Month: January 2019

  • End of Days, Inc. (2015)

    End of Days, Inc. (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) You can find the quirkiest films on Canadian cable TV channels: Canadian Content requirements mean that there’s a government-mandated place for small made-in-Canada movies that otherwise wouldn’t stand a chance in another environment. Not all of those films are good, but some are intriguing and ultimately that’s where End of Days, Inc. lands. To be fair, the beginning of the film is better than its conclusion, are we’re introduced to a strange office in which the workers are tricked in working one last night and gradually realize that their impending closure is going to mean the end of the world … and not in a hyperbolic sense. The film works on a small budget with lesser-known actors, and it’s useful to have a tolerance for second (or even third)-rate filmmaking in order to watch the result. The office setting means that there are only a few sets for the entire film, and a cast not much bigger than two handfuls. Much of End of Days, Inc.’s big joke lies in opposing the routine boring nature of office work with the apocalyptic consequences of what they’re doing, but once you’ve gotten over that revelation, the film falls prey to one of the oldest pitfalls in the book: it doesn’t know where to go from there. The characters aren’t vivid enough to compensate for the aimless, easy plotting, and the actors aren’t strong enough to give life to their characters beyond the script. There’s a decent atmospheric feel to the set design, which goes back to decades-ago office furniture for charm. Jennifer Liao’s directing is competent without being inventive enough to wring the most style out of the script she’s been given—but I’d be curious to see what she does next. This being said, I don’t regret seeing End of Days, Inc.: It’s quirky enough to be different, even if it doesn’t quite hit its targets. I’ll willingly watch a few more of those CanCon schedule fillers—not that I have a choice, really.

  • Liste Noire [Black List] (1995)

    Liste Noire [Black List] (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2019) When it comes to Liste Noire, I definitely have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was one of Québec’s mid-1990s attempts to ape the conventions of American-style judicial thrillers. Rather than endlessly talking around the proverbial dinner table like far too many French-Canadian movies do, Liste Noire quickly gets to the heart of its noir premise: A prostitute engineers her own arrest, and then delivers a secret list of names to a Québec High Court judge, implicating other high-ranking judges. The ensuing portrait of the backroom dealing between judges is definitely cynical, showing them as even more corrupt than the average person. Québec big-screen legend Michel Côté is quite good in a thankless role, playing the new judge with the list who soon has to deal with death threats and attempts on his life. It’s all pretty jazzy material for a thriller, and now-renowned director Jean-Marc Vallée manages his big-screen debut with some intensity. The sharp (but dated) 1990s edge is now strikingly neon and noir, with a suitably jaundiced view and sympathies on the side of prostitutes rather than judges. But then there’s the ending. If you stopped watching the film three-quarter of the way through, you would probably have a nagging feeling about where it was all going … but no proof of the insanity in store in the film’s big twist. Alas, the nagging doubt is soon realized and the film self-destructs in a violent final burst of ludicrousness and bad plotting. Some movies are improved by twist endings while others are weakened by them, and Liste Noire definitely belongs to the second category. Ultimately, it makes the movie difficult to take seriously once all is wrapped up. Too bad, because there’s roughly four fifths of a great suspense thriller in here.

  • Secrets & Lies (1996)

    Secrets & Lies (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Sometimes, it’s not a bad idea to let go of genre thrills and simply take in a story about ordinary people in dramatic circumstances. The Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies is seldom a flashy film: it’s not about movie stars (even in the ensemble casting), but a solid working-class family drama about a child given up for adoption coming back in her mother’s life decades later. With a secret like that, you can expect some dramatic theatrics and the film certainly delivers that in its suspenseful third act. Still, much of the film’s best moments are found along the way, most notably during an intensely emotional seven-minute scene shot in a single take by director Mike Leigh. Timothy Spall and Marianne Jean-Baptiste are easy to like as the most well-adjusted characters in a dysfunctional family, but it’s Brenda Blethyn who gets the strongest role here, especially during the aforementioned one-shot scene. While a bit long at nearly two hours and a half (the ex-proprietor subplot seems notably less interesting), Secrets & Lies ends up far more interesting than expected, especially thanks to a third act in which the secrets and lies finally give way to the truth.

