Month: July 2019

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) The historical record tells us that Sylvia Scarlett was a notorious flop upon release; that it had a legendarily bad test screening; and that it helped send Katharine Hepburn’s career in a slump that would take five years to correct. And certainly, it’s a film with its share of flaws—starting with a herky-jerky plot that’s unpredictable not because it’s particularly clever, but because it goes from one thing to another without much forethought. There are some intensely weird mood swings to the story, as it goes from comedy to the death of a main character to once more into comedy. But it’s also a film with many interesting things, especially from a modern perspective. The biggest of those is probably the presence of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, both of them young and dashing and still developing the persona that would follow them throughout their career. Grant’s charm is a bit subdued under a Cockney accent and a character meant to keep audiences either guessing or seething. Hepburn’s turn is far more interesting, as the tergiversations of the plot mean that she spends about half the film in drag, playing a young man. She goes from long tresses to a boy’s haircut, with makeup accents meant to highlight her masculine features. It’s not a bad look, and she does sell the illusion despite being, well, 1930s world-class beauty Katharine Hepburn. Brian Aherne also does quite well as a deliciously likable character absolutely unphased by the revelation that Hepburn’s character is, in fact, a girl. One can see, however, that depression-era America may not have known what to do with the gender-bending comedy of the film (complete with real same-sex kissing and proposed perceived same-sex cuddling). Director George Cukor keeps things moving, but there isn’t that much directorial prowess to the 90-minute film. The comedy is more a case of chuckles than outright laughter: it doesn’t go the extra mile and never makes the fullest use of the elements at its disposal. The ending is odd—satisfying at a basic romantic level, and yet a bit scattered in the way it gets there. It’s perhaps best to see Sylvia Scarlett as a curio, an early showcase for two legendary actors, and also an early example of queer cinema at a time when the Hays Code was starting to crack down on anything outside heteronormativity. (One notes that Cukor was homosexual and that Hepburn was widely rumoured to be bisexual.)  By 1935 standards, Sylvia Scarlett may have been an odd flop—but today, it’s far more interesting than most other movies of the time.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second viewing, On Cable TV, July 2019) Blame my failing memory, but I assumed that Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was a sequel to the original Gojira, and nearly put off its viewing to another day after watching the original. But I didn’t, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that in its cinephile goodness, TCM had played both the Japanese original and its Americanization back-to-back. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! takes Gojira and reshapes its footage around new sequences featuring Raymond Burr as an American journalist who gets to experience the events of the film as part of his reporting. Extra sequences with Japanese actors talking with Burr are inserted in the previous film’s footage, providing a snappier rhythm (the film begins with catastrophic devastation, then flashes back in time to explain how we got there) and an accessible way for 1950s audiences to appreciate an unapologetically Japanese movie. Tall-and-wide Burr towers awkwardly over Asian extras as he describes the events unfolding, and even sort-of-interacts with some of the original characters through tricky editing. Despite the repetitiousness, it’s a far better movie if you’ve just seen the original as I did, as you can really appreciate the efforts that the American filmmakers went through in order to adapt the material to their target audiences. (History, hilariously enough, shows that this Americanization was more popular than the original in many markets, and even found its way back to Japan a few years later where it made a substantial amount of money.)  Some of Gojira’s most explicitly political (read; anti-nuclear) material did not survive the recut, but some of the best lines of dialogue remain. For today’s far more cosmopolitan audience, the idea of re-cutting a foreign movie with American content is tantamount to heresy, and it’s easy to laugh at the clumsiness of the attempts. But that’s missing the historical context: Without Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, there wouldn’t be much of a Godzilla cultural imprint in American society, and perhaps even less of an inroad from other Japanese filmmakers (including Kurosawa) in 1960s American film culture. It did the job at the time, and it does feel reasonably respectful even today: Burr interacts humbly with his Japanese hosts, and even if the spotlight is on him, he does not diminish the heroism of the Asian characters. The result is fascinating, especially if you can pair it with the original.

