Month: May 2020

Can you Keep a Secret? (2019)

Can you Keep a Secret? (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) For an in-demand actress like Alexandra Daddario, it’s not a bad idea to star in a high-concept romantic comedy—especially if it’s the kind of romantic lead that allows her to show comic chops. But the film has to work in order to best showcase her, and Can you Keep a Secret? does wobble hard on its way to a conclusion. The high-concept here is that the lead character spills all sorts of embarrassing secrets to a stranger who is later revealed to be her new boss. Oops. But while that’s not a bad premise, the development doesn’t go anywhere interesting after that—the comedy becomes a humourless romance the longer it focuses on the two lead characters. For Daddario, it’s not much of a role—sure, she’s in nearly every scene, but it’s a generic “young professional woman” part that anyone her age could have played without much distinction. This is not unusual for romantic comedies, except that her friends (played by Kimiko Glenn and the wonderful Sunita Mani) run circles around her not only in terms of comedy (as is usually the case with rom-com friends) but also turn in far more distinctive performances. It doesn’t help that Can you Keep a Secret? has a bizarre mixture of dumb only-in-movies characters acting like idiots, with occasional moments of reality and curious compassion. The idiot-plotting gets tiresome, especially as the film occasionally wants to be taken seriously as a commentary on honesty in relationships. In the end, Can you Keep a Secret? may please romantic comedy fans and Daddario aficionados, but it’s certainly not good enough to be a breakout hit fit to make new converts.

Roadgames (1981)

Roadgames (1981)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) As far as atmospheric concepts go, Roadgames scores an impressive success in setting much of its narrative on Australia’s south-eastern highway—a place of near-endless distances and nowhere to go as it crosses a vast desert. On this unusual backdrop, writer-director Richard Franklin sets a serial-killer thriller in which a truck driver works with a hitchhiker to unmask a serial killer who, they suspect, is travelling in the same direction as they are. It’s ludicrous and yet it sort-of-works in an ozsploitation kind of way. Having Stacy Keach as the hero-trucker protagonist is fine, but having Jamie Lee Curtis as the sidekick does work very well. Roadgames is dirty and grimy and doesn’t quite always live up to its own premises (the budget doesn’t help) but the concept is interesting and the execution is halfway decent. Even those not usually interested by serial-killer movies may be charmed by the film’s ever-moving setting and the impact this kinetic backdrop has on the narrative.

Gisaengchung [Parasite] (2019)

Gisaengchung [Parasite] (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) What makes an instant cinema classic? What is the difference between an ordinary film and a great film? Those are the types of questions we ask in seeing Parasite—a spectacular blend of plot, character, cinematography, directing, themes and other virtues any great film can have. It certainly takes a gifted filmmaker—in this case writer-director Bong Joon-ho cashing in a reputation forged with an already long list of notable films with one that tops them all. It takes a premise simple enough to hook—in this case, a lower-class family progressively taking over the services for an oblivious upper-class family. It takes a great set and atmosphere—in this case a hypermodern house that’s practically a character in its own right. It takes a thick overlay of thematic interpretations to accompany the narrative—here, among other things, a critique of class exploitation and capitalism. It also takes narrative twists and turns—but telling too much of those would rob viewers of the film’s specific pleasures. Suffice to say that Parasite is exhilarating filmmaking, and it brings something new to the cinephile’s table with its collision of tropes, deep irony, unusual story and class satire. It’s slightly more slow-paced than I would have liked at first, but it steadily gains steam as it goes along. I don’t quite agree with its Best Picture Academy award for a trivial reason (The Oscars aren’t about cinema, they’re about Hollywood) but that shouldn’t take away from the conviction that Parasite is one of the films that people will remember from the 2010s.

Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015)

Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, May 2020) I suppose that the high-concept was so irresistible that it had to be done at some point: Why not a cute romantic comedy in which an obsessed telenovela fan switches places with the star of her favourite series? In the hands of writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel, Ana Maria in Novela Land does tap into some of the insanity and stylistic excesses of the stereotypical telenovelas. It does help that it stars Edy Ganem, a preposterously attractive and likable lead actress who looks completely at home in the hyper-sexy nature of telenovelas. While it may not completely deliver on the premise, it’s pleasant enough to watch and is even (like its inspiration) occasionally racy within the confines of the rating. There are a few very interesting casting choices in supporting roles—Elizabeth Peña’s last role, Luis Guzman as the heavy and Sung Kang as a Korean soap opera star. A few quirks and moments don’t quite make cohesive sense—bathroom, zombies, musical segments and Korean soap—which reinforces the feeling that while this is not bad, it’s also a bit scattered and unfocused in how it approaches its premise. A measure of Ana Maria in Novela Land’s imperfect success is to be found in the film’s length feeling overlong even at barely 89 minutes. Still, it’s watchable enough.

