Month: August 2021

  • The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)

    The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) As a romantic comedy premise, it’s hard to get more down to the basics than The Owl and the Pussycat, with two mismatched people forced together and then into romance despite their differences. Of course, the details are what makes or breaks the result. Fortunately, there’s quite a bit to chew on here, starting with the grimy atmosphere of circa-1970 New York City at a time when it was clearly deteriorating. The rain, dirt and seedy atmosphere act as background as a bookish writer (George Segal, playing the snobbish intellectual with a certain flair) causes a part-time prostitute to lose her apartment and ends up with her taking over his life in retribution. Of course, the real appeal here is the female character — played with a lot of vitality by Barbra Streisand (who has seldom looked better even in a multi-decade career), who really takes the film over from her male co-star. It’s all in good fun even as the film does through the now-standard motions of a romantic comedy. Some potential is left unrealized, but the dialogue (as befit a theatrical adaptation) is fast and vivid all the way to an expected ending. The familiar tropes aren’t necessarily a problem when they’re handled as gracefully as they are here, with the period detail adding even more interest to a film that works almost solely on dialogue and a modest amount of physical comedy. Streisand looks amazing, Segal realizes his comic potential and New York City looks suitably dangerous — all assets adding much to something that already works quite well on the page. You can even see here the paths that led Streisand both to her comic dervish role in What’s Up Doc?, and her turn as an older escort in Nuts.

  • Giù la testa [Duck, you Sucker aka A fistful of Dynamite] (1971)

    Giù la testa [Duck, you Sucker aka A fistful of Dynamite] (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2021) It really doesn’t take a lot of time to understand that Duck, You Sucker isn’t your typical western — after all, it opens on a quote from Mao and immediately jumps in an opening sequence that takes aim at post-revolution “elites” mocking the lower classes, followed by violent retribution. Clearly having something to say about the false romanticism of revolution (“Revolution is confusion” is a key expression), this last Sergio Leone spaghetti western feels disjointed at times, because it seems intent on having a lot of fun before bringing the hammer down to achieve its dour thematic objectives. Much of the film’s immediate appeal comes from the interplay between Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit and James Coburn as an explosive-dispensing Irish renegade. Coburn is all cool here, and the film wisely features plenty of stuff blowing up real good considering that it has an explosive expert as a protagonist. There’s a lot of banter between mismatched leads, and an ironic arc in seeing a cowardly character stumbling into heroism. Much of the film’s first half feels like a pleasant, entertaining romp, helped along by using a western look in a much later period (1913), allowing for cowboys and locomotives but also motorcycles and German-issued military equipment. (If you’re looking for a halfway-plausible cowboy-versus-Nazi film, this is still your best bet.)  But Leone has a much more dispiriting destination in mind, and so the second half of Duck, You Sucker gets darker both visually and narratively, leading to a conclusion that clashes with the comic first half. It’s also, very much in the Leone tradition, quite a bit too long for its own good. (Also, that “Sean-Sean” song? Eh.)  It’s still quite an unusual film — I’m not sure there’s anything quite like it elsewhere in the traditional Western filmography (the closest example that comes to mind is the South Korean “kimchi western” The Good, the Bad, the Weird). It does feel substantially different from the other Leone Westerns it’s usually bundled with — misleading marketing aside, don’t go in there expecting a fourth Fistful of Dollars.

  • Monkey Business (1931)

    Monkey Business (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2021) I’m predisposed to like Marx Brothers films, especially their more anarchic Paramount period before they got hired and steamrolled by MGM. Monkey Business is their third film — their first shot in Hollywood rather than in New York City, their first original script rather than a collection of vaudeville routines, and their first without Margaret Dumond (sorely missed). Somewhat awkwardly sandwiched between Animal Crackers and Horse Feathers, it doesn’t quite have the memorable sequences from other Marx Bros films of the period. Oh, it’s funny enough — and it begins on a very recognizably 1930s setting, which is to say on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic to the States. Subsequent bits of business (after the brothers are identified as stowaways by the ship’s crew) involve mobsters and saving a girl. Zeppo plays the romantic lead, Groucho talks smart, Chico talks fast and Harpo doesn’t talk. Some of the usual setpieces are there (Groucho insulting an older woman, Harpo harping, etc.) but again it’s hard to find highlights. The Maurice Chevalier imitation scene is distinctive and drags on too long (although it remains an intriguing glimpse at the stature of Chevalier back then.), which is a common failing of many other scenes. Oh, it’s fun enough and there’s enough for Marx fans to see. It’s also far more overly comic than the MGM films. But compared to its immediate predecessors and successors, Monkey Business feels a bit flat, undercooked and easy — although what’s underwhelming by Marx Brothers’ standards is still quite funny compared to other films of the time.

