Month: February 2021

  • Beeba Boys (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) Comparisons between Beeba Boys and the mob movies of Martin Scorsese are not entirely delusional — at least in terms of presentation. For one thing, Indo-Canadian writer-director Deepa Mehta is a seasoned professional who clearly knows what she wants to see on screen, and her work here shares quite a few of the power chords of crime dramas: An exploration of crime in ethnic communities, great use of montage music (the Indian pop soundtrack is next-level terrific), an ensemble cast, copious narration and a script that turns from a darkly funny opening to an increasingly sombre conclusion, twists and turns involving double agents and remorseful criminal protagonists… it’s the same playbook even if we can forever quibble about the execution. Beeba Boys takes us to the suburbs of Vancouver, where Indo-Canadian gangsters live in the classic trappings of the gangster lifestyle (although, Vancouver being Vancouver, their multimillion-dollar houses are simple suburban single-family dwellings). The script gets to balance a few plates at once, whether it’s the group dynamics between the protagonist and his criminal entourage, his feud with an established mobster, his family life with a son increasingly unable to tell right from wrong, and the efforts of an infiltrator with divided loyalties. The first half-hour is a pleasantly dizzying trip through unrepentant criminal behaviour—the film even scores an amusing hit in pointing out how Canadian white jurors are reluctant to look racist in convicting an Indo-Canadian of murder. But as it usually goes with those films, the flash is eventually replaced by darker material as everything falls apart. Canadian cinema Patron Saint Paul Gross even shows up for a small but pivotal role as a Caucasian gangster. Randeep Hooda is quite good in the lead role, considering that it asks for a tricky mixture of charm and ruthlessness; the other highlight is Waris Ahluwalia, although this may have to do with a distinctive, very likable role that has him as the designated jokester of the ensemble. Still, there are false notes — an early exposition dump through a TV show is inelegant and ludicrous; later on, I had trouble figuring out the motivation behind a romance between the protagonist and a Caucasian woman; finally, the ending seems weak compared to what comes before it, although I’ll note that weak endings are not unknown in the genre that Beeba Boys adheres to. There are inherent traps in the kind of criminal epic that Mehta chose here: a basic difficulty in reconciling the allure of crime with its deadly consequences and even Scorsese can have trouble making sense of it. Still, most of Beeba Boys operates at a high-energy tempo, and the good moments outshine the worst ones. I’m oddly glad to have seen it, and it’s my favourite Mehta film since Bollywood/Hollywood — even if such low-brow populist opinions are what gets me thrown out of all of the movie critics’ best parties.

  • The Beguiled (1971)

    The Beguiled (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) If my reaction to The Beguiled is so tepid, it’s because I saw the remake first, and it’s so successful that it makes the original look like a repeat. The premise remains the same: During the American Civil War, a wounded Northern soldier stumbles in a small all-girl school, where he’s treated for his injuries. But his presence proves destabilizing to the small group, and things get worse when he thinks he’s able to tell them what to do. Their vengeance is predictably terrible, making The Beguiled a striking feminist story by 1971’s standards. What this original film does have that the remake doesn’t is none other than Clint Eastwood in the male lead role, adding the power of his persona to the character — at the time, and even today, seeing the masculine icon become a nightmarish intruder to be put down for the sake of the group is striking. But the original is not perfect, and Sofia Coppola-led remake is an illustration of how female-led stories can be told differently when helmed by a woman: The original is limited by the male gaze of director Don Siegel, and his greater propensity for exploitation thrillers. As a result, the original can come across as a disjointed film, both trying to be feminist in content and yet exploitative in presentation. (The Beguiled isn’t the only film in which Eastwood’s character is fawned over by a group of women, but it’s one of the few ones where he doesn’t get away with it.)  In other words, the original does have flaws that the remake corrects (although you can argue that it overcorrects — Coppola’s pacing is languid even at the best of times). If you’ve seen one, your appreciation of the other will pale — it all depends on which one you see first.

