley is quite effective in describing the all-or-nothing frenzy which may have gripped Leeson at this junction, racing with himself in order to obtain the one break -only one lucky break- which would pay off everything.

    But it didn’t, and soon enough no one could hide the magnitude of the disaster. Leeson escaped, was caught, manipulated public opinion (the description of this PR campaign is another of Total Risk‘s best moments) and went to jail. Most of Barings was bought by ING and controls were tightened to ensure that nothing like this will ever happen again.

    Well, at least until the next new financial scam. As the spectacular collapses of Enron and Worldcom, indicates, there may be an infinite market for financial-swindle non-fiction. What sets Total Risk apart from such other works as Diane Francis’s markedly inferior Bre-X is a viewpoint halfway between an insider and a reporter, a sense of closure and an interesting writing style that often has more similarities to fiction than to financial analysis. While it would be unfair to say that this book has wide appeal, it’s more fitting to suggest that readers with a built-in interest in such stories will find a lot to like about this particular account.

  • The Animatrix (2003)

    The Animatrix (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2003) Yes, this is a ploy to get even more money out of The Matrix fans. But when it’s such an interesting money-grab, one can even be enthusiastic about the attempt. A collection of nine anime shorts set in the world of The Matrix, this is a fun little collection showcasing the strengths of “Japanese-style animation” along with the possibilities of the Wachowski Brothers’ creation. Styles vary enormously, from the hyper-CGI photorealism of “The Last Flight of the Osiris” to the stylized hand-drawings of “Kid’s Story”. The tone is uniformly dour, though, with death to the protagonists being a recurring motif; few happy endings here, and even one piece that can be seen as an apology for teen suicide. But it’s pretty good stuff, and the interest level remains constant despite stories hindered both by length and by the constraints of operating in another person’s universe. The DVD is stuffed with supplements, from an introduction to anime to making-of featurettes that are almost longer than the pieces themselves. It’s an essential stop for all anime fans, and an interesting curio for others that are at least familiar with either anime or The Matrix.

  • All About The Benjamins (2002)

    All About The Benjamins (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2003) I don’t think anyone will ever claim this to be a great film, but frankly, it doesn’t have to be: As soon as we’re dropped into this lush Miami backdrop, with Ice Cube playing a burly protagonist, the rest takes care of itself. As the title suggests, the story revolves around millions of dollars, to which we can add Cube’s bounty-hunter, a con artist, evil euro-villains, hot girls, sunny locations and enough ebonic profanities to exasperate even a hardened sailor. The rhythm is well sustained, the locations are worth looking at and the chemistry between Mike Epps and Ice Cube works well enough to make us forget that Epps often tries to be as irritating as Martin Lawrence. Certainly the female side of the film’s Miami creds is impressive: Valarie Rae Miller, Eva Mendes and Carmen Chaplin make the most of their limited screen time and if Mendes has looked better in other films, she here displays some good comedic skills. Plot-wise, m’well, the film takes some regrettable shortcuts: the importance of the lottery ticket seems to diminish midway through and there are a few unfortunate coincidences here and there. But is it really worth discussing when the whole package is so charming? Probably not. Throw that film in with the Bad Boys series, 2 Fast 2 Furious and reruns of Miami Vice for plenty of undemanding fun. The DVD contains a pleasing array of short documentaries (including a general piece on music video directors making the leap to the big screen) as well as a mildly engaging audio commentary.

  • 2 Fast 2 Furious aka The Fast And The Furious 2 (2003)

    2 Fast 2 Furious aka The Fast And The Furious 2 (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2003) Cars, crime and chicks in sunny Miami; what else could you ask for? Okay, so Vin Diesel is missing and so is a lot of the energy of the original The Fast And The Furious. But it doesn’t matter as much as you think: This time around, the cars look better, and if no one can outfox Michelle Rodriguez, Eva Mendes and Devon Aoki are totally appropriate eye-candy. Paul Walker doesn’t have to struggle under the shadow of Diesel, and he emerges as a mildly engaging protagonist. (The homo-erotic subtext of his character’s relationship with buddy Tyrone can be a little ridiculous at times, though; how many jealous glances can we tolerate before bursting out laughing?) It’s a shame that about half the car chases don’t really work; dodgy camera moves, overuse of CGI over stunt driving and over-chopped editing don’t help in building a gripping action scene. At least the two highway sequences are nifty. The last stunt is weak and so are many of the plot points before then, but 2 Fast 2 Furious goes straight in the guilty pleasures category; a fine way to spend a lazy evening.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, March 2004) Fast cars, curvy women and sunny Miami: Even the second time around, it’s hard to be angry at this film even as the dialogue is painful, the action scenes aren’t particularly successful and the ending is lame. At least the DVD offers some consolation through a series of interesting making-of documentaries and a few extra car-related goodies. John Singleton’s tepid audio commentary does much to demonstrate the uninspired nature of the film’s production. Competent without being particularly commendable, adequate without being particularly satisfying. This one goes out straight to Eva Mendes fans and car buffs. Not that there’s anything wrong with being either.

