Month: September 2019

The Crazies (1973)

The Crazies (1973)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, September 2019) Considering that much of the 2005–2015 decade felt like an overdose of zombie movies in theatres under every permutation, including a remake of The Crazies, I hope to be forgiven if I’m less than impressed by the original 1973 film. Cheap and dirty, this George A. Romero film does take its cues from Night of the Living Dead, but delivers its nightmare in colour and early 1970s atmosphere. Taking place in dingy government offices and the homely décors of small Midwestern towns, The Crazies portrays the earnest response when a deadly biological weapon contaminates the water system of a small town—government is early on the ground and all too eager to contain the threat by all means necessary, which means that our heroes in the quarantine zone don’t get much of a chance. It’s all gloomy and fatalistic and not much fun at all and, of course, that was the mood in the early 1970s. There’s an inherent grittiness to the result that works decently, but overall, it does feel like something that’s been done later in more successful ways. The film may have been ahead of its time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch today.

Imitation of Life (1934)

Imitation of Life (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Being familiar with the 1954 remake of Imitation of Life, I went back to the original film not quite knowing what to expect—considering the ebb and flow of Hollywood racial sensitivity, would the black theme be presented with greater or lesser fidelity? As it turns out, the 1930s version of Imitation of Life has a lot of qualities of its own. It may not be as slick or well-directed as the Douglas Sirk film, but it does have earnestness, and the courage to tackle racial issues just as the Hays Code was cracking down on anything too daring. (One wonders if the film would have been made even a year or two later.) Compared to its successor, this early version feels gentler, but make no mistake—the question of passing is central to Imitation of Life and explored in as much detail at the 1930s could tolerate. Of course, other aspects of the film remain problematic—the whole business of, well, a white person profiting handsomely from a black person’s invention is not remarked upon, and the Delilah character is not only presented as a maid but remains as such even after considerable financial success. (On the other hand, she’s an absolutely central character with her own agenda, mitigating some of the clichés.)  Claudette Colbert is fine in the lead role, but whatever happens to her seems like padding for her black friend’s story that forms the backbone of the film—a modern take on the same story would wisely relegate her in a supporting role to someone else’s story and that’s how we assess the limits of this version. Still, grading the film on a historical curve, Imitation of Life doesn’t seem too bad for the time.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Netflix Streaming, September 2019) Trust the Coen Brothers to go back to the western genre and make it feel fresh again. An anthology of six unconnected short films, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs blends genres and approaches to come up with something quite a bit better than a list of ingredients may suggest. Things get off to a roaring start with “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” in which a sharpshooting singing cowboy benefits from cartoon physics and a sociopathic disregard for decency to deliver an exhilarating look at familiar western tropes. It’s disturbingly gory and yet easily the funniest of the segments—go figure. This is followed by the just-as-mean-spirited “Near Algodones,” featuring a bank robber who gets richly punished again and again. Farther away from Monument Valley, “Meal Ticket” is a far more sombre affair featuring a limbless performer and a misanthropic impresario. The sole upbeat segment of the film, “All Gold Canyon,” is a near-procedural look at a gold prospector stumbling upon a gold deposit in an unspoiled valley. “The Gal Who Got Rattled” starts off on a good note as a woman embarks on a wagon train journey to Oregon, but things quickly turn sour as they have a tendency to do throughout the entire film. Finally, “The Mortal Remains” lands us in fantastical territory as a stagecoach ride is probably a metaphor for another kind of passage. All stories are unified by downbeat endings, superb cinematography and the Coen’s usual gift for screenwriting. While some segments seem to end on sour or even inconclusive notes, the film feels far more satisfying than countless other films where most of the protagonists don’t survive until the end. The experience of watching The Ballad of Buster Scruggs isn’t what we may expect from reading story synopses—it’s far funnier (in a darkly humorous vein) than the plot suggests, and the combination of terrific cinematography (seriously—the west seldom looked so good) and good acting does manage to raise the final result to something quite fascinating. It probably takes some experience with the Coen’s typically inconclusive and dark storytelling style to get the most of the film, but it’s quite an unusual piece of cinema.