  • The Tuskegee Airmen (1995)

    The Tuskegee Airmen (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) It’s interesting to go spelunking into movie archives and unearth films that should be better known. At times, others do it for you—which explains why The Tuskegee Airmen gets a TCM airing in the middle of Black History Month as a reminder not only of the WW2 all-black fighter squadron, but also of the film’s existence—I could have named George Lucas’ 2013 film Red Tails as a Tuskegee film, but this first one dates from 1995 and seems to have slipped through the cracks of movie memory. To be fair, these are a few practical reasons for this — produced by HBO at a pre-digital time when TV movie budgets were synonymous with low production values and cut corners, The Tuskegee Airmen does amazing things with meager means (most notably by reusing historical footage and snippets from other WW2 movies, or cutting away when there’s a crash) and never got the kind of wide-scale theatrical or home video release that would have enshrined it as a reference. But that obscurity means an opportunity for rediscovery, especially given how it features Laurence Fishburne, then-recent Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. and John Lithgow in a supporting role as a senator. The script itself is decent without being overly remarkable, taking us through training and deployment to the European front, constantly reminding us of the opposition and outright racism that the airmen experienced throughout the war. The historical details are reportedly more faithful than you’d expect from a Hollywood production, which does help a film that sets out to remind us of a remarkable historical fact. The Tuskegee Airmen is not an ideal film, but neither was Red Tails, so the definitive Tuskegee film remains to be put together. In the meantime, have yourself a double-bill if you can find the film — and you’ll find that Cuba Gooding Jr. stars in both!

  • The Gunman (2015)

    The Gunman (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) You can make a workable argument that The Gunman is a technically accomplished but generic action movie with a miscast lead and an awkward aspiration to deliver a humanitarian message. A visibly aged Sean Penn (55 at the film’s release) plays a mercenary who goes on the run after completing a nationally destabilizing mission on behalf of powerful multinationals, only to be lured back a few years later when the multinationals start tying loose ends. Director Pierre Morel directs the globetrotting film with his usual good form, although that style is practically undistinguishable from countless other mid-budget action films: there’s little distinction in the way the shootouts and chases are executed, lending a forgettable sheen to the entire enterprise. Unfortunately, Penn is a bigger problem for The Gunman than its middling execution: too old to play the role, Penn is further out of his element, considering a screen persona that did not include many action-driven roles — and he’s far too old to start, even considering that Morel helped Liam Neeson find a third career as an action hero. (The difference is that Neeson has the imposing physicality and gravelly voice to pull it off — Penn does not.)  I’m also going to blame Penn (who also co-wrote and co-produced) for attempting to jam some socially relevant material in a film that could have used a much lighter touch in that area — the hypocrisy of a run-and-gun action movie claiming a social conscience in denouncing the influence of multinationals in the affairs of a nation-state is a bit rich. Capable supporting roles from Javier Bardem, Idris Elba and Jasmine Trinca can’t quite elevate the material either. It’s not surprising if The Gunman has faded away from any kind of cultural relevance in the past five years — it’s unremarkable in most ways except for its biggest issues. Penn himself is probably happier seeing it slink back into obscurity.

