Movie Review

  • Tarzan and His Mate (1934)

    Tarzan and His Mate (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) Considering the familiarity, the rough technical qualities and the incredible racism of the 1930s Tarzan movies, it can be hard to find reasons why anyone not writing a thesis would want to watch them now. Tarzan the Ape Man as an example of the form and for Johnny Weissmuller, maybe. But surprisingly enough, Tarzan and his Mate is more interesting than its predecessor. This time around, European explorers come to Africa to find not just Tarzan, but Maureen O’Sullivan’s Jane Parker as well—and she has her own ululating scream! Not only that, but the Pre-Code nature of the film means that she wears an unusually skimpy outfit while affecting the refined manners of an English lady—all of which led to considerable controversy at a time where censorship was coming for the movies. Since the sequel has a bigger budget than the original, special effects are a little better this time around, and we still get Weissmuller (plus O’Sullivan) parading around convincingly as masters of the jungle. All in all, not a bad follow-up—and more interesting than the original, considering that the original was redone many times, but not its sequel.

  • The Burning (1981)

    The Burning (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) Okay, that’s it: I’m done with summer camp slasher movies. There was a flood of them in the early 1980s. The Burning is one of them. It’s not any better than any of the others. The Weinstein Brothers co-wrote the script, Tony Maylam directs and it’s the film debut of Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Fisher Stevens. Let’s talk about something else now.

  • Bear (2010)

    Bear (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) I got interested in survival-horror film Bear because it’s directed by Roel Reiné, one of the most consistently interesting direct-to-video action movie directors in terms of visual polish and cost effectiveness. His films usually look great even with miserly budgets, and anything with his signature is on my list of things to watch. You will not, however, see Reine’s name on Bear’s poster: He’s credited as “John Rebel” for a reason, as the film takes place in a very different visual register from his other action-packed films. Aside from a brief expansive opening in which four friends/relatives/lovers drive through a forest “shortcut” and have a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, this is a different kind of thriller. Things get worse and to the point when a bear approaches, they shoot it, and another bear approaches, overturning the van. The rest of Bear is a very intimate thriller set in the side-turned van, with the bear threatening the dwindling number of characters over the entire night. Visually, there isn’t much to do here, although Reine does gamely try to keep things flowing over the film’s 80 minutes. Interpersonal drama and considerations about the mystical nature of bears fill up the rest of the time—it’s not a surprise if the animosity between the two brothers in the van simmers over, nor if the same woman has been involved with them both. While the ultimate impact of the film is decidedly average, the claustrophobic nature of the setting and the film’s willingness to keep to a certain amount of time/space unity is more interesting than your usual man-against-nature thriller. It’s not Reine’s most impressive work, but he keeps the plates spinning until the end, which does mark a success of sorts considering how little he had to work with. But if you’re expecting car-crashing fight-slamming Reiné from Bear, well, this is a John Rebel film.

  • The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

    The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, January 2021) Despite knowing better, I approached The Incredible Shrinking Man with the wrong set of expectations. I thought I was in for a cheap 1950s Sci-Fi film, and the first few initial scenes (detailing how radiation plus chemicals could cause a normal man to start shrinking) didn’t do much to challenge that preconception. But under the pen of noted SF prose writer and screenwriter Richard Matheson, the film soon heads into far more interesting territory, backed up with special effects that are still surprisingly effective. As our lead character shrinks, the nature of his challenges changes: From medical curiosity and national news celebrity, his universe gets smaller as he does. One of the film’s two most memorable sequences has him facing an ordinary tabby cat—I was rather unamused to see my own house cat paying an atypical amount of attention to what was happening on the TV screen during that time. The other big sequence has him fight against a spider, and it still packs a thrill even after multiple generations of special effects improvements. Still, it’s probably the ongoing internal monologue of the main character that impresses the most, especially as the film reaches an inevitable but not hopeless conclusion: That’s when The Incredible Shrinking Man leaps into cosmic existentialism, taking the edge off what could have been a dark and downbeat ending. All of this places the film significantly above the average 1950s Science Fiction film, and well into the decade’s best classic SF. It’s quite a nice surprise, and it’s now unsurprising if the film earns everything from a spot on best-of lists and airtime on the celebrated Criterion Channel.