Roma (2018)

Roma (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Netflix Streaming, September 2019) There’s a richness and effectiveness to Roma that quickly sets it apart from countless other lesser movies. This latest effort from writer-director Alfonso Cuarón is cinema as art, filled with top-notch cinematography, clever screenwriting, compelling performances and more than a few directorial tour-de-force. It manages to be compelling viewing despite a subject matter that some would consider to be dull—the life of a live-in servant for a circa-1970 Mexico City upper-middle-class family. In black-and-white, no less. But it doesn’t take fifteen minutes for the film to hypnotize viewers into wondering what’s going to happen next. As the camera pans and tracks over very long shots, thus establishing the cinematographic language of the film, it lulls viewers into a sense of comfortable domesticity that belies the horrors to come. As it turns out, the family we’ve just met has serious issues: the father is about to bolt to his mistress; our servant protagonist gets pregnant from an uncaring boyfriend; and the city is turning ugly as student protests are violently repressed. The placidly panning camera becomes merciless in time for a hospital sequence that leaves no place for the viewer to breathe in relief. As with other Cuarón films, the visual aspect gets a lot of attention, but it’s in service of a strong storytelling intention, this time both serving as nostalgia (and the film does have a few great shots of 1970 Mexico), but also as an undeniable paean to women’s resilience. (It’s not just that the two main characters are women, it’s also that the two main adult male characters are terrible people.)  Newcomer Yalitza Aparicio earned substantial attention for her performance here as the stoic protagonist, and deservedly so: she’s the heart of the film, without whom it would collapse in nothingness. The rest of Roma remains exceptionally effective, likely making fans out of viewers who think they have no interest in the subject matter.

The Water Diviner (2014)

The Water Diviner (2014)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, September 2019) Actors turning directors is always an interesting transition, especially in considering the kind of project they take on. In The Water Diviner, we have Russell Crowe choosing a post-WW1 drama as his first directorial project, as he plays an Australian rancher going back to Turkey to search for his three sons’ remains following the battle of Gallipoli. It’s not a cheery subject matter (in fact, it begins with the protagonist’s wife committing suicide out of pure despair), but the film itself is somewhat more upbeat than you’d suspect from the first act. Perhaps the most impressive element of the film, other than Crowe’s competent direction, is the credible historical recreation of 1919ish Turkey, featuring extended sequences in the trenches of Gallipoli as well. There’s a decent amount of adventure and action here as the protagonist has to face down numerous obstacles on the way to completing his quest. Crowe is quite good in the lead role, with Olga Kurylenko being unexpectedly compelling in a supporting role. The circa-WW1 era portrayed here is incredibly messy and the film simplifies a lot of it—indeed, I found myself wondering if they’d manage to mention the Armenian genocide à la The Passage, and they didn’t. Still, The Water Diviner does manage to get audiences invested early on in what could initially appear to be a remote and dour subject matter—and if the result falls short of being spectacular, it does have good moments, a compelling performance from Crowe as an actor, and decent-enough direction to avoid him any embarrassment.

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Now this is a curio on several levels. Keep in mind that The Hollywood Revue of 1929 was made at a time when sound cinema was just getting started: It was still considered a novelty, and it’s fair to say that Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with it exactly. A natural idea was to transpose a Broadway revue on-screen: let’s just have the stars walk in, do a bit of music, dance or comedy, record everything and string them along in a plotless experience. Why not? Such a thing would be strikingly inappropriate for the theatrical experience today now that televised variety shows and streaming options can bring the best of the world to our screens at any time, but back in 1929 it wasn’t just a good idea—the result was seriously considered for the first Academy Awards. Of course, there’s quite a cliff from concept to execution: what survives of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 ninety years later is very rough on a technical level: the top of the image seems cut off, the special effects are laughable, the muddy image is of low quality, low contrast and poor sound quality. The dance choreography has little of the polish that we’d see from Busby Berkeley even a few years later. But that it has survived at all is amazing—many movies of that time never made it to this day. It’s quite an experience to see what were, at the time, the studio’s biggest stars—while we still remember Joan Crawford, Buster Keaton (very funny in a small part), and the Laurel and Hardy duo, many of the other people on-screen have faded away in obscurity, known only to early-cinema aficionados. There are a few highlights: Jack Benny’s emceeing routines have their moments. There are a few funny comic routines (including one featuring Lon Chaney). Of the good musical numbers, one number featuring Queen’s Guards dancers is rather good. There’s an early version of “Singin’ in the Rain” (later quoted in the That’s Entertainment! series). Perhaps more strikingly, three very primitive colour sequences mark, I think, the first use of colour I’ve seen in a Hollywood film and it does add an extra dimension in the film. There’s something to be said about the value of such a document travelling through the ages, now available for endless digital copies. In many ways, The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a primitive form of time travel—what if you were sitting in the middle of the front row at the time’s hottest theatrical entertainment show?

