Movie Review

  • Best Defense (1984)

    Best Defense (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) I’m glad I read about Best Defense’s troubled production before writing this review, because it turns out that what I liked best about it are almost accidental consequences of an attempt to save the film from a critical savaging. From the get-go, the film offers two timelines: One, in 1982, with a bumbling engineer trying to perfect a piece of military equipment, and another in 1984 of a soldier having to use the equipment in a military engagement. Already, this dual-timeline structure is far more interesting than the norm. But as it turns out, the 1984 subplot was added in reshoots when the 1982 scenes proved too terrible to exist by themselves. In that, at least, the studio acknowledged reality. Unexplainably relying on Dudley Moore as a protagonist (the more I see of Moore’s movies, the less I like his comic persona), the bulk of Best Defense tries to convince us that it’s worth cheering for an incompetent, lecherous would-be-adulterous idiot. (Has Moore played anything else?) Needless to say, this has aged poorly these days, especially during an American administration that has nakedly shown the consequences of incompetence. If you can manage to get over his performance, the film gets far more interesting when it plays with its dual timelines, the actions of 1982 having consequences in 1984, as none other than Eddie Murphy (then exploding as a megastar, and clearly funnier than Moore, even in showboating) playing the soldier struggling with the engineer-designed equipment. Amusingly enough, the film anticipates the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait eight years before it happened—although let’s not see in this anything but a lucky coincidence. The result is a bit of a mess—an intriguing structure that was bolted upon a far less interesting film. Murphy escapes from the film mostly intact, along with Kate Capshaw as the voice of reason to man-child Moore. Best Defense is interesting but for all the wrong reasons—and I’m not going to recommend it to any unsuspecting audience.

  • Captive State (2019)

    Captive State (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Despite the slew of underwhelming movies about life under alien occupation, I continue to think that there’s something really powerful about that promise—at least if it’s used to comment on social issues, or reflect the contemporary feeling of life under (human) 1% oligarchs. Unfortunately, you’re not going to find that kind of material in Captive State, which struggles to become interesting even as it studies various characters as they react to life under a repressive alien regime. While the story does score a few points by focusing on the human enablers that prop up the alien regime and aping classic Resistance movies, much of Captive State struggles to gather any kind of interest.  You can see the ending (even the twist of the ending) coming far in advance and there really isn’t much more to the conclusion to make it stand out. The film can rely on a few veteran actors for quality, John Goodman and Vera Farmiga being the standouts—even though Farmiga feels underutilized. Captive State is a narrative and thematic dud as well: it alludes to class issues without engaging with them, and its low budget means that there’s very little visual kick to the story. In fact, some of it comes across as silly: As the characters suit up as if for a space flight only to take an elevator down, it’s easy to think that the film has overplayed the elements to its disposal. When Captive State showed up on Cable TV, I was convinced that it was a direct-to-digital production (and even more convinced of it after watching the film), but it turns out that it did have a wide theatrical release… which miserably bombed. The box-office failure is completely understandable while watching the final result. Writer-director Rupert Wyatt has a few good ideas up his sleeve, but his execution is messy, blurry, cold and boring. Worse yet: it doesn’t know what to do with what it has.

  • Nebraska (2013)

    Nebraska (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2020) It’s a bit of a surprise that I waited this long before seeing Nebraska—after all, it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and I’m a bit of a completist when it comes to those. Plus, it’s from Alexander Payne, an uneven filmmaker but one who can usually be counted upon to deliver a few surprises along the way. Embracing its Midwestern gothic aesthetics, Nebraska is shot in black-and-white (more a cinema-vérité gimmick than something truly interesting) and takes place in working-class America. Quirky characters abound, as the story is precipitated by an elderly alcoholic’s conviction that he has won a million dollars in a Publisher’s Clearinghouse-style contest and must go pick up his prize in person. Exasperated by his constant escapes from home, his son decides to lance the boil and make the drive. Cue the road trip movie, although it stops for a while at the man’s former hometown, a hotbed of past relationships, naked envy and spectacularly dumb characters. I’ll give something to Payne: he can be surprising, and it’s a wonder how Nebraska can remain interesting (in a truly cringe-inducing way) with such low stakes and down-to-earth concerns. Much of this can be attributed to a screenplay with distinctive (if frustrating) characters, featuring lusty elders, cackling rednecks, befuddled sons and gossip-loving townsfolk. It’s not an easy movie to like, but there are enough good scenes here and there to make it distinctive. Bruce Dern is terrific as the half-demented man who sets the plot in motion and eventually gains a strange victory of sorts despite being hopelessly deluded about his real chances. Nebraska may be an odd movie, not exactly pulse-pounding at what it does, but it’s interesting enough and somewhat similar to many other Payne movies in how it explored places and people that seldom figure in most other films.