  • Anonymous Rex, Eric Garcia

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Villard, 2000, 276 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-375-50326-9

    If you’ve been searching for a deliciously original piece of fiction, look no further than Eric Garcia’s Anonymous Rex. Easily one of the freshest novel I’ve read in a while, this is a book that lures readers with a delicious mixture of classical gumshoe prose and an off-beat twist on the usual. Then it keeps them flipping the pages with a sustained rhythm. What more could we ask for?

    Part of the appeal of Garcia’s first novel is how, on the surface, protagonist Vincent Rubio is virtually indistinguishable from prototypical down-on-his-luck Private Investigator so beloved of mystery fiction. He used to be a hot shot, but then his partner got killed, he developed a serious substance abuse problem and went on a violent bender. Now he’s broke, his name is mud and no one wants to even talk to him save for the debt collectors —and even those aren’t terribly interested in idle talk. No, nothing revolutionary here so far.

    Same thing with the plot, which involves Rubio’s old boss handing over an investigation to our unfortunate protagonist. A sombre arson affair, which our hero has to untangle because no one else wants to do it. The classic elements follow: the witnesses, the diseased, the secret, the wife, the mistress, the affairs, the wealth, the hired thugs and the casual assassination of informers. Even the late slide of the narrative in science-fiction isn’t terribly new when considering that the same shtick’s been attempted by just about every SF writer trying to break in the mystery genre. (See Walter Jon William’s excellent Day of Atonement, etc.)

    No, the real find of Anonymous Rex is that it presupposes that our protagonist is… a dinosaur. And so is a sizable proportion of humans living on planet Earth today.

    No, not metaphorical we-loved-the-fifties arch-conservative dinosaurs, but the literal stuff of the fossil record: T-Rex, Velociraptor, Brontosaur, Stegosaurus and the rest of the gang. Thanks to elaborate costumes, strong species discipline and the influence of a hilariously inept system of “Councils”, dinosaurs live among us, participate in society, own most of the nightclubs, love the mind-altering effects of aromatic herbs and try their best not to prey on puny humans. (They also presumably enjoy palaeontologist trade publications)

    It’s a concept that could be described as unusual (or “zany”, should you be of the less imaginative sort), and which could have very well been amusing for a chapter and a half before starting to recycle its own cleverness. But there’s no reason to worry; Garcia’s dino-universe is well-stocked with interesting new surprises and sufficiently fast-paced to keep us interested even when he’s not busy exploring the social customs and quirks of modern-day sapient lizards.

    Among many other fine qualities, Anonymous Rex is generous enough to allow the reader to follow along with the mystery, being neither too obscure or too simple. Rubio is a sympathetic protagonist (he’s a Raptor who could eat you for lunch, sure, but then again he’s meddling with dinos who could eat him for lunch!) The writing is brisk, but also loaded with fine descriptions and dialogue that would make any hard-boiled novelist proud by association. This is a clever novel that’s pure fun from beginning to end; don’t be surprised to find yourself reading it late at night.

    The gumshoe mystery has been exploited in fantastic ways for a while, by virtue of well-established genre conventions that are easy to subvert. (even forgetting about the countless genre SF and Fantasy novels with a mystery template, one could easily recall Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music and the original Who Censored Roger Rabbit?) Anonymous Rex is another fine entry in this offbeat vein, a wonderful little book that is well-worth your time and attention. Don’t miss it, especially if you’re looking for something endearingly different.

  • The Forge of Mars , Bruce Balfour

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 2002, 404 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-00954-9

    It seemed promising enough: A novel mixing alien relics, a maverick hero, nanotechnology, robots, artificial intelligence and conspiracies reaching back in our history. It’s not as if there hasn’t been plenty of good SF novels with “Mars” in their titles over the past few years. Plus, Balfour has designed one of my all-time favourite computer adventures, Wasteland. What could go wrong?

