Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Stone Cold (2005)

    Stone Cold (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2020) As a fan of Robert B. Parker’s crime thriller novels, it was inevitable that I’d eventually make my way to the movie adaptations of his work sooner or later, and Stone Cold has the distinction of featuring a protagonist other than Parker’s Spenser. (Technically, this is the first of nine films in the series but it’s adapted from the fourth novel—don’t worry too much about it.) Paced more slowly than many other police thrillers, it’s focused on Jesse Stone, a grizzled police chief in a small Massachusetts town where nothing usually happens, and who suddenly had to contend with serial killing and the rape of a teenager. For a made-for-TV movie, this one has a rather good pedigree, what with Tom Selleck credibly playing Stone, supported by such well-cast notables as a pre-stardom Viola Davis (as a police officer), Jane Adams (not much of a stretch playing a psycho killer) and Mimi Rogers (with a handful of great scenes as a lawyer who goes after what she wants). Stone Cold is not much of a crime mystery—we already know early on who did it, so it’s best approached as a character study in following a disillusioned, possibly depressive man at the end of his rope. The atmosphere of a small seaside town is amiably portrayed, and the film becomes a somewhat comfortable experience, more remarkable for the ride than the destination.

  • The Uninvited (1944)

    The Uninvited (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) TCM tells us that The Uninvited is one of the first serious ghost stories in movies, as opposed to previous treatments that were either comic or misdirection from very rational causes. It still works quite well—although I’ve always been a sucker for haunted house movies. It introduces characters and dramatic arc in an effectively low-key fashion, as a brother and sister’s joy at purchasing a vast seaside house progressively leads to concern and then to horror at the presence of the supernatural—a potentially deadly ghostly presence. Under director Lewis Allen’s hand, this is all handled through amiable filmmaking competence—not outright horrifying like later supernatural films would become, but certainly dramatic enough to be compelling. There’s some age-inappropriate romance along the way, but hey—drama. If nothing else, The Uninvited is similar to many domestic thrillers of roughly the same mid-1940s period (Gaslight, Suspicion, etc.) There are some pleasant echoes of Hitchcock in here, as well as similarities with the more subtle supernatural thrills of Val Lewton’s films of that time. As befit a supernatural story, there are a few extraneous but still effective special effects late in the film. The script concludes on a comic-relief punchline, but most clearly shows its skill in setting up and then following a few likable characters. The Uninvited has held up pretty well over the years, and its most dated elements are now part of its charm.

  • Tolkien (2019)

    Tolkien (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) J.R.R. Tolkien’s reputation as a major twentieth-century fantasy writer has been secure since the mid-1970s, but it really took the success of The Lord of the Rings’ film adaptation to transform him into a semi-mythical figure, a process that biopic Tolkien works hard to complete. The narrative spends time in English schools, in a pleasantly intellectual courtship and, obviously, in the trenches of World War I, as he undergoes a traumatic experience that would shape the rest of his life. Tolkien intercuts between two timelines, going from the trenches to flashbacks to English academia and spending time with Tolkien and his ill-fated friends. The film’s mythological goals attain a climax of sorts during harrowing battle sequences in which Sauron-like supernatural flair is added to heighten the horrors of war. Tolkien bets its success on transforming the writer into a grander-than-life figure through his wartime experiences, and generally succeeds despite many moments being melodramatically overdone. As is usual for these kinds of origin story films, multiple call-forwards are designed to make the audience feel smart, while at the same time serving simplistic one-to-one equivalents between the life of the author and the most distinctive elements of their fiction. Tolkien is clearly not anything more than a hagiographic, sensationalistic, surface-deep attempt to mythologize someone made grander-than-life by the movies, but it’s going to find an audience.

  • Project: Metalbeast (1995)

    Project: Metalbeast (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) While it sounds like the most generic possible premise for a low-budget horror-SF film, “the military end up creating a bulletproof werewolf as part of a super-soldier experiment” actually turns out to be… well, a dull but not catastrophic film. Writer-director Alessandro De Gaetano hardly delivers anything spectacular, but Project: Metalbeast at least manages the basics. Bulletproof werewolf aside, the story is familiar: military research, super-soldier, unauthorized experiments and a monster rampaging through a contained environment—yes, despite weird script structure issues, you’ve seen the rest of this story already. While Project: Metalbeast avoids embarrassment, it still mechanically goes through the familiar motions of an inane plot that really only exists in genre films. The result is just good enough not to be laughable, but hardly exciting enough to keep anyone interested.