  • My Bloody Valentine (1981)

    My Bloody Valentine (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) The early 1980s were the golden age of slasher horror movies, and it’s not a surprise if some of them were better than others. Despite my strong dislike of the subgenre, even I have to admit that My Bloody Valentine is an above-average slasher. There’s quite a bit more going on than simply setting a familiar plot at an incongruous time of the year: As the subplot and atmosphere of the small city in which My Bloody Valentine takes place, it’s actually possible to care a little bit about the characters and remain interested in the backstory underpinning the bloody kills. I wouldn’t want to overstate things—but the worldbuilding here is actually interesting, what with the mining environment offering a visual and thematic counterpoint to the small-tow atmosphere. (The mine feels superfluous at first, until you realize how it provides the film with its gas mask iconography and, eventually, the backstory required to motivate the killer.) The rest of My Bloody Valentine isn’t that interesting, but in wading through a seemingly endless succession of near-identical gory slashers, I’ll take any distinction I can get.

  • Mon Oncle [My Uncle] (1958)

    Mon Oncle [My Uncle] (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As someone who started exploring “older” movies only a few years ago, one of my favourite feelings is to encounter a film so distinctive that nothing quite like it has been made ever since. Something like Mon Oncle, a satire that plays almost entirely without significant dialogue, relying on visual design and the talents of writer-director Jacques Tati as a mime. I’ll qualify my “I’ve never seen anything like this before or since,” reaction with the obvious note that this is my first Tati film—I’m aware of Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Play Time but haven’t gotten around to them yet. (There are also plenty of similarities, as others have noted, between Tati and Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean.) Mon Oncle certainly makes a striking introduction to his work: A satire of 1950s French society taken over by American-style consumerism, this is a film that opposes two visions of France, and remains curiously timeless despite some very dated material. Tati’s background as a mime certainly shows in the film’s almost redundant dialogues, with the bulk of the film’s storytelling and comedy being handled through purely visual means. This doesn’t mean that Mon Oncle could have worked as a silent movie, though: the film’s soundscape is incredibly important in affirming the film’s atmosphere. There are a lot of slapstick gags, but perhaps just as many visual design jokes as well—the film’s cinematographic polish is incredible, and the way the film portrays an out-of-control drive toward modernism exists somewhere between words and images. (There’s a bit where the house “watches” Tati that’s almost a perfect moment of cinema.) Still, for all of the high esteem in which I regard Mon Oncle’s intentions and execution, there’s a limit to how much I actually like the result. The film often goes back to the same general ideas in more or less the same way, getting repetitive along the way. I also have… issues in the way modernism is portrayed as a soul-sucking step down from traditionalism. But then again, I’ve had sixty more years than Tati to get used to the idea.

  • Frankie and Johnny (1991)

    Frankie and Johnny (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2020) Here we have Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer in a middle-aged romance set against a background of petty criminality and restaurant shifts—and it’s based on a play based on a song. I’m not sure there’s anything more to say about Frankie and Johnny: this is a relatively low-octane romantic comedy (or rather romantic non-tragedy, because while it’s not exactly funny, it doesn’t end with everybody dying either) featuring two actors able to sink their teeth into more demanding material. The tone is resolutely low-key (although Pacino does get a chance to rave a little bit) and the result is fit to be watched by anyone, whether they’re interested in the actors, the premise or the prospect of a middle-of-the-road film that ends on a positive note. Director Garry Marshall was already an experienced hand at directing romantic comedies back in 1991 and the result is solid without being overly showy. The person who benefits the most from Frankie and Johnny is Pfeiffer, having a chance to play a solid dramatic role while toning down (but not too much) her movie-star looks. There’s a bit of a disconnect between the very domestic, working-class nature of the story being told and the way it’s been given to two mega-charm actors, but that’s Hollywood suspension of disbelief for you.