    Well, The Forge of Mars doesn’t go wrong as much as it doesn’t go anywhere coherent, interesting or pleasant. The novel switches sub-genres every hundred pages, creating the impression of a monster with too many heads and not enough muscle.

    Even the opening sequence smacks of trouble, combining a training scenario shuttle crash with some muddy mysticism. Yep, this is the entrance of our hero, Tau Wolfsinger, a genius half-Native American whose rebel ideas prove too controversial for the NASA. Meanwhile, behind the shadows, a group of powerful men and women are dealing with the sudden appearance of alien artifacts on Mars… artifacts that may be not dissimilar to those discovered in Siberia on the site of the Tunguska disaster. One of the elements of the plan consists in manipulating Tau to ship him off to Mars. But whereas a simple “please” might have sufficed, a convoluted plan emerges which involves first shipping off his girlfriend, killing his mentor and assigning him an aggressively seductive colleague.

    This first part of The Forge of Mars plays like a high-tech thriller, and it does contain interesting elements. The menace of the conspiracy is disturbing, and the NASA bureaucracy is used in an intriguing fashion. But already, signs of narrative fatigue are obvious; the useless detours can tax anyone’s patience, and the murder scene which tops this section seems gratuitously gory in light of the rest of the story. It’s an effective, unsettling moment, but it belongs in another book.

    Then the book, midway through, shifts gears just in time for the lengthy voyage which will take Tau to Mars. This sequence is oddly familiar, given all the similar sequences that pepper the countless Mars-themed Hard-SF novels that have been published since the early nineties. This sentiment of familiarity carries over the initial scenes on Mars, as Tau establishes his research operation.

    But don’t get too comfortable: before long, Tau fails to reunite with his girlfriend and is taken hostage by an evil Russian conspiracy member and his dog. He escapes, only to have the thematic ground of the novel shift under him once more as he’s asked to lead a series of war games for an alien race someplace far far away from Mars. Naaah, I’m not making this up. Fortunately, battle-wizard Tau eventually comes back to Mars to lead an attack against the evil Russians (and the dog) to liberate Mars.

    Or something like that. Despite the various interesting elements used by The Forge of Mars, Balfour always takes the long way around, thus dissipating whatever tension accumulates. By the time Tau has become some sort of alien Ender Wiggins, readers might be wondering if there was even an editor around when they decided to publish the novel; too many plot threads, not enough narrative energy. The writing is nowhere as good as it should be to make us shrug off the rest of the book’s weaknesses. Bland and disjointed a dull novel it makes.

    In the end, it doesn’t amount to much, and I suspect that my fuzzy memory of the book will erode even further in the next few months. It’s probably no accident if this is an Ace paperback original; certainly, it’s a cut below what we may expect for an average SF novel, let alone something worth our attention. Nothing to see here; let’s move along.

  • McDonald’s: Behind the Arches, John F. Love

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 1986, 470 pages, C$24.95 hc, ISBN 0-553-05127-X

    I didn’t pick this book; it picked me. Fell on me, actually. Slipped off the shelf at a used book sale and was caught in mid-air by a reflex action of mine. One can’t ignore those signs; I brought it home.

    It’s hard to find a more iconic institution than McDonald’s. Given that the average North-American is almost always within good walking distance of one of their outlets, this restaurant chain has come to represent far more than just fast food. It has been associated with gastronomic imperialism, the culture of speed, the fattening up of America, the perils of globalization and a rigid sense of order. Step into any McDonald’s anywhere in the world and you will find commonalities with all the others.

    From the outside, McDonald’s seems to exemplify rigidity, stability and hierarchy. But as John F. Love manages to show in Behind the Arches, this is an incomplete, carefully cultivated portrait. For the strength of McDonald’s has been not unthinking devotion to order, but reigned entrepreneurial spirit. McDonald’s has always encouraged innovations, both inside and outside their immediate purview.

    Obviously, this is a “friendly” biography of McDonald’s. While the project wasn’t commissioned by the company, extensive collaboration was given to Love in order for him to complete the project. While the book does discuss the sometime-rocky corporate history of the firm with a critical eye, it seldom delves into the darker side of the company. You’ll have to read Fast-Food Nation for that.

