Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Sombrero (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) While Sombrero features a mildly intriguing opening act that introduces a small Mexican village through fractious beauty contest, little of it sustains the entire film. The Mexican setting, MGM production and cast (with Ricardo Montalbán, and Cyd Charisse once again asked to play Hispanic) may bring to mind 1947’s Fiesta, but Sombrero struggles to maintain the same dramatic intensity—perhaps an artifact of having been adapted from three blended short stories. To be fair, some of the colour cinematography is sumptuous, Yvonne De Carlo looks amazing and Charisse gets a dance number to herself, even if it’s a weird one. But the film fails to take off. As for it being a representation of Latin America in Hollywood, well, it’s probably best not to look closely: The stereotypes run fast and thick and half the actors look as if they’ve been miscast. Yes, sure, Hollywood didn’t know any better then… but that’s not much of an excuse to twenty-first century viewers.

  • Dracula 3D (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) Dario Argento tries his hand at the classic Dracula mythos in his Dracula 3D, but budgetary limitations obviously hold him back… not to mention a redundant approach that doesn’t provide much satisfaction once the 3D calling card of the film is flattened for TV broadcast. The low-budget is immediately visible from the cut-rate special effects shown on-screen, but it also influences a story that curiously stays in Transylvania throughout the entire plot, never getting to England. Beyond that, however, is a striking lack of style to the result. Some of the sets and costumes are not bad, but the entire film feels like a no-name low-budget horror rather than something from someone of Argento’s stature. It’s striking that the Francis Ford Coppola version of the same story had more eroticism than this one… or that this film does so little with the elements it has. Like many classical adaptations throughout the years, Dracula 3D may serve as an exercise in how to compare and contrast it to other versions, but doesn’t hold much value by itself.

  • Teeth (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) Some horror-movie concepts are so obvious in retrospect that it’s a mystery why they haven’t been done before or more often. Why, indeed, hasn’t anyone used the idea of the timeless male phobia of the vagina dentata into a high concept for a film, before or after? (A much smarter writer than me recently investigated and didn’t find any further examples.)  Fortunately, you could say that writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth is good enough that it doesn’t need an alternative nor a follow-up. The story of a young woman who discovers that her intimate parts have cannibalistic appetites, Teeth decides to go for vengeful comedy/horror, saddling the protagonist with a succession of terrible males who deserve every maiming they get. From 2022, Teeth feels like a film about ten years ahead of its time—with sharp feminist overtones that would feel quite at ease alongside such overly transgressive works as Promising Young Woman and the misguided 2019 Black Christmas (not to mention the 2021 version of Slumber Party Massacre, among many others). But it may age a little bit better than some of them—it comes across its toothy edge honestly, and packages it into a darkly comic tone that seems more earned than performative. Needless to say, it remains a recommendation for those who can handle the subject matter.

  • Lisztomania (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Circumstances dictated that I ended up watching writer-director Ken Russell’s Lisztomania in two halves, interrupted in the middle of the film’s best-known scene featuring more phallic imagery than any thousand randomly selected films. If Russell had rolled to credits right after that, I would have given Lisztomania a far more positive review than this one. Alas, the film keeps going, and going, and going… and it’s clear that, for all of the dizzyingly comic razzle-dazzle of the film’s first third, there’s not much of a focus to it all: this wildly dramatized biography of 19th century musician Franz Liszt may have a lot of energy, but it’s not sustained nor tied together. Some things work really well, though: the idea of treating Liszt like a rockstar may not be as fresh today, but it’s given a maximalist treatment that bounces from erotic excess to absurdist humour. There’s clearly a 1970s rock aesthetic to the entire thing, what with rock star Roger Daltrey (of The Who) as Liszt, and Ringo Starr popping up late in the film as none other than The Pope. It gets wild. As Wikipedia says, and I can’t encapsulate it better than this quote: “Liszt and the women decide to fly to Earth in a spaceship to destroy Wagner-Hitler, who has now ravaged Berlin in a fiery machine-gun frenzy.” And yet, at the same time, it doesn’t: at 103 minutes, the film outstays its welcome and can’t quite cash the checks it wrote during its first half. The delirious scene-to-scene invention can’t be sustained or linked together, and that eventually starts to grate. The film’s production history partially accounts for this disconnection: Russell, never a particularly disciplined director, went through the film without a finished script, regularly ran out of money, and grossly ran out of time in a difficult situation with investors. There’s clearly a lack of control here that often spins the surrealist outrageousness into a dull bore. Despite some real admiration for Lisztomania and a feeling that it hasn’t aged as badly as some other mid-1970s productions, it’s clear that the film could have been much, much better if Russell had managed to control his worst impulses.

