Month: December 2018

Joe versus the Volcano (1990)

Joe versus the Volcano (1990)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) Many movies are entertaining, but far fewer are life-affirming. Joe Versus the Volcano is one of them. From the memorable first few moments, as a crowd of workers trudge toward a nightmarish factory to the sounds of “Sixteen Tons”, this is a special film. Tom Hanks stars as a man who, upon learning of an incurable disease, quits his job and decides to see the world before his death. In the process, he meets a girl, finds himself on a deserted island and (as one does in those circumstances) volunteers to be a sacrifice by throwing himself in a volcano. It’s really not as grim as it sounds, though—it’s charming, optimistic, whimsical and far more expressionistic than you’d expect from a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy, fitting with the sometimes-outlandish material. Writer/director John Patrick Shanley manages to create a universe flirting with magical realism (people more familiar with his dour 2008 film Doubt will be shocked at how different it is) and keeps playing in this outlandish slightly fantastic sandbox, all the way up to having Meg Ryan play three different roles. Hanks is in full late-1980s charming young lead mode, while Ryan has seldom looked better with straight hair. While the inconclusive conclusion didn’t sit right with me the first time I saw it (this is the kind of film that deserves a full-fireworks kind of triumphant coda), I like it better a few days later. Joe Versus the Volcano is weird, wild, fun and heartening. Not only has it aged far better than many of its more realistic contemporaries, and it probably plays better today given the expansion of mainstream cinematographic grammar in the past thirty years.

A Christmas Carol (1999)

A Christmas Carol (1999)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2018) I’ve been sampling and watching A Christmas Carol adaptations all December long, and I think that this 1999 BBC production is my favourite straightforward version of the Dickens story. (My favourite of them all is 1988’s Scrooged, but I’m counting it as a comic variant, not the foundational material.) It certainly helps to have Patrick Stewart as Scrooge—the production is meaningless if you don’t have a strong actor in the lead role, and Stewart can play cranky or beatific better than anyone else, with the gravitas required to pull it off. It also helps that 1999-era special effects were iffy but just good enough to pull the ghostly segments of the story, and that there had been enough productions prior to this one to identify the best elements to highlight. Production values are high (especially for a late-1990s TV movie) and the film does not overstay its welcome. In the end, 1999’s A Christmas Carol is a familiar story well told without the excesses of later version (that 2009 CGI one, ugh) or the shortcomings of the many earlier takes.

All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I. F. Stone (2016)

All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I. F. Stone (2016)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) I don’t completely agree with the blanket statement that “all governments lie”, but I can’t argue with the thesis that they present information in the best possible light and cherry-pick their examples the closer you get to the political rather than the executive aspect of government. Still, the documentary All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I. F. Stone does have plenty of interesting things to say about official truth, lies and the power of independent journalism in making the difference between the two. As with so many incisive looks at US politics, it’s a made-in-Canada production, with state TV participation and tax dollars financing. That’s right: Canadian taxpayers are paying to keep checks on the US government. All Governments Lie presents material that will feel quite familiar to seasoned media pundits: politicians, parties and government seek to avoid the truth because it makes them look bad. Journalism, especially in recent years, has been taken over by conglomerates who also have an interest in not presenting the whole truth. In this context, independent journalism becomes a beacon of truth because it is not beholden to larger interests. The life of legendary independent journalist I. F. Stone is often used as inspiration to a newer wave of journalists pursuing stories that are ignored by large news organizations. This is nothing new, although the footage is used effectively and the interview subjects are interesting. Matt Taibbi, Chris Hedges, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Cenk Uygur (among many, many others) show up for interview snippets, and it’s an invigorating cast of characters even if (like me) you may have issues with some or most members of that group. Still, All Governments Lie is at its most satisfying when it gets down to basic issues of corporate control over media and its consequent unconscious bias to support the establishment. The reverent look at I. F. Stone is also inspiring—who will emerge as his successor? Interestingly enough, the film stops during the 2016 presidential campaign—a production choice (as the film premiered on November 4, 2016), but also in retrospect something of a watershed moment between then-and-now: rather than cherry-pick and equivocate, the current American presidency has decided that it was acceptable to brazenly lie, and at least one major political party supports that approach. That’s material enough to an entirely different film, and I strongly suggest that you watch writer/director Fred Peabody’s 2018 follow-up The Corporate Coup d’état to see where he’d take his ideas next.

