Author: Christian Sauvé

  • The Wife (2017)

    The Wife (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) It’s about time that I admit that for all of my so-called progressive sympathies, there’s always going to be a core of reactionary (I’d argue contrarian) impulse somewhere in my system. At its worst, The Wife toys directly with that core, although I’m not sure how much of my reaction is about the movie, and how much of it is due to the acclaim it got as a Grand Statement. But let us summarize: a 90-minute-long extension of the old “behind any great man there’s a great woman” saw, The Wife stars Glenn Close as the long-suffering wife of a celebrated American writer who learns that he’s just won the Nobel prize for literature. The trip to Stockholm proves more dramatic than expected once the façade is stripped away: It turns out that he’s a serial philanderer and that she’s been writing most of the books. I am, going back to my contrarian core, getting a bit tired of the wave of works going out of their way to bash achievements from white men by revealing (egad) how the achievements were, really all about some oppressed minority doing all the work. At this point, it feels like clichés and lazy storytelling, and so the most interesting bits of The Wife don’t simply show her doing the work, but hint at a complex relationship in which husband and wife both have something that only the other can fulfill despite there being only one name on the cover. An exploration of that would have been a bit more nuanced and interesting than the rather trite ending that follows. Still, despite my contrarian knee-jerk reaction, I did like the film a lot—Close is quite good in the lead role (she did get an Oscar nomination out of it) and Jonathan Pryce does play the crusty old veteran writer with some panache. What’s more, Christian Slater has a plump supporting role. I am a sucker for movies about writers, and this one does have some fun with that conceit, even though most sequences about women’s writers do feel on the nose. I would have liked The Wife more if it had just gone off its high horse and started poking and the complexities of its own premise. But that would have led to a far less message-driven movie, right?

  • Rumor Has It… (2005)

    Rumor Has It… (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2020) If you’re willing to concede that Rumor Has It has more to do with the way people behave in Hollywood films than in real life, then it’s not quite as terrible is it looks in the first place. Ill-conceived from the start as a “sequel” of sorts to The Graduate, it sets itself up for failure early on, as it clearly doesn’t have what it takes to fulfill its ambitions, nor the guts to actually do anything truly transgressive. Instead, director Rob Reiner (working from a script by Ted Griffin, the first director of the film, fired early in the production) plays everything like a frothy meaningless romantic comedy. It’s a dumb comedy with puppet-like characters in many ways—the premise simply isn’t believable, and the characters seldom behave like real people. This is not necessarily a bad thing in the world of romantic comedies—but it is here, as the characters go for wild speculations rather than anything like realistic conclusions. (i.e.: if someone is born barely nine months after their parent’s wedding, do you speculate about honeymoon whoopee or leap to the conclusion that the mom had an affair?) If Rumor has It has a quality, it’s probably a cast with several familiar names—But it has its limits. Kevin Costner was still in the phase where he could convincingly play older romantic leads, but Jennifer Anniston is unusually bland in the lead role. Supporting characters include Richard Jenkins, Mark Ruffalo, Christopher MacDonald, Mena Suvari and a rather good late-career turn from Shirley MacLaine—who does give Costner a scene worth a look. Alas, the rest of Rumor Has It is a disappointment. It’s not as funny as it thinks it is and it’s afraid to be eccentric while playing with eccentric elements: By the time it ends, the lead couple is so exasperating that the climactic reunion feels like a bad idea.

  • Through Black Spruce (2018)

    Through Black Spruce (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) There’s something deliberately unsatisfying in Through Black Spruce that makes it hard to like, no matter how much any reviewer would like to support First Nations filmmaking. I suspect that much of this has something to do with adapting a novel to the big screen—the storytelling flaws of the source seem built into the unfocused result. Part of the plot is about a young Cree woman investigating the disappearance of her twin sister in Toronto; the other part is a tale of harassment and revenge on a reserve. Alas, the Toronto segments never lead anywhere (why raise a mystery if it’s not going to be resolved?) and the reserve subplots are both hazily motivated and arbitrarily developed. The raw look at the relationship between the reserve and the big city is promising but leads nowhere—ultimately, the admirable effort and provocative details don’t amount to a compelling story. While handsomely directed by Don McKellar, one of the crown princes of Canadian cinema, and benefiting from a compelling lead performance by Tanaya Beatty (plus Graham Greene in a supporting role), Through Black Spruce seems determined to make itself hard to appreciate, by insisting on a markedly less interesting subplot and scrupulously avoiding any kind of resolution.

