Month: October 2022

  • The Gabby Petito Story (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) There is definitely something a little bit dirty, a little bit guilty in watching made-for-Lifetime The Gabby Petito Story barely a year after the much-publicized tragic real events it depicts. My interest wasn’t so much in the match between film and recent news, but in seeing why actress Thora Birch thought this was a good project in which to make the feature-film directing debut. I’m all for actors turning directors, but many of them usually pick some kind of passion project or actor-friendly arthouse drama as their calling card—not a nakedly commercial project ready-made for criticism of exploitation. I’m ready to accept “desperation” as an answer—if you’re looking for a project and something juicy like this lands on your lap, well, why not? On the other hand, then there’s you being on the hook for a film made in a rush and ripe for justified criticism. The script, for instance, does not deal in subtleties in offering its interpretation of the murder-suicide at the heart of the story: There’s an incredibly familiar arc to the way a storybook romance turns sour when the male goes off his meds and becomes increasingly controlling. The woman can do no wrong in this scenario, which becomes a fascinating point when the film repeats known documented statements from Petito and her husband, and those statements don’t exactly match the more simplistic fictionalization of events we’ve just seen. The exploitation angle of The Gabby Petito Story I’m jaded about and will let slide—but there’s no mistaking the low-end nature of the production with its unpolished actors (with Birch briefly showing up), humdrum cinematography and sometimes-awkward staging. In the end, my curiosity about Birch’s directorial prowess being satiated, I’m back to my initial discomfort at having watched the whole thing. Many serious critics will tell you that all cinema is voyeuristic, but some of it feels worse than the rest.

  • The Wagons Roll at Night (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Humphrey Bogart’s pre-stardom years are sometimes a wild ride. Back before Warner Brothers figured out that a tough-guy persona was ideal for him, he could show up as a mad scientist, a glib-talking boxing promoter or, in the case of The Wagons Roll at Night, as a travelling carnival owner. In this melodramatic tale, he’s the mean and cruel taskmaster who welcomes a naïve young guy as replacement lion tamer, and he gets increasingly vexed once the young man starts pining after his sister. If you’re thinking that lions are a very cinematic way of justifying violent scenes… you’re absolutely correct. (Some of the footage feels authentically dangerous.) Seeing Bogart mauled by a lion is good fun (nominally a spoiler, but, come on, it’s the film’s biggest selling point)—the rest of the film, not so much. It’s not bad, it’s just quite familiar, with Eddie Albert being good as the naïve kid, and the attractive Sylvia Sidney playing the cynical carnival girl—outshining Joan Leslie as an ingenue. Watchable and with a few moments of interest, The Wagons Roll at Night comes across as a bit too much of a routine melodrama for the times, but one that sustains modern viewing—especially if you’re interested in Bogart’s role right on the cusp to his stardom.

  • Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Oh wow—Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine popped up on the TCM schedule as the only film in their “Stars of the month: Robots” monthly feature that I hadn’t already seen, and I’m glad I made a point out of recording it. It’s the kind of bright, funny, energetic film that could only come out of the mid-1960s, it’s dated and a delicious heap of pure fun. Focused on the concept of female robots designed to seduce and rob rich men, the film happens to star Vincent Price as the mad scientist controlling the robots, Frankie Avalon as a secret agent investigating the fembots, Dwayne Hickman as a swindling target and the beautiful Susan Hart as an android designed to break hearts and empty bank accounts. This being said, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is not big on plot—the focus here is on jokey moments and one absolutely terrific chase sequence in and around mid-1960s San Francisco. Thanks to veteran director Norman Taurog, the film is broad goofy low-budget comedy whose misogyny is so pronounced that it becomes satirical. I liked it a lot: it’s a poppy piece of cinema with unexpected delights (including a rather amazing Claymation credit sequence with a title song by The Supremes!), an incredibly carefree atmosphere, Connery-era James Bond spoofing, and a premise that links to Austin Powers. I’m repeating myself, but the San Francisco car chase here is utterly terrific, and only finds an equivalent in What’s Up Doc? a decade later. It’s great good fun, despite a bit of a middle lull and some social assumptions that are bound to offend modern viewers, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine nearly ranks as a must-see if you’re interested in 1960s cinema: it captures something very specific about the pre-hippie clichés of the decade.