Dave (1993)

Dave (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) There have been quite a few movies about the American presidency, but few of them as cutely romantic as Dave, in which a presidential impersonator gets the job on a long-term basis when the real president is medically incapacitated. The plot is familiar from there, but the real fun of the picture has to be seeing Kevin Kline in a dual role, with Sigourney Weaver as the wife who suspects that something is afoot, and Frank Langella as the villain trying to take over the United States through an unwitting patsy. Ving Rhames and Laura Linney also show up in smaller early roles. Oliver Stone has a funny cameo. Clearly, director Ivan Reitman is aiming more for a feel-good romantic fantasy than a hard-edged political thriller, especially given how the film plays with the idea of the everyday man replacement being better in all aspects of the job than the original. There’s an interesting comparison to be made here with near-contemporary The American President, but also with the classic idealistic films by Frank Capra, in which he took pleasure in scrutinizing the American political system to reveal the good intentions underneath it. Dave is a lightweight comedy, but a charming one, and certainly a welcome antidote to the kinds of heavier thrillers that the American presidency usually invites.

Erik the Viking (1989)

Erik the Viking (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) This review will sound familiar because I have the same overwhelming impression to a very specific category of movies: Most of the live-action fantasy films of the 1980s feel deathly dull to me, and writer/director Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking is no exception. Despite the visual imagination and go-for-broke fantasy concepts in the film, I can’t be bothered to care about any of it. I spend my time nitpicking the special effects, and wondering if any adult who has never seen those movies as a kid can actually care about them now. They seem stuck in an impossible place, with imagination exceeding what the special effects could deliver, and constantly breaking my suspension of disbelief along the way. Time Bandits, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Erik the Viking: joined at the hip as disappointing experiences. Maybe it’s mood, maybe it’s my imagination shutting down forever, maybe it’s depression (well, I don’t think so as I can still find joy in other areas of my life) but I have little to say about those movies, and even less about Erik the Viking specifically. I’m sorry if this was your favourite film growing up.

Ri¢hie Ri¢h (1994)

Ri¢hie Ri¢h (1994)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, December 2018) There is a lot about Ri¢hie Ri¢h that doesn’t make sense if you don’t already know that it’s from an older lower-profile comic book of the Casper stable. The setup, clearly, is grade-school wish fulfilment, what with the protagonist being the richest kid in the world, able to afford whatever he wants despite issues in being in the kiddie .0001%. The film adopts much of the comics mythology wholesale, even as ludicrous as it can sound in a live-action production. Alas, the plotting is obvious from the get-go: No friends, lost parents, expensive gadgets, greedy third party, trusty butler and so on. Macaulay Culkin stars as Richie Rich but seems so uninterested in the role (which, to be fair, requires some detachment but not that much!) and the rest of the actors don’t look all that invested either. The result is a humdrum movie: imaginative in moments, slightly obnoxious even when it claims that family is more important than wealth, and far from achieving its fullest potential. But then again 1990s comic book adaptations were still hit-and-miss affairs, being unwilling to deconstruct their own fundamentals and still treating the audience like idiots most of the time. There are much better choices than Ri¢hie Ri¢h no matter how you want to consider it.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (2011)