  • Kimi (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) A new Stephen Soderbergh film is a mystery box. He has worked in so many genres, taken so many chances, and threatened retirement often enough that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Maybe it’ll be great! Maybe it won’t! In Kimi, he goes back to his thriller roots to deliver something like a blend of homages to previous thrillers, questions about the techno-surveillance complex and a few pointed observations about the lockdown years. It stars Zoë Kravitz, a minor movie crush of mine who, to my recollection, never had a leading role until now despite a fourteen-year career in some showy supporting roles. Here she plays a young woman who, thanks to past trauma, fully embraced the shut-in lifestyle made popular during lockdown. Even a toothache won’t have her leave her apartment… or at least until she gets evidence of a murder and tries to escalate the matter through the appropriate channels. Unfortunately, she’s in the middle of a thriller in which evil people can hire hitmen, and where every movement can be tracked. There are traces of Rear Window, The Conversation, Michael Clayton and many other similar thrillers here, but when it’s combined with the lockdown quirks acquired in North-American society throughout 2020-22, the effect is fresher than you’d think. The script’s techno-skepticism isn’t as new (not when even animated family movies such as Ron Gone Wrong overtly talk about such issues), but it all blends together in a rather good mix. Our resourceful heroine is easy to like (the visuals of her agoraphobic self getting out of her apartment and sticking robotically to the walls are among the film’s strongest images) and she eventually levels up to a far-fetched but satisfying action heroine by the time the finale rolls around. There are a few interesting casting choices (most notably Derek DelGaudio in a villainous role), with Soderbergh keeping a tight control over the production. Kimi is not a bad thriller, but time will tell whether it ends up being a time capsule of current anxieties. In the meantime, it’s an easy-enough thriller to watch. Now what will Soderbergh do next?

  • Love Sarah (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) If you’re going to make a feel-good comedy about reconciliation in the wake of a tragedy, you might as well get the most terrible moments out of the way first, and that’s exactly what Love Sarah does in its jarring opening: As an energetic young woman cycles to the opening of her new bakery, she is hit by a vehicle and the title card pops up. Following her death, her family and friends have a hard time agreeing on what should be done. Her daughter wants the bakery to open, but the departed’s best friend (the very likable Shelley Conn) has gone back to the corporate world. It takes quite a bit of work to get everyone back together: the best friend, the mother (Celia Imrie, acting like the British acting elder she is), an ex-boyfriend doubling as a gifted chef and a clear commercial goal for the struggling bakery. Love Sarah is not a great film, nor a particularly memorable on. It’s comfort food put on screen, indulging in showing pastry but also making sure that the viewer gets a big homely rush of contentment by the time the ending credits roll. It’s not meant to take place in any kind of realistic setting, and that’s probably for the best. It’s short enough to be worth a look without feeling stuck with it—enough of a snack to be tempting despite not leaving much than warm air afterwards.