  • Critic’s Choice (1963)

    Critic’s Choice (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) I probably shouldn’t feel all that surprised that critics are seldom portrayed favourably in Hollywood films. When they’re not ridiculously mean-spirited to compensate for past slights received by the screenwriter, they’re usually played as arrogant idiots as in the case in Critic’s Choice (or the somewhat similar Please Don’t Eat the Daisies). Here, Bob Hope pairs up with Lucille Ball for the fourth and final time: he plays a well-regarded Broadway critic, while she, as his wife, keeps going from one hobby to another, ultimately settling on writing a play. She’s far more successful than either of them imagined, however, and the cracks in their marriage, already exposed while she was working with a playboy director (a young Rip Thorne—surprisingly slim and handsome for those of us used to his late-career looks), are further widened when he insists on panning the play upon opening night. (And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why us conscientious critics are prompted to disclose any real or imagined conflict of interest, to the point of consciously not reviewing works from people we feel close to.)  Critic’s Choice, clearly, works on a comic rather than realistic level—although the relationship issues discussed late in the film feel unusually pointed for what’s supposed to be a silly comedy. Marie Windsor shows up in a small role, but the spotlight remains on the lead hope as they bicker (often unpleasantly) throughout the picture. Hope doesn’t have the good role here—his character, to put it bluntly, acts like an idiot in his third act choices, and the film wraps up in a somewhat unconvincing fashion to try to make up for it. It’s a somewhat by-the-numbers film considering that Hope and Ball are both involved, but it can be fun to have a look back at the 1960s Broadway scene.

  • Dellamorte Dellamore [Cemetary Man] (1994)

    Dellamorte Dellamore [Cemetary Man] (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) There’s a delicate balance between weird and too weird when it comes to horror comedies, and Dellamorte Dellamore doesn’t always get the mixture right, even if it keeps trying new things up to the very end. What starts as a zombie comedy with a jaded graveyard-keeper dealing with the undead menace as it sporadically pops up eventually becomes a disjointed, always-changing comedy of death and lust, with unpredictable plot shifts every fifteen minutes or so. The same actress plays different characters, the lead character becomes a serial killer unable to be seen as a suspect by the police, and those aren’t the weirdest things in a film that ends by questioning the identity of two characters and the very reality in which they live. It’s a lot to process if you’re paying attention (perhaps even more if you’re not), but what helps the film cohere more than its scattered parts is the strong visual quality of director Michele Soavi’s work, far more interesting than most movies of the time (and even today)—Despite the surreal nature of the script, there’s nearly always something interesting to watch, not the least of which being a quasi Bruce-Campbellian quality to lead actor Rupert Everett’s work as the graveyard keeper. The quirky humour also keeps things interesting on another register, giving Dellamorte Dellamore a far more substantial feel than emptier horror films. It’s not much of an exaggeration to pair it with something like Army of Darkness, although it’s substantially more violent and lustful than many comparable movies.

  • Anand (1971)

    Anand (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, January 2021) I approached Anand without enthusiasm—While the film ranks high on a number of must-see-movie lists, my reaction to semi-realistic Indian cinema is not always all that good. The beginning of the film is portentous enough to discourage anyone: This is going to be about a man dying and the doctor chronicling the events. But as it turns out, Anand is the kind of film that builds and builds, keeping its best moments for the end and assembling bits and pieces of the narrative to make up for a powerful conclusion. Rajesh Khanna anchors the film as its title character, while Amitabh Bachchan got his superstar-making role as the doctor treating him. The last few minutes are a bit of a masterclass from writer-director Hrishikesh Mukherjee in how to use humour to talk about a deathly serious topic—the set-up doesn’t make complete sense, but the payoff is worth it. There’s some interest in how the film uses a few lines of English (mostly when characters tell each other to shut up), as there is in portraying 1970 Bombay in the opening moments of the film. While I’m not yet a fan of Anand, the result is a great deal better than what I was anticipating, and I can understand the fuss about the film.

  • Popcorn (1991)

    Popcorn (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) I’m really not a fan of slasher horror movies, but while Popcorn qualifies as such, there’s a little bit extra on top of it that makes it worthwhile: Its knife-wielding psycho is counterbalanced by a storyline that pays affectionate homage to past horror movies. The plot gets moving once members of a student film group start looking for ways to raise funds, and hit upon the idea of holding a classic horror marathon at a disaffected theatre. Going straight for the William Castle school of gimmicky horrors, they end up booking the fictional-but-re-created Mosquito (complete with giant mosquito puppet flying above the audience), The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man (with electrified seats) and The Stench (with Odorama cards). To be fair (and to prevent anyone from thinking that I liked the film more than I did), Popcorn is not going for metacommentary on the slasher genre: that part is played straight, even director Mark Herrier’s affectionate homage to horror movies of the past (complete with on-target snippets of the fictional films) are clearly meant to poke fun at other areas of the horror genre. But then again—the Scream-led slasher revival was still five years in Popcorn’s future. It’s a curious limitation, and it definitely limits my enjoyment of the results—if we’re poking around the same thematic territory, Popcorn certainly isn’t any funnier or more enjoyable than the slasher-less comedy Matinee. But it is funnier and more interesting than homage-less slashers, so that’s the scale we’re going to go with this time around.

