Author: Christian Sauvé

  • The Warrior’s Way (2010)

    The Warrior’s Way (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand Video, April 2012) Where have all of the stylish martial-arts movies gone?  Watching the hit-and-miss The Warrior’s Way, the first thought coming to mind is that I used to see a whole lot more of those films ten years ago than today.  Am I simply not looking in the wrong places? Are these movies still being made?  From its first highly stylized shots, The Warrior’s Way creates its own sense of reality and dares viewers to keep up.  Beautifully-colored skies, sweeping camera action shots, stoic heroes and a blend of Asian sensibilities in a Western setting (with a bit of circus as color) will either frustrate viewers or make them swoon.  The script seldom deals in subtleties: Our hero is without reproach, his love for the heroine is pure, and all of the antagonists are beyond caricatures of evil.  (Which becomes a problem when the violence is carried just a bit too far for the rest of the film’s intentions.)  I quite liked some sequences, such as a very long-shot sword-fighting sequence, or the crazy attack sequence featuring a half-built Ferris wheel, but the film itself could have been tightened up and concluded more optimistically: The Warrior’s Way is just good enough to remind us of the way martial art movies can be good, while not good enough to completely satisfy those expectations.  Fans of the sub-genre will no doubt appreciate it more than those coming in cold to those conventions.  It is very pretty to look at, though.

  • The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton

    The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ballantine, 1993 reprint of 1969 original, 270 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 978-0-099-42765-0

    I hadn’t read The Andromeda Strain in more than a decade and a half when a chance viewing of the classic 1971 film adaptation rekindled my interest in Michael Crichton’s breakout novel.  At an admirably concise 270 pages, the novel wasn’t going to crimp my limited reading time, and my accumulated shelves of already-read books aren’t just for showing off, right?

    You probably remember the premise, either from the novel’s best-selling reputation, the 1971 film or the 2008 miniseries: a satellite falls back on Earth, bringing back something that kills nearly everyone in a small Arizona town.  Four scientists are asked to investigate: Locked in a secret underground laboratory, they race against time to solve the mystery of the so-called Andromeda Strain before the inevitable “containment measures” escalate.  Briskly told at the cutting-edge of late-sixties technology, Crichton’s first best-seller is an unusual page-turner, enthralling readers through reams of well-written exposition, while codifying the conventions of the techno-thriller genre.

    Perhaps the biggest surprise of re-reading a 1969 techno-thriller is how gracefully it has aged.  There is no going around the fact that the book was written a long time ago: Any narrative that spends a few paragraph explaining how “time-sharing computers” work seems almost irremediably quaint in the age of ubiquitous smart-phones.  (If you want to feel old, consider that 1969 is now 43 years distant as of this writing.)  But despite the novel’s carefully-circumscribed focus on contemporary techno-scientific matters (if there are references to Vietnam or hippies in the book, a speed-read hasn’t revealed them), it’s animated by a decidedly contemporary intention to try to explain the world to the reader.  As a techno-thriller, it revels in the telling (sometimes made-up) detail that bridges the gap between fiction and reality.  For readers with finely-attuned genre-protocol antennas, it’s this willingness to engage the cutting-edge of the Known that, ironically, enough, makes the novel feel fresh.  If you accept that the general perception of reality lags behind the time, you can also argue that most people never bother to adjust their perception of reality beyond the model they learned as teenagers (which was often based on pop-culture, and so a few years behind the times).  Techno-thrillers and science-fiction are two genre that sometimes attempt to describe the scary implications of progress, and this attitude show no sign of growing old.  Compare The Andromeda Strain to something like Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (which applied the same didactic perspective to history) and it’s not hard to imagine that if a 2012 writer wanted to write a circa-1969 techno-thriller, he’d end up with something very similar to The Andromeda Strain.  Older books that age gracefully become period pieces.  In this light, having the author explain time-sharing computers takes on a new and not unpleasant flavour.

