Author: Christian Sauvé

(In theaters, June 2008) There are good things about this low-budget exploitation film: The idea of putting five medical professionals far away in Northern Ontario, then making them face against a mysterious killer in a grueling contest of survival horror, definitely has potential even through the Deliverance and Blair Witch Project flashbacks. Hal Holbrook makes a capable hero, and the scenery can be breathtaking. Unfortunately, this grueling contest of survival horror soon extends to the viewers as the film drags on, and on, and on. The increasingly unsatisfying ending (which is content not explaining anything) does little to explain the terrible coincidences that would be necessary to make the story work, and provide more strangeness than satisfaction in how it stages the final showdown between survivors and tormentors. There are reportedly no plans to make this film available on DVD: despite a few good things here and there, I’m not sure that this is much of a loss.

(On DVD, June 2008) I avoided this film for years, convinced that it was “just” a big-issues tear-jerking drama with little more to it. But, hey, I was wrong: Despite the familiar themes and the goody-goody preachiness, there’s a solid drama in here, ably supported by Oscar-worthy acting by Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. Director Jonathan Demme keeps things moving swiftly until the last act, where the film collapses upon its own dramatic weight from the aria sequence onward. Still, it’s a good script with some effective time-compression techniques: it’s a pleasure to watch until the lengthy final twenty minutes, and Washington’s character ably anchors the drama through a rough portrait of a Man Who Learns Better (But Not That Much). What’s perhaps most interesting, watching this film fifteen years later in a Canadian society that has evolved a lot since then, is that a number of the issues presented in the film are now self-obvious: homophobia is wrong, AIDS can be managed (especially with the newer drugs) and the controversial aspect of the film may not play as well among ever-larger progressive audiences. And that’s the way big-issues films should run: presenting aspirational ideas that eventually become mainstream. Well done.

(On DVD, June 2008) After years of being hidden on studio shelves, the long-rumored The Onion Movie has finally been quietly released on DVD and the final result is… uneven. Blame the structure of the film for some of the problems: The screenwriters have chosen to build the movie as a series of sketches loosely held together by a dull story about corporate interference at a news network. (The ending, which tries to bring it all together, is far too long for its own good.) Some sketches are better, and some of them aren’t (the whole “rape mystery party”, for instance, is a long resounding thud.) But I suspect that the fault is also due to the source material: The Onion’s usual shtick is to present the punchline first in the headline, then work out its implications in the following article. This works in a scannable medium like text, but it’s deadly on-screen. Here, whole sequences drag on and on until the final joke: The “Wizards and Warlords” segment is particularly awful in this regard. It’s too bad, really, because the production values of the film are surprisingly good and a lot of the material does work –including a slickly-produced cute/raunchy take-off on Britney Spears which, along with the Rodney Dangerfield cameo, shows the late-2003 origins of the film. Like its source material, the film isn’t afraid to let loose with profanity, violence and glimpses of graphic gay sex: This is one of those movies that really tries to offend everyone. (Including movie reviewers, in amusing self-referential segments.) It’s a bit of a problem that the “deleted scenes” on the DVD are just as good, or bad, as the rest of the film. Otherwise, well, it’s a curious rental for those who already like The Onion. And frankly, it’s still far better than stuff like Epic Movie.

(In theaters, June 2008) Spy/Comedy hybrids usually have more potential than success and this film is no exception to the rule. While several of the conceits from the “Get Smart” TV series are still ingenious, their incarnation here never seems to be exploited to its fullest extent. Steve Carrel is irreproachable as Maxwell Smart, presenting an endearing mixture of competence and inexperience. Anne Hathaway, surprisingly enough, isn’t as charming: her character is quicker to become abusive than exasperated, and despite the in-story justification for her false youthfulness, there’s seldom a sense that she’s got the maturity required for that type of character. The rest of the plot isn’t much better than adequate. The nonsense about weapons of mass destruction is too pedestrian to fit in the humorous premise, and indeed the film struggles to find comedy in situations that should be ripe for it. The most disappointing aspect of this big-budget movie remake is the pedestrian dialog, which rarely rises above the strictly perfunctory. As you may expect, the action sequences play better than anything else (well, except Alan Alda, who’s a riot no matter what he does) but the problem here is that action sequences are cheap and plentiful, while Get Smart most definitely isn’t. While the film is not a disaster, it is a disappointment in how it suggests intriguing possibilities and then fails to follow them up.