  • Debug (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) When it comes to Canadian Science Fiction films, a few things almost always hold true: the low-budget production values, the limited casts, the unadventurous premises and the Telefilm Canada logo. To be fair, the increased affordability of visual effects has done a lot to improve the scope and execution of Canadian SF movies in the past decade — but I still have to grade on a curve, forgiving a few too many things and focusing on the most interesting elements. When it comes to Debug, the premise is not without interest: As a group of six convicted hackers boards a spaceship to debug its computer systems, the ship’s AI starts fighting against them, and it fights dirty. So far so good — and while the film’s special effects are sometimes subpar, they do get the point across. Having hacker convicts as characters means that there are flaws and past traumas to exploit by the antagonist, and having that evil AI played in over-the-top fashion by Jason Momoa is really not a bad starting point. The script and direction occasionally show flashes of quirky interest, whether it’s a medical AI turning on a character and dismissing him as “junkie scum,” or using effective blocking to minimize the expense of a gory death scene. Three out of the four main female characters end up in their underwear (not complaining, just appreciating), and the set design is frequently quite good within the limits of the budget. There is a dollop of naughtiness to the film that could also have been used more effectively. The male leads are a bit bland (except for Adrian Holmes, doing his best but saddled with a badly-written character), so I won’t apologize for spending more time noticing the work of Jeananne Goossen, Sidney Leeder and Jadyn Wong. Alas… I think I’ve reached the end of this film’s strengths and promises. As with many low-budget efforts, Debug doesn’t have what it takes to stick to a science fiction approach, and lazily resorts to horror devices in order to make it to the end. The reason why there are six characters is providing enough fodder for death scenes until the end of the film, and the film quickly goes from 2001: Space Odyssey aspirations to slasher-movie execution. Momoa is badly underused as a villainous character without compelling motivations. Much of the dialogue is unacceptably clunky, some of the plot points are just stupid (such as when a character is rescued from a terrible situation only to be immediately killed) and the intellectual ambitions of the film quickly melt away in a flash of horror tropes. It’s possible to make better science fiction movies, and the newest crop of recent Canadian SF does get there from time to time. But Debug is just lazy and disappointing in how it really can’t think of anything better than a killer ship AI as a main plot driver: there are dozens of tangents that the film could have taken but chose not to. Too bad — I still think that the film is borderline watchable (which is a compliment considering the alternatives), but more often as an example lesson on what not to do than in demonstrating actual qualities.

  • Alfie (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) I wasn’t all that interested by 2004’s Alfie back when it was in theatres or during its most active video lifecycle, but a recent look at the original 1966 film featuring Michael Caine had me suddenly interested in the later version. Jude Law was among the best choices to measure up to Caine, but this newer take updates and tweaks so many things that it hardly feels like a remake, and more of a companion work. What has not changed is the conceit of having its irremediable cad of a protagonist (suggested to be the son of Caine’s character) regularly address the audience to boast about his philosophy of life: As a British man deliberately expatriated in New York to improve his chances of hooking up, his life is a tightly optimized machinery for meeting, bedding and discarding girls. The first few minutes of the film are all in good fun, but consequences come in the form of a worrying medical diagnostic, the end of a longer-term relationship and, most dramatically, a fling with a friend’s on-and-off girlfriend, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. Shifting from insouciant cad comedy to a more serious recognition of his flaws, Alfie does follow the original’s dramatic arc, but rearranging and updating the material to make for a decent watch by itself. Law strikes just the right balance in being charmingly arrogant and showing the capacity to reconsider his life after multiple setbacks. He does remain a cad, but at least a marginally forgivable cad. A strong supporting cast has its own merits, from Marisa Tomei to Omar Epps to Nia Long to Sienna Miller and Susan Sarandon. The soundtrack includes many down-tempo pieces sung by Mick Jagger. It’s obvious that 2004’s Alfie can’t have the same epochal resonance as the 1966 Swinging London one — it’s a different time and place, and no one can match 1960s Michael Caine. But the remake is interesting enough to live on its own terms, even for those with recent memories of the original.

  • Cake (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) Like many actors best known for comic fare, Jennifer Aniston makes a play for dramatic applause every few years. Cake didn’t get as much attention as 2002’s The Good Girl (which did include more comic elements but was a novel attempt to move away from the “Friends” legacy), but it is an unabashedly dramatic story, featuring Anniston as a suicidal grieving mother engaging in self-destructive behaviour. It’s perhaps too successful a portrait: by the time the first half-hour rolls by, the main character is so unpleasantly written that it’s hard to actually like her. It eventually gets better, but don’t be surprised to find Cake an unpleasant piece of work. It’s best to approach it with the right set of expectations: This is a low-budget, independent drama featuring characters going through trying experiences. Daniel Barnz’s low-key no-nonsense direction is in keeping with the script’s straightforward approach. Cake does feel a bit too long at 102 minutes, but that has as much to do with the unpleasant subject matter as the sometimes-repetitive script. It’s not a bad film, and you can see the obvious appeal here for a comic actress trying to expand her range.

