Month: June 2019

  • Killing Hasselhoff (2017)

    Killing Hasselhoff (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The popularity of novelty songs has waned through the years, but the concept itself is sound—a piece of music meant to amuse more than anything else, and where the musical qualities aren’t meant to be at the forefront. With Killing Hasselhoff, I’m wondering if we need “novelty film” in our vocabulary—a film meant to tickle memes and jokes around a piece of pop culture. Heck, maybe those films would even be better if they were even more self-aware of their intentions. Many of them could take lessons from Killing Hasselhoff, as it fully gives in to the enduring popularity of TV star David Hasselhoff in the twenty-first century. It’s meant to be a silly self-aware low-budget comedy playing around a two-word high concept and it doesn’t do too badly within that framework. There’s an interesting cast onboard: Ken Jeong gets a leading role as a nightclub owner who gets desperate to pay off his debt, Jon Lovitz is not annoying (for once), Colton Dunn is very funny as a gay assassin and then, of course, there’s The Hoff playing a caricature of himself. It’s not meant to be refined: The situations are usually contrived (how many Baywatch and Knight Rider references can you fit in a single film?) and the dialogue is far too blunt at times. But there are a few laughs here and there for those who enjoy low-budget comedies. That’s all a bonus, considering that most people will watch Killing Hasselhoff just because it happens to be available on cable or streaming service, and they won’t be able to resist the premise-in-a-title. Don’t expect much beyond the novelty aspect of the film and you just may be surprised.

  • Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

    Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) I’m about three-quarter satisfied by Bad Times at the El Royale, which means that it’s worth a watch but also worth keeping expectations in check until the end. That’s admittedly difficult to do at the beginning of the movie, as writer-director Drew Goddard carefully sets up an irresistible situation with a motel carefully split down the middle of two states, and assembles a crew of characters with deep secrets. There’s a rising anticipation throughout the film’s first thirty minutes as we don’t quite know what’s going on or where it’s going—only that this is a very stylish crime thriller and that we’re in for quite a ride. The film gets better once the secrets start spilling out, with nearly every character not being what they initially appear to be, and some masterful sequences along the way: Goddard is guiding viewers to and away from genre expectations through his showy screenwriting and direction, and it’s that delicious self-awareness that propels much of the film’s first two acts. A conspicuous but enjoyable soundtrack does tie up everything in a great package. The cast is exceptional, in between known names such as Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson and Chris Hemsworth—but it’s lesser-known Cynthia Erivo who’s the revelation here. (Bizarrely, French-Canadian Wunderkind Xavier Dolan also appears in a small evil role.) Alas, all of this is a bit too good to stay true: the promise of the film ends up being better than its execution when its second half settles down for a far more familiar kind of thriller, losing speed and breaking the unity of space and time by adding new characters, new situations and new directions in a moment. Suddenly, the breakneck pacing of the film slows down to a crawl, and we’re left with a frustrating number of characters doing far less interesting things. It’s not a good idea to put the climactic scene in the middle of the film rather than at the end. Still, I really liked Bad Times at the El Royale despite its flaws—that first half is an intoxicating bit of filmmaking, and settling for a merely good second half isn’t quite enough to make the film not worth a look. At this point, I’ll watch nearly anything that Goddard does … but I do wish he’d be more consistent.

  • Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

    Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2019) You all know the Tarzan legend, but there isn’t quite another take like the one in Tarzan the Ape-Man. Weirdness starts from the studio logo, with a Tarzan yell coming out of MGM’s lion. Then it’s off to the nude girl figurehead of Svengali productions. Then off to a jokey narration as then-superstar Bo Derek is introduced as Jane well before Tarzan. Oh yes, amazingly enough, this is a soft-core erotic take on Tarzan, still chaste enough to be classified as a mainstream film fit to play on French-Canadian TV, but with enough nudity to place it in the middle of the early-morning schedule. Produced and directed by John Derek (the husband of), it’s a very self-aware film, deliberately putting Jane’s story first ahead of Tarzan—it takes 45 minutes until Tarzan strolls into the frame, and Derek (the wife of) happens to be in a wet white robe at the time. But the craziness doesn’t stop there. Definitely overwrought at times, Tarzan the Ape Man features one of the most melodramatic “Nooo, god why did you do that!” (Backlit with superimposed rainbow, no less) in movie history. But wait: it gets better. If you accept the snake being an all-purpose phallic symbol, then the scenes in which Derek gets attacked by a snake and rescued by Tarzan (in slow motion, for several minutes) gets funnier and funnier. Alas, the unintentional laughs aren’t as constant as you’d think. Tarzan the Ape Man remains a very, very long film especially when the camera lingers on, convinced via John that Bo Derek is God’s gift to primitive mankind. (I could describe the body-painting sequence, but you wouldn’t believe me.)  And there’s a paradox here that makes any attempted reinterpretation of Tarzan the Ape Man as a feminist reimagining a bit moot, considering the copious amount of male gaze (indeed, outright husband gaze) in the film. At least the nice scenery is there, ensuring further similarities with The Blue Lagoon. Predictably enough, the portrayal of native population is straight out of the colonial era. I can’t say I liked Tarzan the Ape Man all that much, but there’s definitely some material here for connoisseurs of unique bad movies.

  • Star 80 (1983)

    Star 80 (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) The early 1980s were an interesting time in Hollywood’s history—a period where there was a battle going on for the soul of Hollywood, lines drawn between the New Hollywood of grimy dark stories, and the purveyors of Pop Entertainment that sought to bring cinema back to its crowd-pleasing origins. We all know how things played out, but even as late as 1983 you could still see movies steeped into 1970s aesthetics and themes. A movie like Star 80, for instance, which details the abusive relationship between a Playboy playmate and her homicidal ex-boyfriend. It’s all based on a true and sad story. (Hugh Hefner and Peter Bogdanovich both show up as characters, with portrayals consistent of what we know of them.)  Given that this is a movie about a centrefold model, expect a fair and persistent amount of nudity—but keep in mind that Star 80 delights in contrasting the eroticism of the lead character with her bloody end, so it’s not exactly wall-to-wall fan service. At times, the film does give the impression of indulging in trash exploitation—the regular cuts from the biographical narrative to the maniacal murderer muttering about his revenge do get a bit ridiculous after a while. Mariel Hemingway is nice and doomed in the female lead role, while Eric Roberts is uncommonly slimy as the prototypical abusive, over-controlling boyfriend from hell. The role is written without any subtlety, and he holds nothing back—giving an intensely unlikable performance that actually quite good from an actor’s perspective but unbearable to the audience. Much of the same can be said about Bob Fosse’s direction: an atypical choice for him, with blunt-edged effectiveness. Pseudo-interviews are interspaced here and there to present the illusion of a documentary and further tie the film to 1970s cinema-vérité style: points given for a collage approach that was relatively new at the time, but still not quite satisfying. The overall effect is, frankly, a bit dull—it doesn’t take a long time to figure out where the thing is going, and the film just keeps going there relentlessly, with little character nuance beyond the angelic victim and the irremediable killer boyfriend. When you look at the way the 1980s turned their back on New Hollywood, you can point in Star 80’s direction as an example of why.