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (2011)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) It’s still far too early to start issuing definitive statements about Jim Carrey’s career, but with a bit of perspective it’s clear that by the early 2010s, he was still switching between the kinds of slapstick high-energy performances and more nuanced character work, not always comic. For old-school Carrey fans, the treat with Mr. Popper’s Penguins was seeing Carrey back in unapologetic slapstick form, even in a movie aimed at kids. The story here boils down to a workaholic Manhattanite realtor inheriting a few penguins in his high-rise apartments. Will it help him reconnect with his estranged ex-wife and kids? Well, of course it will. That’s not the point. The point are the penguins’ antics and how Carrey will react to them—or specifically how often he’ll slip on something and fall. While the CGI required to portray the penguins isn’t always convincing, it certainly gets the point across and lets the movie make its jokes. As usual for those kinds of comedies, the real fun of the film is to be found in the details: I was quite taken, for instance, by the protagonist’s assistant (played by Ophelia Lovibond) peppering her speeches with P-words. Carrey is almost up to form, while Carla Gugino does serviceable work in a rather dull role as the ex-wife. Rather amiable and conventional, Mr. Popper’s Penguins won’t be anyone’s idea of a great movie, but it does get us Carrey indulging in a lot of physical comedy, which is a good compensation.

Made in Romania (2010)

Made in Romania (2010)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) There are so many terrible low-budget movies on Cable TV channels that it’s easy to question why I still take a chance on lesser-known titles without much of a profile or track record. Part of the answer may be with films like Made in Romania, a satirical take on making-of movies that details the production of a Victoria-era drama made … in Romania. Written and directed by Guy J. Louthan, it takes aim at the state of the movie industry circa 2010, and cranks up the madness to 80%. As a very English story is sent packing to Romania for hazy tax purposes, the problems start piling up when actors, directors, financiers and eventually gangsters all have their say. Made in Romania is not a particularly good movie, but it does have its charms—starting with a surprising number of recognizable cameos, from Jennifer Tilly and Jason Flemyng as the leads of the movie-in-the-movie, as well as Elizabeth Hurley and Danny Huston in smaller roles. The potshots at the industry spend more time on the producing aspects than other similar movies more focused on shooting (Louthan is best known as a producer), but some of the jokes are decent enough, and the increasing nightmare of the production is often well rendered within the confines of the faux-reality style of the film. It’s often unexpectedly funny, and it does get a few audible laughs despite some lulls along the way. Some freeze-frame gags and in-jokes help a bit. I can’t say that I’ll defend Made in Romania as a must-see, but I do have a bit of a liking for underseen underdogs, and so I’ll suggest it at least to those viewers with an interest in filmmaking satires.

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2018) Being someone who really started watching movies in the 1990s, everything since that decade tends to blur into a single continuous timeline contiguous with my own personal history, meaning that I have a lot of trouble watching something from the 1990s and thinking ”wow, that’s dated”. Or so I thought before watching So I Married an Axe Murderer, which is indeed fixed in time in the early nineties. The soundtrack sure helps a lot in establishing the year, what with “There She Goes” and “Two Princes” in particular. Taking place in San Francisco with beat poetry doesn’t help either. Still, there is something about the style of comedy that makes it feel a bit more modern—this is a film filled with snark and genre awareness, as a genre-aware man comes to suspect that his newlywed wife is a serial killer. The film does expect a bit of movie literacy from its audience, which works perhaps better in the post-ironic now than in the early 1990s. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a rare Mike Myers comedy that’s not part of a series (à la Shrek, Austin Powers or Wayne’s World), but you can see here the early draft of some later Scottish characters in Austin Powers. A number of known comedy actors show up, sometimes for a moment or two—Myers himself is fine whenever he reins in his showboating antics, while Nancy Travis is not bad as the love interest/suspected killer. It’s worth noting that So I Married an Axe Murderer is early Movie Myers—After the first Wayne’s World but before everything else in his filmography. As a result, expect a (thankfully) more restrained but not yet fully formed comic persona. The film is decently amusing without being particularly striking—the thriller genre mechanics sometimes clash with the comedic instinct of the film, and the ending ultimately picks romance over suspense, which is a safe defendable choice but not a completely satisfying one. I still liked it, but not a lot.