  • The Swimmer (1968)

    The Swimmer (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) For a superstar actor with great looks and a commanding presence, Burt Lancaster spent a good chunk of his career undermining his own screen persona and kicking around the idea of what a man’s man could be. The Swimmer is a surprisingly twisted film, but it does take a while to realize how much so. It starts with a scene that almost feels normal—a pool party, with a guy (Lancaster) making an unusual promise to his guests to “swim his way home,” going from one pool to another as he walks back to his house in his upscale neighbourhood. The stage is thus set for an episodic film in which every pool becomes a scene, our protagonist meeting acquaintances and strangers along the way. If the impressionistic cinematography between those pool scenes doesn’t clue you that something else is happening, then the various elliptical references to the protagonist’s past accumulate until there’s a definite mystery at the end of the road—what will be at the house once all the pool-hopping is done? It’s not a coincidence if characters keep commenting that the sunshine is going to be replaced by clouds and rain. As the film goes on, we piece enough things together to realize that the protagonist is cheerfully lying to himself and others, and by the time the final sequence hits, well, it’s not as if we’re surprised. (Still, the film could have done with an extra coda or two to explain things, such as how did he end up in the opening scene in the first place?) Directed with some nascent New Hollywood style by Frank Perry then Sydney Pollack, The Swimmer strikes me as the kind of film that could not have been made in Hollywood just a few years earlier—psychologically twisted, surprisingly dark and not entirely realistic despite being grounded in solid landscapes. Keep your eyes open for a first screen role for comedienne Joan Rivers.

  • Maniac (1980)

    Maniac (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) The early-1980s slashers are easily at the bottom of my list of most despised genres. Boring and ultra-violent, they seldom amount to more than a collection of death sequences (usually filmed with far more gusto and affection than the rest of the film) loosely strung together. Maniac is a particularly nasty example of the form, combining gorier-than-usual special effects (from legend Tom Savini, who also plays a character destined to violent death—Savini got the role because he had a cast of his head ready to be blown up) with a repellent character study of a serial murderer. You can argue that this slightly different approach, not keeping the murderer in foggy mystery but entering his life openly, distinguishes Maniac from other examples of the genre and that’s probably true. (Star Joe Spinelli, of no great photogenic disposition, also wrote the script.) But it certainly doesn’t make the result any easier or more interesting to watch—it’s still a film in which a man kills several young women in terrible and voyeuristic ways and I’ve never understood the appeal of that. If that’s your thing, sure, have a look at Maniac. Otherwise, I’m going to enjoy never having to think about that movie ever again.

  • Gidget (1959)

    Gidget (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) The 1950s can arguably be called the decade during which the teenager was solidified as an explicit life stage between childhood and adulthood. Hollywood, to no one’s surprise, was instrumental in charting and even creating the social construct: By 1959, after all, the oldest baby boomers were hitting 14 and aspiring to be older, the Southern Californian lifestyle was sweeping the nation’s collective imagination and the studios were desperately trying to keep young audiences in theatres given the threat from television. So here comes Gidget, one of the first movies to document the SoCal surf lifestyle. Featuring Sandra Dee as the titular “Girl Midget—Gidget” (despite not being that short compared to the other characters), the film still reads as a timeless example of a “What are these young ones doing?” bout of mild paranoia. Cliff Robertson shows up as a much older beach bum trying to hide away from Korea war PTSD, and becomes the object of the teenage protagonist’s affection—leading to one of the film’s least pleasant subplots, although to its credit the film does have the good sense of avoiding the teenager hooking up with the thirtysomething guy. Still, compared to many of its inheritors, Gidget is somewhat more serious-minded in its portrait of the American teenager—there’s some authentic coming-of-age here, and the film is not quite as mindless as the subsequent Beach Party series of movies. While Gidget is best experienced as a blast from the early years of American adolescence, it’s still likable on its own terms, early surfboards, 1950s hairstyles and all.