  • Malignant (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I wasn’t expecting much from Malignant, but in the footsteps of frequent collaborator Leigh Whannell, who delivered the terrific Upgrade out of nowhere, here is director James Wan going back to his horror roots after a detour in big-budget action territory. Despite a middling start, Malignant gets progressively faster, crazier and better the closer it gets to the finishing line. Taking a premise similar to Stephen King’s The Dark Half but pushing it to eleven, this slick horror film takes a while to build but unleashes its strengths in style. By the time that scene hits (intercutting some wham-bang exposition with a demented fight inside a prison cell), there’s no going back: Malignant gets bonkers and becomes better for it. There’s some clever playing with expectations throughout the film, as the question of whether this is all in the protagonist’s head is never too far away. (Spoiler alert: Yes, it is. But literally.)  While Wan is being showy with his direction (especially as he uses CGI to present a particularly warped version of “Is she imagining all of this?”), Annabelle Wallis does very well in the lead role with its misdirections and physical requirements. Now, I don’t think that Malignant is perfect—the two-hour running time leads to far too much padding in the first half, and extends the high-concept slightly too far. There’s some sense, especially in retrospect, that the film is spinning its wheels when it puts slightly too much stuff together—it would have been better to focus a bit, lop off thirty minutes and get to the craziness sooner. Still, I do like the result: it goes beyond the usual horror film and while most of it is empty calories without much thematic substance, it’s got just enough energy to bulldoze through valid narrative objections. I’ve seen the film described as a modern CGI-fuelled giallo and that may be half the fun. On the other hand, I’ve also seen the film referred to as a parody and I think that misses the point of high-concept horror, where pushing it beyond the limit is not meant to be funny as much as exhilarating. No matter why or how, Malignant is a strong genre entry by the time it gets to the point.

  • Side Street (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) If there’s a single lesson to be learned from film noir, it’s that the path to damnation begins with a single slip, a mild impulse, a passing desire for something you don’t have. Side Street exemplifies this slippery slope better than most noirs in how it presents our everyman protagonist (Farley Granger) as an out-of-luck man with a past-time job and an expectant wife. When he’s got the opportunity to take a wad of cash, well, the soon-to-be-born baby will need clothes and food, right? From that single deviation comes escalating trouble, as the money belonged to people who don’t take a significant loss lightly and become hell-bent on recovering it. But even making things right isn’t simple, not when everyone has plans for the money and the intended recipients don’t have much trust in law and order. Before long, our protagonist is on the run in New York City, suspected of murder by the police and targeted by the mob. It climaxes in a car chase than ends on a surprisingly modern touch: a car flipping over a curb. The ending is far more satisfying than you’d think from the grim nature of the rest of the film. Slickly directed by Anthony Mann (who’d then go to make a well-known run of westerns with James Stewart) and imbued with the atmosphere of NYC, Side Street is a solid film noir that does a great job illustrating the moral framework of the genre. Kids: don’t do crime.

  • Violent Road aka Hell’s Highway (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Little-seen thriller Violent Road will strike most viewers as a cut-rate imitation of Le Salaire de la peur, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The thrills of transporting a dangerous substance over a lengthy distance are still an effective way of stringing together a bunch of suspense sequences, and the tactile mechanical focus of the events ensures that the film remains far more approachable today than other more abstract suspense films, depending on social mores that died along with Classic Hollywood. Our story gets going with a rocket explosion, and the need to bring some very unstable fuel from the refinery to the launch pad in a short amount of time. Unable to get on the highway, the convoy sets out on twisty back-roads, and there’s a new threat every ten minutes. Not all of the suspense sequences work: the sudden appearance of a school bus will strike many as too obviously contrived, for instance. But some of the other episodes of the film are compelling. Brian Keith (as a veteran driver) is a solid presence at the heart of the film, which also benefits from a stark black-and-white cinematography. Psychodrama among the ensemble cast, mechanical problems and environmental concerns all fill up the film’s zippy 86-minute running time. It’s not that good of a film, but Violent Road holds up in its finest moments, and nearly distinguishes itself from its illustrious predecessor.

