Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Black Mirror, Season 1 (2011)

    Black Mirror, Season 1 (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2017) The Black Mirror series has been on my radar as a must-see for years … but considering the nature of its acclaim as a modern-day Twilight Zone, it took a while for me to muster up the right frame of mind to tackle it. It really doesn’t help that the first episode is basically a hazing ritual. Here’s one of the best SF shows of the past decade … and its first episode (“The National Anthem”) asks its audience to consider a scenario in which the British prime minister is coerced to have sex with a pig … live-streamed to a population ghoulishly eager to see it all. And rather proved prescient years later when a related story emerged about British PM David Cameron. Yup, there’s Black Mirror all right: a blend of technological speculation and old-fashioned horror at what humans are capable of doing. The horror is that the worst monsters are us. It doesn’t really get any better in the brilliant second episode (“Fifteen Million Merits”) in which the grind of daily work and the lure of celebrity are literalized in a satirical portrait of society. Fortunately, the third episode (“The Entire History of You”) is more humanistic but no less terrifying as a technological innovation exposes very human foibles. Again: no need for monsters when humans do such a good job at self-destructing and being so evil to each other. Black Mirror is not a series to watch lightly. It can be stomach-turning, eerily prescient, and implacable in its extrapolations. The quality of the scripts is high, and the production values are more than adequate. Best of all, this first season is a mere prelude to (so far) two seasons and ten other episodes of similar material. Show-runner/writer Charlie Brooker has managed to capture current anxieties about technology and give them further life is terrifying imaginative scenarios. Don’t miss Black Mirror … but be ready to feel depressed for a while after watching them all.

  • The Kite Runner (2007)

    The Kite Runner (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2017) Dramas like The Kite Runner remind me of unflavoured health food: it’s good for you, no one looks strangely if you say you’re eating it, but it feels completely joyless. Respectable but blandly ordinary, this drama set in Soviet-then-Taliban-occupied Afghanistan sees an Americanized refugee going back home to re-immerse himself in childhood memories and rescue a friend once betrayed. It’s as high-drama as you’d expect from a guilt-fuelled movie featuring kids and while it does work without being unbearably manipulative, The Kite Runner still leaves viewers with the sentiment of having seen something unnecessary. Adapted by director Marc Forster (who’s done much better and much worse) from a script by David Benioff from a best-selling novel from Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner checks off most of the boxes of middlebrow popular drama. Ethnic flavour? Yes. Universally applicable themes of guilt and redemption? Sure. Likable actors, faraway setting, adequate directing? Yes, yes, yes. And yet the end product feels manufactured, as safe as its kind of story can be. I expect that everyone’s mileage will vary on this one.

  • Good Luck Chuck (2007)

    Good Luck Chuck (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2017) Given the subject matter (a man discovers that his romantic flings all go on to find their true love), it’s no surprise if Good Luck Chuck plays significantly coarser than the average romantic comedy. And therein lies a problem, because for all of its potential as a hard-R erotic comedy, the film is only too happy to pour itself in the usual R-rated rom-com mould, using its soft-R rating as an excuse for crudity rather than an honest treatment of its premise. It’s also ludicrously unaware of anything close to female agency. The case-in-point example scene has to do with a conventionally unattractive employee of the lead character throwing herself at him in romantic desperation—Good Luck Chuck plays the scene for laughs whereas there’s a lot more to explore here if it had the guts to do so. If the film works, it’s almost solely because of the charm of the lead actors—while Dane Cook may not be highly regarded as a stand-up comedian, he does play a likable lead, and Jessica Alba is up to her usual standards as the lead heroine. Still, there are plenty of missed opportunities—I kept waiting for a revelation that the lead female character’s impressive klutziness was a curse equivalent to the protagonist’s own, but that seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the way. The film picks up one lone point for having been obviously shot in Vancouver—the entrance to the aquarium is instantly recognizable even to a tourist. Otherwise, Good Luck Chuck is the kind of instantly forgettable romp, less obviously offensive than the slew of gross-out comedies from the early 2000s, but wasting so many opportunities along the way that it becomes vexing the moment you think too long about it.

  • Fist Fight (2017)