  • The Defiant Ones (1958)

    The Defiant Ones (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I know, from 2020’s vantage point, that Tony Curtis has played a number of dramatic and unlikable roles in his career. But there’s a good reason why his performance as a racist criminal in The Defiant Ones is still surprising: Even today, well after the end of his career, Curtis is far better remembered as a funny romantic protagonist than anything else. His enduring renown for comedy makes his performance in The Defiant Ones still compelling: In this socially-minded Stanley Kramer film, he plays an unrepentant white racist who finds himself chained to a black man (the excellent Sidney Poitier in one of his earliest performances) while escaping a chain gang. There’s little surprise as to where the film’s overall dramatic arc is going, but some of the details along the way are interesting—the portrait of the American South, with its heavily racist atmosphere and punitive justice, is asphyxiating and almost alien. The film is at its strongest in leaning upon its literalized metaphor of two races chained together, finding a way to get past their animosity for a common goal. The stark black-and-white cinematography works in favour of the film more often than not, leaving all the space necessary for the actors to show their skills playing off each other. By contemporary standards, The Defiant Ones can feel a bit rough on messaging, but is not really any less effective for it.

  • Fantastic Voyage (1966)

    Fantastic Voyage (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I’ve been on a self-imposed quest to watch past nominees and winners of the Best Special Effects Academy Award, and it’s proven a far more interesting project than many of the Best Picture nominees. Of course, it’s a category that dating faster than any other, and Fantastic Voyage is a prime example of the sort. It’s the kind of movie that exists because of special effects, so there’s no surprise if the plot takes a distant backseat to the visuals. (My first exposure to the story was through Isaac Asimov’s novelization, which had two distinctions: For one, Asimov wrote quickly while the film experienced one delay after another; for another, Asimov as a trained scientist and practising SF writer left no plot holes unexplained—leading to a situation where his novel had been out for six months by the time the dumbed-down movie came out, leading many to assume that the film was an inferior adaptation of Asimov’s concept. ) The narrative confusion and outdated technology are exhibited from the film’s first few minutes, as the film ponderously takes us through “high technology” offices that look ridiculously dated, barely explaining a premise that makes increasingly less sense. Then Fantastic Voyage compounds its own technology and narrative problems by treating its sole female character (played by Raquel Welsh, no less) as a piece of art to be ogled. In the dialogue. From a contemporary perspective, we can deal with the outdated special effects far more easily than the misogyny. There’s plenty of evidence that usually-competent director Richard Fleischer was outmatched by the premise, starting with the lack of energy in the editing. Some stylistic intentions (such as the wordless opening, or the first forty minutes without a score) become more annoying than inspiring, and that’s without discussing the increasingly psychedelic visuals. Despite my best intentions, I can’t say that I enjoyed Fantastic Voyage. While there’s some charm in seeing how they faked some of the visual effects, the film itself feels long and ponderous. It also doesn’t help that a much better take on the same idea—Innerspace—has been released since then.

  • The Refrigerator (1991)

    The Refrigerator (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) There is, amazingly enough, quite a subgenre of “killer objects” horror comedies out there. Cars, dolls, beds… refrigerators: anything mundane can be possessed enough to kill you if you’re not careful. The Refrigerator at least delivers on its premise, having a fridge eating people. (You’d be surprised how many high-concept horror movies barely deliver on their main attraction.) Of course, the whole thing is silly and is executed in a silly way—even if calling it a “funny” film is overselling it. Writer-director Nicholas Jacobs isn’t afraid to go for the truly weird along the way, and that’s how we end up with actors playing opposite human-sized bottles of milk in shots meant to portray the weirdness taking place inside the fridge. The late-1980s fashions add to The Refrigerator’s eeriness. In keeping with the time/tone/genre, there is some welcome nudity—although most of it leads to death or other gruesome gore. Phyllis Salaberrios looks good—too bad she’s not in more of the film. Narratively, it becomes clearer as the film advances that there’s not quite enough plot to fill the film’s running time. Some domestic-abuse material feels out of place until it later justifies a death that would have been off-putting without that background. But the weirdness doesn’t quite gel, unfortunately, and we’re left with a film that’s not that funny, not that horrific, not that controlled nor all that satisfying. The low budget of The Refrigerator clearly takes a toll, but not as much as its unfocused script.