Gojira [Godzilla] (1954)

Gojira [Godzilla] (1954)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) I first saw the Americanized version of Gojira (the one with Raymond Burr) a few decades ago, but had clearly forgotten most of it given that a look at the original Japanese version kept most of its power to surprise me. [July 2019: Having seen the Americanized Godzilla, King of the Monsters right after this one, I can understand the reaction—the American version feels like a highlight reel of the original that cuts away much of the gradual buildup.]  Given that this is the original kaiju movie that spawned it all, it’s no surprise to find out that this Gojira feels very different from all the other ones. Made at a time when the conventions of monster movies did not exist, its first half-hour is a mystery that only gradually reveals the existence and then the shape of the monster, with much of the destruction occurring two thirds of the way through in order to provide a climactic ending that defeats the monster but feels much smaller than the citywide destruction that precedes it. There’s more human material than you’d expect, what with a romantic triangle and a tortured scientist reluctant to kill the monster. The special effects are rough and obvious, but they still have an effective earnestness that bests a lot of expensive CGI—the point being that the scenes where Godzilla goes to town, complete with atomic breath, are still effective enough to be worth a watch. It’s not possible to talk about this original Japanese Gojira without mentioning the social subtext that comes with it, released nine years after Hiroshima/Nagasaki and explicitly presenting the monster as a product of atomic blasts with the promise of more to come.

On Golden Pond (1981)

On Golden Pond (1981)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Popcornflix streaming, July 2019) I probably expected a bit too much out of On Golden Pond-the-movie as compared to On Golden Pond-the-career-highlight. For cinephiles with extensive knowledge of film history, every movie operates on at least two levels—the basic surface level of what we see and experience on-screen, and the way the film slots into the history of its genre, actors, and filmmakers. On that second level, On Golden Pond is essential: It’s one of Katharine Hepburn’s last great performances in a role that cleverly builds upon her own lifelong evolving persona; it’s Henry Fonda’s sole Oscar-winning performance; it’s an illustrated peek into the relationship between father and daughter Henry and Jane Fonda’s relationship; and it’s a major Oscar-winning movie. How could you not want to see a film with that kind of pedigree? I was there as soon as “Hepburn” was shown on-screen. But then there is the film, in which an old couple gets to care for their daughter’s new step-son during a summer at the cottage. Given that On Golden Pond is a theatrical adaptation, you can bet that the film is an actor’s dream with fully realized characters, strong dialogue, an undeniable thematic depth (with death and father/daughter relationships jockeying for importance) and a structure that allows for a lot to happen in a confined space and time. And yet, and yet, I think I was expecting just a bit too much. For all of Fonda’s fantastically cantankerous performance, witty bon mots and deathly obsession, I expected a grand finale for him—but the film is a bit too nice to get to the end of that thematic obsession. Hepburn is great, the Fondas are very good but the film does seem a bit too good-natured to truly get to the bottom of its themes. I’m as surprised as anyone to feel this way—I’m usually the first person to argue in favour of happy endings even when they’re not deserved. But it strikes me that this story had the potential to wring a lot more drama out of what it started with, and that it blinked in favour of far more superficial results. I’ll allow for the possibility that I’ve misunderstood the result or wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind for it. But it seems to me that the legend of On Golden Pond has outstripped its actual viewing experience.

A Place in the Sun (1951)