The Out-of-Towners (1970)

The Out-of-Towners (1970)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2018) Considering the almost endless amount of trouble that New York City experienced between (roughly) 1965 and 1995, there would be something almost prescient in the urban hellscape portrait that 1970’s The Out-of-Towners gives to NYC. Except that most of the terrible things in the film were inspired by real-life events of the late 1960s—strikes, mountains of garbage, urban decay, rising crime rates, exploding manholes and so on. In that dystopian vision of Big Cities step in a couple of Midwesterners considering a job offer. The nightmarish events of the film do much to dissuade them, but not before propelling an entire film’s worth of humiliations and disastrous setbacks. Nothing goes right for those travellers as their luggage is lost, their hotel reservations cancelled, they experience dental emergencies, get mugged and other indignities. It’s also raining, of course. Jack Lemmon is not bad as the target of those humiliations, accompanied by the somewhat blander Sandy Dennis and his much more stoic wife. Part of The Out-of-Towners are amusing, many feel similar and the overall effect is a bit tiresome as there is nary a respite and a definite limit to the amount of misery that even comic characters should experience –screenwriter Neil Simon may have overplayed his hand here. I strongly suspect that film influenced a lot of attitudes toward big cities in the following years. It does work as a time capsule of a miserable era in NYC history, but as a comedy it’s hit-and-miss.

Fever Pitch (2005)

Fever Pitch (2005)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, December 2018) As the legend goes, Fever Pitch was designed to be a bittersweet romantic comedy featuring Jimmy Fallon as a lifelong dedicated fan of the Boston Red Sox—who always lost in the playoffs. Except that, in shooting the movie … the Sox won the World Series, breaking a multi-decade curse drought. That’s kind of adorable (especially since the movie was shooting at some of those unexpectedly victorious playoff games), which is very much in-keeping with the tone of the film. As a romantic comedy focusing more than usual on the male character (shown to have issues with his sports fandom), it’s the kind of sweet and forgettable film that can be watched at any time with any kind of audience. It’s harmless, buoyant, not without its dramatic trials and coincidentally set against one of the most improbable events in American sports history. (Well, until 2016 rolled around with all kinds of freakish wins.) The portrait of an obsessed sports fan is not bad, as are the complications that come with it. The portrait of Boston is convincing, and the human leads don’t do poorly either: Fallon is not annoying here, and Drew Barrymore is surprisingly sympathetic. I’m not normally a fan of either actor, but the film does manage to give them likable roles. While I’m not going to put Fever Pitch on any best-of list (even as a Boston film, I can think of a few better choices), it’s harmless and fun and the unexpected win at the end of the movie where the plot and real-life events intersect is just the cherry on top of a tolerable romantic comedy.

Cruising Bar 2 (2008)

Cruising Bar 2 (2008)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, December 2018) Michel Côté is once more back in the saddle playing four different characters in Cruising Bar 2, a sequel to the massively successful 1989 film that feel more money-driven than anything else, even though it does provide something like closure to the events of the first film. Again, the film clearly belongs to Côté, as he plays four very different characters all dealing with their own kind of relationship issues. No one else in the supporting cast comes close to making as clear an impression. Nearly twenty years after the events of the first film, the humiliation comedy once again annoyingly reigns supreme as the four characters haven’t evolved a lot. The subplots are far more scattered than the single-night-at-the-nightclub focus of the original, which may explain why the film doesn’t feel as satisfying. On the other hand, it does leave the characters with some closure, as painful as it can be for some and as comfortable as it can be for others. Cruising Bar 2 is… OK, but it’s definitely best watched as a coda to the first film.