  • The Cured (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) I’m not just tired of zombie films; I’m even tired of zombie films that try to distinguish themselves from other zombie films. In The Cured’s case, it means that the story takes place some time after a zombie virus outbreak, after a cure has been found to bring back roughly three-quarter of the former zombies to humanity. The remaining quarter that’s resistant to the cure is a problem, though, and as the film begins, there’s a very reasonable proposal (at least in Ireland, where the film takes place) to get rid of the cure-resistant zombies on fears that they could escape and cause another outbreak. The film’s most distinctive characteristics are the social and political implications of a society recovering from a zombie outbreak, the guilt of the cured zombies and the second-order consequences of the situation. But The Cured is a zombie movie, so any attempt at political complexity goes out the window once the third act leads to another outbreak with the usual clichés. The film’s psychodrama resurfaces in time for an unsatisfying ending, but we know what to expect from writer-director David Freyne by then: a dour, slow-paced darkly-shot film that tries to cram a drama in the middle of a zombie film, but ultimately can’t settle for anything but some zombie action. Less-jaded audiences may find some interest in the variations on a theme played in The Cured, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m even more burnt-out on the genre than before.

  • The Power of the Dog (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, February 2022) I normally wouldn’t voluntarily watch something like The Power of the Dog, but as things have it, it’s currently nominated for a few Academy Awards and that makes it a must-see in my list-driven approach. Like too many recent takes on the western genre, writer-director Jane Campion (working from a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage) goes for intricate psychodrama, blending non-heteronormative sexuality with grief, resentment, sexism and people doing terrible things to each other. It’s not an uplifting film, and the quasi-monochrome colour palette of the film certainly reflects that from the get-go. Benedict Cumberbatch does well as the taciturn, unlikable lead character, alongside strong supporting work by Jesse Plemons (uncharacteristically playing a not-completely-hateable character), Kirsten Dunst (using her age to good effect) and Kodi Smit-McPhee—all of whom were also nominated for Academy Awards. It’s tempting to call The Power of the Dog an Oscar-bait film: the unhurried pacing, sombre cinematography, grim themes, very deliberate work by director and actors make this the kind of film likely to be singled out as award-worthy even if the film itself is not a crowd-pleaser. (Accordingly, the film scores much lower on popular scores than critical scores.)  I found my attention wandering all over the place—if the dour atmosphere doesn’t get you to check out, the endless pacing will do the rest. Ah well—film seen, box checked, what’s the next on the list?

  • The Wizard of Gore (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) As someone who loathes gore movies, it makes no sense to watch something like The Wizard of Gore… except for historical interest, as the film often shows up as a minor reference in the history of splatter horror and remains one of writer-director Herschell Gordon Lewis’ better-known work. Like it or not (I don’t!), the increasingly gory nature of horror films throughout the 1970s owes a lot to Lewis’ taboo-breaking work throughout the 1960s. He was nowhere near mainstream moviemaking: his films are patched together using amateurish acting, threadbare production values and blunt narratives more concerned with shock than refinements. The Wizard of Gore is as low-budget as it’s possible to get. The gore effects are laughably, thankfully fake, taking the edge of a mean-spirited intent that seeks to gorily kill as many young women as possible. The stomach-churning nature of Lewis’ grand-guignol work, even half a century later, is made barely bearable by the stiff non-acting, visible cuts from human to puppet, and poor audiovisual quality. (I’d say that a modern, fully photorealistic equivalent to this would be unbearable, and the 2007 remake of the film partially proves me right, in that many of the more gruesome moments are deliberately obscured to make the film fit within an R rating.)  An incoherent, low-budget, exploitative production allows for some weird moments, though: you won’t be able to convince me that the deliriously weird final moments of the film are anything but patching up a production without the means to be conventionally good, but it’s still remarkably strange. I don’t like The Wizard of Gore, but I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would. On the other hand, I’m not volunteering to see any more of Lewis’ work for a long while.

