Month: March 2022

  • The Exchange (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) If I go soft on The Exchange despite its limitations, keep in mind that some of the film was filmed a few tens of kilometres from here, in Nepean, south Ottawa and other areas in Eastern Ontario. Not that it’s much to boast about in a film that begins with the 1980s protagonist bemoaning having to live in the middle of nowhere, struggling badly with the Canadian winter and his lack of friends in a town that doesn’t know what to do with his pretentious intellectualism. (Wait, is this inspired by my true story?)  He thinks he’s about to make things better for himself by volunteering to host a French exchange student, but instead of getting a highly cultured Godard character, he gets an Arab-ethnic oversexed extrovert from the Parisian suburbs. The clash of sensibility is what drives much of this straightforward Canadian comedy: the small-town, smart-protagonist tropes are all quite familiar, and the film’s extra helping of humiliation comedy reinforces the impression of having seen much of it elsewhere. But it still has a few quirks—Avan Jogia is quite good as the Frenchman upsetting an entire village, Jayli Wolf is very cute as the romantic interest and Ed Oxenbould gradually becomes more sympathetic as the nerdy protagonist. The limits of the film’s budget become increasingly obvious as the film approaches its larger-scale climax and the contrivances of the script do it no favours, but The Exchange still goes out on a relatively high note, making sure that no one is too disappointed by the result. Francophones will get a few more jokes that aren’t translated.

  • The Unforgivable (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, March 2022) I’m not necessarily opposed to dark, dour gritty dramas, but it’s a genre that doesn’t take much to overstay its welcome, and there’s a sense, not too far into The Unforgiveable, that it’s just going to drag on and on until it decides to end. And then it does exactly that. Featuring Sandra Bullock as an ex-convict that attracts the vengeful attention of the sons of the man she killed (all the while trying to reconnect with her estranged sister), it’s a remarkably low-energy take on an unappealing premise. Bullock is fully de-glammed here, and the film spares few indignities in show just how difficult an ex-con’s life can be. Everyone is ugly and spiteful, picking fights or planning further murders according to a contrived narrative—the grayish cinematography may reflect its rainy Seattle setting, but doesn’t do much to make the result any more appealing. To be clear, I don’t expect every film to be an entertaining spectacle. But The Unforgiveable struggles in earning and keeping attention—it’s easy to tune out at the film wallows in its grimy surroundings and sordid backstory. It does work better as an actor’s showcase for notables such as Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Bernthal, Viola Davis and, obviously, Bullock (few will be surprised to find out she co-produced the film) but the result is often a reminder that the expression “suffering for your art” also applies to the audience. The Unforgiveable may not necessarily be wrong, but it’s not particularly right either.

  • Antibody (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2022) There’s no lower limit to the quality of “made for Syfy” movies, so seeing their name at the start of a film is usually a warning. In Antibody’s case, however, it’s a bit of a red herring: while the film can’t possibly be good, it’s far from being as awful as could have expected. (It also dates from a time where it was the “Sci-Fi Channel,” not that it makes much of a difference.)  In this low-budget take on Fantastic Voyage, a team of scientists is miniaturized and injected in a dying terrorist in an attempt to stop a dead man’s switch from levelling a city. Lance Henricken stars, with a luscious Robin Givens in a strong supporting role. Some of the film’s problems are most directly attributable to its low budget: terrible special effects, cheap cinematography, ramshackle sets and slap-dash direction from Christian McIntire will tell you within moments that this isn’t a film that flies particularly high. But the script has more fundamental issues that an inexpensive rewrite could have resolved: a tone that veers from an unconvincing seriousness to a far more effective playfulness, some tangents that go nowhere, many missed opportunities in developing characters, and a plodding forward rhythm. Still, there are a few cute exchanges, effective moments, a sense of atmosphere and CGI sequences that could have worked with some more polish. No, it’s clearly far from being scientifically accurate. Yes, there are much better Science Fiction films out there. But much as “a Sci-Fi Channel” original is usually a sign to go watch something else, it can also lower expectations.

  • Roma (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) As a love letter to a city, Frederico Fellini’s Roma is a big collage of impressions, striking scenes and impressionistic takes. The plot is optional—there’s some attempt to have a young man represent Fellini as he moves to the big city from a small town and discovers the capital in its effervescent glory, but that conceit gets lost as Fellini moves through his set-pieces, in the street or under the ground. The film spans fifty years from the 1930s (and its fascist regime) to the 1970s, with various set-pieces including brothel visits, a trip underground, a vaudeville performance, traffic jam and a haute-couture parade. It’s not top Fellini, but I have to say that I was kept entertained by his late-career unwillingness to stick to any kind of mimetic reality. It’s very colourful, weird, over-the-top and as such a welcome improvement over the neorealism of Fellini’s early career. This being said, I’m the kind of viewer who would have liked more plotting to go with the flashes of cinematic inspiration—perhaps a more strongly structured trip through the decades through the eye of an aging character, perhaps more depth to the human characters. I can tolerate the results well enough, but I was getting antsy by Roma’s final minutes, and even recognizing that Fellini basically did whatever he wanted at that stage of his career isn’t quite enough to soothe more straight-minded viewers.