    The other substantial asset of the novel is Crichton’s uncanny ability to Make Stuff Up.  From 2012, it’s easier to tell fact from fiction: Kalocin (a drug that kills “every known virus, bacterium, fungus, and parasite”, with hideous consequences) doesn’t exist, obviously.  But you’d swear otherwise from The Andromeda Strain’s narrative, as seamlessly as the device is inserted in-between convincing technical details, documentary framing devices (“this is a reconstruction based on interviews…”) and frequent blurring between reality and fiction.  Crichton had a great ear for plausible-sounding nonsense, something that the careful explanation of the “Scoop” program (which is almost meaningless in the movie adaptation) makes amply clear.  Elsewhere in the narrative, the Odd Man Hypothesis (which “proves” that you want a single unmarried man to have a finger on the trigger of a nuclear device, although even the characters acknowledge that it’s an elaborate rationalization for a more sinister purpose) is bunk, but you could almost swear that it was the subject of a Malcolm Gladwell essay not too long ago.  This aptitude for believable lies may be worth recalling in studying Crichton’s entire bibliography, and most notably his romans provocateurs phase in-between Rising Sun and Next.

    All of these elements accumulate into a nice tight thriller in which, ironically enough, the characters don’t actually do all that much.  They poke and prod at the mystery, but ultimately can’t do much to fix the problem.  The protagonist’s big act of heroism consists in avoiding death, which may be laudable, but tends to obscure the War-of-the-Worldsian irony of the novel’s plot.  It’s either lazy plotting or a brilliant counter-weight to the novel’s detailed paean to the power of human ingenuity.  Latter techno-thrillers wouldn’t be as willing to acknowledge humanity’s lack of agency over doomsday threats.

    There’s little need to add that all of these factors, and a few more I don’t have the patience to list, make up for a 1969 book that is well worth a re-read even today.  It still exerts an undeniable fascination, and its place in history as a seminal thriller is practically assured.  You can find echoes of its impact today, but the original is still resonant.

  • A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin

    A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 2011 reprint of 2000 original, 1216 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 978-0-553-57342-8

    George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series may have been originally conceived as a trilogy, but by the time third volume A Storm of Sword wraps up, it’s obvious that we’re in for a much longer story.  The cast-of-thousands carnival of the story’s sprawling plot has seldom felt as chaotic, and the conclusion is nowhere in sight.  As ironic as the statement can be after a 1,216-pages book, it’s time to settle down and enjoy the ride.

    It goes without saying that long-running series have the strengths of their weaknesses, and vice-versa: There’s enough space and time to fully develop the world of the story, to pile on characters and see them evolve through dramatic changes in situation.  Properly handled, this can lead to a fundamentally different reading experience than single novels or even mere trilogies: an entertainment experience closer to a long-running TV series (in which Martin’s series is slowly being adapted) rather than anything else.

    On the other hand, multi-strand narratives featuring the proverbial cast-of-thousands can also test readers’ patience.  Not everything is equally compelling, and some characters are just annoying.  The setup/payoff cycles pacing, in particular, can be off for a while as the author builds plot-lines that will resolve later on.

    These strengths and weaknesses are particularly obvious in A Storm of Swords, which contains some of the dullest but also some of the finest moments of the series so far.  The first half of the book is about setting up dominoes; the second half is about upsetting them.  The wait is substantial, but the payoffs just keep happening once the book races to a conclusion.

    For series fans, it means that Arya keeps wandering around Westeros, never quite reaching her intended destinations.  It also means that she gets a long-awaited payoff late in the book.  Jon Snow keeps trudging through the snowy north, but he also gets a bit of recognition for his efforts at the conclusion.  Far away, Daenerys Targaryen is still in the process of trading a paperclip for a house a trio of dragons for an empire, but even the growing power of her fire-children can’t completely excuse the monotony of her quest so far away from everything we know about this world.  Closer to the center of action, Tyrion Lannister can’t get no respect as the unheralded savior of King’s Landing, but the book ends on a few shocking development that may make readers wonder about him and the nature of his revenge.

    Not that he’s the only character to be re-evaluated by readers.  One of the first groans in A Storm of Swords is seeing Martin give viewpoint chapters to Jamie Lannister, the no-good incestuous children-thrower who crippled Bran Stark at the very beginning of the series.  Imagine our surprise as Jamie undergoes enough extreme hardship to deserve some sympathy, and reveals himself to be more than a good-looking psychopathic warrior.  (It helps that he’s one of the wittiest characters around.)  Such, again, are the advantages of lengthy pre-planned series: Villains to heroes, and possibly heroes to villains.

