Month: October 2022

  • Now and Then (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) There’s an odd sense of serenity that comes in encountering a film that is definitely, defiantly not made for the likes of me. Now and Then is clearly a film aimed at women, as it follows the adventures of four young teenagers in 1970, and the women they became in 1995. In the landscape of 1990s films, it stands out for being made by women as well—with top-line director (Lesli Linka Glatter), writer (I. Marlene King) and producers (Suzanne Todd, Demi Moore) all being female in a decade when such things were much rarer than today.   While the present-day framing device features an impressive list of known names, such as Demi Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Rita Wilson and Melanie Griffith, the film spends most of its time with their younger selves (played by such notables as Thora Birch and Christina Ricci). Further known actors in the supporting roles include Devon Sawa, Cloris Leachman, Hank Azaria, Bonnie Hunt, Janeane Garofalo and (briefly) Brendan Fraser—so, if nothing else, you can play the spot-the-actor game during slower moments. Like a lot of slice-of-life films focusing on a passage from childhood to teenage years, Now and Then plays heavily on nostalgia, domesticity and the thrill of discovering new things. It’s not bad at those things, although there’s a bit of awkwardness at how it schematizes its mandatory elements in a specific order. Tying ordinary life to historical events such as the Vietnam War is not always successful (and may even work against the intention of dealing with timeless themes—this is clearly a Boomer film now). But the serenity I’ve got in discussing Now and Then is that it doesn’t really matter what I think about it—it’s made for women and that’s fine. It has become a better-regarded film now than upon release, and that’s fine too: the biggest lesson Hollywood has learned since 1995 is that, beyond trying to appeal to all four quadrants, it’s perfectly acceptable for movies to target specific audiences—everyone else can go watch their own movies.

  • Black Mama White Mama aka Women in Chains (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) The elevator pitch for exploitation thriller Black Mama White Mama is simple—Pam Grier in a women-in-prison film that turns into an exploitation remake of The Defiant Ones for the second act (what with a white escaped prisoner chained to a black escaped prisoner) that turns into a revolutionary uprising film in the third act. While that does sound interesting, you may want to temper your expectations for the final result, because (this being a low-budget early-1970s film), it’s all meant to be slightly grimy, repellent and downbeat in the end. This doesn’t mean it’s not interesting—the story (co-written by future Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme) plays with themes of female camaraderie in the face of male violence and black power in dealing with white oppressors. Predictably, Grier is a delight to watch here—even if the film falls short of her better-known titles of the early 1970s. Compared with other women-in-prison movies of the same era, it’s clear that Black Mama White Mama has far bigger ambitions—all the way to a revolutionary uprising and sympathy for the downtrodden when it literally breaks out of jail. The visual metaphors that drive the plot may be crude, but they’re still more high-minded than most similar movies. And yet, in the end, it doesn’t quite manage to become fun: part of this has to do with the sleazy aftertaste left by Philippine-shot exploitation filmmaking, the other part being an ending that—in keeping with the tone of the times—refuses the possibility of a happy conclusion. It’s watchable, but don’t expect too much.

  • Zeppelin (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) As much as war offers plenty of great real stories to tell, I’ve long had a fondness for imagined war stories, willing to work within historical fact to present an added jolt of tension from wholly fictional events. At first glance, Zeppelin appears to fit the bill, with its British protagonist infiltrating a WW1 German Zeppelin mission to steal nothing less than the Magna Carta. That’s just ludicrous enough to be interesting, and you can imagine wily screenwriters working in plenty of explosive action sequences, heightened thrills and wild tangent unbothered by the historical records. Alas, those screenwriters must have been missing or working-to-rule on Zeppelin, because the film ends up being a bare-minimum kind of thriller: Michael York (acting like a budget version of James Mason) is ordinary as the protagonist recruited by the British to spy on the Germans, then by the Germans to infiltrate the British. The sequences on the way to the end are slight and disappointing, while the high concept of the film isn’t really fully realized. There are still a few likable things about the result (I mean—making a zeppelin the main character!), but that only works if you don’t expect too much from it.