  • A Walk in the Clouds (1995)

    A Walk in the Clouds (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) Charming, dull, ordinary, overwrought—all of these things are true about A Walk in the Clouds, a post-WW2 historical romance that travels to the vineyards of California’s Napa Valley for a bit of a romance featuring a lovely Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and… Keanu Reeves?!? Yeah. Director Alfonso Arau manages to make the slight and melodramatic script look better by shooting a film with luminous cinematography to cleanly evoke an idealized portrait of the time, a conclusion that also applies to the actresses and their rather wonderful wardrobe. (Debra Messing is no slouch in a short but thankless role.) Reeves is earnest but too limited for the role—although, like many not-so-good actors, he sounds much better in the French dub. Despite a preposterous ending, A Walk in the Clouds is easy viewing, a bit dull at times but still comfortable material considering that there’s never any doubt as to how it’s all going to be resolved.

  • Anna’s Storm aka Hell’s Rain (2007)

    Anna’s Storm aka Hell’s Rain (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) No, just no. Maybe you will someday spot this film in a listing somewhere and think, “a mayor saving her small town from a deadly rain of meteors? That sounds interesting!” but no. It is not. Keep in mind that Anna’s Storm is a low-budget straight-to-video 2000s movie with the effects, acting, directing and cinematography appropriate for its class. In other words: it’s terrible, it always looks terrible and every time someone says or does something, you’ll be reminded that it’s terrible. Special effects may sometimes suggest that any movie can now recreate the 1970s disaster film genre, but that’s an illusion—you need a lot more to succeed, including basic filmmaking competence. Director Kristoffer Tabori is doing his thing here—another in a long list of undistinguished and terrible TV films. The premise makes absolutely no sense, with several insistent waves of meteors repeatedly hammering the same town over several minutes/hours—in complete disregard for physics. But the rest of Anna’s Storm isn’t any better. It all becomes tiresome in the way most of these films become. Just no.

  • Boksuneun naui geot [Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance] (2002)

    Boksuneun naui geot [Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance] (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) The good news about Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is that it’s the first in writer-director Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy (which also features the much-better Oldboy and Lady Vengeance), and it’s an intricately plotted, carefully detailed, unusually well-directed film. The bad news is that never mind its objective qualities—I disliked it intensely, even bordering on loathing. Your mileage may vary because mine is based almost entirely on the film killing off a young girl as a mid-film plot point. I just can’t deal with that kind of cruelty right now. Not that things really get better after that, because Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance steadily becomes a ludicrous high-drama filled with gruesome and grotesque violence far beyond what the story needed. It’s certainly interesting in some ways, as the director works obliquely and never quite approaches matters in conventional ways to show what’s going on. But that doesn’t excuse the dirtiness left by the film—by the time nearly everyone dies at the end, the only judgment is that they all deserved it.

  • Sex Kittens go to College (1960)

    Sex Kittens go to College (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Don’t get your hopes up, filmgoers: Not only is Sex Kittens go to College’s title better than the film itself, it’s also better than anything you could expect from an early-1960s sex comedy. It’s a dumb film about a smart girl, meaning that Hollywood’s flawed conception of intellectualism is also in full deficient display. There’s evidence of cheap lazy filmmaking everywhere: the production values are so low that the film feels like a TV show; a robot and a computer are used as magical devices; insistent sound effects and music highlight just how little is left to subtlety; and a grimacing monkey is obviously the cherry on top of that disappointing sundae. The only highlight here is Mamie von Doren, who plays the brainy blonde-with-a-stripper-past than anchors the film—she’s not that good (she feels like the Monroe duplicate that she was known for), but she’s better than most of the other actors, and has a vivaciousness missing from the rest of the cast. While the title of Sex Kittens go to College and the promise of a cute innocent early-1960s sex comedy may entice you, keep your expectations as low as you can manage them—there’s a lot less to this film that can be suggested.