  • Over the Top (1987)

    Over the Top (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2021) For those of you trying to differentiate one 1980s Sylvester Stallone film from another, Over the Top is the one in which he’s a truck driver who reunites with his snotty military academy-educated son and then goes on to win an arm-wrestling tournament. Alas, there isn’t much that’s over the top in Over the Top: it’s a crash between two separate formulas (reconciliation, plus a sports tournament) that plays things incredibly safe. Of course, it’s partially written by Stallone and directed by Menahem Golan — neither of whom are known for anything but playing to the crowd. Directed in a straightforward way (except for some behind-the-scenes footage of the arm-wrestlers echoing more modern reality-TV conventions), Over the Top is wholly unsurprising. I suppose that the film does have some capsule charm in aping mid-1980s trucking and arm-wrestling conventions complete with footage from authentic arm-wrestlers of the era, but that’s really not enough to make Over the Top in any way distinctive. Even among other Stallone films of the time, it takes a distant place back, given how it appeared between the far more, er, over-the-top Cobra and Tango & Cash.

  • An American Tail (1986)

    An American Tail (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2021) It takes a certain audacity to recast the American immigrant experience mythology in the mould of an animated kid’s film. On another level, it does make some sense — Co-conceived by Steven Spielberg and animation upstart Don Bluth (who was explicitly taking on Disney), you can see the strong narrative threads aimed at the younger set — chiefly being separated from one’s family in a strange land. But then again you have pro-American criticism of Soviet occupation and antisemitism, many Jewish cultural references, call-backs to the massive immigration of European refugees and plenty of other things that are best appreciated by an adult audience. The result is simultaneously dark and cute, with mice fighting against cats, raising a golem robot along the way. Also songs, even though “There are no cats in America” sounds a lot like West Side Story’s “America.” There are also strong parallels with the Maus graphic novel for the literate set, although the metaphor is not quite so fully realized in the film. Still, the result isn’t too bad — while the proliferation of low-budget sequels (none of them involving Spielberg or Bluth) has retrospectively tarnished the series’ original, An American Tail does hold up rather nicely today, although it’s recommended to older audiences than usual for that kind of film.

  • Psycho II (1983)

    Psycho II (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2021) Considering that Psycho II was a sequel released twenty-two years after the nigh-untouchable Hitchcock original, considering that it was made at the end of the slasher boom of the early 1980s, considering that horror sequels at the time were at best uninspired rethreads, it’s perfectly understandable not to expect too much out of the result. It may also help explain why the sequel is far more interesting than expected. As it begins, even the large time-skip between the first film and its sequel is an integral part of the plot: Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins looking as if he has barely aged during the interim) is released from prison after purging a lengthy sentence and demonstrating good behaviour. His release is not well-received at all by the families of the victims, and yet he goes back home to an eerie house and a decrepit motel. A few scenes later, it becomes clear that some characters have a vested interest in flipping the protagonist over the edge into homicidal mania, even as he resists and reminds himself that he’s a reformed man. It’s that kind of somewhat unusual plotting dynamic that raises Psycho II over the morass of slashers whose popularity was waning at the time. The filmmakers were able to go beyond just offering a rethread of the original, and staked out their own territory, interesting both as a sequel but also as variation on a subgenre where you actually have some emotional stake in the protagonist’s moral struggle. (And I’m skipping over some of the wilder third-act revelations, not strictly necessary but also interesting in their own right.)  It helps that Perkins remains a likable boyish actor — you want him to avoid murdering anyone else, even as the logic of the genre clearly leads somewhere else, including a rather great final image. I expected the worst and got a nice surprise — I’m still not a fan of slasher, but Psycho II is more ambitious than the vast majority of them, and does not completely dishonour its lineage.

