Month: September 2022

  • I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) I’m not sure if I was in the wrong mood or if I Was a Teenage Zombie is really not that funny—but for a teenage horror comedy, it didn’t feel all that amusing or scary. Made on what looks like a used car’s budget, the film is a laborious watch even at the best of times: the scary elements are limited to a zombie drug dealer (and then a zombie drug dealer fighter), and the comedy usually doesn’t work at a few dim exceptions. It’s not a surprise, considering the amateurishness of the production, that everything is off, from the terrible sound to the lousy structure, regrettable dialogues and unconvincing special effect. What I Was a Teenage Zombie’s director John Elias Michalakis may have, for some viewers, is rough-hewn charm—the kind of earnest but not slick filmmaking you usually get from other outfits such as Troma Pictures, with jabs of offensive material off-putting the more likable moments. Still, that’s really not much of a recommendation—you can pick movies off the street that are more likable and better made than this one.

  • The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) If you want to talk about cinematic oddities, then The Ballad of Cable Hogue gets a minor mention, albeit one that has more to do with expectations rather than intrinsic qualities. It’s surprising because it’s a comedy from noted purveyor of violence Sam Peckinpah. It certainly doesn’t deviate all that much from his usual preoccupations—set at the twilight of the wild west when automobiles replaced the horses (a frequent setting in Peckinpah’s work), it’s clearly an off-beat western somewhat unlike most others. It starts as a prospector tempts fate and discovers a spring of fresh water in the desert in-between two major destinations. Transforming his good luck in good fortune, he monetizes the discovery, builds a stop for passing stagecoaches, and ends up being the civilizing factor taking away the wild west. Not that it lasts: There’s a romance with a prostitute, but also a surprising pall of melancholy that settles over the film in its final act—Peckinpah being unwilling to tell us the story of how the west was tamed, he settles for showing how the wildness died. As a “comedy,” The Ballad of Cable Hogue is nowhere near hilarious: but the absence of violence and overly disturbing content, compared to other Peckinpah films, sometimes makes it feel like a romp. Still, Peckinpah isn’t a comedian, and so the film will not settle for simple romantic comedy or a triumphant business-making epic—it ends on a decidedly dour note, celebrating the passing of the west in appropriately mournful tones.

  • The Birth of a Nation (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2022) What a difference six years can make. At the beginning of 2016, writer-director-producer-actor Nate Parker had the world on a string—The Birth of a Nation came out at Sundance to great reviews, and was purchased for distribution by a major studio for no less than $17.5M (roughly twice its production budget). The cultural winds were blowing favourably for Parker, as several black filmmakers were emerging from their apprenticeship to meet commercial and cultural success. At first glance, all the pieces were there for Parker to become one of the hottest directors of the moment, alongside such notables as Barry Jenkins, Ava Duvernay, Ryan Coogler and others. But then. Wow. Parker’s past sins came back to haunt him and the sky fell on his head. A sordid story of rape and suicide dating back to his college days resurfaced, and Parker was effectively… what’s the word… cancelled. While he’s still technically working on very small projects, he has been practically disowned by Hollywood-at-large and at this point it seems almost certain that he’ll never make it back to the big, the middle or even the best of the small leagues—forget director’s jail, he’s in director’s hell. So what do we make of The Birth of a Nation, now that it’s showing up in translation as late-night filler? It’s actually a decent film—perhaps not as transcendent as similar films (of which there are many), but decent enough to show promise—clearly a springboard to bigger and better things. As a story of Nat Turner’s early-19th-century slave rebellion, the cheekily-titled The Birth of a Nation doesn’t hold back in depictions of white cruelty and retribution—there’s no mistaking who’s a hero here. It makes for a very watchable film—harsh and decidedly not fun, but spirited in its convictions. On the other hand, this is one case where the result isn’t strong enough to make one overlook the flaws of the creator (or, looking at it from another Polanski-informed perspective, that the creator had enough of a respectable filmography to overcome his toxic history). So it is that The Birth of a Nation is destined to end up as a curious footnote in black film history—with few people willing to defend it. I won’t be one of them.