(On DVD, June 2008) I may not know or care much about football, but this adaptation of the now-classic Buzz Bissinger book is a solid hit even if it glosses over much of what made the original so interesting. Forget about the sociology of football-mad Odessa, Texas and focus on the raw energy of this tale of high-school players being raised to demigod status: Director Peter Berg delivers a film that sizzles with pseudo-documentary energy, using hand-held camera and terrific editing to deliver an experience that keeps us engrossed throughout. Some of the material created to suit the dramatic needs of the film can feel overdone, but fans of the book will recognize little details, characters and incidents that would have been excised had the book been adapted by less-passionate hands. The performances from the ensemble cast are all remarkably good, from Derek Luke’s overconfident athlete to Billy Bob Thornton’s pivotal coach, steady under terrible pressure. The sheer cinematographic density of the first half-hour is mesmerizing, daring us to follow along or sink in the process. And even football morons like me will be swept along by the film’s final act. I’m not even interested in picking apart the film for what it doesn’t include from the book: this is as good as adaptations ever get, leveraging the strengths of a medium against the things it cannot faithfully represent. On the DVD, don’t miss the informative (if occasionally defensive) director’s commentary, or the where-are-they-now featurettes.

(On DVD, June 2008) I missed this in theaters, and shame on me: There is some really clever stuff in this modern retelling of the usual Disney fare. It starts in classic Disney-fairlytale flat 2-D animation, where a princess is exiled to real-world New York. Then things get more interesting as the fairytale idealism of the princess (a perfect, and I do meant perfect, Amy Adams) clashes with the grim (but not-too-grim) practicalities of the big city. The tension here is made even more interesting by the idea that this is a Disney film commenting upon an entire in-house tradition. Nobody will be surprised to find out that idealism ultimately wins over even the lead skeptic (a rather good Patrick Dempsey) by way of sheer cuteness, dragon-fighting and a number of snappy musical numbers (two of which, “Happy Working Song” and “That’s How You Know”, stick in mind well after the end credits). As a family film it sometimes loses itself in cute-animals shenanigans, obvious plot-points, overacting and some idiot-plotting. But there are enough clever sequences, smarts details and genre-aware commentary to make it seem interesting even to those who fall outside the “family” audience. Better yet: if wouldn’t have been as good had it come from another studio than Disney.

(In theaters, June 2008) Pure exploitation film featuring a young woman facing off against one vapid playboy and four disturbed low-lives. It starts promisingly enough, with a surprisingly well-edited racing duel through Ontario dirt roads. It sets up its characters efficiently enough despite the limits of its budget, and provides an intriguing (if well-worn) situation as the hoodlums track down playboy and woman for a weekend of home invasion violence. But the film soon loses control over its own pacing shortly thereafter, as the menace of the invaders is either played for laughs, or never taken seriously by the so-called heroes. Anyone with half a brain would have made attempts to escape: our protagonists stay inert, up to a point where the playboy loses whatever lingering sympathy he might have deserved. It’s a very long second act, and very little happens during the build-up. After that, well, it’s pure familiar stuff: physical assault, followed by utter retribution by the heroine. It ends with a nauseating bit of Stockholm-syndrome flashback. Not much to see here, even by the standards of exploitation cinema.

(On DVD, June 2008) In the venerable genre of “horror movies when seemingly-innocuous things kill people”, this isn’t one of the bad ones: The idea of sheep turning into carnivorous monsters has a kick to it, and the New Zealand team putting it all together has enough cleverness to use the concept to its fullest extent. It’s not revolutionary, particularly funny or scary, but it goes through all of the right motions at a decent rhythm. The leads are sympathetic enough, the gore is suitably over-the-top and the fun just keeps on piling up. It could have been funnier or slicker (we’re still far away from Shaun Of The Dead or Tremors) but there really isn’t much more to say about it: Killer sheep, decent production values and enough fun for any gore-hound.