  • Far and Away (1992)

    Far and Away (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2021) There’s something ever so slightly… off in Far and Away. Oh, the building blocks of the film are strong: The Irish immigrant experience as seen from a belligerently romantic couple made of a plucky lad and an upper-class woman, climaxing in the very cinematic Oklahoma land rush. It’s a throwback to a successful Hollywood formula, a good framework on which to hang a straightforward narrative and strong visuals. But in practice, as handled by director Ron Howard and co-starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Far and Away ends up feeling derivative and disjointed, a pale copy of better epics. The humour is slightly too strong and overpowering, with the romance displacing potentially more interesting material. It still works — Howard is an efficient director, Kidman looks magnificent, and I haven’t yet seen an Oklahoma land rush sequence that I haven’t liked yet. But the lavish recreation is undermined by a then-contemporary take that is now starting to sound dated. Watching the film in French fortunately spared me from the apparently strange accents of the original, but otherwise couldn’t quite fix other nagging issues with Far and Away.

  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

    The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, August 2021) I used to dislike John Le Carré’s stories when I was younger, but I’m apparently somehow growing up because I have enjoyed his movie adaptations a lot more in the past decade or so, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold goes join Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener in the big list of great spy movies. Newcomers should know that Le Carré isn’t writing James Bond escapism — his perspective on the spy business (as a former practitioner) is jaded, wary, even exasperated. He often talks contemptuously about the “little grey men” of the secret service as bureaucrats with delusions of heroism in a sordid business that means far less than everyone thinks. This world-weariness is on full display in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a film adapted from his breakout novel that now plays as a brutish throwback to the Cold War era. Richard Burton is utterly convincing as a rumpled alcoholic asked to play double agent in “defecting” to the Soviets. That would be a fascinating enough premise, but it turns out that Le Carré has far more devious twists up his sleeves, and as the film quietly picks up momentum, it all builds to a great (if grim) conclusion. Call it spy fiction for adults, maybe: there’s not a single power fantasy in sight, except perhaps for the protagonist’s last remaining delusions. Martin Ritt directs with a matter-of-fact tone well-suited to the film, with sober black-and-white cinematography that’s quite appropriate to the subject matter. It’s for everyone — indeed, you have to remember that The Spy Who Came in from the Cold came out at the height of Bondmania, with four Bond films in four years to launch the series and plenty of imitators looking to cash in on the trend. This offered a welcome counter-argument, and it has aged remarkably well as a period piece. Burton even delivers, three-quarter into the film, a remarkable rant on “seedy squalid bastards” that still acts as a powerful warning against exactly the kind of spy fiction that we still see too often.

  • Cruising (1980)

    Cruising (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, August 2021) In Hollywood history, Cruising is notable for its contribution to queer cinema… and that’s not often meant as a compliment. Featuring Al Pacino as a (heterosexual) policeman asked to go undercover in New York City’s gay community to draw out a serial killer, the film created a storm of controversy upon release. The then-risqué subject matter was attacked as cheap exploitation by conservative pundits, but gay commentators also saw it as a terrible representation of NYC’s gay community as being dominated by BDSM enthusiasts. Cruising’s most admirable legacy, in fact, may have been to lead indirectly to the creation of The Celluloid Closet in an attempt to address Hollywood’s troubling legacy in portraying homosexuality on-screen. I’m clearly not well-placed to discuss the topic, but even to me, Cruising is an exemplary lesson in showing the importance of diversity. In-universe, it’s a lurid thriller set in motion largely because the NYPD doesn’t have what it takes to effectively investigate a serial killer preying in a specific community. (You can ask anyone in Toronto about a real-world tragic example of this.)  Out-universe, there are clear signs that the film suffers from being made by outsiders looking in: The BDSM leather aspect goes from a potential visual leitmotif to being central to the way the community is portrayed, and this freak-show aspect carries over to plotting that gets very confused the moment it could explore more interesting issues. As Cruising gets closer to its conclusion, it seems to go into a gay panic of its own and passes off ambiguity as a climax. (Have a look at this rather terrific analysis for more.)  A 2021+ remake of Cruising from gay filmmakers would be far more satisfying because it would be able to be more honest and go beyond the “wow, look at that!” freak-show factor in order to get to what’s interesting about the story. Right now, though, that 1980 version of Cruising is more interesting as an object of debate than as a thriller in its own right: Even writer-director William Friedkin can’t paper over the wrongness of its conception with his customary better-than-average execution.

  • Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945)

    Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) You know exactly what you’re going to get with an Abbott and Costello film, and so Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood delivers on what fans are looking for. I, myself, was watching because I’m a sucker for everything Hollywood does about Hollywood — not necessarily because I’m a fan of the comedy duo. Although the result is definitely light on Hollywood satire, it’s very much a showcase for the comic pair. (Indeed, it’s the first of many of their movies to have their names in the title.)  The premise has something to do with barbers stumbling into becoming talent agents, but much of the film is about stringing together comic routines. It works, but as someone who was watching to get a sense of how Hollywood worked back then (even as a caricature), I’m left disappointed. Sure, there’s a big sequence about one of the duo being used as a prop for a stunt sequence… and yet, the number of celebrity cameos is low, with the film regularly goes for gags that could have taken place anywhere but in Hollywood. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was a bigger fan of the duo — but maybe it’ll make more sense once I start digging into their filmography.

  • The Notorious Landlady (1962)

    The Notorious Landlady (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) Sometimes, a good cast is all you really need. While the script for The Notorious Landlady is decent enough, it’s the presence of Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon and Fred Astaire (in a non-dancing, non-singing role) that really makes the film a joy to watch. It begins as an American diplomat newly arrived in London goes flat-hunting and finds a rather nice place at a good price — although there’s clearly something off in the way the neighbours treat the landlady. With Novak as the landlady, Lemmon as the diplomat and Astaire as the diplomat’s superior, the cast is well-aligned to the script’s blend of comedy with just a bit of suspense: what has the landlady done, and is it likely to happen again? Disappointing shot in black-and-white at a time when that kind of light-hearted film had no reason not to be in colour (indeed, director Richard Quine’s films prior and following this one were both comedies shot in colour), The Notorious Landlady does make the most out of its cast playing roles well-suited to them. Lemmon is instantly likable as a do-gooder diplomat, while Novak is clearly not the monster that her neighbours whisper about, while Astaire is funny on his own as a senior official stuck with a very visible situation he doesn’t want. (He has the film’s best quote, one that I can see myself using at the office: “Gridley, you will learn that the higher your position, the more mistakes you’re allowed. In fact, if you make enough of them, it’s considered your style.”) The script, co-written by future-comedy-superstar director Blake Edwards, blends a fair amount of comedy, romance and criminal suspense. The Notorious Landlady is a solid film, not something that ranks as a classic, but something fit to be appreciated as a decent unassuming studio product, aimed to entertain. (I suspect that the film would be more widely appreciated had it been shot in colour, but that’s something else.)

  • The Taming of the Shrew (1967)

    The Taming of the Shrew (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) I’m reliably not the best audience for Shakespeare movie adaptations, and The Taming of the Shrew is an even rockier prospect given its theme of female subjugation (although the more you look, the less this stays true). But there are a few good times to be had in the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli adaptation of it, largely because it happens to feature Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the lead roles. At the time, both were the best-known couple on the planet: both exceptional actors, having begun their relationship in scandalous circumstances and often playing opposite each other in films. In here, Burton plays an uncultured lord who comes to town and sets off to tame the headstrong woman played by Taylor. Perhaps the best moments of the film are those early ones when we see the extent of her uncontrollable nature, furiously berating those around her and throwing things. Despite the doubly-dated nature of a Shakespearian play executed in mid-1960s style, there’s an unnerving contemporary quality to the loutish discourse among the male characters as they discuss their designs on the female characters. It builds up to a conclusion that plays ironically, with a speech on submissiveness undermined by a dramatic exit and a chase. Director Zeffirelli keeps things generally accessible for modern audiences, but it’s really Burton and Taylor (plus Michael York in a supporting role) who get our interest.