A Place in the Sun (1951)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2019) I had reasonably high hopes for mid-period noir A Place in the Sun and found myself … underwhelmed. The story of a man pursuing both a working-class and a high-class girl but accidentally killing the less fortunate one when she announces her pregnancy and dashes his hopes of marrying the richer girl (whew!), it’s a film that pretty much does what it says in the plot description. Coming from the depths of the Hays Code era, of course he doesn’t get away with it. It’s a remarkably middle-of-the-road premise for a noir, and it executes it about as competently as you’d expect. The big draw here is a very young Elizabeth Taylor, always stunning, as the high-class girl and Montgomery Clift as the man at the centre of it all, with Shelley Winters as the poor victim. But the exceptional nature of the film stops there. While A Place in the Sun is still watchable, it pales in comparison with many of its more daring (or exploitative) contemporaries. The social commentary is tame, the pacing is incredibly slow and the film can’t help but throw in melodrama when good acting would have sufficed. Any respectable film noir would have lopped off the entire courtroom sequence, going right from arrest to the electric chair, and the film would have been substantially stronger from it: said courtroom sequence adds nothing to the plot and actually distracts from the fatalistic theme of the film, or (as suggested by the title) the perils of American greed. But no; A Place in the Sun is determined to parlay it off all the way to the end. It did do very well at the Academy awards for its year, so at least it’s of historical interest. Still, it could have been quite a bit better had it not tried to be so respectable or overly faithful to its literary source material.

Sniper (1993)

Sniper (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) There are times when Sniper feels like a throwback to the Reaganesque military adventures of the 1980s, merrily overthrowing Central American regimes for the heck of it. But as the film advances, it clearly attempts a deeper kind of story with two mismatched snipers, one of them inexperienced and nervous about actually killing anyone. Alas, Sniper doesn’t quite commit to this psychological exploration—before long, we’re watching a solid action film with inventive one-bullet kills (one of them through the scope of a rival sniper, of course) with a structure suspiciously feeling like a horror movie except with meticulously planned shots leading to the gory kills. Our two mismatched buddies do eventually learn to trust each other and become even better killing machines, so at least the film has that bit of machismo going for it. Despite my sarcasm, it’s an adequate film: Tom Berenger and Billy Zane do well in their developing relationship, with director Luis Llosa providing the expected thrills. Sniper is perhaps best known today for having spawned no less than six sequels, all of them straight to video and some of them even reprising the lead actors from the first film. This being said, this first instalment does feel stuck between two poles, being neither completely satisfying as a “fun” war adventure, nor as a psychological exploration of what it takes to be a sniper. The same material has, since then, been covered in far better movies such as Shooter, American Sniper or Enemy at the Gates. This leaves Sniper a bit redundant, although still reasonably entertaining on evenings where there’s nothing else on.

A Trip to the Moon [Le voyage dans la lune] (1902)

A Trip to the Moon [Le voyage dans la lune] (1902)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) So this is it — Le voyage dans la lune, the progenitor of the science fiction film genre, the original space story, the first film ever mentioned in any retrospective of the SF genre. (Including TCM’s “Out of this World” July 2019 retrospective, right before Metropolis.)  Older than Alberta and Saskatchewan, A Trip to the Moon is an incredibly primitive production by today’s standards: The succession of static long shots recalls nothing more than being centre row at a high school production, with occasional camera tricks reminding us that we’re watching the magic of movies. Proudly inaugurating 120 years of SF movies, the plot is a bad meld of superior literary sources, the science makes no sense and the simplistic story takes over the non-existent characterization. More seriously, though, it is an interesting product of the heroic age of filmmaking as pioneered by director George Meliès, when even editing frames away to show a character transforming into a puff of smoke passed as pioneering. It’s worth noting that A Trip to the Moon is one of the very, very few early-era movies still discussed and watched today—its solid genre credentials still make it interesting as a flight of fancy whereas more naturalistic movies of the time have been forgotten along the way. Best of all, it’s barely 12 minutes long—more than short enough to be squeezed in between just about anything else.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) Considering that I disliked Hostel II largely because it killed off Heather Matarazzo’s character midway through, you can imagine that I’m no more favourably inclined toward Welcome to the Dollhouse. No, her character doesn’t die in here … but considering that she plays a junior high outcast who spends the entire film being treated cruelly by schoolmates, teachers and family there is a limit to watching the amount of abuse even a fictional character can take. From writer-director Todd Solondz, the gratuitous cruelty is the point of his dark so-called humour but that means the film is actively unpleasant. At times, it seems as if Welcome to the Dollhouse presses every one of my buttons as an aggravated filmgoer: the low-budget muddy realistic filmmaking; the episodic structure; the character who becomes a cosmic black hole of suffering; and the lack of a satisfying ending. It’s all there, so no surprises if I’m less than enthusiastic about the result. An ordeal more than a film-going experience, I can happily live the rest of my life without having to watch Welcome to the Dollhouse ever again.