  • The Short History of the Long Road (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) There are movies you’re looking forward to watch and then there are… the others. The plot summary of The Short History of the Long Road is not particularly compelling—something about a young woman learning to live on the road after some unspecified strategy. It gets much worse fifteen minutes into the film, as a nomadic daughter/father team is devastated by the unexpected death of the older man, leaving a teenage girl to fend for herself without a fixed address, without formal schooling and without any way to find her missing mother. If you want to shut off the film after its dispiriting conclusion, well, I won’t blame you. But if you stick around, the film does get more engaging. For one thing, Sabrina Carpenter has that plucky underdog appeal that goes a long way in getting us to stick around to see what is going to happen. For another, Danny Trejo shows up in a heartwarming role. Finally (but this is something that you’ll only figure out once the film is over), nothing really terrible happens to the heroine after the death of her father—it’s tough going and not always fun but the heroine doesn’t get abused, dismembered or sold into slavery. This is, in other words, a bit of a dramatic comedy but it’s not always obvious in the moment. Writer-director Ani Simon-Kennedy carefully doses her effect and goes for small moments rather than big gestures—there’s a tricky sequence late in the film about the character not quite finding what she’s looking for that’s rather well handled, and that steadiness is emblematic to how the entire film is delivered. The Short History of the Long Road is not going to end up on my year’s end favourite list, but it exceeded my low expectation and made a mild fan out of a skeptic, which is not inconsiderable.

  • Morbius (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, October 2022) As a middle-aged film fan with an active critical history going back to the 1990s, it’s fun to see younger generations periodically designate a new movie as the worst of all time, ready to be bashed as the latest critical piñata. Not everyone can tell tales of watching Battlefield Earth in theatres, after all, and trying to argue that the real “worst movies of all times” are unwatchable heaps of garbage that never got any theatrical distribution is missing the point: Famous bad movies are cultural references. They’re campfires around which we can calibrate the notion of criticism; they’re touchpoints that act as communal shorthand. In other words, they’re more important than you think. Morbius’ accession to the stygian depths of consensus opinion has been interesting, and it fits within a film-business framework dominated by bland-and-competent superhero movies coldly calculated in boardrooms. It’s almost a relief to see one come out as misshapen and irritating—the entertainment-industrial complex is not perfect, after all, and duds happen despite everyone’s incentive to do well. The problems with Morbius are numerous and sad rather than entertaining. Picking a character that acts like a pretentious 1990s goth teenager was weird enough in the first place, and having him portrayed by as obnoxious an actor as Jared Leto compounded the problem. Fitting everything in a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe that no one really wants is another issue (the least said about the mid-credit sequence the best), and using a lame script that would have felt dated in 2000 (vampires as heroes, wow!) is just hammering the stake further in. The problems go down to some baffling individual scene (sure, the shaking-the-kitty-litter-box thing is unexplainable, but what about the physics of flying ahead of a subway car?) except that there really aren’t that many of those gems—in the end, Morbius is just thuddingly dull. No wonder the critical derision about the film was all about imagining a better movie all the way to the immortal “It’s Morbin’ Time!”—I knew beforehand that line was not in the film and I still missed it. So, hate Morbius all you want, new movie fans—it deserves it, and its roasting provides a bit of soul-warming reassurance that we’re not just accepting all-encompassing cinematic universes uncritically.

  • The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) As actors age into senior-citizen status, some retire, some settle for steady character work, and a few are lucky enough to become respected elder role models of their profession. Then there’s the strange case of Nicolas Cage (age 58), whose filmography encompasses everything from teenage heartthrob roles to serious Oscar-winning performances to huge popcorn commercial hits to a slew of mercenary straight-to-DVD roles to (now) an eclectic selection of unconventional parts in independent films. Cage has become more than an actor—he’s a meme, a folk figure, a remarkable eccentric and even an inspiration for actors trying to go beyond mere realism thanks to his nouveau shamanic style. Now we have Cage leaning into his grander-than-life reputation in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a film in which he plays an idolized actor also named Nicolas Cage. Movie-Cage’s movies are the same as real-Cage, but movie-Cage is not real-Cage as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the actor’s life will quickly understand. Much of the narrative revolves around Cage getting a lucrative gig to show up at a mega-fan’s birthday party and hang out for a few days in a sumptuous Mediterranean villa. Amazingly enough, the superfan is played by none other than notorious scene-stealer Pedro Pascal, meaning that we get a lot of fun out of seeing those two exuberant actors playing off each other. Tiffany Haddish is surprisingly tolerable (and looks great!) as a CIA agent in a somewhat more serious register than usual. Cage completists will have fun spotting all the mentions and homages to past hits in Cage’s filmography. As self-aware meta-movies go, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a treat, going all the way to hailing the greatness of Paddington 2. It’s perhaps not quite as absurd nor as outrageous as it could have been (in the end, it feels a bit like Adaptation.) but it’s a smooth watch largely due to its depiction of the growing friendship between the two male protagonists. It’s cool that Cage can now look at his filmography and see a title that celebrates him—but I suspect that we still have quite a few great performances of his in store.