  • Summer in the City aka Managing Manhattan (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Generic, unthreatening and predictable, Hallmark Channel romantic comedy Summer in the City is exactly what the channel contracted for: Something that its target audience will lap up with scant discernment. Wish fulfillment writ large, the film sees a small-town clothing store manager being promoted to manage a boutique in Manhattan. You can bet that romantic and professional fulfillment will follow, albeit not according to the stated plan. (Meanwhile, it unfolds exactly to the genre’s usual plotting plan.)  Julianna Guill is the usual cloned heroine of those films, with Natasha Henstridge and Vivica A. Fox with small roles along the way. Written with a certain mercenary competence but no real flair, Summer in the City simply plays without resistance. It’s what the audience wants, but outside its bubble (say, played on another channel outside Hallmark’s market) it looks cheap and lazy.

  • L’exercice de l’État [The Minister] (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2022) As far as political thrillers go, l’exercice de l’état puts its weird cards on the table early on, with a dream prologue that gives the entire production the feel of an esoteric horror film. The rest of the film isn’t any cheerier—writer-director Pierre Schoeller isn’t playing nice, and there’s something implacable in the way he puts his protagonist (a nebbish Olivier Gourmet) in a no-win situation in which even his power as a minister is incapable of stopping a privatization effort he doesn’t agree with. There’s a lot more in the details, of course—personal betrayals, public pressure, a blend of historical events in a fictional plot. Much of the result is quite stylish, sometimes overly so: There’s a pivotal car accident that feels quite arbitrary, because the events described in the script are not visually portrayed in a way that makes sense. The film’s unwavering darkness also takes its toll, although this may be a matter of personal preference: I have a much greater fondness for political comedies than political tragedies, and there are times when L’exercice de l’État is so single-minded in its inevitable one-track dramatic arc that it feels overlong, overexposed and yet underwhelming. It’s still worth a look for political junkies (French politics are their own special blend of weird and ritualistic to North Americans!), but don’t expect to be bowled over by the often-imperfect results.

  • Larger than Life (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2022) So: Bill Murray plays a neurotic motivational speaker who inherits an elephant on the East Coast and finds no better course of action than to travel cross-country to deliver the animal to appropriate authorities in California. In five days. On no budget. Much of Larger than Life’s success will depend on whether you find this premise funny or not. Let’s just say that of the many comedies Murray did in the 1990s, this certainly wasn’t one of the best. In fact, despite the physical set-pieces, the clearly defined ticking clock, the appeal of Murray as a hangdog loser and an enviable dramatic choice that has the protagonist picking between Linda Fiorentino and Janeane Garofalo, Larger than Life feels much smaller than it should. The episodic nature of the adventures doesn’t help in maintaining a consistent tone, and even the lunacy of Matthew McConaughey as a dangerous nutcase isn’t enough to raise the interest level any higher. Since the plot is designed to be an ordeal for its protagonist, it makes sense that the film wouldn’t be pleasant to watch: the humour is weak, the pacing uneven and the overall result far less impressive than you may think. Murray himself may be part of the problem, underplaying everything in bemused fashion when an overwhelmed, frantic take would have been far more appropriate. At best, Larger than Life is amiable enough, with just enough of an emotional connection by the end to make the journey feel as if it was worth something. But not by much.