  • Pale Rider (1985)

    Pale Rider (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2019) In some ways, Pale Rider can be seen as a typical stranger-cleans-town western, what with lead Clint Eastwood playing a mysterious stranger coming to a remote mountain town to get rid of the rapacious mining tycoon that has assaulted the citizenry. But there are enough hints (in the film’s title, or the end of the prologue, or the stranger’s lack of backstory, or his near-magical shooting ability) to suggest that this is a quasi-supernatural Eastwood western along the lines of High Plains Drifter. Whether you’ll enjoy the results will depend more on your appreciation for the realistic part of the film than its more supernatural or religious implications—at least it’s considerably less creepy than High Plains Drifter. Still, Eastwood has made a truckload of westerns featuring more or less the same character, and anyone can be (un) forgiven if they have trouble telling them apart. It’s competently executed, obviously relying on Eastwood’s iconic portrayal as a man of few words—although there are a few odd moments in which producer/director/star Eastwood gets to pat himself on the back by having nearly every female character (including the teenager) throw themselves at him. (He, of course, refuses—but it’s the thought that counts.) Pale Rider may have a few symbolic and religious aspirations, but much of it remains the same old western: generic but not bad. Eastwood fans, obviously, will get a lot more out of it.

  • Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler [Dr. Mabuse the Gambler] (1922)

    Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler [Dr. Mabuse the Gambler] (1922)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) If you’re a visual kind of person, let me offer you a metaphor for movie history that looks a lot like a Science Fiction megapolis with layers and layers of levels built upon each other. Current movies are at the surface where the sun shines and people live, but everything is built upon a foundation and as you go deeper underground, racing back toward the bedrock that is the invention of cinema, you start discovering foundational layers that once were very important even if they may not be readily accessible these days. That’s largely how I feel about writer/director Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, an unwieldy, overlong and slightly exasperating film that nonetheless puts together many prototypical elements of modern super-villain movies. Put simply, this is a film about a criminal mastermind who, thanks to his exceptional skills at disguises and psychology and a team of collaborators, can hypnotize or coerce other people in doing what he wants … and what he wants is usually money or chaos. You can clearly see the origins of modern supervillains here, especially as the film makes a conscious effort to set the story in Germany’s complex post-war industrial society—and as is often the case with 1920s–1930s German cinema, it’s hard to avoid the chill of knowing what’s coming next for the country. Visually, there’s also quite a bit of foundational work to be seen here. In Lang’s hands, the film shows a glimpse of what would become the German impressionistic style, through some primitive special effects and moody directing. Good performances, car chases and explosions round off a film that often does feel far more modern than its true age. But there’s a price for all of this, and that price is time. Coming from the silent movie era where storytelling techniques were still being developed, audiences weren’t all as cinematically literate and there was little expectation of efficiency, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler lasts a staggering 268 minutes—or roughly four hours and a half. It’s not just the objective length (modern miniseries regularly exceed that), as much as the feeling that it’s very, unbearably long. Thanks to title cards and lack of concision, everything literally takes at least twice as long as a similar film made today. My patience was sorely tested: I can’t swear that my attention was constant throughout the film. I can’t even swear that I did not press the skip-forward-30-seconds button (without loss of comprehension) a few times. And while I certainly recognize this first Mabuse film as an essential part of cinema history, I’m certainly not recommending it for casual viewing. Unless you have something like five hours to spare.

  • And now for Something Completely Different (1971)

    And now for Something Completely Different (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) My budding theory that I don’t actually like Monty Python all that much gets a shot in the arm with And now for Something Completely Different, a classic collection of Python sketches that, seen as a middle-aged man rather than a college student (which is when I first encountered Python), seems wildly uneven. One of the first things that struck me about the film is how violent some of the sketches can be, and how it serves to dissipate the comic atmosphere of the film. As the backstory goes, the film re-created sketches from the group’s TV show, aiming to package the humour for an American audience. Alas, the budget’s limits are often evident, and the very nature of a sketch movie means that it’s going to be uneven from beginning to end. There are some classic sketches here—the “nudge-nudge” one, “The Funniest Joke in the World”, “The Dead Parrot”, and so on, although not all of them have aged gracefully: “The Lumberjack Song”, for instance, feels cheaply transphobic now. I had perhaps more fun with lesser-known sketches: “Hell’s Grannies” and “Upper-Class Twit of the Year”, in particular, got a few grins out of me. Of course, laughter may not be the comedy group’s intention as much as absurdity and eeriness. Still, I’m holding on to my theory that sometime in the past twenty-five years, I’ve lost whatever made me think that Monty Python was funny.

