Movie Review

  • How to Tell You’re a Douchebag (2016)

    How to Tell You’re a Douchebag (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2020) I wanted to like How to Tell You’re a Douchebag, but can’t quite bring myself up to it. It does have a few things I like—an attempt to examine romance in the mid-2010s, some biting lines of dialogue, very appealing actresses, and a slice-of-life atmosphere of Brooklyn that may mature into a time capsule of the era. Alas, writer-director Tahir Jetter doesn’t quite want the usual romantic comedy, nor anything like a conventional beginning, middle or plot. Nor does he have a decent budget big enough to do justice to his ambitions. Nor can he sand off the edges of his deplorable protagonist in time to make us care for him. Falling into many of the traps that have claimed low-budget films, How to Tell You’re a Douchebag ends up being a not-particularly-good nor funny “romantic comedy” in which a young man tries to learn about romance even as he’s writing a relationship blog. That protagonist is neither pleasant nor smart, but part of the film’s remaining charm is to document a very specific slice of modern urban living, with characters hooking up and then having romantic issues. Since this is a story of personal growth more than a romance, don’t expect a conventionally happy ending. Alas, you can add that to the list of charges against How to Tell You’re a Douchebag: how can you like a film so intent on self-sabotage?

  • The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

    The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Imagine the most erudite, self-absorbed, pompous, know-it-all dinner guest imaginable. Now imagine him breaking a leg and having to stay for a few weeks. You don’t need much more than that to get the comedy play-turned-film The Man Who Came to Dinner going. Of course, it helps if you have good actors to play the parts: Monty Woolley as the titular pain-in-the-neck, Bette Davis as his assistant in an unusual comic/romantic lead, Jimmy Durante in a small but loud role, Ann Sheridan as a bombshell actress lured to break up a romance and Mary Wickes as a nurse who gets a full character arc and the film’s funniest speech as she storms out. Nominally a romantic comedy with numerous subplots but closer to a ludicrous screwball revelling in its absurdity, The Man Who Came to Dinner is a solid hit even decades later. The overlapping subplots mean that there’s quite a lot going on at once, helped along with some fast-paced dialogue. While technically a Christmastime film, it’s funny enough to be watched all year long.

  • The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

    The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) There are several good reasons to dislike J. Edgar Hoover, but you can’t deny that he is fascinating as a historical figure: he was, after all, the BOI/FBI’s director for 48 years—longer than most people’s entire careers! As such, he became a bigger-than-life figure, with character traits exaggerated in crossdressing (unproven!), homosexuality (unproven!) and secret files used to blackmail politicians (proven!) While we twenty-first century viewers now know more about Hoover’s documented life than before, we don’t have access to those who knew him best any more. Iconoclast writer-director-producer Larry Cohen had the inverse—not much official documentation, but plenty of contacts with those who knew him. The result of his investigation is the nervous exposé The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, which uses a delicious framing device (a mad rush to secure Hoover’s secret files after his death) as the starting signal for a quasi-documentary rush of chopped-up editing, fast pacing and a whirlwind tour of Hoover’s life (as known in the mid-1970s) that does not bother with niceties. Given that it’s from Cohen, it’s interesting throughout—and even more so when you measure Cohen’s own opinion of the man against other sources, such as the much more recent J. Edgar. For instance, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover almost brushes off the rumours of Hoover’s sexuality, but presents what feels like a more complete portrait of the man. Despite the rebellious rock-throwing, the film does serve to further cement Hoover’s mythological status by associating him with decades of American history—showing the turnaround of the FBI in the institution it became, and later suggesting that Hoover’s secret files would precipitate the Agnew resignation and pave the way for Watergate. (An assertion ahead of its time, knowing what we now know about Mark Felt.) In the end, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is fanciful, choppy yet enjoyable—and the mid-1970s period atmosphere is quite nice.

  • Majorie Prime (2017)

    Majorie Prime (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) An example of how science fiction can take place in mere words rather than necessarily drowning in special effects, Majorie Prime is an adaptation of a theatrical play exploring memory and grief through the replacement of deceased persons by androids. It’s an intimate and quiet SF film with quite a cast—Geena Davis and Tim Robbins in heavy-duty dramatic roles, Jon Hamm in a role that’s both charming and profound, and perhaps most of all Lois Smith as the grieving woman who finds solace in an android version of her ex-husband. Most of the actors have quite a challenge in approaching their characters in two different ways. Director Michael Almereyda keeps Majorie Prime quite restrained in presentation (it’s essentially a living-room movie), but the narrative gets wilder and wilder as it digs into its themes, landing on a tone not dissimilar to a Black Mirror episode. There is some unachieved potential, perhaps due to a limited budget and a consequent refusal to get to the end of the premise. (One fundamental limitation: Actors who remain the same age.) Ever the contrarian, I found myself darkly amused by Majorie Prime’s less-than-comic resolution: the particulars of the SF device justifying the plot don’t always make a lot of sense, even if it leads to a conclusion of pitch-black humour in which our cast of characters has become something else, co-fabulating their ways into better and better memories.

