Month: July 2019

Absence of Malice (1981)

Absence of Malice (1981)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) We seldom get feature-length classes in journalism ethics, so Absence of Malice is a welcome entry in the genre. Featuring no less than Sally Field as a journalist with a dodgy sense of propriety, Paul Newman as an aggravated suspect singled out by the media, and Bob Balaban as a slimy underhanded District Attorney, this is a film that shows a complex dance between police, media, and private interests. It’s seldom glorious, but it does portray a nicely cynical view of the city newspaper desks of the early 1980s, with the “public interest” running afoul of private interests when unscrupulous individuals get involved. It’s a crime thriller, a newspaper drama, a doomed romance all at once. Wilford Brimley gets a short but spectacular role late in the film as the troubleshooter sent from Washington to untangle the mess and assign punishment—his folksy demeanour hides an iron mind and a determined fist. Meanwhile, Balaban plays a far less admirable version of his usual characters, while Newman and Field are up to their usual standards at the time. The atmosphere of Miami is well presented, and the period details are striking—I mean, the film begins with a montage showing us the minutia of publishing a daily metro newspaper, instantly endearing me. The rest of the film does toy with mounting curiosity as how it’s all going to play out—the script cleverly features first-act secrets, mid-movie coyness and final revelations hopping over each other, a sure-fire way to keep the audience interested. Absence of Malice amounts to a decent film—perhaps not a classic, but one worth revisiting even in these accursed times when the daily metro newspaper is regrettably becoming a relic of the past.

Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986)

Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) In French-Canadian circles, Le déclin de l’empire américain is as close to a classic as it comes—it was a big box-office success, was nominated for an Oscar, spawned two sequels (the second of which actually won an Oscar, still Canada’s sole Foreign-Language Oscar), became one of French-Canada’s most successful cultural export, made writer-director Denys Arcand a superstar and marked a generation. I recall seeing it as a teen, but missed (or forgot) much of the film’s meaning until seeing it again. The very strange thing about it is that in many ways, it’s an anti-movie. Its plot could fit on a napkin with enough space left to wipe your mouth. There isn’t much in terms of cinematography (although some of the camera shots are quite nice). But what the film does have is a nearly steady stream of dialogue from beginning to the end, alternating between the low and the high. Le déclin de l’empire américain is about a few characters, most of them intellectual, university professors, preparing for a weekend at the cottage and then chatting during the weekend. Much of the dialogue is about sex, and the remainder about highbrow intellectual concerns spanning history, philosophy, sociology, and non-specific politics. There is a definite The Big Chill sensibility to the way the characters all congregate as friends for a weekend in a secluded location, but that’s a misleading impression, as these characters have secrets that they’re keeping from one other, and the amiable companionship detonates late in the film. But that’s the only bit of plotting in a film that’s meant to be heard for the dialogue going from scabrous to scholarly in the blink of an eye. I guess that as a cultural ambassador, it doesn’t hurt for French-Canadians to have been portrayed as lusty intellectuals across the globe—although I’d caution that most of us are far less obnoxious than the hedonistic degenerates shown here.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) Science Fiction movies of the 1950s often featured aliens invading Earth, but none of them were as expansive as The War of the Worlds in showing us a big-scale invasion. Led by producer George Pal, it loosely takes the classic novel H. G. Wells novel as inspiration for a widescreen depiction of an international invasion, even if the story stays focused quite tightly on a Californian scientist and his distaff counterpart. Surprisingly sombre at times (seeing WW2 footage used to portray city devastation is sobering enough, even without realizing that the film was released less than a decade after the war), and downright horrifying enough to give nightmares to my younger self (young boy not yet jaded by horror plus that shot of a soldier being disintegrated to a green skeleton equals unhappy memories), The War of the Worlds is at its best when adapting the Wells novel to the realities of the 1950s—even in a twenty-first century where Steven Spielberg delivered his own take on the story in 2003, this version is often fascinating as a pure period piece. Alas, some things don’t work as well. The initially super-competent female character played by Ann Robinson starts out fascinating, then degrades throughout the film until she becomes a shrieking simpleton right in time for Gene Barry’s character to rescue her during the film’s biggest suspense sequence. The Technicolor cinematography is striking, although it’s taken a bit too far when the alien tripods show three-coloured cells in their tools. Still, you have to admire the audacity of the film’s intention in showing a global engagement and its lovely period California setting. Both explain why The War of the Worlds remains worth a look now, despite the now-creaky special effects and the outdated social values.