  • The Legacy (1978)

    The Legacy (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) If you absolutely have to pick a reason to watch The Legacy, the best is probably the lead casting — young Katharine Ross and Sam Shepard (with dark hair and moustache!) in the film where they met before getting married a few years later. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of intellectual nourishment or entertainment satisfaction in the rest of the film. In a convoluted tale of how a British aristocrat turns to occult satanic practices to keep up family traditions, director Richard Marquand is at his best in creating an atmosphere, and at his worst when turning to generic death sequences as a structural device. (No, but seriously: kill off all the sacrificed at once rather than go through individual risky death sequences — no fuss, no trouble and you’re done. But that doesn’t make for a feature-length horror film.)  The Legacy feels a bit more old-fashioned than its production date — although technology does deliciously intrude over the gothic atmosphere in what is perhaps the film’s most intriguing scene. Ross and Shepard spend most of the film running around screaming, and while the ending does bring everything up a notch, it’s too late to make The Legacy more than a passable curio for dedicated horror fans.

  • Soul (2020)

    Soul (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, February 2021) I’m hardly the first reviewer to note that Pixar’s past few years have not been very satisfying: Their 2010s filmography featured eight sequels to four originals, and while the overall quality remained high, there was a spark missing compared to earlier fare. One of the biggest exceptions was Pete Docter’s Inside Out, which dared use a family film to explore theories about human emotions and consciousness. Both of Pixar’s 2020 movies were original productions, and Soul seems like the thematic sequel to Inside Out. Here, Docter boldly sets out to examine questions of life, its meaning and what comes before and after. Ambitious stuff — and focusing the film’s main conflict around a middle-aged music teacher struggling to achieve his dreams stretches the definition of a family film. (Better leave the easily-confused under-eight set at home for this one — this could be rated PG-13 for mature themes.)  The first half-hour of the film feels insanely expansive, as the film sketches a theory of the afterlife (and the beforelife) with mentors guiding young souls. Fortunately, Pixar never forgets that entertainment is their business, and the jokes fly fast and thick. Great voice work (most notably by a well-cast Jamie Foxx and Tina Fay) complements a terrific attention to detail and some astonishing animation: once again, Pixar opts for a “realistic background, stylized character” approach with great results. As usual, the thematic underpinning and tangents are exceptionally well made: “Soul” here has two obvious meanings well explored, and firmly tied back to Pixar’s first African-American protagonist. As with the best Pixar films, Soul feels both surprising and inevitable: the script zig-zags between originality and satisfaction, never quite settling for mere formula when it has cosmic ideas to play with. It’s a strong film — but time will tell whether it will age well and if it announces a new stronger decade for the studio.