Break of Hearts (1935)

Break of Hearts (1935)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) Being a fan means tracking down even the more obscure films, which is why I’m now one of the relatively select audience of people having seen the somewhat forgotten 1935 drama Break of Hearts. (How forgotten? Well, even TCM played it in the wee hours of the morning, without subtitles, and it barely gets a few hundred votes on IMDB.)  I was obviously there for Katharine Hepburn; In full mid-1930s form, she headlines this somewhat dull romantic drama of the film. Here, an unknown composer (Hepburn) begins a relationship with a famous, troubled, handsome (etc.) conductor (Charles Boyer). There’s a whirlwind romance, some heartbreak, and so on. Hepburn is far better than the material (which often undermines the headstrong persona that she was trying to establish at the time), and she does get to wear a few good outfits out of the whole experience. At the very least, it’s a short film: this plays both to its disadvantage (as we compress through a deteriorating relationship not that far removed from A Star in Born) and to ours, as it’s over relatively quickly. Worth watching for Hepburn fans. Everyone else? Not so sure.

Brainstorm (1983)

Brainstorm (1983)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Third Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2019) I recall seeing Brainstorm at least twice during my childhood and teenage years, leaving a lasting impression each time. (But apparently not enough in terms of narrative, because even though I remembered many of the film’s visual high points—ah, those optical tapes! —, much of the finer details and subplots were like brand new this time around). 1983 was a remarkable year for technology-oriented thrillers, and even if Brainstorm earned its way on that year’s roster by uncontrollable means (most of the film was shot in 1981, but production issues following star Natalie Wood’s death delayed its completion and release by two years), it certainly earns a place alongside Wargames, Videodrome, Blue Thunder and even Superman III in musing about the trouble that technology was about to get us into. An analog Virtual Reality thriller, Brainstorm offers a deeply convincing portrait of how revolutionary technology is developed in the lab, only to escape its creators’ control once the technology is perverted by others (either in the vulgar or the ideological sense). Christopher Walken headlines the film as a scientist who develops a way to record and play back subjective experiences, with Natalie Wood as his estranged wife and Louise Fletcher in a great performance as a driven scientist. The retro-technological feel of the film is wonderful, what with its bulky early-eighties laboratory and industrial environments—it’s pure charm for techno-geeks such as myself. But the way Brainstorm develops its ideas is what holds attention, examining in turn all the possibilities offered by the new technology and how it could be used. It ends with a third act that focuses on an extended remote hacking episode, our protagonist moving through physical space in order to stay in virtual space. (The ending reduces everything cosmic to an isolated pay phone, which is the final touch to crown an intensely clever script.)  Director Douglas Trumbull clearly shows his understanding and mastery of special effects, with sequences that still play extremely well today, and a willingness to play with the codes of cinema in order to make story points … most notably by switching between aspect ratios to show people affected by sensory recreation. I liked Brainstorm quite a bit when I was younger, but I think I like I even more today. It’s a great science-fiction film, perhaps a bit forgotten today but still very much fascinating to watch.