  • Graduation Day (1981)

    Graduation Day (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) First-generation slasher films had a thing about special days (Friday the 13th, Christmas, Saint Valentine, April Fool’s Day, etc.), which makes sense considering how hard they had to distinguish themselves despite their limited story elements, repetitive structure and fierce competition. Unaccountably, Graduation Day landed on… a graduation day as a motif. Much of the plot alongside the murder scenes has to do with a young woman visiting the campus where her sister died, and a string of brutal deaths accumulating during that time. But who cares? It’s a slasher, and not a very good one at that—you get bad acting, low-budget filmmaking, unconvincing effects (which is a plus in slasher terms) and a dull death sequence every ten minutes until the film is over. Try as you might (and most fans won’t), there really isn’t much more to Graduation Day than this. If you like early-1980s slashers, this is for you—otherwise, stay clear.

  • Mystery Train (1989)

    Mystery Train (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Not everyone likes writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s filmography, starting with myself. But compared to what else I’ve seen from him, Mystery Train is somewhere in the middle, perhaps even itching up toward the upper tier—a mixture of experimentalism in keeping with his early oeuvre. Its narrative is built on three stories about around a Memphis hotel and strangers who are in the city for a specific purpose. The first story is about a Japanese couple constantly arguing while visiting Elvis’s legacy. Another is about an Italian widow spending a one-night layover while waiting for her husband’s body to be brought home. Then, finally, a third aimless narrative is about three small-time criminals. It barely comes together at the end, but this is really a film of atmosphere and small moments and isolation and what it feels to be somewhere that’s not home. The playful chronology and repeating motifs may charm viewers. Casting includes such notable as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Steve Buscemi. Jarmusch fans ought to like this, but that’s not guaranteed for those who fall outside his appeal.

  • Corporate Animals (2019)

    Corporate Animals (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Black comedy is exceptionally difficult to do well, and perhaps the best compliment one can pay to the rather average Corporate Animals is that it manages to make a dark comedy seem fun. It all begins as participants to a corporate team-building exercise get stuck in a cave and the hours become days, requiring the survivors to find new sources of food… including the dead guide at their feet. But there’s more, of course, as the female CEO (Demi Moore, getting better and better in mature antagonist roles) has financial failings, sexual indiscretions and overall nastiness lined up against her. The script is clearly from someone who has spent a lot of time on the Internet, as the humour seems to be tapping into pop-cultural material more often than expected and will probably date faster than one would expect. Fortunately, Corporate Animals doesn’t overstay its welcome. The laughs are dark and often guilty, but still effective. They may be one or two characters who aren’t strictly necessary and could have been trimmed. Still, while it’s not exactly remarkable or hilarious, this is a very watchable film—especially if you’re not expecting much.

  • Canadian Strain (2019)

    Canadian Strain (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) I don’t have any interest in weed (legal or otherwise), but I’m certainly interested in Jess Salgueiro, and her lead performance here as an unusually conscientious drug dealer put out of business by the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2018 is one of the reasons why Canadian Strain works so well. A sharp script also crams a lot of fun on a solid framework. Colin Mochrie turns up as a father who doubles as a cautionary tale, with remarkable comic performances from Naomi Snieckus, Nelu Handa and Marcia Bennett in a film with many good female roles. The film is fiercely Canadian even when it cynically tries not to be (by ironically presenting footage from old instructional videos about the RCMP or the public service, for instance), espousing the value of legality when it’s the acknowledged alternative, and dealing with government bureaucracy as the final victory (rather than blowing it up, as could be the case down south). It’s also a film that is definitely of its times, wringing laughs out of social changes and, in doing so, allowing its audience to accept those social changes as well. But more importantly, Canadian Strain is a funny, no-longer-than necessary film, worth a look—especially given how I suspect it will play for years on Canadian Cable TV. And I now definitely look forward to Salgueiro’s next movie.

  • The Group (1966)

    The Group (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) In adapting Mary McCarthy’s bestselling novel to the screen, The Group runs into a few problems, most of them having to accommodate an ensemble cast of eight women, plus the men who usually make trouble in their lives. Even at 150 minutes, it’s a bit of a challenge—especially since the story spans years from 1933 to 1940 and multiple heartbreaks as the eight women don’t quite achieve their idealistic goals after graduation. It’s not exactly the most riveting of premises, but seeing Sidney Lumet’s name as director drew me in, and the rest of the film gradually grew on me. The film is clearly a 1960s feminist drama—the well-educated, intelligent protagonists have dreams of intellectual lives that are gradually ground down by the demands of marriage, children and household. You could pretty much tell the same story about just any graduate class since then. It does feel melodramatic and overdone by today’s standards, but you can feel how daring The Group could have been to a mid-1960s audience. As you’d guess from the premise, men don’t come across particularly well here—and bring much of the drama. With such a large cast, some of the names are familiar: Candice Bergen, Hal Holbrook and Larry Hangman, most notably. Director Lumet manages the action effectively with the succinct script he’s given—among other things, there’s an interesting visual device of typewritten alumni letter updates typed on screen as context. With such a sprawling melodrama, there was bound to be something interesting for everyone—in my case, having a look at a drunken playwright and a literary agency. Nowadays, The Group would be best adapted as a TV series—in trying to retain the novel’s details, the film does rush through a lot and delivers mere bites of drama. Still, it does have an impact.

  • Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

    Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Ignore the “Dirty Dancing” title: Havana Nights is a follow-up/prequel/sequel (with a Swayze cameo) in name only—the film’s production history began with a spec script about the Cuban revolution that was transformed and turned into a teen dance movie where dancing erases all other difficulties. Setting a teen romantic dance musical in Batista’s Cuba is not an unpromising idea, but that’s presupposing that it’s executed with some faithfulness to the era. Alas, a low budget and contemporary music limit the period feel of the historical recreation even if the atmosphere tries to blend nostalgic with modern. But in focusing on a romantic plot and merely keeping the revolution in the background, Havana Nights ends up feeling very limited—something that the abrupt ending doesn’t quite satisfy. John Slattery pops up in a small role that suits him well; otherwise, the film belongs to leads Diego Luna and Romola Garai. But no matter how likable they are, Havana Nights is still a pale rethread of many characteristics of the original Dirty Dancing, even with the welcome Latin atmosphere. Even if you take it as a standalone film, it’s still disappointing.

  • Bad News Bears (2005)

    Bad News Bears (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on TV, June 2020) I’ll admit it—curiosity was my main reason to see the Bad News Bears remake. The original is so deeply stepped into the culture of 1976, from the bicentennial to the fashions to the attitudes and lack of self-censorship, that any attempt at an update would seem doomed from the start. Perhaps the nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s at least competent—Director Richard Linklater knows what he’s doing, and he’s able to give a nice lived-in Austin feeling to the film. Also helpful is Billy Bob Thornton’s grizzled performance as the washed-up, disreputable middle-aged man who takes on the job of trying to coach the worst little league team: even if the remake sands off a lot of edges of the original, much of the character remains intact. Still, this remains familiar formula stuff (even if a more nuanced ending doesn’t take away much)—Linklater for the kids. But when it works, there’s no shame in letting it work.

  • The Hitcher (2007)

    The Hitcher (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) The scourge that was Platinum Dunes remaking 1980s horror movies continues unabated with a new version of The Hitcher. While this new take keeps the near-supernatural psychopathic hitchhiker terrorizing a young couple, it amps up the gore (from an already gory original), gender flips the protagonist (which isn’t as interesting as it sounds) and throws in pop songs that are nearly forgotten thirteen years later. Some things, admittedly, are an upgrade—the budget is bigger, director Dave Meyers’ work is slick, the structure has been retooled to allow more action sequences, it moves the Big Splashy Moment closer to the end of the film where it has more impact, and having Sean Bean as the antagonist is almost always a good idea. Still, this version of The Hitcher is pretty much the same movie—a competent update if you’re favourably inclined, even if the move away from the grindhouse roughness of the original isn’t necessarily an upgrade.

  • Ad Astra (2019)

    Ad Astra (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) On paper, Ad Astra doesn’t look like my kind of movie—moody ruminations in space? Eh. But I was willing to cut it some slack, and the opening moments of the film do set an intriguing tone—this is going to be moody ruminations all the way to the end of the solar system, but if you’re going to do yet another riff on Heart of Darkness, you might as well commit to it and hop on board for the ride. In retrospect, I should have listened to my instinct when I started twitching at the “International Space Antenna” that doesn’t even make a credible upgrade to the idea of a ribbon space elevator, or workers dumb enough not to follow basic OSHA tethering procedures when working in space. Or the wonky gravity that portended an entire movie’s worth of bad gravity. But there are a few things that work, and for far too long I kept clinging to those elements. The visuals are terrific, and the frame-by-frame credibility of the setting is astonishing—they really went for plausible-looking gear here, and even if we could quibble for roughly sixty years about how late-twenty-first century space gear will not look like twentieth-century NASA (especially not that even SpaceX suits don’t look like that), this film plays heavily on visual callbacks to familiar material—all the way to a 2001 HAL room nod later on. I brushed off the small chorus of inner voices pointing out one scientific mistake after another—This is Hollywood, after all. But I did start to have my doubts about the Moon rover pirates. Supposedly raiding US Armed Forces convoys in trips across vast swaths of the lunar surface that seem measured in minutes rather than hours. I brushed this off as filmmakers bending to studio pressure to have cool action visual stuff to liven up an otherwise atmospheric film. But even by that stage, uneasiness had set in. While I do like quite a bit of Ad Astra’s surface sheen (and Liv Tyler, and Ruth Negga, and even Brad Pitt has his moments) and while I was willing to play along with the glum Heart of Darkness structure, I was starting to have my doubts about the whole squishy middle layer of the film between intention and visual execution. But then…then the film thinks that the laws of physics allow for rescue stop on a ballistic trip from the Moon to Mars. Which leads to space baboons. That explodes when depressurized. Jesus Heinlein Christ, why does this movie have to be this stupid??!? This isn’t 1983’s Outland. This is 2020 and STEM career paths are considered important enough to warrant national programs. I’m not that smart and I don’t have an astrophysics degree, but there is something absolutely hopeless when a film that claims to be hard-SF becomes an unceasing carnival of scientific mistakes that I can easily point out. The lack of tracks on the Moon. The gravity mistakes. The chronological errors. The goddamn stupidity of the rocket hijacking sequence in which a character manages to climb a ladder aboard a rocket being launched into orbit. This is not a hard-SF film, even by Hollywood standards. This is an emo daddy-issue drama hideously cosplaying as hard-SF while not really liking any of the characteristics that make the genre. It gets worse at the end, what with a visibly rock-filled Neptune ring and—oh why bother I don’t care anymore. Even the main dramatic thread is cut off unceremoniously—while revolving daddy issues by killing off Daddy is unorthodox, it’s also trite enough to feel as if we’re given a big comic slide whistle at the end of the trip. Fortunately, I had given up on the movie at that point. If there’s an Ad Astra anti-fan club, I’m in.

  • Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer [How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired] (1989)

    Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer [How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired] (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) In the mid-1970s, a Haitian journalist named Dany Laferrière left dictatorial Haiti to establish himself in Montréal, later writing a provocatively titled first novel that he eventually adapted for the big screen. Laferrière has since become a French-language literary superstar (he’s even a permanent member of the prestigious Académie Francaise, essentially cementing his place in the current pantheon of living writers), but his first novel, especially as brought to the screen, is an endearing mixture of outsiders looking at Montréal, a lusty romantic comedy with light fantastic elements, reflections on being a young writer and an excuse to parade a series of great-looking women on-screen as the object of the characters’ lust—it’s summer in Montréal, the women are lovely and there’s our protagonist looking to hook up and complete his novel (not necessarily in that order). There’s quite a bit of pop-philosophic dialogue on gender and racial issues, a pleasant summertime feel and not much plot along the way. For watchers of the French-Canadian cinema scene, there are many actors with early roles here, a cameo by Laferrière himself and a rather comfortable portrait of Montréal in the summertime. It’s not absent of racism toward our protagonists (with Julien Poulain and a young Roy Dupuis as two of the three racist antagonists), but it’s clear where the sympathies of the film lie. Provocative by design (holy moly, that poster!), the film has kept a bit of an edge thirty years later—while the racial daring has abated a bit (French Canadian society is markedly more racially integrated now, although there’s still a long way to go), the gender content is liable to have a few people grinding their teeth today—the women characters here are avowed caricatures down to their names (Miz Literature, Miz Suicide) and only our two main characters have some sort of significant characterization. Still, it’s the kind of film that it wants to be: I found it funny, insightful and perhaps most of all comfortable most of the time as it talks about women, writing and summertime life in the city. Not for everyone, certainly, but still a worthwhile look for many.

  • Louis 19, le roi des ondes [Louis 19, King of the Airwaves] (1994)

    Louis 19, le roi des ondes [Louis 19, King of the Airwaves] (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) The worst thing that can happen to a satirical comedy is to be surpassed by reality, and while Louis 19 is clearly not the same class of film as Network, they do share the distinction of being markedly less funny or outlandish as when they first aired. Back in 1994, the idea that a perfect everyman would be followed 24/7 by a TV crew as they lived their lives was high-concept stuff—twenty-five years later, it smacks of the worst of reality TV or social media influencers. (If the premise sounds doubly familiar to you, it’s because Louis 19 remains one of the rare French-Canadian movies remade by Hollywood as 1999’s Edtv.) At times, you just want to hug the film’s screenwriter and say, “Oh boy, you haven’t seen anything yet.” It doesn’t help that the film is executed as a straightforward low-brow comedy, straight from formula filmmaking as it wrings out the usual complications out of its premise. Martin Drainville is a suitably good nebbish protagonist, while the rest of the film’s cast is (as if often the case with French-Canadian films) a who’s who of Montréal actors at the time: Macha Grenon has another walk-in role as a sex symbol; Benoît Brière has a remarkable supporting role as a cameraman; Dominique Michelle holds a plum comic role, and so on all the way to the cameos (Literary demigod Michel Tremblay as a TV show presenter!) Fortunately, even with the schematic three-act structure and unsurprising plot turns and post-reality TV staleness, Louis 19 is easy enough to watch, with a few smiles along the way. It still works, and we can still understand how it was the biggest-grossing Canadian film of 1994 in both official languages.