  • Waiting to Exhale (1995)

    Waiting to Exhale (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) While Waiting to Exhale isn’t that significant a movie in film history, it still plays so often on cable that it wore me down. I gave up and finally recorded it, although not out of exasperation. My intentions in watching it were not noble at all: Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, Loretta Devine and Angela Basset headlining the film? I’ll watch that. An episodic story focusing on four women’s attempt to find love in spite of bad partners, Waiting to Exhale also features the directorial debut of Forest Whitaker, who imbues the film with odd stylistic choices that, perhaps unfortunately, precisely date the movie to the mid-1990s. Still, the movie itself is quite a bit of fun to watch. Our heroines don’t take cheating and romantic disappointment very well: in the film’s most memorable sequence, one sets fire to her cheating husband’s car, his clothes inside. While the episodic nature of Waiting to Exhale means that it has high and low points, the acting talent brought together here remains notable. Angela Basset, in particular, is at her best here with a powerhouse performance. The all-black casting is so successful in that by the time a white woman shows up (as a romantic rival, no less) late in the movie, the effect is definitely jarring. Among the male cast, Dennis Haysbert and Wesley Snipes have good roles, but viewers should be forewarned that this is not a movie in which men get the most admirable characters—this is female empowerment, and much of Waiting to Exhale’s success can be found in how completely and solidly it makes viewers (even white men such as myself) identify with the four black women protagonists.

  • Silver Streak (1976)

    Silver Streak (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2019) There are some classical comedy pairings out there, and the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor was one of them—while they made four movies together, the last one was reportedly a dud, and only the first two are acknowledged hits. Silver Streak is the first of their four movies, and it’s still a good watch today, even as it reflects another time. This blend of comedy and thrills features Wilder as a meek book editor travelling by train from Los Angeles to Chicago. Of course, stuff happens and before long he’s trying to piece together a murder mystery in between being thrown off the train and collaborating with a petty criminal to get back on it. Despite Pryor and Wilder’s comic chemistry (only they could make the blackface sequence work without being offensive) and the lighthearted nature of the film, Silver Streak arguably works better as a semi-Hitchockian thriller. The structure of the film itself is amusing: as we settle down for a comfortable train-bound mystery, our protagonist spends as much time off the train than on it, and Pryor joins the movie only midway through. Obviously shot in Canada (as per the train livery), it’s a comedy with some impressive physical action staging along the way, all the way to its destructive climax. Wilder’s quirky charm works well in grounding the film, allowing Pryor to get away with more outrageous dialogue. While Silver Streak is not quite polished (in a way so typical of mid-1970s production) and occasionally feels scattered between different genres, it pulls itself together in time for the finale and leaves viewers happy for having seen it.

  • 15 février 1839 [February 15, 1839] (2001)

    15 février 1839 [February 15, 1839] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) As the legend goes, 15 février 1839 is the movie that the lowest-common-denominator comedy Elvis Gratton 2 paid for: Writer/director Pierre Falardeau wanted to make this historical drama but couldn’t scrape together the financing for the project considering its unrepentant separatist viewpoint, and made an audience-friendly film to gather the money to help finance the production of his more serious film. Despite my own objections to Falardeau’s political views, I have to admit that this slightly redeems Elvis Gratton 2. Oh, there is no doubt that 15 février 1839 is a hard-core separatist movie. It studies a politically charged moment in Canadian history, builds an argument about the illegitimacy of English-Canadian rule over Québec and makes martyrs out of its French-speaking characters killed by les anglais. It takes place in a prison over 24 hours, as participants in the failed 1937–1938 rebellion are awaiting execution by hanging. The conclusion being forgone, what remains are scenes examining characters as they face their own impending death. The political argument remains central—as the characters explain why British rule over Québec is illegitimate, they spout the same arguments that twentieth century indépendantistes would re-use to justify the separation movement. But the political argument isn’t the only thing about 15 février 1839, and the film’s finest moments are when we’re back to the characters saying goodbye to the world, talking to their spouses, discussing with their Anglophone jailers and so on. Luc Picard is very good in the leading role, with some assistance by Sylvie Drapeau and Falardeau collaborator Julien Poulin. No matter his ideological conviction, Falardeau directs well and manages some good moments along the way—the execution itself is shot with grace and dignity. I expected the worst from 15 février 1839 and actually got something tolerable, which is more than I would have expected.