    But in some ways, it doesn’t matter. McDonald’s success story can be appreciated regardless of one’s feeling toward the food offered there. At times, it almost seems too good to be true; the story of two brothers with a good idea (speed and price; always speed and price!), a refined system and a convinced salesman who’d transform this kernel into the foundation of an empire. Behind the Arches is also the story of the people who made a success out of McDonald’s, and none of them as grandiose as Ray E. Kroc, the man those no-nonsense approach made an empire out of McDonald’s.

    The early struggles of McDonald’s are told in a detailed, almost breathless style that requires very little effort to read. While the early heroics of the corporation latter transform into high-finance deals (including a disastrous flirtation with a more rigid style of management), the book remains interesting from the start to end. Seldom has there been a more compelling corporate biography.

    It’s not as if it’s an ordinary story. The bare facts are astonishing: The way McDonald’s restructured whole industries in order to be best-served. The importance of the franchisees. The decentralized fashion by which advertising is used. The emphasis on real estate. The technological innovation that went into developing even the simplest food products. The difficult foreign expansion of the company. The battle for rumour control and favourable opinion. There’s a lot of good stuff in here, and it’s all worth reading. The origins of Ronald McDonald are almost charmingly quaint, whereas the process by which some of the most recognizable McDonald staples were created is a monument to food engineering.

    The biggest problem of Behind the Arches, naturally, is the 1986 publication date. Fifteen years past, who knows what has changed since then? Is McDonald’s still so loyal with its suppliers? Does it still depend so much on the individualism of their franchisees? An update would be useful.

    But in the end, I was so impressed (and, true, so curious), that I willingly stepped in another McDonald’s (meters away from my workplace, a location that was the sole victim of vandalism during the Ottawa anti-globalization protests of 2001) after years of absence. Despite the noon-time crowd, service took less than five minutes. Once back at my office, I offered brief congratulations to Ray E. Kroc, started eating and headed over to www.mcspotlight.com because I’m such a sucker for irony. The meal reminded me of why I hadn’t eaten McDonald’s in a while, but in a way, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the impressive display of ingenuity, determination and sheer cleverness that is the true basis of McDonald’s success. Even critics and pundits can’t help but being impressed, whatever their sentiments may be regarding what McDonald’s stands for.

    So here’s to you, Ray A. Kroc, Fred Turner, and united franchisees. Good show.

  • Flag in Exile (Honor Harrington 5), David Weber

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 1995, 480 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-7434-3575-3

    (Read as an eBook, from the War of Honor CD-ROM)

    It’s become customary to introduce every new instalment of the Honor Harrington series with some variant on “Honor is Back!” But this time around, the twist is that she is not back. Exiled from the Manticoran Navy after her actions in the previous volume, she’s back “home” as the steadholder of a brand-new territory on Grayson, the planet she managed to save in The Honor of the Queen. She may not be a ranking officer of her majesty’s navy anymore, but she keeps busy: Running a stead takes a lot of time and energy, especially when she’s the first-ever female steadholder in what is still a deeply conservative society. Some people clearly aren’t happy about that particular achievement…

    Meanwhile, the Royal Manticoran Navy is still fighting the war initiated by the eeevil socialist Havenites two volumes ago. The engagement seems protracted enough to last for several more novels, and to make things worse, the Havenites are planning on attacking Grayson. As it naturally turn out, Honor Harrington is ready for them given her newly-acquired commission as an admiral of the Grayson Navy…

    After the successful non-military focus of Field of Dishonor, Weber takes an hybrid approach in plotting Flag in Exile: While the military aspect comes back along with Honor’s admiralty, the political conflicts are also present in her efforts to defend her stead against the more backward elements of Grayson’s elite. Cynics will merely point out that this is like recycling the best bits of the second and fourth novels (complete with a duel and a big space engagement), but when it works, it works: There’s no need to be a spoilsport.

    It’s not as if there isn’t something new to gnaw upon: Honor Harrington’s gradual apprenticeship as a steadholder is a new element, and we get to see her spend quite a lot of time in this uncharacteristic environment. Maybe too much time is spent describing the intricacies of Grayson politics, though the payoff is immense. The sheer boo-hiss perversity of her opponent’s plans are a marvel of audience manipulation, and so is the way she fights back against them. For a second volume in a row, she has to match wits with experts in martial fields not of her choosing. Unsurprisingly, she comes out ahead, though Weber actually manages to make us believe in how it’s done: We go from dreadful certainty of failure to triumphant (and inevitable) victory in only a few pages, an achievement that may have been impossible for another less experienced reader.