  • Greased Lightning (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) There are a lot reasons why Greased Lightning should be a much better film than it is. It features Richard Pryor in a dramatic role, Pam Grier and Beau Bridges in supporting turn, a re-creation of historical rural stock racing, the inspiring true story of a black stock car racer fighting against discrimination, and direction from a black filmmaker (Michael Schultz) at a time when such projects were rare. In theory, the film should be good—or at least entertaining. In execution, however, it sputters and falters frequently. What should be straightforward entertainment with a big chunk of anti-discrimination drama becomes disjointed and unsatisfying, with a big time jump that takes almost all of the fun out of the film. Pryor is rather good here—if you weren’t aware of his career in comedy, I’m not sure you could guess from the rest of the film. Alas, Grier doesn’t get much more to do except play the girlfriend, and while the recreations of 1950s small-town stock racing can be fun, the film fumbles the ball in depicting how that led to 1960s NASCAR success. (Small-town Southern racism is also hard to take at time.) A few good moments of racing entertainment are brought down by a film that hasn’t overcome the basic pacing issues of sticking to a true story and stops at the minimum required to be worth a look. Greased Lightning could and should have been much better—but it’s not, and that probably explains why the film remains a curio decades later.

  • Knute Rockne All American (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) I have already mentioned that I don’t get Americans’ fascination with football, especially when it goes beyond sports viewership and jumps into something akin to an abusive religious cult. Knute Rockne All American isn’t quite there, but there’s a serious amount of worship at play here, and the film had an oversized impact on later political discourse. Clearly enough, it’s about the life of college football player-turned-coach Knute Rockne, who came to define much of American college football from 1910 (first playing year) to 1930 (last coaching year). While apparently restrained by the standards of 1940, the film plays like a cavalcade of hagiographic clichés today, so much does it venerate its subject, his college and the institution of football. Ironically, this film is now best remembered for a bit line from a bit player—except that this was future-President Ronald Reagan having a deathbed scene in which he implored fellow players to “win one for the Gipper,” a line that was dredged up from the archives of Hollywood history when Reagan became a preeminent national politician. The big surprise for any twenty-first century viewer is how little time Reagan has in the film—and how that line is not part of the climax. Add to that the perplexing matter-of-fact deification of Rockne, Notre Dame and football in general and the film becomes almost alien to anyone who’s not an American.

  • Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) It was both necessary and a challenge to make Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, a documentary about Val Lewton, a legend in the field of classic Hollywood horror films. Lewton was, on the one hand, a writer-producer behind some of the greatest, still-effective horror films of the 1940s: Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Seventh Victim alone would be an impressive filmography for anyone, but his was much longer than that. The challenge comes in that Lewton was apparently never captured on film—we have still pictures but no record of his voice. This feeds into the documentary’s assertion that Lewton acted in the shadows as a writer and producer, but not as higher-profile director or actor. Nonetheless, as narrator Martin Scorsese tells us, Lewton leaves behind quite a legacy, and a body of work that approaches auteur status despite never having been the credited director. While the film itself is average in terms of style, the substance proves to be interesting. We are not exploring an actor or a director, but a more elusive kind of Hollywood insider, and perhaps a far more powerful one. After his string of horror hits, Lewton’s biography takes a sadder turn as his career quickly flames out after WW2. He dies not much later at the early age of 46 after two debilitating heart attacks. In some ways, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows complements and contextualizes the body of work Lewton leaves behind, and humanizes a figure that may not be of obvious interest to anyone not deeply interested in the history of horror films.