Casper (1995)

Casper (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2019) Whenever we’re talking about older fantasy movies, one of the common refrains is how the film’s special effects have aged. This makes Casper especially surprising, given that it was the first film to feature full-CGI main characters (a few months before Toy Story), and yet the special effects hold up surprisingly well by today’s standards. It’s all thanks to some appropriate use of imperfect technology: The CGI characters in Casper are meant to be ghostly, transparent and interact loosely with their surroundings, which explains why many of the telltale signs we usually associate with bad CGI don’t register here. Fortunately, the film that the effects support does have its moments of interest. While the main plot isn’t particularly distinguished (and it dates most severely whenever the teenagers on-screen do something cool by mid-nineties standards), there are striking moments of dark humour to the proceedings, to the point where you may be tempted to double-check that the film isn’t directed by Tim Burton or Henry Selick (close! It’s Brad Silberling’s debut feature, later of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events). Christina Ricci certainly burnishes her credentials as a proto-goth here, while Bill Paxton has a warm turn as a ghost-obsessed but sympathetic widower dad. Casper doesn’t amount to much more than an entertaining film, but sometimes that’s more than enough.

Youngblood (1986)

Youngblood (1986)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2019) For most of Youngblood’s duration, I was firmly onboard the movie. I happen to think that there aren’t enough hockey movies as it is, and this one happens to portray junior hockey in generally believable detail. Rob Lowe stars (with some assistance from Patrick Swayze—although not as much as you’d think—and a tiny part for Keanu Reeves as a goalie) as a young man escaping the farm to try to make it in the minor leagues. Much of the movie is about his attempts to fit in, as an American crossing the border to play with a Canadian team. There aren’t that many unusual or intriguing things about Youngblood (although the boarding house madam who collects players may qualify), but for most of its duration it’s a straightforward hockey movie. But then, just as I forgot that I had recorded the film off The Fight Channel (temporarily descrambled, I swear), there came the last minutes where, not content with winning a climactic game, the film feels forced to throw in a gratuitous fight. Nooo, that’s not the essence of hockey. And with that went my amicable recommendation for the film, its small-city atmosphere, its forced romance or its gentler take on Slap Shot material. Hockey is a noble sport—it doesn’t need fights and it’s not about fights.

Les frères Sisters [The Sisters Brothers] (2018)

Les frères Sisters [The Sisters Brothers] (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) As much as I’d like to like The Sisters Brothers, I felt more nonplussed than entertained during its duration. For all of the fun of seeing John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal and Joaquin Phoenix in the same movie, the final result seems stuck between two chairs, neither distinguishing itself from modern westerns nor being comfortable enough to play the usual elements of the genre without tweaks. To be fair, there are plenty of delights here—the atmosphere is well rendered with a contemporary edge, John C. Reilley gets a rare dark difficult role, and the ending doesn’t give in to easy expectations. On the other hand, The Sisters Brothers coasts a long time on its bitter comedy, neither being all that funny nor all that revisionist enough. Its most distinctive trait may be that it’s a western that takes flagrant liberties with chemistry—how often do we get to say that? Otherwise, well, it’s a sombre tale of gunmen nearing the end of their run, of self-reflective heroes questioning what they’re best suited for. The feeling is more akin to art-house cinema (well, OK, not really) than to classical western—all scenes feel too dark, all characters too self-tortured, all subplots ending in a way designed to withhold conventional satisfaction. I do believe that director Jacques Audiard (a Frenchman playing in a very American genre) has achieved in The Sisters Brothers the film he wanted to make—but I’m not sure that’s the film I wanted to see.

Zui quan [Drunken Master] (1978)

Zui quan [Drunken Master] (1978)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, July 2019) I watched a lot of Jackie Chan movies in the mid-to-late nineties, but still missed a few—which mean that I can now enjoy them for the first time. Drunken Master is an early Chan leading effort, after he had become big enough to headline movies (this was his fourth starring role), but before he had perfected his affable comic action persona. Unusually enough for Chan, his character here undergoes a modest amount of development, going from an atypical arrogant young man to the kind of more humble comic performance he became famous for. Clearly a product of the 1970s Honk Kong movie industry, Drunken Master has its rough edges: the image is soft, the editing can be rough and the fights don’t have the polish or inventiveness of later productions. Then there’s the language issue—despite the ridiculous sound effects, I’m pretty happy with the French-dubbed version, which does not pretend to be naturalistic at all and is thus immediately understandable without some of the stilted awkwardness of some English subtitled martial arts movies. (The Anglosphere is awesome, but it’s really not as skilled as the Francosphere at dubbing or even translating movies.)  But here is the wonder of Jackie Chan and martial-arts movies in general: Depending so clearly on physical performances from skilled artists, they have a value that transcends time and space to remain enjoyable even now. I’m hardly the first to make the point, but there’s a wonder to the physical performance that feels a lot like classic Hollywood dance numbers. You can say that they’re not making them like that any more, and that’s true: the training regimen and specialized filmmaking units required to make such movies are gone now, and what remains are the movies made during their heyday. This one may not be all that good in terms of plotting (although it does have a cleaner arc than most martial arts movies), but it has an edge in terms of humour and the fight sequence remain spectacular. Drunken Master doesn’t quite match its sequel (which ranks among one of the best martial arts movies of all time), but it’s a lot of fun to watch even now, and a welcome discovery for those Chan fans who missed it until now.