    Then it’s off to space for the routine big space battle, the issue of which is a foregone conclusion. Worth noting this time around, though, is the good portrayal of performance under duress: seldom have we seen Harrington placed under so much stress, and the constant pain in which she has to operate is well-described. Also amusing is the return of the second book’s antagonist, this time as a colleague of Harrington in this new Grayson Navy. Cute.

    All told, it’s another pretty good entry in the series, with Weber’s usual flair for good characters and clear prose carrying the series along as much as the plot and the overall arc. By this point in the series, it’s obvious that this is closer to an episodic TV soap than a feature film in terms of dramatic construction: The series can afford to take forever in setting up a few elements given that they’ll play out over a lengthy period. (The Havenite War, for instance, seems to be good for at least another trilogy) Naturally, this episodic nature strengthens even more the importance of recurring elements: We’re now at a point where we’re expected to recognize characters as they come back in Harrington’s life.

    These are certainly not bad things if you’ve got all the novels so far (say, as provided by the CD-ROM bundled with the Hardcover edition of War of Honor), but they may be a dampening factor for everyone contemplating to dive into the series. Hey, it’s well-worth it… but be prepared to spend a lot of time in Harrington’s universe.

  • X2 [X-Men 2: X-Men United] (2003)

    X2 [X-Men 2: X-Men United] (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2003) Faster, meaner and, yep, better than the often-tepid original, this is one sequel that assumes everyone’s seen the original and so dispenses with the usual load of dull exposition. The motif of bigotry is still present -and so is the unsettling political subtext-, giving weight to the film. Despite sometimes-unconvincing special effects, those action sequences are indeed spectacular, with particular props going to the opening sequence and a very cool sequence involving iron-enriched blood. The most spectacular part of X2, however, is how it can juggle a cast of a dozen (including three Oscar winners) without too many lapses. Hugh Jackman once again steals the show, endowing Wolverine with the most steadily engrossing presence. Others deliver mixed performances: Halle Berry is better than in the original, but she, like Famke Janssen, looks bored with what she’s given to work with. (And the least said about James Marsden’s Cyclops, the most appropriate.) As summer entertainment, X-Men 2 is a strong entry, even with the rather overlong third act which degenerates in a “sacrifice” that feels contrived. But by the time the credits roll, everyone’s had enough entertainment for their money. Until the third instalment, then…

  • Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

    Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2003) Dull horror film whose only saving grace is the set design and a few interesting sequences. Most of the film takes place in a fantastic see-through “house” with walls made out of glass, with eerie-looking Latin engravings. Very cool looking, and even as the plot degenerates in the usual horror movie silliness, the set is still worth looking at. Well, that’s if you can tolerate looking when the editing chops away every half-second: Rather than allow the tension to build, director Steve Beck defuses everything with a barrage of quick cuts that look an awful lot like every other cheap horror movie since the introduction of the AVID editing console. While the script is strictly B-grade and couldn’t be much improved, this ghost story where the supernatural isn’t always visible could have been unsettling had longer shots of not-quite-visible happenings been allowed to run longer. Too bad, because the credit sequence shows what’s possible with longer shots. Sadly enough, there’s a dearth of violent death here (only surpassed with the dearth of nudity from the live characters), with a body count that fails to include the most annoying members of the cast. (Death even seems to improve Matthew Lillard’s coolness. Go figure.) The DVD contains a short making-of documentary that’s more interesting than the usual promotional fluff. Oh well. It’s a cheap Dark Castle rip-off of an old William Castle B-grade horror films. What were you really expecting anyway?

  • Metoroporisu [Metropolis] (2001)

    Metoroporisu [Metropolis] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2003) Slow-paced, often-unsubtle, ordinary story of human/robot strife, technological arrogance and Really Big Buildings. Two private detective come to Metropolis to investigate the whereabouts of a mad scientist, but it turns out that their investigation ties into a secret project, generational conflicts and class warfare. The quality of the animation in this version of Metropolis (no ties at all to the Fritz Lang version) is emblematic of the rest of the film. Hard-edged, spectacular computer-generated backgrounds clash with hand-drawn, quasi-juvenile characters. The whole film certainly feels like that, dealing with big complex issues such as the fallacy of human progress, but watering down everything with a helping of plotting that wouldn’t be out of place in simplistic Saturday Morning kid’s shows. Admittedly, some scenes are spectacular: The unveiling of the city is suitably impressive, but not more so than it’s inevitable destruction. (With a Strangelovian “I Can’t Stop Loving You” playing in the background) The DVD help to make sense of it all, as the film is revealed to be an adaptation of a 1950s-era manga, which goes a long way to explain the nifty jazz music and the sometimes-naive feel. Interviews with the filmmakers feel remarkably candid as they admit that the creator of the original comic book probably wouldn’t have agreed to their adaptation.