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) In the universe of sub-subgenres, the early-sixties beach party musical comedy is as weird and charming as it comes. The basic ingredients were a beach, a few teenagers, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (both here in secondary roles), silly bikers, songs, and as much dumb comedy as one can stand. The result is … oddly refreshing, especially when compared to far more serious material. How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, sixth-of-seven movies in the series, features some magical nonsense headed by Buster Keaton in a supporting comic performance, staring at the screen after a particularly inane bit of dialogue saying “and that’s all the plot you’ll get from me.”  Keaton, despite a somewhat racist role, is quite funny—probably funnier than the rest of the film, which is light and dumb and quite proud of it. The ending motorcycle race must be seen to be believed, since it blatantly uses terrible special effects (rear projection, sped-up film, footage running backwards) to portray simple safe stunts as dangerous as possible. Among the musical numbers, Harvey Lembeck gets a bit of a highlight with “Follow your Leader” as he temporarily abandons the biker image for a suit. The gender roles are terrible and that’s part of the film’s dated charm, forthright in what it tries to be. Both Keaton and the Beach Party series would end soon after How to Stuff a Wild Bikini—not exactly a high note, but not an embarrassment either.

Meet John Doe (1941)

Meet John Doe (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) It’s easy to recognize Meet John Doe as a Frank Capra movie, and just as easy to see why it’s not one of his best-known works. On one hand, here we have Gary Cooper blandly (but sympathetically) playing another everyman role—this time, the plot literally turns around that idea, as a newspaper columnist creates a “John Doe” persona out of sheer job-preservation determination. Before long, however, the blank person selected to incarnate the decency of the ordinary man becomes all too real, and may be the only one to stop what dark forces are planning to do with this populist movement. You can see Capra’s strain of American exceptionalism running here, along with a populist fervour for decency and strong values. There’s also the montages and newspaper headlines flying at the screen used as exposition devices—Capra handled those better than anyone else, and the result here is undeniably a film shaped by his sensibilities. Barbara Stanwyck is also remarkable in the lead female role, although her initially prominent place in the story gradually gets sidelined in favour of Cooper’s character. Which leads us to the weaker third act, in which the appeals to decency feel manipulated by the demands of an overarching plot with a specific destination in mind. The ending, as much as it wraps up matters in a way that’s satisfactory, nonetheless leaves us wondering if there wasn’t a better way to conclude matters. There’s certainly material in Meet John Doe for contemporary contemplation as the nature of populism is examined, and shaped in a markedly more optimistic direction than current trends. It almost makes one long for some neo-Capra filmmaking, with sometimes-naïve optimism, human decency and all.

Next of Kin (1989)