Sur la piste du Marsupilami [HOUBA! On the Trail of the Marsupilami] (2012)

Sur la piste du Marsupilami [HOUBA! On the Trail of the Marsupilami] (2012)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, July 2019) I was looking forward semi-reluctantly to Sur la piste du Marsupilami. Adaptations of beloved French-language comic book series have been hit-and-miss so far, especially when tackling comedy-based series—the humour doesn’t always translate so well, and sometimes the material feels hostage to the filmic sensibilities of the time. On the other hand, Spirou was among my top comic-book series when I was young (something helped along by the versatility of the series), and the Marsupilami was one of my favourite characters from that series. I can’t recall most of the albums I read as a kid, but Le nid des Marsupilamis was something else. In any case, this 2012 movie adaptation retains the marsupilami and nothing else—the story becomes a comedy featuring writer-director/star Alain Chabat as well as comic superstar Jamel Debbouze as, respectively, a reporter urgently looking for one last scoop, and a small-time hustler with his own issues about the mythical marsupilami. This being said, there’s a lot more to the plot, including a rejuvenated botanist, a Céline-Dion obsessed dictator and a prophecy from the local natives. The humour is certainly hit-and-miss, at its weakest in kids-friendly silliness and at its strongest when most absurd. (The prophecy itself is hilarious, although everything sounds funnier when it’s narrated by as attractive an actress as Liya Kebede.)  The film, obviously, rests on the success of portraying the marsupilami on-screen, and here at least it succeeds well: The marsupilami is full bouncy CGI, with practical effects used for his interaction with objects and characters. Much of the classic comics gags are there (including the tail bunched up in a fist) and even more. The result is fine—even though the number of predictable or simplistic scenes far outnumber the inconsistent flashes of genius found here and there. Géraldine Nakache and Lambert Wilson also do nicely in their respective roles. Keep watching the credits—in addition to a singalong and a rather fantastic solo dance number, there are numerous gags sprinkled in the text of the credits themselves.

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) The Johnny English series is a weird one. The films, released at something like seven-year intervals, aren’t necessarily getting better—but I’m liking them more and more. This reaction is almost entirely based on the evolution of the title character from one instalment to another: Rowan Atkinson started out by playing the character as a complete buffoon (shades of Mr. Bean parodying James Bond) but with each instalment has upgraded the character so that in this third outing, he has some undeniable skills (which he’s teaching to kids) while retaining a propensity for bumbling whatever he’s doing. The result is a far more likable character, although he’s too frequently held back by the series’ requirements for buffoonery. Made on a smaller budget than its predecessors, Johnny English Strikes Again doesn’t feature expensive set-pieces but still manages to pull out a coherent cyber-attack conman plot. English here often comes across as an old-school agent looking better and better through the rest of the characters acting like idiots—there are also some allusions here about the degeneracy of the British nation that may have a few unfortunate resonances in a Brexit blunder era. Even at barely more than 90 minutes, the comedy is uneven and often stretched out far too long—the suit-of-armour sequence in particular seems to last forever. Still, the flashes of competence shown by English are a welcome bit of character development and do much to keep the film jogging across the finish line even despite the silliness of the overall result.

Time Freak (2018)