  • Motel Hell (1980)

    Motel Hell (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) Bleh. The problem with comedies about terrible things is that they’re still about terrible things, and so even if Motel Hell pretends to be a comedy about psychopathic hillbilly cannibals, it’s still a film about psychopathic hillbilly cannibals. It is more gross than funny and it’s not particularly funny in the first place. The only thing worth liking here is seeing and hearing Wolfman Jack in a supporting role. Otherwise, the low production values and dubious sense of humour about horrifying matters severely limit the appeal of Motel Hell. Never mind checking out—it’s better not to check in in the first place.

  • The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955)

    The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) It’s hard to resist the appeal of a title like The Man Who Loved Redheads (I feel called out), but there is something quite unusual about the film. It’s about one man’s life-long obsession with a specific woman (a redhead, obviously), so much so that, even as a married man, he keeps having affairs with women who remind him of her. Where it gets interesting is that the four women he woos over the film’s decades are all played by Moira Shearer. What’s more, the film has a very present narrator (one who asks questions to passersbys, and who tells us that there’s nothing to know if he doesn’t know) as well as a sense of wry humour that gets pretty funny at times, even despite the film’s frequent slow patches and immoral centre. Amusingly enough, one of the characters played by former ballerina Shearer is… a ballet dancer, which gives director Harold French an opportunity to stage an out-of-place ballet paying homage to her previous role in the classic The Red Shoes. Despite running the risk of turning into a shaggy dog story, The Man Who Loved Redheads’ ending is interesting from a narrative perspective — as a way to exorcise the protagonist’s obsession but also to show how meaningless it was.

  • Mil gritos tiene la noche [Pieces] (1982)

    Mil gritos tiene la noche [Pieces] (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) There were a lot of slasher movies in the early 1980s, and most of them were unmitigated garbage, ripping off a trend with so little distinction that they become undistinguishable from one another. Pieces is one of those—yet another slasher set on campus, this time with a chainsaw as the showpiece murder weapon. Multiple clichés abound, with perhaps the only thing distinguishing this film from so many others being the stronger-than-usual giallo influence (the film is Italian, but set on an American campus with American actors) leading to a result that’s slightly crazier and self-aware than many other similar films. Pieces certainly doesn’t waste any time nor subtlety in establishing and maintaining the psychosexual aspect of the killer’s motivations—killing your mom with an axe because she threw away your porno puzzle does seem excessive, but I’m clearly not the kind of person who would write a slasher in the first place. The film ultimately veers toward body horror rather than “simple” kills, but the constant misogyny is even more pronounced than usual for slashers, and the execution is really nothing worth noticing. Pieces can be of historical interest if you’re looking to perfect any understanding of early-1980s slashers and their hybridization with giallo, but otherwise it’s not worth it.

  • Volition (2019)

    Volition (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) I do believe in being a little bit more indulgent with low-budget genre films—they’re not competing on the same level as the blockbusters, and the good ones try to excel within their own ambitions, according to the means at their disposal. So it is that Canadian low-budget science fiction film Volition does start with the clever concept of having someone see flashes of their future and act accordingly. Although our protagonist, who has become a small-time criminal, believes that there’s nothing he can do to avoid the flashes he’s shown. Never mind the “huh, he never seriously tried to change it?” angle—elementary movie literacy is enough to have a good idea of where this is all going. Once the shooting and the dying start, our protagonist gets additional motivation and revelations. Unfortunately, Volition becomes a far more standard time-travel film once it leaves the carefully restrained clairvoyance angle behind and starts meddling with bigger ideas. Then it becomes another time-travel thriller about fighting predestination, and retreats in pretty much every time-travel cliché in the book—albeit with a moderate amount of wit along the way. I wish it all led to a better or more remarkable result, but Volition can’t escape its own slight disappointment: It’s not bad, but there’s less to impress here than was suggested at first.