    The first half of A Storm of Sword may not escape a bit of tedium (something that the narrative structure of the book, which locks itself in subjective point-of-view for lengthy chapters, does little to soften), but the accumulation of shocks and revelations in the book’s final third more than compensates for the initial slow burn.  Even readers who feel that they have spoiled themselves reading about the book will find that there are more surprises in store than they ever expected.  (Hint: don’t read about the “Red Wedding”.  Just accept that it’s coming and it’s going to be bad.)  HBO recently announced that A Storm of Swords would be adapted as seasons 3 and 4 of the Game of Thrones miniseries; I’m already looking forward to comments and reactions to the second half of season 4, as the body count piles up and characters start doing things that will surprise even their biggest fans.  It’s going to be a wild ride.  If people through season one was merciless, they haven’t seen anything yet…

    These adaptation considerations, of course, have no reflection on this third book, which eventually ranks as the strongest volume of the series so far.  Martin has embarked on an ambitious project with A Song of Ice and Fire, and A Storm of Swords suggest that he’s making things even harder on himself as he goes along.  In the wreckage of the book’s multi-strand conclusion, readers are expected to blink in astonishment and wonder… what’s next?

  • Flypaper (2011)

    Flypaper (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand video, April 2012) Here’s my new life pro-tip for cinephiles: “Get premium cable TV channels for the big Hollywood movies; keep it for the smaller films that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise!” Flypaper may not have been seen in theaters, but on the small screen it makes for a clever and satisfying crime mystery.  The film does take a while to find its footing, as a quirky savant finds himself in the middle of two simultaneous bank robberies: for a while, Flypaper’s tone remains fuzzy as it veers between a serious crime film and a more light-hearted comedy.  But such initial sputters a common in dark comedies, and Flypaper soon finds itself on firmer footing as the real nature of its convoluted plot becomes more apparent.  Patrick Dempsey is the anchor of the film as a troubled genius investigating the crime in which he’s being held hostage, while Ashley Judd makes for a compelling heroine.  Some of the supporting characters do the best work, though, as with the banter between blue-collar bank robbers played by Tim Blake Nelson and Pruitt Taylor Vince, or a small-but-showy part for Jeffrey Tambor.  The dialogue is occasionally witty, the script is a cut above most crime comedies, and the inspired direction has its moments.  Flypaper is a dark-horse, hidden-gem kind of low-budget film: small cast but a capable script and well-handled filmmaking.  It wraps up on a high note, and leaves a great impression.

  • Holy Rollers (2010)

    Holy Rollers (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand video, April 2012) There really isn’t anything startlingly original about the dramatic arc of Holy Rollers: You can probably recall a bunch of other “good kid gets involved in drug-dealing, realizes how terrible it is and gets out” movies out there and this one doesn’t structure itself any differently.  What is new here, however, is the context: We seldom see films about the Hassidic Jewish community, and melding the usual kid-becoming-criminal plot template in this environment (it’s based on a true story) is interesting in itself even despite the lack of surprises in where it’s going.  (Actually, the biggest surprise here is that Holy Roller isn’t really interested in criticizing the Hassidic lifestyle.  This may end up being a problem for some viewers as the film tries to show the protagonist both getting away and yet returning to the faith-based lifestyle.) Much of the cinematography aims for drab realism: This is the kind of low-budget film that looks as if it was shot on a low budget, murky colors, shaky handheld camera and accidental shot composition are all on-screen. Acting-wise, Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t stretch far in a very familiar role for him, but he’s as fine as the rest of the cast in giving life to the rest of the story.  Otherwise, Holy Roller is a straight-up dramatic film: it’s good enough at what it does, doesn’t reach out of its comfort zone and doesn’t leave any strong feelings one way or another.  It exists and it’s relatively successful at what it does.

  • You Again (2010)

    You Again (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand Video, April 2012) It feels churlish to criticize a film that’s not meant to be much more than a lighthearted comedy with a female-centric cast, and perhaps even ungrateful to do so when it does deliver a few laughs, but You Again simply isn’t as good as it could be.  While the idea of a decade-deferred vengeance between bully and bullied is interesting and definitely can be mined for comedy, this script seems confused between slapstick, retribution and reconciliation.  The first act is annoying in how it presents a relatively innocuous situation where an easy way out is dismissed through sheer dramatic inevitability: the main conflict of the film exists because the characters are self-destructive, and the ending doesn’t do much to send an anti-bullying or even anti-revenge message.  But, OK, fine: this is not a “message” movie, even though it shoots itself in the foot comedy-wise by trying to reach for a heartfelt moment or two late in the game.  It’s perhaps best to focus on Kirsten Bell’s physical comedy in the lead role, or the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver as dueling rivals, or the always-hilarious Betty White and Kristin Chenoweth in small supporting roles.  (There are also a few cute cameos.)  Meanwhile, the male performers all wisely take a step back in order to let the actresses shine.  It adds up to a film that’s not too difficult to watch, but goes through a number of fuzzy plot choices that do nothing to bring You Again out of average mediocrity.  Good casting; flat script: could have been much better.