Time Freak (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) I didn’t have the best of reaction to Time Freaks’ first act. As a time-travelling romance (a surprisingly robust subgenre) from promising writer-director Andrew Bowler, it features a physics genius inventing a time machine just so that he can go back in time and prevent his girlfriend from dumping him. The time-travelling mechanism isn’t particularly rigorous (sometimes going back in time at the touch of a smartphone app, sometimes requiring an audio-drive machine and for goodness’ sake don’t ask about the details) but it’s not really the point for a film taking a comic approach to the complications offered by time travel in recreating crucial moments of a relationship. My grumpiness at Time Freak’s first act had to do with two remarkably anti-romantic convictions (which you should forgive given that I’m in the anti-romantic phase of my life): The first being that whatever the protagonist achieves will be based on a foundation of lies that will not support a real relationship; and the second being that those two characters have no business being together in the long run. To my relief, the film does address the first point quite thoroughly (it becomes much of the film’s third act) and battered me into acceptance regarding the second point. Asa Butterfield does a fine job portraying a highly intelligent scientist with relationship issues (although the script often doesn’t do him any favours by re-highlight what should be obvious to anyone), while I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I don’t really like Sophie Turner even in a romantic lead role such as here. Skyler Gisondo does rather good work in a more broadly comic supporting role. Time Freak doesn’t always get its tonal shifts correctly, occasionally going from silly humour to romantic drama (and back) in a less than graceful fashion, but there’s an interesting thesis about relationship being developed through its time-travelling shenanigans—and it should be noted that while much of the film is about younger protagonists and their own relationship issues, it becomes more sombre once there’s a time-skip that takes us past college years. I gradually warmed to the film as it kept exploring its own ideas farther and farther, all the way to a conclusion that should satisfy both the cynics and the romantics. As low-budget science-fiction films go, Time Freak is really not bad, and a clear notch above most other straight-to-cable SF movies.

Mask (1985)

Mask (1985)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, July 2019) There’s something almost joyous in the way director Peter Bogdanovich presents Mask, the story of severely disfigured teenager Rocky Dennis, as adapted from a true story. Well, at least through most of the movie—as we follow Rocky while he integrates to a new school, his visible disfigurement takes a back step to his sweet inner nature and the various other issues he’s got to work through, from a drug-addicted mother to the vagaries of romance and friendship. Eric Stoltz masters the lead role under a significant amount of makeup, but Cher is quite amazing as a feisty single mom running with bikers, and Sam Sheppard has a persona-defining performance as a revered motorcyclist. A teenage Laura Dern shows up as a significant secondary character. Much of Mask is considerably lighter than you’d expect, with the protagonist overcoming one obstacle after another through intelligence, humour, and determination. There’s an absorbing rhythm to the film as it sidesteps expected sequences and grows larger than simply being about the protagonist’s appearance. (Decades later, Wonder would have much of the same approach and strengths.)  The ending of the film, alas, isn’t nearly as cheerful. While telegraphed early on (and predictable from the facts on which the movie is based), the conclusion brings the cheerfulness to a halt and adds a lot of gravitas. Nonetheless, Mask is a bit of a surprise—not as exploitative, broader than expected, it remains a fine film now that the mid-1980s patina has added a bit of period charm to the result.

First Man (2018)

First Man (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) A Damien Chazelle film about Neil Armstrong? Sold—there’s no way I wasn’t going to watch this. Alas, the feeling I get at the end of First Man is merely one of satisfaction, not one of exceeded expectations. It may be that Armstrong, as one of the prototypical solid men specifically selected for moon landings because they were low-drama, may not have been as interesting a biographical figure as everything surrounding him. It may be because most of the highlights of First Man have been covered in other movies before (most notably The Right Stuff, and then For All Mankind, and then Apollo 13). It may be because in trying to portray the experience from a subjective perspective, Chazelle has minimized the impact of the spectacle we expected. But, no matter why, First Man is about as average a rendition of Armstrong’s experience as would have been put on-screen: he gets the highlights, but not much in terms of what made him tick—the characters surrounding him, whether it’s his wife, his superiors or teammate Buzz Aldrin (in another superlative supporting performance by Corey Stoll). Ryan Gosling doesn’t help—his mandate it to play a very private, very inward-driven character and he does exactly that. The highlight of the film, fortunately, arrives at exactly the right moment—stepping out of the Lunar Module and stepping on the moon, with the grainy artificially aged images finally giving place to the clean crisp splendour of IMAX footage taking us on another world. But it feels like a little too late, and actually limited by Armstrong’s perspective. I do like First Man (after all, I watched it exactly on the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing), but I’m disappointed that I’m not loving it.