  • Wrath of Man (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, February 2022) The problem with most of the last decade-and-a-half of Jason Statham movies isn’t Jason Statham as much as the movies themselves: unambitious, formulaic, barely taking advantage of Statham’s undeniable charisma. In other words—it takes a strong writer-director to use him well, so hope ran high in seeing Statham pair up once again with Guy Richie. Sure, 2005’s Revolver was terrible—but Richie and Statham made each other’s reputation with the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch double-bill two decades ago: could they do the same here? Well, keep your expectations in check. While Wrath of Man is significantly better than many of Statham’s recent solo efforts (I’m not counting the Fast and Furious series in this assessment—a good case of using him effectively), it’s noticeably not up to the standards of Richie’s better crime movies. Adapted from French film Le convoyeur that’s next on my to-watch list, the wild story has Statham taking a job at an armoured car company for mysterious purposes, then doing what he does best in a series of action sequences. While the dramatic conceit at the heart of the film is ingenious, it also feels far-fetched to the point of outrageousness: the kind of thing that only makes sense in action movies. Still, as an excuse for some cleverly-choreographed mayhem, it does work. Setting an armoured robbery film in modern Los Angeles gives flashbacks to a specific sub-genre of films (most notably Heat, unmissable and referenced) and the result is certainly watchable once you learn to ignore the contrivances that drive the mysteries of the film. Statham is solid, as usual, and this time he’s got the good luck of working with a director that knows how to showcase him. Richie’s dialogue is not as strong here as in his previous films, his pacing is somewhat slacker and the atmosphere is considerably grimmer, with few of the amusing lines to be found in his previous crime thrillers—not to mention a tragic backstory. Still, Wrath of Man feels like a step up for Statham and a wholly entertaining crime thriller in its own right. There are far worse picks out there when it comes to recent action thrillers.

  • Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, February 2022) By the time a lead actor and director check out of an ongoing film series, you can expect a sharp drop in quality, and that’s exactly where we are with Transformania, the fourth film in the Hotel Transylvania series. Adam Sandler has been replaced as voice actor by an impersonator, writer/director Genndy Tartakovsky has ceded directing duties to others (while still doing some of the writing) and there’s a feeling that the film is another step in the slowly declining quality of the series (which, to be fair, has never flown particularly high). Unlike the first two films, there aren’t that many significant plot developments in Transformania. The monsterification of the human lead and humanification of the monster lead are not bad premises, but the film sidelines many of the previous instalments along the way. The kids are left home during the ensuing adventures, the new wife is merely a supporting character and most of the character growth experienced so far takes a back-step for plot reasons. Even a significant amount of destruction doesn’t really mean much by the end of the film—you barely get a minute’s worth of gloom before everything is reset. I’m still not a big fan of the ugly character designs, although the supporting characters still get a few chuckles along the way. While Transformania is not an intolerable follow-up, it does suggest that there’s no rescuing this series from gradual erosion. It should have ended already, so let’s not ask for a fifth instalment.

  • Masks (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) No one is asking, but the dividing line between slasher and giallo is more significant than we think. Even sticking to a limited definition that focuses on visual style is enough to draw a distinction: slashers tend to be functional, while giallo has something more ambitious on its mind. But that intention affects more than how things are shown: it also influences how scenes are built, the atmosphere of the film and the unreality of the result. No wonder, then, if I tend to tolerate giallo more readily than slashers, no matter the era—I still don’t like the graphic violence, but at least there’s an artistic drive to it that feels more impressive. German film Masks wears its giallo inspirations proudly, most notably in borrowing from Suspiria the idea of a mysterious artistic academy and having our protagonist feel stuck in the middle of a nightmare. The wrinkle here is that this is about acting rather than dancing, and that there’s a mysterious presence hanging over the unconventional techniques taught in this school. The usual number of gory murders follows, then the crazy finale to wrap things up. Those who don’t like horror movies won’t be convinced by writer-director Andreas Marschall’s entry—it’s still very much the same old murders, foreboding atmosphere and lack of thematic meaning beyond the deaths. On the other hand, if you’re willing to dissect the various subgenres of horror, Masks makes for a mildly effective neo-giallo. Not a triumph nor a crossover hit, but a competent entry in a slightly more demanding subgenre than a psycho with a knife.