  • … E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà [The Beyond] (1981)

    … E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà [The Beyond] (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) While American horror movies of the early 1980s were too often stuck with knife-wielding psycho slashers, you could look at Europe and often Italy for variety—for better or for worse! Often set in the United States, Italian horror movies went crazy in ways that could be disgusting or entertaining, often in the same movie. In The Beyond’s case, writer-director Lucio Fulci goes to New Orleans in order to deliver a haunted house story that easily bubbles in all directions to include ghouls, a cursed book, sacrifices to a painting, and a portal to hell. Narratively, it’s a mess—a wild mishmash of nightmarish set-pieces loosely strung together along a haunted-hotel premise. It’s not a tight movie nor a very good one (spiders don’t work that way!), but it’s far more interesting than the psycho slasher movies or the era. More care has been spent on the gore effects (including a surprising number of people melting) than the plot, but even with the hooey that doesn’t fit together, The Beyond does create an interesting surprise-bag atmosphere where anything and everything can happen next. Despite a few strong female characters, don’t get attached to any of them—they’re not well developed, and the unusually haunting ending does them no favours. Normally, I wouldn’t like something like The Beyond—too scattered, too gory, too focused on visual shocks than narration. But I happened to see it after too many identical early-1980s American slashers, and it certainly feels more imaginative than other films of the time without quite falling into the nihilistic meanness of some other Italian horror films of the period (specifically the zombie films)—it’s not much, but it’s better.

  • Secret Beyond the Door… (1947)

    Secret Beyond the Door… (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Fritz Lang directed many thrillers during his Hollywood career, and while there are better ones than Secret Beyond the Door…, it’s a film that mashes together some very interesting influences. The link between the Bluebeard legend and the domestic thrillers of the 1940s seemed inevitable, considering the peril that a new husband may represent for his new wife. The result is far more melodramatic than many of Lang’s more straightforward thrillers, what with the overdramatic narration, strong musical cues and an undisguised subject matter. Stylistically, it tries to blend together the soft touch of domestic thrillers of earlier years (Suspicion, Rebecca) while going to noirish stylistic elements. It does get almost ridiculously intense, as the woman (and the audience!) is absolutely completely resolutely certain that the husband is out to kill his new wife like his previous ones. But calm down—it’s not going to go there, not really. The ending provides the thrills and the romantic resolution, wrapping up a movie that may be just a touch too strident along the way, but still manages a rather good impression.

  • Three Coins in a Fountain (1954)

    Three Coins in a Fountain (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) From roughly 1951 to 1965, the American movie industry frequently headed to Rome as part of “Hollywood on the Tiber” era—motivated by financial incentives and the presence of a decent studio complex, Hollywood churned out a bunch of sword-and-sandal historical epics… and a few contemporary movies set in Rome as well. Three Coins in a Fountain isn’t the first or most famous of those (Roman Holiday got there a year earlier and remains better known) but it does offer an entertaining look at the love life of a trio of expatriate Americans in Rome, as fate -or the Trévi fountain- has very different plans from what they have in mind. This is a romantic comedy, so you have to go along with the overwrought complications and contrivances of the form. Fortunately, the gorgeous colourful atmosphere of early-1950s Rome—especially set against romance—is well worth a look beyond the plot: thanks to director Jean Negulesco, there’s an atmosphere quite unlike any other here, and it’s like taking a trip back in time and place to drink it all in. The treatment of the expatriate life remains credible and not always all that common. It’s all rather charming, even if calling it a “comedy” has more to do with the upbeat ending than any kinds of jokes and laughs along the way.

  • Roadgames (1981)

    Roadgames (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) As far as atmospheric concepts go, Roadgames scores an impressive success in setting much of its narrative on Australia’s south-eastern highway—a place of near-endless distances and nowhere to go as it crosses a vast desert. On this unusual backdrop, writer-director Richard Franklin sets a serial-killer thriller in which a truck driver works with a hitchhiker to unmask a serial killer who, they suspect, is travelling in the same direction as they are. It’s ludicrous and yet it sort-of-works in an ozsploitation kind of way. Having Stacy Keach as the hero-trucker protagonist is fine, but having Jamie Lee Curtis as the sidekick does work very well. Roadgames is dirty and grimy and doesn’t quite always live up to its own premises (the budget doesn’t help) but the concept is interesting and the execution is halfway decent. Even those not usually interested by serial-killer movies may be charmed by the film’s ever-moving setting and the impact this kinetic backdrop has on the narrative.