  • Fashionably Late, Olivia Goldsmith

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Collins, 1994, 431 pages, C$32.00 hc, ISBN 0-06-017611-3

    If the fashion industry mystifies, amuses, annoys or interests you, Fashionably Late ought to prove a delicious reading experience. Pop-fun author Olivia Goldsmith has trashed the acting and publishing professions elsewhere (in Flavour of the Month and The Bestseller, respectively)… but this time she’s got another field to explore, and she proves remarkably adept at presenting both the glory and the misery of haute couture in this novel.

    It all revolves around Karen Kahn, fashion designer and owner of her own prestigious label. At first glance, she’s got everything one would want: Money, fame, love and the admiration of her peers. But even as she’s awarded an important industry prize, a doomed man appears (in classic tragic fashion) to warn her that fame is feeling and it can end very, very quickly. As the novel progresses, there are plenty of opportunities for Karen’s world to crumble: her family is packed with dysfunctional relatives, her husband is prone to bouts of moodiness and her business is being courted by a rich buyer. As if that wasn’t enough, Karen is also contemplating her own lineage; though she knows she’s an adopted child, her own biological clock has rung out: Adoption is the only possibility if she wants to raise a child.

    Melodramatic stuff, but that’s half the fun of it. Goldsmith can write big fat pop novels like none other, and her professionalism shines throughout the book. The fashion industry is a big and complex beast, and one of Goldsmith’s most successful talent is to manage to slowly reveal it all, from sewing to modelling, in compelling and unobtrusive scenes. Exposition is well-handled , and doesn’t take much to be fascinated by the convincing background details. In many ways, this feels like one of Arthur Hailey’s docu-fictive novels, except that Goldsmith can juggle both plot and documentary with an ease that leaves good old Arthur coughing in the dust.

    A large part of this superiority depends on her strong sense of characterization. While Goldsmith can’t be accused of too much ambiguity, she knows exactly what is needed for the type of novel she’s writing. Here, it’s interesting to see the distribution of quirks. While Fashionably Late features several viewpoint characters, it spends most of its time inside Karen’s head. Fittingly enough, the lead protagonist is emotionally bland while her entourage is stuffed with showy supporting characters. This allows the reader to project emotions on the protagonist and be impressed by the actions of others. Good stuff!

    While I’m working from an incomplete database (three novels out of nearly a dozen), Goldsmith’s moral storytelling seems ironclad so far. Heroes win; villains are punished. While Fashionably Late isn’t as decisively punitive as, say, Flavour of the Month, it certainly rewards the good guys and promises pain and punishment for the evil ones. The suspense in Goldsmith’s novels isn’t in seeing who wins, but in seeing them err on either good and evil before settling on one alignment and suffering the consequences. Manipulative and populist, maybe, but also decidedly comfortable; reading an Olivia Goldsmith is guaranteed to be a satisfactory, uncomplicated experience.

    Satisfactory and amusing, naturally. The prose style is deliciously clear and compelling; while it may take a while to absorb all the characters and the multiple plot threads the novel acquires quite a narrative momentum that does a lot to propel the book forward. Don’t be surprised to read more and more of the book as it advances. The little twists thrown at the end are a bit over-the-top, but that too had become somewhat of a Goldsmith griffe. It’s not as if half of the so-called “twists” can be seen well in advance. (Oh, gee, I wonder what will happen to the baby…?)

    As Fashionably Late concludes, it also moves both the protagonist and the reader toward a more balanced view of the fashion industry, after showing both the glamour and the misery, the admiration and the contempt engendered by it. Few will fail to be impressed to see where Karen end up, though some may step back and tut-tut the warm and fuzzy feeling of the conclusion. To those I say shoo, because they obviously haven’t understood the rules of Goldsmith’s universe. It may not be the real world, but it works for me, in a certain fashion.