  • Dead Ringers (1988)

    Dead Ringers (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I’m not sure whether it’s a disappointment or a compliment to say “Wow, that wasn’t as unpleasant as I expected” at the end of writer/director David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. I suppose that it depends on what you think of Cronenberg’s movies and his reputation as a master of body horror. What seems like faint praise can be interpreted as disappointment if you hold the view that Cronenberg movies should be as extreme as possible, then go back to praise considering that Cronenberg’s reputation is such that he creates a sense of dread even before we start watching the movie, preparing our imaginations to all sorts of terrors yet to be experienced and perhaps more effective than if they had been shown on the screen. Of course, “not as unpleasant as I expected” is a relative term and jaded Cronenberg viewers will interpret it differently than more mainstream audiences—Dead Ringers remains a movie with sexual deception, torture-like gynecological tools (ick!), drug abuse, fatally codependent relationships, evisceration and a body count. “Not as unpleasant as I expected” may simply mean that we’ve been spared horrors such as a fifteen-minute one-shot of the film’s most sordid business. Everyone’s mileage will vary. Jeremy Irons stars as twins working as gynecologists and is suitably creepy in his dual roles, while Geneviève Bujold plays the unusual client that divides them. Dead Ringers’ sense of unease is displayed early on and never dispels, although it does prepare us for horrors more extreme than what we actually see. (For once, the female character escapes unscathed—and may even unwittingly deliver the killing blow.) It may not be as crazily imaginative as Cronenberg’s most unhinged movies such as Scanners and Videodrome, but it’s slicker, better controlled and probably a bit cleverer in the way it plays with unease rather than outright disgust. This being said, I suspect that Dead Ringers is more effective for viewers who think they know what to expect than relative newcomers to Cronenberg, and that male viewers will have more muted reactions than female ones.

  • Funny Face (1957)

    Funny Face (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) On paper, Funny Face looks like a perfect combination: A musical comedy with Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Paris. Thankfully, the film lives up to expectations: Fred Astaire dances as well as he can, and while Hepburn isn’t quite as much of a dancer as some of Astaire’s other screen partners, she did have dancing (and singing!) chops and couldn’t possibly be cuter as an intellectual bookseller—even Hollywood’s idea of an intellectual bookseller. Paris and Hepburn were a regular item (“Bonjour, Paris !”), but they look great together and the film doesn’t miss a chance to use a French stereotype when it can. (I had to laugh at the spat between two bohemian Parisians: “Salaud ! Dégueulasse ! *Slap* *Kiss*”) Unlike some musicals, Funny Face does have strong comic elements: The look at a fashion magazine—Astaire plays a fashion photographer—is amusing, and seeing both Astaire and Hepburn as black-clad undercover beatniks is hilarious especially as they skewer the philosophical excesses of Left-Bank thinkers. (Alas, Funny Face does have an anti-intellectual bent, but so it goes in musicals.) The romantic ending is more conventional and not as interesting, but as usual the fun is getting there. Less fortunately, you do have to get over the usual Astaire romantic issues in liking the film: His characters are often written as having revolting ideas about consent in the face of romantic persistence (“No” usually means “try again later with more charm” in his movies) and there’s a thirty-year difference between Astaire and Hepburn. That last item used to infuriate me, but then I recently realized that very few people could keep up with Astaire as a dancer—younger actresses at least had a chance to move as quickly and gracefully as he did. (It’s not much of an excuse, but it’s the one I cling to.) If you can manage to get past that, Funny Face is a perfectly charming and enjoyable musical, somewhere between a classic and a strong representative entry in the genre. (While technically a Paramount production, a number of key crewmembers such as director Stanley Donen were from MGM’s legendary Freed unit.) Plus, of course, it’s an essential piece of Hepburn’s filmography by showcasing her at her best.

  • Battle of the Bulge (1965)

    Battle of the Bulge (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I wonder if there’s an arc to the amount of historical accuracy we expect from real-life events depending on the proximity to those events. Anything made in the ten years following the event must be reasonably exact given that most of the principals (and audiences) are still there to compare notes. (Although this close to the action, things can be slanted toward a specific ideological purpose, or limited by rights issues and/or classified information.) Then there’s a lengthy period in which accuracy is not deemed as important, as memories fade and the era becomes an increasingly loose storytelling playground. Then there’s the longer-term “reverence” period when following the historical record is deemed respectful, especially given the work of professional historians with some detachment. In this progression, Battle of the Bulge would squarely belong to the second, less accurate era. While it does tackle real-life events such as the Ardennes offensive and the logistical challenges of that stage of the war (as opposed to more fanciful WW2 adventures à la Where Eagles Dare or Kelly’s Heroes), the film does so by outrageously compressing events in an unrealistic time period and being shot in a place that looks nothing like the Ardennes. The Wikipedia entry about the film’s historical inaccuracies is a mile long, but you only need a cursory knowledge of the Ardennes counteroffensive (where the forest environment and the cold and sudden snow all played a role, hence the famous anecdotes about Allied forces using white bedsheets as impromptu camouflage) to be taken out of the film’s ambitious but flawed depiction of the events as being in a wide-open plain. This being said, historical accuracy isn’t the ultimate determinant of a film’s worth, and The Battle of the Bulge does fare better when considered as a reality-adjacent WW2 adventure. The Nazis are deliciously devious, the allied are fine folks and the battle (one of the few rare post-Normandy successes for the Axis side) does offer some opportunity for tension and tank engagements. Actors such as Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw add to the appeal, and director Ken Annakin keeps things moving. It’s not a classic war movie but it is a decent one, and should appeal to WW2 buffs even—perhaps especially—given the historical inaccuracies.