    Fist Fight (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) It takes a long time for Fist Fight to even become likable. Part of it has to do with it ludicrous set-up, in which two stressed-out high school teachers in a bad school end up planning to fight each other after the last day of classes. In order to get there, you have to posit a school (and not even a particularly downtrodden school) in which both students and teachers seem to exist in a hellish post-apocalyptic bacchanalia. If anyone wondering when pedophilia would become a major comic point in a Hollywood comedy, well, wait no longer. (Also; if you were waiting for Christina Hendricks to flip that scene from Lost River and tell someone “You need a knife… You need to cut him from his forehead all the way down to his chin,” then Fist Fight is there for you.) Then there’s Charlie Day, whose comic persona is irritating at the best of times—putting him up against a stoic Ice Cube as the antagonist is asking for divided loyalties in which we wish for the so-called protagonist to be beaten down hard. It takes a long while, using the most basic emotional drivers, for us to actually start caring about the so-called hero. While Fist Fight does manage to compress its plot in a scant few hours, its innate meanness can be hard to take at times. Fortunately, a bunch of those problems resolve themselves by the time the third act comes by and the two teachers eventually do (after a few false starts and fake-outs) starting hitting each other. While the result isn’t high art, it may be enough to make you forgive the hard slog of the film’s first hour. Ice Cube, as usual, glides through the chaos with an intact persona. Jillian Bell makes the most of a reprehensible character, which is saying much considering that most of the characters are irremediable. Otherwise, there isn’t much here to remember. R-rated comedies tend to blur together these days and Fist Fight doesn’t escape the trend.

  • Collide (2016)

    Collide (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) The real collisions in Collide are the mismatch between the film’s cast and the pedestrian script … or the way it comes alive during its action sequences, only to wallow in far less exciting clichés once the guns and the cars quiet down. In many ways, few things distinguish Collide from countless other mid-budget action movies that clutter up the VOD release calendar: the script is a collection of familiar plot elements arranged in excessive thriller melodrama, featuring literary allusions that never add up to something like subtext or depth. It takes place in Europe, for lower shooting budgets, foreign financing partners and slightly exotic atmosphere … not to mention the bonus xenophobia considering that the two protagonists are American expats. What sets Collide apart are the presence of living legends Ben Kingsley and Anthony Hopkins as duelling crime lords—money is obviously the answer as to what they’re doing here, which doesn’t make the end result less intriguing to watch. Hopkins is on autopilot while spouting classical literature references as an upper-class crime lord, while Kingsley is also in familiar-persona mode (viz; Lucky Number Slevin, Sexy Beast, even Iron Man 3) as a crude trash-talking nouveau-riche kingpin. Seeing them face off is sort of interesting despite the lacklustre film around them, including generic leads played by Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones. Fortunately, another highlight comes whenever the action starts and the cars start racing each other on the autobahn. Director Eran Creevy seems far more interested in fast mayhem and Collide has at least a modest charge for action junkies. It’s also a modest step up from his previous Welcome to the Punch, although there is still a long way to go. Collide doesn’t really escape the limitations of the mid-budget action thriller, but anyone who risks a viewing should find one or two things to break the tedium.

  • A Monster Calls (2016)

    A Monster Calls (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) There’s an interesting twist at play in A Monster Calls, in which a young boy’s grief for his terminally ill mother is explored through spectacular use of fantasy imagery. It’s not a genre fantasy film per se (in that you can argue for a rational interpretation if you try hard enough), but it’s certainly a drama enhanced with genre elements. The downside of such a distinction is that the film is never as dull as when it’s strictly realist—it’s when the story goes on imaginary tangents and a gigantic yew tree starts intervening in the plot that A Monster Calls is at its best. The stories told to the boy are executed though very stylized animation, and those moments are the highlights of the film … until the ending, in which fiction, dreams and strong emotional reactions all come together in a big catharsis of a conclusion. The art direction of the film is spectacular in those fantasy sequences, and the way the 3D art seamlessly blends itself in scene transitions is reminiscent of the best that 2D animation had to offer. Acting-wise, Liam Neeson impresses with a strong vocal performance at the tale-spinning tough-love tree. Otherwise, director J.A. Bayona’s skill in balancing the various components of A Monster Calls are on display here, all culminating in a conclusion much stronger than the rather pedestrian set-up would initially suggest. 

  • Halloween (2007)

    Halloween (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2017) I’m really not a fan of slasher movies, horror remakes or the Michael Myers Halloween movies, but even by those low standards, the Halloween remake is a remarkably boring affair. Too bad; I’m an unlikely fan of writer/director Rob Zombie’s music, but his trash-horror sensibilities don’t translate all that well to the screen. In this version of the John Carpenter horror movie, we delve deeper in the screwed-up dynamics of the Myers family leading to the rampage, but this doesn’t provide depth or substance as much as it adds thirty minutes of prologue to an already dull and superficial film. This is one of those horror movies punctuated by gruesome deaths every few minutes—it’s bad enough, but the lack of originality, wit or even decency does much to confirm the film as a soulless remake undistinguishable from so many other cheap horror films. Perhaps the only thing setting it apart from other horror remakes is the copious amount of nudity—alas, usually as a prelude to the butchery. The last half-hour of the film is particularly annoying, as its soundtrack becomes a quasi-nonstop series of female screams as Myers kills almost everyone he sees. Malcolm McDowell makes a decent showing as Doctor Loomis, but the rest of the cast is largely undistinguishable in the small scream-and-get-killed roles that they’re provided. Halloween is hampered by its own antiheroic sensibilities: There is little reason to care about the victims, and trying to humanize an unrepentant mass murderer just isn’t interesting. The result is entirely optional to anyone, including seasoned horror watchers.