  • 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2022) In watching a horror sequel, it’s useless to cheer for the good guys when the ones making an encore appearance are the murderous hillbillies. It’s even more useless when it’s supposed to be a comedy film, albeit of the mean-spirited sadistic kind that makes you wonder if the filmmakers were all psychopaths. As 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams begins (as a sequel to the original 2001 Maniacs, which I’m unlikely to see any time soon.), we’re quickly brought up to speed on the antics of the Pleasant Valley folks, plain salt-of-the-earth Southern type with a fondness for killing and eating Yankees. As the film begins, the heat of the inevitable investigation gets dangerous enough that they decide to take their cannibalistic show on the road, where they encounter a bunch of reality-TV Hollywood types that make excellent appetizer, main course and desert. (The two blondes are meant to be caricatures of Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson, making us feel some sympathy for them.)  The “comedy” moniker of the film is loose—taking the form of grand-guignol black humour, cheap one-liners and very occasional expectation-flipping that usually leads to more over-the-top gory kills. No, 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is not recommended. It’s terrible even by the loose standards of coarse dark horror comedies, and is more liable to make you want to take a purifying shower than entertain you. Lin Shaye doesn’t exactly cover herself with greatness in appearing here, and neither does writer-director Tim Sullivan in handling some amateurish staging, acting and plotting. Even the nudity and sex scenes aren’t nearly enough to redeem this one, and that’s saying something.

  • Divorce American Style (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) Even if you know nothing about American history, you would be able to detect a great social disturbance in the late 1960s simply by watching how the movies expressed their anxieties about, well, everything going that was on. Some films took it out angrily, but comedy Divorce American Style goes to satire in an attempt to deal with the uneasiness. The convoluted plot has a suburbanite couple (played by Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds) resolving to divorce out of a vague sense of unease, but eventually deciding that they might as well stick together. So much for plot—the point being an excuse for sketches exaggerating the comic impact of alimony, extended families, counter-intuitive dating strategies (i.e.: finding a spouse for your ex-partner so that you can stop paying alimony) and whatever else could get a laugh at the time. There are a few chuckles here and there: the nightmarish sequence in which “picking up the kids” turns out to be a circus of roughly five reconstituted families is a highlight. There are also hints throughout the film that the script was more than ready to be used as a template for a much funnier film. Alas, and this doesn’t happen all that often, Bud Yorkin’s direction seems to do its best to make the film a dramatic one. The cinematography is dark to the point of grimness, and there’s little in terms of energy or snappiness to properly exploit the comic intent of the script. Van Dyke, comic genius that he is, can’t do much under a director that seems intent on minimizing traditional comic devices. It’s certainly not unwatchable, but the lulls in-between highlights are unacceptable—a clear sign that there was a much better film just trying to get out of Divorce American Style.

  • Cutter’s Way (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) As TCM’s Eddie Muller is fond of saying (especially in introducing his neo-noir line-up), the difference between detective stories and film noir is that, in noir, the investigation is just as likely to be about the detective as the murderer or the victim. So it is that the crime in Cutter’s Way is almost inconsequential when measured against the character investigating it. Coming from the last echoes of New Hollywood, it’s a film that uses a murder mystery as a pretext to lash out about the previous decade. Our protagonist, a maimed Vietnam veteran (John Heard), has had enough of it all, and when he gets wind of a local tycoon having murdered a young girl, he’ll stop at nothing to get some misplaced justice, including dragging his friend (Jeff Bridges) in the mess. In the tradition of those 1970s gritty, downbeat thrillers, don’t expect much satisfaction out of the resolution. But what the film lacks in satisfying narrative expectations it makes for in characterization, anger and off-beat choices. It’s certainly not for everyone—If you’re talking early-1980s neo-noir, I’ll watch Body Heat a few more times before revisiting Cutter’s Way nihilism. But it’s certainly evocative of a certain era in American cinema, and it does so under the guide of a far more straightforward genre premise.

  • Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) British film noir is really in a class of its own—while it still plays on universal themes of lust, murder and deception, it does so from a very different context, especially as it existed in post-WW2 Britain. There are social class issues that don’t have a ready-made equivalent in Hollywood, and the atmosphere is, naturally, quite different. In some ways, you could have done Cast a Dark Shadow just as well in America: The idea of a serial seducer/killer meeting his match with a vengeful relative of a past victim is really good and timeless. But at the same time, you would not have ended up with the same kind of film, with the droll interplay between Dick Bogarde and Kay Walsh, not to mention the stunning Margaret Lockwood, the presence of an unusual police inspector or the matter-of-fact idea of vast manors fit to be inherited. It all builds to something like a cross between film noir and a light gothic thriller—that aspect could have been strengthened, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. There are many ways in which Cast a Dark Shadow could have been improved, streamlined, or punched-up—but what’s on screen (adapted from a novel) is reasonably interesting to watch, and definitely atmospheric in a way only British film noir could be.

  • The Boys Next Door (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2022) Like many actors with horror films in their early-career filmography, I suspect that Charlie Sheen doesn’t like to spend a lot of time talking about The Boys Next Door, a film tracking down two teenagers as they go on a murder spree. Not that the film is that much of a blight: under the direction of Penelope Spheeris (and an early script from X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong), the film takes a more gradual approach to its murder spree than comparable slashers, by charting the gradual descent into violence of two high-school graduates. Exploitation is never too far away, though: the ponderous opening sequence makes statements about various American serial killers in an attempt to create a sentiment of pervasive fatalism in the viewer, and there’s a sense that the last half of the film doesn’t have a dramatic progression as much as a deliberate wallowing in one violent death after another. Sheen plays the slightly-reluctant half of the killing pair, leaving much of the psychotic heavy lifting to Maxwell Caulfield. As a slasher, it begins by being better than usual… but it’s still a film in which the protagonists go around killing other people as soon as they pop up on screen. No amount of hand-waving about how society is to blame is convincing when the film is so clearly aimed at trashy thrills. Sheen gets off easily compared to other famous actors’ early horror films. But I can understand if he doesn’t bring this title up all that often.