  • Tully (2018)

    Tully (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) As a parent who just got out of the first few tough years, there’s an innate relatability to Tully’s phantasmagorical premise that rings true—given the sleep deprivation during a baby’s first years, I’m not sure that any parent is actually totally sane during that period and this film runs with the premise. Charlize Theron adds another impressive notch to her multidimensional screen persona by playing an overworked, super-stressed mother of three, with Mackenzie Davis in a strong supporting role and Ron Livingston to tie the narrative threads together. As a portrait of parenthood, Tully is more ruthlessly honest than most other movies—there’s little idealization going on here, and we’re miles away from shiny mommy blogging. There’s a nice balance between domestic details and frustration and the more outlandish flights of fancy that the story requires. Reuniting with scribe Diablo Cody (herself a mother of three), director Jason Reitman doesn’t try to recapture Juno’s motormouth wit but wisely stays grounded given the third-act twists. Going closer to spoilers, I remain as dumbfounded as anyone as to the popularity of the “Fight Club in another setting” premise (taking over from “Die Hard in another setting”) as shared by Tully and near-contemporary Adrift—it’s a narrative strategy build on deceit and now-cheap revelations, and I’m not sure it’s a subgenre that will age well. Still, I found a lot to relate to in Tully’s sleep-deprived fantasies and can’t stay mad for long at the plot cheats that it needs in order to justify itself.

  • The Belko Experiment (2016)

    The Belko Experiment (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Office work can be dispiriting enough that there is really no reason to add a battle royale on top of it, but that’s what writer/producer James Gunn and director Greg McLean go for in The Belko Experiment. The story depends on a highly suspicious number of contrivances (all the way to devices willingly implanted in people’s skulls) to pit eighty office workers against each other until a single one is left. The surprisingly strong subgenre of “everyone must die except one” movie is generally ugly and nihilistic (even you, The Hunger Games) and this newest entry is no exception. Having the same murder mechanics inside an office building could have been played for laughs but definitely isn’t, and the result is not particularly uplifting. Given the forgone conclusion (blood … pools of blood), the only thing that remains is the execution, and the best that The Belko Experiment can do is fight its way to an average set of thrills and gore. The ending does feature one effective scene and one mildly intriguing plot backflip, but it also raises expectations beyond what the film can fulfill—now that the really interesting questions have been raised, what’s next? But the film then cuts to the credit sequence, not really interested in its final idea as anything but a stinger. Viewers already know from the “Battle royale in an office” description whether they’re interested in seeing the film, but they should be forewarned that they will get nothing extra on top of that.

  • Stalker (1979)

    Stalker (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Despite my best intentions, I remain unmoved by Andrei Tarkovsky’s filmography. Stalker is often mentioned in “best science fiction movies” lists, but I have to wonder how much of this reputation is due to contrarianism or historical desire to annoy the USSR. (Or, within the written SF community, the excellent standing of its source novel by the Strugatsky brothers.) It’s still true that Stalker is quite unlike most Science Fiction movies even today. At nearly two hours and 45 minutes, it’s a long sit made even longer by the glacial pace of the film—and most of it only features three characters walking around industrial ruins. (Considering this and the sorry state of the set decorations on Solyaris, I have to wonder how much of Tarkovsky’s SF filmography was based on the availability of disaffected Soviet factories.) Tarkvsky, of course, isn’t some kind of rapid-fire auteur—his entire oeuvre is slow paced and you know from the second film what you’re getting into. Still, I didn’t dislike Stalker as much as I wanted to: There are a few good ideas buried under the lengthy shots, and some very clever filmmaking ideas as well—the picture shifts from sepia to colour as the characters enter the mysterious alien “zone” in which the story takes place, and Tarkovsky’s knack for striking images is not to be dismissed easily. Still, it takes an effort of will to avoid fast-forwarding through the entire thing. Tarkovsky could be ten times as interesting if he was twice as concise.