Cruising Bar (1989)

Cruising Bar (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, December 2018) The first Cruising Bar movie was a minor French-Canadian classic back in the 1990s—nearly everyone had seen it, and the film was a hit with many kinds of viewers, earning spectacular box-office results. It’s easy to see why, as French-Canadian big-screen legend Michel Côté (who also co-wrote the film) plays four very different characters all out for a night on the town. He sells all of them, from the nerdy bespectacled “Earthworm” to the drug-addled mullet-wearing “Lion” to the libidinous hairy “Stallion” to the sophisticated snobbish “Peacock”. They all have their own style, and the comedy that goes with it … although you have to be ready for some heavy doses of humiliation comedy in order to appreciate the result. Côté is nothing short of terrific in the four roles, and the film certainly depends on him. Among the supporting players, Louise Marleau looks spectacular as “The Divine”—the ultimate object of desire. Despite this being a comedy and going for a lot of laughs, Cruising Bar in itself is far more sombre than you’d expect—few of the characters get what they want, and the film’s overall take on bar-hopping is nothing short of soul-crushing. It does have its funny moments, though, even if the caricatures can be wearing and the film quickly shows where it’s going. Writer/director Robert Ménard knows what he’s doing, and the result has acquired a nice period patina over the past thirty years.

A Star is Born (1976)

A Star is Born (1976)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) I’m probably more bullish on the 1976 version of A Star is Born than most people, or even more than I should be. Oh, I can see the issues with the film—it doesn’t take a look at this tell-all article by the film’s own director Frank Pierson to realize the issues with the movie, whose unleashed self-worship of Barbra Streisand leads to an unbalanced whole. The good thing about Streisand (and then-husband producer Jon Peters)’s unbounded egocentrism is that the main female role is incredibly strong—and with Streisand being Streisand, it means that the vocal performance is as top-notch as the acting. (Alas, in a repeat of the 1954 version, her musical numbers drag on far longer than they should, overpowering the drama and cutting off the film’s energy at regular intervals.) Compared to her, you can see Kris Kristofferson’s role being kept in check by the producer’s need to showcase Barbra at every step. And yet, amazingly enough, he carries much of the film: his performance as an over-the-hill rocker is heartfelt, plunging us in the world of rock music and giving us a perfectly serviceable alternative to the Hollywood focus of previous versions. Being a film nerd, I do miss the movie-centric nature of the previous two movies—but the life of a rock star is exhilarating enough in its excesses that I don’t mind all that much. When you watch all versions of A Star is Born in rapid succession, the period feel of each instalment can become its own attraction, and so the trip back to 1970s music star mansion, big outdoor concerts and radio station appearances is quite a bit of fun. It all amounts to a flawed production, but one that remains fascinating in its own right.

A Star is Born (1954)

A Star is Born (1954)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2018) I know that many people consider the 1954 version of A Star is Born to be the definitive take on the story, Judy Garland elevating the material in a way that’s not harmed by the rough edges of the 1937 version or Streisand’s invasive influence on the 1976 remake. But… I beg to differ, largely on the strength of the argument that I don’t like Judy Garland all that much. Still, it’s worth acknowledging that this 1954 version, as directed by George Cukor, is a much slicker version of the previous take on the film—the budget is clearly there, and the film can be lavish in the way it shows the nature of stardom in the mid-1950s. Alas, this indulgence also makes the film longer and duller with every full-length musical number stopping the film dead in its track. The 1983 re-edit of the film, which attempts to incorporate cut sequences with a mixture of audio and still pictures, is not as good as it sounds—I probably would have liked the unaltered 1954 version a bit better. This being said, I quite liked James Mason in the male lead role, as he captures the mixture of arrogance and vulnerability that the part requires. Meanwhile, superstar Garland sings well, but looks twenty years older than she should. While the film leans heavily in its musical genre, it does keep enough of Hollywood to bridge the gap between the all-movies 1937 version and the all-music 1976/2018 versions—and the look at 1950s Hollywood is simply fascinating.