  • Hot Coffee (2011)

    Hot Coffee (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand Video, April 2012) A lot of people know about Liebeck vs McDonalds, a legal case in which a woman sued McDonalds for burns from a coffee, and received $2.7 million in damages.  Naturally, “a lot of people” don’t really understand the case, and still think it was an example of a frivolous lawsuit run amok. Hot Coffee starts by establishing the damning facts (showing gory burn pictures), and they make it that this certainly wasn’t a frivolous lawsuit: McDonalds had received over 800 complaints about burns caused by their coffee and Liebeck suffered third-degree burns that required extensive surgery.  But this is only the start of Hot Coffee‘s true agenda, which is to expose the ways in which the US civil judicial system has been systematically undermined by powerful corporate interests.  The goal is simple (make sure that business interests aren’t threatened by the judiciary branch) and the methods are many: PR campaigns to discredit civil suits and promote a hollow “tort reform”; lobbying to impose caps on damages; financing an organized effort to elect pro-business judges and discredit those who can’t be bought; and the practice of linking contracts to “mandatory arbitrage”, bypassing the judicial system in favour of conflict-resolution processes stacked in favour of the corporate client.  It’s all damning, and the examples used to illustrate the four pillars of writer/director Susan Saladoff are well-chosen.  Hot Coffee goes well beyond Liebeck vs McDonalds to uncover yet another piece of the vast anti-citizen effort that has noticeably curtailed civil rights in the US over the past few decades, and as such earns a place alongside some of the better-known activist documentaries of the past ten years.  Hot Coffee may not, stylistically speaking, be anything more than a series of talking heads blended with poignant personal stories, but it’s a fascinating piece of non-fiction… which may make you go to bed an angrier, more despondent moviegoer.

  • Repeaters (2010)

    Repeaters (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) The proverbial “low-budget but well-scripted SF movie” is hard to find, but it exists, and if Repeaters isn’t quite a complete success, it’s quite a bit better than the disaster-film swill that often passes for low-budget SF nowadays.  The central idea borrows liberally from Groundhog Day in sticking characters inside a day-long time loop.  The twists are that three characters rather than one are stuck, and that the treatment is much closer to criminal horror than to romantic comedy.  As three teenagers stuck in rehab understand their predicament and the darker implications of days repeated without consequences, the tension goes up, and the three characters end up having to fight each other day after day.  Repeaters doesn’t run all the way with the idea, nor can it escape a certain pat sentimentalism in deciding how characters escape their time-loop, but once the premise is firmly hooked, it’s easy to keep watching the film just to see what will happen next.  The limits of the budget don’t show in the rather good script as much as in the murky cinematography and intrusive handheld camera.  The film’s Canadian origins are more amusingly demonstrated by the fact that a big plot twist hinges on the fact that it’s snowing when it shouldn’t.  There is a lot of trash to be found in the wee hours of cable-TV, but Repeaters isn’t even close to badness –think of it as a nice little surprise.  (And don’t stop watching after the first few credits; there’s a nice little sting buried a few seconds later.)

  • The Andromeda Strain (1971)