Monster Trucks (2016)

Monster Trucks (2016)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, June 2019) In Hollywood, not every plan goes as expected, and so it is that Monster Trucks was initially conceived as a family blockbuster film with franchise potential—complete with familiar-but-not-superstar actors, a generous special effects budget, and expansive location shooting. Much of the excitement about the property seemed to come from its straightforward premise: Monster trucks, or rather (if you insist on more details), monsters in trucks. You can hear the Hollywood executive thinking from here: there’s nothing that boys like better than monsters and trucks, so a film combining the two couldn’t be anything but a box-office success. Alas, things didn’t go as planned: Paramount knew something wasn’t quite right as animation veteran director Chris Wedge’s film advanced through production, because the release date of the film gradually went from May 2015 to January 2017. Things got worse after release: Budgeted at $125M, Monster Trucks eked out a worldwide gross of $64M as everyone finally saw what Paramount realized early on: it just wasn’t very good. Reviews were terrible and the film sank from franchise launcher to family cable-TV filler—you’ll be lucky today to find anyone who has seen it. Alternately, it has become an entrant in a very special club—the big-budget bombs club, where viewers can feast on high production values in service of … not much. Like a superpowered engine installed in a jalopy (to use the film’s plot points against itself), Monster Trucks has great production values in the service of a middle-of-the-road story undermined by dumb moments. It may be a movie made for younger audiences, but that’s no excuse for the handful of overdone moments that make older audiences cringe—the film would be significantly better if it had excised those. Still, it’s easy to be overly critical of those big-budget bombs when their sheer scale ensures that there’s something interesting to watch at some point. Those moments usually coincide with special effects: There is a chase sequence midway through the film that holds up decently well; a garage sequence that will appeal to any inner twelve-year-old boy; and an extended climactic chase that gets the job done. The creature design finds a tricky balance between cute and disgusting. Familiar faces such as Barry Pepper, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover and especially Thomas Lennon turn in serviceable performances to support headliner Lucas Till. There is something halfway intriguing in reusing small-town fracking country as the basis for much of the premise, and to its credit Monster Trucks does end with a conclusion rather than a blatant setup for a later instalment. In short, it’s just a bit better than its (admittedly faint) reputation would suggest—my inner teenage boy was impressed enough by the big truck carnage.

Little Women (1933)

Little Women (1933)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) There’s been quite a few film adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women over the decades, with the 1994 version being most familiar to modern audiences and two more versions released in 2018 and 2019. Still, one of the most enduring versions remains the George Cukor 1933 Little Women, featuring no less than Katharine Hepburn in one of her earliest featured roles. The story is episodic—it’s about the coming-of-age adventures of four Massachusetts sisters during and after the Civil War, as they try to keep the household together in their father’s absence. Romantic and dramatic vignettes follow. This being a 1933 film, barely six years out of the silent movie age, there’s quite a bit of period melodrama in what is presented on-screen. Still, it was a big-budget, good-natured blockbuster movie at a time when the movie industry was under fire for pushing vulgar sensibilities … and it became a hit. The can-do spirit of the film found resonance in the then-current Depression, and the absence of an outright villain was (and remains) a nice change of pace. It can still be watched with some amount of interest, although frankly you can be there just to watch Hepburn and Edna May Oliver. (This being said: I’m a big fan of 1930s Katharine Hepburn, but she gets some serious competition here from Jean Parker.)  It’s a film of its time, but it was close to being the best of what was produced in early-1930s Hollywood. As an actor’s showcase from past generations, Little Women is still worth a look.

White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2019) Hustling and basketball—it doesn’t take much than that to get a strong premise for a sports comedy. But what sets White Men Can’t Jump above similar movies is the addition of capable actors such as Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, both at the top of their physical condition, as well as Rosie Perez in one of her best roles. Venice Beach as seen from the bottom rung is interesting, but not as much as the characters trying to hustle their way out of there. Writer-director Ron Shelton has an uncanny grasp of dialogue, athletic ego and not-so-friendly competition—White Men Can’t Jump is never as good as when it’s following our two protagonists on the basketball court, inventively trash-talking their way through their own hustles. The basketball sequences are thankfully convincing. Rosie Perez is also a joy as a motor-mouthed bookworm whose wildest dreams come true through sheer determination. I’m not so happy about the ending of the film (in which a serious conversation could have prevented its bittersweet conclusion) but much of White Men Can’t Jump is still quite a bit of fun to watch.