  • The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

    The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) Some films have far more curb appeal than actual polish, and The Two Mrs. Carrolls is a fine example of those. It’s hard not to get intrigued by a film featuring no less than Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck in a domestic thriller. But there’s a reason why the film is far less often mentioned as those two stars’ best work: it ends up being a clunky mixture of miscasting, undercooked screenplay, dull direction and its own inability to stick to a gothic presentation. None of this applies to Stanwyck: She owns the film’s best moments, and while she’s playing a naïve character far away from her usual tough dames, she plays her with the kind of elegant dignity she could lend to any dramatic role at that point in her career. Sadly, Bogart doesn’t do so well, and much of it has to do with a double mismatch with the screen persona he took up in the 1940s — his shtick was a roguish but ultimately honourable man’s man, not the insane gothic villain painter that the script requires him to be, all the way to an over-the-top conclusion in which he crashes through a window with a murderous look in his eyes. He simply doesn’t fit the requirements of the story — a similar problem that many domestic thrillers of the 1940s found in casting likable leading men in darker roles (such as Cary Grant in Suspicion). It really doesn’t help that The Two Mrs. Carrolls is saddled with an unsatisfactory script: adapted and beholden to a stage play, it piles on the implausibilities and incoherences, with a female protagonist who should have figured something well before she laboriously pieces everything together. The film always seems to be holding back — perhaps due to its stars being unwilling to commit to a truly gothic take on the Bluebeard tale, perhaps by elevating director Peter Godfrey beyond his competencies at the time. The result is far from being unwatchable — but The Two Mrs. Carrolls’s interest is how odd of a film it is, and how it simply doesn’t meet its own objectives. Further reading on the film’s troubled production history reveals more of the backstory: Filmed in 1945 but held back for a variety of possible reasons until two years later, it suffered from a cavalcade of issues, not the least of which being a too-strong similarity with similar evil-Bogart vehicle Conflict.

  • Behemoth the Sea Monster aka The Giant Behemoth (1959)

    Behemoth the Sea Monster aka The Giant Behemoth (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) Not all monster movies are created equal, and it’s useful to keep Behemoth the Sea Monster in mind as a yardstick as to how… average this kind of film can be. To be fair, Behemoth belabours under a few significant limitations: it’s a low-budget, black-and-white effort propelled by an imitative impulse: it’s essentially a redo of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (also by director Eugène Lourié) with about a tenth of the wow factor. It’s also British, at a time when the British were not necessarily known for their horror/SF movies. (I’m sure it’s been done before, but I have a sketch in mind featuring stiff-lipped, cup-drinking Britons tut-tutting as a monster rampages through London during teatime.)  Perhaps worst of all is the somewhat limp execution that doesn’t do much while waiting for the late-coming special effects segments. The result is not particularly good — derivative, dull and forgettable, Behemoth the Sea Monster has the distinction of not being bad (a significant distinction when it comes to monster movies of the 1950s), but not being any good either.

  • Kaijû sôshingeki [Destroy all Monsters] (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) As someone who’s sympathetic to the Godzilla movies but hasn’t seen all that many of them, I’m half-entertained, half-puzzled by Destroy all Monsters. This late entry in the original Godzilla chronology does have the distinction of moving things along to a near-future of space travel, a “Monster Island” hosting the kaijus and bright colour cinematography. (I obviously missed a few films in-between the original Gojira and this.)  It all gets wilder once our human protagonists discover an alien plan to mind-control people and monsters alike to destroy the world or some such nonsense. The script is promising but ultimately unsatisfying, as good ideas are not executed particularly well, and as the pacing of the film varies considerably. Even the highlights, such as the film’s sole urban-stomping monster fight, are seemingly inserted without much impact on the plot. Much of the ending has various monsters curb-stomping an evil alien monster in a one-sided fight that would probably mean more if I knew more about that alien monster. (I also suspect that I would hate mini-Godzilla —sorry, “Minilla”—even more if I’d watched more of the series.)  Still, much of Destroy all Monsters is endearing to a surprising degree. Adding goofy eyes to Godzilla helps a lot, but even the now-obvious miniature work doesn’t fail to be impressive. The film has a charming quality to its goofiness, even (or especially) when all-female aliens looking like a K-pop band are trying to destroy earth. In the Godzilla chronology, this may represent the best of what the original series has to offer, and the monster team-up, colourful cinematography, quaint special effects and near-future imagination do a lot to make Destroy all Monsters still fun.