  • The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) With a title as blunt as The Big Broadcast of 1937, you know exactly what to expect: a variety show with a loose framing device having to do with Broadway and radio broadcasts circa mid-1930s. It certainly delivers: Even as part of a series, it’s watchable by itself, not only as an illustration of how radio operated back then, but also as a sampler of some celebrities of the time. It’s not that good of a musical: the rhythm is slack, the acts aren’t all as compelling, and the film frankly gets lazy with the framing device (or, rather, lack of) by the time the third act hits and it’s one diegetic number after another. But on the other hand, here’s another chance to catch Jack Benny, or the legendary George Burns and Gracie Allen couple closer to their vaudeville prime, or bandleader Benny Goodman with Gene Krupa on the drums. There’s also a short animation piece, at a time when those weren’t plentiful, and a little bit of visual style to make the musical numbers stand out. The plot itself? Largely forgettable, with its mixture of business concerns and light romantic comedy. But the point here isn’t the narrative—it’s capturing the performances of people who were, at the time, among the nation’s best-known entertainers. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend The Big Broadcast of 1937 to just about anyone, especially if they are completely unfamiliar with the period of its production. But for anyone looking to dig deeper into the era, it’s got a few fun bits and pieces.

  • The Loved One (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Notions of good and bad are almost irrelevant when you’re desperately weird, and The Loved One finds itself in a vein of very dark comedy—unshackled from social disapproval, the dying Production Code and good taste, but not quite able to do anything successful with all of that excess of freedom. Our story largely revolves around a young British man (Robert Morse!) who deals with his uncle’s estate while visiting Los Angeles and gradually gets drawn into the sordid mortuary industry. Adapted from a novel by a British author satirizing America’s obsession with death, the film was initially advertised as having “something to offend everyone,” and while that’s hyperbole, the film does keep much of its very dark sense of humour. While scattered, incoherent and a bit naïve compared to the un-satirizable twenty-first century, The Loved One does have moments that are funny and witty. A very, very good cast includes Rod Steiger, Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowall and Liberace. Still, it does feel meandering and overstuffed at slightly more than two hours—a bit of editing and focus could have done much for the final result. But The Loved One can’t be mistaken for any other film of the period—it’s that odd.

  • One False Move (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) As far as small-scale, low-budget crime thrillers go, One False Move does have a few things going for it—As three hardened criminals travel by road from Los Angeles to rural Arkansas, a few LAPD officers fly there and try to get the cooperation of the local sheriff. But there are layers to it all—the criminals have good reasons to go back to the small city, the big-city cops find the local sheriff laughable and there are links between many of the characters. It turns into a tragedy right on time for the ending, lending further weight to a film that depicts violence in an unsentimental and unsettling manner. Billy Bob Thornton (a few years before his breakthrough role in Sling Blade) stars and co-wrote the screenplay, while now-veteran director Carl Franklin gets his breakthrough picture here. Notables such as Bill Paxton, Michael Beach and Cynda Williams round up the main cast. Equally character-driven as narrative-propelled, One False Move ends up playing much better than you’d expect from its low-profile production and restrained stakes. It’s not quite a neo-noir, but it often flirts heavily with the subgenre. It’s considerably weightier than your usual low-budget thriller, and it had aged rather gracefully into a period piece still perfectly watchable today.

  • Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, September 2022) Considering the let-down that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “Phase Four” has been so far, it’s almost a relief if Thor: Love and Thunder ends up being a surprisingly average entry. It may even be a double relief considering how low the Thor series started, with two of the worse pre-Phase-Four films in the series. Taika Waititi is back as writer-director, but the pleasant surprise of the jokey third instalment had faded a bit—and what’s left often rings false. In keeping with much of Phase Four, Love and Thunder is aggressively insistent about its self-righteousness: Taking down its masculine hero as caricature in the film’s first half, putting all of its chips on showy grrl-power shtick that feels old when overdone (although I did like most of the interactions between the two female leads) and frequently going overboard with the comedy even as it also tries to cram more serious material. The result feels confused yet self-satisfied, dull even when it loudly announces how it’s subverting expectations. Screaming goats are among the film’s lesser annoyances when the film gleefully plays with God-level characters and notions of death and the afterlife… making the various struggles of the characters feel increasingly meaningless. (Not to mention increasingly at odds with more realistic aspects of the MCU, but that’s the harvest of desperately making the MCU as wide-spanning and incoherent as the comic books—if you get the feeling that it’s all sound and fury signifying nothing, well, you’ve arrived at the right location.)  What’s more solid are some of the series regulars: Chris Hemsworth is great as Thor when the film allows him to be, Tessa Thompson remains one of my favourites for a reason, and Russell Crowe makes a bombastic but enjoyable supporting appearance as none other than Zeus. It’s not all good, however: Christian Bale is unrecognizable and unremarkable as a generic villain, while Nathalie Portman seems lost in an underwritten and atonal subplot. Love and Thunder all feels messy and unfinished, which is also an increasing issue with an MCU that has convinced itself that audiences won’t care, and there’s always the next movie to turn things around. Except that if we’re to compare the reputation of the MCU at this end of Phase Four to the one immediately following Endgame, well, maybe they’re not turning things around.