Kiss of Death (1995)

Kiss of Death (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) The first thing anyone will notice about Kiss of Death is—holy moly, what a good cast of actors: David Caruso (back when he thought TV stardom led to a cinema career), Samuel L. Jackson (looking young!), Nicolas Cage (as a crime lord!), Helen Hunt, Stanley Tucci (with some hair!), Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames… I mean, that’s interesting. The second thing one notices after the credits is—wow, this was a completely unremarkable crime thriller. Directed in solid but unspectacular fashion by Barbet Schroeder, it’s an update to the 1947 film noir classic that transposes the story in the 1990s, but doesn’t really do anything all that exceptional with it all. It’s not uninteresting—at the very least, you can say that it’s watchable without trouble. But it’s not anything more: moments where the film is overwrought (thank you, Nicolas Cage) almost give a glimpse into what this Kiss of Death could have been with more verve from everyone. In its current state, though, it’s having a really hard time distinguishing itself from the middle of the pack of 1990s crime thrillers: admittedly a good decade for those, but not an excuse for a film that doesn’t quite reach its objectives.

The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016)

The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) Any viewer with a fondness for genre-busting will have a great time in watching The 9th Life of Louis Drax, which never completely settles for one genre when several will do the trick. At first a medical mystery (as a doctor cares for a boy in a coma), then a romance (as the doctor begins a relationship with the mother), then a murder mystery (as a body is found), then maybe horror (as a creature makes its way into the hospital), then again maybe just pretentious literary devices (as the boy in a coma narrates everything and the film is adapted from a novel). Considering that it’s directed by Alexandre Aja, whose best-known films are all in the horror genre, The 9th Life of Louis Drax is a glossy, off-kilter, visually stylish blend of very different things. The casting won’t make it any easier, as we see actors known for a variety of genres all have small and big roles, from Jamie Dornan, Oliver Platt (in a serious role), Molly Parker (as a police officer), Barbara Hershey, to Aaron Paul. If the point is to keep viewers guessing, then great—but the continuous hesitation in picking one of several genres may test other viewers’ patience. It’s also an ambiguity that places far more emphasis than usual on the ending to solve the nature of the story itself, more so than a film that delivers on its premise throughout. Is this magical realism? Is it psychological thrills? The 9th Life of Louis Drax ends up more perplexing than anything else—maybe a realistic tale but one told with so much storytelling style that it feels supernatural.

Night of the Creeps (1986)

Night of the Creeps (1986)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) While Night of the Creeps may not quite be among the very best 1980s blends of horror and comedy, it’s certainly in the top tier. It begins with an homage prologue to 1950s horror films before moving to “present day” 1980s and a sorority/fraternity party that turns ugly when parasitic alien slug-like creatures show up to transform everyone into zombies that then explode to birth more slugs. Whew. Everyone in this production, but none more than writer-director Fred Dekker and veteran character Tom Atkins, are treating this with the mixture of genre reverence and self-aware humour that the material deserves. The result is quite entertaining—sometimes funny, sometimes gross, but never too gross to erase the fun nor too comic to trivialize the horror. Clichés abound and many characters die, but the entire thing remains good fun all the way to the end. Night of the Creeps is more than worth a look if you’re going through 1980s horror and have already watched the big hitters of the decade.