  • Pot o’ Gold (1941)

    Pot o’ Gold (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2021) James Stewart’s filmography is vast, and not all of his movies are equally good or as well known to modern viewers. By 1941, he was already well known—The Philadelphia Story had earned critical acclaim, and you could see his screen persona coalescing around his specific strengths. These strengths did not necessarily include singing and dancing, making him a curious choice for Pot o’ Gold, a musical comedy teaming him with Paulette Goddard along with feuding families, obscured identities and a radio program distributing cash prizes. There’s singing, dancing, romance and comedy—but the sum of it is less successful than you’d expect. Stewart himself wasn’t a fan of the film, and contemporary reviews were harsh. Nowadays, Pot o’ Gold can be mildly interesting for the incongruous spectacle of Stewart in a musical comedy role, or as another film to feature the beautiful Goddard. Still, it’s not much of a success, and there are plenty of better films to see.

  • Our Betters (1933)

    Our Betters (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) I expected just a bit more from Our Betters, a satirical comedy that should logically take the best from the Pre-Code era, George Cukor’s direction and the Somerset Maugham play on which it’s based. There’s certainly plenty of realized potential here about an American heiress upsetting the London social scene, as the characters overtly engage in adultery and poke fun at London high society. (The title is meant to be ironic.)  Still, I had a harder time than I expected in keeping invested in the film. Direction-wise, Cukor specializes in acting here, meaning that for all of the fancy costumes and good dialogue, there isn’t much in terms of cinematic qualities of the film—it’s almost a filmed theatrical play—which, to be fair, was not all that uncommon in the early sound era. At least there’s the Pre-Code portrayal of hypocrisy in the upper classes to fill in the blanks, and some better-than-average dialogue in terms of comedy. Ah well—they can’t all be winners, and maybe I’ll revisit Our Betters later in a more agreeable frame of mind. It’s not any worse than average, which is already not too bad.

  • Romaine par moins 30 [Romaine 30 Below] (2009)

    Romaine par moins 30 [Romaine 30 Below] (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2021) The relationship between France and Quebec is a special one indeed, with the French-Canadian province often being portrayed Europe-side as an American escape for characters unable to tolerate the stifling embrace of the old continent. (Or, perhaps more accurately, French-Canadian characters being wilder than their European counterparts.)  French/Canadian co-production Romaine par moins 30 takes off from this premise, as a French couple flies to Montréal right in the middle of winter (!) and an incident aboard the plane leaves our heroine Romaine stranded at Dorval airport by minus 30 Celsius degrees, newly single and without money or identity papers. The precipitating incident is dubiously justified, which portends a film closer to a kind of fantasy than any attempt at realism. Our heroine (played by the very cute Sandrine Kiberlain) spends the film meeting eccentric characters, gets married against her will, makes her way to an isolated village that every Montréaler unexplainably knows and eventually grows out of her own limitations thanks to the power of a frigid winter, a tax-dodging acupuncturist, a few Québécois lovers and the orgasmic power of kneading dough—but I’ve said too much. The tone of Romaine par moins 30 is both its single biggest asset and its most vexing component: While the film manages to keep viewers intrigued by a stream of unlikely encounters, strange characters, wild plot tangents and offbeat sequences, the feeling of the film seems more haphazard than deliberate. There’s a lack of control that carries through to the ending, which ends abruptly without a satisfying coda. It clearly feels as if Quebec is presented as a fairyland of lusty lads and self-discovery opportunities to the European public—which isn’t a bad thing to be presented as, certainly, but the exoticism will feel strange to Canadian audiences.

  • Broadway Babies (1929)

    Broadway Babies (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) The first few years of sound cinema were filled with Broadway backstagers, as the newly audible medium reached for the closest equivalent in an attempt to figure out what to do with a soundtrack. A blend of backstage drama, criminal thrills and song-and-dance numbers, Broadway Babies pales in comparison with the better examples of the form that was burgeoning at the time. It’s a bit dull, quite stiff, not yet comfortable in the ways to use sound, and the film had the bad luck of being semi-lost in time: the only surviving copy is a 16 mm copy-of-a-copy—meaning that it looks unusually soft and blurry compared to many other films of the time, even though it wasn’t necessarily as bad when it premiered. Despite technically qualifying as a Pre-Code film, there isn’t much racy material here—there are more shootouts than scantily clad ladies, in keeping with Hollywood tradition. An early effort from famed director Mervyn LeRoy, Broadway Babies is perhaps more interesting as an example of the kinds of things that Hollywood was playing with in its early sound era. Still, there are far better films from the same time—The Broadway Melody and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, both from the same year, have some innate interest rather than being simply examples of the form.