  • Ji yi da shi [Battle of Memories] (2017)

    Ji yi da shi [Battle of Memories] (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) I’m willing to be indulgent when it comes to watching Science Fiction films, and especially SF films from outside the Anglosphere, but Battle of Memories seems determined to burn all accumulated goodwill in short order. It doesn’t help that the weak SF rationale becomes increasingly unimportant as the film advances. For the first few minutes, at least, we can be convinced that this will be a science fiction film that deals with ideas: As our protagonist, soon to be divorced, gets his painful memories of his marriage erased, Battle of Memories dangles the possibility of an intriguing romantic drama. But the erasure takes maybe ten minutes of screentime, as he’s flatly told that his wife will not grant him his divorce unless he reinstates those memories. This narrative loop only exists for the protagonist to start remembering things that never happened—murders, most notably. Trying to go to the police to confess or testify, reality quickly gets increasingly blurry as two policemen, his not-so-ex-wife and a pretty scientist start interacting in increasingly disturbing ways. The memory SF device is soon chucked in the irrelevancy bin as the film shifts toward a murder mystery… except that with a handful of lead actors, the solution is as hermetic as it is narratively baffling, with a villain’s convoluted plan that makes no sense once everything is accounted for. The conclusion feels unconvincing, as if one of the actors had to be the killer because of excessive narrative trimming. It certainly doesn’t help that there’s a noticeable lull in the film’s second act, as it doesn’t seem to know how to switch gears from its premise to its conclusion. Yet Battle of Memories, despite significant weaknesses, is not quite a dud: Executed rather well with a good budget and better intentions, it does feature some intriguing imagery and an eerie atmosphere. But there’s only so much you can do without a convincing plot to tie it all together, and the third act is when Battle of Memories solidifies its disappointment. While I have nice things to say about Leste Chen’s work as a director here (except for not being concise enough), I’m not so generous when it comes to his work as a screenwriter.

  • Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

    Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) From what I can gather from Silent Night, Deadly Night’s production history and context, the notion of an evil Santa Claus was somewhat new at the time. Nowadays, of course, we barely blink at the idea of Santa being repurposed as something other than a beloved icon—nearly every long-running sitcom has Santa showing up and not being jolly, while Christmas Horror has become a sub-genre in its own right. But 1984 wasn’t as far on the postmodern scale as 2020 is, and so many pearls were clutched at this slasher repurposing Christmas iconology for its own purposes. Of course, being used to evil Santas means that Silent Night, Deadly Night feels surprisingly dull by a modern perspective. It’s a very standard slasher in Christmas disguise, and even the explanations behind why a killer would dress up as Santa feel overused in a genre that has twisted human psychology past its breaking point. Not being a fan of slashers, I don’t find anything of value left once the originality of the Christmas theme has faded: Silent Night, Deadly Night remains an ugly cheap film with little to say.

  • Something Wild (1986)

    Something Wild (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) Much of Something Wild feels like a film on autopilot, as long as you account for one mid-movie swerve into slightly different territory. It doesn’t take a long time for the premise to be established: here’s a straight-arrow corporate guy who gets snagged in the schemes of a flighty bohemian-type girl and—somehow—goes along with her on a road trip away from Manhattan back to her small town. Stuff happens, lessons are learned, characters revealed, cars crashed and chuckles obtained but that only takes us to the middle of the movie, as the last half gets significantly darker as the female lead’s dangerous ex-boyfriend shows up to make trouble for everyone. Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith are the lead couple, while Ray Liotta makes an early bid at his tough-guy screen persona with his role as the ex-boyfriend. The casting seems appropriate; Griffith, in particular, gets to play a few roles all by herself and her chameleonic character. Still, much of the fun of Something Wild is in seeing what else it has in store for the pair’s difficult trip and how they will deal with the unbelievable coincidences that keep complicating their lives. I’m not sure about the darker shift in tone toward the end, but it does feel as if it lives up to its “anything can happen” credo. Not a bad choice for fans of the lead actors or director Jonathan Demme, but there have been quite a few similar movies since then.