  • Wind Across the Everglades (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) I’m disappointed by Wind Across the Everglades, but it has a few elements worth mentioning. The biggest, as far as filmography-trackers are concerned, is that it’s a film attributed to Nicholas Ray, a director often seen as one of the greats of his time. Of course, it’s not quite so simple: A brief look at the film’s production history showcases a wild mixture of ego and mind-altering substances in a remote shooting location, perhaps explaining why the result doesn’t quite feel mastered when the putative director didn’t even complete shooting and wasn’t involved in the film’s editing. Wind Across the Everglades occasionally feels bigger than it is, with its copious on-location shooting, and a cast that goes from Burl Ives (great as a poacher) to Christopher Plummer (in one of his earliest roles as a naturalist) to noted burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee and one of Peter Falk’s earliest screen appearances. Then there’s the main character: The Everglades themselves, captured in widescreen technicolour at a time when such portrayals were rare, with an ecological consciousness that seems out-of-place in a 1950s production. All of this makes Wind Across the Everglades interesting—but it doesn’t make it good. There’s quite a bit of missed potential here, but if the stories are to be believed, it’s a half-miracle that the film got completed at all.

  • Secret Ceremony (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) There was a point, maybe fifteen minutes into Secret Ceremony, in which I was still reasonably likely to like the results despite its fluffy cinematography and drawn-out pacing. After all, it has Elizabeth Taylor as a prostitute taken in by a younger woman looking like her dead daughter. It had a young Mia Farrow, thankfully with long hair, acting mysteriously as if there was a big revelation to come. And then, suddenly, there’s Robert Mitchum looking tough and evil. Those elements could have led to something quite good. Alas, that’s not the case—director Joseph Losey seems intent on making fifteen minutes’ worth of preposterous plot last for 110 long minutes, and the entire thing quickly becomes exasperating. There are no real answers here, no narrative certitude, nothing so plebeian as an understandable narrative. It draws itself out through ethereal cinematography, imprecise reference points and casual meanness. All three leads are both miscast and wasted. By the end, I was not even looking for answers any more—I was just glad it was over.

  • Le confessionnal [The Confessional] (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) I’m not normally taken with family dramas, but Le confessionnal has a really effective hook as far as I’m concerned –a dual timeline that flashes back from 1989 to 1952, using the filming of Alfred Hitchock’s I Confess in Quebec City as the anchor for the older timeline. In the present, a young man investigates a family secret; in the past, the answers are revealed even as the city is gripped by the production (and premiere) of a major Hollywood production. Hitchcock even makes an appearance of sorts (played by actor Ron Burrage—with far more famous Kristin Scott Thomas playing his assistant!), and one fascinating scene shows the shooting of a scene from I Confess. Writer-director Robert Lepage has been a fixture of the French-Canadian artistic scene for decades as a playwright, actor and stage director, but Le confessional remains his debut feature. It’s stylized, audacious, and slick in its use of cinematography and editing. Plotwise, it becomes less and less interesting as it goes on—for all of the enjoyable showboating, there’s a sense that the style (even hampered with a low budget) is far more interesting than the slowly disintegrating substance. I still enjoyed it—but then again, I’m an easy mark for meta-movies, playful style exercises and Quebec City playing itself.

  • Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) When I take a look at something like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, I don’t see the slow-burn horror classic that some hail—I see a vexing hodgepodge of grimy 1970s New Hollywood dark and damp cinematography, of todorovian tension needlessly prolonging the arrival of the fantastic in an ambiguous “crazy or not?” first act. The low-budget production values and technical capabilities of the time mean muddy images and underlit cinematography, but the film’s greatest issue is its interminable pacing, inconsistent horror devices not necessarily serving a central premise (the film’s production history suggests that the script was entirely retooled during production) and an aura of anything-goes without much rigour. Much as I can understand why this would appeal to some (the dreamlike atmosphere is often effective), I’m left out in the cold—I don’t like a lot about writer-director John Hancock’s Let’s Scare Jessica to Death except the title, and it blurs quickly into many other similar films of its era.

  • Full Circle [The Haunting of Julia] (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Short-haired Mia Farrow once again deals with child-related horrors in The Haunting of Julia, this time in London grieving over the death of a daughter. Except that her new house has ghosts of its own, and they’re hungry for blood. While I can respect the slow burn of the film, I don’t have to like it—and while being adapted from a Peter Straub novel is a plus, the film moves so slowly that it becomes exasperating more than intense. At least it’s utterly merciless in liquidating what feels like the entire cast of characters—but as every death brings us closer to an ending, maybe it’s not having the intended effect. Farrow isn’t the most compelling of actresses, while the cinematography is the usual 1970s overly dark stuff. While I don’t like the result, I can see how the film has aged nicely—with strong themes supported by the horror elements, The Haunting of Julia is a notch above the usual monster-of-the-week horror. Too bad that the pacing is such an interminable drag.