  • The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw (2020)

    The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) I’m sensing a budding horror subgenre of historical witchcraft, building off the success of The VVitch and the evergreen low-budget fascination for small communities in rural settings. Even in this subgenre, The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw clearly aims for atmosphere over concision or plot — taking place in a suitably out-of-time 1970s small village that could be anywhere in North America, untouched by period details, it tells us about a mother, a daughter, and accusations of witchcraft. After a very leisurely setup, it eventually moves in toward shocks, gore and horror in time for a more entertaining finale. Writer-director Thomas Robert Lee is clearly working toward something there, and it’s perhaps inevitable that a segment of the audience may be more frustrated than charmed by the results. Even at barely more than 90 minutes, The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw feels long, oppressive and repetitive. Still, it’s an honourable effort: the atmosphere is cleverly built and it avoids cheap genre pitfalls by a wide margin. The failings of the film are closer to those of a moody and overly florid period drama than most horror films, and that’s telling in itself.

  • Death of a Ladies’ Man (2020)

    Death of a Ladies’ Man (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) There are many, many reasons why Death of a Ladies’ Man should be a terrible film. Even the premise (a middle-aged man learns he’s got cancer and rekindles his joy for life by hooking up with a girl half his age) is trite and borderline obnoxious, with not a single cliché left unturned. I mean: Gabriel Byrne plays an Eng. Lit. college professor, for goodness’ sake — is there a demographic group whose middle-age anguish has been more excruciatingly described than white male college professors? The more you describe the film on purely narrative grounds, the less interesting it becomes — all the way to the ironic finale in which, having regained a lust for living, our protagonist ironically gets — aaaah, I don’t even need to spill this because you know where it’s going. But it’s often in the details that Death of a Ladies’ Man gets more interesting. Because (brain tumour being involved) our protagonist doesn’t quite have a full grasp on reality any more. When his dead father shows up for a chat, it’s not magical realism as much as the writer literalizing his inner dialogue. Various other fantasy sequences pepper the film, all the way to a rather great shot of dragons flying over downtown Montréal. Because, oh yes, this is not just a Canadian film, but an Anglo-Montréalais film to its core. You’d swear it comes from the Mordecai Richler factory, so credibly does it portray Montréal’s bilingual peculiarities to the sound of a Leonard Cohen-dominant soundtrack. Accordingly, this Canadian/Irish production does lose quite a bit of steam one it flies off to Ireland for a lush green retreat. (This is also the point where the woman-half-his-age enters the story.)  It’s also not surprising that the film is much better when it’s in its protagonist’s head rather than the underdeveloped supporting cast. Considering those issues, it’s a wonder that Death of a Ladies’ Man does actually stay compelling to the end: Byrne keeps it together, and the heights of the fantasy sequences are strong enough to propel the film over its lulls. I won’t give an unqualified recommendation to the result (as another reviewer has mentioned, this film could have been far more interesting had it featured a female lead), but it’s just good enough to avoid a lack of interest.

  • Hitsville: The Making of Motown (2019)

    Hitsville: The Making of Motown (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) There’s no need to introduce Motown or explain the epochal contribution that the label made to American pop music — even fifty years later, some of their songs are instantly recognizable by everyone. What Hitsville: The Making of Motown does is take us back to “the Detroit years” of Motown, before it moved to Los Angeles and lost its distinctive identity. Detroit-based Motown was a family affair — talent being gradually developed, with a strong core group that defined Motown’s musical identity and relied on in-house musicians to produce hit after hit. Charmingly located in a residential neighbourhood (where a museum now stands — and you can be sure it’s on my list of things to do in Detroit), Motown was a local business and a tangled web of relationships, with friends marrying each other along the way. Motown could only come from Detroit, as the city’s factory-line ethos made its way to producing hit records. As a documentary, Hitsville effectively mixes interviews with relatively sophisticated animation and infographics to make its points, adding a big dose of terrific musical snippets along the way. It’s a wonder that so many of the principals are still around sixty years later to talk about that 1958–1970s era (and in one case recall the company song!), with some stunning period footage to provide additional material. The social aspect of Motown, as a black-owned company churning out massive pop hits, is certainly not forgotten along the way, even if the reward for that success was to move to Los Angeles, lose a few stars, and dilute the peak Motown identity. I strongly suspect that Hitsville doesn’t quite completely portray the truth about the era — it’s self-congratulatory, unwilling to poke at some grey zones (such as the turmoil that followed the move to L.A., or the growing political engagement of its stars despite the record executive’s wishes) and sings from the same music sheet. Still, the charming nature of the narrative is compelling and it’s impossible to highlight just how good the music is here — complete with a look at how some anthemic pieces were put together. Hitsville may or may not be the entire truth, but it’s a great watch.