  • The Wild Party (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) There are many reasons why The Wild Party should be an interesting film, but most of them fail to show up on-screen. The subject matter alone is intriguing for film buffs –a party given by a silent film star in order to boost his profile in a world increasingly dominated by sound films. The era being firmly set in 1929, this lavish early Merchant-Ivory production has a sumptuous historical atmosphere and sometimes pokes at Hollywood history: for instance, in using Fatty Arbuckle as the model for its protagonist. The film goes from hope to disillusionment to violence, and no less than Raquel Welch is showcased in the female lead role for obvious purposes. And yet, watching the film, very little of this is used, even less capitalized upon. The lavish atmosphere of the late-1920s jazz era, as filtered through the dirty ugly downbeat 1970s, doesn’t support a compelling narrative. Whatever plot remains in the film is confused between several tones, from comedy to tragedy, Welch is boring (rumour has it she was a terror on the film set and fired nearly everyone, which may explain why the film swerves between tones) and titular wild party feels incredibly sedate. Those looking for a serious take on the end of the silent era will be better served by another viewing of Singin’ in the Rain and those thirsting for a bit of Welch will be better served by almost any other film she appeared in. The Wild Party may be a tempting curio, but it’s far less than what you’d imagine from reading about the premise, cast and crew.

  • Double Trouble (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) So here we have Elvis Presley travelling across Europe while being subject to a number of subplots and… well… that’s it for Double Trouble. By this time in Presley’s film career (this is either the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of his film, depending on whether you count the production or release order), he or his management had long given up on a serious dramatic film persona, and so the film is a bit of an oft-awkward blend of comedy, music and suspense, what with him running around with a young woman targeted by killers and thieves. The blender-mix plotting takes a while to get going (partially to the film’s detriment, although the musical interludes are meant to keep audiences entertained in the interim) and quite a bit of the narrative relies on coincidence—but is any of that really important for the film’s audience? I haven’t seen enough of Elvis’ films to rank Double Trouble with any confidence, but I’m tempted to agree with those fans of his work ranking this in a solid middle-tier—flawed, nowhere near the best, but pleasant to watch and occasionally amusing as well.

  • Miss Firecracker (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Let me be clear on something: I’m well on my way to watch anything featuring Mary Steenburgen. Anything. Automatic recording. Some actresses are appealing and some aren’t on purely idiosyncratic grounds (you’d be surprised to hear me dismiss a few designated “sex-symbols” of Hollywood history), but I think Steenburgen is cute no matter the role, the era or the circumstances. Miss Firecracker, in presenting her as a former beauty queen in small-town Mississippi, seems custom-built for me. Except that Steenburgen isn’t the main character—in fact, she’s more of a supporting antagonist, as she provides an example for the real protagonist to emulate. Except that this protagonist, a young brash unrefined and unfeminine teenager (Holly Hunter in an early exuberant but glammed-down turn), is most definitely not in the same league as her genteel cousin, and that becomes the crux of the film: What worth is a beauty queen title if beauty is such a social concept? Is it worth transforming oneself to fit expectations for such an arbitrary goal? The small-town comedy is seldom overdone (even turning to embarrassment comedy at a crucial junction), but the character studies are convincing. Hunter, reprising a role she inhabited on Broadway, is a bit of an intentional wildcard here, but supporting players such as Tim Robbins (extending the gangly phase of his career) and Alfred Woddard (very cute in braids and round glasses) also do good work. And then there’s Steenburgen, looking regal as the ex-beauty queen despite not quite being on the protagonist’s side. She may have been the single reason why I watched Miss Firecracker, but not the only one explaining why I ended up liking it.