  • Holocaust 2000 aka The Chosen aka Rain of Fire (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2022) Being pleasantly surprised by a film is not necessarily an endorsement of its quality, especially if the film happens to be far more enjoyable as a trashy exploitation film. Holocaust 2000 was widely derided upon release as a regurgitated blend of apocalyptically-minded thrillers such as The Omen: a strange brew of politically-influential protagonists, religious doomsday prophecy and outright horror tropes. In this case, we have none other than Kirk Douglas as a rich businessman building a nuclear energy plant in the Middle East, and discovering not only that his son is the Antichrist (don’t you hate it when that happens?) but that his new power plant will also hasten the end of the world. A mysterious priest hangs around the edges of the plot long enough to expose a prophecy before being killed, while the film’s crop of death sequences target people who dare criticize the building of the plant. This is rather wild stuff, and the way the film has become a mid-1970s period piece adds quite a bit of interest that may not have been there in the first place. Douglas is as interesting as he was around that time, while the film doesn’t even try to hide that it’s a genre piece—the horror tropes are deployed uncritically, and while much of this is intensely familiar, there is a sure-footedness in its execution that becomes comfortable. No, Holocaust 2000 is not a good film. But it can be a lot of fun when seen in the right frame of mind.

  • North Hollywood (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Turns out that there’s quite a difference between Hollywood North and North Hollywood: If you’re expecting a film about moviemaking in Canada, that’s Hollywood North, whereas if you want a coming-of-age film about a skateboard enthusiast forging his own way after high-school graduation, then North Hollywood it is. This low-intensity drama focuses on a young man trying to decide between pursuing dreams of skateboarding fame, or settling for the college professional route that his father prefers. Assorted subplots include a girlfriend and moving away from his two best friends. Written, directed and produced by Mikey Alfred, the film is inspired by Alfred’s life and you can sense the authenticity of the low-stakes drama. From a rough start, the film eventually becomes interesting even if it’s playing with familiar events. Vince Vaughn has a supporting role as the protagonist’s father, and I’m told that there are plenty of skateboarding cameos in the film’s depiction of the subculture. It’s not meant to be a spectacular film, so North Hollywood will more naturally appeal to those with a certain affection for those kinds of stories.

  • Fanatic (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2022) Please note than in discussing this 2019 made-for-TV film Fanatic, we are not talking about the 2019 John Travolta vehicle The Fanatic, nor the 2017 made-for-TV film FANatic about a stalker taking on a Science Fiction series star. No, this BET-broadcast made-for-TV thriller is about an unbalanced woman who kidnaps a hip-hop star years after a one-night stand left her wanting more. Given that this happens on tour, much of the film also focuses on the star’s wife as she goes around a strange new city tracking down where her husband disappeared. (There are a few other murders in the story, but they’re not really important.)  Denyce Lawton plays the deranged woman (inevitably, a sordid back-story eventually comes up, although we’re not really meant to feel that sorry for her) while Hosea Chanchez plays the music star and spends most of the film restrained while Michelle Mitchenor plays the more active reporter-turned-wife who turns Maryland upside down in looking for her disappeared husband. If you’ve seen anything remotely in the same subgenre, you probably know what to expect, and the low-budget production values don’t put much of a gloss on everything else. I did like the slightly unusual aspect of someone investigating in a city they’re not familiar with, even if this largely turns out to be a justification for a character having hidden justifications for being unhelpful. There’s an incredibly lazy coda that should have been left out—it’s not as if anyone will ever be asking for a sequel. The actresses look good, but that’s not nearly enough, especially when a bit of ambiguous depth to the characters is suggested but not explored—in fact, the added complexity works against the film in how it makes it less fun (and more misogynistic) that it would have been had it stuck to strictly Manichean characterization. In the pantheon of black-cast made-for-TV thrillers, Fanatic is watchable, but barely—it’s simply not fun, and there are many equally terrible low-end thrillers that are a great deal more entertaining to watch.

  • Paura nella città dei morti viventi [City of the Living Dead] (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2022) There was probably a narrative somewhere in the writing of City of the Living Dead, but whatever remains is not immediately obvious to viewers. Playing like an anthology of horror sequences strung together, this is a film that often feels like an incoherent dress rehearsal for director Lucio Fulci’s more successful follow-up The Beyond. The plot, as thin as it is, has a priest opening up the gates of hell and a couple teaming up to close it back again. Unsurprisingly, the effect of having these gates open it to make people behave in violent ways, that provides justification for a series of disconnected gory vignettes. Gory enough that most human anatomy is ignored along the way: I’m pretty sure guts don’t come out of the back of the head—but then again, I’ve lived a thankfully sheltered life. Also, I’m reasonably certain you can’t literally vomit your entire digestive system, but this film is determined otherwise. The vignettes don’t have to make sense, so they frequently don’t: hence an episode with a father drilling through his daughter’s boyfriend’s head, then the film moving on as if, hey, we’ve got other sick stuff to show. It’s all patently ridiculous, but not really funny—Fulci intends this to be disturbing (gusts of maggots blown onto the actors, whee!), but he could have done wonderfully better in an Evil Dead kind of horror/comedy. Alas, the deathly serious City of the Living Dead is not it. I’m not sure any other film ever threw in lazier Lovecraftian references while not being interested at all in anything close to cosmic horror. I’ll say one thing: the result is lively, and not quite as mean-spirited enough to be truly revolting. As such, I don’t feel as if I have to be as harsh on this film as I was on most of the cannibal horror subgenre—I don’t like it, but I don’t completely loathe it either and that’s a significant step up from most circal-1980 Italian horror cinema.