  • The Mortal Storm (1940)

    The Mortal Storm (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Hollywood doesn’t exactly have the most edifying track record of criticizing the Nazis before the war started—studios wanted to keep selling films to the German market, and despite what the official history will tell you, a high number of Americans (i.e.: Hollywood’s audience) were Nazi sympathizers, isolationists or apathetic to what was happening in Europe. The Mortal Storm, adapted from a 1937 novel by Phyllis Bottome, pushes the edges of the Production Code in virulently denouncing the Nazi regime by presenting a family of German resisters looking aghast as their country is transformed during the 1930s. It’s limited in what it can say (the word “Jew” is never said—the film uses “non-Aryan” as a substitute) thanks to the Production Code forbidding criticism of other governments, but the message is unmistakable. James Stewart shines as one of the most virtuous characters. The Mortal Storm’s very heavy-handed on-the-nose commentary certainly isn’t subtle, but it’s probably as overt as it could be at the time. Despite the film’s lulls and lengths, the film hasn’t really aged—by taking us inside a Germany shifting into authoritarianism, sometimes with Nazi characters that aren’t cartoonishly evil, it provides a useful guide to reflect on just what’s going on with the United States at the moment. Both a historical piece and unfortunately still current, The Mortal Storm isn’t just a WW2 propaganda piece.

  • Earth Girls are Easy (1988)

    Earth Girls are Easy (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Normally, calling a film ridiculous is a slam—but in the case of Earth Girls are Easy, it’s both a compliment and a recognition of what the film was trying to achieve. Director Julien Temple helms this silly comedy about three harmless aliens crash-landing in a valley girl’s backyard and getting close encounters with Earth culture. Considering that the valley girl is played by Geena Davis and the three aliens by Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and a pre-stardom Jim Carrey, well, the thing gets silly pretty quickly—but not in a dumb way, more like a very clever way masquerading at being stupid. The fish-out-of-water comedy becomes a romantic comedy, with several great lines and a carnival of silly scenes. If I was in an analytical frame of mind, I would discuss how The Alien, in this film, is a seductive blank slate, innocent (without sin) and powerful at the same time. But I’m not really in such a mood right now—Earth Girls are Easy is just a lot of fun on a surface level… although I wouldn’t be surprised to revisit this one soon enough.

  • Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

    Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) It takes a special kind of skill to ride along with junkies, and that’s more or less what writer-director Gus van Sant wants viewers to do in Drugstore Cowboy, as the film follows the adventures of a young man whose addiction is fuelled by a well-practised racket of robbing drugstores and moving from one temporary location to another. Headed by a strong lead performance from Matt Dillon, the film does start on a promising note and keeps going for a while on a strange blend of drug poetry. (Accordingly, no less than William Burroughs briefly shows up as an elderly street philosopher.) There’s something interesting in the structure of the film, as it portrays an addict at his arguable finest, then keeps dragging him down and down through reversals of fortune, then a difficult decision to go straight and try to stick to the narrow path of sobriety. (The ending is ironically open-ended as to whether it will stick.) While it doesn’t quite reach the kind of street poetry that it may have aspired to, Drugstore Cowboy remains a decently entertaining watch—perhaps more interesting as a deep dive into the mindset of hardcore addicts than a sustained narrative.

  • My Girl 2 (1994)

    My Girl 2 (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) The success of My Girl made a sequel inevitable, but how exactly do you produce a sequel to a movie famous for an out-of-left-field slap of emotional manipulation? You can’t exactly kill a new best friend. So, the sequel digs deeper in its mythology and goes foreign (so to speak), in sending our young protagonist from the Midwest to sunny Los Angeles in a quest to find out more about her deceased mom. There’s a surprise marriage here, and a new baby, and some step-cousin romance and a few more things out of the “thirteen-year-old girl’s best summer ever” playbook. On its own, My Girl 2 works modestly well in the Hollywood teen-drama mould—but as a sequel, though, it plays more as an extended epilogue or another more boring chapter in the character’s lives. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s definitely the kind of film that can play in the background while you’re doing something else.