  • Stranger Things, Season 1 (2016)

    Stranger Things, Season 1 (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2017) I probably expected too much from this first season of Stranger Things. Considering the massive amount of praise that the show received upon release in the summer of 2016, that’s probably inevitable. Few things survive this amount of hype, but I still held some hope: After all, I grew up during the 1980s (albeit the late eighties), I am a fan of the King/Spielberg/Carpenter mash-up that is Stranger Things and I’m always willing to give a chance to genre stories. As it stands, Stranger Things is actually quite good. The eight episodes may be one or two too many, but the series does benefit from having the time to develop its characters, carefully unveil its mysteries and allow a more deliberate narrative arc than if it has rushed everything in fewer hours. The lead actors are sympathetic (the kids are great, Winona Ryder earns an unexpected hit and David Harbour ends up getting a very good role), the Duffer Brothers’ directing is competent and the action ramps up to a very good finale. Memorable, well executed and filled with nostalgic throwbacks, Stranger Things is about as good as Netflix-era TV gets. The problem with it is that it’s consciously referencing and aping other works. It’s comfort food, not meant to challenge but to elicit recognition. It doesn’t try to pull narrative rugs, play with deeper themes or explore new ideas—it’s a mash-up of familiar elements, executed in such a fashion as to beg for sympathy. As such, there’s a limit to how exciting it can be—while the result is good enough to warrant a look, I suspect that it will fade fast and have a harder time reaching those who don’t have a built-in nostalgia for the eighties. On the other hand, I’ll watch the second seasons gladly … but only after I clean up the rest of my Netflix movie queue.

  • Jackie (2016)

    Jackie (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) There’s been a lot of ink and footage about the JFK assassination since 1963, but Jackie manages to find new things to say by focusing on Jackie Kennedy in the wake of the tragedy, from the blood-soaked aftermath in the car to the state funeral days later. It’s both a way to examine the state of the nation in those uncertain days, and a way to put a focus on Jackie Kennedy as a woman reacting to the events from a perspective no one else could imagine. Parts of it play like a ghastly black comedy (such as time it took for her to shower and clean up the gore that had splattered her dress) and other parts as high-stakes drama, with her guiding the nation in mourning. But while this take on the events is interesting in itself, and while Natalie Portman owns the title role, much of Jackie plays in generally unremarkable fashion, like a made-for-TV drama. (Indeed, it was originally conceived for HBO.)  Some of the historical re-creation is evocative enough, but much of the film’s visual character lies in recreation and not distinctiveness. Still, it’s a painless-enough history lesson and a take on the topic that gives some much-needed agency to Kennedy beyond simply being a grieving widow. I expected something far duller from Jackie, but the flashes of feistiness given to the lead character do end up making the film much better than expected.

  • Planet of the Apes (1968)

    Planet of the Apes (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, October 2017) The original Planet of the Apes is often used as a punchline these days (if it’s not a reference to the classic twist ending, then it’s about The Simpson’s “Doctor Zaius” musical, the increasingly bad sequels or generally anything to do with a “man in ape suits” standard for bad SF movies) and it does deserve a lot of cackling. Much of the plot mechanics are silly, the overall premise makes zero sense (not to mention anything about the sequels), the thematic messages are heavy-handed and Charlton Heston does chew heroic amounts of scenery in his performance. Still, watching the film today does have a few unexpected things going for it. It’s clearly a big-budget production for its time, something that can be seen in a rather lavish opening sequence. Heston’s character is also surprisingly cranky for a heroic protagonist, and the script does have a few odd zingers here and there. Still, even the most forgiving viewer has to acknowledge that the film has aged poorly. The goofy script (by Twilight Zone legend Rod Serling) is ham-fisted, the production values show their age and much of the film feels dull given how often it goes over familiar terrain. In fact, one thing I did not expect from watching the original film is how much better it makes the 2001 remake look—especially given how I did not particularly like the remake. And this is not even mentioning the far superior 2011–2017 reboot trilogy.

  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) One of the peculiar pleasures of re-watching older movies is that you get to experience the same mystifying questions as previous generations of moviegoers. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that means watching the “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” montage and smiling while wondering what such an atonal sequence is doing in a western movie. Reviewers have been asking that question for nearly fifty years, so I feel in good company. Not that this is the only question left unanswered by this film, which seems dead-set on not doing things the conventional way. While the buddy chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is next-level fantastic, everything else seems made to defy convention. Our charming but quixotic characters are out of time, too late for western heroics and too early for gangster drama. They flee rather than fight, but find themselves caught by fate several minutes later. There’s comedy overlaying a heavy drama (and one of the most famous tragic endings in movie history, overlaid with comic markers). But it works, largely because screenwriter William Goldman knows what he’s doing, and because of the great actors taking on the lines. The comic moments work—the “enough dynamite” sequence is still very funny. The result has survived the year reasonably well, largely because few studios would be willing to take that many chances with a big-name film these days.