  • The Devil You Know (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) No one should feel guilty turning off The Devil You Know after fifteen or twenty minutes—suffering from a particularly slow and uninvolving start, this thriller initially feels as if it was made for TV broadcast, assembled from low-end components and put together without any specific flair. The low-budget and humdrum execution persist throughout, but at least the plot picks up sometime after the first half-hour, and the ethical dilemma of the protagonist becomes clearer: Stick to a life of crime to get along with his family, or make a clean break with his brother and help the police right a terrible wrong? An older, heavier Omar Epps stars as the ex-con trying to figure out his loyalties, while Michael Ealy gets a good turn as a dogged investigator who knows something is up with the family. The only question is whether it “gets better” enough to justify a viewing or not—The Devil You Know remains a small-scale crime thriller that doesn’t quite master its material nor how to present it. There are sudden unjustified jolts of violence, and the ending suddenly turns melodramatic around the family table. (Perhaps the funniest thing of this otherwise grim film is how one new girlfriend is sent packing from the family meal right before the final moments of the film—a clear signal to viewers that things are going to get serious now.) It’s a good thing that the film improved as it went along, because otherwise it would have been a complete pan. As it is, The Devil You Know barely makes it above water.

  • My Dream is Yours (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) It’s while digging into the lower tiers of Technicolor musicals that we find My Dream is Yours—a high-profile effort that nonetheless fails to distinguish itself. The plot will seem very familiar. Not necessarily because it’s a remake, but because it reuses very familiar elements that pop up all over the musical landscape: the frantic impresario, the new discovery, the self-destructive star, the peek at entertainment industries of the era… and so on. Properly mixed, those elements can be fun—but My Dream is Yours turns in the strict minimum and hopes we won’t mind. A few things keep the result from being overly bland—most notably acting performances from the dependable Doris Day, Jack Carson, Adolphe Menjou, S. Z. Sakall and Eve Arden. Then there’s a fantasy sequence that brings Bugs Bunny into a classic musical, which does remain noteworthy by itself. Finally, there’s the direction from veteran Michael Curtiz. The problem, though, is that while everyone does what’s expected of them, there’s no spark to the proceedings—everything is even slightly clumsy (Curtiz, how could you?) on the way to the kind of ending meant to be satisfying even when it isn’t. The touch of bitter realism of failed dreams is not bad, but it feels slightly out of place in a mode that didn’t know what to do with such elements. Stuck in the awkward middle between good and bad, My Dream is Yours will work if you’ve seen everything better in its principals’ filmography, but it’s not much of a highlight on its own.

  • Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Hmm. As much as the first Cleopatra Jones is one of my favourite exemplars of blaxploitation, its sequel Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold doesn’t reach anywhere close to the impact of the first film. In the time-honoured tradition of making sequels bigger and foreign, this one sends Cleopatra Jones to Hong Kong, where she has to rescue two kidnapped agents and defeat a drug lord. It’s colourfully photographed on location and benefits from the co-production with the legendary Shaw Brothers, depends on Tamara Dobson’s charisma and flashy outfits… but fails to ignite. The script is dull and by-the-numbers when seen shortly after the over-the-top nature of the first film and its antagonist—Stella Stevens does her best as the villain but doesn’t have enough substance to be effective. There’s definitely some local colour, including a trip in the vicinity of the Walled City, but the character of Cleopatra Jones looks out of place in Hong Kong. Some of the action beats are rather good (thanks to the local filmmaking crew putting together great kung fu sequences) and the film, amazingly enough, easily passes the Bechdel test. But there are annoyances—Dobson has some overdone makeup and never once shows her hair throughout the film—and while these choices don’t make the film unwatchable, they help in making it a lesser experience. That ending sequence, in which they utterly trash an expansive casino set, is one good final set piece, though.