  • The Watermelon Woman (1996)

    The Watermelon Woman (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) One of the most amazing things about the world of movies is there is always more to discover, even for those who think they’ve seen it all. So it is that 1996’s The Watermelon Woman is a film by and about black lesbian filmmakers, and specifically about one who gets so fascinated by a supporting player in a 1930 film (merely billed as “the watermelon woman”) that she starts tracking down that person’s life and discovers a few surprises along the way. Executed mockumentary-style, The Watermelon Girl is surprisingly convincing in taking us down Hollywood’s history, especially when it comes to black homosexual performers. Much of the film still plays remarkably well despite the low budget and low-fi visual aesthetics. I didn’t think that I had much in common with the film’s subject matter or filmmaker, but as it turns out… I have looked up unusually attractive actresses from 1930s film, and the thrill of discovering more about the person is something I strongly identified with. Writer-director Cheryl Dunye has built The Watermelon Girl in a way that the detective aspect of the story is definitely a strong narrative hook. But there’s a lot more about the film than a chase through the archives: Its depiction of a lesbian protagonist, along with her interaction with her community, still plays quite well in 2020. I didn’t expect much from the film, but it played up to my Hollywood history fascination, and still has quite a bit to say. Plus, Camille Paglia makes a borderline self-parodic appearance, so what else could we ask for?

  • Wet Bum aka Surfacing (2014)

    Wet Bum aka Surfacing (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) I’m not sure what qualifies as a truly unfortunate movie title, but I’m thinking that if a major newspaper spends the first few paragraphs of an article titled “What is wrong with the Canadian film industry?” talking about marketing problems caused by titling a film Wet Bum, then we’ve got a serious contender. As the article states, the film is much better than its title would suggest: it’s the prototypically Canadian low-budget character study, sympathetic and likable and yet almost intent on self-sabotage. The narrative focuses on an awkward teenage girl with self-esteem issues, and facing bullying, and having a terrible job, and suffering overbearing parents, and having unfulfilled romantic ambitions, and so on. (If you’re wondering about the title, it’s because she takes swimming lessons.) Julia Sarah Stone is rather good as the 14-year-old protagonist, and writer-director Lindsay MacKay has an eye for detail that justifies this 90-minute excursion in incredibly unpleasant wintertime small-town Canada as seen from a teenager’s unhappy viewpoint. The coming-of-age dramatic strands at play in Wet Bum aren’t hard to figure out, but it’s all in the competent execution. Don’t let the title put you off—no wonder it was retitled Surfacing abroad!

  • Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

    Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) According to Rhapsody in Blue’s production history, the biggest problem the filmmakers faced was in wringing drama out of George Gershwin’s biography. While his death at 38 was tragic and he had multiple romantic liaisons, the rest of his life was somewhat uneventful—his rise to fame and acclaim being somewhat linear without major setbacks. Accordingly, this old-school but solid musical biography of Gershwin highlights the music (with some numbers notably played at length, something even remarked upon with stopwatch precision by the characters) and downplays the drama to the point of being a bit hazy about the man himself. All characters repeatedly agree, though—Gershwin was a genius, and women loved him. Much of this admiration can be explained by how the film is crammed with real-life Gershwin friends and admirers: Al Jolson (in blackface, inevitably and alas), the always-excellent Oscar Levant (wisecracking as himself, perhaps his favourite role ever) and Hazel Scott singing two rather good numbers in a Parisian nightclub—the first half of her performance in intelligible but probably phonetic French. Meanwhile, Robert Alda is not bad in the lead role. One notes the film as being one more contribution in the “Americans go to Paris for inspiration” subgenre, magnified by the later musical comedy An American in Paris paying homage to Gershwin—and also co-starring Levant. Inevitably, the conclusion becomes an Ode to a Fallen Great given Gershwin’s untimely death. Rhapsody in Blue does make for a nice introduction to Gershwin and his music, although as usual for Hollywood biopics the film does not survive even a quick Wikipedia check. Enjoy the music, don’t worry too much about the facts.

  • Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

    Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) One of the first musical biographies made by and for black audiences, Lady Sings the Blues still feels modern in how it treats its central character Billie Holliday—even as it does rely on the classical musical biography elements of tough childhoods, early discrimination and mid-career substance addiction. Diana Ross is impressive as Holliday, while surrounded by good actors such as Billy Dee Williams and an early non-comic (and non-moustached) performance from Richard Pryor. The music is quite good if you’re into early jazz (although there’s some anachronistic material there), and the atmosphere of early black music performances is evocative—even as Holliday goes out on tour with a white band. I gather that it’s not faithful at all to Holliday’s life, but this all blurs with distance and doesn’t stop the film from standing up on its own. Lady Sings the Blues hasn’t aged as much as similar film of the time because it’s anchored in solid (if familiar) material, and treats its characters with modern sensibilities. One wonders about how the then-popular blaxploitation genre paved the way for this specific biography.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, May 2021) I have a feeling I’d like Lady Sings the Blues far more had I seen it in theatres in 1972 rather than fifty years later. It’s not that it’s a bad film – but what was new and interesting about it in 1972 – the grittiness, the denunciation of racism, the dramatic arc of a self-destructive singer, Diana Ross‘ performance from as Billie Holiday – all feels obvious, maybe even perfunctory today. Lady Sings the Blues follows a now-obvious dramatic arc for musical biopics. While there’s little bad to say about Ross, or the able supporting performance from Billy Dee Williams (in his pre Lando Calrissian days, another “less impressive now than in 1972” thing), the film itself feels intensely familiar today. I’ll note for the record that we’re not necessarily any better than audiences in 1972 – contemporary reviews also noted the clichés, so they feel even more striking after fifty more years of repetition. But it does make Lady Sings the Blues feel more generic than it should, and the ultimate proof of that would be that it took until I logged the film in my notes that I realized that I had already seen it less than a year ago. Now that’s embarrassing.

  • The Children’s Hour (1961)

    The Children’s Hour (1961)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) It’s interesting to see a film resolutely take a stand against homophobia… while being unable to properly express what exactly it’s taking a stand against. But so is the curious juncture at which The Children’s Hour came about, as it describes how a girl with malevolent intentions starts a rumour about two teachers being a lesbian couple, leading to dismissal, social ostracism and everyone around them being affected as well. The lie may be debunked, but it’s too late—early 1960s America exacted its toll. That’s revolting by contemporary standards (although I bet it’s still happening in small communities), and The Children’s Hour clearly identifies its sympathies for the characters who should be able to live as they please. Still, the film is frustratingly elliptic in taking about “unnatural” relations, nor can it help itself by punishing a character in order to satisfy the requirements of the Hays Code. I watched the film because it featured Audrey Hepburn in one of her most dramatic roles and was not disappointed by her as a character in the middle of it all. But there’s quite a bit more to say about The Children’s Hour, as it touches upon issues too touchy to even mention—even if the execution falters, it did much under the constraints placed upon it in 1961.

  • It Should Happen to You (1954)

    It Should Happen to You (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) No matter whether you’re talking about 2020s influencers or 1950s aspiring actresses, the lure of instant fame is evergreen, and It Should Happen to You offers a time capsule of what that looked like in mid-twentieth century America. The hook lies in having an obscure young woman taking out a billboard in her name, hoping that the publicity will lead somewhere. Against all odds, it works—and she quickly finds herself in a romantic triangle between a well-off executive and a more modest filmmaker. The unusual premise quickly leads to a far more conventional romantic comedy, but there are enough known names in the production to keep things interesting. Under George Cukor’s direction, we have Judy Holliday as the young not-so-smart ingenue, being wooed by Peter Lawford and Jack Lemmon in his movie debut. While some of the film’s initial intentions get lost in the shuffle, the film ends on a funny and romantic note. The black-and-white cinematography highlights It Should Happen to You’s old-fashioned atmosphere (at times, it feels like a late-1930s film): Maybe Cukor, as competent as he was, couldn’t quite bring himself to shoot the material in colour and reflect the slightly dourer 1950s—ah, colour footage of those Manhattan locations would have been something to see! The actors are all charming in their own way: while I’ll confess never quite getting the fascination for Holliday’s persona, she does well here. While not a waste of time, It Should Happen to You certainly does feel as if it’s restraining itself—although, considering that it’s about advertising in the mid-1950s, we’re already getting quite a lot.

  • Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

    Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Some people have addiction problems, but by this point in the Death Wish series, protagonist Paul Keslo’s serial killing problem has just become a grim parody of the first few movies—which, considering the blatantly cartoonish nature of the third film, is saying something. This time, Keslo’s close relatives are being brutalized and killed by rich people, which puts a different but not really any more acceptable spin on things. Charles Bronson (as Keslo) is grandpa killer by then, looking old and bored in his final theatrical starring role, as he once again murders for revenge in creative ways more reminiscent of slasher movies than earnest revenge. Although the film nods slightly in the direction of the character’s previous crime sprees, there isn’t much done with the psychology of someone who always sees killing as a solution to revenge. (Although that suggests a different parodic direction for the series—at 64, one year away from retirement, office avenger Paul Keslo kills co-workers who didn’t return his stapler, don’t wash their hands in the washroom and took away his lunch in the break room!) More amusing than dramatic, but far more boring than amusing, Death Wish V pushes the series’ five instalments even further past their due date.