Darken (2017)

Darken (2017)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) The dumbest movie trend of the 2010s, following the runaway success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was this single-minded determination to start massive interconnected projects without having the substance to back it up. But what’s hilarious when big studios do it (as with the multiple reboots of the Universal Monsters franchise) gets downright pathetic when it’s tried by filmmakers who have neither the means nor the skills to do it justice. Darken, a Canadian movie made in Canada with a Canadian cast and crew for Canadian audiences watching Canadian cable channels in their home in Canada (I’m Canadian, I can poke fun at CanCon) is about as low-budget as those attempts can be—a mysterious setup, miserable sets, a complete lack of conclusion and a promise that everything will continue in another follow-up (which, as of three years later, does not exist and most likely won’t ever) It almost gets at something in a plot that is both vague and obvious—obvious in having a hero overthrow a murderous cult, vague in a fantastic setting that is almost interestingly justified, but then dropped in the middle of a trite science-fiction coda that’s not intended to provide a resolution. (Followed by a post-credit sequence that’s more likely to make anyone groan than to intrigue.) Darken may be slightly more ambitious than your usual cheap SF film, but that only ends up creating more frustration when it doesn’t explore its own premise. Of the actors, only Olunike Adeliyi is good enough to keep her dignity. I seldom try to convince readers not to watch a film, but do yourself a favour and skip Darken—it’s bad enough by itself, and becomes pitiable because it thought it was good enough to lead to follow-ups.

Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss [Veronika Voss] (1982)

Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss [Veronika Voss] (1982)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) I had to make my way to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s filmography at one point or another, despite my misgivings about engaging with a filmmaker often described as dour and depressing. At least I’m getting representative work with Veronika Voss, as it tracks the downfall of a former actress with a Nazi past against the backdrop of 1955 Berlin. Add a sports journalist as confidante and lover, as well as a devious neurologist as antagonist and, in theory, you have the ingredients of a good thriller. Alas, this should have been quite a bit better. The pacing is deathly dull and there’s little propulsive narrative drive to it all. This being said, there are a few touches of directing that I liked—unusual screen transitions, and a striking use of black-and-white aesthetics: in a few scenes, our protagonist is the only dark shape in mostly-white environments, clearly highlighting how out of place he is. Still, I found Veronika Voss unnecessarily long, even at less than two hours, and making little use out of promising plot elements.

A Guy Named Joe (1943)

A Guy Named Joe (1943)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) There’s an unusual blend of elements at work in A Guy Named Joe—a mixture of wartime propaganda, supernatural events, romantic triangle and interesting performers. If you’re coming at this film from first having seen its 1989 remake Always, they it’s going to be pretty much the same things, flaws and qualities included. What’s good about it is the same, and what’s annoying (a reluctance to really lean on the supernatural possibilities of its premise) is the same as well. The indirect actions by the ghostly character on the living are both charming and frustrating in equal measure. At least Spencer Tracy (in full aw-shuck everyman yet skilled professional), Irene Dunne and Van Johnson (in a hard-fought role) are all quite good as the points of the triangle. To its credit, A Guy Named Joe is more than your usual wartime propaganda film, and Dalton Trumbo’s script is finely crafted. Some good special effects (for the time) help round up the picture. I don’t particularly love it, but maybe I would have said otherwise had I seen this first, and Always second.

Thief (1981)

Thief (1981)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, May 2020) You can take a look at Thief and not immediately get how many things had to come together in exactly the right way for it to succeed. First up, you have writer-director Michael Mann in his feature-film debut, taking a few years of experience doing TV and applying a meticulous eye for detail at this drama featuring a master thief trying to get out of the business. There’s also the cinematography proper to an early Bruckheimer production, making splendid use of darkness and light to heighten what could have been handled as just another thriller. You’ve got James Caan, also precise in the way he plays a professional safecracker with an almost abstract idea of what he would do once away from the outlaw lifestyle. It features an able performance from Willie Nelson, as well as the big-screen debut of James Belushi and Dennis Farina. You have exact technical details, a strong sense of place for Chicago, some strong neo-noir style, plenty of elements anticipating Mann’s later movies (Heat, notably), and enough sordid details that not everything is settled by the film’s end. Thief is a strong debut for Mann, an intense role for Caan, and a great throwback watch for twenty-first century viewers.

McLintock! (1963)

McLintock! (1963)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) Considering how little I like John Wayne either as an actor or as a personality, my less-than-impressed reaction to McLintock! is entirely predictable. Wayne isn’t good enough of an actor to play comedy, especially slapstick comedy, and finding that he had much to do in imposing the film’s more retrograde aspects (which includes spanking the heroine for her independence and also for the audience’s laughter) certainly did me no favours. Wayne (whose company produced the film) finds himself irresistible as a fanny-spanking straight-talk anti-government mildly-idiotic protagonist, and thinks that the height of humour is pushing people down a muddy slide. Sure, there’s Maureen O’Hara as a Technicolor redhead that’s worth watching… but overlong McLintock! gets worse every moment that Wayne is on-screen. I’m sure that your enjoyment of the film will be higher if you actually like racist misogynistic Wayne… but why?