Next of Kin (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, September 2019) The interesting thing about going back in movie history and checking the lesser-known movies is that, from time to time, you get to discover something. Next of Kin isn’t that well known today, but have a look at this cast: Patrick Swayze, Liam Neeson, Adam Baldwin, Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton and Ben Stiller in one of his earliest roles. The premise also has some potential, what with Kentucky folks seeking revenge against Chicago mobsters who killed one of their own. Alas, the film itself doesn’t quite manage to justice either to its premise or its cast—although we do get to see Neeson, decades before Taken and the Liamsploitation craze, use his physical bulk to seek revenge for a fallen family member. Next of Kin comes closest to achieving is semi-comic potential in a climactic sequence set in a cemetery, with machine-gun-armed mobsters being outwitted by rural opponents using bows, bear traps and a bus full of snakes. But that’s a very short section in what feels like a much longer film that tries far too hard to play things seriously and ends up simply being bland. Swayze isn’t bad (especially playing off Hunt’s minor role or Neeson as his brother) but the script simply doesn’t fully seize upon what it had at its disposal. The cinematography is largely undistinguishable from countless other urban crime thrillers, and the direction isn’t much either: For all of the semi-fizz of a sequence set atop Chicago transit trains, the script itself just goes through the expected motions most of the time. Too bad for Next of Kin … but have you seen that cast?

Dangerous Minds (1995)

Dangerous Minds (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, September 2019) Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson didn’t become top Hollywood producers by being subtle, and so Dangerous Minds applies to the kindly-teacher narrative the lack of grace and complications that they brought to such hits as Flashdance and Top Gun. The story isn’t new, what with a teacher taking charge of an unruly bunch of students and whipping them into shape through unorthodox methods. Even Sydney Poitier did it fifty years ago in To Sir, With Love. Michelle Pfeiffer is about as far from Poitier as actors come, but the effect remains the same: A story either seen as an inspirational tribute to knowledge and education … or a paean to conformity, really not helped by the optics of a white teacher coming in to rescue non-white students. But those implications may not be readily apparent to many white audiences, who may focus a bit more on the script’s well-constructed scenes, its willingness to uphold expectations, or the reinforcement of conventional values. Dangerous Minds does benefit enormously from Pfeiffer’s performance as well, as she elevates some rote material into something semi-engaging. Coolio’s music also helps. The film is adapted from a true story, adding additional complications in trying to fairly assess the film—even more so when you know that the “real” story had a white teacher using rap songs (rather than Dylan!) to teach to mostly white students. Hmmm. It does work despite the obviousness, though, even with a weaker ending and a lack of dialogue as ambitious as its literary references—Dangerous Minds is easy enough to watch, even as you suspect that it’s a piece of feel-good cinema that’s not quite as fully engaged with its students as it is with their teacher.

Not Without My Daughter (1991)

Not Without My Daughter (1991)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, September 2019) There is an inherent vexatiousness to Not Without My Daughter, pulled on one side by true events and on the other by a ham-fisted depiction of both an abusive husband and an oppressive regime. The well-known story of an American woman who finds herself stuck in Tehran with her daughter as her husband changes a two-week vacation into an indefinite stay, it feels like a nightmare given form. And therein lies the rub, because Not Without My Daughter never misses an occasion to paint both the husband (Alfred Molina, good in a thankless role) and the Iranian society under the worst possible light: The husband as alienated and sullen in the States, then flips fundamentalist on a dime, has no compulsion threatening and punching his wife, taking away their daughter and using his family against hers. Meanwhile, the regime oppresses everyone within its borders, rounds up kids for war and forbids divorced American from getting custody of their kids, setting up the quandary that drives much of the escape-from-Iran plot that dominates the film’s last half. There is very little distinction between the evil husband and the national regime (to say even less of the husband’s family acting as enforcer) and our protagonist (played with poor wide oppressed eyes by Sally Field) must depend on cultivated renegades to secure her way out. Not Without My Daughter is a film almost custom-made to stroke every negative prejudice that Americans may have against Iranians in 1991 or since then, and there’s a sense that it lays it on far too thickly to be credible. It may be based on true events, but does it tell the true story—and more importantly, is this the kind of story we need? There is little else to say about the film because there is little else worth noticing about the film except its inflammatory intention. Brian Gilbert’s direction is unobtrusive to the point of being bland, the production values are fine without being impressive, and the screenplay is structurally sound independent of its content. In many ways, it feels like a Lifetime movie-of-the-week except set in a foreign country. I’m old enough to remember how Not Without My Daughter was mildly controversial when it came out despite its underwhelming critical and commercial returns, and it does remain just as problematic today—a handy symbol that bigots can point to, and an intentionally distorting portrait of a foreign culture. Surely, we can do better than this.