  • The High Cost of Loving (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) The very distinctive Jose Ferrer directs and stars in 1950s American Dream satire The High Cost of Loving, another film that proves that the people of the semi-mythical 1950s were not blind to the flaws of the emerging post-WW2 social order. Here, Ferrer plays an upwardly mobile executive who experiences turmoil at work even as his wife announces that she’s pregnant. There’s a little bit of farce, as the protagonist convinces himself that the company is about to fire him, decides to go out with a flamboyant gesture… then has to take it back once it turns out he’s instead being groomed for a significant promotion. Ferrer is an intriguing director—the first few minutes of the film are entirely without dialogue, as a married couple lovingly goes through their familiar morning routine without even having to talk. Gena Rowlands has her screen debut here in the role of the protagonist’s wife. The High Cost of Loving is not a particularly big movie, but I’m not sure you could call it unambitious: in its own quiet way, it highlights the building neuroses and anxieties of the average suburban husband/executive quite efficiently, and it clearly joins other 1950s satires that remind twenty-first century audiences that the decade wasn’t nearly as docile and unquestioning as we now think it was.

  • Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) No matter how you slice it, it’s simply not possible to be all that happy about Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter: its technique is scattershot, its stars (member of the now-forgotten band Herman’s Hermit) run on name recognition more than acting talent, its rhythm is affected by musical numbers and its script feels like a dozen different things stapled together. But as is often the case, even this rather not-good effort gives off a jolt of Swingin’ Sixties contact high: the costumes and bright cinematography alone are worth an astonished look, and the film takes place in a kind of hyperreality that only makes sense with its late-1960s production date. If nothing else, the entire thing is meant to be an amiable, careless, and a huge publicity vehicle for the band. At least you’ll hear a few of their hits. Otherwise, stays for the portrait of what it was like to be young and full of energy in Sixties England.

  • The Man in Grey (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) For a distinctive actor who hit Hollywood stardom in the 1950s and kept going until the late 1970s, it’s sometimes sobering to realize that James Mason’s career began much earlier in Great Britain, with his first film roles dating back to the mid-1930s. The Man in Grey isn’t quite that early in his career, but it shows Mason in a villainous role—one of the distinctive aspects of a career in which his characters could straddle the line between good and evil (or at least a very rough kind of good against a refined form of evil). It’s not, in most aspects, that good of a movie: It’s a period costume melodrama, with piques of salacious material in-between more standard fare. (Also: a lot of blackface. And slurs.) It’s sometimes fun, but its respectability only comes from how old it is. Still, Mason fans will be delighted to see him at work as a terrible cad in a film that revelled the bad actions of its characters.

  • The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Colour and Vincent Price remain the best assets of The Masque of the Red Death, one of many Edgar Allen Poe adaptations spearheaded by Roger Corman. Despite Corman’s reputation as an infamously low-budget exploitation producer, he directs this film and manages something quite enjoyable. Working with a bigger-than-average budget, he’s able to put together a credible representation of a fantasy world where the local lord promises his vassals protection from the plague, but doesn’t realize that the evil is already in the castle. Much of the action takes place in a large ballroom filled with colourful costumes and several extras—but none more interesting than a pleasantly overacting Vincent Price. The final moments of the movie are great fun. Corman hasn’t directed a better film. The result is still quite watchable, especially if you have a fondness for Price in full-ham mode.

  • Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Another entry in the overly-long-titled psycho-biddy thriller subgenre of the late 1960s and early 1970s, latecomer entry Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? features no less than Shelley Winters as a rich demented American heiress living in a spooky English mansion, the plot borrowing a lot from Hansel and Gretel. A lot. The effect is more comforting than disquieting—at least for those psycho-biddy thriller fans used to the worst and expecting as much. There’s an innate silliness to the result that makes it approach a comedy at times, with Winters being a touch too convincing at playing psychopathic biddies. Director Curtis Harrington has some fun playing with audience loyalties and delving into the gothic possibilities of his sets. Arguably best positioned as late-night entertainment, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? may not be all that good, but it is good fun.

  • Sweethearts (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) If you want to cut straight to the conclusion, let’s just say that Sweehearts’ most distinguished characteristic is to have been shot in colour at a time when such productions were rare. (It counts as MGM’s first full-colour musical.)  Sure, you can also watch it to see the frequent Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald couple: after a number of historical features, this was their first film set in then-modern times. Still, there’s not a lot to this musical comedy: jumping from Broadway as its starting base, the film describes a couple attempting to reconcile work with their private lives, and derives much of its comic value from having them attempt an escape to Hollywood to the dismay of their self-interested entourage. It’s not that memorable: despite some flashy self-conscious colour cinematography (including a runway sequence for the very cute MacDonald), the plot is serviceable and the songs are forgettable—perhaps even annoying if you don’t like the Eddy/MacDonald operetta style. Watch Sweethearts in black-and-white, and there’s not much left there.