  • Shocker (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) It does not favourably reflect on Shocker that I had almost forgotten I had seen it two years ago, until the gonzo finale finally sparked a recollection. Writer-director Wes Craven is a horror legend, of course, but his filmography isn’t solely composed of solid hits, and so much of Shocker is dull that the film could easily have gone the way of such forgettable titles as Deadly Friend or The Serpent and the Rainbow if it wasn’t for that crazy finale. Consider the snooze-inducing nature of the premise, in which a serial killer executed by electric chair deals with the devil to transform himself into electricity to further torment his son and kill other victims. This is both crazy and stupid—the kind of premise that can go either way. Unfortunately, much of it is surprisingly generic: nothing more than a crazy villain, a plucky teenage protagonist, plenty of serial killings and not much more going on. No wonder I forgot all about that bit of the film—which is most of it. But then! Our killer becomes electricity and rides the airwaves, prodded by our protagonist. He ends up inside the TV! He’s inserted, via crude special effects, into other TV shows! Suddenly, belatedly, Shocker finds its purpose: somewhere between comedy and horror, tackling one late-1980s TV cliché after another as our protagonist is pursued by a murderous villain through a variety of shows and genres. If there had been a way to make this most of the film, then I certainly would have remembered it more clearly. As it is, however, the channel-hopping comes as a ridiculous but fun reward for a particularly uninvolving film. The interest sharply falls off the moment the two leads exit TV-land for a far more conventional finale atop a TV antenna. There are quite a few interesting names here—Mitch Peleggi as the killer, but also actor-now-director Peter Berg as the teenage protagonist, as well as guest appearances by Timothy Leary, Heather Lagenkamp and Tosh Tesh. Shocker, clearly, should have been something much crazier throughout its entire duration: it hints at the potential to outdo the Nightmare on Elm Street series but settles for a variable series of highs and lows. I just hope I remember enough of that final sequence not to record and watch it again in two years.

  • ABBA: The Movie (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) From the moment ABBA: The Movie begins, there’s this sense of deliciousness that only comes from cultural products well past their heyday. Not that ABBA is completely past its prime, of course: Thanks to Mamma Mia! and music that remains infectiously fun decades later for younger generations, the Swedish pop band is still a musical reference. But they have now settled into a comfortable elder-statespeople-of-pop status, not the sharp madness of their most popular years. Their catalogue is finite, their hits are well identified and they no longer play in stadiums. But that was not the story by the time ABBA: The Movie rolled into theatres in the middle of their peak years—this was a nakedly promotional movie, hastily planned to showcase the band in venues other than music concerts. Some movie fans will be shocked to see that it’s written and directed by future frequent Academy-Award nominee of sensitive dramas Lasse Hallström—although ABBA fans will remember that Hallström’s earliest work was directing many of the band’s music videos. The thin storyline has to do with an Australian radio DJ on a quixotic quest to interview the band during its 1977 Australian tour, but the point here is the music and showcasing the band in an appropriately likable light. That it does—a lot of ABBA’s early hits can be heard here, and the film takes it for granted that they are in the middle of superstardom. It’s all quite fun in a slightly ironic way—as a look back at a musical sensation that has aged better than most, or as a mercenary product made with obvious intent. (It also helps that Hallstrom shoots the thing like a music video, meaning that it’s experimental and fun and varied and sometimes slightly crazy.)  ABBA: The Movie is far from the last or the least of such movies hastily put together to take advantage of a musical act’s sometimes-brief moment under the spotlight. It certainly helps that ABBA’s reputation has endured: I’m not sure we’ll be so kind, forty-five years later, to similar artifacts showcasing (say) Justin Bieber.