New Jack City (1991)

New Jack City (1991)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, May 2020) Often lumped in with the neo-Blaxploitation “hood movies” of its time, New Jack City ends up being something a bit more grandiose, enjoyable and action-oriented than the films it’s often compared to. It certainly does not deal in the quotidian lives of ordinary people stuck in the hood—it’s a New York City-wide criminal epic with unsubtle, grander-than-life characters, overblown action and ham-fisted atmosphere… and that is part of its charm. Part of the appeal is an interesting cast of actors in early roles, from Wesley Snipes as a crime lord, Ice-T as a detective, Chris Rock in a supporting role, director Mario van Peebles also taking on a small role, and the beautiful Vanessa Williams as new-style gun moll. It’s all a clever blend of an unusually good soundtrack, an ambitious script, social inequality commentary, interesting (but inconsistent) stylish direction, a good ending and great moment-to-moment watchability. Explicit references to James Cagney and Superfly tie the black cinema of the 1990s both to the Blaxploitation era of the 1970 and the gangster films of the 1930s. Given this, New Jack City is better than expected, and a decent film in its own right. Have fun watching it on BET, though—the film is heavily censored and inconsistently so: sometimes, the closed captioning bleeps out mild profanity even when the audio doesn’t!

Cross 3 aka Cross: Rise of the Villains (2019)

Cross 3 aka Cross: Rise of the Villains (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) It’s not the best frame of mind to approach a film thinking, “well, how bad can it be?” but it wasn’t without reason either: the original Cross was so terrible that the thought of it leading to a third film was enough to trigger a regrettable bout of curiosity. Well, the results are in and Rise of the Villains is even worse than expected. This is the kind of low-budget feature film that redefines the idea of a bad movie for those used to strictly theatrical-grade material. The plot is incomprehensible, the dialogue is bad enough to make us grind our teeth, the acting is uniformly terrible, the direction is incompetent and the production values scratch the bottom of the barrel. What makes it feel even worse is the smarmy attitude in which the film presents itself: a soup of comic-book clichés leading to fanservice that nobody asked for. The blend of semi-familiar names in the cast creates expectations that Cross 3 cannot fulfill—and the calibre of acting is so uniquely awful that you can’t blame all the actors as much as directors Patrick Durham and Paul G. Volk. As the actors struggle with their line delivery and pose in macho outfits, we’re not watching a film as much as filmed cosplay—like the worst direct-to-digital swill, it punches a hole through the suspension of disbelief required for film-watching and constantly reminds us of the mechanical elements that go into the production of a movie… because they’re almost all badly executed. There are a few less awful spots here and there—some well-used special effects, Danny Trejo, Paige Anette, etc. Otherwise, though, Cross 3 is more excruciating than entertaining—and worse yet, they just announced that there will be a fourth film in the series. You know what’s even worse, though? I will not be able to help myself from watching the second movie in the series, nor the fourth. Maybe not next week or next month or next year, but some day.

Funny Lady (1975)

Funny Lady (1975)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2020) All right, dear readers, you win: Funny Lady is the film that gets me to admit that Barbra Streisand is one of my pin-up girls — because she made the film worth a look even when it’s an ill-conceived mess from the start. As a rule, it’s not a good idea to make a romance sequel, and true to form, this follow-up to Funny Girl has the protagonist ping-pong between two suitors (played by Omar Sharif and James Caan), including the one rejected in the first film. It’s a narrative dead-end, and indeed much of the film’s plot is a chore to get through. (Although one notes that it reflects the real-life story of Fanny Brice and her tumultuous love life.) But Funny Lady being a big-budget musical taking a look at a past era of American theatre, I found the film on much firmer footing in showing the backstage of a musical (including a hilariously disastrous production) or indulging in its own musical numbers. Streisand is the focus of attention, naturally—sexy, spectacular and smart, either singing or acting, she’s clearly better than the production itself. This being said, Funny Lady is worth a look if you’ve seen Funny Girl: there are a few moments (let’s fly and sing!) that make it worthwhile even if the film itself isn’t so good.