  • Where the Boys Are (1960)

    Where the Boys Are (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) I’m uncomfortable calling Where the Boys Are a sex comedy, even though it’s most commonly described as such. For one thing, the moniker “sex comedy” as applied to 1960s films means something very different than when applied to its much coarser post-1975 equivalent: Even in movies squarely taking a look at the changing nature of sex in a liberating society, 1960s sex comedies were usually charmingly restrained by today’s standards. The second, most fundamental objection is that Where the Boys Are may start as a sex comedy with boys and girls heading to Fort Lauderdale in order to you-know-what, but the film steadily slides into a dramatic register, with a sobering ending that kicks the joy out of nearly all of the characters thanks to a rape sequence (largely off-screen, but still disturbing) that punctuates an increasingly disillusioned arc. If you think that circa-1960 films were innocent, you may be confusing the execution with the fundamentals: As our characters, both male and female, head to the beach, everyone is acutely aware that boys prey on girls and that nice girls must learn to say no — the girls who escape the worst have developed defences against common come-ons, honed by constant practice. If that’s not a damning, timeless lesson, I’m not sure what is. It does put Where the Boys Are in an uncomfortable spot, though: if you stopped watching at the three-quarter mark, you’d probably recall the film as an amiable, naughty, clever sex comedy examining the burgeoning spring break culture among college students heading south for a week of fun. There’s some truly funny material here, whether it’s physical comedy, girls accumulating more and more floor-sleepers in their hotel room every passing night, some satirical material about “dialectic jazz” and unusually kind police officers. The cast is also pretty good, what with a slim George Hamilton, lovely Paula Prentiss, cute Yvette Mimieux and funny Connie Francis, along with Dolores Hart playing band leader to this clever merry bunch. But then there’s the letdown of the film’s last few minutes that, ironically, saps the comedy but sharply increases the interest of the film for modern viewers—as a shining demonstration that people of the 1950s–1960s, despite the neutered contemporary depictions of their times, knew perfectly well what it was all about and what was going on. It feels like an inevitable tragedy that the films inspired by Where the Boys Are, most notably the Beach party series, were considerably lighter to the point of fluffiness — but they made money and offended no one.

  • Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) Considering that the Steve Martin remake version is far more familiar nowadays than the original, I went into the first Cheaper by the Dozen expecting a much sillier and funnier film than it is. Compared to the remake, the original takes on a substantially more serious tone, being framed around a grown woman’s memories of her father, an efficiency expert whose eccentricity dominated a household with a dozen children. There’s an added nostalgic quality to the film, as it takes place in the 1920s as filtered by the late 1940s, adapted from real people (four of them have their own Wikipedia pages!)  Much of the film’s humour comes from the atypical reactions of the efficiency-minded expert — but it’s fairly gentle humour. Director Walter Lang doesn’t go for big slapstick, and the film hums along pleasantly until the unexpectedly elegiac ending. The affectionate tone of a daughter reminiscing about her father makes the film different enough from its silly remake to be interesting, and the historical nature of the film’s episodes is also distinctive. It’s well worth a look even if you’re not a big fan of the remake.

  • The Food of the Gods (1976)

    The Food of the Gods (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) The badness of some movies transcends space and time, and so The Food of the Gods can still, in 2021, be showcased along the worst of the worst, an infamous Golden Turkey that combines the downbeat apocalyptic leanings of 1970s Science Fiction films with the most ill-conceived special effects imaginable. The premise is as simple as it is moronic, as a mysterious substance causes animals to grow several times larger than usual. Our “hero” discovers the development on a farm on an isolated island where it’s being used to grow chicken to human dimensions… and where, yuck, grubs are big enough to put up a fight. The hysterically funny stuff begins once the rats also grow to gigantic size, and the “special effects” are shots of regular rats hanging around a miniature house. Awful doesn’t begin to describe it, so in-between the awful script trying for an ecological lesson and the terrible special effects, the film has at least two strikes against it. It’s all the most dismaying to see the legendary Ida Lupino as a supporting player in what would end up being the penultimate movie of her career. The drawn-out coda is meant to be terrifying but feels silly, which reinforces the impression left by the entire film. See The Food of the Gods only if you dare — it’s the kind of film that Mystery Science Theater 3000 was designed to mock.