    The Andromeda Strain (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, April 2012) I hadn’t seen this film in about two decades, but seeing it today was almost like seeing it for the first time: Much of the film’s impact is to be found not in the basic plot (in which scientists investigate a new and lethal threat from space in a top-secret secure laboratory) but in the ways this plot is presented on-screen.  For viewers deeply steeped in the current storytelling aesthetics of the techno-thriller genre, The Andromeda Strain is a seminal film.  It laboriously presents devices that would be used as shorthand for more than a generation of latter filmmakers.  Much of the film’s first hour is spent laboriously describing details (mysterious deaths, characters being gathered, their gradual introduction to the intricately-protected facility) that would be condensed to the simplest shorthand by latter movies such as Resident Evil.  The pace may be considerably slower than modern films, but some of the techniques remain captivating: The split-screen cinematography, the thick jargon, the post-action framing device, the quasi-documentary appeal to authority, the unflinching dedication to procedural details… it’s a generally-faithful adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel that ended up influencing an entire sub-genre.  The film has certainly struck a nerve in popular culture: I gasped audibly when I recognized the original line of dialogue (“Let’s go back to the rock… and see it at four-forty”) sampled in Apollo 440’s “Ain’t Talking About Dub”.  Some of the changes from the Crichton novel are better than others: The character gender switch that brought Kate Reid in the film have also led to a memorable character, even though the film itself is a bit weaker in explaining the “Scoop” premise of the plot.  Douglas Trumbull’s special effects are impressive for the time, but sometimes fail to accurately represent what’s happening on-screen.  Plot-wise, the film is just as notable as the novel in presenting a non-event; The Andromeda Strain has characters struggling to understand and eventually try to stop a mistake, but (taking its cues from War of the Worlds) doesn’t give them a whole lot to do in stopping the threat that brings them together.  It’s still a fascinating piece of work, though, especially for what it doesn’t do well from a perspective forty years distant.

  • Conan the Barbarian (2011)

    Conan the Barbarian (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) The problem with boring movies is that they make everything seem worse.  Lame jokes in an otherwise solid film are minor blemishes, but they become almost offensive in dull movies.  Gore is, at best, a necessarily evil in good films; in bad ones, it feels immature and forced. This remake of Conan the Barbarian is, in a few words, useless and charisma-free.  The problem start early on, with a gory prologue leading to a lengthy young-Conan sequence that leads, years later, to a third introduction to the Conan character now fully-grown.  But even with three starts, this film seems to sputter out of energy early on: A return to the kind of dull epic fantasy film we thought we’d left behind with The Scorpion King, Conan the Barbarian struggles in keeping the audience’s attention throughout its entire duration.  It doesn’t succeed, to the point that the film seems to erase itself from memory as soon as the credits roll.  Jason Momoa isn’t too bad as the title character; sadly, it’s the rest of the production that seems to fall around him.  As far a sword-and-sorcery fantasy films go, this is routine stuff, made a bit more repellent with the gratuitous meanness and gore.  Some sequences are a bit better than others (including a fight over a wooden wheel), but the initial disappointment of the film never goes away, and the end result just isn’t all that impressive.  Fantasy fans will at least get the impression that the budget was spent on-screen: There are a few good images here and there.  For everyone else, through, this remake compares unfavourably to the original Conan the Barbarian.  Good or bad doesn’t matter when the film is just this dull.

  • The Bodyguard (1992)

    The Bodyguard (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) The Bodyguard may not have earned unanimously favourable reviews when it came out, but it has stood the test of time relatively well, even though the fates of its two lead actors may now lend it an unwarranted gravitas.  Whitney Houston is now dead, of course, victim of internal conflicts that seem so much more complicated than being stalked by insane fans and professional killers.  Kevin Costner, meanwhile, has retreated into a quasi-parody of his humorless character, reaping scorns from his Waterworld-esque hubris and seldom allowing himself to portray weakness.  The Bodyguard came at the peak of the period where he was a major A-list actor, and it’s not hard to see how it was a star vehicle for his stoic infallible personae.  As a piece of entertainment, though, the film still clicks: The mixture of thrills and romance is carefully dosed for maximal impact (even when the contrivances pile up), Houston is immensely appealing and Costner act as a capable foil for her.  The suspense sequences are cleverly shot, and it’s easy to get caught up in the story despite its familiarity.  The early-nineties period is just beginning to date (the cars are the most obvious tell-tale), but there’s no need to remake The Bodyguard: It’s just as effective now that when it came out, and the number of memorable songs from the soundtrack is impressive… even for those who have never seen the film.

  • Colombiana (2011)

    Colombiana (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) If anyone in the world has earned the right to write yet another female assassin movie, it’s probably Luc Besson.  Besson’s not a particularly gifted screenwriter, but as a director he did help popularize the female-assassin stereotype in movies such as Nikita. Colombiana is another riff on a familiar concept: As a young girl’s parents are murdered by a drug lord, she vows revenge and dedicates her life to becoming a killing machine.  The story picks up years later as she nears her vengeance.  The rest is simply a series of kill-sequences noisily arranged by director Olivier Megaton, from a script by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.  While some of their previous collaborations such as Transporter 3 were terrible even by B-movie standards, Colombiana is closer to Taken in understanding the mechanics of the action-thriller genre and delivering the formula in an energetic fashion.  It helps that Zoe Saldana has the lithe physique and feral intensity required by the role: Colombiana wouldn’t be as good without her intensely physical performance.  The cinematography, at least, is a bit more ambitious than usual and the result is a slick action movie.  It may not avoid a bit of stupidity around the edges, but it’s put together with some competence and doesn’t overstay its welcome once the overlong prologue is done.   Big guns, big explosions, original executions all point a little bit too much as set-piece-driven carnography, but fans of B-grade action movies will understand the game being played here.  The result is potable.