  • The Frighteners (1996)

    The Frighteners (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, October 2017) When I say I’ve been a Peter Jackson fan from way before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I specifically refer to watching The Frighteners in the late nineties, loaned on VHS from a friend who had been very impressed by the result. Twenty years later, the film has aged a bit (the early-digital special effects look particularly dated, although they’re still used very effectively) but it remains a solid horror/comedy with a sometimes-daring mythology, effective character moments and a dynamic performance by writer/director Jackson. The film does take chances in its treatment of the afterlife, and especially in the way it goes for comedy in the middle of death. But the tonal blend works most of the time, and lead actor Michael J. Fox is well-suited to the protagonist’s role. (Meanwhile, Trini Alvarado is so likable that it’s a wonder that her filmography since then isn’t longer.)  Shot in New Zealand but made to look American, The Frighteners remains a bit of an under-appreciated gem today: not unknown, but not often mentioned. It’s worth a look for those who have never seen it, and a re-watch for those who haven’t seen it in years.

  • T2 Trainspotting (2017)

    T2 Trainspotting (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) I didn’t have very high expectations for T2 Trainspotting. While I liked the first movie, it’s not one of my favourites. The idea of revisiting the same characters twenty years later didn’t seem all that appealing, and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to go back to drug-addled Edinburgh for two hours. But, as the mantra goes, trust Danny Boyle. Boyle’s worst movies are more interesting than most directors’ best, and if he was interested in going back twenty years later, then why not? As it turns out, it doesn’t take a long time for T2 Trainspotting to announce its themes and grab our attention. Twenty years later, our characters have grown older but not necessarily better. They still struggle, albeit now with the added pressures of middle-age weighing on them. Some of them are miraculously still alive. All four main actors are back in their roles, although Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller get the most challenging assignments in taking on two characters with many issues to resolve. But the film’s best asset is indeed in going back twenty years later to the same places, knowing that it can’t recapture the magic of the original, knowing that life gets less forgiving the more you age, and contemplating youthful excess with something approaching burgeoning wisdom, or at least melancholy. T2 Trainspotting doesn’t forget to have a bit of fun through comic set-pieces, character reunions and action sequences, but it’s at its best when it’s looking around itself and wondering how its characters made it through twenty years. It’s self-aware in ways that most long-delayed sequels should be, acknowledging the passage of time and using it as a central thematic engine. It’s surprisingly enjoyable, but also surprisingly engaging.

  • Cujo (1983)

    Cujo (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2017) While Cujo is not a bad movie in itself, it’s frustrating in that it misses being a much better movie by inches. The central conceit of the film is simple enough: a mom and her ailing son, trapped in a dilapidated car in the middle of nowhere by a rabid dog ready to tear them apart. It’s a powerful claustrophobic conceit, and recent movies such as Vehicle 19, Buried or Locke show that it’s possible to tell a full story under severe location restraints. But Cujo, coming from 1983, is too traditional to think about locking characters in a single location for 90 minutes: adapting Stephen King’s book as conventionally as possible, much of the film’s first half feels like one big prologue as we’re laboriously introduced to the characters, the setting, the situation and the dog. Anyone who knows anything about the film’s premise can be forgiven from feeling as if this is all a waste of time. It’s when all the elements are finally assembled and the action becomes constrained to the car (not air-conditioned, in heat-wave conditions) that the film finally clicks into higher gear. A good just-this-side-of-hysteria performance from Dee Wallace helps, even when the film does push things a bit too far during its overwrought climax. But much of it feels too little too late. While Cujo definitely remains watchable, it does feel half-hearted from today’s perspective.

  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

    My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In Theatres, October 2017) When my daughter picks the movie she wants to see, I’m usually fair game. In My Little Pony’s case, familiarity is key given how heavily the film plays with the established personalities of the five main ponies as they confront a kingdom-threatening peril. As I could name all five (and their dominant personality trait), I was in a reasonably good shape to appreciate the film. It works well enough at what it tries to be: an uplifting, reasonably entertaining film for kids (not so much a film for the entire family) featuring a decent moral message and enough adventures in new places to justify the ticket price. Here we get to go underwater and meet seahorses, which acts both as a thematically interesting addition and an effective merchandizing opportunity. It’s easy to become overly cynical about films that promote toys, but My Little Pony is, fortunately enough, better than expected in terms of life lessons for the pre-teen set. Friendship is cool, redemption is possible and all is darkest when alone given that strength is found in teamwork. Not a bad set of talking points for the drive home. Don’t be surprised to find all of it very cute.