Countdown (1967)

Countdown (1967)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) No matter how much you know (or think you know) about movies, there’s always another one you don’t know, and today’s discovery for me is 1967’s Countdown, a pre-moon landing techno-thriller about a desperate backup plan to land a single American on the moon before the Soviets do. What was speculative fiction back in 1967 is now a fascinating bit of alternate history, especially considering the care taken in ensuring that the film is grounded in reality—NASA collaborated with the film, and the filmmakers went to painstaking detail to ensure that the film felt plausible. Perhaps the biggest surprise in discovering Countdown (which doesn’t even rank among IMDB’s 100 top seen movies of 1967) is finding out that not only it was director Robert Altman’s first film, but that it starred none other than a very young James Caan and Robert Duvall as astronauts competing to be the first humans on the moon. Altman’s touch can be seen most clearly in his typical (but rarely seen at the time) overlapping dialogue—otherwise, this straightforward tightly-plotted thriller is as far removed from his other movies as it’s possible to be. Caan and Duvall are nearly unrecognizable as younger men, but give quite a bit of gravitas to their ongoing squabble through the film. Compared to other films of the period and later renditions of the space program, Countdown scores highly when it comes to verisimilitude—the spirit, sets, perceived danger and technical details all ring true. Special-effects-wise, the biggest issues come toward the end, as the sequences set on the surface of the Moon don’t have the characteristic harshness that real-life footage has shown us. But for a film released 18 months before the Apollo 11 moon landing, it’s a pretty good effort. Story-wise, I do feel as if the film (or the novel on which it’s based) is missing an entire third act—we leave the protagonist at the earliest possible moment, whereas I feel there was a much stronger and longer story to tell about his return back home. Still, I quite liked Countdown: its techno-thriller aesthetics and narrative drive fall squarely in one of my favourite kinds of fiction, and I think that it’s a splendid period piece to illustrate the suspense of the moon program back in the mid-1960s, before we saw it all culminate with a successful moon landing. I have a feeling I’ll be singing the praises of this less-known film for years to come.

For All Mankind (1989)

For All Mankind (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) I have far too many issues with For All Mankind to consider it the best possible documentary about the American Moon Program, but I’m willing to concede that it’s probably one of the best documentaries ever made about it. Perhaps my biggest objection with the film is one of its fundamental artistic decisions to meld recollections of all the astronauts on all the flights in one single narrative. This is not the right film to watch in order to learn all about the fine differences between Apollo 8 and 11 and 13 and 15—For All Mankind works hard at erasing those distinctions, showing us one narrative in which there are a few issues along the way (13!), wonder at the first view of the Earth from so far away (8), the first steps on the moon (11) and taking a rover out for a spin (15). That’s the film’s central conceit, and it does work most of the time in blurring all missions together into one shared experience. Recording of astronaut interviews are combined with historical footage to form the spine of the film, along with incidental music by Brian Eno. The result manages to make an ethereal, dreamlike, expressionist experience out of the most famous engineering project of the 1960s, giving far more importance to the human aspect of being on another world than what it took to get there. Once more; it’s a fundamental choice, perhaps not the one I would have made … but then again director Al Reinert is the one who sifted through incredible amounts of footage to condense the essence of the project in barely 80 minutes, and there are incredible moments of humanity in hearing about dreams that the astronauts had on the moon, or the way they goof around (slipping and falling) over there, walking or driving their way across the surface. It is, in other words, quite an effective documentary even if you can quibble about its choices. I ended up watching it on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and it felt like the right movie at the right time.

The Hate U Give (2018)

The Hate U Give (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) The personal rarely meets the political as clearly as in The Hate U Give, a surprisingly effective movie about a teenager having to confront a system of systemic violence that leads to the death of her friend. Adapted from a young adult novel by Angie Thomas, the film first takes us deeply in the inner world of one sixteen-year-old black teenager as she has to juggle two identities; one at home, with her complex family, and another at an upscale school, making sure she’s not too black for the privileged white crowd. If you suspect that a synthesis of her identities is in order, you’d be right: it all comes crashing together as a childhood friend of hers gets shot by a police officer right next to her during what should have been a routine traffic stop. The Hate U Give is impressive on several levels, and one of them certainly is the density of the themes it tackles (racism, obviously, but also fitting in, the impact of childhood on teenagers, education, trying to improve a neighbourhood rather than fleeing … and so on.), and the effectiveness of the way it clearly indicts social forces for contributing to personal struggles. It’s a sophisticated film, fully up-to-date on the dense tapestry of issues affecting today’s teenagers—it’s never one thing, and you can’t pick at something without something else being affected. Amandla Stenberg is terrific among a strong supporting cast, and the script is so good at creating her character that we’re really sorry when bad things start happening—the protagonist clearly deserves better. Director George Tillman Jr. build to a climax that is perhaps a touch overdone, but still remarkably effective. I’d call it like a Spike Lee film for teenage audiences, vigorous and clever, except that this feels like a diminutive moniker—The Hate U Give is perfectly capable of standing up for itself without comparisons: it’s got its own take on a familiar story, a style of its own, and just as appropriate a set of demands. I liked it quite a bit more than I expected, and would have no problem calling it one of the best dramas of 2018.