  • Groundhog Day (1993)

    Groundhog Day (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) Curiously enough, I’d never seen Groundhog Day until now, nearly twenty years after its release.  It’s one of those films quoted/referenced so frequently that it’s easy to feel as if you don’t need to see the actual footage to know about it.  But that’s wrong in predictable ways: This film hasn’t become a minor enduring classic for no reason: Past its high-concept, Groundhog Day is a solid, well-made movie with an appealing lead character perfectly played by Bill Murray, many small pleasures, terrific scene-to-scene narrative momentum, an eye-catching Andie McDowell, and a deeply satisfying thematic subtext.  Spiritual, funny, thought-provoking and unpretentious at once, it’s a film that clicks on nearly every level.  Its annoyances and contrivances are easily swept under the rug, and what remains is a terrific film even after two decades.  The spiritual growth of the lead character is inspiring, and is enough to make anyone think about how they’d act in similar situations. As a fantasy, it may not be particularly rigorous, but thematically it’s completely satisfying.  Don’t miss it, even if you think it’s way too late to see it. 

  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

    Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) If you believe in the idea of Hollywood as one big giant conversation during which the same group of people build upon each others’ ideas in order to make genres “evolve” (acknowledging that evolution isn’t always progress), then Forgetting Sarah Marshall now seems like an essential piece of 2000s American comedy.  It’s from well-known comedy producer Judd Apatow; it features early feature-film appearances by a number of performers who would earn further notoriety in other films; and it fits in the revival of the raunchy R-rated romantic-comedy-for-boys sub-genre that stretches from The 40-Year-Old Virgin to counter-exemplar Bridesmaids (so far).  In short, Forgetting Sarah Marshall has become an essential piece of the conversation about the comedy genre over the past ten years, and I had to see it after missing out on its inauspicious release four years ago.  Fortunately, it lives up to the hype: It’s biggest enduring legacy is bound to be writer/actor Jason Segel’s break-out performance as a relatively more charming man-boy character than the Will Ferrell type.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall also remains noteworthy for bringing Russell Brand to the movies; something that would lead directly to Bring Him to the Greek.  Otherwise, there are good performances here by Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Jonah Hill, all of whom would go on to star in other high-profile comedies.  The film itself is decently funny, if sometimes over-long and almost repetitive at times.  The ending clearly shows the way to 2011’s The Muppets, as a further piece of evidence of Forgetting Sarah Marshall‘s crucial link in the Hollywood comedy conversation.  You don’t have to see it for what it set in motion: the film is successful enough by itself.  But it’s far more interesting as part of a genre than as a film completely disconnected from its context.

  • Winnie the Pooh (2011)

    Winnie the Pooh (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) There’s a common rhetorical defense against unfavorable reviews of bad children’s movies that goes approximately like “But it’s for kids!” as if the young ones deserved swill and as if adults weren’t somehow involved in the process of creating and viewing these films.  Of course, the truth is that kids deserve the best just as their parents do, and that parents will end up watching the same films as their young ones.  Why settle for less?  Such it is that a well-made kid’s film like Winnie the Pooh can charm adult audiences while still appealing to its core audiences.  Whimsical, good-natured and rarely dull to watch, this newest Disney-branded adaptation of A. A. Milne’s stories is a complete success.  The 2D animation (with a bit of CGI help and a subtle live-action framing) seamlessly transfers Pooh’s iconography to the screen, while the voice talent (including John Cleese as the narrator) strikes all the right notes.  The story itself is a charming framework in which the character’s personalities are given a chance to shine.  Adults will be especially amused by the meta-textual interludes in which the film plays with storytelling conventions and the transition from page to screen, but the entire family will enjoy the film.  Winnie the Pooh runs a bit short at a mere 63 minutes, but it’s a complete success reflected by its gentle self-assurance.