  • Ninotchka (1939)

    Ninotchka (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As unfair as it can be to judge a film by its remake, I do like Ninotchka quite a bit, but not as much as its musical remake Silk Stockings. Of course, there’s the star factor to consider: While Ninotchka has an impressive pairing with Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo, Silk Stockings has Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse—a most unfair comparison. Silk Stockings has finger-snapping tunes, while Ninotchka is a straight-up comedy. It’s really too bad for Ninotchka that Silk Stockings happens to be one of the most successful musical remakes in a subgenre littered with inferior results. Still—Ninotchka, what about it? It’s a story about three bumbling Soviet men coming to Paris to get back a piece of artwork, but being seduced by the hedonistic French lifestyle… which leads the Soviet government to send a hard-as-nail operative to clean up the mess. A perfect plan, except when she, too, falls under the charm of a Frenchman. The lead pair in nigh perfect: Melvyn Douglas approaches William Powell’s levels of pure suave charm, while Greta Garbo is a legend for a good reason. Ninotchka is one of the few comedies she’s even made (the tagline for the film was the fondly remembered “Garbo Laughs!”) and the film cleverly uses her persona as a façade against which Douglas’s charming powers crash time and time again. The bumbling Soviet emissaries are a lot of fun in the way they succumb to the pressures of Paris, but the highlight here is the interplay between Douglas and Garbo. The pro-Western jabs and Soviet rigidity are somewhat prescient of the Cold War, and do help the film feel more modern than its 1939 production date. Director Ernst Lubitsch turns in another success here, although perhaps a bit less impressive than some of his other features. Occluding unfair comparisons with its remake, Ninotchka remains a decent-enough romantic comedy, with sly one-liners and some good flirting dialogue.

  • Young Adult (2011)

    Young Adult (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) When we get around to Charlize Theron’s career retrospective, I suspect that most will be gobsmacked by the sheer range of performances, roles and physical transformation that she has kept up throughout her career. Rather than coast along on classic beauty roles (which she could have done), Theron has played glamorous, homely, tough, fast, furious, comic, tragic and whatever comes in-between, often jumping from one role to a very different one in an entirely different genre. Films like Young Adult are further evidence of her range, as she takes on a somewhat repellent character; a woman in her thirties who still thinks and behaves like an overgrown teenager, and whose trip back to her small hometown doesn’t necessarily translate into personal growth—not that she was heading back for noble reasons either. Physically, Theron’s character is attractive, but her personality is the issue and the film does cleverly play with that distinction. Although, with Cody Diablo writing the script and Jason Reitman directing, we could have expected that. (Patton Oswalt also turns in an effective polar-opposite performance.) A fairly intense drama under the occasional guise of a silly comedy, Young Adult doesn’t bring us anywhere comfortable or inspiring: the conclusion does not force easy epiphanies on a character who refuses to have any. It’s quite good at sketching small-scale character studies and upending expectations at least half the time. While the result certainly won’t qualify for any feel-good awards, Young Adult is a well-handled drama with some surprisingly funny moments in-between the protagonist’s destructive cluelessness. It’s significantly more interesting than even the best plot summary would suggest.

  • Of Human Bondage (1964)

    Of Human Bondage (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) In retrospect, it wasn’t such an idea to watch all three filmed adaptations (1934, 1946 and 1964) of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage back-to-back-to-back. Not so much because they all blend together (they all have their own particularities) but because their story is so trite that a triple dose of it can be overdoing it. This third version is, in almost a tautological way, the most modern of them: the camera moves and the staging are self-consciously cinematic as opposed to the quasi-theatrical way the first two movies were directed. The use of deep shadow, more naturalistic sets and less expensive costumes don’t necessarily work in the film’s favour, especially when measured against the first film. While this Of Human Bondage is a bit more daring, story-wise, than its Hays Era predecessor, it does remain curiously stiff and old-fashioned, something that the black-and-white cinematography doesn’t help even at its most visually three-dimensional. While the film’s technique narrowly gives it a second-place finish in the remake trilogy, the narrowness is against the third-place finish for the 1946 version and not the untouchable 1934 one.